The Trial and Execution of George VI

By Iain Fraser Grigor

This novel is the first in a projected five-part series called The Second British Protectorate – a series of high-concept, story-driven commercial fictions from the viewpoint of alternate history, supposing a sovietised post-war Britain formally modelled on Cromwell's 17th century Protectorate. The themes are both historical and modern. For instance – what shape would a popular rising against such a state have taken? Who would have collaborated with the regime – who might have resisted – and who might have loafed on the leathered benches of least resistance? What would the state's religious policy have been? Might that policy have forced the merger of the churches of Scotland and England? Might the religious and messianic mania of the 17th century have returned? Might it have been believed that Jesus had come (back) to England? Might George VI have gone to the scaffold as Charles I had – dead by winter axe in London's Whitehall? What role would the great lawyers of the land and their sacred notions of constitutionality and amour-propre (not to mention the school-fees) have had in all of this? What about civil liberties, and clear and present dangers to the state? What about the asymmetric distribution of lethal capacities for oppression and resistance? What about the nature of religious identity as the ideology of that resistance? What role might cocaine have played in a ruined command-economy with a worthless currency? Might the Americans have smuggled it into Britain in huge quantities as a way of funding democratic terrorism? The Trial and Execution of George VI - as a popular rising is savagely crushed and the Messiah comes (back?) to Britain, a shipment of best American cocaine is swapped in the ruins of Perth for the lives of the King, his Queen and their kids. But what happened next – to the coke?

• Language: English
• Publisher: AUK Authors
• Release date: Jun 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781849890465

Book preview

1656

Lemons for Shrove Tuesday

Daniel vagrants swarmed to the Embankment as the last weeks of autumn rolled into an early winter. Already some outlaw cripples were begging at the junction of Parliament Street and the Stalingrad Bridge. They dived barefoot into the thin traffic, demanding alms and brandishing stump and crutch with insolent ease. One wild-eyed girl had lost her ears: to heresy, perhaps, in the early days of the Protectorate, before the state had put an end to orthodox excess. Branded and amputee lookouts watched from the ruins of the Abbey and the corner of Westminster Hall; for religious-police squads still prowled the city-centre during the hours of daylight.

Charlie Marr and his assistant watched the Daniels from behind the windows of their black Riley. For some moments, the wild-eyed girl hammered on the windscreen and screamed silently at them. Then the Riley eased forward as the traffic began to move, and Charlie returned to his newspapers. The Mail had splashed with an exclusive on terrorist networks financed by smuggled American cocaine. The drug, described as deadly, was thought to be coming in through Scotland. But a crackdown - merciless, of course - could be expected at any moment.

Charlie said, Who let them print this? This is supposed to be top-secret.

The Telegraph’s first leader took as its subject a religious policy in full consonance with modern conditions. As a consequence of this policy, the campaign to outlaw the ringing of church-bells was gathering pace. But the matter of an archbishop for the Established church north of the Border, in the company of the Thirty Nine Articles, the English Prayer Book and a consistory court of Star Chamber, had been temporarily shelved, pending further discussion with those of Scotland’s Presbyterian leaders who were prepared to discuss the matter in a responsible fashion. The Telegraph recalled that when the consolidation of the churches of England and Scotland had first been essayed a matter of months earlier, the Scots had rioted and tried to destroy a cathedral in Edinburgh. But the consolidation would be attempted again at an early date: and it was widely expected that by that date the Scots would have come to their senses. And rumour-mongering about a Messiah, except by registered organisations and within responsible limits, would henceforth be punishable by five years at hard labour, or ten for a second offence.

The Express gave most of its front page to the voluntary surrender of the fugitives associated with the Pollitt Plot, so lately hunted by the forces of the law. It was likely that Pollitt would not be charged until early in the new year, when the full nature of his crimes, and the full extent of his accomplice-network, would be better known. The distinguished barrister and liberal jurist Pritt had offered to represent his interests on a pro bono basis, in the event of such criminal proceedings. An editorial signed in the name of Lord Beaverbrook called on the plotters to accept Pritt’s kind offer, and also called on any others who might be associated with the plot to give themselves up at once.

Fiona said, They have discovered how to make anti-tank guns.

Who?

The partisans.

