Salt of Their Blood

by Gerald Wixey

  Patrick looked serene. He used silence like a well-organised strategy of attack. Declan looked down at the bogey on his finger, I turned away; watching him pop one into his mouth was not for the faint-hearted. Then I saw Ron and Kenny and a chance about to present itself and make something big happen. I tensed – ‘Give me the catapult.’ My moment had arrived; I pointed as our two protagonists walked awkwardly across the canal bridge. I hushed, ‘Be quiet.’

  I fumbled around in my pocket, found the smallest one in there and pulled an exceptionally green, very hard crab apple out. I looked at the gobstopper-sized fruit and lovingly placed it in the leather pouch of the only weapon at our disposal. I thought of Ron, forever inwardly debating, do I have one more pint, do I go home? A pointless internal deliberation, likewise with me; impulse became an irresistible force, charged and unstoppable. The thought of firing a crab apple between Kenny’s shoulder blades overwhelmed me in much the same way as Ron’s thirst always did it for him.

  The more sensible option would have been to let Patrick fire the shot. Last week, using my favourite marble, he had destroyed the brand new electric clock in the cinema with one shot, leaving the timepiece handless, glassless and useless. He trumped this two days later when he hit a moving pheasant between the eyes from twenty yards. A cartoon-sized lump came volcanoing out of the bird’s head in front of our very eyes. Stopcock Arthur spotted us wandering up Grove Street with the dead bird, and in his inimitably dramatic way, said, ‘It’s out of season lads, you’ll get into trouble.’ He watched us as a collective doubt crossed our faces, slowly shaking his head and pursing his lips, ‘Better give it to me Patrick, I’ll take it home – don’t want you getting into trouble, do we?’

  Patrick wasn’t giving his prize up easily, driving his customary hard bargain, eventually costing Stopcock a shilling. Patrick looked at the shiny coin contrasting nicely with his grubby palm, enjoying his moment in the sun as the town’s only professional hitman.

  Declan’s question brought me sharply out of my reverie, ‘Can I shoot him?’

  The plaintiff request needed a quick response. Patrick shrugged, I handed the catapult and missile to Declan, and nodded towards Kenny. Declan waited until they trudged slowly past. I intended to hit one of them somewhere between the arse and the shoulder blade; the catapult tended to fire lower than aimed. Declan made the reasonable assumption that if he aimed at his neck, contact would be made midway between the upper and lower limits. Everything looked good, careful aim and nice release.

  ‘Aaaahhhh!’

  From ten yards away, Declan hit Kenny on the side of the neck with a small hard crab apple travelling at a terrifying speed. Kenny clamped his hand to his neck and he soon spotted us; our shrieking would have made that observation simple enough. Kenny screeched and we all stared at Declan – we’ve fucked up this time.The look on Kenny’s face shocked me; slits for eyes and the corners of his mouth turned down like a weeping clown, his face expressed something like, my whole life is being shredded and now this. He had just crashed down another of life’s snakes and he stared feverishly around for any size of ladder. Tears ran down his cheeks. He pointed – you’re dead – but he couldn’t speak, or he was unwilling to say anything that might give an indication of tears.

  Ron, unaware of our silent attack, asked him what the fuck was up. He never touched Kenny though. Fortunately, the brook formed a providential barrier and we made our leisurely escape, occasionally glancing back to see Kenny holding his neck. We followed the brook and walked briskly downstream, northwards and up to no good. We slipped seamlessly into Indian brigand mode and marauded our way past the Admiralty workshops. That always amused dad; navy workshops sixty miles from any seawater.

  We crept up the ramp that formed the eastern side of the station. We stood on the platform and Patrick said, ‘Shall we throw Declan off the platform again?’

  Declan began to laugh as we picked him up and swung him by the feet, pendulum like, backwards and forwards over the edge of the platform. His laughter well out of control by now as we threatened to throw him onto the railway line, I couldn’t work out if he enjoyed being upside down, or his imminent appointment with the “Cheltenham Spa Express” caused this heaving hysteria.

