John Bingham - A Fragment of Fear

Outside, a late autumn breeze blew gustily, the hanging, shredded wallpaper rustled. A little trickle of plaster detached by the wind dropped at my feet, as if it had fallen from the nest of some animal.

The peasant, even the humblest peasant, particularly the humblest peasant, thinks he is safe in his obscurity and comparative anonymity. Let me be, he says, let me till the soil and I will mind no other business but my own, but he never was, never is and never will be safe, I thought.

One innocent, unlucky step, even on the well-trodden paths, and he comes within the scrutiny of the eyes in the surrounding jungle, and if he is alert he can hear the faint crackle of twigs and the slither of the hidden bodies in the undergrowth. He does well to shift his spear forward, and make the sign of the Cross, or glance towards Mecca, or finger his sacred, pagan amulet.

Men must fight, and some will win and some will lose, as I had lost.

For the greater the cause, in the end, the greater the tyranny which it erects to defend itself. Before the noble and good concept of complete democracy a man might travel where he wished in the world, without much let or hindrance, whereas now he was boxed in by frontiers, passports, and visas and walls, and interdicts, and laws, and police, to preserve the liberty and freedom of the individual.

And under some monarchies it was permissible to cry, “Down with the monarchy!” and under some democracies it was forbidden to cry “Down with democracy!” and under dictatorships it was forbidden to cry “Down with dictatorships!” and it was all, all in the interests of the freedom of the individual.

So the peasant must be vigilant, taking care not to be pushed around, and if necessary the peasant must fight, as he always has done, even though his fight end in martyrdom, or is brief and un-heroic, as mine had been. It all helps.

Did I really think all this, as I read the note from the man calling himself Ricketts?

Certainly not.

It was thought out and disentangled afterwards. But at such moments there is an exploding germ, a chaotic, expanding universe of logic and emotion, which contains within itself the essentials for future dissection, and this I experienced.

This, too, I did think, in sadness and despair: the tribe is so busy protecting the tribe, that it has no time to protect the individual.

Then I felt upon my neck an increasing coolness, as the street door was opened more widely. But before I could turn round I was struck on the nape of the neck, not by an instrument, but by a hand which hurled me so violently forward that I staggered and fell at the foot of the stairs.

I looked up from the dust, still clutching the note in one hand, and in the other doorway I saw Ricketts, still wearing his Gunners tie, and the man who called himself Sergeant Matthews, with his good-natured, brown bovine eyes, and two other men, one in a knee-length leather jacket, whom I recognised.

Ricketts said:

“You haven’t been playing fair with us, have you?”

I made no reply.

It is tempting to put into my mouth, in retrospect, some telling riposte. But I said nothing, because I was too afraid. I would like to explain that feeling. It was partly a natural fear of death, but partly also because I had a vision of Juliet waiting for me, and the hours passing, and Juliet still waiting.

“We have been very patient-haven’t we?” said Ricketts, and kicked me in the ribs. “Well, haven’t we?” he asked again, and kicked me again.

I nodded. He said:

“I can slug you and gag you and tie you, and put you in a crate which is upstairs, or you can come voluntarily with us in the back of the van outside. Which do you want?”

“I’ll come,” I said.

“Well, get up then. Go on, get up.”

I got to my feet slowly. Grimy. Dazed. Beyond hope. Thinking of the red geranium.

I heard him say:

“This man’s got a pistol with a silencer.”

I nodded.

I stumbled towards the door, and the group parted, and then closed round me. Outside stood a nondescript green van. I had not heard it draw up. I climbed into the back. There was no partition between the back and the driver’s seat. I waited for the others to get in.

The van had no side windows, and there were no seats at the back. Brown-eyed Matthews and a fourth character, a squat, sallow-skinned type, waited to climb in after me. Sallow-Face motioned me to sit on the floor. Brown-Eyes slumped down opposite me. He caught my eye for a second, gave an almost apologetic half-smile, shrugged, and looked away. I saw Leather-Jacket open the driver’s door, and Ricketts by the opposite door. Ricketts was saying something to Sallow-Face, who had paused by the rear door of the van.

Through the windscreen I saw a big, dark-blue van manoeuvring to turn in the narrow mews about twenty yards away. It seemed to be having some difficulty. In fact, when it was broadside on it stayed that way, as though the engine had stalled, though in fact the engine had probably been switched off, because almost at once four men in plain clothes jumped out of the back and began to approach us at a sort of half-run, half-walk speed.

Leather-Jacket glanced at them, then flicked his head round and looked in the other direction, and then shouted something, and looking through the rear of the van I saw the exit from the opposite end of the mews blocked by two black cars, shining, meticulously clean, side by side, fronts pointed towards us. Four other plain-clothes men were approaching from that direction, at the same half-run, half-walk speed. I could see them quite clearly because Sallow-Face was no longer blocking the view at the rear of the van.

Ricketts and Leather-Jacket had slid momentarily out of sight, but I heard the thud of their feet as they pounded back to the house. It took Brown-Eyes a few seconds to gather what was happening. He was fumbling with a cigarette packet at the time. Maybe he didn’t understand the language, anyway.

This was a pity for him, one way and another.

By the time he got around to bundling himself out of the van and legging it towards the house, the first shots were being fired, and I saw one of the Special Branch officers stagger and fall.

English cops don’t normally carry arms. Perhaps in a country where, unlike America, the citizenry do not have a traditional right to bear arms, the cops think they should set an example. But now and again, if real trouble is possible, pistols will grudgingly and sparingly be issued. The present lot had one gun for each team of four, and as they didn’t much like seeing a colleague picked off, they began to shoot back.

I was lying on the floor of the van by this time to avoid ricochets. Pretty dazed and confused. But I could see the door of the house closing just as Brown-Eyes was scuttling up the steps. He collapsed in a heap on the doorstep. Maybe they didn’t know he was so near, maybe they did, and didn’t care because he was British and they weren’t, I thought. Expendable Brown-Eyes.

Now there was a lull for a minute or two, as though everybody was thinking things out. The Special Branch police had grabbed their wounded colleague, and were standing flat against the doors of neighbouring houses. People in the little mews houses were opening windows and peering out. A loud-hailer on one of the police cars started up:

“Keep away from your windows, please! Please stay indoors! Keep away from your windows and stay indoors, please!”

There was another short pause and then it started up again: “To House No. 25, Hurley Mews-come out with your hands raised. The house is surrounded. You cannot escape. Come out with your hands raised at once.”

When there was no response after a full minute, they repeated the words, this time adding: “If you do not come out, we shall fire smoke and tear-gas and come and get you. You may be shot. Escape is impossible.”