its own.
‘Dirty reds! Dirty reds!’
Amy glimpsed Jake Silverman hoisting Kay out of the way on to the steps and then plunging forward. The chanting broke up into urgent shouting. Four police horses and a dozen bobbing helmets converged on the spot where Jake had disappeared. From somewhere ahead of her Amy heard a woman’s scream, and then as if at a signal the boiling crowd erupted into violence. Right beside her a man’s fist came up and smashed into another’s face, and a spurt of blood sprang from his nose before he fell backwards under the trampling feet. Amy heard her own scream rising with the others, and then she was propelled violently forward by the fighting breaking out behind her. She stumbled forward, catching at clothes and arms to stop herself being pushed over, and almost fell over another man lying on the ground with his arms up to protect his head and face. Then the high brown flanks of a police horse loomed over her and she saw the great polished hooves only a foot or so from the man’s head. She ducked down to try to help him but be was already being hauled to his feet by his friends.
The crowd from the back of the square was still pushing forward to the steps, and Amy felt an instant of pure, panicky certainty that she would be crushed to death or suffocated in this dense, heaving mass of bodies.
The steps, she told herself. Try to reach the steps where she had seen Jake lift Kay up. The next blind surge carried her forward, and she saw that she had come up against the solid phalanx of miners in front of the platform. A lamp was still swinging in someone’s hand. The steps were only a few yards away.
Then, right beside her, Jake Silverman was fighting to pull away from two men who held his arms pinned savagely behind his back. A mounted policeman was just behind them with his stick raised. Amy saw the leather thong wrapped around his gloved fist. Then there was a third man right beside Jake with something short and heavy in his hand.
A lead bar. A length of piping. Whatever, it was for Jake.
Amy opened her mouth to scream but he would never have heard the warning. As she watched, frozen, the bar came up and then down. The dull crack of metal against bone and skin made her feel sick to the pit of her stomach. Jake’s head flopped forward and he fell like an empty sack.
Horror gave Amy strength. She thrust past the men blocking her way and knelt beside Jake. His face was as white as candle wax and his eyes were closed. When Amy looked up again to scream for help the three men had vanished and there was nothing in the world except trampling feet and swaying bodies that threatened to topple over them. In feeble desperation she tried to pull at Jake’s coat and realized that she would never be able to drag his weight to safety. Then someone else was pulling her aside and stooping beside Jake. She saw the blue scars on the hand turning Jake’s unconscious face, and the lamp hooked to his belt.
‘Murdering bastards,’ the miner said.
Then he bent and scooped Jake up. He hoisted the dead weight over his shoulder as if it was nothing, and began to strike through the tangle of people. Amy looked wildly around for Kay or another familiar face, but there was no one. The police were moving through the crowd in blue lines now, and the violence was ebbing away. Most people were standing still, bewildered, with their arms hanging at their sides. A little path opened in front of the miner with his burden and Amy ran after him, almost sobbing with relief.
He didn’t stop or look round until they were clear of the mass in the square. In front of St Martin-in-the-Fields he glanced back over his shoulder and then very gently swung Jake down and put him on the pavement. His face was so white that Amy was afraid he was already dead. There was a tiny trickle of dark blood at the corner of his mouth.
‘Are you his friend?’ the miner asked abruptly.
Amy nodded.
‘See to him, then. I’ll run for the ambulance. Bloody First Aid Post’s the other side of the square.’
He was gone immediately.
Amy knelt down beside Jake. He must still be alive if that man’s gone for help, she thought stupidly. She undid her coat and took it off, wrapping the soft folds over the crumpled body as best she could. Then she untied her silk scarf and put it under his head. He was so heavy, and there wasn’t a flicker of movement.
‘Jake,’ she whispered. ‘What can I do to help you?’
She had no idea. She took his cold hand and held it, bitterly thinking that she was completely useless. She had marched along Oxford Street, singing and shouting and feeling proud of herself, yet now she was needed for something real and she was failing them. Jake was going to die here on the pavement outside St Martin-in-the-Fields because she didn’t know how to save him.
A knot of people had gathered round them, and she looked up at the faces. ‘Does anyone know any first aid?’
They shook their heads, sympathetic but unhelpful.
‘Nah. Ambulance’ll be along just now.’
The seconds ticked by and Jake didn’t move. Amy went on holding his hand and found herself praying. Please God, let him be all right. Please God, let him …
The miner came back again.
He knelt down on the other side of Jake and felt his wrist, then turned his head to one side. Amy was surprised by the gentleness of his scarred hands.
‘I didn’t know what to do,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry …’
‘Nothing you could do,’ he answered without looking at her. ‘He needs hospital.’
Almost at once they heard the siren. The ambulance was ploughing up through the crowds on the east side of the square. Amy looked up and saw the high white side of it with the reassuring red cross.
‘Thank God,’ she said, and the miner looked up and smiled in relief for the first time. I know you, Amy thought.
The ambulance-men came running with their rolled-up green canvas stretcher. They spread it out beside Jake and lifted him on to it, then hoisted his weight up into the dark mouth of the ambulance.
From the folding metal steps the miner jerked his head at Amy. ‘You’d better come too.’
She scrambled in and the doors slammed behind them. They sped away in the direction the ambulance had come.
The miner leaned back against the hard wooden bench opposite the stretcher. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘Your man will be all right.’
‘He isn’t my man,’ Amy said. ‘I just know him.’
The man was still smiling, and she knew why she recognized him. He was the tall miner who had marched under the Nantlas banner, and had smiled out over the crowds in his enviable certainty.
‘How do you know he’ll be all right?’
‘I’ve seen enough head injuries,’ he answered abruptly.
The ambulance was slowing again. Charing Cross Hospital, Amy thought, and again: Thank God.
Light flooded in at them as the doors swung open. The stretcher was lifted and carried out and they followed behind it into the hospital. Another ambulance had arrived immediately behind them, and the hallway was full of hurrying people in white uniforms. Two nurses came forward to meet Jake’s stretcher as it was lifted on to a trolley. His hand hung limply at one side. One of the nurses peeled back the ambulance blanket and Amy’s coat. She held it out briskly to Amy. ‘Do you know this patient?’
Amy opened her mouth, but the miner forestalled her. ‘His name is Jacob Silverman. I am a relative. I will look after his things for him.’
Smoothly he removed a worn leather wallet and a little book from Jake’s pocket, and smiled at the nurse.
‘I’m afraid you can’t do that …’ she began, and then shrugged.
‘We’ll wait out here until the doctor has seen him,’ the miner said. The nurses wheeled Jake away, and Amy watched them until they disappeared around a maroon-tiled corner.