A Plague on Both Your Houses

by Ian Porter

  Relieved that Nash was keeping to his promise, Muriel felt emboldened to add something.

  “He told me a policeman from the army had been to see him, asking about a fourteen year old soldier, who had disappeared in the area. And that the soldier was a friend of yours. Of course Bill honestly didn’t know what he was talking about. He was just relieved the man did not ask him about conscientious objectors.”

  Nash just nodded and disappeared into deep thought for a few seconds. He would need to find out from her in due course the full details of what she knew of his business, but for now he was content to find out what she was up to.

  “So, what’s all this got to do with you Dot?”

  Muriel didn’t want to sound condescending so considered for a moment before she spoke. She needed to choose her words carefully

  “Do you know why the Allies finally won the war Nashey?”

  “Tanks weren’t it?” said Nash. “We had new ones what pushed the Hun back. They didn’t have as good tanks as ours.”

  “Ah yes, but why did the Germans not build their own new tanks? They had tanks after all, every bit as good as the Allies’ original ones. Surely they could have restored the status quo by improving theirs to the same degree as the Allies? Throughout this terrible war, whoever gained the ascendancy for a moment soon lost it when the other side countered. The sides were too well matched for over four years were they not?”

  “Yeah but the Hun were knackered this time round weren’t they? Their Spring Offensive nearly won ‘em the war but they didn’t pull it off.”

  Nash had not understood what ‘status quo’ meant, just as Muriel had never before heard the expression ‘knackered’, but they were both able to interpret successfully.

  “Ah, ha, you’re on the right track there,” said Muriel. “Their last push had left the Germans in a most vulnerable position. They were no longer able to feed their war effort. They had exhausted themselves economically.”

  “Run out of money and munitions eh?” said Nash. “Well, it was either that or one side or another were gonna run out of men sooner or later.”

  “And food. The Germans could no longer feed themselves at home. I have seen a photograph of a horse which collapsed dead in a German city street. It was immediately set upon by the people and stripped to its bones in minutes. For the meat do you see? The German people are starving.”

  “Poor bleeders. Mind you, if we hadn’t started protecting our merchant ships with convoys last year and started that allotment campaign and the rationing, we would have been in the same boat by now wouldn’t we?”

  “Indeed we would. But whilst we managed to largely stop the German u-boat successes, the Germans were unable to stop the Allies’ blockade of their ports. The cordon of British warships stopping any imported food getting in has starved the Germans into defeat. But the terrible thing is that despite the war ending, British ships continue their blockade.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard. It ain’t right,” agreed Nash. “The war’s over for Gawd’s sake.”

  “It is to force the Germans into signing a peace treaty of course. The armistice and the German fleet’s surrender has not truly ended the war. One of our politicians has said he wants to squeeze the Germans until the pips squeak. We want our pound of flesh.”

  Nash was not aware that there had been an allusion to Shakespeare but he understood full well what Muriel meant.

  “Sounds like it’s the Hun who need a pound or two of flesh,” he said, disgusted. “To eat, poor bastards.”

  “Quite so,” agreed Muriel. “The people of Berlin and Vienna are starving to death. German children are suffering from malnutrition and rickets. Their bones are like rubber. TB is rife. They have no clothing. There are paper bandages in their hospitals.”

  Nash grimaced and then narrowed his eyes.

  “How do you know all this Dot? It ain’t something you read about in the papers is it?”

  “A Sister of the church who is of my acquaintance has been importing newspapers from Germany and Austria-Hungary, then translating them into English and is about to start publishing extracts in a magazine. All very under the table as one might put it. A special licence has to be obtained from the government to import such things, and of course no such licence has been issued.”

  Nash just nodded and waited for her to continue. He assumed she was about to ask him to do something involving this illegal enterprise. If a woman of the cloth was involved, she wouldn’t have the sort of street wisdom to keep herself out of gaol without help from the likes of him. But what it had to do with his objectors or Freddie, he couldn’t imagine.

  Muriel adjudged it was time to make her request.

  “And you will of course not be surprised to find that I have asked you here to request a favour.” Nash just nodded so she continued. “As you know there is a terrible shortage of wood, due to the need for so many coffins because of this accursed influenza. But I was wondering if you could use your contacts in the wood trade to secure enough wood to make a large cross.”

  Nash was disappointed. It turned out all she wanted was a bit of wood for some religious thing.

  “Yeah, I daresay I can get me hands on some wood for you,” he said with a rather bored sigh in his voice. “How big do you want this cross of yours to be?”

  Muriel spotted the indifference, but she was confident his interest would increase shortly.

  “As big as a cross being carried in a procession from Bow to the House of Commons by a conscientious objector and a fourteen year old soldier can be,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “Eh?” exclaimed a wide eyed Nash.

  “I would like your fourteen year old soldier boy and a conscientious objector of your choosing to carry a cross at the front of a procession to Parliament, publicising the plight of children in war ravaged countries.”

