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Nothing left to lose

Page 21

by Stuart Allison


  ‘I’ll just get your lunch and then I’ll be have to be off, Father. Mother isn’t at all well. ’

  ‘Don’t you be worrying Margaret, you get off to your mother and give her my best wishes for her recovery. Don’t worry about lunch; I’m quite capable of making a sandwich.’

  ‘Thank you Father. There’s cheese and ham in the fridge and some nice fresh bread in the pantry.’ A minute or two later we heard the door shut behind her as she left.

  ‘The poor woman, her mother is a sore trial to her. Now, shall I be mother?’

  He poured the tea into the cups and handed them to Lisa and I who were seated on a leather sofa in front of his desk. Lisa stood up and began to walk along the bookshelves, reading the titles of the books.

  ‘I see what you mean about heavy reading Father. Some of these books look dry in the extreme.’ She picked a volume off the shelf and opened it. ‘This one is in Spanish.’ She handed it to me. ‘What does it say?’

  ‘My travels through Estremadura with a donkey.’ I translated ‘My Spanish is just about up to that.’

  ‘That looks fascinating, not!’ She put the book back on the shelf. ‘There seem to be quite a few nineteenth century Spanish travel books in English too. It appears that Mr Sinclair had some affinity for Spain. There are some books in German too; they seem to be travelogues as well.’

  ‘Mr Sinclair must have been quite a traveller.’ Put in Father Charlie. ‘Would you like to stay for lunch, while you look through the books?’

  ‘That would be very kind Father. Lisa and I would like to look at the books without having to be distracted by having to find somewhere to get lunch.’

  ‘You’re welcome, it will be nice to have some company for a change, solitary meals can be a bit dull. I’ll go make some sandwiches. Ham or cheese?’

  Lisa chose ham and I chose cheese and Father Charlie left for the kitchen. Lisa and I began to peruse the book shelves.

  ‘What precisely are we looking for?’ Lisa enquired.

  ‘To be honest, I haven’t a clue. Anything really, a dedication or proof of ownership that refers to Miller. I don’t know, just look.’

  There were more than a few books there; I calculated that in all there had to be at least two hundred and fifty square feet of books. The top shelves were so high that Lisa struggled to read the titles. Eventually we agreed to search by height; I would take the upper shelves, whilst she took the lower ones.

  ‘Sinclair’s choice of reading matter reflects his life, with time spent in Spain and Germany. That fits with Miller, but Sinclair’s behaviour seems at odds with Miller’s.’ Lisa declared.

  ‘People change.’

  ‘Not that dramatically, surely?’

  I shrugged and continued to run my eyes along the shelves. In the distance I could hear Father Charlie whistling happily to himself, Lisa was gazing at the books at the other end of the case, when she suddenly halted and went back to the shelf she had just finished looking at.

  ‘That’s funny.’ She said picking one of the slimmer volumes off the shelf. ‘This one’s leather bound like the rest, but it doesn’t have a title. All of the others have a title in gold.’

  She balanced the book on her left hand and opened the brown leather bound cover. She turned the first page.

  ‘Ian, look!’

  She held the book out to me, from twelve feet away, I could not read the words, but the handwriting was very familiar, it was Miller’s.

  ‘What does it say?’

  ‘It starts “This is the journal of Peter Sinclair, though I have not always been known by that name.” ’

  We had found the next link in the chain and it might just lead us to safety.

  Chapter 28

  Lisa put the book down on the work table and we both eagerly leaned over it. The hand written text was dated 31st October 1986.

  This is the journal of Peter Sinclair, although I have not always been known by that name. Having reached my seventy-fifth year, I look back on my life with much shame and many regrets. I have committed many sins in this life for which I repent as the time for me to meet my maker approaches.

