Some Danger Involved (23 page)

“No, sir, I am not.”

“So, you don’t belong to any organization whose purpose is to harm or remove the Jews from London.”

“No, sir.”

“Have you ever heard of a group called the Anti-Semite League?”

“No, sir. Can’t recollect any group like that.”

“What do you do for a living, McElroy?”

“I’m a carpenter as was, sir, afore the Jews moved in and took over all the work.”

“And might I assume that you now spend your days with some of your fellows, bending an arm and talking about general conditions in what one might call a social club?”

“Social club! That’s a good’un, sir. Aye, we philosophize most afternoons, down at the Crook and Harp.”

“Oh, the good old Crooked Harp. I know it well. Excellent. Now, Albert, I’m not going to ask you to name any of your mates. I’m not after the little fish, only the big one. Did someone come in and get you fellows all stirred up, someone blaming all your present troubles on the Jews? Not one of the regulars, mind, but someone new? Someone extra?”

“Aye, sir, he did. Said there was no end to ’em and that they’d run us out of England. Said he knew how hard we worked to start a new life after bein’ forced out of Ireland. Said they needed to be taught a lesson. A good hard lesson, if you get my meanin’, sir.”

“You’re being wonderfully cooperative, Mr. McElroy. My, but this is thirsty work. I believe we still have some good homemade porter in the lumber room. Mr. Llewelyn, would you be so good as to get our new friend a drink?”

In a moment or so, I had the Irishman seated at the table with a glass in his hands. McElroy was obviously relieved, but he kept flicking his eyes Barker’s way, in case his mercurial temper suddenly rose again.

“Thank ye, sir,” he said.

“Not at all. Pray continue. What did your fellows say when he made this proposal?”

“Oh, they was all for it. They’ve been spoilin’ to smash a few heads for months, only didn’t know how to go about it. The bloke said he had a cart outside, ready to take any fellow man enough to teach them Jew-boys a lesson, and to get the fellow responsible for takin’ our positions.”

“And that was…?”

“You, sir.”

“As I thought,” Barker said, and made that
harumph
in his throat that was meant for a chuckle. “It might interest you to know neither of us are Jewish.”

“He didn’t mention that, sir, nor did he say that you kick like a Skibbereen mule.”

“What did he look like, Albert, this fellow that talked you into coming here with your mates?”

“Middlin’ sort o’ fellow, sir. Midthirties. Clean shaven. Claret mark on his chin. Dressed well, not flashy. But he weren’t no toff, spoke like one of us.”

Barker turned to me. “John Smith.”

“So it would appear, sir.”

“Did this fellow intimate that there might be more ‘action’ than just tonight’s little bit of fun, that there might be an attempt to teach all the Jews a lesson?” he asked the Irishman.

“Aye, he did, sir. I can’t remember all he said, on account of my havin’ had a pint or three. But I got the impression he was goin’ from pub to pub lookin’ for any blokes with a grievance against the Jews. Tomorrow mornin’ it’s to be, sir, in Petticoat Lane.”

“Thank you, Mr. McElroy. You’ve been a fount of information. I regret the incident with the chair.”

“No hard feelin’s, sir. Sorry I kicked your little dog. Me blood was up. Hope the little chap’s all right.”

“Llewelyn, see if you can get a cab at this late hour for Albert.”

Racket was at his post across the street when I looked outside. He rattled over and tapped his top hat with his crop. McElroy looked all in from the action, and I helped him into his seat. The cabman took me aside.

“Bit of a to-do here tonight?” Racket asked, stroking his thick beard. “If you need any help, I’m your man.”

“It was nothing we couldn’t handle,” I answered smugly. “A group of men were stupid enough to attack Barker in his own garden.”

“Sorry I missed all the fun. Old Push is a real corker, ain’t he?”

I thought of Barker working his way through a bunch of armed ruffians, as easily as if he’d been in his exercise class. “That he is.”

