Winter of the World

by Ken Follett

  Straight into the overwhelmingly Jewish borough of Stepney.

  Unless Lloyd and people who thought as he did could stop them.

  There were 330,000 Jews in Britain, according to the newspaper, and half of them lived in the East End. Most were refugees from Russia, Poland, and Germany, where they had lived in fear that on any day the police, the army, or the Cossacks might ride into town, robbing families, beating old men and outraging young women, lining fathers and brothers up against the wall to be shot.

  Here in the London slums those Jews had found a place where they had as much right to live as anyone else. How would they feel if they looked out of their windows to see, marching down their own streets, a gang of uniformed thugs sworn to wipe them all out? Lloyd felt that it just could not be allowed to happen.

  The Worker pointed out that from the Tower there were really only two routes the marchers could take. One went through Gardiner's Corner, a five-way junction known as the Gateway to the East End; the other led along Royal Mint Street and the narrow Cable Street. There were a dozen other routes for an individual using side streets, but not for a march. St. George Street led to Catholic Wapping rather than Jewish Stepney, and was therefore no use to the Fascists.

  The Worker called for a human wall to block Gardiner's Corner and Cable Street, and stop the march.

  The paper often called for things that did not happen: strikes, revolutions, or--most recently--an alliance of all left parties to form a People's Front. The human wall might be just another fantasy. It would take many thousands of people to effectively close off the East End. Lloyd did not know whether enough would show up.

  All he knew for sure was that there would be trouble.

  At the table with Lloyd were his parents, Bernie and Ethel; his sister, Millie; and sixteen-year-old Lenny Griffiths from Aberowen, in his Sunday suit. Lenny was part of a small army of Welsh miners who had come to London to join the counterdemonstration.

  Bernie looked up from his newspaper and said to Lenny: "The Fascists claim that the train fares for all you Welshmen to come to London have been paid by the big Jews."

  Lenny swallowed a mouthful of fried egg. "I don't know any big Jews," he said. "Unless you count Mrs. Levy Sweetshop; she's quite big. Anyway, I came to London on the back of a lorry with sixty Welsh lambs going to Smithfield meat market."

  Millie said: "That accounts for the smell."

  Ethel said: "Millie! How rude."

  Lenny was sharing Lloyd's bedroom, and he had confided that after the demonstration he was not planning to return to Aberowen. He and Dave Williams were going to Spain to join the International Brigades being formed to fight the Fascist insurrection.

  "Did you get a passport?" Lloyd had asked. Getting a passport was not difficult, but the applicant did have to provide a reference from a clergyman, doctor, lawyer, or other person of status, so a young person could not easily keep it secret.

  "No need," Lenny said. "We go to Victoria station and get a weekend return ticket to Paris. You can do that without a passport."

  Lloyd had vaguely known that. It was a loophole intended for the convenience of the prosperous middle class. Now the anti-Fascists were taking advantage of it. "How much is the ticket?"

  "Three pounds fifteen shillings."

  Lloyd had raised his eyebrows. That was more money than an unemployed coal miner was likely to have.

  Lenny had added: "But the Independent Labour Party is paying for my ticket, and the Communist Party for Dave's."

  They must have lied about their ages. "Then what happens when you get to Paris?" Lloyd had asked.

  "We'll be met by the French Communists at the Gare du Nord." He pronounced it gair duh nord. He did not speak a word of French. "From there we'll be escorted to the Spanish border."

  Lloyd had delayed his own departure. He told people he wanted to soothe his parents' worries, but the truth was he could not give up on Daisy. He still dreamed of her throwing Boy over. It was hopeless--she did not even answer his letters--but he could not forget her.

  Meanwhile Britain, France, and the USA had agreed with Germany and Italy to adopt a policy of nonintervention in Spain, which meant none of them would supply weapons to either side. This in itself was infuriating to Lloyd: surely the democracies should support the elected government? But what was worse, Germany and Italy were breaching the agreement every day, as Lloyd's mother and Uncle Billy pointed out at many public meetings held that autumn in Britain to discuss Spain. Earl Fitzherbert, as the government minister responsible, defended the policy stoutly, saying the Spanish government should not be armed for fear it would go Communist.

