Black August (47 page)

At last the lorry crawled into Fore Street, likewise crammed with people and, passing along it at a snail's pace, reached the less congested end where it was able to put on speed and take the London road.

When they were clear of the town Alistair Hay-Symple turned to Veronica. ‘The Prince makes his official entry tonight.'

‘What? Of London? How positively thrilling; shall we see anything of it?'

‘We might. I have to report to Wellington Barracks and that's only a stone's throw from Buck House as you know.'

‘My dear, how
too
marvellous. But listen, Alistair; you've just got to let Gregory Sallust go. Arrange it so that it looks like an escape if you like. I'll never speak to you again if you do hand him over to the authorities.'

‘Sorry, Veronica,' his voice was kind and sympathetic. ‘I can understand in a way that you think he's a bit of a tiger but that doesn't alter the fact that he has twice got hold of troops, who might have been needed very urgently elsewhere, under false
pretences. It was absolutely criminal and he's got to take his medicine.'

Veronica stood up in the front of the lorry which was now rattling along at a good pace. ‘All right,' she said firmly, ‘if you feel that way you're no friend of mine. I prefer to travel with the troops.'

‘Steady, steady,' he urged, catching her by the arm and pulling her down; ‘I'm only doing my duty and that's got to be done.'

‘I don't care a hoot in hell for your filthy little duty, and I'm going to travel in the back of this pantechnicon. Now, pull it up and let me get out.'

‘Veronica, darling, don't you see that I can't help myself.'

‘Help?
You
!' Veronica gave a sudden angry laugh. ‘You wouldn't raise a finger to save your own mother from drowning if your Colonel said you were to march half a dozen men to the baths!'

‘Veronica!'

‘Yes, I mean it. You're weak and narrow; hidebound by this fossilised code which orders you to kill a man whose boots you are not fit to lick!'

‘Damn it, be fair.
I
don't want to kill him; if he's in a mess it's his own rotten fault.'

‘But you admit that they'll shoot him if you hand him over?'

‘Yes, they've got ample powers under the National Emergency Act, and this is a case for shooting if ever there was one.'

‘Then I beg of you, Alistair, to let him go.'

‘I
can't
,' exclaimed the unfortunate soldier, goaded beyond endurance; ‘and it's rotten of you to ask me! I couldn't do it even if you promised to marry me—and you know it!'

Veronica gave an angry snort. ‘I wouldn't marry you in a thousand years! what's more I'm married already.'

‘Good God! do you really mean that?'

‘Yes, I do, and I haven't sunk to sitting beside the common hangman yet, so pull up at once, d'you hear?'

With a sullen nod Hay-Symple ordered the lorry driver to slow down, but when they came to a halt he climbed out himself; ‘Stay there' he flung at Veronica, ‘I'll send the other female along to keep you company.'

Thanks, but I'd rather have my husband, he's the largest man in the back!'

The driver cast a glance of mingled fear and admiration at
this wrathful lady, then smothered a grin as Hay-Symple climbed in behind and Silas took the vacant seat.

Ann was sleeping with her head pillowed on Kenyon's knee; Gregory sat, hunched between his escort, with Rudd beside him, their backs against the fore-part of the wagon. The wretched Major sank down beside Kenyon.

‘Veronica's crazy!' he snapped, as the lorry started off again.

‘Always was,' replied Kenyon lightly.

‘First of all she tells me she's picked up a husband, and then she wants me to let this blackguard escape who tried to march off with the troops.'

‘Tried?' Kenyon's voice was cold. ‘Did, you mean, and he's a damn' fine sportsman. I'd rather serve under him than any of you hidebound professional warriors any day when there's real trouble about.'

‘Oh, shut up! I know my job as well as most people.'

For a time they fell silent. The lorry rattled and clanged through the narrow lanes to the west of Colchester, Hay-Symple having decided that it would be quicker to avoid the towns. The driver was getting every ounce out of his engine, and there was little danger that they would run into other vehicles as these were still almost non-existent.

‘What was it really like in London?' Kenyon asked after a while.

‘Bloody!' replied the soldier tersely—‘absolutely bloody! but the troops put up a first-class performance.'