Racket flicked the reins and Juno tossed her head and began to move. The last I saw of Albert McElroy that night was his waving hand as the cab rattled down the street.

I went back inside. Barker was just coming into the hall.

“Get some sleep, lad, but stay in your clothes. I might need you. We’ll have a very early start in the morning.”

T
OO SOON, BARKER’S HAND WAS ON MY
shoulder, shaking me awake.

“Get up and ready,” he said. “Take your revolver this time. I want us in the Lane within the hour.”

I rose quickly, and loaded my Webley. Then I met Barker in the hall. Mac brought out coffee and croissants with gooseberry jam. There was no telling when we would eat again.

“You think McElroy was telling the truth, that there shall be further trouble this morning?” I asked.

“Last night was just a preliminary skirmish. There will be a larger conflict today, you can count upon it. One doesn’t collect an army of troops and just let them sit on their hands, not if one is a competent general.”

“Do you think the ‘general’ was among the men last night? I didn’t see anyone I knew.”

“Nor I, but I believe he would be recognizable to us, should he show his face. Therefore, he shall hide it. This is one leader who shall not be at the head of his army.”

“You know who he is?”

“I have an idea.”

“Have you alerted the Jews?”

“I sent a message to Sir Moses an hour ago. All ready, then? Let us be off.”

It was dark when I stepped outside, and too early for Juno and Racket to be about. I wondered just how early it was.

“What o’clock do you have?” I asked.

“Shortly after five. It is imperative that we reach Petticoat Lane before it opens. We should find a cab in the Elephant and Castle. Speaking of time, remind me to purchase a pocket watch for you. We can’t have you constantly asking the time from everyone. It makes the agency look incompetent.”

Middlesex Street was nearly deserted when we arrived, but a few vendors were wheeling in handcarts, overflowing with old clothes. It must have been even more empty the night the Anti-Semite League had arrived, with its sad cargo. Would there really be an attempt at a pogrom here today? At the moment, it seemed unlikely. I’d have called it a rumor, a fantasy, were it not for the events of the night before.

The sun began to rise lazily. Street hawkers filed in and started setting up their booths. Jewesses hung used but freshly washed and ironed clothing on lines and makeshift racks. Food vendors roasted potatoes and boiled milk for cocoa. An enterprising fellow set out a samovar of tea and began a brisk trade immediately, Barker and myself being early in the queue. I began to have doubts about my employer’s plan. Business seemed very much as usual in the Lane. Perhaps the affair had spent itself the night before.

They came west from Whitechapel when they finally arrived, from the warren of doss-houses, public houses, and gin shops. They were close to a hundred strong, the offscourings of the district: rampsmen, bruisers and brawlers, sodden with Saturday night liquor and brimming with hate and violence in their yellow, piggish eyes. Like the group in our garden, they were armed with anything that came to hand, from a board pried from a fence in passing, to a spanner for tapping railway wheels. It was an ugly mob, a twin in every way to the ones that had murdered men, raped women, and terrorized children in Eastern Europe, except for one difference: these fellows were English, a race which prided itself around the world for its decency and common sense.

A wail broke from the lips of the vendors when they realized what was about to happen. I even heard a Russian Jew near me mutter the word “Cossack.” The inchoate mob collected at the foot of Aldgate High Street, then surged forward with bloodlust in their eyes. They tore apart the first stall they reached. From where I stood, it seemed to explode. Wood and clothes flew up into the air. There was a rending of cloth and the sound of axes. The vendor himself went down, streaming blood, after being knocked on the head with a sailor’s belaying pin. His fat wife ran up the Lane screaming in Yiddish. The next three stalls followed in succession. Skulls were being thumped like melons, and Jew and Gentile alike were wrestling in the dirty and rubbish-strewn street.

“I thought you called Sir Moses,” I shouted. “Where are the police?”

“No police, lad. The Jews are handling this themselves,” Barker replied in my ear. “Keep your wits about you. Remember what I’ve taught you. Don’t use your pistol unless your life is in dire distress.”

