by Mick Norman
‘Why?’ Predictably it was Vincent.
‘Because it’s nearly light full light. Anyone could see us, even up here.’
‘So?’
‘So, we hide up for the day. Move again late tonight. Down there, other side of the Tryweryn. See that old railway track. We can get down to it and hide up under it Come on.’
‘Wait a minute. I think we should push on.’
‘Well, I don’t. But, if you want to go on, Vincent; then don’t let me stop you. Me and these others are going down there and we’re hiding up. But, you go on.’
‘Fucking bastard. You know fucking well that I don’t know where to go. All you ever told us was that it was a ruined village. Wait! Wait!!’
As the wide valley got lighter, the group huddled closer together. A couple of the old ladies had some chocolate in their jeans. Melted and stinking, but welcome during that long hot summer day.
While some slept, Vincent and Gerry talked long and bitterly. Argued aside from the others. Swore at each other. And reached agreement. Agreed. That when they reached the village that was their destination, then they would fight. And they would fight to kill. ‘No weapons, Vincent.’
‘All right, Wolf. No weapons. Just hands and chains and boots.’
The day dribbled on towards evening and dusk became dark. Later, he never knew when, and he never even knew if it was Vincent, or the dark-loving Rat, but Gerry knew that one of them loosened a nut that was better left tight. He knew about it at around three the next morning when they had begun to move again. They were coasting over the Camedds, close to Pont Nant-Y-Lladron, with Vincent pushing for more speed and nobody even bothering to listen any more.
A slight bump in the gravel road, invisible at night, and Gerry’s steering was gone! Even at thirty it could have been fatal. As Brenda and Gerry rolled off the careering machine, he blessed soft, springy Welsh turf. Brenda had less to bless for she was saved from serious injury by a large, yellow-topped gorse bush.
‘That was really lucky, Wolf.’’
‘That depends on how you look at it, Vincent. I tell you one thing.’’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s fucking lucky we didn’t go fast over this road. Like you wanted. You creepy cowardly bastard.’
‘Any time. Any time.’
‘No. Kafka, help me fix this “accident” and we’ll get on. I don’t want to kill you here and find I’ve wasted so much time that the police see us ride through some little Welsh town. When we get to the village.’
They quickly repaired the loose nut and went on. Through misty villages, empty, waiting only for their absentee tenants to drive down from Manchester and Cheshire for a super weekend. The second-home middle-class from England that had depopulated a whole area.
Gerry led them a long way round to avoid the toll-road into Portmadoc. Through back-ways and unmade roads, away from the sea, but never too far. Twelve bikes. Finally, they saw twin peaks looming black against the slightly lighter sky. Yr Eifl – The Rivals. Mountains that saw the Romans hunting the Celtic fox, old Vortigern himself. That had seen a town of a thousand folk spring up and die on their flanks, long before Christianity reached Britain, the Ultima Thule.
Threading quietly past Llanaelhaeam, engines hardly ticking over, round the steep right-angle at Llithfaen post office. Winding up the steep hill past silent white cottages, into a wraith of sea-mist, then off the road.
Years back there was a path down to Nant Gwrtheyrn. Then it was a flourishing little village. An L-shaped block of cottages, a church/school and the master’s house, bigger and alone. Ships came to the pier and took off slate and gravel chippings, brought food and ale. Then the demand dropped off and the village died. That was over twenty years ago now.
Gradually, time eroded the paint, children broke windows, teenagers saw the chance for kicks and started fires that destroyed floors and ceilings. Holidaymakers still came. Then, there was an attempt to sell the whole village in the early seventies. This had aroused the justifiable wrath of the Welsh Language Society and they had taken steps to make the path down to the village quite impassable.
So, gulls and sheep, curlews and cormorants, took over what was left of Nant Gwrtheyrn. The only sound in the steep-sided valley was the falling of white water and the shrill cry of birds. But, there was still a way down. Only a stout walker could find it, or determined people on powerful motorcycles. The Last Heroes, what was left of them, were very determined, and they had very powerful hogs. So, led by Gerry, they straggled into the ruined village. Sheep stirred at the invasion, then went promptly back to sleep as the engines were cut, and quiet returned.
