A Scots Quair (80 page)

But now all the chaps were lifting their heads as they marched, and looking as though they hadn't a care in the world, not showing their qualms to the gentry sods. Bobbies had come out and now marched by the column, a birn of the bastards, fat and well fed, coshes in hand, there was the new Sergeant, him they called Feet—Christ, and what plates of meat!
Boomr-oom
went the drum and you all were singing:

And a lot more like that, about Ramsay Mac, stite, but it gave a swing to your feet and you all felt kittled up and high by then and looked back by your shoulder and saw behind the birn of the billies marching like you, you forgot the wife, that you hadn't a meck, the hunger and dirt, you'd alter that. They couldn't deny you, you and the rest of the Broo folk here, the right to lay bare your grievances. Flutter, flutter the banner over your head, your feet beginning to stound a wee, long since the boots held out the water, shining the drift of the rain going by. And now you were all thudding into step, and beyond the drum saw Royal Mile, flashing with trams, thick with bobbies: and here out from the wynds came the Ecclesgriegs men and the fisher-chaps from Kirrieben, they looked the worst of the whole caboosh. And Big Jim Trease cried
Halt a minute
, you all paiched to a stop while the other chaps drew in and formed fours.

Watching that you minded your time in the army, the rain and stink and that first queer time your feet slipped in a soss of blood and guts, going up to the front at Ypres—Christ, long syne that, you'd not thought then to come to this, to
come to the wife with the face she had now, and the weans— by God, you would see about things! Communionists like Big Jim might blether damned stite but they tried to win you your rights for you. And all the march spat on its hands again and gripped the banners and fell in line, and looked sideways and saw the pavements half-blocked, half Duncairn had heard of the march on the Town House—and och, blast it if there wasn't the wife again, thin-faced, greeting, the silly bitch, making you shake like this, the great sumph, by the side of those oozing creashes of bobbies, shining their capes in the rain.

But now you'd wheeled into Royal Mile, a jam of traffic, the trams had slowed down, flutter, flutter the banners, here the wind drove, your mates shrinking under the sleety drive, Woolworth's to the right, where all the mecks went, and there the big Commercial Bank and the office of the
Daily
Runner
, the rag, it had tried to put a stop to this march, the sods had said you never looked for work, you that tramped out your guts day on day on the search—to the Docks, to the granite works, the country around, as far to the north as Stonehyve.
Boomr-oomr
, wee Jake'll brain that damn drum if he isn't careful, God, how folk stare! A new song ebbing down the damp column, you'd aye thought it daft to sing afore this, a lot of faeces, who was an outcast? But damn't, man, now—

And what the hell else were you, all of you? Singing, you'd never sung so before, all your mates about you, marching as one, you forgot all the chave and trauchle of things, the sting of your feet, nothing could stop you. Rain in your face—that was easy to face, if not the fretting of the wife back there (to hell with her to vex a man's mind, why couldn't she have bidden at home, the fool?).

She'd take no hurt, you were all of you peaceable, the singing even in a wee died off, they'd shooed the traffic to the side of the Mile, a gang of the Mounted riding in front, their fat-buttocked horses swaying away, well-fed like their riders,
the rain sheeting down from their tippets, the Bulgars, easy for them to boss it on us—

What the devil was up down there?

The whole column had slowed, came bang to a stop, more Mounties with their wee thick sticks in their hands strung out there across the Mile, rain-pelted, the horses chafing at the bridles, impatient, Christ, rotten to face if a brute came at you. And a growl and a murmur went through the column, what was wrong up there, why had they stopped? Chaps cried
Get on with it, Jim, what's wrong?
Syne the news came down, childes passing it on, their faces twisted with rage or laughing, they hardly bothered to curse about it, the police were turning the procession back down into Paldy by way of the wynds. It wasn't to be let near the Town Hall at all, the Provost had refused to see them or Trease.

And then you heard something rising about you that hadn't words, the queerest-like sound, you stared at your mates, a thing like a growl, low and savage, the same in your throat. And then you were thrusting forward like others—
Never mind the Bulgars, they can't stop our march!
And in less than a minute the whole column was swaying and crowding forward, the banners pitching and scudding like leaves above the sodden clothes of the angry Broo men. Trease crying
Back! Take care! Keep the line!

And your blood fair boiled when you heard him cry that, a Red—just the same as the Labour whoresons, no guts and scared for his bloody face. And above his head you saw one of the bobbies, an inspector, give his arm a wave, and next minute the horses were pelting upon you hell for leather, oh Christ, they couldn't—

Ewan was down in Lower Mile when the police tried to turn the unemployment procession down the wynds to the Gallowgate. He'd just come from a bookshop and was forced to stop, the pavements black with outstaring people. And then they began to clear right and left, the shopman behind cried
Come back, Sir. There'll be a hell of a row in a minute
, he was standing on a pavement almost deserted. Then he saw
the mounted policeman wave and the others jerk at their horses' bridles, and suddenly, far up, the policeman of Segget, the clown that the Segget folk had called Feet, not mounted, he'd come by the side of the column—saw him grab a young keelie by the collar and lift his baton and hit him, crack!—crack like a calsay-stone hit by a hammer, Ewan's heart leapt, he bit back a cry, the boy screamed: and then there was hell.