‘What really happened?'

‘God knows! I don't. Each of us only saw our own little bit of it, and personally, I thought the whole lot of us were for the high jump a week ago; but H.R.H. has been quite marvellous. It seems he had the whole party taped before it even started.'

‘It's wonderful the hold he has on the affections of the people.'

‘Well, he's earned it.'

‘He has, but what's going to happen now?'

‘Ask me another. All sorts of rumours are flying about; the banks are to be taken over by the state they say, and anybody who can prove their bona-fides will be able to get loans, to develop property or business, on fantastically easy terms.'

Kenyon grunted. ‘That sounds all right, but what about private overdrafts? My people have always treated me damn well but
I bet I'd never get a penny from the state without security when I'm hard up!'

That's true, anyhow, it's only a rumour, and another is that the great Industrialists have sunk their differences and are to pool the interests of their own trades in the future, rather like the old City Guilds did centuries ago I gather, each bunch to supervise and foster their interests for the common good. There is one bit of good news I'm pretty certain about though, I had it from a chap who is on the Prince's staff; He means to kill D.O.R.A. as dead as mutton, and the liberty of the individual is to be restored. Even our seaside places may be worth a visit in a year or two, and the tax is to be taken slap off beer!'

‘Yo-Ho for Merrie England!' Kenyon laughed.

For another hour they discussed rumours and possibilities while the lorry bumped and jolted its way towards London. Here and there figures stepped out into the road, begging a lift and food or, if they had heard the news of the re-established Government, giving a cheer at the sight of the soldiers. Abandoned cars, tradesmen's vans, and every sort of conveyance littered the sides of the roads as they drew nearer to the capital.

Silas, on the box beside Veronica, was holding her hand in his, almost oblivious of the journey as he told her of his favourite home in Georgia, and his orange grove spread among the lakes and lagoons on the Florida coast above Miami.

At last they entered the Southend by-pass, and a few miles further on came to Camden Town; here they met the first crowds. In type they were the same mixed multitude who would have kicked them to death a month ago, but now their whole bearing was absolutely different. Laughing and waving to the
Tommies, they made way for the lorry with ready cheerfulness.

‘Ever been to the Zoo, darling?' Veronica asked as they passed the North End of Regent's Park, ‘if not I'll take you one day.'

‘I've been,' he smiled, ‘and it's a poor show to what I'll take you to see in Central Park.'

‘That's quite enough from you, my boy. You've got to learn from now on that England has the largest and best of everything, and also that little something that others haven't got!'

‘I'll bet they haven't got the largest Zoo,' grinned Silas; ‘can you hear any little lions aroaring now, or the dog-faced apes chattering on Monkey Hill?'

‘Now you speak of it I can't,' she confessed.

‘Of course you can't, honey—they've all been eaten long ago!'

‘Silas you idiot, of course you're right, but if you call me honey again I'll eat
you
—get that?—eat you alive!'

At the top of Baker Street they met a long column of sailors.

People were lining the pavements eight and ten deep to watch them pass, and the naval men seemed to be the heroes of the hour; but as they advanced they realised how terribly the upheaval had stricken London. Smashed shop windows, now temporarily boarded over, showed on every side. On one corner of Portman Square a whole great block of flats had been burnt right out, and only the twisted girders showed clear against the sky. The streets were dark and strangely mysterious, not a single standard threw its arc of brightness in the dim half light of the summer night. Only the principal cross-roads boasted flares—relics of an orderly London when special precautions were taken against fog.

Selfridge's windows lay gutted and empty, but a small army of men were already clearing away the wreckage preparatory to refitting at the earliest possible moment. In Oxford Street a vast crowd overflowed the pavements and spread across the roadway. The traffic was still practically nil, only an occasional car carrying a Government official on urgent business or a line of vehicles loaded with sailors, police, Greyshirts or troops, crawled through the crowds who made way for them with cheerful badinage.

On the west side of Grosvenor Square Hay-Symple halted the lorry and, getting down, walked round to Veronica. ‘Want to get down?' he inquired, but she shook her head.

