The Sun Rules Britannia

Note: This story contains reference to deaths suffered by marginalised migrant communities.

They say the sun never sets on the British Empire, but it hadn’t risen on this so far grey and tepid morning. The musicians of St Peter’s Symphony had been on the bus for hours at this point, and the sky had only just taken the trouble of brightening a feeble dawn. This normally wouldn’t command much attention - it wasn’t unusual for the group to travel long distances across the country, starting well before they’d like to be roused from their admittedly undersized beds. What was strange in this case, however, was that today was Midsummer. There were scarcely more than seven hours of darkness, and Mr Connell had arranged for them to drive through more than half of them.

Mr Connell was the orchestral director, a rigid man who had only grown more severe over his many years waving a stick around. The brass players joked that he was somewhere deep in the line of succession for the throne, and kept his blue suits so pristine on the off chance he was called up for a surprise coronation. His suit looked as sickeningly pressed and unblemished as always, even at this early hour, and was paired with a glaringly white shirt and a tie so red it might as well have been soaked in lion’s blood. Most of the bus was filled with concert blacks which hadn’t had time for a wash, let alone an iron.

There’d been a headline a few weeks back about a coastal town, Brittlesea, not far from the concert. It was the kind of place you’d expect a coastal town in England to be; the streets were built so there was somewhere for teens to play their boombox between the fish and chips and the pub, and there was a windswept pebble beach best approached with a coat on (except on the few days it was too full of tan-seekers and empty bottles to take a clear step). His Majesty’s Coastguard had caught a boat full of migrants and sent it back with them in sight of the Brittlesea shore. The boat had sunk on the return journey. A violist said they’d have hated the English weather anyway. The timpanist misheard her; he replied that he hoped the cathedral they were playing in was air-conditioned.

When the bus stopped, Mr Connell was the first off. He met with a short man, a balding man, who grasped the man’s arms with both his hands and shook it, staring up with proper English deference from behind under his round glasses. He passed him a blue manila folder while the orchestra unloaded their equipment. The driver helped (he had other drives to make, so needed the bus cleared quickly), and some altar boys stepped out from under the stained glass to carry things as well. One of them looked just like the drowning boy on the cover of the papers. Some felt fleeting senses of pity, but they were difficult to place and easily dismissed. Mr Connell was ushering them inside. In any case, the sun was then well in the sky and the heat hung in the air - it wasn’t hard to rush people into the shade. The altar boys were left to sweat as they carried the last of the drums.

But it was cool in the cathedral and rehearsal could get underway without interruption. It was an epic of a concert; a collection of choirs stood ready to join in a rendition of Fauré’s Requiem and sat idle while the orchestra plowed through Elgar’s Enigma. It was said that Elgar himself had conducted a great deal within those walls, as Mr Connell made sure to mention to no end, as if he could transfigure himself into the man if only he were to say his name enough. There was an air in the room that the legend of England past was hidden somewhere in the alcoves, lying in wait to be recalled during Nimrod. The tuba sounded like a foghorn and no one thought of the waves.

Lunch sent the musicians through the streets of a British town they had never visited before but had also never left. It was rife with narrow buildings and narrower streets, lined with steep slate roofs and laden with triangular Union Jacks stretched across the shop fronts. They ate steak and ale pies, and chips with curry sauce, and strawberry ice-cream to wash it all down under their shaded umbrellas, and hurried back to the cathedral while people crept out of their shopfronts to tidy up the litter. An aluminium pie case lay half submerged in some barely touched mushy peas. It quickly started to fester with flies in the heat.

Mr Connell had been busy over the break; he had taken his manila folder, held under his arm as if it were a service rifle, and added a sheet of music to each stand. It wasn’t difficult, and could afford to go without practice. The addition went unnoticed. The bassist was worried he’d burnt his fingers on his pie, and a trombonist washed his mouth out with water so he wouldn’t clog up his instrument. The violins played their runs as they ever did, and the incredible brightness showing the intricacies of stained glass was the only trace of the sweltering heat they’d left behind outside.

It was later now, and the concert was drawing to a close - the orchestra each turned to the backs of their books and there was more to be played. The strings lifted their bows in unison, because it was what they did. The oboes put their reeds to their lips, and the percussion switched to their harder mallets. A young girl walked out on stage, with red, white, and blue ribbons in her hair and a ceremonial saber outstretched, and the crowd surged to their feet for their Lady Britannia. And with that, the drums began to roll, and the people began to sing.

Rule, Britannia!

Some men in the second row linked arms and began to sway.

Britannia rule the waves!

There was a cheer, as the girl held her sword aloft, smiling as she struck the air with her imperial might.

Britons never will be slaves.

The chorus rolled around again and again, to exaltation, to flag-waving, and to the inescapable familiarity of repetition. A group of children who had stood on the edges of a choir were humming it loudly as they traipsed down the aisle.

Britannia rule the waves.

The hall found there was a wickedly joyous purpose to it all, a surety in its assertion that We would somehow succeed. They had been convinced to conquer Them, to overcome Them, to rule Them before any of them could really think about who They were.

They stepped out of the cathedral and it was still light. But of course it was still light. It was Midsummer. And as they began to drown in sweat from a heat all too alien to their shores, they couldn’t think of anything to do but pray their sun would never set; a people so conjoined and righteous in their purpose could never begin to think they were slaves.