The children’s band was in the square now, marching grimly down the wide black marble path that had opened in the middle of the crowd, marching towards the entrance to the park. There was a lot of shouting, but I noticed that no one tried to really stop them.
I jumped in front of them, held my arms out wide
“Stop!” I called, to no avail. The marching ranks split neatly in two. The children streamed past around either side of me, still playing. I saw a young girl, blowing on a shiny cornet, and I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her clear. She carried on playing all the while.
“Stop that!” I said, pulling the cornet from her. “Where have you come from?”
“Bow Temperance Hall,” said the little girl. “Let me go! I have to play.”
“Are you under some sort of spell?”
“Certainly not! We’re here to show people what to do. We have to march!”
“But not that way! You’ll all be killed! Join me! March on Angel Tower.”
“Let go of me!” the little girl squealed, and again I found myself on the wrong side of the crowd’s temper.
“Let go of her, you nonce!”
The man who said the words looked like a fighter. Thick muscles, turning to fat, and a shaven head.
“She’ll walk into the park!” I screamed. “Is that what you want?”
“I said let go of her, you filthy pervert!”
The man was moving closer to me, fists raised.
“You tell him, Bill,” said his girlfriend, straight blonde hair covering her eyes. “Filthy nonce.”
“Leave him alone,” said an accented voice nearby. “He means no harm, even if he is doing the wrong thing.”
“Amit!” I called. I spun around, delighted at last to meet an ally. Amit stood there, dressed in his Hollywood Sikh outfit. Fifty men similarly dressed stood close at hand. The crowd eyed them respectfully. The shaven-headed man lowered his fists and backed away, warily.
“I thought we were meeting on square 73?” said Amit.
“Never mind that, what are you doing to these kids?”
“I’m helping them to have a chance to live in a better world than their parents have chosen for them.”
“But they’ll be killed.”
“Or they’ll be taken into the slavery of the workhouse. These children know what they are doing.”
“Do they?”
The sound of brass faltered. The children were entering the park.
“You butcher!” I shouted. “Listen to that!”
“The children were warned,” said Amit calmly. “They chose to do this. What’s the alternative? To walk in there subservient, like their parents, willing slaves for other worlds?”
He pointed to the grey shapes of the workhouse people.
The little girl struggled further in my arms.
“Let her go. Let her join her friends.”
“Do you want that?” I asked the girl. “Listen to them!”
She broke free of my grip and stood there, sobbing.
“I want to go home,” she said. She sat down and started to cry. No one came to her aid now, I noticed. The shaven-headed man was looking away. Fighting is easier than helping, after all.
“You killed those children,” I said to Amit.
“Not me,” he said. “That wasn’t my band.” He looked to the bottom of the square, cupped a hand to his ear. “My band are coming now. Can you hear them?”
I could. I could hear many bands, all of them converging on this spot.
“Listen, Amit,” I said. “This is important! Don’t send your band into the park.”
“Why not? That’s what they were trained for.”
“No! Send them towards Angel Tower. If we can get in there, get up to the Contract Floor...”
“Taking the Contract Floor is only part of the story,” said Amit. “Angel Tower only established a toehold here because we allowed it to. There were always enough people in London to resist its influence, if only they chose to do so.”
He smiled complacently and looked around the square.
“Look at them. They’re happy to sing a song or hold a peaceful demonstration. That sort of thing never changes anything. That’s just playing the game the way the people in charge want it played. They’ll give you a pat on the head, tell you that you’re a good little soldier for protesting peacefully, and then they’ll just continue doing the same thing.”
“And getting kids killed makes a difference, does it?”
“It sometimes does,” said Amit. “Let’s see, shall we? Perhaps by watching their children die these people will rediscover their courage.”
“There’s got to be a better way,” I said.
“I’m open to suggestions,” said Amit, drily.
“They’ll be killed!”
He fixed me with a black gaze, and I realised that I was looking at a man from the old world, the world that London had been part of, the world that was in fear of what might happen tonight.
“What do I care if English children die?” he said, softly.