‘No, ducky; I want to see the fireworks so you may as well take us with you. Half a minute—Silas and I will come in the back now, then we shall all be together.' Her rancour at the guardsman's determination that Gregory should pay the penalty of his exploits had subsided. Old friend as he was, she realised now that it would have been easier for him to cut his throat than to grant her request.

Ann had woken up, and smiled with some of her old merriment as Silas lifted Veronica bodily over the side. ‘Do you remember the dinner we cooked in the kitchen?' she laughed, nodding her head towards the east side of the square as the lorry moved on again.

‘The night you slid down the drainpipe? Do I not, my dear! We'll all go back and cook another in an hour or two.'

‘If there's anything left to cook,' laughed Kenyon.

‘Oh, we'll find something—but darlings, I'd forgotten.'

‘Forgotten what?'

‘Why, it's Ann's job to say if she'll have us now!'

‘What the deuce do you mean?' Hay-Symple cast a curious glance at Ann, whom up to that moment he had hardly noticed.

‘Let me present you Alistair, to my lovely sister-in-law—Major Hay-Symple—Lady Fane.'

‘You're joking, Veronica! … I'm sorry. May I offer my congratulations and all that?'

‘Thank you.' Ann sat up suddenly on her pile of sacking, ‘but it wasn't a real wedding, was it?'

‘It was,' said Kenyon firmly, ‘you shall have another with orange blossom and all the trappings just for fun if you like, but if you try to call it off I'll fight you in the Courts!'

‘Oh, darling—' she gripped his hand impulsively and the golden eyes shone with love and laughter. ‘I surrendered long ago really, and I'll never fight you anywhere again.'

‘I won't give you a chance,' said Kenyon with a little sigh.

‘Now,' Veronica interrupted briskly, ‘does your ladyship receive this evening or am I to be cast out of the ancestral home?'

‘You stupid, of course I do; what's more I'll cook another dinner for you if you can find the food.'

‘Leave that to me,' said Silas promptly. ‘I'll find the food all right now money's worth something again in this old town.'

Veronica gave him a swift glance. ‘Of course, I'd forgotten that too, you're simply lousy with money aren't you?'

‘I can raise enough to buy half a dozen eggs,' he chuckled, ‘or the Koh-i-noor diamond. You've only to say if there's any little thing you're wanting any time.'

As they talked the lorry had been moving slowly through the crowds that filled Park Lane, but at Hyde Park Corner they found a solid jamb. It took a good half-hour and all Hay-Symple's persuasion, with the assistance of Kenyon and the good-humoured Silas, before they managed to crawl inch by inch across the open space and enter Constitution Hill.

That thoroughfare was black with people edging and pushing to get nearer to Buckingham Palace, before which a vast throng was already gathered in expectation of the Prince's arrival.

‘We'll never do it,' said Hay-Symple.

‘Get as far as you can,' urged Veronica, ‘we may be able to see something if we can only get as far as the corner.'

They made another two hundred yards in the next twenty minutes and then the pressure of the crowd compelled a final halt. The lorry was still in Constitution Hill, but almost at the bottom end, and the side of the Palace lay on their immediate right, strangely dark and silent. Only three windows showed any light, and those not the glare of electricity, but the soft, subdued glow of old-fashioned oil lamps. They could not see the Palace frontage but, by straining over the hood of the lorry, the first floor balcony jutting out in front of the State apartments was just within their line of vision.

‘We shan't see a thing after all,' moaned Veronica.

‘Yus we shall, Miss,' Rudd, who was standing up between his guards, assured her, ‘that's the balcony wot the Prince'll come out on I'll bet a tanner. That's where the King an' Queen come aht on the declaration o' the lars' Great War. I was in the crush meself that night, so I know!'

A murmur like the surging of a great sea came up to them as they gazed over the heads of the enormous multitude. Thousands upon thousands of people stood, jammed together, hemming them in. Behind them Constitution Hill was now impassable and the crowd overlapped, hundreds deep, into the Green Park.
In front, line upon line of white upturned faces stretched away, unbroken but for the memorial to Queen Victoria which stood out like an island before the Palace, fading into a greyish blur where thousands upon thousands more stood massed together.