Coronation

by Paul Gallico

  The constable was not so dense that he didn’t hear the word ‘risk’, and he looked up quickly into the face of the Assistant Commissioner to see whether blame or censure was implied, but there was no clue to be found in the grave expression of the dignitary and he comforted himself with the fact that he had been upheld in his actions, and after all done what he had been told to do.

  So there, then, was an end to the incident, one minor one of more than a hundred that had occupied the official from early morning that day, and, being at an end, it was already out of his mind when the Assistant Commissioner suddenly was aware of his gaze becoming entangled with that of the small boy who belonged to the family involved. Thus he found himself looking into a young, pale, tear-stained face beneath a sodden school cap, from which were regarding him two dark, luminous, worshipping eyes.

  It all happened so quickly that when it was over and he was trotting his horse into the Park, the Assistant Commissioner could no longer remember what it was he had seen in them. He only knew that somewhere he had been deeply touched, and, unable to disengage himself from the child, he had done something he had never meant to do. This was to reach into a pocket deep in the skirts of his uniform coat and take out a shining regimental badge – a crown whereon were intertwined the initials ‘RW’ with lion and unicorn rampant on either side and the motto of the regiment in Latin, the single word FIDELIS.

  It must have fallen from the cap of an officer during the procession and the feet of marching men had kicked it to the gutter in Piccadilly. Its momentary glitter in the fitful sun, which had emerged when the downpour ceased, had caught his eyes and he had halted his horse for a moment to peer down at it. An alert constable who had noted this came over at once, picked it up and gave it to him. It was the badge of a famous British regiment, the Royal Wessex. Several of its officers frequented the same club as the Assistant Commissioner. He had slipped it into his pocket with a smile. He saw himself handing it across the bar to one of them between drinks; a silly, innocent enough fantasy which amused him.

  But instead of this he had now withdrawn it from his pocket, leaned down from his horse and said to the unknown small boy, ‘Here then, lad, have this!’ And then had added, ‘It is the badge of the Royal Wessex.’

  Yet there was one thing he remembered clearly as he rode away, and that was the last expression in the no longer troubled eyes as the boy had held the object in his fingers. It was the look of bottomless gratitude and a kind of shuddering awe of one who has shared in a miracle.

  Now why on earth did I do that? The Assistant Commissioner mused to himself, and, not finding any answer, put the matter out of his head.

  ‘What a nice kind gentleman,’ Violet Clagg said. ‘What is it he gave you, Johnny?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Johnny Clagg, and stuffed it hard down into his trouser-pocket, his hand gripping it so fiercely that the metal cut into his flesh. He had called it nothing because it was everything – a talisman or a symbol of all he ever wanted, or cared about, or wished for, or hoped to be. He was already so passionately jealous of it that he was cold with terror that they would try to take it away from him, that somehow Granny would find some excuse for meddling.

  Indeed, she did say, ‘More clutter, I’ll wager,’ but was distracted when the young constable, grateful for his escape, yet still aware that all had not gone off exactly too well, and that for some reason he didn’t understand the dignitary had conferred a benefice upon one of the party, announced, ‘That was an Assistant Police Commissioner,’ and then added, glancing at his watch, ‘The procession will be over soon. You’ll be able to get through then.’

  Still another band went blaring by on the other side. Fiercely clutching his badge, Johnny Clagg no longer cared, for by the thing in his possession he had been made a part of it all.

  ‘Thanks for nothing,’ Will Clagg said. ‘Fat lot of good that will do us.’

  At last they realised that there was no more music, no more tramp of marching feet. A police sergeant stuck his head through the door and said something to the constable which wakened him, got him off the one-way track on which his mind had been set, which was to keep everybody out. Now he had to make an announcement, ‘Stand back, please. Everybody stand back, please. The gates are about to be opened. You’ll have to make room, please.’

  Then there was a groaning and creaking of wood and the whole of the barrier parted in the centre and was swung wide, to loose such a torrent of humanity as threatened to engulf and carry away all those who had remained there. The parade was over, the fun was finished, and now this vast throng which had enjoyed the spectacle developed one powerful mass-will, which was to get away from there to go home, to get warm, to eat, to drink, to spend pennies, and their coming was like a cattle stampede.

  The Clagg family formed a small islet against this tide with Will opposing his sturdy bulky form to the onrush, around which it broke and swirled. Several other parties who had stood there too were trying to move in the opposite way and for the same reason. They had been there all day, straining to go in a certain direction, frustrated by a wooden wall, forbidden by fear of the law, and now that both of these barriers were removed they were determined to continue in that desired direction. Some hoped to reach the Palace, only to encounter a solid wall of humanity several yards deep blocking them. So they simply kept pushing against those trying to leave.

  The shoulders that banged into his, and the angry faces of those he thumped with his increasingly truculent opposition, provided Will Clagg with the first satisfaction he had experienced that day. It had been impossible to crash and demolish the barrier and not too clever to think of bashing a constable or two, but he could oppose himself to these unthinking, unseeing people who, having had their fun, were now trying to run over him. He could thump them and bump them and make them feel the presence of Will Clagg of Little Pudney. He was without knowing it undergoing the very necessary process of regaining some of the manhood he had lost.

