Time and Time Again

33

RETURNING TO HIS room he drank a little more schnapps and read the first reports in the evening paper.

The police had proved every bit as efficient as he’d expected they would be and more. They had already discovered his firing position and the Mauser shell. Also there was a mention of a wounded man who’d been found nearby on the roof. The reporter presumed this person to have been a security guard. It seemed that the police were waiting to ascertain the extent of his injuries before trying to question him.

Stanton was glad he hadn’t killed the guy, although he did wonder whether there was now a chance he could be identified. He decided that the risk of the guard having got a good enough look at him to give a description was pretty small. After all, as Stanton had spun around he’d been bringing up his gun in front of his face. All anyone could have seen with confidence was that he was tall and his hair was sandy blond. Plenty like that in the German capital. Besides which, the guard would probably die of his wounds anyway.

Despite the aching in his chest and back Stanton decided to take a walk. He drained his glass and went to the stairwell, then on an afterthought he returned to his room and took the Glock pistol from his damaged jacket and slipped it into his trouser pocket. It was an ugly night to be on the streets.

Stanton joined the milling throng which it seemed to him was gravitating towards the Brandenburg Gate. The gate had been erected by the Kaiser’s father to commemorate Prussia’s great victory over France and was therefore an obvious place to gather to remember a fallen German hero.

The mood outside was intensely emotional. Many wept as they walked, genuinely devastated by their collective loss. Others, however, had already transmuted their grief into fury and were shouting to the heavens for vengeance as they marched. Stanton was quite surprised at how quickly things were turning nasty. Of course he’d known that there’d be a massive public reaction and no doubt some random violence to go with it but he hadn’t quite expected what seemed to be developing into a collective and self-perpetuating hysteria for instant retribution.

People were acting as if they’d lost a saint. A guiding star.

Of course it made sense. After all, he’d killed the Kaiser before the man had screwed up. The Emperor had died while he was still the leader of a country untainted by war and barbarism and whose principal features were a world-beating industrial economy, a global technological lead and a highly developed Social Democratic movement.

Watching the growing fury of the crowd Stanton was uncomfortably aware that for the German people in July 1914 their Kaiser represented nothing so much as progress, prosperity and peace. Yes, of all things – peace. The crowd didn’t know what Stanton knew. As far as they were concerned, their King Emperor had been on the throne for twenty-six years and for all that time the nation had been at peace. And during that time Germany had grown into a premier world power with an industry to rival the United States, a navy that was threatening to one day equal Britain’s and an army that had no rival at all.

Understandably those early-twentieth-century Berliners surging through the streets in angry despair saw the Kaiser as the most potent symbol of their growing power and prosperity and were fearful that with his death their good luck would end. Only Stanton among them knew that it was the Kaiser’s survival that would have brought an end to their peaceful, comfortable world.

He wanted to shout it out: ‘Hey, guys! It’s OK! It’s all good! The man was a warmonger.’ He wanted to tell them that this apparent bastion of peace and stability had in fact led his country into suicidal conflict, and what was more had done it within five weeks of the current date. And that a mere four years after that, this man whom they were lamenting as the essential rock on which Germany’s future depended would be skulking out of Berlin into shameful and ignominious exile in Holland.

But of course all that was history now, or more to the point it wasn’t history. It never had been history and it never would be; it was just a strange dream in the mind of one single man on the planet. The new reality was that the mighty leader of the most successful ever period in German history was dead and his people were devastated.

And some of them were crazy angry.

Angry and getting dangerous.

Night had fallen and Stanton saw young men carrying clubs. Nobody carried a club unless they were looking for somebody to hit and these people really wanted to find somebody to hit. More sinister still were the gangs of students in their semi-military uniforms and caps, surging about in well-disciplined squads. They were carrying Imperial flags and the eagle banner and swearing that they would have vengeance or death.

But vengeance on whom?

Who should they hit with their clubs? Who should they march over with their banners? Who had done the deed? And who had put them up to it?

It was the Socialists that had done it. Nobody in Berlin was in any doubt about that. But which Socialists? And where were they? Where was their nest? Where were they hiding? The Chronos leaflet had been deliberately vague, leaving the mob with little to go on.

The later editions of evening papers changed all that. The journalists had had time to collect their thoughts and do some research and now began to name names. And while the newspapers couldn’t actually name any specific conspirators, they could certainly name Socialists. And did so with great enthusiasm, in so doing pointing a finger of implied guilt.

‘To the SPD Headquarters!’ the cry went up. ‘We’ll flush the bastards out.’

