by Ken Follett
‘All the same . . . the Hitler salute?’
‘Might have been a joke.’
Lloyd did not think so.
He left Nobby and moved on. The police were forming cordons where the side streets entered the area around Gardiner’s Corner, he saw.
He went into a pub with a phone – he had scouted all the available telephones the day before – and told Bernie there were at least five thousand policemen in the neighbourhood. ‘We can’t resist that many coppers,’ he said gloomily.
‘Don’t be so sure,’ Bernie said. ‘Have a look at Gardiner’s Corner.’
Lloyd found a way around the police cordon and joined the counter-demonstration. It was not until he got into the middle of the street outside Gardiner’s that he could appreciate the full extent of the crowd.
It was the largest gathering of people he had ever seen.
The five-way junction was jammed, but that was the least of it. The crowd stretched east along Whitechapel High Street as far as the eye could see. Commercial Road, which ran south-east, was also crammed. Leman Street, where the police station stood, was impenetrable.
There must be a hundred thousand people here, Lloyd thought. He wanted to throw his hat in the air and cheer. East Enders had come out in force to repel the Fascists. There could be no doubt about their feelings now.
In the middle of the junction stood a stationary tram, abandoned by its driver and passengers.
Nothing could pass through this crowd, Lloyd realized with mounting optimism.
He saw his neighbour Sean Dolan climb a lamp post and fix a red flag to its top. The Jewish Lads’ Brigade brass band was playing – probably without the knowledge of the respectable conservative organizers of the club. A police aircraft flew overhead, an autogyro of some kind, Lloyd thought.
Near the windows of Gardiner’s he ran into his sister Millie and her friend, Naomi Avery. He did not want Millie to become involved in any rough stuff: the thought chilled his heart. ‘Does Dad know you’ve come?’ he said in a tone of reproof.
She was insouciant. ‘Don’t be daft,’ she replied.
He was surprised she was there at all. ‘You’re not usually very political,’ he said. ‘I thought you were more interested in making money.’
‘I am,’ she said. ‘But this is special.’
Lloyd could imagine how upset Bernie would be if Millie got hurt. ‘I think you should go home.’
‘Why?’
He looked around. The crowd was amiable and peaceful. The police were some distance away, the Fascists nowhere to be seen. There would be no march today, that was clear. Mosley’s people could not force their way through a crowd of a hundred thousand people determined to stop them, and the police would be insane to let them try. Millie was probably quite safe.
Just as he was thinking this, everything changed.
Several whistles shrilled. Looking in the direction of the sound, Lloyd saw the mounted police drawn up in an ominous line. The horses were stamping and blowing in agitation. The police had drawn long clubs shaped like swords.
They seemed to be getting ready to attack – but surely that could not be so.
Next moment, they charged.
There were angry shouts and terrified screams from the people. Everyone scrambled to get out of the way of the giant horses. The crowd made a path, but those at the edge fell under the pounding hooves. The police lashed out left and right with their long clubs. Lloyd was pushed helplessly backwards.
He felt furious: what did the police think they were doing? Were they stupid enough to believe they could clear a path for Mosley to march along? Did they really imagine that two or three thousand Fascists chanting insults could pass through a crowd of a hundred thousand of their victims without starting a riot? Were the police led by idiots, or out of control? He was not sure which would be worse.
They backed away, wheeling their panting horses, and regrouped, forming a ragged line; then a whistle blew and they heeled the flanks of their mounts, urging them into another reckless charge.
Millie was scared now. She was only sixteen, and her bravado had gone. She screamed with fear as the crowd squeezed her up against the plate-glass window of Gardiner and Company. Tailor’s dummies in cheap suits and winter coats stared out at the horrified crowd and the warlike riders. Lloyd was deafened by the roar of thousands of voices yelling in fearful protest. He got in front of Millie and pushed against the press with all his might, trying to protect her, but it was in vain. Despite his efforts he was crushed against her. Forty or fifty screaming people had their backs to the window, and the pressure was building dangerously.