Everyone got off their bikes and stretched – it had been a hard ride. Gradually, they formed a sort of circle around Gerry and Vincent
‘Now?’
‘Now!’
It was quickly agreed the terms for the fight It was a duel to the death in the best Angel tradition. The man who is at the top, the President, facing a challenge from the man who thinks he’s better. Rat announced he would be Vincent’s second, and Gerry pushed Brenda back and chose Kafka. Near the sea, there was a huge tower of toppling concrete, with forty-foot high mounds of loose dusty gravel stacked against it.
Gerry was to ride a hundred yards back up the hill from it, while Vincent rode the same distance the other way. They were to ride together and fight – to the end. No weapons. Vincent kept on his belt, the highly-oiled drive chain, while Gerry chose to depend on his hands alone.
Rat and Vincent conferred long together in the still darkness. Scuttling bent over, Rat disappeared up to the tower, ‘just to pick out the best ground for my man’ as he explained.
Brenda went up after him and returned a couple of minutes later, brushing dust from her hands and smiling at Gerry.
A touch of the hand, then Gerry rode up to his starting point. Peering through the half-light – dawn wasn’t all that far away now – he saw Vincent do the same. Rat had appointed himself honorary umpire and looked up at Vincent
‘Are you ready?’ Then a glance at Gerry: ‘You ready, Wolf?’ Without a pause to find out the answer, he dropped his hand. ‘Go!’ he screamed, his voice cracking with the excitement.
Not taken at all by surprise, Gerry and Vincent hit their throttles together. Aided by the gradient, it was Gerry who reached the bottom of the tall tower first. He skidded to a halt and began to dismount. Vincent drew first blood by riding straight at him, only veering at the last moment, his bucking rear wheel throwing up a cloud of bitter dust and knocking Gerry’s chopper away from under him.
As he got to his feet, Gerry was surprised to see the president backing away from him, towards an angle of the cracked concrete. The remainder of the chapter gathered round on the hillside above, shouting and cheering. All but Rat shouted for Gerry. For Vincent, it was the end of a long and bloody road. He had seen Gerry fight and suspected, though he had never admitted it to anyone but himself, that Gerry’s training in unarmed combat would give him the edge. He could still hear the cracking of cartilage and bone as Tiny Terry had been easily and neatly defeated and killed.
But, there was one trick left.
As Gerry closed in on him, moving easily on the balls of his feet, hands out and weaving in front of him, Vincent reached behind him into the grey dust. And found – one of the shotguns.
The shouting stopped, as though someone had lifted the arm off a record. Suddenly, all you could hear was the sullen whisper of the sea, hundreds of feet below them, the heavy panting of the two men, the scuffling of their boots as they shifted in the gravel chippings.
One voice.
Vincent stood there, clicked off the safety, smiled, levelled the gun at Gerry’s stomach. Gerry saw death in his eyes, and smiled back.
One voice.
The voice of Brenda.
‘Gerry!!! Trust me. Go for him. He daren’t fire!’
Vincent smiled more broadly. ‘Yes, come on, love, come closer.’
Again B
renda. ‘Move!!’
So Gerry twisted and dived, praying for a misfire, that he might get at Vincent’s feet. But he was too late. As he knew he would be.
The big gun blasted the Welsh morning, and there was a high scream. Gerry lay still in the dust, feeling the shock of the charge, But, feeling no impact of slugs. He had missed!
He hadn’t. Gerry rolled over and looked up, and Vincent wasn’t there any more. The seamed concrete wall where he had been was slobbered with gouts of blood, streaked and already running down.
He stood up and walked to the edge of the slope. Vincent had been standing near the edge, and the force of the shotgun exploding in his hands and face had thrown him back to fall sixty feet down into the heap of dust, where he rolled and screamed and cried.
