Black August gs-10

by Dennis Wheatley

'At home we are faced with the tragic figures of the unemployed, while in our Dominions and dependencies there are stored enough fertility and wealth to give abundance to all the Empire's peoples. Emigration in the past has been difficult and expensive: families going out from this country have gone alone to face hardships and, in the remote parts, possible danger.

  'In the early days of this crisis I used my personal influence to dispatch a number of Royal Air Force machines to various destinations, and in them sent trusted friends who knew my purpose to act as my ambassadors.

  'The response to my appeal by our kindred overseas has been magnificent beyond words, and a unique example of their love for the Mother Country.

  'They have agreed to open their vast territories to us, and vast tracts of fertile land, at present difficult of access, are to be brought into cultivation in many portions of the globe.

  'New towns and cities are to be built which will offer employment in every type of industry. Free passage will be given to all who are willing to emigrate and accommodation on arrival in these new State owned towns at moderate rentals deducted from subsidised wages, leaving a margin sufficient to ensure a decent standard of living.

  'Emigrants will be asked to sign on for three, five or seven years, and during that period they will be guaranteed a minimum wage according to their employment; special allowances in addition will be paid for wives, children and dependents. Full particulars of this great emigration scheme will be published and broadcast throughout the country.

  I ask then for five million volunteers; men and women who have the courage to go upon this great adventure, and lighten the burden which is upon us at home.

  'I appeal especially to the unemployed. For years now many of them have lead a tragic and humiliating existence. If they remain here their lot cannot be bettered, at least for many years to come. If they go forth in the spirit of their ancestors a useful self respecting life, in which they may once more hold up their heads, awaits them.

  'I want five million volunteers, and if they will come forward they may count themselves the saviours of the country.

  'And now I would urge upon every one of you, whatever your age or circumstance may be, the absolute necessity in this great crisis, the worst of which is now happily over, to stand firm in the cause of law and order. Not to do so is to betray your own family and friends to a renewed, and perhaps final, anarchy. It is therefore the duty of every freeborn man and woman in this country to obey fully and loyally such decrees as shall be issued for the protection of the State upon my Sovereign authority. God bless you all.'

  There was a brief pause and then the announcer's voice came again:

  'This proclamation was issued from Windsor at four o'clock this afternoon under the signature of the Prince Regent.'

  'By jove, he's done it!' exclaimed Kenyon, 'and he's the only man in the kingdom who could have pulled if off.'

  Silas nodded as he switched off the loud speaker: 'Five million volunteers, eh? d'you think he'll get them?'

  'Why not?' Veronica laughed a little hysterically; 'they got five million volunteers to offer themselves for a killing before conscription was brought in during the Great War, and this applies to women too. He'll get them easily once it becomes the patriotic thing to do!'

  'It's amazing that your Colonies should agree to this scheme, though,' Silas hazarded.

  'They'll benefit too.' Kenyon began to pace up and down: 'Look at Australia, a vast continent with a population something less than that of London. They could lose a couple of million people there! Take some absorbing perhaps, but with new towns being built and Government organisation it could be done. Redistribution of population, eh? and a new bond to knit the Empire together. By God! he's cutting at the root of the trouble!'

  'I wonder how many people heard the broadcast?' said Ann suddenly.

  An immediate soberness descended on them all and Rudd lurched over to the window; 'Not many,' he said tersely, 'can't 'ave bin.'

  'No,' Silas added, 'it was pure chance that I happened to switch it on, the damn thing's been out of action for a month, there won't be one in ten thousand listening in tonight.'

  'But they can't shoot us after this!' Veronica clutched him by the arm, 'they can't!'

  'They may. Ipswich is Communist still and will be perhaps until the morning.'

  'It's twenty five pars' six by that there clock,' announced Rudd.

  'Good God! only thirty five minutes to go.' Kenyon ran to the door and hammered on it. 'If we tell the guard what's happened he may pass on the news.'

  'He won't believe you, darling,' Ann shook her head miserably.

  The sentry opened the door and in a quick spate of words Kenyon poured out the news from London.

  'You can tell that yarn to the marines,' said the fellow morosely, and slammed it shut again.

