Time and Time Again (32 page)

By the time the crowd arrived at the Social Democrat headquarters there were around three hundred of them, and there were at least as many again assembled outside the building already. The nervous Social Democrats had prepared for them by erecting a speaking platform beneath a hastily created banner that stated simply ‘Loyalty to the German Crown’.

Stanton could see that they were terrified. Normally their banners demanded eight-hour working days, living wages and compensation for injury at work. Now they were anxious to assure the world they wanted nothing better than to be ruled by a drunken sex maniac.

There were various earnest-looking bearded men gathered on the platform, one of whom was attempting to speak. His gestures and body language appealed for calm but it would have been impossible for anybody even quite close to him to hear what he was saying above the boos and catcalls of the crowd. In front of the platform was a line of party supporters who had begun linking arms in an effort to protect their leaders. They were tough-looking men, working men with determined faces, but Stanton reckoned they’d be swept away in minutes if the crowd surged.

It occurred to him that he should actually be feeling satisfied at this sight. This was exactly what Chronos had planned, what he had been sent to achieve. A Germany turned against itself, no longer baying for foreign blood, but baying for its own. He could imagine the ruthless McCluskey standing at his shoulder, grinning at her own cleverness.

‘You
see
! It’s
people
who make history!’ he could hear her chuckling. ‘In this case, you, Hugh! The lone assassin who changed the world! One bullet and Germany heads down a completely different path. Can’t see
this
lot having the time or inclination to invade Belgium any time soon. Too busy tearing each other’s throats out.’

And Stanton
did
take satisfaction from the scene. There could be no doubt that in these early hours after his kill the Chronation plan was working like clockwork. Foreign wars were the last thing on any German’s mind. They had scores to settle at home.

He had saved the British army. He’d saved all the young men of Europe and beyond. But for the time being at least it wasn’t going to be pretty. Not in Berlin at any case.

‘
Red Rosa! Red Rosa!
’

The crowd had begun an angry chant. They didn’t want to listen to a bunch of anonymous identikit bearded leftie intellectuals. They wanted the star of the show, the bogeywoman, the revolutionary witch. The Polish whore. Rosa Luxemburg, revered by many, loathed by most. Still nominally a Social Democrat but notorious as a firebrand radical and passionate enemy of the Hohenzollern establishment.

She was who they wanted but Stanton didn’t think they had a chance in hell of getting her. Rosa Luxemburg was a very bright woman and she’d have to be a suicidal lunatic to show her face to that crowd.

And then to Stanton’s and indeed everyone’s amazement that was exactly what she did. Emerging from the midst of the group which had gathered at the back of the platform. Limping forward on limbs damaged by illness at the age of five and resolutely taking centre stage.

She was a small woman, dressed soberly. Cream-coloured skirt, white blouse with black tie and a plain-looking hat which might have been some pastel colour but Stanton couldn’t tell by the light of the street lamps. However, unlike the other people on the platform, she did not wear a black armband of mourning. Instead, she defiantly wore a red sash across her breast.

For a moment the crowd grew quiet, as astonished as Stanton was to see her show herself when so many in the crowd had been baying for her blood. And in that moment of quiet she had a chance to make herself heard. There was no amplification, but she was used to public speaking and her voice was clear and audible at least to the front section of the crowd.

‘My friends!’ she shouted. ‘I thank you all for joining us at this meeting and would beg your attention while I explain something to you. While it is true that I believed the late Emperor was a despot—’

She got no further.

Clearly the next sentence would have been a condemnation of that despot’s murder but she didn’t get a chance to say it. The crowd seemed almost to leap forward as one, like a beast hurling itself upon its prey. The thin line of party workers in front of the platform buckled instantly and the vanguard of students were on the platform before anyone had even a chance to run. The rioters then began at once to lay about themselves with their clubs, punching and smashing at the bewildered old men while loyal supporters tried to pull them to safety.