You mean terrorists.

They attacked Paramilitary stations last night in Lambeth and Southwark. They come up from the sewers.

Charlie asked, How do you know?

One of the radio-operators told me in the canteen, Fiona said, in cool tones.

At the command bunker, their driver parked the Riley in an enclosure railed with coils of barbed-wire. Two Militia armoured cars, heroically strapped with shovels and crowbars and spare all-terrain wheels, were on duty. A unit of penal-duty Paramilitaries, already in winter-camouflage uniforms, guarded all the above-ground entrances.

Fiona said, How long do we have to stay for?

An hour, maybe two.

They went down into the depths of the building. The bunker had four increasingly bomb-proof underground levels. The lights seemed startlingly yellow after the damp grey of the city’s skies. The girl’s heels went click-click-click on the steel stairs and timber flooring, the pitch decreasing as they went deeper into the bunker. Each electric bulb was protected by a steel grille, bolted into the bare brickwork.

In the auditorium the meeting was almost ready to start. The Home Secretary arrived, in the company of an elderly man with a pronounced limp and a military bearing. The Home Secretary was wearing an extremely expensive suit with an extremely white shirt below it. He seemed to be sweating very heavily indeed. Perhaps it was the heat. Then the Home Secretary was in discussion with Johnson, head of drugs intelligence for the Home Counties. Johnson was dressed for the golf course, as if he had managed a round or two in the morning. An elderly lady with a trolley offered tea and coffee to such as might require it. There were also generous bowls of startlingly white sugar, and plate-silver jugs of fresh cream straight in from the starving countryside. Johnson introduced the Home Secretary to Charlie as the senior liaison man between the national drug-detection service and the national security agencies.

Jolly nice to meet you, the Home Secretary said with warmth and sincerity. You’re based in Victoria, aren’t you?

The Home Secretary leered at Fiona, and moved on to some other senior chaps. He was still sweating very heavily indeed. Then he sat down. Everybody else took a seat too, and the meeting began.

It was chaired by one of the Assistant Chiefs. He took off his uniform jacket and carefully patted its pockets for fear, perhaps, that they had been picked. He removed his cap with great care, smoothed his silver scalp and replaced the cap. Then he removed it again, and laid it on the table, cap-badge facing outwards. Perhaps it was no more than a nervous gesture; or a Masonic one. The end of his nose was very red; either from the heat of the auditorium, or a lifetime’s drinking. Or perhaps it was no more than evidence of a hereditary disorder. He wore half-moon spectacles, and sipped cautiously from a small glass of water. Without his cap and jacket, he might have been a sorrowing country solicitor forging a family will. And ensuring that all skeletons stayed firmly in the cupboards to which they had been allocated.

Right, he said, this won’t take long. Everyone knows that the Americans are smuggling cocaine into the country and funding terrorist networks with it. It’s even in the Mail this morning. But now we have the proof. This is top-secret, by the way. That’s why we have brought you here today. Top-secret. And it has to stay that way. Two nights ago in Edinburgh, we seized half a ton of cocaine, in a district called Gorgie. We got a radio transceiver too.

The Home Secretary adopted an expression of extreme horror. The horror, mingled with tones of moral outrage, could be heard in his well-educated voice.

"Did we get any of their people?, he wondered.

Two, the Assistant Chief said. But they are dead now. They were shot in the raid, sadly.

But there must have been more terrorists involved than that?

The two we shot were drivers, the Assistant Chief said. They bought shellfish at ports all round the Scottish coast and sold it into the good hotels in Edinburgh. We think they were from some island called Luing. Near somewhere called Easdale. I think that’s another island. Anyway, it’s on the west coast somewhere. Of course there were others involved. And much more important ones. There must be a courier somewhere, who links the Americans with the traffickers. But we missed him. Or maybe her, come to think of it. Not next time, though. Next time, we will be waiting for them.

The Assistant Chief looked round the meeting, inviting any further questions.

How do we know it was the Americans?, Charlie suddenly asked.

Evidence, the Assistant Chief said. The cocaine was packaged as granulated cane-sugar for American military forces, and it was packed in American army ammunition cases. Twenty half-hundredweight boxes, each containing fifty-six one-pound packets. Our scientists checked every one of them, and every one of them contained best medical-quality powdered cocaine.