As the bobbies charged the Broo men went mad though their leader tried to wave them back, Εwan saw him mishandled and knocked to the ground under the flying hooves of the horses. And then he saw the Broo folk in action, a man jumped forward with a pole in his hand with a ragged flag with letters on it, and thrust: the bobby took it in the face and went flying over his horse's rump, Εwan heard some body cheer—himself—well done, well done! Now under the charges and the pelt of the rain the column was broken, but it fought the police, with sticks, with naked hands, with the banners, broken and knocked down right and left, the police had gone mad as well, striking and striking, riding their horses up on the pavements, cursing and shouting, Εwan saw one go by, his teeth bared, bad teeth, the face of a beast, he hit out and an old, quiet-looking man went down, the hoof of the horse went plunk on his breast—

And then Ewan saw the brewery lorry jammed by the pavement, full of empty bottles; and something took hold of him, whirled him about, shot him into the struggling column. For a minute the Broo men didn't hear or understand, then they caught his gestures or shout or both, yelled, and poured across the Mile and swamped the lorry in a leaping wave….

That evening the
Runner
ran a special edition and the news went humming into the south about the fight in the Royal Mile, pitched battle between unemployed and police, how the Reds had fought the bobbies with bottles, battering them from their saddles with volleys of bottles: would you credit that, now, the coarse brutes that they were? The poor police
had just tried to keep order, to stop a riot, and that's what they'd got.

The Reverend Edward MacShilluck in his Manse said the thing was disgraceful, ahhhhhhhhhhhh, more than that, a portent of the atheist, loose-living times. Why hadn't the police called out the North Highlanders? … And he read up the
Runner
while he ate his bit supper, and called in his housekeeper and told her the news, and she said that she thought it disgraceful, just, she'd heard that a poor old man was in hospital, dying, with his breast all broken up: would he be a policeman, then, would you say? The Reverend MacShilluck gave a bit of a cough and said Well, no, he understood not—
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh well, we mustn't worry over much on these things
,
the proper authorities will see to them
. And gave the housekeeper a slap in the bottom, well-fed, and said
Eh, Pootsy, tonight?
And the housekeeper simpered and said
Oh, sir
—

Bailie Brown, that respectable Labour man, was interviewed and was awful indignant, he said that he fought day in, day out, the cause of the unemployed on the Council, none knew the workers better than he or the grievances they had to redress. But what good did this senseless marching do?—the Council had to impose the pac rates the National Government laid down for it, you could alter nothing for a three or four years till Labour came into power again. The unemployed must trust the Labour Party, not allow itself to be led all astray—And he shot Mr Piddle out on the street, in a hurry, like, he'd to dress for dinner.

Lord Provost Speight was found in his garden, stroking his long, dreich, wrinkled face; and he said that this Bolshevism should be suppressed, he put the whole riot down to Communist agents, paid agitators who were trained in Moscow, the working-class was sound as a bell. If they thought they could bring pressure to bear on the Council to alter the rates of the pac, by rioting about in Royal Mile, they were sore mistaken, he'd guarantee that—

Duncairn's Chief Constable said it wasn't true the police had run, they'd just given back a wee till reinforcements came and by then the crowd had dispersed, that was all. No, they'd made only one arrest so far, the well-known agitator Trease. And the old man who had died in the hospital had been struck down by one of the rioters—

And the men came back to their homes in Footforthie and Paldy Parish and Kirrieben, some of them walking and laughing, some glum, some of them half-carried all the way, with their broken noses, bashed faces, it made a woman go sick to see Peter or Andrew or Charlie now, his face a dripping, bloody mask, his whispering through his broken lips:
I'm fine, lass, fine
. Oh God, you could greet if it wasn't that when you did that you would die….

And all that night they re-fought the fight, in tenements, courts, this room and that, and the bairns lay listening how the bobbies had run, of the young toff who'd appeared when Trease was knocked down and shouted
Break down the lorry
for bottles!
and led them all off when the bottles were finished, him and Steve Selden, and told them to scatter. By God, he'd lots of guts had that loon, though, toff-like, he'd been sick as a dog of a sudden, down in the Cowgate when binding a wound. You wanted more of his kind for the next bit time…. And the wife would say
What's the use of more
bashing?
and you said a man had to die only once and 'twould be worth while doing that if you kicked the bucket with your nails well twined in a bobby's liver—

A week later the
Daily Runner
came out and announced that after a special sitting the Council had raised the pac rates.

Ma Cleghorn heard the story from Chris:
Ah well, if that's
how your Ewan feels. I'd never much liking for bobbies myself,
though maybe the meikle sumph, you know, was doing no more
than his duty, like
. Chris said
His duty? To bash a young
boy—before the boy had done anything to him?
And Ma said
Well, well, you're fair stirred up. I'll think up some sonsy lie as
excuse, and tell him the morn to look out other lodgings
.

And next morning Ma tackled the sacking of Feet, he'd spluttered a bit and put on the heavy as she told Chris when she came back to the kitchen. But she'd soon settled up his hash for the billy, telling him his room was needed for another, a childe they'd promised it a long while back. He'd told her she'd better look out, she had, and not get in ill with the Force, they'd heard things in headquarters about that quean Johns and were keeping an eye on the house already—

Ma had fair lost her rag at that and told him she didn't care a twopenny damn though all the bobbies in Duncairn toun were to glue themselves on to her front door knocker, the meikle lice—who was he to insult a decent woman who paid her rent and rates on the nail?
If my man had been alive, he'd
have kicked you out, sergeant's stripes and all, you great coarse
bap-faced goloch that you are
. Feet had habbered
I wasn't
trying to insult you
, and Ma had said
Give me more of your lip
and I'll tackle the kicking of your dowp myself
, and left him fair in fluster, poor childe, hardly kenning whether he stood on his head or meikle feet, fair convinced he was in the wrong, and packing up his case to get out of the house.—
So there you
are, lass, and we're short of a lodger
.

Chris said she was sorry, she'd try and get another, and Ma said Och, not to worry about that, some creature would soon come talking around. Chris thought the same, not heeding a lot, though it was a shame to lose Feet's fee. But he couldn't have bidden in the house at all after that tale that Ewan had told her—Ewan with a pale, cool angry face, stirred as she'd never seen him stirred.