  This was a self-fulfilling prophecy, as Ethel had argued in a scathing speech. The one nation willing to support the government of Spain was the Soviet Union, and the Spaniards would naturally gravitate toward the only country in the world that helped them.

  The truth was that the Conservatives felt Spain had elected people who were dangerously left-wing. Men such as Fitzherbert would not be unhappy if the Spanish government was violently overthrown and replaced by right-wing extremists. Lloyd seethed with frustration.

  Then had come this chance to fight Fascism at home.

  "It's ridiculous," Bernie had said a week ago, when the march had been announced. "The Metropolitan Police must force them to change the route. They have the right to march, of course, but not in Stepney." However, the police said they did not have the power to interfere with a perfectly legal demonstration.

  Bernie and Ethel and the mayors of eight London boroughs had been in a delegation that begged the home secretary, Sir John Simon, to ban the march or at least divert it, but he, too, claimed he had no power to act.

  The question of what to do next had split the Labour Party, the Jewish community, and the Williams family.

  The Jewish People's Council Against Fascism and Anti-Semitism, founded by Bernie and others three months ago, had called for a massive counterdemonstration that would keep the Fascists out of Jewish streets. Their slogan was the Spanish phrase "No pasaran," meaning "They shall not pass," the cry of the anti-Fascist defenders of Madrid. The council was a small organization with a grand name. It occupied two upstairs rooms in a building on Commercial Road, and it owned a Gestetner duplicating machine and a couple of old typewriters. But it commanded huge support in the East End. In forty-eight hours it had collected an incredible one hundred thousand signatures on a petition calling for the march to be banned. Still the government did nothing.

  Only one major political party supported the counterdemonstration, and that was the Communists. The protest was also backed by the fringe Independent Labour Party, to which Lenny belonged. The other parties were against.

  Ethel said: "I see The Jewish Chronicle has advised its readers to stay off the streets today."

  This was the problem, in Lloyd's opinion. A lot of people were taking the view that it was best to keep out of trouble. But that would give the Fascists a free hand.

  Bernie, who was Jewish though not religious, said to Ethel: "How can you quote The Jewish Chronicle at me? It believes Jews should not be against Fascism, just anti-Semitism. What kind of political sense does that make?"

  "I hear that the Board of Deputies of British Jews says the same as the Chronicle," Ethel persisted. "Apparently there was an announcement yesterday in all the synagogues."

  "Those so-called deputies are alrightniks from Golders Green," Bernie said with contempt. "They've never been insulted on the streets by Fascist hooligans."

  "You're in the Labour Party," Ethel said accusingly. "Our policy is not to confront the Fascists on the streets. Where's your solidarity?"

  Bernie said: "What about solidarity with my fellow Jews?"

  "You're only Jewish when it suits you. And you've never been abused on the street."

  "All the same, the Labour Party has made a political mistake."

  "Just remember, if you allow the Fascists to provoke violence, the press will blame the left for it, r
egardless of who really started it."

  Lenny said rashly: "If Mosley's boys start a fight, they'll get what's coming to them."

  Ethel sighed. "Think about it, Lenny: in this country, who's got the most guns--you and Lloyd and the Labour Party, or the Conservatives with the army and the police on their side?"

  "Oh," said Lenny. Clearly he had not considered that.

  Lloyd said angrily to his mother: "How can you talk like that? You were in Berlin three years ago--you saw how it was. The German left tried to oppose Fascism peacefully, and look what happened to them."

  Bernie put in: "The German Social Democrats failed to form a popular front with the Communists. That allowed them to be picked off separately. Together they might have won." Bernie had been angry when the local Labour Party branch had refused an offer from the Communists to form a coalition against the march.

  Ethel said: "An alliance with Communists is a dangerous thing."

  She and Bernie disagreed on this. In fact it was an issue that split the Labour Party. Lloyd thought that Bernie was right and Ethel wrong. "We have to use every resource we've got to defeat Fascism," he said; then he added diplomatically: "But Mam's right, it will be best for us if today goes off without violence."