Bricks and stones were also being hurled at the building now and the sound of breaking glass filled the air. Stanton wondered where the police were. No doubt they felt they had better things to do that night than protect a bunch of Socialists from getting a hiding which, guilty or not, they richly deserved.

In the melee Stanton lost sight of Rosa Luxemburg and he hoped she’d got back inside the building. He admired her for her principles and also for her reckless bravery. He certainly didn’t want to see her torn to bits by a savage mob. Besides, Bernadette thought she was one of the good guys. He really hoped she’d got away.

But then he saw her.

Captured. In the hands of he mob. Hoisted above their heads and being carried into the heart of the crowd. A tiny bundle. Helpless, like a mouse in the paws of a dozen cats.

And they were taking her towards a lamppost.

Surely they couldn’t be planning to
lynch
her?

But they were. Not
planning
, of course. Just doing. The collective hysteria had become self-perpetuating. As was the way with mobs, they had their own momentum. Stanton knew that if he could have taken any of the individuals in that crowd aside and asked them quietly and calmly whether they really wanted to go through with what they were doing – to hang someone, without trial or evidence, to commit a cold-blooded murder in the street – most of those conservative young men would almost certainly have backed off. But together, sharing the madness and the joy of it, and of course the anonymity, they were beyond argument. Even if somebody had been able to find the voice to make one.

And their victim was such a perfect fit.

A Socialist had killed their Emperor and she was Berlin’s most famous Socialist.

A woman. A foreigner. A revolutionary. And a Jew.

Who among the German
Junker
class really thought it mattered very much to hang a Jew? A hundred miles east they hung them for sport.

It was simply irresistible.

Stanton could hardly believe what he was watching. These ordered and contented streets he had been admiring earlier in the day, the electrified, tram-lined, motorized
Kaffee und Kuchen
delivery network that were the envy of the world, the arteries of the celebrated
Weldstadt
, the first global city, had become a jungle in a matter of hours.

The blood lust wasn’t universal. There were some around Stanton who were looking about themselves in concern, shocked like him at the pace at which things were moving. But at the centre of the storm the mob had become a single many-headed monster. Stanton saw a rope thrown over the crossbar of the lamppost. An electric lamp, that bright symbol of an ordered and progressive nation, turned in an instant to a gibbet in the service of the basest and most primeval blood lust.

He caught a sight of the victim’s face, flashing white then dark, white then dark as she twisted and turned beneath the harsh electric glow. Such a small face. Such a small woman. But a big one too. He’d read that when addressing a crowd she seemed to physically grow in stature, mesmerizing her listeners with a rich voice and biting wit. But all her famed intellect couldn’t help her now. Stanton could see that her mouth was moving. Was she trying to argue with them? Trying to open their closed minds to the illogicality of their actions? More likely she was simply pleading for her life, which was an equally hopeless exercise.

There were so many hands on her now, pulling her, pushing her,
hoisting
her up towards the gallows. She had at most a minute of life left.

Stanton turned away. He didn’t want to watch her die.

But then he heard a voice in his head. It was Bernadette. That sweet warm Irish brogue was at his inner ear.
She’s a wonderful woman, you know. I can’t think of anyone I admire so much. Very clever, very passionate, very brave and very important
.

That was what Bernadette had said to him on their night in Vienna. When her lips had been so close to his he had felt them brush against his skin as she spoke. And now in his mind she went on speaking:
What are you doing, Captain Stanton of the Special Air Service Regiment? Are you going to let this innocent and defenceless woman die? Is that what a British soldier does? Don’t forget it’s your fault they’re lynching her! Do you have an ounce of honour in your whole damned body?

She had a point.

And then Cassie was in his ear as well. Two women calling him to task.

He had her letter in his wallet –
I never minded being married to a soldier. Because I knew you believed in what you were risking your life for.

That was the man she’d loved. A guy who did the right thing.

The girls were right. It was time to man up.