Lloyd realized with rage that the police were determined to make a pathway through the crowd regardless of the cost.
A moment later, there was a terrific crash of breaking glass and the window gave way. Lloyd fell on top of Millie, and Naomi fell on him. Dozens of people cried out in pain and panic.
Lloyd struggled to his feet. Miraculously, he was unhurt. He looked around frantically for his sister. It was maddeningly difficult to distinguish the people from the tailor’s dummies. Then he spotted Millie lying in a mess of broken glass. He grasped her arms and pulled her to her feet. She was crying. ‘My back!’ she said.
He turned her around. Her coat was cut to ribbons and there was blood all over her. He felt sick with anguish. He put his arm around her shoulders protectively. ‘There’s an ambulance just around the corner,’ he said. ‘Can you walk?’
They had gone only a few yards when the police whistles blew again. Lloyd was terrified that he and Millie would be shoved back into Gardiner’s window. Then he remembered what Bernie had given him. He took the paper bag of marbles from his pocket.
The police charged.
Drawing back his arm, Lloyd threw the paper bag over the heads of the crowd to land in front of the horses. He was not the only one so equipped, and several other people threw marbles. As the horses came at them there was the sound of firecrackers. A police horse slipped on marbles and went down. Others stopped and reared at the banging of the fireworks. The police charge turned into chaos. Naomi Avery had somehow pushed to the front of the crowd, and he saw her burst a bag of pepper under the nose of a horse, causing it to veer away, shaking its head frantically.
The crush eased, and Lloyd led Millie around the corner. She was still in pain, but she had stopped crying.
A line of people were waiting for attention from the St John’s Ambulance volunteers: a weeping girl whose hand appeared to have been crushed; several young men with bleeding heads and faces; a middle-aged woman sitting on the ground nursing a swollen knee. As Lloyd and Millie arrived, Sean Dolan walked away with a bandage around his head and went straight back into the crowd.
A nurse looked at Millie’s back. ‘This is bad,’ she said. ‘You need to go to the London Hospital. We’ll take you in an ambulance.’ She looked at Lloyd. ‘Do you want to go with her?’
Lloyd did, but he was supposed to be phoning in reports, and he hesitated.
Millie solved the dilemma for him with characteristic spunk. ‘Don’t you dare come,’ she said. ‘You can’t do anything for me, and you’ve got important work to do here.’
She was right. He helped her into a parked ambulance. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, I’m sure. Try not to end up in hospital yourself.’
He was leaving her in the best hands, he decided. He kissed her cheek and returned to the fray.
The police had changed their tactics. The people had repelled the horse charges, but the police were still determined to make a path through the crowd. As Lloyd pushed his way to the front they charged on foot, attacking with their batons. The unarmed demonstrators cowered back from them, liked piled leaves in a wind, then surged forward in a different part of the line.
The police started to arrest people, perhaps hoping to weaken the crowd’s determination by taking ringleaders away. In the East End, being arrested was no legal formality. Few people came back wi
thout a black eye or a few gaps in their teeth. Leman Street police station had a particularly bad reputation.
Lloyd found himself behind a vociferous young woman carrying a red flag. He recognized Olive Bishop, a neighbour in Nutley Street. A policeman hit her over the head with his truncheon, screaming: ‘Jewish whore!’ She was not Jewish, and she certainly was not a whore; in fact, she played the piano at the Calvary Gospel Hall. But she had forgotten the admonition of Jesus to turn the other cheek, and she scratched the cop’s face, drawing parallel red lines on his skin. Two more officers grabbed her arms and held her while the scratched man hit her on the head again.
The sight of three strong men attacking one girl maddened Lloyd. He stepped forward and hit the woman’s assailant with a right hook that had all of his rage behind it. The blow landed on the policeman’s temple. Dazed, the man stumbled and fell.