  I will start my journal at the beginning and let my cautionary tale unfold. My name when I was born was William Howard Miller and I was born in 1909 in Maidenhead, where my father was an army officer but I remember nothing of this, the first home I recall was in Pimlico, London. My beloved mother, Lisl, was German born and I grew up speaking German to her and English to my father and everyone else. My childhood was not unlike that of many people, until my father left for the Great War in 1916. I never saw him again; he was killed in the battle for Passchendaele Ridge in 1917. My mother and I were left to subsist on a meagre military pension. Thanks to the charity of my father’s old regiment, I attended a decent school, but despite my abilities, without money, the prospect of university was a distant one. I drifted through many jobs in my youth, becoming bitter and resentful at my lack of prospects. My father had died a hero, yet his widow and son were left on the verge of poverty. It seemed at the time that this was the way that Britain rewarded the sacrifice of my father and his comrades. My bitterness drove me to seek redress for the wrongs done to me by joining the one political party who represented the interests of the dispossessed; I turned to the ideas of fascism. I drifted through the Imperial Fascist League and eventually wound up in Sir Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists. My hatred for society led to my involvement in attacks on Jewish shops and businesses.

  ‘Like father like son.’ Lisa retorted. ‘If he genuinely regretted his misdeeds, you’d have thought he would have brought his son up better.’

  ‘You can’t always blame the parents for the actions of the child. There is such a thing as free will.’

  ‘Huh! I tend to go with Larkin, “They fuck you up your mum and dad, they may not mean to but they do…’

  ‘That’s a bit harsh. Do I sense some issues here?’

  ‘Yep, I’m just another screwed up kid from a split family. At least you and Jane stayed together until your kids were grown up.’

  ‘Well you’ve turned out pretty well, despite that. Come on back to the story!’

  In 1933 I came to the notice of the Party leadership, who sent me as part of a mission to congratulate Hitler on his accession to power…

  ‘We know this bit, we’ve already seen it in Miller’s own words.’ Lisa said.

  ‘Okay, let’s skip to after the Reichstag fire.’ I scanned through the next few pages to pick up the thread of the story.

  I have often thought whether history would have been different, if I had not taken part, but I came to the opinion long ago, that my part could so easily have been taken by another, that my actions had no particular effect. The Reichstag Fire and its consequences would have been the same, whether I had played my part or another misguided soul had taken my place. The one thing that does weigh on my conscience is the fate of poor Van der Lubbe; I was, in part, responsible for his death. I still sometimes imagine the scene of his execution and his decapitated body and I wonder if I could have engineered a different outcome had I not been so indifferent to his fate.

  Our reading was disturbed by the return of Father Charlie with lunch tray on which was a small mountain of sandwiches. He noticed my look.

  ‘Margaret is always counting my calories and worrying about my weight, I thought I’d take advantage of her absence and enjoy myself and I felt guilty committing the sin of gluttony on my own, so I thought I’d corrupt you and Lisa into the bargain. What have you found there?’

  ‘We seem to have found a handwritten autobiography of Peter Sinclair.’

  ‘Does that help your research?’

  ‘Too right it does. This is our biggest find since we started all this.’

  ‘Well your welcome to stay here and read it, perhaps you’d let me read it when you’ve finished.’

  ‘Technically Father, it’s your property, but I warn you, if you do read it, you might wish you’d been left in igno
rance.

  ‘Now you’ve really piqued my curiosity, I’m keener than ever to see what you’ve found. But since you found the book, it’s only fair that you two should read it first.’

  We ate our sandwiches whilst partaking in light conversation with Father Charlie, but both Lisa and I were itching to get back to the journal. Eventually, Father Charlie left us to continue our reading.

