xp_logs | London Calling: Doug

Just because some battles are fought with words doesn't make them any less deadly.

Trafalgar Square was packed. At least ten thousand people were thronging the open space, a stunning contrast to the emptiness of the rest of the city. But the people around Doug weren't simply walking around or waiting. They stood, in a loose group, waiting dully for something. Every attempt to communicate with them was simply ignored. It was as if he hadn't even spoken or registered in their thoughts.

There was something in the air, like a vibration under his feet and all around him, as if a subway was going by next to him. There was a vibe that had pulled him here, and he could feel that something was waiting for him.

Suddenly, the crowd rippled, and a voiced, so muted as to feel like it was echoing out of his bones.

"O Lord eternal! move and govern my tongue to speak the verity, and the hearts of thy people to understand and obey the same."

And then they began to move.

The sudden movement of the previously motionless and listless crowd took Doug completely by surprise, and he was jostled roughly by several people before managing to find a gap to squeeze himself into. "What the hell?" he murmured to himself. Something strange was going on here, but it wasn't readily apparent to him.

"This day puts it into your power to terminate the fatigues of a siege which has so long employed your courage and patience. Possessed with a full confidence of the certain success which British valor must gain over such enemies, I have led you up these steep and dangerous rocks, only solicitous to show you the foe within your reach. The impossibility of a retreat makes no difference in the situation of men resolved to conquer or die."

Doug found himself buffeted at first, as the crowd began to march. March wasn't exactly the right term. It was more of a choreographed step, and then another. They moved lockstep, in perfect time, and without hesitation. Each step hit in exact time, a single crack of sound in the square as each foot met the pavement. There was no way to locate the source of the voice. It was almost telepathic, the immersive nature of it. It was as if the stones comprising the square itself were speaking directly to him, through the soles of his feet.

It didn't seem dangerous until a row not far from him, making the odd marching steps stumbled, and those behind them did not stop. The brutal crack of the next lines of people as they stepped on the fallen rang like a gunshot. He could hear the breaking of bones, grinding of flesh, and final gasps as ribs were punctured through lungs and the body cavity.

Doug winced. Merely syncing himself up with the rhythm of the crowd's steps was keeping him alive, but the press of the mob was too much for him to squeeze his way out in any direction. He tried shaking the people next to him to break whatever was happening, then shouting at them, all to no effect. There had to be a way to counter the influence of the speaker, but he needed to figure it out quickly.

"It is a satisfaction for Britain in these terrible times that no share of the responsibility for these events rests on her. She is not the Jonah in this storm. The part taken by our country in this conflict, in its origin, and in its conduct, has been as honourable and chivalrous as any part ever taken in any country in any operation."

More fell to the crush, and worst of all, at the edges of the square, he could see more funneling in. This place was being turned into a meat grinder; the city and the culture ready to eat its own, and in the midst of it, a terrible language of war and righteousness.

Doug recognized the snatch of speech where he hadn't with the previous ones. David Lloyd George during World War I. His brain made an instinctive leap to the words of a Briton (which were actually first spoken by an American) during the Second World War. "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat," he quoted wryly in a conversational tone, as the sentiment seemed apropos to his current situation. He had no tool to fight his way free of the crowd, save his own body, which would lie bloody on the pavement if he didn't think of something soon.

There was no response, just another jarring push as the crowd grew and contracted again, more going down in the crush as more fed in. The sounds of the square were rigid and sharp, echoed off the stones. There was a unified purpose in the crowd, a mindless popular response to what was the sounds of the popular voice.

"Through good and ill we march on, till victory be won, for this is the character of the true revolutionary. In the great moments of supreme struggle and decision it is easy to hold that character, even in supreme sacrifice. It is not so easy in the hard daily task. It is then even more that in the great fights we have together that I would like to be the companion of every one of you. I would like to be with every action team that carries the message of our new faith to new streets."

It was obvious that the crowd was moving to the words of the hidden speaker, and Doug was guessing that the voice was quoting famous British speeches, judging by the bits that he had recognized. Perhaps, to break the spell over the crowd, Doug needed to make them listen to him instead of the voice that drove them. He didn't have a knowledge of all the famous British orations, but perhaps something from the colonies would do.

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this."

