I've noted before that as far as the PCs of my campaign know, all four of the police stations of the H Division of the London Metropolitan Police may be within the area affected by the supernatural catastrophe that seperated a part of the East End from the rest of the world, forming our setting. It is also highly plausible that at least two of the City of London Police stations are within this area as well.
The four stations of the H Division of the London Metropolitan Police include:
76-78 Leman Street (Divisional HQ)
160 Commercial Street, Spitalfields
Arbour Square, Stepney
King David Lane, Shadwell
This is the result of my researches which begun by trying to work out whether any police stations were
within the affected area . Three police stations are near enough to the area of activity of the PCs that it seems very unlikely that they will not become important in play.
I note that the weapons stored at
each police station are not very impressive. After the Clerkenwell Outrage, a Fenian bombing of a prison meant to assist in an escape that ended up killing several innocent people, including a little girl, both the City of London Police and the London Metropolitan Police were issued Adams revolvers* borrowed form Tower of London stores. 661 revolvers were loaned to the Met, for just over 6,000 officers in 63 stations. Like cutlasses, it seems that ten of these revolvers were issued to each station and only ten rounds of ammunition were issued with each to a policeman who drew one from stores.
In 1883, the London Metropolitan Police replaced these with Webley M.P. loading-gate revolvers of the 'Constabulary' pattern, buying 931. These were intended for constables in the outlying stations, who could request them night patrols if they wished. It seems very likely that the 931 Webley M. P. .450 loading-gate revolvers would have been divided in a similar way as the London Met later divided their one thousand Webley & Scott self-loaders in the years leading up to WWI, with ten weapons issued to each divisional HQ station and three to six issued to smaller, sub-divisional stations.
We'll return to the City of London police stations at Bishopsgate and in Seething Lane next to Tower Street later. For now, let's tackle H Division of the London Metropolitan Police, because at least one police station is close enough to where the PCs have been adventuring that they have three times been in a position to make a short detour and see the condition of the station for themselves.
In all cases, however, the PCs did not dare delay even a minute from their self-appointed quests, as the players are uncomfortably aware that their GM does not believe in off-screen events moving at the speed of plot. Innocents will be sacrificed
at the hour chosen by the villains, regardless of whether the PCs have gathered up enough forces to stage a last-moment rescue by that time or not. Flying columns of enemy raiders
will attack friendly survivors in the absence of PCs, if they happen to be absent at the time the GM had estimated the enemy needed to organise them.
So the PCs don't dare to explore for the sake of exploring and spent the last few sessions desperately scrambling to raise a rescue force and also find enough arms for the survivor society they are setting up to be able to leave a strong defensive force under trusted friends of their PCs. Even so, they are aghast at leaving almost a thousand people at the mercy of whatever dark forces stalk them in the night**, even if within a few hours, the volunteer forces defending them will have enough ammunition to field some 200 men armed with longarms of varying effectiveness*** and to reload at least 30 revolvers for defenders as well.
These weapons are more numerous than survivors who are actually capable of acting sensibly in a combat situation. Certainly, some 200 men who have discharged a firearm before can be found, but even proficiency with a weapon does not a warrior make. The PCs, accordingly, have thought longingly about the fact that some one-in-five to one-in-four of police recruits are former military men (some reports claim that 50% of the London Metropolitan Police in 1888 come from the army or other services) and that police constables routinely encounter physical violence in the course of their professional duties, even if firefights are rare. Any significant reinforcement from the 600+ police of H Division of the London Metropolitan Police and the 900+ men of the City of London Police would be a welcome leavening of stout men.
It may be that all four of the H Division stations are within the affected area of the campaign setting. On the other hand, the Shadwell station at King David Lane and the Stepney station at Arbour Square are further east than any news the PCs have gotten. They have no reports, second-hand or otherwise, of anywhere east of the London Hospital.
Also, the PCs have as yet no confirmed reports of the Spitalfields Market, Bishopsgate Goods Yard or anything near Bethnal Green Road, which may indicate that the northern end of Commercial Street (starting from the old Red Lion Street), where the station at 160 Commercial Street stands, might be just outside the affected area and/or that something terrible is located between it and the home base of the survivors led by the PCs. It
is certain that the densely populated alleys and narrow streets filled with doss houses and temporary lodging around 'Petticoat Lane'/Middlesex Street, Goulston Street and Flower and Dean Street are extremely dangerous to venture into. Dorset Street and the other small streets around the Spitalfields Market would certainly be no better.
On the other hand, the PCs
do know for certain that the Leman Street HQ station at 76-78 Leman Street**** is within the affected area, as PCs have passed the north end of Leman Street, the south end of Leman Street and even gone through Tenter Street and walked Great Prescott Street***** on more than one occasion. They haven't seen the police station, not in the dark and foggy conditions that prevail, but they've been close enough to know that at least the street it was on is entirely part of this new and altered East End of London.
In the next post, I'll go into some questions and thoughts I have about the Leman Street station. Here, however, I have but one question:
Does anyone happen to have information on where the Section Houses****** for the H Division of the Metropolitan Police are located?
*The evidence suggests that these were the older pattern of 'Beamont-Adams' caplock revolvers converted to metallic cartride weapons, i.e. the Adams MkI.
**Not to mention the non-existent mercy of their GM, prone to posing impossible moral dilemmas where the players do not know the relative risks and having the consequences of almost any choice be some innocents dying because the powerful PC heroes were not there to defend them.
***There are around 20 more-or-less modern breechloading rifles, around a quarter each are Snider-Enfields or Martini-Henry rifles owned by members of the Tower Hamlet Volunteer Rifle Corps and the rest are sporting rifles comparable to those. Then there are 30 muzzleloading smoothbore trade guns, a scattering of other muzzleloaders and some 150 breechloading shotguns, the majority of them in 12-gauge, but with significant numbers in 16-gauge and a few 20-gauge or 10-gauge.
****Just a few houses away from where the new Leman Street station would be built in 1891.
*****Great Prescott Street is actually where three of the PCs, along with their thirty strong band of intrepid rescuers, are located at this point in time, after the events of session nine.
******Barracks-style housing for unmarried policemen.