The Home Secretary looked urgently at a wrist-watch. Then he said, in a very senior and leadership-potential sort of tone, These people deserve no mercy from the law. And I will make sure that they do not get it. So what happens next?

We go looking for them. They will have to replace their drivers, maybe bring someone in to handle the transport. They might try to replace their radio. Or next time they might have to depend on a live courier, if there is a next time. Anyway, when we find them, we destroy them, the Assistant Chief said, without mercy.

Then the Home Secretary had to leave, and that signalled the end of the meeting. Some people gathered at the foot of a ventilation shaft and smoked Capstans from fifty tins. Others found their way to the bunker’s central canteen, and queued for service at a tin-tray counter. A blackboard offered pigeon pie and country potatoes. There were quote marks round the country, but it hardly mattered.

Half-a-ton, Charlie said. And two drivers shot dead. Pity. What is it called anyway?

The island?, the girl said.

The district, Charlie said.

Gorgie, the girl said. It’s not one of the best parts.

And where is the island?

I’ll let you know.

The canteen was already busy with the intelligence, customs and police officers who had been at the meeting. The policemen kept strictly to themselves. A number of them had brought their own sugar, in careful packages. They shared this sugar amongst each other as if it were contraband; or cocaine. In a corner, two uniformed officers were addressing imaginary golf-balls and sinking ambitious putts. Suddenly one of the stood up. He stared at Fiona as if making a mental note to arrest her at an early opportunity. Then he turned away and went back to his golf.

Where are they supposed to be from?

Edinburgh, from the sound of them. It’s their patch, after all.

Charlie and Fiona got coffee, and found in a corner a table of their own. A typewritten card warned diners that in the event of a siren sounding, all ground-floor entrances to the bunker would be locked by security personnel. Diners were to remain in the canteen, until they could be escorted to the emergency escape tunnel, which would take them to the nearest Tube station.

Charlie said, This coffee isn’t fit for pigs.

People say there will be good coffee in the spring. And lemons in time for Shrove Tuesday.

That’s rumour-mongering, Charlie said. You could get put away for that.

It’s not a rumour, it’s a fact. Officially announced. There will be shiploads of lemons in time for Shrove Tuesday.

Well, we don’t have to stay here till they come.

But there are some serious rumours around, the girl said with a laugh, as they returned to ground level and the Riley.

Their driver was smoking a Capstan: he had a round fifty tin on the dash, and an Express open at the sports pages. In tones of very considerable awe, he said that he had just heard church bells ring, somewhere to the north.

I had better report it, sir.

Forget it, Charlie said, someone else will.

They headed back for the office. In the city-centre, a platoon of clergy in full vestments and leathern thigh-boots was clearing sewers damaged in partisan attacks. An elderly man with a style of great distinction stood erect for a moment and watched the Riley, and then bent again to his long-handled shovel.

Fiona said, with absolute certainty, That’s a bishop.

They’re volunteers, Charlie said sourly. Clergy are exempt from labour service.

Not in their own diocese, Fiona said, with prim certitude.

At the Banqueting Hall in Whitehall police were stopping the traffic, and it had begun to rain heavily.

Charlie said, Isn’t this where they hanged Charles I?

Perhaps it is a terrorist bomb scare, the girl said. And he wasn’t hanged, they used an axe.

For a time policemen in slicked capes dashed among the stationary cars and trucks. A Militia observation balloon was floating over the Houses of Parliament. For a moment it disappeared in the heavy rain cloud, and then re-appeared again.

Suddenly, Fiona said, There is going to be a lot of snow this winter.

What’s that supposed to mean?

It’s one of the rumours going round the city.

Charlie said, I should hear everything but I hear nothing.

Fiona said, I told you. Spend time in the canteen. You’ll hear everything there.

So snow this winter. That’s no better than speculation.

Right, but this one’s definite. The Daniels are waiting for a comet. That’s the big one just now.

Any comet yet?

No. But when it comes something is going to happen. Something is coming. Or someone.

How about an American invasion?

The Daniels say the Messiah is going to return.

The traffic was still halted in Whitehall. Sirens screamed through the square behind them. The observation balloon above Westminster had disappeared again. A file of uniformed police sprinted through the stilled traffic, led by a man blowing furiously on a silver whistle.

