The Adventures of Hiram Holliday (4 page)

He told about the Zoo where shot-guns, rifles and chloroform were prepared for the solemn keepers who, at the first alarm, were to slaughter the animals dangerous to man - 'the poisonous snakes, the scorpions and spiders, the elephants and the carnivores - the animals most dangerous to man, an irony so bitter, so obviously biting that no one thought of it as irony. The gentle deer might run the streets of London.

'There dare be no war because the Government has left its children as naked and defenceless as the day they were born. The people cluster around the few of the poor, cheap antiaircraft guns, no more than five to four square miles, and like them, crane their own muzzles to the sky. All of the guns are obsolete and hopeless, as obsolete as the men who believed that force and lust for power has been legislated from the world.'

He wrote how all work had stopped because worry and apprehension had tightened stomachs, slowed the motions of the body and dulled the brain, and of how the rumours went racing through the streets and in and out of homes. Hitler was to send relays of planes over London for three days, until the city was wiped out - there would be no declaration of war -the planes might have left Berlin even now.... 'The pitiful things that were done, the ringing of trees shading the streets

with bands of white paint, so that when London became a ghost city shuddering in darkness with* only the fitful blue ghost lamps of the black-outs, Londoners should not walk into their trees and bump their heads...

He quoted the talk in restaurant and pub and hotel, the gallant talk of the people who could not get away: 'A direct hit, and of course you're gone.... Madrid has been bombed for two years
...
and look at Barcelona.... The shops are all out of gas-proofing material.... Thank God my wife and children got away to the country
...
have you any idea of what a 500-pound demolition bomb can do ? They won't use gas.... It's the incendiary bombs
...
little ones no bigger than your head.... They'll fire a square block. Sand doesn't do any good.... What have they done about the British Museum ?

T
he stuffin there is priceless. And he told simple stories of
service and gallantry.

He wrote as though he would burst if he did not. He drew the groaning city and its doom-ridden people through the mill of his machine and splashed the grindings in hot and brilliant colours on his paper.

When he had finished he threw the sheets on the Bureau Manager's desk, and said: 'File that! Or spike it. I don't care. I've done it.' He put on his hat and coat and went out. The Bureau Manager and Jonas looked at one another and Jonas made the wheel motion around his temple. The Bureau Manager glanced at the sheets out of curiosity, and then said suddenly to his assistant: 'Hey
...
c'mere....'

How Hiram Holliday Met a Girl Named Heidi and Became an Adventurer

At nine o'clock that evening, Hiram Holliday went into Green Park opposite Piccadilly. It was threatening to rain, and he wore a mackintosh and carried his umbrella rolled and crooked over his arm. He was sensitive to wettings and colds.

There were others there, too, to watch the workmen reaming the wonderful old turf with
their spades and mattocks, and
throwing up the earth from their hurried entrenchment. They were working by the light of smoking yellow flares that gleamed from the shovels that were raised in a sort of slow rhythm from the gash in the ground. Hard by were piles of timber and scantlings. The flares were planted close by the trench work, and beyond were the deep shadows of the park. London was already experimenting with the protection of darkness.

The people stood quietly in huddled groups and Holliday could hear them murmuring to one another: 'Lot o' good that'll do
...
think that's big enough for you to get into, Bert ?
...
I 'ere they've blocked up the tube, the part that runs under the river. What misses the 'ouses of Parliament will likely land in the river and smash the tubes.... Gord 'elp them that lives in Lambeth. That's too near the Government 'ouses....'

The long, thin fingers of many searchlights were stroking the under side of the coppery roof of the sky. Tomorrow was to be the deadline for the troops to march. Holliday looked about him at the groups of people and the individuals. Were there to be dead amongst these ? He found himself like the others craning his neck into the sky. But when he heard a sudden movement near him he turned in that direction to see a girl standing a few feet away. In the darkness he could note no more than that her hair was pale. She was hatless, and when the damp wind threw a flare-flame in her direction, it shimmered. She wore a cape that fell from her shoulders to her ankles and was thrown back at the throat. And as he watched her he saw her slowly raise both her fists and shake them at the sky, and heard her say so clearly and deeply and thrillingly that it was almost like an actress speaking her lines:

'I am not afraid. I am not afraid of all of you.'

It moved something in Hiram Holliday so that he heard himself cry: 'Bravo! Bravo! Bluff and blackmail. Bravo ?'

The girl turned a startled face to him, and she was lovely. But she saw only a stoutish, round-faced man not far from middle age wearing steel-rimmed spectacles, the collar of his mackintosh turned up and a rolled up umbrella over his arm, and so she smiled a little, shyly.

'Forgive me,' said Hiram Holliday 'I
...
I am afraid I

was carried away by the one brave voice that I have heard crying against bullies and blackmailers.'

He had moved close to her side and raised his hat to her, and they stood to one side, shaded by a tree, away from the nearest groups of people. And then he noted that she was not alone. An elderly woman stood near her holding a small boy by the hand. He could not have been more than seven or eight years old and was slim and fair. And that was all that he had time to note before the incredible began to happen.

Five men broke from the shadows. The woman with the little boy put her hand to her mouth and cried:
'Herrje!
Madame!' because the men were converging on her. Holliday heard one of the men say: 'Ja,
ja ! Los ! SchnellJ
and knew it was German. The girl had whirled with blinding speed and gathered the child to her and opened her mouth to scream, but already one of the men had slipped behind her and held her with his hand pressed over her mouth, while another gagged and pinioned the woman. Two men were dragging at the child when Hiram Holliday lunged viciously with the ferrule of his umbrella at the ear of the one nearest to him, and drove it through his ear drum. The man fell forward on his face and lay still. It was over so quickly that the others did not even know what had happened and when they turned to see, they found only a bespectacled, guileless-looking man fencing rather ridiculously with a furled umbrella. They closed in on him.