  “Don’t want much do you?!” The sarcasm failed to hide the startled horror in Nash’s voice. “They’ll be arrested for sure. And they’ll be asked who’s been helping ‘em right enough. And that’s Ruby as well as me in trouble.”

  “I know I am asking an awful lot Nashey,” said Muriel softly. “But I ask it nonetheless.”

  “I’ll have to speak to Ruby,” said Nash, immediately realising that anything but a straight ‘no’ to a Lester sister was sure to be taken as a ‘yes’. “She’s got most to lose. She can be a conniving little vixen mind. Especially now she’s a copper. If anyone can work out how to get round the law, she can. Talk about it takes one to know one.”

  Muriel knew not to show any signs of counting her chickens. She made all the right respectful noises. There was further discussion over a cup of tea of exactly how much Dot and Muriel knew of the conscientious objectors and the boy soldier, before Nash was on his way to see his wife.

  ******

  Muriel Lester was to make a speech when the protest march reached the Houses of Parliament. It was hoped that there would be hundreds there to hear her speak about the need to feed the children in war ravaged countries.

  Some horrendous photographs of the starving children of Germany had been blown up on to huge placards, but they were so disturbing that it was decided not to show them after all. The photographs had been papered over and a simple message added. ‘We do not want any children anywhere to go hungry’.

  People were to be asked to donate funds to buy milk to send to Europe. If one couldn’t afford to make a donation, giving second-hand clothes would also be most welcome.

  At the end of her speech, Muriel would introduce Sister Dorothy Buxton, who had imported a newspaper which featured appalling photographs of German starvation. The nun would describe some of the terrible images, not just those in the newspaper but also others passed on to her independently from a German woman living in Berlin, of children in the city’s East End suffering from malnutrition and rickets.

  The mai
n organiser of the whole event, Miss Eglantyne Webb, would follow this by informing the crowd that it was the Allied blockade that was causing such suffering to millions of children. It was then Muriel’s turn to introduce the two men, or to be more precise the man and the boy, who had carried the cross at the front of the march, all the way from Bow. A soldier and a conscientious objector. She would go on to provide the crowd with some of their back-story, before finishing the day’s proceedings with a call for reconciliation and peace for all.

  That was where things were to get complicated. Sister Buxton and Miss Webb were in breach of government restrictions laid down in the Defence of the Realm Act. They would surely be arrested by the police.

  In a perverse way, it was rather hoped that some of the crowd would be there to attempt to disrupt the meeting; heckling, throwing rotten fruit and so on. This was because any publicity was good publicity. One of Sylvia’s jobs had been to contact the press and tell them of the protest and what was to be said outside the House. She also confirmed that she would be there in person. The press knew that anything to do with Miss Pankhurst always made good copy, so they would surely be there in numbers to capture the proceedings in word and photograph.

  There was also another reason why the organisers needed the meeting to end in a Suffragette-like melee. While Sister Buxton and Miss Webb were being arrested, and other police were hopefully having to deal with a scrum of protesters, hecklers, spectators and press, Nash would attempt to squirrel his two charges away, unnoticed.

  The authorities would not have known the identity of the two males carrying the cross until Muriel Lester let the cat out of the bag at the end of the proceedings. And it was crucial from Muriel’s, as well as Nash’s, point of view that there was no mention in the speeches that the soldier and conscientious objector were army runaways. The whole point of the two cross-bearers was that a soldier, who had been so keen to go to war he had lied about his age to get into the army, and a conscientious objector, who had rejected fighting, were coming together in a show of reconciliation. The fact that the soldier was clearly young enough to be the objector’s son, was a nice profound bonus as far as Muriel was concerned.

  Ruby had managed to swop shifts around with colleagues to ensure the day of the march was her day off. It had cost her having to work the following two Sundays, but she wanted to be at the protest when off duty, in her civvies, to at least add moral support. But she was going to carry her largest shopping bag with her. In it would be her police uniform into which she could change quickly if need be. And in her pocket her police identification card. If there was any trouble involving her husband, she might be able to do something to help him. Pretend to arrest him or something and get him away. Plans had to be fluid to the point of having no plan at all.

  Chapter 41

  “It came and went, a hurricane across the green fields of life, sweeping away…in hundreds of thousands and leaving behind it a toll of sickness and infirmity which will not be reckoned in this generation.”

  The Times newspaper

  The celebratory end of war crowds had spread the flu quicker than ever. Medical schools had been closed, their third and fourth year students now being used to help on hospital wards. Theatres, cinemas, dance halls, churches, women’s football matches and any other public places that had the potential to crowd people close together, were shut down. Streets were being sprayed with chemicals.

  And even the weather was not helping. Late autumn downpours had seen rivers spill over their banks. The harvest had been delayed and lowered the yields of vegetables.

  Much of this created a lot of work for the police. And Ruby was not enjoying her job these days. She found herself having to be a pedant; picking on people, chivvying them along, stopping them from gathering together, telling people in queues for a doctor’s surgery, pharmacy or greengrocer to keep a space between themselves and the person in front.