  Then his glasses fell off and landed on the track. His upside-down expression became somewhat worried as his mouth saucered open. We placed him on his feet. Broken glasses, Declan and his mum made the unholiest of unholy trinities. Fortunately, the glasses appeared unbroken. I looked up the track and jumped down distracted by a booming voice, ‘What are you doing down there?’

  I recoiled at a man in a suit, complete with waistcoat, watch and gold chain. He had polished shoes and a demeanour that demanded respect from us. Bereft of a physical threat, respect became a concept that sat uneasily amongst us.

  The voice boomed away, ‘What were you doing on the track?’

  I waved the beaten-up frames at him, ‘Getting my friend’s glasses.’ Fortunately, he had missed us swinging Declan over the platform edge midway between Paddington and Bristol.

  The station master massaged his jaw between finger and thumb, ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Train spotting,’ said Patrick, still in deferential mode.

  ‘Alright boys, you’ve had your fun.’ He pointed at me, ‘You were on the track.’ He pointed towards the exit now, ‘Out – off you go.’

  ‘What gives you the right?’ I asked.

  ‘Because I’m the Station Master.’

  He delivered this slowly, especially ‘Station Master’, he chewed the words, tasting them, Station Master – mmmmm! Yum yum. I’m the Station Master tasted so good, he didn’t want to spit them out.

  Declan often used situations like this to provoke laughter in us. He took the nuclear option. ‘Fuck off, you fat cunt.’

  We wheeled away, shrieking, pursued by angry, hot-tempered words, ‘Get off my station now, I’m ringing the police. Get off! Go on, off!’

  Declan turned and stuck two fingers up, and we wandered down the ramp past the sidings and up the line towards Didcot. We felt no danger with the proximity to a busy railway line; we saw no hazard. We had the signals, heavy mechanical beasts that acted as our early warning. An obvious suggestion of approaching traffic was indicated, not only by movement of the semaphore arm itself, but by its mechanical nature. The rattle and clank into position could be heard from a hundred yards away.

  We walked leisurely for ten minutes until we reached the cuttings, where the old canal went under the railway line. ‘Cuttings’ referred not to a railway cutting, but to the stretch of canal going underneath the railway embankment at this point. Boredom quickly set in; we sat on the edge of the embankment waiting for the snarling, steaming monsters to hurtle past. ‘There they are.’

  Sound travelled; I suppose the railway lines acted like some sort of crude loudspeaker, which was fortunate for us. There were two figures some hundred yards away; Ron and Kenny came relentlessly towards us. Patrick and me on our own could have easily outrun them. The trouble was, Declan was quick over a short distance. Anything longer than fifty yards and he couldn’t outrun a Jersey cow with weak ankles.

  We executed escape plan B.

  On the north side of the tracks, a hole had been cut into the side of the embankment. No-one knew about it or indeed why it was there. But we were fairly certain that it was a safe bolthole. We had piled brambles over it months ago; it had no escape route, but we slid into our lair anyway and replaced the brambles from the inside. The voices carried our way. ‘Go and look on the other side of the tracks.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘Get over there. There’s nothing coming, you soft bastard.’

  Minutes later, Kenny was inches from us. Seconds later and the approach of Ron’s breathing wheezed an accurate indicator of how close he had become as well. ‘I’ll kill the fuckers – who fired the shot?’

  ‘That ugly little cunt.’

  Frene
tic tension can create a hilarious, crazed atmosphere. I stared at Patrick and he rolled his eyes towards Declan. I clamped my hand over my mouth and Patrick did the same. We both stared at the ground and held our breath. Another glance at each other would have created howls of uncontrollable laughter. In amongst it all, Declan’s breathing remained steady.

  I watched them turn away, leaning forwards as they climbed the embankment. We waited seconds, then minutes. Finally, I mimicked Ron. ‘Who fired the shot?’ Patrick said, ‘The ugly little cunt.’

  We laughed and whooped until I remembered the dog and I hung my head. We went back up and sat on the embankment’s edge. I picked a piece of ballast up and weighed it in my hand; I had an idea. Railway lines are laid onto ballast; a base of stone chippings that absorb the weight and vibration set up by the huge weights and speeds involved. I showed Declan the piece and asked him.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Something hard.’