He turned again and began to push his way towards the centre of the mob. After all, what did he have to lose? His mission was done, history was unmade, his life was his own and his actions no more or less relevant than anyone else’s. He was free to act as he chose and he chose to risk his life trying to prevent an innocent woman from being hanged in the street.

And if he joined her in her fate? It would be a good way to die.

He didn’t have much time.

Get a bloody move on!
he heard Bernadette’s voice in one ear.

Hurry, Hugh! Hurry!
Cassie’s voice urged him in the other.
They’re going to kill her!

He pushed and pulled and physically
chopped
a path through the people in his way, raining practised blows down on any who didn’t move instantly in response to his barked command. He knew from experience that angry mobs, while dangerous, are also dull and stupid and a determined individual can do a great deal with them. People gave way to him instantly, no doubt thinking that he wished to be in at the kill, secretly pleased perhaps that others were doing the dirty work while they could enjoy the spectacle without taking any responsibility for it.

It took Stanton less than thirty seconds to get into the very heart of the disturbance and make his voice heard.

‘Put her down and stand back!’ he shouted in German. ‘Every one of you! Leave the woman alone and stand back now!’

His voice was strong. Resonant. Authoritative. A voice that was used to giving commands and used to being obeyed. The wildeyed young men with the struggling woman in their grip paused. Theirs was a group madness, an abdication of personal free will, a roller-coaster of hatred. Stanton’s firm and focused intervention was like a stick shoved between the spokes of a spinning wheel.

He stepped forward again, forcing his way to the lamppost where Rosa Luxemburg was being held while her gallows was prepared.

He put a foot on the wider part at the base of the post and with one hand pulled himself up, thus gaining a little height.

‘This woman is a member of a legal political party,’ he shouted. ‘There is no evidence whatsoever to connect her with the assassination of the Emperor and if anyone has any they should take it to a court of law!’

He almost had them on that. The word ‘law’ was like a blow. This was a generation of students whose professors could have them beaten for minor misdemeanours. Brought up within the Prussian military social culture, discipline and obedience were a religion to them. The ring of fury that was surrounding him and Luxemburg seemed to fall back a half pace or so, reacting instinctively to the presence of a natural leader.

Unfortunately there was one among the students who was also a leader of sorts and he wasn’t in a mood to surrender.

A young man stepped forward and looked up at Stanton, his face illuminated in the lamplight from above. Cold, pale eyes beneath the peak of his little student cap. A pink schlager duelling scar on each cheek. This was a son of the aristocracy, a Prussian
Junker
to the toes of his jackboots. He, too, was used to being obeyed.

‘And who the hell are you?’ the student enquired imperiously.

Stanton stepped down from the post to reply. He still towered over the young student.

‘I’m the man who’s stopping you making a very serious mistake,
sonny
,’ Stanton replied, bringing his face to within an inch of his adversary’s.

It was a bold move and it didn’t work. It would have done with a similar child of privilege in 2025, some arrogant, lazy-voiced posh boy being faced down for pissing in the street after an Oxbridge Ball. But the young man facing Stanton was of an aristocratic mind-set forged in the nineteenth century. He gave way only to others of his kind.

‘She’s a dirty Polish Socialist whore,’ the young man shouted right back into Stanton’s face. ‘She killed the Kaiser and we intend to deal with her. If you attempt to stop us we’ll deal with you too.’

Now there were two leaders and the mob preferred their own. Stanton sensed it about to leap forward once more. He had a split second in which to act. He reached forward, grabbed the leading student by the neck and in a practised and fluid movement threw him into a head lock. ‘This man is under arrest for threatening an officer of the Crown,’ he shouted. ‘Anyone who comes to his aid will be arrested also.’

It really was a desperate shot. He had no uniform and his German was spoken in an accent that marked him as a foreigner. They had no reason to believe that he was a police officer other than the fact that he had aggressively claimed to be one.

He sensed the mood continuing to swing against him.

Stanton decided to produce his gun.