The shotgun had exploded. Any shotgun would if it had been crammed full of gravel and dirt, clogging the barrel. The charge can’t escape so it bursts the gun. Gerry turned to Brenda on the hill opposite. She smiled back at him and held up her hands, still smeared with mud and dust. That was another debt he would owe her.
Below him, Vincent had made it to his feet. His right hand was completely gone and jetted blood in a slowing arc. The left was mangled and torn, hanging from what was left of his wrist by a thread of gristle, He was bleeding to death.
But there was more. The gun had been at his shoulder, and he had been sighting it, making sure that he would hit Gerry full in the guts. The burst had also ripped his face open and slashed at the jelly of his eyes. He staggered and nearly fell. Vincent was blind. Totally blind.
Concrete dust clung to his wounds, soaking up the blood. The dust about him was spotted and rivered from the bursts of blood. Finally he fell and did not get up. In the quiet, as gulls circled overhead, they could hear him crying.
‘My eyes! Oh, Lord God. My eyes! Help me! Mother! Help me! Please! Help me! I can’t see! Gerry, help me! Please help me, Gerry! Mother, help me! Mum! Mum, it’s me. Can’t you hear? Help me, Mum. Please. Mummy. It’s me. I can’t see you. Mummy. It’s Vincent. Vincent. And I can’t see. Help me.’ The cries died away. There was one last plea: ‘Mummy, come and help Vinnie. Please! It’s so dark.’
The rest was silence.
Gerry wearily walked over to where the rest of the Angels stood waiting for him. He put his arm round Brenda and they stumbled together towards the sea. All that was left of the Last Heroes lay down on the shingle. Quietly.
High, very high, above them, on the top of the cliffs, stood four men. Unseen. Watching. Seeing all. They wore jeans and faded blue Levis. Behind them, the weak sun was just pushing over the crest of Yr Eifi, shining on their backs. Brightening the backs of their Levis. Reflecting off the design, picking out the white head of a wolf on each jacket. The four men began to walk down towards the sea.
Eighteen – An Excerpt From An Essay
On The Subject Of Hell’s Angels
By A London Boy (14 years of age)
Dated August 1st, 197-
‘It seems to me that too many of the people at the top enjoy persecuting young people. Look at all those policemen that were killed last month in Birmingham. All that because the Last Heroes Hell’s Angels motorcycle chapter were making a film and the authorities didn’t approve of that.’
I, and a lot of my friends, think that it’s all terribly unfair the way the people in power have a down on us. We know that people like Gerry and the Last Heroes did a lot of rotten things – stealing and killing – but they never had a chance. And they never dropped thousands of bombs on innocent peasant people. If you don’t give people any freedom at all and jump on them if they try and show that they want to be free, that they’re individuals – however they try and show it – then you’re bound to make them worse. It’s like when America banned drink but everyone still got it and lawlessness flourished. It’s the same with any kind of restriction.’ Although my friends and I are still too young to be able to vote at this election that’s coming, I know that a lot of my older friends feel the same. We wait and it’ll be our turn. We want a little more freedom, and more of a chance to make our own mistakes and then learn by them. That’s why I hope there’ll be a change at this election. So that there can be more freedom.’
Finally, this is a poem I wrote about the Hell’s Angels that sums up the way we feel.
One day, if they’re still alive up in the mountains,
I’d like to go and join them.
One day.
Everywhere I look I see
Faces grey with misery.
Everybody looks the same,
I just don’t know who to blame.
I don’t want to grow up grey,
With a boring job and rotten pay,
Spend it all on birds and booze,
Nothing to win, so there’s nothing to lose.
I’d like to leave it all behind,
Ride my hog, see what I’d find,
With my old lady behind me,
We’d ride with Gerry and all be free.
Brothers running high we’d see
What we wanted when we’re free.
Really, that’s what I’d like to be,
Out of it all and free, free, free!
A year or so has passed since the apocalyptic ending of ‘Angels From Hell’. The government has fallen and a new freedom washes through the streets.
From their hide-out in the mountains of Snowdonia, Gerry Vinson leads his chapter – the remnants of ‘The Last Heroes’ combined with ‘The Wolves’ – on a run South. Back to London.