  'What about breaking out?' cried Veronica?

  'We'd all be shot, sweet, just as surely as we would have been an hour ago,' Silas told her.

  'But we can't let them murder us now!'

  'We'll put up a fight when they come for us,' he assured her with a quick glance at the window; 'but I only wish someone would start a riot here. Other folks besides us must have heard that radio somewhere in this town.'

  'Then they'll have to make it snappy, sir,' Rudd threw over his shoulder, 'it's twenty ter seven now!'

  "This is intolerable,' exclaimed Kenyon; 'to think our side is on top again yet we're to be killed off in twenty minutes' time; it's fantastic!'

  'I know!' Ann's face brightened, 'let's ask to be taken before the Magistrate again.'

  'That's it that's it.' Kenyon began to bang loudly on the door.

  The sentry opened it a foot and thrust an angry face in; 'What the 'ell is it now?'

  'We want to be taken back to the Magistrate,' Kenyon begged.

  'Aw, shut up, can't you. He's busy and you've had your turn. Be quiet now!' The man jerked the door shut again with a bang.

  Rudd's face was glued to the window. Orderlies on horseback and bicycles continued to arrive at the Town Hall; a little group of the new Red soldiery sat on the steps, their rifles handy, but laughing and joking over a game of cards in the late afternoon sunshine.

  The gross bulky man who had made the third member of the Tribunal came hurrying out of the building; he looked furtively to right and left, then set off at a quick pace up the street. Rudd glanced at the clock again. 'It's a quarter to seven,' he said anxiously. 'We'll be for it unless someone does something pretty quick,'

  As he spoke a small body of Greyshirts came round the corner, the leader held a long white paper in his hand. At their appearance the guards on the Town Hall steps grabbed their rifles and scrambled to their feet. Rudd threw up the window and leaned out, his head pressed against the barbed wire mesh.

  'Silence!' cried the leader of the Greyshirts. 'If you shoot us it will be murder. I am about to read a proclamation by the Government in London.'

  'Thank God!' Kenyon breathed, 'it's the message on the wireless.'

  The Greyshirt held up his paper and began to read in a loud voice. The armed men on the steps shuffled uncomfortably; in some mysterious fashion news of the development had spread. A crowd of people surged out from the Town Hall, and the Square, which had been almost empty a few moments before, began to fill like magic. From every side street figures ran to block the wide open space.

  'Hell!' exclaimed Veronica.

  'What is it?' whispered Ann.

  'That filthy woman who was on the bench.'

  Then they all saw her; tall, haggard, wisps of grey hair blowing about her face, she forced her way towards the troops of the local Soviet. As they watched she issued a swift order; two men shook their heads and backed away, but the rest obediently raised their rifles., The reader of the Proclamation hesitated, faltered, stopped. For a second an unearthly silence filled the square, then the woman's voice came fierce and shrill.

  'Shoot!'

  There was a rattle of shots. A g
roan went up from the crowd; three Greyshirts dropped from sight, but their leader still stood unharmed. With a sudden shout he flourished the Proclamation and charged up the steps.

  'Down with the Reds,' bellowed Kenyon. 'Long Live the Prince!'

  A hundred faces in the crowd turned to stare at the windows whence this clarion call had come, and another voice took it up. 'Down with the Reds! Come on, chaps foller me!' It came from a burly carter in a leather apron.

  The cry was taken up on every side. A little phalanx of blue clad policemen had appeared from somewhere and, with an inspector at their head, were thrusting their way towards the Town Hall.

  The reports from the rifles of the Red soldiers echoed sharply again. The Greyshirt leader fell backwards, shot through the head, but the rest were fighting at close quarters seeking to wrest their weapons from the guards.

  A solitary rifle cracked from a window at the side of the square and the woman who had urged on the Communists clutched wildly at her chest, her mouth dropped open as though to shriek, then she pitched forward under the feet of the struggling mob.

  'It's jus' turned seven o'clock,' said Rudd.

  Next minute a body of Communist cavalry came charging out of a side turning into the crowd. Two were pulled from their saddles, a third fell from his horse, struck on the head by a brick, but the rest cleared a wide lane through the mass and, turning at the far end of the square, galloped at full tilt again into the shrinking, struggling mob of people.