A fellow leaped by me from behind, knocking against my shoulder. He was a young Jewish fellow with what appeared to be a length of wood in his hand. He ran up to the first rank of leaguers and gave one fellow a good clout on the noggin. Eager hands clutched him, and suddenly he was lifted overhead, amidst a sea of rough hands and angry faces; he was punched and pummeled for his bravery. But he was not the lone brave Jew. More came running, no longer willing to wait passively to be expelled from another country, ready to fight for themselves and their people and a permanent home here. Men were running from all directions, shouting, and suddenly the tide of antagonists crashed over my head, and I was engulfed in the very thick of it.

Soft spots. That was the key for someone as unskilled as myself, Barker said. Only an idiot would try to attack a larger fellow by hitting him in the stomach or the head. But what of the throat? I ducked as a six-footer swung a cricket bat at my head, then gave him a good, solid punch to the neck, right above the collar. The man went down satisfactorily, clutching his throat for air. A second seized my lapels roughly and pulled me off my feet. I clapped my hands hard against his ears, as I’d been taught. The sudden pressure would burst the eardrum and cause a loss of balance. He reeled away and looked disinclined to fight anymore. A third swung back a fence post, intent on cracking my skull, but I ignored the Queensberry Rules and kicked him on the side of the knee. He went down among his brothers, clutching his injured limb.

Just then I got a good wallop on the back of the head. I was down for a moment or two myself, but I shook it off and climbed back into the fray, fists raised. As I stood up again, I saw none other than Brother Andrew McClain standing close by with a fellow in each hand, shaking them as a ratter does two rats before knocking their heads together.

“Hallo, there, Tommy, my boy!” he roared with evident pleasure. “Grand day for a scrap, isn’t it?” He laid hands on another fellow, but I knew that there would be no healing involved. When last I saw him, he was singing a hymn as he knocked combatants about.

I’d lost sight of Barker. I stepped up on the lip of a gas lamp and looked across a sea of men beating the tar out of each other for no good reason. It was like a war, only with poor ammunition. Bottles flew, boards cracked, and elbows separated people from their teeth, but there were no fatalities. I couldn’t tell if one side was prevailing over the other, and I couldn’t find my employer anywhere.

Just then, a strong-looking chap seized my leg and pulled me off the gas lamp, intent on mischief. As I fell into him, I reached for his nose, and slid a thumb into his eye socket. Barker says that the eye is the most sensitive organ of all. This fellow obviously agreed, or would have if he weren’t busy holding his face and cursing. My luck went dry then. I met my match with the next man. He was more cautious, and he had a good right cross. We took turns beating on each other and posturing, waving our fists in the air, when there was a sudden, awful din.

At first, I thought it was elephants, an entire herd of them coming our way. That would certainly put to rout the members of the league, along with everyone else. Elephants are undiscriminating as a species. My opponent and I broke off in mid-blow and craned our necks to see what the next thing to come along would be. It felt like the end of the world. As I watched, something large and gray began to loom over the crowd, but it was not an elephant. The creature looked human. My mind turned to the legend of the golem that Israel had told me about. Had he somehow come to life? He had, but not in the way I expected. He was painted on a banner with a menacing attitude, a very tall banner, held aloft on a long pole. The crowd began to part at the far end of Middlesex, and a phalanx of Jewish men came marching along, four across and ten deep, clad in their voluminous black coats and fedoras. The men in front were holding shofars to their lips, the curling ram’s-horn instruments of Old Israel. The sound was unearthly. It jangled on the nerves like a clarion cry, calling everyone to attention. The crowd, Jew and Gentile alike, stopped in their tracks, jaws hanging open in astonishment at these resolute young men in their side curls and beards, as if to say, “What’s next?” One Whitechapel wag tried to make some snickering remark, but it died in the sudden hush. I recognized some of the men in the ranks from that strange assembly a few days before. One was the impassioned zealot Asher Cowen, who spoke so eloquently to us all. This was the Golem Squad.

