MAY DAY 1951

after Jack Lindsay

Thousands of people from the Square* were moving on down White­hall**. At once the police began pouring from the side streets where their vans were drawn up by dozens. Detachment after detachment came push­ing out and hurrying up as the people moved on. Mounted police gal­loped up and drove their horses again and again into the mass, riding right on to the packed pavements. Once Jane found herself pressed so hard against some traffic rails that she grew afraid of being badly hurt, then a little later down the road she was thrown painfully against a door-knob. Some glass gave way and a woman cried out. The police on foot or on horse, were driving the people back from the roadway. There were cries of "Peace not war, scholarships not battleships!"

As they reached about two hundred yards down Whitehall, scores of police rushed out of Scotland Yard* and tried to stop the advance. The people pressed on sweeping the police aside. Jane had a startling sense that she and the others were the defeated people of a land occupied by an enemy whose alien soldiers wore the blue police uniforms. It would have surprised her to hear the policemen speak English.

Several buses turned in from the Strand.** "Make 'em*** chariots of peace!" a lad shouted, and many of the demonstrators ran and piled into them. Police came running after and tried to drag the invaders off. Jane saw two men lying in the roadway with police leaning over them, but the successful bus-stormers waved and shouted inside, and others ran to join them. One bus, jammed in the road with mounted police ahead, pulled up. Several more demonstrators ran from the pavement and climbed in, with police dashing in the rear and clutching coat-tails. The conductor ran down the bus stairs and stood in the way of the police who tried to board.

"This isn't a Black Maria!****" he shouted. "Out you go!" Three policemen seized him and pulled him out. He fell against the side of the bus, and when he came up, his face was cut and bruised. His cup had been knocked off, and Jane saw that he was an elderly man, nearly bald. The driver now got down out of his cabin to protest, another group of police ran at him and ordered him to return to his cabin and drive on. He produced his trade union badge and waved it to the people on the pavement, who cheered back. The police told him that unless he climbed straight into his seat he'd be arrested. He put his badge back, wiped his nose, adjusted his coat, and very slowly began getting up into the cabin.

All the while the people, repeatedly attacked by the mounted police, were coming nearer and nearer to 10 Downing Street.***** The Prime Minis­ter's house was thickly cordoned off by more detachments of police...

"It just strikes me," someone said in strong cockney****** tones, "that Mister Ratly Attlee* is a bit afraid of the British people."

Now there was a pause. Some of the leaders who had spoken in the Square conferred with police officers, insisting on their right to hand in a letter protesting against the ban.

Jane tried to edge away towards the Abbey** and after a while the crowd thinned. She walked faster. A running man bumped into her from behind, dodged round the other side of two men who were stand­ing in conversation, and disappeared. A pair of policemen took hold of one of the talkers and dragged him out into the roadway. Jane watched in hesitation, then she stepped out after the group. The man was loudly protesting while one of the policemen told him to shut up or he'd make things worse for himself. His arms were twisted up behind his back and he was being pushed with lowered head towards a van. Jane followed. "Please there," she called in a weak voice, unheard. Then she forced herself to hurry; she came up and caught one of the policemen's sleeves.

He shook her hand off and turned fiercely. "What do you want?"

"That wasn't the man," she said in sinking tones. With an effort she raised her voice. "That wasn't the man you chased."

"You keep out of this," said the policeman, "or you'll be taken along too."

"You've got the wrong man," she repeated more boldly, angry as well as afraid. The second policeman made signs to some others ahead. She felt that if she turned and ran, she'd be arrested at once. So, more out of fear than courage, she went on to a group of policemen, among whom she had caught sight of an inspector. "I want to protest", she said breathlessly. "Those men of yours there arrested the wrong man."

"How do you know?" he asked coldly.

"I saw them. I saw the man they wanted get away."

"I suggest that it is just as likely that you have made the mistake. What are you doing here?"

She grew confused. "I'm doing nothing. I just happened to see..."

He was about to reply, but another high-ranking official came up and drew him off. She was about to follow, but a sudden conviction of helplessness seized her and she wanted only to escape. Not till she was going down into Westminster tube did she realise that if her socialist friend Jill had been in her place she'd have demanded to have her name taken as a witness.

 

Ex. 32. Use the following words and phrases in situations.