And so the Brandenburg Gate was forgotten in favour of converging on the offices of the Social Democratic Party, a highly respectable parliamentary party which had attracted millions of votes at the last election, but a party which the newspapers were eager to remind their readers had until 1890 been known as the Socialist Workers Party.

Stanton hoped for their own sake that the leaders of the SPD were not at their constituency offices that night.

Or, more particularly, one leader. Because above the general din and shouts, Stanton noticed one name beginning to emerge as the principal figure of hate. One name whom the evening papers had taken particular care in advertising.

Rosa Luxemburg.

Bernadette’s hero.

A famous Socialist who would one day set up the German Communist Party and die at the hands of a paramilitary death squad.

Or at least that had been Luxemburg’s fate in the first loop of time.

Who could guess what her fate would be in the second?

But it didn’t look good.

The very idea of Rosa Luxemburg seemed to infuriate the crowds. They hated her for a number of reasons. Because she was an uncompromising and highly vocal Socialist. Because she was a dirty foreigner, a Pollack no less, and only a naturalized German. Because she was a woman. And, most damning of all, because she was a Jew.

Stanton hadn’t thought of that.

That the Jews would get the blame.

But why not? They got blamed for most things in Europe in those days. And particularly for socialism. Ever since Karl Marx had first called on the workers of the world to unite, the Jews had been accused of being behind international socialism (while perversely also apparently being behind international capitalism). From time immemorial if there was any hating going on in Europe, the Jews copped it as a matter of course. It was therefore really no surprise that many in the crowd had already stopped blaming Luxemburg the Socialist for the death of their Emperor and had begun blaming Luxemburg the Jew.

Stanton really hadn’t thought of that. He wondered if McCluskey and her fellow Chronations had done. Of if they’d cared.

The uneasy feeling Stanton had felt earlier had developed into a sick and leaden sensation in his stomach which, try as he might, he could not push away. He tried to argue with himself that this was just one night. That the crowds were shocked and upset. Certainly it looked as if things were going to be rougher than he’d hoped, but it would pass.

He allowed himself to be drawn along with the mob. And mob it was becoming, there could be no doubt about that. Stanton felt the weight of history on his shoulders. New history. History in the making.

He spotted a bonfire up ahead.

A bonfire in the street, not a big one, just a little brazier with red and yellow tongues licking hungrily at the air, but Stanton felt his stomach tighten further at the sight of it. Angry crowds making fires in the Berlin night. Flame-flickered shadows on the cobbles. Smoke in the air, drifting on the breeze towards the river Spree. He’d seen that before. Not personally but in countless documentaries and old news reels. Images that had been stamped on the collective memory of his twentieth century. Once recognized by hundreds of millions, now known only to him.

It was leaflets they were burning. He could see them, dancing orange hot in the night air. At first Stanton wondered if they were his own flyers, but that couldn’t be. There had only been a few hundred of them, hours before and in another part of town. He caught one and pulled it down, black with soot and fringed with bright sparkle, but the smoky letters were still legible. It was a message from the Social Democrats. They’d guessed the way the rumour mill was working and had moved fast to declare their outrage and their loyalty to the Crown.

Fellow Berliners!

The leaflet read.

The murder of our beloved Prince is a crime against all Germans! We of the Social Democratic Party stand united with the nation in our condemnation of this heinous crime!

Long live Kaiser Wilhelm the Third!

That final declaration of loyalty to the Kaiser’s eldest son must have been hard for those sober-faced liberal parliamentarians to write. Young Willy was universally acknowledged to be a wastrel, a dilettante and a hopeless womanizer, his luxurious lifestyle being a particular irritation for those who, like the authors of the leaflet, yearned for social equality. Despite that, however, the SPD were anxious to tell the world that they stood behind the new Emperor. They must be pretty scared.

But the students on the street weren’t interested. They didn’t want to listen to mealy-mouthed Socialists offering weasel words of loyalty while in fear of their lives. They wanted vengeance and they weren’t minded to let any little matter of their targets being innocent deprive them of it. So they burned the leaflets and surged onwards.

Soon the crowd with whom Stanton was moving came across a cloth-capped working man. He was distributing the leaflets the students had been burning. Stanton stood and watched as the unfortunate man was dragged from the pavement into the midst of the mob and beaten to the ground.

‘It’s your people who’ve done this,’ the young men shouted as the boots went in. ‘You Socialists and Jews.’