The young orator spoke loudly in his own tongue, and every man came to an abrupt halt. He spoke again, and they all answered in unison, like a crack regiment. He spoke in English next, perhaps for the benefit of the crowd.

“A sword for the Lord!” he cried, and they answered in kind. Then each man reached into his coat and pulled out an actual sword, twenty-four inches of newly minted steel, glinting magnificently in the morning sun. On the blade, in swirling Hebrew characters, were the symbols I had seen on the banner at the meeting, the script that formed the word “golem.” So, this was their defense against the pogrom. These men were prepared to defend their home here to the death. The shofars blasted again, and I felt a holy chill go down my spine. The blasts rattled the casements of the windows. Could these old city buildings withstand what had brought Jericho to its knees?

With a savage cry, the new army charged into the fray, their swords waving in the air. As they ran by, and just before my opponent resumed our fight with a clout to the jaw that rang bells in my ears, I saw a face I recognized. It was distorted by war cries and resolution, but I recognized it nonetheless. It was my new friend, Israel Zangwill, in his coat and hat, a sword in his hand, leaping into the melee. And you will think me fanciful, but I’d swear I caught a glimpse of Jacob Maccabee behind him.

Well, that was it. I wasn’t going to be outdone by a spindle-shanked teacher and a fastidious butler. I bent down, retrieved the fallen cricket bat from the street, and caught my adversary one that would have gone over the wall at Lords. He raised a hand, either to admit the touch or to raise some objection, then he retired from the field or, rather, fell onto it.

A hand plucked at my shoulder, and I brandished the bat, but it was only Racket, in his long coat and cabman’s topper.

“Don’t crown me, Mr. L!” he said, raising his hands. “I’m on your side. Old Push is in hot pursuit after the ringleader. He wants me to take you to where he’s got him pinned down.”

Racket and I dodged our way through the crowd. Swords flashed in the sun, and there were cries and curses in the air in several languages. As one sword came down on a big fellow’s shoulder, I noticed something: the swords were not sharpened. They were mostly being used to frighten and confuse the attackers. My mind went back to the old Bible story of Gideon and how he had used torches, clay pots, swords, and shofars to put to flight an army much larger than his own. As I watched men in twos and threes fleeing back to Whitechapel to bind their bleeding heads and fix their broken bones, I saw the old trick was winning again. This pogrom, unlike the others in Europe, would not succeed. You should never fight a creature when its back is to the wall.

Racket and I were soon around the corner and clambering aboard the hansom. What a day! My head was bleeding, my ears were ringing, most of my knuckles were barked, and I had never felt better in my entire life.

Racket cracked his lash over Juno’s head, and her ironclad hooves dug into the grime-covered road. We rattled at a fast clip down Aldgate High Street. Barker had done fast work, slipping off like that and going after the real leader. I was a little put out with him for not including me in his plans, but I’d had a great time at the little to-do the league had set up for us. Now all we had to do was catch the slippery beast that had instigated this whole show, and we could go collect our fee. I didn’t know who it was, but I hoped at least Barker did.

Abruptly, a loop of rope fell around my neck. I jumped and looked up. The trap was open, but Racket’s familiar whiskers were nowhere to be found. I seized the rope and tried to pull, more annoyed than alarmed, but it was suddenly drawn tight. Very tight. The hemp bit into the flesh of my throat.

Slowly, I was hauled up out of my seat, as someone heaved upon the rope. My shoulders came in contact with the edges of the trap, but my head was pulled through. For a second or two, I found myself looking out over the top of the cab. I wanted to turn around and see my attacker, but I couldn’t breathe, and my fingers couldn’t loosen the rope enough for me to catch my breath. I wanted to cough, to gasp, to drag oxygen into my tortured lungs, but I couldn’t. Spots began to appear in front of my eyes, as if someone were spattering India ink on me. The last thing I remembered before I passed out was the voice of Pokrzywa’s funny little mystical rebbe, Reb Shlomo, saying, “Look out for trapdoors!”