What are the Americans doing with the cocaine?, Charlie said at length.

Fiona said, For the king, maybe. Maybe they want to swap the cocaine for the king.

Forget it, Charlie said. The king’s dead, murdered in a basement somewhere in the early days.

That’s only speculation, the girl said.

Forget it, Charlie said. He’s dead, his family is dead. All of them.

Just a thought, Fiona said, as the traffic began to move again, very slowly.

Who was the limp, by the way?

One of the Edinburgh MPs, Fiona said, a special adviser to the Home Secretary on drugs.

And when is the Messiah supposed to be coming back?

Shrove Tuesday, the girl said. Along with the lemons.

Roll on Shrove Tuesday, Charlie said; and the little black Riley powered down into the remainder of Whitehall, turned left for the Stalingrad Bridge, and at once was lost to sight.

One.

1.

A bank of heavy fog crouched over London all day. By the late afternoon it was still very thick in Westminster, around the parliament buildings and the ruins of the Abbey. Colonel Jack, an honourable member for one of the constituencies in a better part of Edinburgh, and now on his way north, was acutely aware that Daniel outlaws roamed the streets in heavy fog. But there were no taxis to be seen, or heard. Then a Daniel girl from the burned shell of St. Margaret’s took pity on him. She plunged into the darkness, and soon returned with a cab. She held out a silent hand and opened her mouth to show where a heretical tongue had been bored all the way through. The colonel gave her a pound-note and the girl disappeared in silence.

Underground services through the city centre were suspended on account of a partisan bomb attack that morning, the driver said. There had been half a dozen bazooka attacks south of the river earlier in the day too, he added.

The partisans discovered how to make them from truck-axles last summer, he said, but they are a lot more powerful now.

I think it’s safer to call them terrorists.

That’s what I meant to say, sir, terrorists.

The driver surmised that his passenger was one of the Scotch MPs going up to his northern constituency for the weekend. He had a sister who was married to one of them, he said, but he’d never been there himself. And people said it had been the worst fog since the Armistice. Still, it wouldn’t last much longer now: though everyone knew it was going to be a bitter winter! By the time they were approaching King’s Cross, the fog was thinning a little, though it was still very dense. The colonel paid-off the driver and limped his way into the station. The ticket office and tearooms were jammed with arrivals, and passengers whose departures were in various degrees impending. A brass and accordion Militia band entertained with a medley of patriotic and international airs. Some travellers watched it sideways, with mixed expressions of admiration and hatred.

At the ticket-desk there was a delay due to the slow progress of the queue. Then there was a credentials check in operation at the platform barrier, but it did help to be a member of parliament bound for one’s constituency: and Jack got through quickly. When he found his coach and compartment, he left Crombie overcoat and pigskin travelling case on the rack above a reserved first-class seat and made his way to the buffet. A pair of evening papers carried reports of the attacks earlier in the day: grenades, they said, playing-down the story. But they would, of course, it was something of a wonder that the story had made it into the newspapers at all.

In the buffet there was no food of any kind to be had. People said the best of it was being shipped off east. Nothing could be seen to drink either, except imported beer. But the barman had a private store of whisky for valued customers, and he managed four fingers in a tumbler with tap water. Ice, of course, was a thing of the past.

On the platform two uniformed policemen were searching through the crowd, shouldering aside all-comers. Two plainclothes chaps were with them. The constables suddenly found the elderly commuter for whom they were looking. The taller of the two plainclothes men slammed a heavy brogue into the old man. As he staggered the younger chap neatly toppled him off balance, and when he fell the first slammed the black brogue onto the point of his nose. A constable politely took possession of the old man’s suitcase, opened it and emptied the contents onto the platform. Perhaps thirty brown-paper packages lay innocently on the concrete. The first of the plainclothes men smashed his polished brogue through these poor packages and they exploded in a cloud of white dust. It might almost have been refined sugar or fine-milled flour. The second plainclothes chap knelt without reverence and smeared some powder around his gums.