  "It will be best if you all stay home, and oppose the Fascists through the normal channels of democratic politics," Ethel said.

  "You tried to get equal pay for women through the normal channels of democratic politics," Lloyd said. "You failed." Only last April women Labour M.P.s had promoted a parliamentary bill to guarantee female government employees equal pay for equal work. It had been voted down by the male-dominated House of Commons.

  "You don't give up on democracy every time you lose a vote," Ethel said crisply.

  The trouble was, Lloyd knew, that these divisions could fatally weaken the anti-Fascist forces, as had happened in Germany. Today would be a harsh test. Political parties could try to lead, but the people would choose whom to follow. Would they stay at home, as urged by the timid Labour Party and The Jewish Chronicle? Or would they come out onto the streets in their thousands and say no to Fascism? By the end of the day he would know the answer.

  There was a knock at the back door and their neighbor Sean Dolan came in dressed in his churchgoing suit. "I'll be joining you after Mass," he said to Bernie. "Where should we meet up?"

  "Gardiner's Corner, not later than two o'clock," said Bernie. "We're hoping to have enough people to stop the Fascists there."

  "You'll have every dockworker in the East End with you," said Sean enthusiastically.

  Millie asked: "Why is that? The Fascists don't hate you, do they?"

  "You're too young to remember, you darlin' girl, but the Jews have always supported us," Sean explained. "In the dock strike of 1912, when I was only nine years old, my father couldn't feed us, and me and my brother were taken in by Mrs. Isaacs the baker's wife in New Road, may God bless her great big heart. Hundreds of dockers' children were looked after by Jewish families then. It was the same in 1926. We're not going to let the bloody Fascists come down our streets--excuse my language, Mrs. Leckwith."

  Lloyd was heartened. There were thousands of dockers in the East End: if they showed up en masse it would hugely swell the ranks.

  From outside the house came the sound of a loudspeaker. "Keep Mosley out of Stepney," said a man's voice. "Assemble at Gardiner's Corner at two o'clock."

  Lloyd drank his tea and stood up. His role today was to be a spy, checking the position of the Fascists and calling in updates to Bernie's Jewish People's Council. His pockets were heavy with big brown pennies for public phones. "I'd better get started," he said. "The Fascists are probably assembling already."

  His mother got up and followed him to the door. "Don't get into a fight," she said. "Remember what happened in Berlin."

  "I'll be careful," Lloyd said.

  She tried a light tone. "Your rich American girl won't like you with no teeth."

  "She doesn't like me anyway."

  "I don't believe it. What girl could resist you?"

  "I'll be all right, Mam," Lloyd said. "Really I will."

  "I suppose I should be glad you're not going to bloody Spain."

  "Not today, anyway." Lloyd kissed his mother and went out.

  It was a bright autumn morning, the sun unseasonably warm. In the middle of Nutley Street a temporary platform had been set up by a group of men, one of whom was speaking through a megaphone. "People of the East End, we do not have to stand quiet while a crowd of strutting anti-Semites insult us!" Lloyd recognized the speaker as a local official of the National Unemployed Workers' Movement. Because of the Depression there were thousands of unemployed Jewish tailors. They signed on every day at the Settle Street Labor Exchange.

  Before Lloyd had gone ten yards, Bernie came after him and handed him a paper bag of the little glass balls that children called marbles. "I've been in a lot of demonstrations," he said. "If the mounted police charge the crowd, throw these under the horses' hooves."

  Lloyd smiled. His stepfather was a peacemaker, almost all the time, but he was no softie.

  All the same, Lloyd was dubious about the marbles. He had never had much to do with horses, but they seemed to him to be patient, harmless beasts, and he did not like the idea of causing them to crash to the ground.

  Bernie read the look on his face and said: "Better a horse should fall than my boy should be trampled."

  Lloyd put the marbles in his pocket, thinking that it did not commit him to using them.