  It was all very necessary but petty nonetheless. It was not why she had joined the police force. But she felt that she could not very well resign with the police still so short of officers. Someone had to do the job, and it might just as well be her.

  And at least she was working on her own, and not having to put up with that rum character Pemberton. Since he had been given separate duties soon after the strange incident in Shoreditch station, Ruby had barely seen hide nor hair of him.

  Nash still believed Pemberton may have simply taken a shine to her, and had followed her for that reason. But his wife disagreed. She had been a good looking woman her entire adult life, and had received plenty of stares and glances from men over the years. She knew lechery when she saw it. And she was convinced Pemberton had no such interest in her. He had never so much as glanced at her in that way. No, his interest was more professional. He had been trying to get something on her. Probably because he didn’t approve of women in the police force. Perhaps he had heard that she had done well with the ambulances and so on, and decided that if he was to climb the greasy pole above her, he needed to put her down somehow? If Sergeant Granger thought him green as grass as he had put it, Pemberton needed to show that he wasn’t. But he had not been able to get anything on her at work, so had taken to following her off duty. He had probably heard that she was married to a man with a certain reputation. Hanging around when she was with her husband, might be the best opportunity of getting something incriminating on his colleague.

  But it hadn’t worked. She concluded that he must have realised she and her husband had spotted him at the station and given him the slip. Whatever his plans had been, he appeared to have given them up.

  It was thus with some disappointment that Ruby was told that she was being put back to work with PC Pemberton. She did not want to appear annoyed or frustrated at the news, so simply nodded and asked the obvious question.

  “Some of the lads back from the flu are they sergeant? PC Pemberton joining me on crowd control again?”

  “No,” admitted Granger. “We are still low on numbers. But we are required to provide officers to accompany a march that’s starting in Bow, then heading through the City and finishing in Westminster. The City police and our lads over in Westminster are particularly stretched at the moment, so officers from this station will accompany the march throughout. It’s only a small affair, I doubt there will be many along, organised by some women asking for help for children in war-ravaged countries. We are very short staffed ourselves so just two officers will have to suffice. You and Pemberton have worked together in the past, you have experience of Westminster from your Trafalgar Square duties, and have both done well with your recent work, so I have chosen the two of you for this duty.”

  When Granger had reached the part about children in war-ravaged countries, blood had drained from Ruby’s face. Her mind started to race.

  Christ, it’s the bloody march Nashey is involved with! I was going on it with him! Freddie and one of the conchies are carrying the cross at the front of the bloody thing! And now me, and Pemberton of all people are going to be accompanying it. This can’t be a coincidence. What the hell…?

  That’s as far as her deliberations took her before Granger cut in.

  “WPC Nash?” he asked. “Are you listening to me?”

  “Sorry sarge,” she answered, before quickly making up a little white lie. “It was just that it was supposed to be my day off. It’s my husband’s birthday see. I was supposed to be treating him to a day out. We were going over to…”

  “Sergeant. It’s sergeant. I’ve told you before WPC Nash,” came the interruption in a tone making no attempt to hide the exasperation felt. “And no, you cannot expect to pick and choose your days off when half the force are down with the flu. It’s all hands to the pump now.”

  Ruby just stood there, trying to think quickly on her feet.

  “Have I made myself clear, WPC Nash? Do you have anything more you wish to say?” asked Granger.

&nb
sp; Ruby was desperate to glean more information from her superior.

  “Er, well, yes there is something sergeant,” she said. “These children in war ravaged countries, do they include German children?”

  Granger frowned at first, before a moment of realisation had him believing that he understood what was behind the question. His expression and tone of voice changed to a knowing, patronising one.

  “Not that the subject of a march should concern a police officer, as you are expected to do your duty irrespective. But yes I daresay Hun children are included as being from a war ravaged land.”

  “It’s…” Ruby hesitated. “Just that the idea of helping Germans in any way, may be provocative for some people. Might there be trouble? Should we not have more than two police officers in attendance? Are you sure a woman police officer would be up to it? Perhaps some officers on horseback would be better?”

  Ruby hated playing the scared little woman but she needed to see how determined her sergeant was to have her on the march.

  Granger waved away her concerns, stating that everyone had too much on their plates at the moment to worry about some little march that was probably going to be no more than a handful of women holding placards. If anyone did give it a moment of thought, they would probably assume the march was just about children in France and Belgium.

  A moment of clarity hit Ruby unpleasantly in the face like a drunk’s breath.

  What a load of old codswallop! He should be concerned about it being for German children. And he’s made it quite clear in the past he doesn’t consider a mere slip of a WPC adequate at handling crowds if there’s any trouble. He should have his biggest, burliest officers on it, and get more in from other divisions if he’s that short of manpower. Granger wants to get something on me! Pemberton had turned up immediately after the spotlight incident at the football match. He’s Granger’s spy. Bastards!