For a fraction of a moment, the prostrate old man turned his head on the platform and caught Jack’s eye. He looked as if he might cry out for help. But he remained entirely mute. The party of policemen gathered together the undamaged packages, and left them in a neat pile. The old man appeared to be unconscious. Someone picked up his neatly rolled umbrella, looked round disconsolately, and laid it down again on the dirty concrete. The cloud of dust rose and puffed, and then settled gently on the coats of the surrounding commuters. They brushed and fussed and stepped aside, until the cloud subsided.

The barman said sternly, and very quietly, It’s everywhere these days, sir.

Colonel Jack said, They should be shot, these people!.

They are, sir, all the time. But it doesn’t stop anybody. You wouldn’t believe the sorts who are dealing in it now.

And then, very loudly indeed, the barman said brightly, Manage another one, sir? We could be starting any moment. We might get ourselves over the Border in time for breakfast with any luck.

Then the train took its departure, and it clanged and swayed through the grey suburbs while the bar filled slowly with customers. Darkness was falling as they drew out of the city, and when they were into open farming countryside low rivers of flame could be seen on the horizon to either side of the track.

Are the farmers burning the stubble?, Jack asked the barman.

The barman looked grim. In a low voice he said, Some people say they are setting fire to their barns and stackyards rather than hand over the grain.

Jack said, very quietly, I should think that is an extremely dangerous thing to be heard saying at the moment.

I didn’t think you would mind sir, considering everything, the barman said humbly.

A security unit finished a sweep of the train and repaired to the bar. Accent and manner were impeccable; but everyone in the bar knew at once who the four men were, and what they were. A strained half-silence developed in a gentle way, as if afraid to declare itself. Sheets of flame flared in the far darkness, while the wheels roared and sang into the north. Then the flames simply went out, and there was little to see but the gaunt framework of mature woodlands against the sky.

Colonel Jack made his way through the packed corridors towards his coach. Many of the standing passengers were carrying supplies of potatoes in netting sacks. The second-class compartments were each crammed with ten or a dozen occupants, and the racks above them were jammed with luggage. There was some identity of common purpose or style of community about these people which puzzled Jack briefly. Then he remembered what the barman had said; the train was carrying three hundred teachers emigrated to road-building projects in the north. The barman had said ‘deported’ at first but had then thought the better of the word. All things considered, emigrated was a much safer word.

But by the first-class coaches there was a sober spirit of calm and relative comfort. Some Friday nights, pairs of Fraternals with rifles and bayonets were stationed aboard; but tonight, there was no sign of any of their kind.

At break of day, the train halted somewhere far to the north. Dull hills bound the rough valley in which the line ran, with scrub oaks scattered across their brows. On the other side of the valley, on the main north-south road, a column of tanks was grinding uphill. The outline of the commanders could just be seen, standing bolt-upright in their turret-hatches. At first the tanks seemed to move in silence, but at length the harsh roar of their engines and tracks could be heard. Towards the rear of the column came a mobile anti-aircraft battery. The faces of the searchlights stared at the train with blind menace, while the muzzles snouted at the empty skies.

Up ahead, the locomotives were taking water. By the time the armoured column was over the hill, they had finished. The train restarted: and when it was up to speed the security men from the previous evening’s bar were again combing its corridors. Two did their work in the compartment, while the remaining pair stood in the corridor, passive but watchful. They searched Jack’s luggage in a perfunctory way, and had the grace to apologise in advance.

What is this?, one of them asked.

Ottoman Studies.

I can see that, sir. But why do you have it in your luggage?

I am on the editorial board. Perhaps you would care to inspect the contents page. The text isn’t in English, I am afraid, but there is a translated abstract at the end.

This satisfied them. But they did not overlook his papers, of course; emergency regulations identity card (internal passport, by any other name), food ration-card and residence-permission card, military officer-rank pardon (always a suspicious one, that), and parliamentary privilege pass (that brought them up, though not too much, they were very professional). And of course his letter of introduction to all members of the Protectorate’s security services, confirming his membership of the Home Secretary’s standing panel on narcotics and espionage. Personally signed by the Home Secretary himself, in bright blue ink. That one really brought them up.

Is there a problem?, the colonel asked.

We don’t know, the hardest of them replied a little unwillingly. A network of terrorists has called a leadership conference. Maybe in Scotland. That’s all we have been told.