Bands were approaching from all directions now. The sound was echoing off the walls.
The crowd began moving again, and I saw that another set of players had come to join the game. There were soldiers entering the square. Soldiers, marching in from the park. Dressed in pale yellow uniforms that glowed orange in the red light of the sun, their rifles held at their sides, the regiment of the Ninth Dream Londoners had arrived. The regiments of men and women who had signed up to the armies of exploration had come back to impose order on their own kind.
Down at the other end of the square the sound of drumming and brass increased, enough to resonate in even the hardest heart. The empty chests of the street musicians reverberated with something else now. The crowd was parting again, allowing a black marble path through the square. The sound of marching feet could be heard.
The Ninth Dream Londoners formed two lines across the gates to the park, barring the entrance to the silver green lands beyond. They stood at the ready, their wooden rifles held crosswise before them, feet slightly apart. Moustaches bristled on the implacable faces of men who knew they were in the right.
“Now hold on,” said a woman nearby, slowly. “Now hold on.” A great thought was working its way into her mind. “Now, come on. This isn’t right.”
She shook her head, she looked up at the soldiers. And then, as if in a dream she walked forward to one of the Dream Londoners and tapped him on the chest.
“Yes, ma’am?” he said.
She shook her head again, and then her face cleared. Suddenly, she understood, and at that her expression hardened.
“Don’t you Madam me,” she said. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”
The Dream Londoner was a big man, and he gave a slow smile.
“Keeping the peace, ma’am.”
She frowned.
“Keeping the peace?” she said. “Keeping the peace? Have you seen what’s happening in there?”
The sound of brass reached a peak, and the third band approached, led by a great square banner, embroidered with all the birds of the world. Orioles and jays, robins and peacocks, emus and parakeets and sparrows. I felt my heart sinking as I saw the birds, I knew which band this would be, even before I read the name embroidered on the banner.
Egg Market Silver Band.
And there, at the back right hand corner, marching to time, dark hair tied up in a bun, was Anna. She wasn’t playing her cornet at the moment, merely marching. She saw me, I’m sure, but she ignored me, she looked straight ahead and marched on, down the wide road that had opened up amongst the partying crowd.
“Let her go,” said Amit. “She’s made up her mind.”
The Egg Market band marched towards the gates. Up ahead of them the soldiers of the Ninth Dream Londoners took up positions across the gate to stop the band from entering the park. Still the band marched on. The soldiers held their rifles at their sides as the band drew closer.
“Will they shoot the band?” asked Mister Monagan.
The drummer sounded taps and the band stopped marching. The drummer sounded taps once more, and the music ceased. I hurried forward through the silence, Mister Monagan at my side.
A sergeant in a bright orange tunic walked forward to face the trombones.
“Go home!” he called.
Anna left the ranks and moved to face him.
“Let us through,” she said quietly.
The sergeant laughed. “Listen, little miss...”
I was at his ear in an instant.
“Sergeant,” I said. “This young woman and her friends are showing more courage than anyone else in this shitty place. I don’t think that
Little Miss
is an appropriate form of address. Do you?”
The sergeant looked at Anna and saw something in her eyes.
“Sir, I think you’re correct,” he said. He lowered his voice.
“Listen, miss. Don’t march in there. It’s certain death. We came through the park not half an hour ago from the new portal. The things we’ve seen in there...”
Anna took a deep breath.
“Sergeant,” she said. “Please order your men to stand aside please.”
The sergeant shook his head.
“I ain’t going to do that, miss. There’s worse things than death in there. Especially for a pretty young woman such as yourself.”
Anna was pale. She was terrified, I could tell. Her face wore the same shiny sheen as the rest of the band. And yet, stronger than her fear, I could see her determination.
“Worse things than death in there, Sergeant?” she said. “But, the thing is you see, if we don’t march, then those things, those things that are worse than death will soon be in here with us. Those things will be living here, in Dream London.”
The sergeant produced a large white handkerchief from his pocket and used it to wipe his lips.