Stanton thought about intervening, even found his fingers closing round the gun in his pocket. But he did nothing. There was really nothing he could do. This madness would simply have to run its course.

By the time the crowd arrived at the Social Democrat headquarters there were around three hundred of them, and there were at least as many again assembled outside the building already. The nervous Social Democrats had prepared for them by erecting a speaking platform beneath a hastily created banner that stated simply ‘Loyalty to the German Crown’.

Stanton could see that they were terrified. Normally their banners demanded eight-hour working days, living wages and compensation for injury at work. Now they were anxious to assure the world they wanted nothing better than to be ruled by a drunken sex maniac.

There were various earnest-looking bearded men gathered on the platform, one of whom was attempting to speak. His gestures and body language appealed for calm but it would have been impossible for anybody even quite close to him to hear what he was saying above the boos and catcalls of the crowd. In front of the platform was a line of party supporters who had begun linking arms in an effort to protect their leaders. They were tough-looking men, working men with determined faces, but Stanton reckoned they’d be swept away in minutes if the crowd surged.

It occurred to him that he should actually be feeling satisfied at this sight. This was exactly what Chronos had planned, what he had been sent to achieve. A Germany turned against itself, no longer baying for foreign blood, but baying for its own. He could imagine the ruthless McCluskey standing at his shoulder, grinning at her own cleverness.

‘You see! It’s people who make history!’ he could hear her chuckling. ‘In this case, you, Hugh! The lone assassin who changed the world! One bullet and Germany heads down a completely different path. Can’t see this lot having the time or inclination to invade Belgium any time soon. Too busy tearing each other’s throats out.’

And Stanton did take satisfaction from the scene. There could be no doubt that in these early hours after his kill the Chronation plan was working like clockwork. Foreign wars were the last thing on any German’s mind. They had scores to settle at home.

He had saved the British army. He’d saved all the young men of Europe and beyond. But for the time being at least it wasn’t going to be pretty. Not in Berlin at any case.

‘Red Rosa! Red Rosa!’

The crowd had begun an angry chant. They didn’t want to listen to a bunch of anonymous identikit bearded leftie intellectuals. They wanted the star of the show, the bogeywoman, the revolutionary witch. The Polish whore. Rosa Luxemburg, revered by many, loathed by most. Still nominally a Social Democrat but notorious as a firebrand radical and passionate enemy of the Hohenzollern establishment.

She was who they wanted but Stanton didn’t think they had a chance in hell of getting her. Rosa Luxemburg was a very bright woman and she’d have to be a suicidal lunatic to show her face to that crowd.

And then to Stanton’s and indeed everyone’s amazement that was exactly what she did. Emerging from the midst of the group which had gathered at the back of the platform. Limping forward on limbs damaged by illness at the age of five and resolutely taking centre stage.

She was a small woman, dressed soberly. Cream-coloured skirt, white blouse with black tie and a plain-looking hat which might have been some pastel colour but Stanton couldn’t tell by the light of the street lamps. However, unlike the other people on the platform, she did not wear a black armband of mourning. Instead, she defiantly wore a red sash across her breast.

For a moment the crowd grew quiet, as astonished as Stanton was to see her show herself when so many in the crowd had been baying for her blood. And in that moment of quiet she had a chance to make herself heard. There was no amplification, but she was used to public speaking and her voice was clear and audible at least to the front section of the crowd.

‘My friends!’ she shouted. ‘I thank you all for joining us at this meeting and would beg your attention while I explain something to you. While it is true that I believed the late Emperor was a despot—’

She got no further.

Clearly the next sentence would have been a condemnation of that despot’s murder but she didn’t get a chance to say it. The crowd seemed almost to leap forward as one, like a beast hurling itself upon its prey. The thin line of party workers in front of the platform buckled instantly and the vanguard of students were on the platform before anyone had even a chance to run. The rioters then began at once to lay about themselves with their clubs, punching and smashing at the bewildered old men while loyal supporters tried to pull them to safety.

Bricks and stones were also being hurled at the building now and the sound of breaking glass filled the air. Stanton wondered where the police were. No doubt they felt they had better things to do that night than protect a bunch of Socialists from getting a hiding which, guilty or not, they richly deserved.

In the melee Stanton lost sight of Rosa Luxemburg and he hoped she’d got back inside the building. He admired her for her principles and also for her reckless bravery. He certainly didn’t want to see her torn to bits by a savage mob. Besides, Bernadette thought she was one of the good guys. He really hoped she’d got away.

But then he saw her.