More officers converged on the scene, lashing out randomly with their clubs, hitting arms and legs and heads and hands. Four of them picked up Olive, each taking an arm or a leg. She screamed and wriggled desperately but she could not get free.
But the bystanders were not passive. They attacked the police carrying the girl off, trying to pull the uniformed men away from her. The police turned on their attackers, yelling: ‘Jew bastards!’ even though not all their assailants were Jews and one was a black-skinned Somali sailor.
The police let go of Olive, dropping her to the road, and began to defend themselves. Olive pushed through the crowd and vanished. The cops retreated, hitting out at anyone within reach as they backed away.
Lloyd saw with a thrill of triumph that the police strategy was not working. For all their brutality, the attacks had completely failed to make a way through the crowd. Another baton charge began, but the angry crowd surged forward to meet it, eager now for combat.
Lloyd decided it was time for another report. He worked his way backwards through the crush and found a phone box. ‘I don’t think they’re going to succeed, Dad,’ he told Bernie excitedly. ‘They’re trying to beat a path through us but they’re making no progress. We’re too many.’
‘We’re redirecting people to Cable Street,’ Bernie said. ‘The police may be about to switch their thrust, thinking they have more chance there, so we’re sending reinforcements. Go along there, see what’s happening, and let me know.’
‘Right,’ said Lloyd, and he hung up before realizing he had not told his stepfather that Millie had been taken to hospital. But perhaps it was better not to worry him right now.
Getting to Cable Street was not going to be easy. From Gardiner’s Corner, Leman Street led directly south to the near end of Cable Street, a distance of less than half a mile, but the road was jammed by demonstrators fighting with police. Lloyd had to take a less direct route. He struggled eastward through the crowd into Commercial Road. Once there, further progress was not much easier. There were no police, therefore there was no violence, but the crowd was almost as dense. It was frustrating, but Lloyd was consoled for his difficulties by the reflection that the police would never force a way through so many.
He wondered what Daisy Peshkov was doing. Probably she was sitting in the car, waiting for the march to begin, tapping the toe of her expensive shoe impatiently on the Rolls-Royce’s carpet. The thought that he was helping to frustrate her purpose gave him an oddly spiteful sense of satisfaction.
With persistence and a slightly ruthless attitude to those in his way, Lloyd pushed through the throng. The railway that ran along the north side of Cable Street obstructed his route, and he had to walk some distance before reaching a side road that tunnelled beneath the line. He passed under the tracks and entered Cable Street.
The crowd here was not so closely packed, but the street was narrow, and passage was still difficult. That was a good thing: it would be even more difficult for the police to get through. But there was another obstruction, he saw. A lorry had been parked across the road and turned on its side. At either end of the vehicle, the barricade had been extended the full width of the street with old tables and chairs, odd lengths of timber, and other assorted rubbish piled high.
A barricade! It made Lloyd think of the French revolution. But this was no revolution. The people of the East End did not want to overthrow the British government. On the contrary, they were deeply attached to their elections and their borough councils and their Houses of Parliament. They liked their system of government so much that they were determined to defend it against Fascism, even if it would not defend itself.
He had emerged behind the barrier, and now he moved towards it to see what was happening. He stood on a wall to get a better view. He saw a lively scene. On the far side, police were trying to dismantle the blockage, picking up broken furniture and dragging old mattresses away. But they were not having an easy time of it. A hail of missiles fell on their helmets, some hurled from behind the barricade, some thrown from the upstairs windows of the houses packed closely on either side of the street: stones, milk bottles, broken pots, and bricks that came, Lloyd saw, from a nearby builder’s yard. A few daring young men stood on top of the barricade, lashing out at the police with sticks, and occasionally a fight broke out as the police tried to pull one down and give him a kicking. With a start, Lloyd recognized two of the figures standing on the barricade as Dave Williams, his cousin, and Lenny Griffiths, from Aberowen. Side by side they were fighting policemen off with shovels.