  On my return to England, I found myself much lauded by the leadership of the party, though I was sworn to secrecy about my part in the events of February 1933. I became disillusioned with the Party, to my eager young mind, they were achieving little and social injustice and communism still continued to flourish. Attacks on Jews as the “enemy” gave me some perverted satisfaction, but change was not happening quickly enough for me. All I felt I had achieved was a criminal record for my part in a fight against communists in an Eastend pub. The Cable Street riot was a watershed for me. I saw the party humiliated by Jews and communists, whilst the police stood by, or at least that’s how I saw it then. Moseley was a good leader, but in comparison with Hitler, I thought him too moderate and respectable. When the Spanish Civil war broke out, I could not resist the call to fight bolshevism in a more direct way. I was a young, virile man and was anxious to take action rather than mouth platitudes. I volunteered in January 1937 and made my way to Spain, where I enlisted in the Nationalist forces. My early days were quite uneventful, as I spoke little Spanish and I do not think they really had a role for this strange Englishman. Thanks to my fluent German, I made friends with several of the officers in the Kondor Legion, one in particular, came from a town near where my grandparents had lived, poor Karl, he was killed flying on the Russian Front in 1942. Thanks to him I became friends with many of the Luftwaffe officers flying in Spain. I always had a gift for languages and my Spanish improved rapidly. In the course of the next few months my halting Spanish improved to the point where I was fluent. By June 1937 I had proved myself with the Nationalist army at Guadalajara and commanded a platoon in the army that captured Bilbao. My promotion was rapid; by 1938 I was a captain in charge of my own company. I fought through the battle of the Ebro, being one of the defenders the hills overlooking Gandesa. It was there amidst the barbed wire and trenches that I began to understand what my father had gone through before his death in the Great War. The horror of trench warfare had an immense effect on me, I saw friends and my men die in the most terrible ways, for which I blamed the attacking Republican forces. I came to truly hate the Republicans and their supporters, though not nearly as much as my men did, the internecine struggle of civil war seemed to bring out the worst in them and their hatred for their own countrymen today defies my understanding, though at the time it was something I felt I shared with them. Our chance for revenge was not long in coming, when my company and that of Commandante de Vega were ordered to carry out a reprisal raid into Republican territory. Unfortunately, Sancho de Vega, yet another friend, was shot through the throat by an anarchist sniper and died shortly afterwards, even before we had completed our crossing of the Ebro River. It fell to me as the senior officer to assume command of the expedition. I ordered de Vega’s company to hold the river crossing and my company advanced into Republican territory. The mood of the men was volatile, our losses on hill 481 had been heavy and they lusted for vengeance. Ten miles or so into enemy territory we found the anarchist commune at Montegrillo. Under cover of darkness I moved my men into position to storm the village at first light. We met little or no resistance and the village and its inhabitants were soon in our hands.

  ‘Let’s see how he justifies his actions at Montegrillo.’ said Lisa.

  ‘Shhh, don’t disturb our concentration.’

  This is where I come to the first of my great regrets, for the events that ensued are a subject of great shame and disgust to me, but at the time I considered my actions totally justified. How I wish that someone could have stopped me, no matter by what means, for then at least my conscience would be clear.

  Having the people of Montegrillo in my hands, I decided to set an example that our enemies would not forget. As the Bolshevik’s great hero, Lenin said the purpose of terrorism is to terrorise, and I intended to make our enemies very afraid. To try now to excuse my actions by saying I was angry and in shock after the loss of so many friends and comrades in the battle, would be wrong. I know now that my actions were both immoral and criminal and I am sure that my immortal soul will have to atone for those sins when I come before the throne of the Almighty. To my eternal regret I commanded my men to carry out all manner of unspeakable atrocities on those poor people. In my rage, I ordered that every male over the age of ten be made to dig their own graves and then I had them shot. As if that was not enough, when my men asked what to do with the women, I quoted the words of our General, Queipo de Llano, who had said ‘Our brave Legionaries and Regulares have shown the red cowards what it means to be a man. And, incidentally the wives of reds too. These Communist and Anarchist women, after all, have made themselves fair game by their doctrine of free love. And now they have at least the acquaintance of real men, and not milksops of militiamen. Kicking their legs about and struggling won't save them.’ Even today, all these years later, the words are burned into my brain. I can never forget that murder, rape and mutilation were all committed not just at my orders, but with my active encouragement. As I walked around the village I saw the bodies of the men I had ordered to be killed and heard the screams of women and girls as they were brutalised by my men at my instruction. Even the children did not escape my wrath, I released the surviving children, but only after I had the right hand of each boy cut off. It was only when my own son was born that I came to fully appreciate the full horror of my behaviour, but at that moment I did not perceive the inhabitants as people, but as vermin, to be exterminated. I had no more thought of them than I would have had of a nest of ants.