  ‘Granite?’

  Declan shrugged.

  I placed the granite on the track and we moved ten yards closer to Didcot, away from any potential shrapnel fallout. Five minutes later, we heard the signal change and saw the smoke; the “Cheltenham Flyer” reached around a hundred miles an hour along this stretch of the track – how would speed affect our bomb?

  We waited, close together as it approached fast, the driver let one go on the whistle.

  Out of the fucking way!

  The train hit our piece of granite, which crunched, exploded and sent tiny missiles out horizontally at right angles to the track. A narrow band of deadly grey went firing across and over the embankment edge, before losing momentum and falling harmlessly to earth.

  ‘What a beauty!’ Declan summed up our feelings precisely. Patrick looked happy, Declan laughed.

  We placed granite at regular intervals, intending to stand opposite and duck down the embankment as the train approached. We could feel the vibration, closer, closer. ‘First one to duck is a loser.’ I shouted this as the “Bath Spa Express” hurtled alongside.

  I ducked down the embankment.

  The splintering, crunching sound of granite disintegrating.

  Then the screaming started. Screaming that went on and on.

  I looked west, down the line. Declan was covered in blood, his whole face was a mask of redness. I jumped up – Patrick couldn’t take his eyes off Declan. Screaming and screaming, his face in his hands, blood seeping through the fingers and running in slow-moving rivulets down the backs of his hands. He would not – could not – stop screaming. He’d turned my spur of the moment comment into a treacherous game of chicken. One that Declan had won, albeit at a very heavy price.

  My hair stood up as if a low voltage discharged between my ears. My heart bounced irregularly, with a pressure on my chest like someone heavy pressing the heel of their hand, hard into it. I got up and ran over to him. Don’t die, Declan… Your mum will kill us. I took my t-shirt off and tried to mop the blood away. The lenses of his glasses were wrecked, the right lens frosted, but fortunately no hole in it. The left lens was missing completely. His eye had vanished too, just a gaping hole stared vacantly back at me.

  ‘Declan – Declan, it’s all right,’ I put my arm around his shoulders, ‘Declan, c’mon Declan, we’ve got to go.’

  The screaming slowly stopped, but huge, racking sobs shook him, transferring their pulses down my own body; it must have looked like I vibrated in sympathy.‘My eye – my eye. I can’t see.’

  ‘C’mon Declan, let me wipe the blood away and have a look – please, Declan.’

  ‘My, my…My mum’s going to kill me, she’s going to kill me.’

  Bleeding to death and all the little man could think of was his murderous mother. I started to wipe the blood away, taking his glasses off, handing them to Patrick who looked the other way, towards Didcot and away from the blood.

  ‘She’s going to kill me.’ He sobbed gently. ‘I can’t see out of it.’ The screaming started again.

  ‘We’ll clean you up – get your hands away from your face.’

  ‘Police!’ Patrick pointed towards the station at two figures making their way up the line towards us. The Station Master, true to his word, must have rung the police. ‘Can you walk?’ Declan shook his head, ‘Listen, little man – we walk and get out of the police’s way, or we wait for them and we’ll all be in real trouble. Shall we try? You know we’ll lose them along the canal. C’mon Declan, let’s get you home and my mum will clean you up – good as new.’

  He wouldn’t move… We left him.

  ***

  Two hours later, I went through the back door to be greeted by, ‘Where have you been?’ it was shouted so loud, I jumped and mum jumped, if the dog had been here he would have jumped too. ‘Police have been,’ my old man yelled. ‘Where’s your top?’

  I shrugged, my old man carried on shouting, ‘Answer me, will you – where’s your top?’

  No swearing, a proper storm brewing, the real thing. He stared and I didn’t know what to say – nothing, that’s what; I said nothing.

  ‘I’ll tell you where it is – the police have got it, covered in blood. We’ve been out looking for you for the last two hours, what happened?’ He gave me no time to answer. ‘What were you doing down by the railway line. You worried your mother to death.’