  He was pleased to see many people already on the streets. He noted other encouraging signs. The slogan "They shall not pass" in English and Spanish had been chalked on walls everywhere he looked. The Communists were out in force, handing out leaflets. Red flags draped many windowsills. A group of men wearing medals from the Great War carried a banner that read JEWISH EX-SERVICEMEN'S ASSOCIATION. Fascists hated to be reminded how many Jews had fought for Britain. Five Jewish soldiers had won the country's highest medal for bravery, the Victoria Cross.

  Lloyd began to think that perhaps there would be enough people to stop the march after all.

  Gardiner's Corner was a broad five-way junction, named for the Scottish clothing store, Gardiner and Company, that occupied a corner building with a distinctive clock tower. Lloyd saw when he got there that trouble was expected. There were several first-aid stations and hundreds of St. John Ambulance volunteers in their uniforms. Ambulances were parked in every side street. Lloyd hoped there would be no fighting, but better to risk violence, he thought, than to let the Fascists march unhindered.

  He took a roundabout route and came toward the Tower of London from the northwest, in order not to be identified as an East Ender. Some minutes before he got there he could hear the brass bands.

  The Tower was a riverside palace that had symbolized authority and repression for eight hundred years. It was surrounded by a long wall of pale old stone that looked as if the color had been washed out of it by centuries of London rain. Outside the walls, on the landward side, was a park called Tower Gardens, and here the Fascists were assembling. He estimated there were already a couple of thousand of them, in a line that stretched back westward into the financial district. Every now and again they broke into a rhythmic chant:

  One, two, three, four,

  We're gonna get rid of the Yids!

  The Yids! The Yids!

  We're gonna get rid of the Yids!

  They carried Union Jack flags. Why was it, Lloyd wondered, that the people who wanted to destroy everything good about their country were the quickest to wave the national flag?

  They looked impressively military, in their wide black leather belts and black shirts, as they formed neat columns across the grass. Their officers wore a smart uniform: a black military-cut jacket, gray riding breeches, jackboots, a black cap with a shiny peak, and a red-and-white armband. Several motorcyclists in uniform roared around ostentatiously, delivering messages with Fascist salutes. More marche
rs were arriving, some of them in armored vans with wire mesh at the windows.

  This was not a political party. It was an army.

  The purpose of the display, Lloyd figured, was to give them false authority. They wanted to look as if they had the right to close meetings and empty buildings, to burst into homes and offices and arrest people, to drag them to jails and camps and beat them up, interrogate and torture them, as the Brownshirts did in Germany under the Nazi regime so admired by Mosley and the Daily Mail's proprietor, Lord Rothermere.

  They would terrify the people of the East End, people whose parents and grandparents had fled from repression and pogroms in Ireland and Poland and Russia.

  Would East Enders come out on the streets and fight them? If not--if today's march went ahead as planned--what might the Fascists dare tomorrow?

  He walked around the edge of the park, pretending to be one of the hundred or so casual onlookers. Side streets radiated from the hub like spokes. In one of them he noticed a familiar-looking black-and-cream Rolls-Royce drawing up. The chauffeur opened the rear door and, to Lloyd's shock and dismay, Daisy Peshkov got out.

  There was no doubt why she was here. She was wearing a beautifully tailored female version of the uniform, with a long gray skirt instead of the breeches, her fair curls escaping from under the black cap. Much as he hated the outfit, Lloyd could not help finding her irresistibly alluring.

  He stopped and stared. He should not have been surprised: Daisy had told him she liked Boy Fitzherbert, and Boy's politics clearly made no difference to that. But to see her obviously supporting the Fascists in their attack on Jewish Londoners rammed home to him how utterly alien she was from everything that mattered in his life.

  He should simply have turned away, but he could not. As she hurried along the pavement, he blocked her way. "What the devil are you doing here?" he said brusquely.

  She was cool. "I might ask you the same question, Mr. Williams," she said. "I don't suppose you're intending to march with us."

  "Don't you understand what these people are like? They break up peaceful political meetings, they bully journalists, they imprison their political rivals. You're an American--how can you be against democracy?"

  "Democracy is not necessarily the most appropriate political system for every country in all times." She was quoting Mosley's propaganda, Lloyd guessed.