“What about that?”
Those in the van swerved so sharply into the little doorway of the shop, that their comrades immediately behind them could not restrain themselves from reeling past it by weight of impetus; then turned, and pressed back, with a violent impact jamming the rearmost in the narrow aperture; so that it seemed that dark menacing figures were springing out of the shadows from all sides and directions, into the pallid flare of the gas-jets singing forlornly over the counter.
The shop was deserted. Violent hands ripped down the curtains that divided off the back-parlour, and about a dozen roughs hurled themselves up the stairs, chanting: “Schnabel: Schnabel!” in hideous sing-song. Their feet could be heard trampling the upper premises in search of the owner: “Come aht of it, yer bloody funk! Wot abaht the Lusitania?”... The shop-door swung backwards and forwards in the draughts of wind which blew down the street; and at each oscillation, a little bell tinkled the warning of customers—an innocent tinkle, like a distant sheep-bell ... inadequate tinkle that recurred thinly through all the chaos of heavier sound: Crash of splintered glass, as the scales and weights were sent flying through the front window of the shop. The majority of avengers were working off their blood-lust by hullabaloo and wreckage; tossing about the buns and cakes; swinging and smashing the rows of big sweet-bottles; sending a hurricane of piled-up bread-baskets over the floor. It had been a neat little interior, three minutes before...!
But Richard was impatient of all this mere monkey destruction; his imagination was a-sweat to vent itself upon Germans, not upon rolls and doughnuts. He raced up the back stairs—and down again; no Germans there; and the rioters engaged in the same stupid business of destruction. But the Germans ... pointed steel helmets, puffed-out cheeks, and thick sensual lips—where had they contrived to stow themselves away? The notion had got started that they were here ... somewhere ... the excited boy did not stop to reason it out. He wanted to batter with his fists against a fat resisting carcase. Here?—of course they were; somebody had said so. Dodging the volley of loaves, he bolted out of the shop, and round the corner to the tiny yard at the back, unheeding whether he were alone or followed. The bakehouse!—must be one under the shop. Yes—beneath this wooden flap. Guided by the hot good smell of bread in the oven, he wrenched at the hinges; and rashly taking the ladder for granted, plunged into the gaping black space. Fragments of tales relating to the Lusitania horrors were flying loosely about in his mind, like the loaves in the shop: sickening details gasped out by the dazed survivors, and written up for the public in lurid journalese. Fighting—was that the Hun idea of fighting?—swine! cheats! butchers!—his turn to show them now....
Richard bumped his feet on level ground; he blinked an instant in the red dimness of his surroundings ... then, gradually, a face swam into his consciousness—a face over there, by the barrels—a face smeared in flour, and channelled by the drip of perspiration—a face that would have been ludicrous, were it not for its expression of deadly shivering fear ... trapped fear....
With knowledge of utter helplessness in his fascinated gaze, he confronted Richard. Beside him, a plump woman and two or three children crouched in a shadowy lump.
No army of Germans here. Only the little baker, Gottlieb Schnabel, and his family.
He stared at Richard. Richard stared back. And then his swollen illusion was pricked and shrivelled. So this was the reality of what he had been vengefully hounding down, he and the bawlers overhead? this one peaked, unhappy little face, white with dabs of flour, white in the last dumb extremity of panic.