Jack said that he too knew that something was expected. There was even a possible connection to American cocaine smuggling rings. Then he wished the security men good luck and they swayed down the corridor, while the colonel watched them go without expression.

The day had fully risen by now. At the head of the train the locomotives were pouring full-power smoke and steam as they hurtled through the towns and villages of the coast. In the rich farming country on either side of the track, stooped labour-gangs scavenged ears of corn from the frosty stubble, while ancient single-furrow ploughs were dragged by villages of men and women. A ship was lying hove-to off Leith, perhaps waiting for high water and the docks. Then the volcanic slabs of the city hills came into view, and the train was swinging, slower and slower, into the eastern suburbs.

At Waverley, no taxis were available. Jack walked to his little town-house up on the High Street, directly opposite the smashed cathedral of St. Giles, and made some telephone calls to his constituency. It was perfectly clear that someone, somewhere, might be listening; that was to be expected. But they couldn’t watch everyone all the time, after all. There was still some risk in making his way to the port district. But there was hardly any option.

He lunched in a bar down towards the palace of Holyroodhouse. In front of the palace, drafts of penal-conscription recruits for heavy labour-gangs were drilling under the guard of a Militia training sergeant. The barman said the recruits were all first-offenders from the professions, and would only serve six months laying railway track. The barman thought there was a lot to be said for it: a good old-fashioned crack of the whip for people who hadn’t done an honest day’s graft in their entire lives! Every wall of the bar boasted a recruiting poster for the Specials. The barman was thinking about joining the Specials himself.

He said, Full-time if I can get in. They’ve just doubled the wages, sir, and there are perks and bonuses on top.

When Jack had finished lunch, he made his way back up the High Street, down North Bridge, and round by the side of Calton Hill, heading for Leith. The port district was under military control and was heavily defended, though swarms of dock-thieves were said to break-in every day and break-out again every night. And in any case the house in which the editorial board of Ottoman Studies was to meet lay outside the barriers that enclosed the district.

It was a spacious apartment of finely-proportioned rooms, with ostentatious cornices and splendid oaken doors. One entire wall of the dining room was given over to rare books, arranged and labelled by shelf, in Arabic and Persian and early and modern Turkish. A merchant’s house in older and more prosperous times, perhaps: a merchant, or a house, with a bent for trade and the scholastic.

Leith Walk was peaceful, a normal city thoroughfare going about its everyday business. Men in flat caps gossiped outside pubs, women struggled homewards with shopping, commercial vehicles with exemption from the fuel rationing crawled towards their various destinations. But at three o’clock military jeeps and two half-tracks carrying heavily-armed Paramilitaries fanned down the Walk, turning the traffic onto the pavements and into the side streets. Soon afterwards a short convoy of three open-topped trucks, packed with standing passengers, passed under very heavy guard. On the pavements, the shoppers and gossipers paused in their pursuits to watch the convoy as it headed for the docks. One man removed his cap and held it respectfully to his chest. When the convoy had passed, he replaced the cap.

By teatime the editorial board had safely assembled. Someone brought coffee, and whisky for those who wanted it, from the direction of the kitchen; and after they had talked in low voices for a while, Jack, in the gentle style of a village council, called the meeting to order. One of the editors remained to watch obliquely from the window, while the rest, council-style, arranged themselves around the mahogany table which occupied the centre of the room.

The meeting did not last long. Publication of the journal, as everyone knew, would sooner or later be formally suspended. And anyway, there was less and less access to either paper or printers, even if suspension had not been imminent.

Bloody ridiculous, someone said into a silence.

But they would continue with the membership newsletter. It was quite clear from the draft legislation that newsletters remained entirely within the law.

For now, the same grumbler observed.

Jack affected not to hear this comment. They had assembled, he said, as the editorial board for both the journal and the newsletter, and the organising committee of the association. He proposed two pieces for the letter. He had already completed one, and had the draft of another piece nearly finished. He would commission other pieces soon. Short reports followed from each of the members of the committee. Public meetings were of course no longer possible, and it was deemed advisable that member-only meetings be curtailed to twice a year in the present circumstances. And the Annual General Meeting would be postponed indefinitely. And the annual members’ outing had been cancelled. Jack watched as the secretary painstakingly wrote a full minute of the meeting and signed and dated it.