  Soon Clagg found that there was no longer anyone to bump or bash or shoulder out of the way. The approach to the Palace was hopeless with the tide of humanity flooding the drive, backwashing almost to the entrance of the Park. They were walking along where the procession had passed, and approaching Piccadilly.

  From the direction of Constitution Hill came a mighty roar and Clagg guessed that the Queen must be coming up the Mall. From off in the distance snatches of military music still came to them, wind-wafted. Somewhere the spectacle was continuing; flags and pennants waved; marching men were passing by; wine was being drunk. But where the Clagg family now found themselves amidst the rapidly dispersing remainder of the crowd were only lees and dregs of the glory that had been.

  Underfoot were horse-droppings flattened out and all the debris that massed humans leave behind them: paper in which sandwiches had been wrapped, discarded souvenirs, rosettes, squashed celluloid dolls, broken sticks of flags too lustily waved, handkerchiefs, cigarette-butts and cigarstubs. For Johnny there was a momentary interest in the tank-tracks imprinted into the road like spoors of some gigantic prehistoric monsters. Here they had passed by.

  The wet bunting hung plastered to the wooden stands. The windows on the north side of the street, which had been filled with partying spectators, were now emptied so that the bare planks on which they had sat showed like bones. No one had yet bothered to begin to clean up the litter they had left behind them. What a view those who had sat there must have had! Motor traffic and the first buses allowed through came roaring down Piccadilly, bulging with people. The city was beginning to pick up its normal routine of life externally, but within doors and throughout the country the celebrations would continue far on into the night and the following morning.

  And there in the middle of the street Clagg’s offensive ground to a halt. The fire went out of him and he was once more without purpose. ‘Ought we go look at some of the decorations?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve seen all the decorations I want to see for the rest
of my life,’ Granny snapped.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ said Johnny.

  ‘I’m thirsty,’ said Gwendoline.

  ‘I’m tired,’ said Violet. ‘Oughtn’t we try to get something to eat for the children?’

  ‘Come along then,’ Clagg said, rather satisfied to have matters taken out of his hands again. ‘We’ll find a pub or a Lyons somewhere and all have something hot.’ He picked Gwenny up in his arms again and moved off down Piccadilly, for he knew enough about London to know that beyond Piccadilly Circus was the area of cafés and snack bars.

  They had, of course, not reckoned upon the fact that a million or so starved and dehydrated citizens would have the same idea. Every restaurant, Corner House and bar was jammed to the doors, with long queues waiting outside. Eventually, after a long wait and standing up at a counter, they managed to connect with a cup of lukewarm tea and a bun, which did little either for their stomachs or their morale. In the café someone was talking about the fireworks display there would be on the river that night opposite the Embankment; others discussed a celebration to be held at Wapping Town Hall; somewhere in the East End a huge street party had been arranged; north, east, south and west, high and low, London was preparing for a night of celebration.

  Will Clagg looked at his tired family and knew that he must get them home and himself as well. Beaten and dispirited, there was nothing left in him but the desire to retire as quickly as possible to the security of the four walls of his house, where he could close the door upon this outside world which had so let him down; home, whose sheltering familiarity could be pulled about one’s bruised shoulders. The necessity to set his foot once more upon his own threshold became compelling, overwhelming.

  A policeman put them right as to the proper bus for St Pancras. Four went by before the queue in which they had to stand melted sufficiently to permit them to embark. They were too tired even so much as to glance at the decorations or shop windows or the teeming London streets during the ride.

  St Pancras was a damp, pulsating, squalid turmoil, a compendium of the smell of soggy clothing, coal smoke, sausages, beer, wet boots and tea. Always there was the sound of panting locomotives, one of which emitted an occasional agonised shriek of terror at the thought of its impending task of drawing its heavy load of humans.

  One heard the clanking of couplings, the ring of bells, the piping of the guards’ whistles, the rumble of the porters’ barrows and, as always on that day, the endless shuffling of thousands upon thousands of now weary feet. The babble of human voices arose against the hot hissing of discharged steam. In the dark, glass-covered, iron-ribbed cavern of the station all the sounds multiplied and echoed hollowly.

  Throngs pushed and struggled, whirligigged and gravitated towards the gates leading to the long sooty trains which would carry them northwards to their distant homes. Like colonies of ants of different species the streams collided, formed knots and clustered and sorted themselves out again as their members found their way into their proper channels. There was much crowding and shoving, but these were people of high spirits. In one way or another each of them had had some contact with the miracle of continuity which had been enacted in the Abbey that day. England again had a young queen. Her being and her crowning likewise pointed up and set the seal upon this same continuity of themselves. They too had come down with her in that long unbroken line from the dark and buried past into the brilliant and thrilling present.

  Later on that night the assault of the home-going mobs upon transportation was to become more desperate, less good-tempered, wilder and out of all proportion in numbers to the available space on trains or station platforms. But at that hour of half-past six there were not yet so many, only the early birds with a long way to go, or the sensible ones who were passing up the fireworks and a tour of the illuminated decorations in favour of a more comfortable passage homeward. Still, the station was jammed, but cheerfully so and passable. And through the ruck Will Clagg steered his family in the direction of the 6.58 Midland Express.