The crowd, save for one or two people next to him, who paused briefly as he spoke, but quickly regained the step. An elbow bloodied his nose as the mob moved with increased vigor, as if in response, and the sickening crunch of bones against marble sounded as a line reached the side of the stairways up to the National Gallery, and were crushed to death against it.

"The rebellious war now levied is become more general, and is manifestly carried on for the purpose of establishing an independent empire. I need not dwell upon the fatal effects of the success of such a plan. The object is too important, the spirit of the British nation too high, the resources with which God hath blessed her too numerous, to give up so many colonies which she has planted with great industry, nursed with great tenderness, encouraged with many commercial advantages, and protected and defended at much expence of blood and treasure."

Doug frowned as he was buffeted along in the wash of humanity. A few people had paid attention to him for a fleeting moment, but it hadn't been enough to counter whatever was going on. His brain worked feverishly. He was on the right track, but there was something he was missing.

Then, it came to him. Not only were all the speeches famous British monologues, there was a warlike tone to all of them. An undercurrent of sacrifice and almost bellicose patriotism. "Dulce and decorum est, pro patria mori," as the poem went. It obviously wasn't enough to quote famous speeches of his own, he needed something that would calm the anger of the Mob.

"I have a dream!" he called out loudly over the stamping feet.

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!"

As he continued, his voice grew stronger, carried by a belief that he had found the answer. And indeed, the throng around him missed a beat in their lockstep march, swaying each time "I have a dream" was repeated. Those farther out who had difficulty hearing Doug continued to march on, but they halted and parted against the stillness surrounding the lone figure in the center.

The undertone of the atmosphere was growing dark, almost in recoil to Doug's words. It was like the city was fighting back against him, trying to push away his attempts. The sounds of marching grew louder, harsher in response to him.

"A great many thousand eyes have seen my accusations, whose ears will never hear that when it came to the upshot, those very things were not alleged against me! Is this fair dealing among Christians? But I have lost nothing by that. Popular applause was ever nothing in my conceit. The uprightness and integrity of a good conscience ever was, and ever shall be, my continual feast; and if I can be justified in your Lordships' judgments from this great imputation—as I hope I am, seeing these gentlemen have thrown down the bucklers—I shall account myself justified by the whole kingdom, because absolved by you, who are the better part, the very soul and life of the kingdom."

Doug racked his brain for another speech with which to counter the dark tone of the other speaker. The way to counter it was by using the opposite sentiments. Light to counter dark, love to counter hate, and nonviolence to counter war. He snapped his fingers, remembering a snippet from the autobiography of Mohandas Ghandi that he had had to memorize for a world history class. He raised his voice, remembering the Halloween party when he'd spoken to the crowd in a 'voice of command', as he thought of it. He tapped into that well and reached out to the crowd around him as he spoke.

"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall — think of it, always.

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes that I am prepared to kill for."

The cracking sound of feet on pavement faltered again, this time more of the crowd breaking free of their blank forward staring as Doug spoke. Some of the people standing closest to Doug smiled and nodded at his words, free of whatever it was that had been influencing them.

"If, in our horror of inflicting death, we endeavour to devise some punishment for the living criminal which shall act on the human mind with a deterrent force at all comparable to that of death, we are driven to inflictions less severe indeed in appearance, and therefore less efficacious, but far more cruel in reality."

Whatever strange force held them in thrall was fighting Doug, but the power was fraying, as the crush of Londoners trying to push into the square was less, and the movements of the crowd no longer as murderously unified.

The strange hold on the crowd was nearly broken, but Doug could not find another speech to quiet them completely, try as he could to rack his brain. Then, as he drew in another breath, the words came to him, as though some part of the spirit of London, which had been against him, was supplying what he needed by some magical reversal.

"I spoke earlier of the Temple of Peace. Workmen from all countries must build that temple. If two of the workmen know each other particularly well and are old friends, if their families are inter-mingled, and if they have "faith in each other's purpose, hope in each other's future and charity towards each other's shortcomings" - to quote some good words I read here the other day - why cannot they work together at the common task as friends and partners?"

He spread his arms, offering his hands to the people around him, who smiled and shook them, at last completely free of the malign influence that had driven them before. As the crowd began to disperse, finally giving Doug the space to breathe easily, he massaged his temples and leaned forward, hands on his knees. After he had his breath back, he straightened and glanced up at the statue of Lord Nelson, which seemed to glimmer in the sun for a moment. Doug smiled and nodded, and then turned to follow the crowd out of the square.