Captured. In the hands of he mob. Hoisted above their heads and being carried into the heart of the crowd. A tiny bundle. Helpless, like a mouse in the paws of a dozen cats.

And they were taking her towards a lamppost.

Surely they couldn’t be planning to lynch her?

But they were. Not planning, of course. Just doing. The collective hysteria had become self-perpetuating. As was the way with mobs, they had their own momentum. Stanton knew that if he could have taken any of the individuals in that crowd aside and asked them quietly and calmly whether they really wanted to go through with what they were doing – to hang someone, without trial or evidence, to commit a cold-blooded murder in the street – most of those conservative young men would almost certainly have backed off. But together, sharing the madness and the joy of it, and of course the anonymity, they were beyond argument. Even if somebody had been able to find the voice to make one.

And their victim was such a perfect fit.

A Socialist had killed their Emperor and she was Berlin’s most famous Socialist.

A woman. A foreigner. A revolutionary. And a Jew.

Who among the German Junker class really thought it mattered very much to hang a Jew? A hundred miles east they hung them for sport.

It was simply irresistible.

Stanton could hardly believe what he was watching. These ordered and contented streets he had been admiring earlier in the day, the electrified, tram-lined, motorized Kaffee und Kuchen delivery network that were the envy of the world, the arteries of the celebrated Weldstadt, the first global city, had become a jungle in a matter of hours.

The blood lust wasn’t universal. There were some around Stanton who were looking about themselves in concern, shocked like him at the pace at which things were moving. But at the centre of the storm the mob had become a single many-headed monster. Stanton saw a rope thrown over the crossbar of the lamppost. An electric lamp, that bright symbol of an ordered and progressive nation, turned in an instant to a gibbet in the service of the basest and most primeval blood lust.

He caught a sight of the victim’s face, flashing white then dark, white then dark as she twisted and turned beneath the harsh electric glow. Such a small face. Such a small woman. But a big one too. He’d read that when addressing a crowd she seemed to physically grow in stature, mesmerizing her listeners with a rich voice and biting wit. But all her famed intellect couldn’t help her now. Stanton could see that her mouth was moving. Was she trying to argue with them? Trying to open their closed minds to the illogicality of their actions? More likely she was simply pleading for her life, which was an equally hopeless exercise.

There were so many hands on her now, pulling her, pushing her, hoisting her up towards the gallows. She had at most a minute of life left.

Stanton turned away. He didn’t want to watch her die.

But then he heard a voice in his head. It was Bernadette. That sweet warm Irish brogue was at his inner ear. She’s a wonderful woman, you know. I can’t think of anyone I admire so much. Very clever, very passionate, very brave and very important.

That was what Bernadette had said to him on their night in Vienna. When her lips had been so close to his he had felt them brush against his skin as she spoke. And now in his mind she went on speaking: What are you doing, Captain Stanton of the Special Air Service Regiment? Are you going to let this innocent and defenceless woman die? Is that what a British soldier does? Don’t forget it’s your fault they’re lynching her! Do you have an ounce of honour in your whole damned body?

She had a point.

And then Cassie was in his ear as well. Two women calling him to task.

He had her letter in his wallet – I never minded being married to a soldier. Because I knew you believed in what you were risking your life for.

That was the man she’d loved. A guy who did the right thing.

The girls were right. It was time to man up.

He turned again and began to push his way towards the centre of the mob. After all, what did he have to lose? His mission was done, history was unmade, his life was his own and his actions no more or less relevant than anyone else’s. He was free to act as he chose and he chose to risk his life trying to prevent an innocent woman from being hanged in the street.

And if he joined her in her fate? It would be a good way to die.

He didn’t have much time.

Get a bloody move on! he heard Bernadette’s voice in one ear.

Hurry, Hugh! Hurry! Cassie’s voice urged him in the other. They’re going to kill her!

He pushed and pulled and physically chopped a path through the people in his way, raining practised blows down on any who didn’t move instantly in response to his barked command. He knew from experience that angry mobs, while dangerous, are also dull and stupid and a determined individual can do a great deal with them. People gave way to him instantly, no doubt thinking that he wished to be in at the kill, secretly pleased perhaps that others were doing the dirty work while they could enjoy the spectacle without taking any responsibility for it.

It took Stanton less than thirty seconds to get into the very heart of the disturbance and make his voice heard.

‘Put her down and stand back!’ he shouted in German. ‘Every one of you! Leave the woman alone and stand back now!’

