5
It was very much as I had foreseen; very much as I had predicted to Griffiths himself. His men were turning against him.
When hunger first became unbearable, they soothed their anger with a dose of wholesale destruction. If Griffiths had not urged them to it, I have never heard any one suggest that he tried to restrain them; I should be sceptical if any one told me that he had marched them from Hampstead to Westminster with another thought than to offer them a further dose of the same sedative. By this time, however, the men were realizing that broken windows brought satisfaction to no one but the fortunate two or three who had dug themselves into the wine-cellar. I hoped they would remain there. In a lull between two bursts of shouting I heard a subterranean bellowing; one or two bottles were flung up and promptly smashed by the inspector of police. I did not want our complications to be increased by the madness that comes to starving men who have inflamed their aching stomachs with strong liquor. O’Rane, if he aimed at dividing the enemy, could not have chosen a happier moment for exposing Griffiths to his followers. Their resentment of that day’s leadership became lost in a greater resentment of the leadership that had dragged them to London. Fear sharpened the antagonism of those who had heard a moment before that they were being incited by Griffiths to crime; the police were still very near; and O’Rane had promised an amnesty to all who threw down their missiles and came forward peacefully.
Amnesty and immediate food. The collective cry of hunger was less than human; but, as I had predicted, the disappointed mob had vengeance to wreak on the author of its misfortunes before it could eat in comfort of mind. As though a barrier had fallen, there was a rush towards the corner of the street where an excited voice could still be heard haranguing of ‘traps’.
“That fellow will be lynched if we don’t get him away!,” O’Rane cried.
“You’ll be lynched yourself,” I answered, “if you get mixed up with his gang.”
Even as I spoke, the tide hung and turned. As I might have foreseen, as Griffiths himself had told me, he could look after himself. Again I could not hear his words; for part of the time I fancy he was speaking in Welsh; and he held his audience. The opposing clamour dwindled and died away. The hoarse cheers of his supporters spread until they were taken up all round us. There was a pause of perfect stillness, like the moment when a gigantic wave gathers before breaking; then the mob turned as one man upon the house.
Griffiths had won that round.
“I imagine this must be something like the storming of the Bastille,” O’Rane murmured coolly.
“They’re absolutely out of hand. The police are using their truncheons, too,” I added, as the sickening smack of hard wood on human flesh and bone was followed by yelps of rage and whimpering moans.
“I haven’t heard anything of our precious reinforcement . . . There’s a most awful reek of whisky.”
“They’re looting the cellar. Once that begins . . .”
“If they’ll get drunk quietly, it will be the best thing in the world for everybody. . . . D’you smell burning?”
I sniffed; but my duller senses told me nothing till I saw a distant orange glow fainter than the reflection of a winter sunset.
“They’ve started a fire. I can’t see where.”
“Is it making any difference to the fog?”
“No, but I believe the fog’s lifting. I can see . . . oh, ten yards. Come out of the way: I think the police are going to charge again.”
Though I dragged at his arm, O’Rane stayed motionless.
“If the fog’s lifting . . .,” he murmured slowly. Then, for the second time that evening, he gripped my hand. “We must go while the going’s good. The stable-door. And afterwards by Smith Square and Great College Street.”
I found myself suddenly alone. The fog was certainly lifting, for I could see the concerted rush of the police, though I was not in time to get out of their way. It was a truncheon, I think, and not a stray stone that brought me down. I remember excruciating pain at the side of my head; I remember my knees giving slowly beneath me; and then, for a time, I remember nothing more.