“That’s as may be, miss, but...”
“And surely,” continued Anna, ignoring him, “isn’t it better to experience certain death now, than to wait for worse than death in a few days’ time?”
The sergeant wiped his lips once more.
“Miss,” he said. “I don’t know what to say. But I can’t let you do this.”
“Why not?” asked Anna. “You’re a soldier, aren’t you? You know what it means to sacrifice yourself to a higher cause.”
The Sergeant waved his hand around the crowd.
“You call these people a higher cause?”
“They may yet be,” said Anna. “Tell your men to stand aside.”
The sergeant gazed at her, his lips moving. He made to take hold of her, thought better of it, and then stood back and drew himself to his full height.
“Miss!” he said, saluting. “The best of British to you. What there is left of it, anyway.”
A look of terror flickered across Anna’s face, but she quickly suppressed it.
“Thank you, Sergeant.” she said. She turned to the waiting band.
“Drummer,” she called. “Sound taps.”
The drummer beat the rhythm to begin. The soldiers pulled back, yellow uniforms clustering at the sides of the park. The surrounding crowd was catching on.
“No!” shouted someone.
“Sergeant! Stop them!”
“Do your job, soldiers! Stop them.”
The band began to play, eight bars of some death or glory march, and then they began to march. Left, right, left, right, left. All those children marching to their deaths, and Anna, terrified Anna, bravely marching along with them.
A mother ran forward and began to beat the sergeant on the chest.
“Stop them!” she shouted. She was crying. “What’s the matter with you? Are you afraid?”
“Not I,” said the sergeant. “Just ashamed. They’re doing what you should be doing, madam. What we all should be doing. For Heaven’s sake...”
He undid his jacket and walked to the side of the band. He took off the jacket and let it fall as he took up his place, marching alongside the horns.
Someone ran forward from the crowd and seized hold of one of the cornet players. A young boy of around ten years of age.
“Let me go!” he called, hitting at his captor with his free hand.
“Let him go!” called someone in the crowd.
“What?” said his captor, and the boy shook himself loose and was gone, off to rejoin the band.
“Mister Monagan,” I said, pulling out the flare gun. “I think it’s time.”
“I think so too, Mister James.”
I fired the gun into the air. A golden light rose and then stopped, hovering above me. An animal roar sounded, the sound of an army rising up.
“I hope it’s enough,” I said.
The band marched on, and Anna drew level with me, walking towards the entrance to the park.
I heard shouting all around me. I saw men in football scarves pressing forward, I heard the voices of Gentle Annie and my whores spurring people on...
And finally, there and then in the middle of Snakes and Ladders Square, the magic finally ignited. Suppressed for over a year, submerged by the scent of pollen, diluted by sex and food and a hundred other distractions, the old magic that had built London finally gathered itself together for one last glorious fight against the invasion.
Someone began to clap. Then another person, then another. The applause took hold and spread through the crowd, burning like a fire.
I stepped forward.
“Okay! Who’s going to let a group of schoolkids show us how to fight?”
“Not us, Captain Jim!” called the football fans.
“Not us, Captain Jim!” called the whores’ men.
“Not us Captain Jim!” called the other bystanders who finally got it.
“Company!” called the leader of the Ninth Dream Londoners. “Form up! Escort them!”
“Join in boys!” The last was from a sergeant of the Dream London Constabulary. Even the Boys in Taupe had seen the way the wind was blowing and were daring to show their faces.
The Boys in Taupe. That gave me an idea.
“Come on then, fellow Londoners,” I called, gripped by the excitement of the crowd. “Let’s go!”
“But Mister James, we need to head towards Angel Tower!”
I wasn’t listening to Mister Monagan. We had all seen where the band had gone, we had heard the children screaming.
The applause was growing louder all the time. With it came a guttural roar, the anger of the crowd growing and finding voice at last. A crowd of people, all thinking the same thing. All that rage focused in the same direction.
The front of the band crossed into the park. The sound of the crowd rose and rose, and I began to run, run towards the park entrance...