  The troops on the steps poured another volley into the fleeing pedestrians, and in another minute the square was empty except for the Soviet soldiers and the wounded.

  'Blimey!' exclaimed Rudd bitterly, 'if we ain't sunk after all.'

  Kenyon nodded sadly. 'I'm afraid that was our last chance, and they may come for us any minute now.'

  'No,' cried Ann. 'Listen! What's that?'

  The sound of wild cheering came from somewhere out of sight along the street. The mob surged back into the square, and in their midst a lorry nosed its way into view.

  'Troops!' yelled Veronica shrilly. 'Hell's bells! we've won!'

  A machine gun stuttered, checked, and then burst into a violent chatter. The horses of the Red cavalry reared, plunged and fell: another lorry came into view, a third, a fourth, a fifth all packed with khaki figures. Under the death dealing zip of the machine gun bullets the Soviet infantry fled, jostling and fighting among themselves to be first through the doors of the Town Hall.

  Careless of the barbed wire at the windows the prisoners leaned out waving and shouting wild encouragement; then Rudd's voice came above the din. 'There 'e is I knew 'e'd come back fer us. Go on, sir give 'em 'ell!'

  'It is it's Gregory!' Veronica cried, almost oft her head with joy.

  As he caught Rudd's stentorian shout Gregory, still in his tattered khaki, the golden oakleaves on his scarlet banded hat now frayed and grimy, looked up from the leading lorry and waved a smiling greeting. Ten minutes later he was with them in the room, answering a hail of excited questions.

  'I couldn’t have done it if you people hadn't given me the chance to get away,' he told them, 'and finding out the real situation was a bit of luck, the rest was dead easy.'

  'Tell us, tell us!' Veronica insisted.

  'Well, when I got into that lane beside the Town Hall I knew I was certain to be hunted through the streets if I was spotted in this rig out, so I shinned up a fire ladder and scrambled over the roofs as hard as I could go, but I slipped on a loose slate and pitched, feet foremost, through a skylight that's where the luck came in!'

  'Go on,' urged Ann. 'Go on!'

  'Be patient, pansy face,' he chaffed her; 'the place happened to be the temporary hiding place of an Ipswich policeman. He wasn't in his uniform of course, but as soon as he saw me he came out of his shell and he was a remarkably intelligent chap. He joined a secret organisation, composed mainly of reliables in the old force, early in the troubles, and with half a dozen others had been keeping an eye on things here, and then passing on his reports to people higher up for transmission to Headquarters at Windsor. Naturally I had been racking my brains as I came over the roofs as to how to get you out of it, but this chap had all the dope about the Counter Revolution having taken place this morning; and he said that having secured the great industrial centres they would be mopping up the other towns tonight. I didn't dare to wait though, and when he told me he felt certain loyal troops would be in Colchester already, I borrowed his push bike and beat it. I was chivvied through the streets before I got out of the town but the rest was easy.'

  'Easy?' echoed Veronica, raising her eyes to Heaven.

  'Yes.' He smiled with his old air of superb self confidence; 'I flung my weight about a bit and, seeing all my blood stained bandages, they thought me no end of a tiger so I go away with half a company.'

  'Won't you get into awful trouble now that the Government is restored?' asked Kenyon anxiously.

  He laughed gaily; 'No, Old Soldiers never die. I'm just going over to the Town Hall to see that the job has been properly completed, then I propose to shed the purple, and as the song has it, gently Fade Away'

  They followed him downstairs and at the entrance to the hotel he turned and smiled at them. 'You'd better stay here for the moment, I won't be long.' Then he shouldered his way into the press.

  For a few moments they stood on the pavement watching the cheering jostling crowd, then Veronica seized Kenyon's arm and pointed to another lorry that was slowly entering the square.

  'Look, look! on the box!' she cried, 'there's Alistair!'

  "Why, so it is, old Hay Symple by all that's wonderful.'

  'Alistair you brute!' shrieked Veronica; 'I adore your ugly face, come here!'