Back to a city ruled by a new Hell’s Angels’ chapter – ‘The Ghouls’ – and terrorised by gangs of teenagers who crop their hair and ape the manners of the ‘Skinheads’ of the sixties.
Gerry knows that there can only be one winner. He also knows that the price of defeat is likely to be death.
“It is better to reign in hell, Than to serve in heaven”.
John Milton—Paradise Lost.
ANGEL CHALLENGE
A year or so has passed since the apocalyptic ending of Angels From Hell. The government has fallen and a new freedom washes through the streets. From their hideout in the mountains of Snowdonia, Gerry Vinson leads his chapter – the remnants of ‘The Last Heroes’ combined with ‘The Wolves’ – on a run south, back to London.
Back to a city ruled by a new Hell’s Angel chapter – ‘The Ghouls’ – and terrorised by gangs of teenagers who crop their hair and ape the manners of the ‘Skinheads’ of the sixties.
Gerry knows that there can only be one winner. He also knows that the price of defeat is likely to be death.
“It is better to reign in hell, than to serve in heaven” – John Milton – Paradise Lost
This is for Josiah Hedges – one of my favourite people who is indirectly responsible for this.
Prologue
An Excerpt From An Essay On The Subject Of Hell’s Angels
By A London Boy (14 years of age)
Dated August 1st, 197–
‘It seems to me that too many of the people at the top enjoy persecuting young people. Look at all those policemen that were killed last month in Birmingham. All that because the Last Heroes Hell’s Angels motorcycle chapter were making a film and the authorities didn’t approve of that.’
‘I, and a lot of my friends, think that it’s all terribly unfair the way the people in power have a down on us. We know that Gerry and the Last Heroes did a lot of mean rotten things – stealing and killing – but they never had a chance. And they never dropped thousands of bombs on innocent peasant people. If you don’t give people any freedom at all and jump on them if they try and show that they want to be free, that they’re individuals – however they try and show it – then you’re bound to make them worse. It’s like when America banned drink but everyone still got it and lawlessness flourished. It’s the same with any kind of restriction.’
‘Although my friends and I are still too young to be able to vote at this election that’s coming, I know that a
lot of my older friends feel the same. We wait and it’ll be our turn. We want a little more freedom, and more of a chance to make our own mistakes and then learn by them. That’s why I hope there’ll be a change at this election. So that there can be more freedom.’
‘Finally, this is a poem I wrote about the Hell’s Angels that sums up the way we feel. One day, if they’re still alive up in the mountains, I’d like to go and join them. One day.’
Everywhere I look I see
Faces grey with misery.
Everybody looks the same,
I just don’t know who to blame.
I don’t want to grow up grey,
With a boring job and rotten pay,
Spend it all on birds and booze,
Nothing to win, so there’s nothing to lose.
I’d like to leave it all behind,
Ride my hog, see what I’d find,
With my old lady behind me,
We’d ride with Gerry and all be free.
Brothers running high we’d see
What we wanted when we’re free.
Really, that’s what I’d like to be,
Out of it all and free, free, free!’
One – Afternoon All
‘Haven’t you finished that bleeding bottle yet?’
‘Nearly. Anyway, I’m buggered if you’re getting any more of it. You had well over half of the last bottle. I reckon you’ve had about five pints to my three. That’s what I reckon. So, no bleeding more.’
‘That’s just the bleeding trouble, Arthur. I need the empty bottle to slash in.’
Arthur Samuels drained the bottle, adding a touch more colour to his veined face. He passed it to Morry Gannon, who unbuttoned his long grey raincoat, unzipped his flies and carefully positioned the bottle. He cursed as he underestimated his need and wiped his wet hands on the front of his coat. He carefully put the bottle down on the step by his feet. Grinning, Arthur leaned across and nudged it with his foot, sending it rolling down through the crowd, spraying trousers and shoes and chinking along until it hit a metal barrier stanchion and shattered. What was left of the liquid soaked into the dusty concrete.