But as the minutes passed, Lloyd saw that the police were winning. They were working systematically, picking up the components of the barricade and taking them away. On this side a few people reinforced the wall, replacing what the police removed, but they were less organized and did not have an infinite supply of materials. It looked to Lloyd as if the police would soon prevail. And if they could clear Cable Street, they would let the Fascists march down here, past one Jewish shop after another.
Then, looking behind him, he saw that whoever was organizing the defence of Cable Street was thinking ahead. Even while the police dismantled the barricade, another was going up a few hundred yards farther along the street.
Lloyd retreated and began enthusiastically to help build the second wall. Dockers with pickaxes were prising up paving stones, housewives dragged dustbins from their yards, and shopkeepers brought empty crates and boxes. Lloyd helped carry a park bench, then pulled down a noticeboard from outside a municipal building. Learning from experience, the builders did a better job this time, using their materials economically and making sure the structure was sturdy.
Looking behind him again, Lloyd saw that a third barricade was beginning to rise farther east.
The people began to retreat from the first one and regroup behind the second. A few minutes later the police at last made a gap in the first barricade and poured through it. The first of them went after the few young men remaining, and Lloyd saw Dave and Lenny chased down an alley. The houses on either side were swiftly shut up, doors slamming and windows closing.
Then, Lloyd saw, the police did not know what to do next. They had broken through the barricade only to be confronted with another, stronger one. They seemed not to have the heart to begin dismantling the second. They milled around in the middle of Cable Street, talking desultorily, looking resentfully at the residents watching them from upstairs windows.
It was too early to proclaim victory but, all the same, Lloyd could not suppress a happy feeling of success. It was beginning to look as if the anti-Fascists were going to win the day.
He remained at his post for another quarter of an hour, but the police did nothing more, so he left the scene, found a telephone kiosk, and called in.
Bernie was cautious. ‘We don’t know what’s happening,’ he said. ‘There seems to be a lull everywhere, but we need to find out what the Fascists are up to. Can you get back to the Tower?’
Lloyd certainly could not fight his way through the massed police, but perhaps there was another way. ‘I could try going via St George Street,’ he said doubtfully.<
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‘Do the best you can. I want to know their next move.’
Lloyd worked his way south through a maze of alleys. He hoped he was right about St George Street. It was outside the contested area, but the crowds might have spilled over.
However, as he had hoped, there were no crowds here, even though he was still within earshot of the counter-demonstration, and could hear shouting and police whistles. A few women stood in the street talking, and a gaggle of little girls skipped a rope in the middle of the road. Lloyd headed west, breaking into a jog-trot, expecting to see crowds of demonstrators or police around every bend. He came across a few people who had strayed from the fracas – two men with bandaged heads, a woman in a ripped coat, a bemedalled veteran with his arm in a sling – but no crowds. He ran all the way to where the street ended at the Tower. He was able to walk unhindered into Tower Gardens.
The Fascists were still here.
That in itself was an achievement, Lloyd felt. It was now half past three: the marchers had been kept waiting here, not marching, for hours. He saw that their high spirits had evaporated. They were no longer singing or chanting, but stood quiet and listless, lined up but not so neatly, their banners drooping, their bands silent. They already looked beaten.
However, there was a change a few minutes later. An open car emerged from a side street and drove alongside the Fascist lines. Cheers went up. The lines straightened, the officers saluted, the Fascists stood to attention. In the back seat of the car sat their leader, Sir Oswald Mosley, a handsome man with a moustache, wearing the uniform complete with cap. Rigidly straight-backed, he saluted repeatedly as his car went by at walking pace, as if he were a monarch inspecting his troops.
His presence reinvigorated his forces and worried Lloyd. This probably meant that they were going to march as planned – otherwise, why was he here? The car followed the Fascist line along a side street into the financial district. Lloyd waited. Half an hour later Mosley returned, this time on foot, again saluting and acknowledging cheers.