  Major Hay Symple heard her shout, looked his amazement in seeing her there and, jumping down, pushed his way towards them. As he stepped on to the pavement Veronica flung her arms round his neck and Kenyon thumped him on the back; but he took it all quite calmly, surveying their ragged clothes and the unshaven faces of the men with mild amusement. His own attire was as faultless as if he had just come off the parade ground; his firm chin seemed newly shaven, and his moustache was brushed stiffly upward as of old.

  'My dear, where have you been, I'm terribly glad to see you,' he smiled affectionately at Veronica.. 'Oh, everywhere,' she waved her arms, 'all over England, and Scotland too I think!'

  'By Jove!'

  'But tell us,' she urged, 'what's been happening, we've only heard the Proclamation on the wireless.'

  'Well really, I don't know,' he stroked the fine brown moustache. 'We've just been carrying on, most of us. It's all been done from Windsor; we occupied Maidenhead for a few days, ordered there you know, then last night we were ordered back to London, and there yea are.'

  'You maddening person, surely you were in the fighting?'

  'Oh, rather, if you call it that, but of course it was of no value as experience to a soldier, beastly work and the men hated it as much as we did.'

  Hark at him!' Veronica appealed wildly to the darkening sky. 'To hear you talk anyone would think that there had never been a revolution at all!'

  'Oh, well, there was a nasty patch in the middle of last week but the sailors did most of the er laying on of hands, if you know what I mean!'

  'The sailors? but I thought they'd all mutinied?'

  'There was a little trouble with them in the earlier part, but when things began to look really sticky they turned themselves into special police.'

  'Well done the Navy!' laughed Kenyon.

  'Yes, good show, wasn't it? But tell me about yourselves quickly because I've got a job to do.'

  'Darling,' gasped Veronica, 'it's been too thrilling, first we were nearly all murdered in the East End somewhere, but we were rescued and taken on board a destroyer ' She paused suddenly as Gregory appeared from behind Silas's broad back.

  'Hullo!' exclaimed Hay Symple sharply.

  'Hullo!' replied Gregory with a queer twisted grin.


  'By God! you're the bogus Brigadier,' cried the Major, thrusting his way past Veronica. 'The crook I've been sent from Colchester to get; you're going to be court martialed my fine fellow and shot!'

  26

  September Moon

  'Don't be a fool,' Veronica burst out; 'Gregory's been marvellous, we should all have been dead a dozen times if it hadn't been for him.'

  'I'm sorry,' Hay Symple shook his well groomed head. 'You don't understand the enormity of the thing. It would have been bad enough if he had only dressed himself up in a uniform he had no right to wear, but to divert half a company of troops at a time like this is treason of the blackest kind, and, of course, the moment you mentioned a destroyer I tumbled to it that he's the chap who got away with a. platoon and the Shark a month ago. I was ordered to follow him up from Colchester and arrest him, and I shall.'

  'You can't!' stormed Veronica, 'you can't.'

  'My dear I'm sorry, terribly so if he's been decent to you, but you must realise that plain murder is nothing to what he has done.'

  'But you don't really mean to shoot him, do you?' Kenyon asked in a shocked voice.

  'Not personally.' Hay Symple beckoned to some of his men. 'But my orders are to take him back to London for court martial, and there's no doubt about the verdict or the penalty. He will undoubtedly be shot.'

  As Hay Symple's soldiers surrounded him Gregory began to laugh, quietly at first, then louder, until he rocked where he stood, shaken by gargantuan bursts of laughter.

  'I see nothing humorous about it,' said the guardsman acidly.

  'Don't you? I do.' Gregory sighed as he wiped the tears of mirth from his eyes. 'First I'm to be shot by mutineers because they thought I was an officer; then by Communists because they thought I was a King; and now despite the fact that I've regained this town for the Government, by you, because I've got myself up in your stupid fancy dress. If that's not funny…"

  Hay Symple's face turned a darker shade of red. 'You will refrain please from insulting His Majesty's uniform.'

  'Go to hell, you brainless idiot,' cried Gregory with a sudden burst of fury.

  Veronica flung herself between them. 'Don't take any notice of him, Alistair,' she pleaded, 'he's overwrought; we've all been through the most appalling time.'