James Craig - London Calling

‘Right, lads,’ barked their Scottish sergeant, Charlie Ross, ‘numbers off. Stick ’em in your pockets. We are not going to have any problems today.’

‘No, Sergeant.’

‘Rest assured, gentlemen, that no one will be pissing all over your fine work accomplished here at a later date.’ A general murmur of agreement rose from the seats closest to him. ‘And, remember, what happens on the picket line, stays on the picket line. We watch each other’s backs.’

‘Yes, Sergeant,’ came back the weary reply.

The smell on board was foul. The air was thick with stale sweat, body odour and nervous excitement. Carlyle stared out of the window and tried to breathe through his mouth. Sitting next to him was Dominic Silver, another recent recruit from Hendon. Dom was a genuine, one hundred per cent cockney, an east London lad, complete with regulation cheery-chappy grin plastered across his face. He was considered a ‘mate’, the kind of bloke who you should never confuse with a friend. Still, under the circumstances, Carlyle was more than happy to have someone he knew on the bus with him that morning.

Dom rocked back and forth, playing an imaginary set of drums on the back of the seat in front of him. He was speeding his tits off, but so was Carlyle. Dom knew where to get his hands on the best amphetamine sulphate, and half a teaspoon in a mug of black coffee set the day up nicely. Tired and wired was a million times better than just tired.

Dom broke off from his drum solo, nudged Carlyle in the ribs and stuck his hand up. ‘Sergeant?’ he gestured, like a hyper five year old. ‘Sergeant?’

Carlyle rolled his eyes to the heavens, knowing what was coming.

‘Yes, son?’ Charlie Ross grinned, enjoying such banter. In his fifties, he was at least twenty-five years older than anyone else on the bus. Carlyle couldn’t decide whether that made him super-hard or merely super-sad. On the brink of retirement, Charlie was small and gaunt, with sunken cheeks and a biker moustache straight out of Village People. When he rolled up his sleeves, you could see a Japanese dragon tattoo on his right forearm. There was an evil twinkle in his eye at all times, except when the booze took hold and he was about to keel over.

Despite the crushing schedule, all of this rushing around Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire had given Charlie a new lease of life. He looked twenty years younger than he had done when Carlyle had first seen him three months earlier, outside Cortonwood colliery, just down the road from where they were today, frogmarching a striker towards a Black Maria.

Dom put his question slowly and thoughtfully: ‘Didn’t I read in the paper that the new Home Secretary has promised that all transgressions on the picket line, committed by either side, will be dealt with properly, without fear or favour?’

The sarky little bugger had been reading the Daily Telegraph again. Not for the first time, Carlyle wondered why Dom hadn’t gone for some career that would have been better suited to his restless spirit and sharp brain. Surely, it would have been easy for him to get into the City and make shitloads of money as some kind of trader. He was just too sharp to be a plod.

Laughter trickled round the bus. The small minority aware that the relatively exotic Leon Brittan had become Home Secretary only a week before did not have much time for his views on their current battle. A CV that included Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School, Trinity College Cambridge, President of the Cambridge Union Society and a career as a lawyer certainly did not impress these young police officers. They knew that such a background didn’t give him the right to pass comment on those obliged to do the dirty work.

Charlie stuck his thumbs into the breast pockets of his tunic and thrust out his chest. ‘Well’ – he had been given his cue and was preparing for the big build-up – ‘I can tell you this…’ he then glanced up and down the bus to make sure his audience was paying attention, ‘… there are three things in life that are of absolutely no use to man or beast…’

Carlyle grinned. He had heard it all before, several times, but he knew that Charlie’s monologue would still make him laugh.

Charlie ploughed on: ‘These are the Pope’s testicles…’ pause, smiles all round, ‘tits on a man…’ another pause to acknowledge the cheers, ‘and…’ extra pause, ‘a politician’s promise.’ A fierce round of applause ran through the bus, accompanied by cheers, whistles and truncheons being beaten against windows. Charlie made a small bow and, having milked it enough, let the smile fall from his lips. He began prowling the aisle, eyeing up his charges, looking for any signs of doubt or apprehension. ‘These fuckers aren’t going to give us any trouble today. Am I right?’

Nervous laughter filled the coach. A couple of cheery voices responded to Charlie’s rallying cry: ‘Yes, Sergeant!’

‘So don’t be shy.’ Ross chuckled as he watched a group of mounted police gathering fifty yards down the road. ‘Show ’em who’s boss.’

A few more joined in this time: ‘Yes, Sergeant!’

‘Don’t be a bunch of fucking poofs. Show those fucking communists who’s fucking boss.’

‘YES, SERGEANT!’

As the din died down, a voice came from the back of the bus: ‘Where are we, Sergeant?’

Charlie Ross gazed dreamily out of the window. ‘Dunno, son. Some DNS or other.’

‘DNS?’ someone asked.

‘Dirty Northern Shithole.’

More laughter.

Another voice piped up: ‘And what are we doing here, Sergeant?’

‘Precisely?’ asked another.

‘Exactly?’ Carlyle laughed.

‘Specifically?’ queried another wag.

‘What is this?’ Charlie snarled in mock fury, though loving every minute of it. ‘Twenty fucking questions?’ He smacked his truncheon against the side of a nearby seat and fixed his stare on one of the questioners. ‘We are here, lads, as you very well know, to maintain law and fucking order; to allow the ordinary working man do his job without interference; to protect the innocent; and,’ he paused again, to unveil his final and most winning smile of the morning, ‘most importantly of all, to break some fucking heads.’

Carlyle’s headache was getting worse. He swallowed another aspirin and pocketed the foil wrapper. Sitting motionless on the wall, he shut his eyes in an attempt to try to keep out the light, which seemed to be bouncing off every available surface in order to assault his brain with the maximum violence possible. He took a couple of slow, deep breaths. Finally, his heart slowed to a more recognisable beat. Now he could at least count the various different components of his all-round discomfort. Under the uniform, his T-shirt had melted into his chest. Sweat trickled down his spine and between the cheeks of his bum. Right on cue, his piles started playing up and he felt as if he had a knife stuck up his arse. He could feel his stomach churning and felt a chill wrap itself around his shoulders. Being so dehydrated, at least Carlyle didn’t also have to worry about needing a piss. With all the gear on, it would have taken him the best part of an hour to expose his dick.

Somewhere along the road, he could hear the hooves of a pair of police horses clattering over tarmac. Beyond them, a roar went up on the field of combat, as one side charged the other. Carlyle closed his eyes tighter and refocused on his breathing.

After a few minutes, he tried to stand and felt his legs buckle. His mouth was still dry and sticky and his stomach heaved. He leant over the nearest wall and vomited into the garden. That brought some temporary relief, and he tried to puke again but nothing more would come out. Carlyle pushed his fingers down his throat. No joy. Spent, he just sat there, feeling useless.