  Like the others, they fought and thrust and pushed their way against counter-thrusts and counter-pushes, propelling, whirling and batting them from all sides until at last they fell or were sucked into the colony of their brother and sister ants all bound in the same direction, and there-after progress was automatic. Through the gates, down the platform, into the empty and waiting compartments, and there, by virtue of their decision to be early, all five found seats, Johnny and Gwendoline by the window, Will and Elsie and Violet by their sides. With a great sigh of relief, they sagged or moulded themselves into the stiff bristles of the grimy carriage seats and backs. They had not realised how tired they were.

  Young Johnny’s place was on the platform side of the carriage, and, as he looked out of the window at the seemingly endless streams of people pouring into the trains, a gleam of excitement replaced the fatigue in his young eyes at the sight of the occasional uniform of a soldier, red or green or blue in the drab of the crowd. His right hand was pressed deep into his trouser-pocket, clutching his talisman, and his index finger wandered about the contours of the wonderful metal badge, now hot from contact with his flesh. He felt the initials, the crest, the lion and the unicorn rampant. He would have liked to have drawn it forth to inspect it, to have added the testimony of his eyes to the fact that it was really there and his very own to keep for ever. But he felt that if he did so now one of his family would be sure to ask to see it. They might even take it from him. It would have to wait until he was alone.

  Gwendoline was dreaming with her hands in her lap. Whatever the dream was, it curled the corners of her mouth with mystery. Her eyes were sleepy, but there was a hint of wonder in them.

  Grandma Bonner had quietly come apart with old age and fatigue approaching exhaustion. She was collapsed in her seat, unmindful of the three strangers who had piled in to conclude the eight of the compartment. Untidy wisps of her hair were straggled over her eyes; her spectacles had slipped down; the colour of her face was grey and ashen; she looked ten years older than she was.

  Violet Clagg’s countenance was a mirror of the bitterness and apathy that had overwhelmed her in the warmth of the compartment. She had taken off her shoes and sat listening to the ache of her feet as well as to those voices of despondency and surrender that were whispering that it was always like this; it had always been, it always would be. Things never turned out as promised or advertised. Yet one never ceased to be taken in by the promises or broken by the disillusionments.

  It was nothing new for Will Clagg to have been on the go from early morn till dusk; there was no complaint from his iron muscles, though the soft of the seat felt good under his hams, but the canker of the fiasco continued to gnaw him. Try as he would, there was no escape from the abysmal failure of the day, the loss of his money, his prestige as head of the family, and, above all, the pain caused by the disappointment of his children.

  His mind searched for and brought up the small ameliorating incidents that had happened. There was that badge so strangely handed to Johnny by the high official on the white horse and which in some way had appeared to compensate the boy for the loss of the sight of the procession. And Gwenny seemingly had seen something that had satisfied her – perhaps indeed the Queen. But for himself there was only remembering that he had been a trusting fool, and as husband, father and son-in-law had let all of them down. He felt himself weakened as a man, and worried whether it would show on the broad earth floor of the rolling mill when the furnace gates were opened and the glowing metal was poured. He wondered whether the men under his command would notice it.

  On the way from the street to the train Clagg had managed to pick up the evening papers, and now, in an attempt to escape from these self-recriminations which filled him, he leafed through to see in black and white all that they had missed that day in life and colour.

  He turned page upon page of pictures: Grenadiers, Life Guards, Horse Guards, Dragoons, Scots, Irish and Welsh. There were Indian troops in
turbans, Africans in fezzes, officers on chargers, potentates in carriages, the young Queen crowned in the Abbey, peers paying homage. The colour of the newsprint was the colour of ashes, like the taste of the day left in his mouth.

  Clagg turned to the text to try to drive other thoughts from his head and read the account of the morning’s happenings, or rather only half read them. The gnawing of the worm, it seemed, could not be ignored.

  Yet in the next moment he did find his attention caught as, his eyes passing over the surface of a column headed ‘Coronation Miscellany’, he came upon the following item:

  ‘Petty thievery, pilfering, and the minor rackets of spivdom were held to a minimum by alert flying squads, according to Detective-Inspector Magillevray of the Metropolitan Police. Nevertheless, pickpockets flourished in certain areas where crowds were the thickest. Several stores were looted and counterfeit tickets to the Abbey, as well as to certain well placed positions on the route of procession, were much in evidence.

  ‘One of the nastiest of such swindles to come to the attention of the police were tickets sold at twenty-five guineas for a window-seat with breakfast, lunch and champagne at an address in Wellington Crescent, which turned out to be nothing but a bombed-out site. Among those who had bought tickets to this non-existent house were Sir Nigel and Lady Alladryn of Perth, Australia – Sir Nigel, who is Chairman of the West Australia Linseed Oil Company, arrived in London late and secured the fake tickets at the last minute from a stranger in the lobby of his hotel – Mr and Mrs Marshall Fess, American millionaires of Sioux Falls, Idaho, and William Clagg, Executive Foreman of the Pudney Steel Mills, Great Pudney, Sheffield, and his family.