‘They’d done the library by lunchtime. It was on the one o’clock. The police have cordoned off the Consulate. Three deep. There’s not a hope in hell of them getting anywhere near.’
‘It’s got worse since then,’ the porter called after him. ‘They’re burning books in the market place; you wait!’
‘I will. That’s just what I bloody well will do.’ His voice was awfully quiet but it carried a long way; a Yorkshire voice, and common as a mongrel.
‘He’s booked your passage to Germany. You ask Travel Section! Overland route and Second Class! Mr Shawn goes First!’ Shoving open the door of his room he found Shawn lounging at the desk, his Brigade of Guards jacket draped over the back of Turner’s chair. The eight buttons glinted in the stray sunbeams which, bolder than the rest, had penetrated the coloured glass. He was talking on the telephone. ‘They’re to put everything in one room,’ he said in that soothing tone of voice which reduces the calmest of men to hysteria. He had said it several times before, apparently, but was repeating it for the benefit of simpler minds. ‘With the incendiaries and the shredder. That’s point one. Point two, all locally employed staff are to go home and lie low; we can’t pay compensation to German citizens who get hurt on our behalf. Tell them that first, then call me back. Christ Almighty!’ he screamed to Turner as he rang off, ‘have you ever tried to deal with that man?’
‘What man?’
‘That bald-headed clown in E and 0. The one in charge of nuts and bolts.’
‘His name is Crosse.’ He flung his bag into the corner. ‘And he’s not a clown.’
‘He’s mental,’ Shawn muttered, losing courage, ‘I swear he is.’
‘Then keep quiet about it or they’ll post him to Security.’
‘Lumley’s looking for you.’
‘I’m not going,’ Turner said. ‘I’m bloody well not wasting my time. Hanover’s a D post. They’ve no codes, no cyphers, nothing. What am I supposed to do out there? Rescue the bloody Crown Jewels?’
‘Then why did you bring your bag?’
He picked up a sheaf of telegrams from the desk.
‘They’ve known about that rally for months. Everyone has, from Western Department down to us. Chancery reported it in March. For once, we saw the telegram. Why didn’t they evacuate staff? Why didn’t they send the kids home? No money, I suppose. No third-class seats available. Well, sod them!’
‘Lumley said immediately.’
‘Sod Lumley too,’ said Turner, and sat down. ‘I’m not seeing him till I’ve read the papers.’
‘It’s policy not to send them home,’ Shawn continued, taking up Turner’s point. Shawn thought of himself as attached rather than posted to Security Department; as resting, as it were, between appointments, and he missed no opportunity to demonstrate his familiarity with the larger political world. ‘Business as usual, that’s the cry. We can’t allow ourselves to be stampeded by mob rule. After all, the Movement is a minority. The British lion,’ he added, making an unconfident joke, ‘can’t allow itself to be upset by the pinpricks of a few hooligans.’
‘Oh it can not; my God it can’t.’
Turner put aside one telegram and began another. He read fast and without effort, with the confidence of an academic, arranging the papers into separate piles according to some undisclosed criterion.
‘So what’s going on? What have they got to lose apart from their honour?’ he demanded, still reading. ‘Why the hell call us in? Compensation’s Western Department’s baby, right? Evacuation’s E and O’s baby, right? If they’re worried about the lease, they can go and cry at the Ministry of Works. So why the hell can’t they leave us in peace?’
‘Because it’s Germany,’ Shawn suggested weakly.
‘Oh roll on.’
‘Sorry if it spoilt something,’ Shawn said with an unpleasant sneer, for he suspected Turner of a more colourful sex life than his own.
The first relevant telegram was from Bradfield. It was marked Flash; it had been despatched at eleven forty and submitted to the Resident Clerk at two twenty-eight. Skardon, Consul General in Hanover, had summoned all British staff and families to the Residence, and was making urgent representations to the police. The second telegram consisted of a Reuter newsflash timed at eleven fifty-three: demonstrators had broken into the British Library; police were unequal to the situation; the fate of Fräulein Eick [sic] the librarian was unknown.