Now, an umbrella is quite the silliest of all weapons except when in the hands of a competent fencer, then it becomes unpleasant and dangerous. The leader of the quartette suddenly found the steel tip menacing his eyes and made a grab for it with his hand, but it was not there, it eluded him and then was driven sharply against his mouth, smashing a tooth. The two women were free, but neither one of them screamed. They were watching as though fascinated. Something swished, and

Holliday felt a ripping blow on the side of his cheek. Suddenly he knew with complete clarity with whom he had to deal. A headline he had written flashed through his mind: '
n
azis and

legionaires in yorkville clash
- Belt-buckles
v
.
Fists
as Six are Injured.' He saw an arm drawn back for another blow, and lunged straight for the eyes, and felt the point go home into something soft.

The man let out a roar of pain. People began to move towards them, and the men in the trench stopped their work and looked up. A voice said: "Ere, 'ere! Wot's all this ? Fetch a Bobby! Someone's 'urt!' The men fell back for a moment in indecision.

'Come on,' panted Hiram Holliday. One hand held the girl's arm, the other grasped the shoulder of the woman, who

in turn held the child's
hand. 'No, no Walk! Walk slowly
with me. Don't run!'

They moved slowly away from the group and out into the flare-light, an innocent, middle-aged gentleman with an umbrella, a girl, a child, a nurse.

The group behind them around the man on the turf was static. Holliday felt it with the back of his head. 'Now a little faster
...'
he said. Under the urge of his hands they quickened their steps....' Steady
...
a little faster now....' They were approaching the gate of the park. 'Now come on, with all you've got,' and they ran like rabbits.

There were shouts behind them and the drumming of feet. Hiram flagged one of the tiny, high-bodied London cabs that drifted by and thrust them in, followed and slammed the door. 'Get going, son,' he snapped at the driver. He looked back to see three of the men rushing from the park, one of them holding his hand in front of his mouth. They hailed a taxi.

'We're all right,' said Hiram. 'We'll find ourselves a cop
...
a policeman.'

'No.... Oh, no,' said the girl. 'Not a policeman. Please....
I...
I am not supposed to be in England....' For the first time Hiram noticed that the girl spoke with a slight accent, one that he thought he recognized. 'Oh, oh,' he said, 'you are German?'

The girl lifted her head. Holliday had never seen such a gesture before, but he knew that it was regal. She said: 'I am
...
we are Austrians.'

'Ah
...'
said Holliday. And then the absurdity, the utter impossibility of the adventure flooded him. This was the heart of London....

'But, my dear lady
...'
he said,' I cannot believe it. Here in
London No one would dare. No, it's too absurd '

The boy suddenly began to cry: '
Tante Heidi.
...
Ich habe
Angst '

The girl took his chin in her fingers and raised his head up high.

^‘
Nie Angst haben, Peter!’
she said.

Hiram did not understand what she said, but the fierce pride in her voice reached him. She turned to him.

'Yes. They would dare. Because London is in the grip of fear. And they know it. They can do what they want in this crisis. The world is in the hands of evil.'

'What do they want? Why?' asked Hiram, although already he thought he knew.

'They want the child. For a hostage. You have already said the word. For blackmail. They will blackmail the world for money and power. I took him away after the
Anschluss
before they came. They have not found us - until now. If I can go to

Paris at once
...
to Paris
...'
she stopped and laid her
hand on Hiram's arm and shook her head 'How can
I?

I know them. I know them. They will watch the airplanes and the trains. There-will be an opportunity. See, they are following now. There are many of them here.
...'

Hiram looked back. A cab was keeping a steady pace behind them at a hundred yards. His eyes behind the spectacles were sparkling. Those endless mind trips he had taken over the map of Europe. He spread England and the Continent before his mind like a panorama.

'I will get you there,' he said, as calmly and matter-of-fact as though he were offering to see her home. 'There is a third gateway to Paris which they will not think of because very few people ever do.'

The girl stared at him, at the round face and the slightly corpulent body. And then she saw the eyes behind the lenses and knew that they denied all that she seemed to see.

He smiled at her. 'No one will touch the boy. Or you. I have thought of something. But he must be brave and clever, and do exactly as you will tell him. And you, too, must keep your nerve, even if things look bad.' He leaned forward, and in a low voice said to the driver: 'Paddington. And open up if you can.'

'Where are we going ?' asked the girl.

'Where there are people and confusion,' said Hiram Holliday, his heart singing inside him with excitement. And as the cab turned and headed for Paddington .Station he told her what he wanted done, and watched her with admiration as she drilled the little boy called Peter.

The clock had been turned back twenty-four years at Paddington Station. So - with one exception - Hiram Hqlli-day decided it must have looked in 1914 when England had last mobilized for war. The old railway station with its bowed series of roofs and long platforms was a jam, a crush and a bedlam of noise and steam
and smoke, and rows of compart
mented trains, and men in uniform, sailors, and Territorials, and hundreds of reservists in mufti answering the call, and excited citizens trying to get out of London. The one exception was that, forming the bulk of the fantastic throng, were hundreds upon hundreds of children, their clamour rising sharply above the shrilling of whistles of the guards, the panting of the green-painted locomotives, and the staccato shrieks of the engine whistles.