Then there was a short recess, in which a little gossip was traded, and the secretary replaced the watcher at the window. Someone mentioned the attacks the previous day in the southern capital. For reasons unknown, reports of them had made it into the Scotsman, in which they had been described as attacks by Daniel terrorists armed with homemade bazookas. The authorities had discovered that the hardened-steel tube for the weapons had come from military repair yards in the vicinity of Chatham.

It had grown quite dark outside. The street lights were casting a dull glow across the wall of books at the end of the room.

Can’t we have some light?, somebody asked: but the company elected to sit in darkness.

So what do we do next?, a voice asked into the gloom. We can’t stop now.

We lost all our cocaine at Gorgie, Jack said. And our radio link. We lost our transport men too. But we have a friend who can transport the next shipment for us. We have called him home.

When is the next shipment?, someone asked.

Soon, I hope, Jack said. But we don’t know exactly when.

And where?

We don’t know that either.

How will we find out without a radio link?, someone asked.

They will send someone from Belfast again, on the ferry to Stranraer, Jack said. Just as they did for the previous shipments. We think it will be the same woman.

Somebody asked where the friend who would transport the shipment was coming from.

He has been abroad, the colonel said.

Do they know each other?, someone asked.

During the war, the colonel said. She’s the bait, I am afraid. I don’t think he would come otherwise.

And when would this friend be leaving, someone else wanted to know?

Jack said, He is on the way. We will bring him to Edinburgh when we can.

How long do we have?, someone else asked.

Not long, Jack said. They have started to look for us. There has been a meeting. And they will treat us without mercy. Those were the exact words used.

Someone wanted to know whose words they were: but at that moment the secretary at the window said, It seems to be all clear. We had better get out at once, while there is time.

And one by one, the members of the editorial committee of Ottoman Studies slipped out into the douce evening of winter Edinburgh. Now, it was only a matter of waiting.

2.

Already it was colder in the mornings. From somewhere in the distance came the report of a rifle: to introduce the sunrise, perhaps, or at least announce its imminent arrival - for the tops of the mountains were still in darkness. But a shot there certainly was: a low velocity shot whose echo boomed away lazily into the hills. As the sky lightened, the outline of the summits began to be seen. A cock crowed down in the bowl of darkness below, without conviction; a dog barked listlessly and another answered it from across the valley; and the morning heaved itself up over the mountain tops and announced the arrival of the new day.

On the mountainside, the log hut raised four-square on stilts of stone might have been uninhabited. But at each end, beneath a deep eave of the shingled roof, small game was hanging and on a brief verandah below one of the eaves some rudimentary laundry drifted from a line. Under the line, and fed from a pipe carrying rain-water from the steeply pitched roof, a buxom and handsomely-staved barrel sat primly on a low stage of flat stones, as if it were awaiting a long delayed proposal of marriage.

Kelso found the World Service. The morning news led on the latest developments in the Pollitt Plot. After many weeks of investigative detention, charges of treason had now been brought, but more charges were confidently expected. The offer of the distinguished jurist Pritt to defend the accused pro bono publico had been accepted. Then something about American cocaine smuggling to finance an espionage ring in the highest reaches of the Protectorate. An investigation was under way and developments could be expected shortly. The Home Secretary had made an announcement to the effect that the vermin would be shot without mercy. There was something about church bells and religious agitation too, by unregistered and illegal sectaries. And there were amendements to the recent Emergency Powers legislation. Registered clergy were no longer to be exempt from voluntary labour-service beyond a radius of twenty miles from their place of domicile.

Then the weather. In London there had been the worst early-winter fog since the Armistice. Those cinemas and theatres still in operation had closed their doors as patrons had been unable to see the screen or stage. In the streets, pedestrians had been unable to see the pavements, and Militia patrols had been doubled in those areas of the capital which were still disaffected. A bitter January, with much snow, was expected. And finally, some sporting news: football scores from the provinces, a much-fancied three-year-old destroyed after a bad tumble, a boxing match stopped in the thirteenth round.

A clatter of ponies gave warning of a party of Civil Guards coming downhill on the rough path that curved from the higher slopes. The troopers had their carbines shouldered. They were leading the animals by the