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Any hope he had that Fascism might be a temporary aberration had now vanished. Lloyd believed that democratic countries such as France and Britain must get ready to fight. But he did not say so in his speech today, for his mother and most of the Labour party opposed a buildup in British armaments and hoped the League of Nations would be able to deal with the dictators. They wanted at all costs to avoid repeating the dreadful slaughter of the Great War. Lloyd sympathized with that hope, but feared it was not realistic.
He was preparing himself for war. He had been an officer cadet at school and, when he came up to Cambridge, he had joined the Officer Training Corps--the only working-class boy and certainly the only Labour Party member to do so.
He sat down to muted applause. He was a clear and logical speaker, but he did not have his mother's ability to touch hearts--not yet, anyway.
Robert stepped to the lectern. "I am Austrian," he said. "In the war I was wounded, captured by the Russians, and sent to a prison camp in Siberia. After the Bolsheviks made peace with the Central Powers, the guards opened the gates and told us we were free to go. Getting home was our problem, not theirs. It is a long way from Siberia to Austria--more than three thousand miles. There was no bus, so I walked."
Surprised laughter rippled around the room, with a few appreciative hand-claps. Robert had already charmed them, Lloyd saw.
Ruby came up to him, looking annoyed, and spoke in his ear. "The Fascists just went by. Boy Fitzherbert was driving Mosley to the railway station, and a bunch of hotheads in black shirts were running after the car, cheering."
Lloyd frowned. "They promised they wouldn't march. I suppose they'll say that running behind a car doesn't count."
"What's the difference, I'd like to know?"
"Any violence?"
"No."
"Keep a lookout."
Ruby retired. Lloyd was bothered. The Fascists had certainly broken the spirit of the agreement, if not the letter. They had appeared on the street in their uniforms--and there had been no counterdemonstration. The socialists were here, inside the church, invisible. All there was to show for their stand was a banner outside the church saying THE TRUTH ABOUT FASCISM in large red letters.
Robert was saying: "I am pleased to be here, honored to have been invited to address you, and delighted to see several patrons of Bistro Robert in the audience. However, I must warn you that the story I have to tell is most unpleasant, and indeed gruesome."
He related how he and Jorg had been arrested after refusing to sell the Berlin restaurant to a Nazi. He described Jorg as his chef and longtime business partner, saying nothing of their sexual relationship, though the more knowing people in the church probably guessed.
The audience became very quiet as he began to describe events in the concentration camp. Lloyd heard gasps of horror when he got to the part where the starving dogs appeared. Robert described the torture of Jorg in a low, clear voice that carried across the room. By the time he came to Jorg's death, several people were weeping.
Lloyd himself relived the cruelty and anguish of those moments, and he was possessed by rage against such fools as Boy Fitzherbert whose infatuation with marching songs and smart uniforms threatened to bring the same torment to England.
Robert sat down and Ethel went to the lectern. As she began to speak, Ruby reappeared, looking furious. "I told you this wouldn't work!" she hissed in Lloyd's ear. "Mosley has gone, but the boys are singing 'Rule, Britannia!' outside the station."
That certainly was a breach of the agreement, Lloyd thought angrily. Boy had broken his promise. So much for the word of an English gentleman.
Ethel was explaining how Fascism offered false solutions, simplistically blaming groups such as Jews and Communists for complex problems such as unemployment and crime. She made merciless fun of the concept of the triumph of the will, likening the Fuhrer and the Duce to playground bullies. They claimed popular support, but banned all opposition.
Lloyd realized that when the Fascists returned from the railway station to the center of town they would have to pass this church. He began to listen to the sounds coming through the open windows. He could hear cars and lorries growling along Hills Road, punctuated now and again by the trill of a bicycle bell or the cry of a child. He thought he heard a distant shout, and it sounded ominously like the noise made by rowdy boys young enough still to be proud of their deep new voices. He tensed, straining to hear, and there were more shouts. The Fascists were marching.
Ethel raised her own voice as the bellowing outside got louder. She argued that working people of all kinds needed to band together in trade unions and the Labour Party to build a fairer society step by democratic step, not through the kind of violent upheaval that had gone
so badly wrong in Communist Russia and Nazi Germany.
Ruby reentered. "They're marching up Hills Road now," she said in a low, urgent murmur. "We have to go out there and confront them!"
"No!" Lloyd whispered. "The party made a collective decision--no demonstration. We must stick to that. We must be a disciplined movement!" He knew the reference to party discipline would carry weight with her.
The Fascists were nearby now, raucously chanting. Lloyd guessed there must be fifty or sixty. He itched to go out there and face them. Two young men near the back stood up and went to the windows to look out. Ethel urged caution. "Don't react to hooliganism by becoming a hooligan," she said. "That will only give the newspapers an excuse to say that one side is as bad as the other."
There was a crash of breaking glass, and a stone came through the window. A woman screamed, and several people got to their feet. "Please remain seated," Ethel said. "I expect they will go away in a minute." She talked on in a calm and reassuring voice. Few people attended to her speech. Everyone was looking backward toward the church door, and listening to the hoots and jeers of the ruffians outside. Lloyd had to struggle to sit still. He looked toward his mother with a neutral expression fixed like a mask on his face. Every bone in his body wanted to rush outside and punch heads.
After a minute the audience quietened somewhat. They returned their attention to Ethel, though still fidgeting and looking back over their shoulders. Ruby muttered: "We're like a pack of rabbits, shaking in our burrow while the fox barks outside." Her tone was contemptuous, and Lloyd felt she was right.
But his mother's forecast proved true, and no more stones were thrown. The chanting receded.
"Why do the Fascists want violence?" Ethel asked rhetorically. "Those out there in Hills Road may be mere hooligans, but someone is directing them, and their tactics have a purpose. When there is fighting in the streets, they can claim that public order has broken down, and drastic measures are needed to restore the rule of law. Those emergency measures will include banning democratic political parties such as Labour, prohibiting trade union action, and jailing people without trial--people such as us, peaceful men and women whose only crime is to disagree with the government. Does this sound fantastic to you, unlikely, something that could never happen? Well, they used exactly those tactics in Germany--and it worked."
She went on to talk about how Fascism should be opposed: in discussion groups, at meetings such as this one, by writing letters to the newspapers, by using every opportunity to alert others to the danger. But even Ethel had trouble making this sound courageous and decisive.