His voice was strong. Resonant. Authoritative. A voice that was used to giving commands and used to being obeyed. The wildeyed young men with the struggling woman in their grip paused. Theirs was a group madness, an abdication of personal free will, a roller-coaster of hatred. Stanton’s firm and focused intervention was like a stick shoved between the spokes of a spinning wheel.

He stepped forward again, forcing his way to the lamppost where Rosa Luxemburg was being held while her gallows was prepared.

He put a foot on the wider part at the base of the post and with one hand pulled himself up, thus gaining a little height.

‘This woman is a member of a legal political party,’ he shouted. ‘There is no evidence whatsoever to connect her with the assassination of the Emperor and if anyone has any they should take it to a court of law!’

He almost had them on that. The word ‘law’ was like a blow. This was a generation of students whose professors could have them beaten for minor misdemeanours. Brought up within the Prussian military social culture, discipline and obedience were a religion to them. The ring of fury that was surrounding him and Luxemburg seemed to fall back a half pace or so, reacting instinctively to the presence of a natural leader.

Unfortunately there was one among the students who was also a leader of sorts and he wasn’t in a mood to surrender.

A young man stepped forward and looked up at Stanton, his face illuminated in the lamplight from above. Cold, pale eyes beneath the peak of his little student cap. A pink schlager duelling scar on each cheek. This was a son of the aristocracy, a Prussian Junker to the toes of his jackboots. He, too, was used to being obeyed.

‘And who the hell are you?’ the student enquired imperiously.

Stanton stepped down from the post to reply. He still towered over the young student.

‘I’m the man who’s stopping you making a very serious mistake, sonny,’ Stanton replied, bringing his face to within an inch of his adversary’s.

It was a bold move and it didn’t work. It would have done with a similar child of privilege in 2025, some arrogant, lazy-voiced posh boy being faced down for pissing in the street after an Oxbridge Ball. But the young man facing Stanton was of an aristocratic mind-set forged in the nineteenth century. He gave way only to others of his kind.

‘She’s a dirty Polish Socialist whore,’ the young man shouted right back into Stanton’s face. ‘She killed the Kaiser and we intend to deal with her. If you attempt to stop us we’ll deal with you too.’

Now there were two leaders and the mob preferred their own. Stanton sensed it about to leap forward once more. He had a split second in which to act. He reached forward, grabbed the leading student by the neck and in a practised and fluid movement threw him into a head lock. ‘This man is under arrest for threatening an officer of the Crown,’ he shouted. ‘Anyone who comes to his aid will be arrested also.’

It really was a desperate shot. He had no uniform and his German was spoken in an accent that marked him as a foreigner. They had no reason to believe that he was a police officer other than the fact that he had aggressively claimed to be one.

He sensed the mood continuing to swing against him.

Stanton decided to produce his gun.

He hadn’t wanted to. Experience had taught him that pulling a gun in a crowd was a very dangerous thing to do. It took everything to a whole new level. There would certainly be others in the crowd who had concealed weapons and they would very likely pull theirs too, leaving only the options of retreat or a firefight. Stanton believed that you should never produce a gun unless you were prepared to use it and he really didn’t want to use his. Who could guess where gunfire would take an already appallingly volatile situation?

But it had to be done.

He pushed the Junker student to his knees and stepped in front of Luxemburg, holding his pistol high above his head.

‘All of you, this is your last warning. Stand back in the name of the Emperor! If you continue to threaten either myself or this lady I shall shoot.’

If the surrounding students thought the little snub-nosed Glock was a rather strange-looking weapon, they didn’t show it. They knew a gun when they saw it and the fact that Stanton had produced it convinced them he had the authority to do so.

Collectively they took a step back, leaving their leader isolated on his knees. The madness had not gripped them so totally that they were oblivious to the rule of law or the threat of being shot. Stanton didn’t hesitate. Leaving the student he had ‘arrested’ on the ground, he took Luxemburg under his arm and pushed his way back to the platform.

‘I must address the crowd,’ she said. ‘I must explain—’

‘No more speeches,’ he said. ‘Get inside.’

While the various deputies gathered around their comrade and ushered her inside the building, Stanton jumped up on to the platform to address the crowd himself.

‘Go home!’ he shouted. ‘This is no way to mourn the Emperor. Go home!’

The crowd probably would have dispersed anyway but the decision was made for them with the sound of clattering hooves on cobbles which heralded the tardy arrival of the police.

Stanton, having no wish to be arrested for impersonating an officer, stepped off the platform and, with no other exit options available to him, followed the Socialist deputies into the SPD building.