WILLIAM LE QUEUX: 15 Dystopian Novels & Espionage Thrillers (Illustrated Edition). William Le Queux
The defenders, as they drilled in various centres through the whole of the west of England, were a strange and incongruous body. Grey-bearded Army pensioners ranged side by side with keen, enthusiastic youths, advised them and gave them the benefit of their expert knowledge. Volunteer officers in many cases assumed command, together with retired drill sergeants. The digging of trenches and the making of fortifications were assigned to navvies, bricklayers, platelayers, and agricultural labourers, large bodies of whom were under railway gangers, and were ready to perform any excavation work.
ENGLISHMEN!
Your Homes are Desecrated!
Your Children are Starving!
Your Loved Ones are Dead!
WILL YOU REMAIN IN COWARDLY INACTIVITY?
The German Eagle flies over London. Hull, Newcastle, and Birmingham are in ruins. Manchester is a German City. Norfolk, Essex, and Suffolk form a German colony.
The Kaiser’s troops have brought death, ruin, and starvation upon you.
WILL YOU BECOME GERMANS?
NO!
Join THE DEFENDERS and fight for England.
You have England’s Millions beside you.
LET US RISE!
Let us drive back the Kaiser’s men.
Let us shoot them at sight.
Let us exterminate every single man who has desecrated English soil.
Join the New League of Defenders.
Fight for your homes. Fight for your wives. Fight for England.
FIGHT FOR YOUR KING!
The National League of Defenders’ Head Offices, Bristol, September 21st, 1910.
A COPY OF THE MANIFESTO OF THE LEAGUE OF
DEFENDERS ISSUED ON 21st SEPTEMBER 1910.
The Maxims and other machine guns were mostly manned by Volunteer artillery; but instruction in the working of the Maxim was given to select classes in Plymouth, Bristol, Portsmouth, and Cardiff. Time was of utmost value, therefore the drilling was pushed forward day and night. It was known that Von Kronhelm was already watchful of the movements of the League, and was aware daily of its growth. Whether its gigantic proportions would place him upon his guard was, however, quite uncertain.
In London, with the greatest secrecy, the defenders were banding together. In face of the German proclamation posted upon the walls, Londoners were holding meetings in secret and enrolling themselves. Such meetings had, perforce, to be held in unsuspected places, otherwise all those present would be arrested and tried for conspiracy by martial law. Many of the smaller chapels in the suburbs, schoolrooms, mission halls, and such-like buildings were used as meeting-places; but the actual local headquarters of the League were kept a profound secret except to the initiated.
German spies were everywhere. In one case at a house in Tottenham Court Road, where a branch of the League was discovered, no fewer than twenty-seven persons were arrested, three of whom were on the following day shot on the Horse Guards’ Parade as warning to others who might seek to incite the spirit of revolt against German rule.
Nevertheless, though there were many arrests, and though every branch of the Defenders was crushed vigorously and stamped out wherever found, the movement proceeded apace, and in no city did it make greater headway, nor were the populace more eager to join, than in our dear old London.
Though the German Eagle flew in Whitehall and from the summit of St. Stephen’s Tower, and though the heavy tramp of German sentries echoed in Trafalgar Square, in the quiet, trafficless streets in the vicinity, England was not yet vanquished.
The valiant men of London were still determined to sell their liberty dearly, and to lay down their lives for the freedom of their country and honour of their King.
BOOK III
THE REVENGE
CHAPTER I
A BLOW FOR FREEDOM
“‘Daily Mail’ Office, Oct. 1st, 2 p.m.
“Three days have passed since the revolt at King’s Cross, and each day, both on the Horse Guards’ Parade and in the Park, opposite Dorchester House, there have been summary executions. Von Kronhelm is in evident fear of the excited London populace, and is endeavouring to cow them by his plain-spoken and threatening proclamations, and by these wholesale executions of any person found with arms in his or her possession. But the word of command does not abolish the responsibility of conscience, and we are now awaiting breathlessly for the word to strike the blow in revenge.
“The other newspapers are reappearing, but all that is printed each morning is first subjected to a rigorous censorship, and nothing is allowed to be printed before it is passed and initialled by the two gold-spectacled censors who sit and smoke their pipes in an office to themselves. Below, we have German sentries on guard, for our journal is one of the official organs of Von Kronhelm, and what now appears in it is surely sufficient to cause our blood to boil.
“To-day, there are everywhere signs of rapidly-increasing unrest. Londoners are starving, and are now refusing to remain patient any longer. The Daily Bulletin of the League of Defenders, though the posting of it is punishable by imprisonment, and it is everywhere torn down where discovered by the Germans, still gives daily brief news of what is in progress, and still urges the people to wait in patience for ‘the action of the Government,’ as it is sarcastically put.
“Soon after eleven o’clock this morning a sudden and clearly premeditated attack was made upon a body of the Bremen infantry who were passing along Oxford Street from Holborn to the Marble Arch. The soldiers were suddenly fired upon from windows of a row of shops between Newman Street and Rathbone Place, and before they could halt and return the fire they found themselves surrounded by a great armed rabble, who were emerging from all the streets leading into Oxford Street on either side.
“While the Germans were manœuvring, some unknown hand launched from a window a bomb into the centre of them. Next second there was a red flash, a loud report, and twenty-five of the enemy were blown to atoms. For a few moments the soldiers were demoralised, but orders were shouted loudly by their officers, and they began a most vigorous defence. In a few seconds the fight was as fierce as that at King’s Cross; for out of every street in that working-class district lying between the Tottenham Court Road and Great Portland Street on the north, and out of Soho on the south, poured thousands upon thousands of fierce Londoners, all bent upon doing their utmost to kill their oppressors. From almost every window along Oxford Street a rain of lead was now being poured upon the troops, who vainly strove to keep their ground. Gradually, however, they were, by slow degrees, forced back into the narrow side-turnings up Newman Street, and Rathbone Place into Mortimer Street, Foley Street, Goodge Street, and Charlotte Street; and there they were slaughtered almost to a man.
“Two officers were captured by the armed mob in Tottenham Street, and after being beaten were stood up and shot in cold blood as vengeance for those shot during the past three days at Von Kleppen’s orders at Dorchester House.
“The fierce fight lasted quite an hour; and though reinforcements were sent for, yet, curiously enough, none arrived.
“The great mob, however, were well aware that very soon the iron hand of Germany would fall heavily upon them; therefore, in frantic haste they began soon after noon to build barricades, and block up the narrow streets in every direction. At the end of Rathbone Place, Newman Street, Berners Street, Wells Street, and Great Titchfield Street huge obstructions soon appeared, while on the east all by-streets