  We left the bodies of the inhabitants in the smouldering ruins of the village and retreated back across the Ebro, where our exploits were lauded by General Queipo de Llano, I even gained promotion to Commandante, though some of the professional soldiers regarded me with a haughty disdain. I saw no further action in the war and the inaction palled. On 25th January 1939 I returned home to England. I remember the date so well because it was the last time I was to see my beloved mother.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ said Lisa ‘but I’m beginning to think he is genuine in his regrets. I almost feel sorry for him, having to live with that on his conscience.’

  ‘I shouldn’t feel too sorry for him just yet; remember the worst of his crimes are to come. Many people find religion as they get older and enter God’s waiting room, looking to atone for their sins. It doesn’t mean they were not criminally culpable for what they did when they were young. Anyway, let’s get back to the narrative.’

  A friend from my B.U.F. days found me a job in Portsmouth for the next few months and on my return to London, I found myself under arrest. I had brought home with me from Spain the trusty machine pistols that had saved my life more than once. I had shown them to a number of acquaintances from my BUP days, and I can only assume that one of them was also a police informant, I can think of no other way they could have known. I was at first remanded to Wormwood Scrubs, but later my lawyer succeeded in gaining bail for me. Having spent little in Spain, I had saved a deal of money and was able to post bail for myself. When my barrister warned me that I faced a long custodial sentence, I gladly decided to sacrifice money to ensure my freedom and stay out gaol; I secretly slipped out of the country bound for France, without the opportunity to see my mother. I had no idea that the circumstances of my return would make it impossible for me to see her again.

  By now it was getting on for late afternoon and Father Charlie came into the study.

  ‘How’s it going?’ he asked.

  ‘We’re not even half way through yet Father.’ Lisa replied.

  ‘What is this all about? I’m dying to know.’

  I hadn�
��t the heart to lie to Father Charlie again, so Lisa and I filled him in on the whole story, from the Self diaries through the Miller letters and what we had subsequently found. He looked at us in amazement when we told him of the links to Richard Sinclair and thus to the BNRA.

  ‘I have to tell you that the knowledge contained in this book could be very dangerous to possess.’

  I described to father Charlie the problems we had encountered in pursuit of Sinclair/Miller, the threats, the break-ins and the bribes.

  ‘A most pernicious organisation, I would very much like to see them stopped, they don’t just present a political threat to this country, but a moral threat too. Evil has to be confronted; you can’t run away from it, it has a way of catching up with you. But that begs a serious moral question, should the sins of the father be visited on the son? Can a little evil be done in the cause of the universal good?’

  ‘I see your dilemma Father, and technically the journal belongs to you, so we cannot publish anything without your approval. If you don’t want us to continue, we’ll bow to your decision.’ I told him, hoping he would decide in our favour, I did not relish spending the rest of my life with the threat of Sinclair’s thugs hanging over me.

  ‘I really don’t know. It’s getting late; perhaps you could return tomorrow after I’ve looked through the journal a little. It’s my busy day, but if you come about ten, I’ll give you my decision. If I decide to let you use the journal, then you can work here, I’ll be in the church most of the day.’

  ‘We’ll go now Father. We’ll return tomorrow, I hope that you will allow us access to the journal, even if you don’t want us to publish, because we’ve come so far now, it’d be unbearable not to find out the end of the story.’

  Then frustrated, we left.

  Chapter 29

 

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