  I shrugged, annoyed that he used mum as a cover for his own anxiety. Blamed mum, your mum’s worried – as if he’s not concerned. My old man did it all the time; your mum thinks, your mum wants me to – he never said I’m worried about you. Why wouldn’t he say I’m worried about you – didn’t he care? He never said it, but he looked worried. He repeated his question. ‘What were you doing down the railway line?’

  ‘I haven’t been near the railway line.’

  No escape; I’d only seen him like this on a couple of occasions and there was no escape until an opportune knock on the door. Fred came in and he glanced around the room, peculiarly serious. It must be difficult trying to give an eleven year old an interrogation at the best of times.

  Fred sighed, ‘Were you down the station?’

  ‘No,’ said dad.

  ‘Stuart, were you messing about on the railway line?’

  Simple question, who answers it? My old man. ‘I’ve told them not to go down there.’

  Fred stood up, asked my old man to get him a drink and followed him out of the room. I thought about legging it, but instead I listened – I could just make it out. ‘Now look here Harry, I’m not allowed to talk to him without you present, but you have to be quiet, let him answer the questions.’

  Fred came back and sighed, rolled his eyes in dad’s direction and smiled at me. I smiled back until he confirmed what I already knew. ‘Declan’s lost the sight in one eye.’

  My head dropped, ‘Look at me, Stuart – look at me. You were seen on the station. The station master gave us a pretty good description, he said you swore at him. Did you call him a cunt?’

  ‘I didn’t – definitely no.’ Which was true enough.

  I said nothing more until dad came back through. He put a pint in front of Fred and said, ‘Did you see that the town have signed that big centre forward from Abingdon United?’

  Fred took a swig of beer, ‘You’re joking, he’s useful.’

  That was the end of the third degree, but not the end of the day’s torture, as mum dragged me over to Declan’s house within a couple of minutes of him getting home. She knocked on the door and we waited for ages. When the door finally opened, Bernice’s pinched and twisted mouth warped into a hostile welcome. She probably had something sour permanently wedged under her tongue. I thought that Bernice’s mother must have been a chicken and her father an irritable Jack Russell. The smell of cabbage, fried onions and tobacco tumbled out of the door to meet us.

  Kathy stood behind Bernice and looked at me wide-eyed, brought her finger up to her lips and shook her head slowly. Bernice guided us through
, Declan was laid across the sofa, swaddled in bandages with two holes, one for his mouth and one for the eye. A huge pad wedged into the other eye socket.

  Bernice nodded at mum, ‘Peggy.’

  Bernice seemed to have lost the appetite for a fight or the capability to acknowledge bad news. Wringing her talons, dragging one across her freckled forehead, she scrambled about in her apron fishing a crushed twisted packet of Woodbines out. She offered one to mum, who shook her head.

  ‘No thanks, Bernice – I need a tip on mine these days.’

  ‘Look at the little focker.’

  We did.

  ‘What a mess.’ Bernice shook her head, ‘Can’t talk, won’t talk, more like.’ She stared at me, ‘No-one knows what happened.’

  She stared at me, except you.

  I was desperate to escape, wash the smell of cabbage and Bernice’s constant, harrying disposition off me and go somewhere and think about Declan. He’d lost an eye and his oft repaired glasses, beyond patching up this time.

  Despite this, Declan came around the next morning, a short invisible man swathed in bandages. ‘I’m getting my new glasses next week and my mum said to thank your dad for paying for them. Are you going to school now?’ I nodded. Declan said, ‘Kick Kenny’s head in for me.’

  I nodded again, speech appeared beyond me; I was unable to work out if Declan should be above Dudley in the pecking order of things to feel guilty about. Declan or Dudley, Dudley or Declan? I looked at the bandages in front of me and had to admit that even I couldn’t pin this one on Ron.

  Suddenly the bandages spoke again, ‘Harry’s law.’

  A statement or a question? I turned and went indoors.

  Chapter 12

  1972

  Kathy looked severe as she locked her car door. Frowning and her mouth turned down as she turned and walked quickly; the customary, nervous sparrow walk. She looked this way and that, then the birdlike step over towards my car. I sighed and dropped the clutch. The faster I accelerated, the quicker my heart plunged.