James Herbert - ‘48

Machine-gun fire sprayed the wall next to the landing window opposite us and Cissie screamed as she backed into the tiny bedroom with its single cot behind us. I caught her arm and hauled her back out onto the landing, firing four shots over the stout balustrade to give the Blackshirts something more to chew on. Their reply was another burst of machine-gun fire that smacked into the ceiling over our heads, dislodging plaster and fragments of timber.

It suddenly dawned on me. These lunatics weren’t out to capture me – hell no, they didn’t need my blood any more. This time they were out to kill me. Call it revenge, anger over the killing of some of their own by me and the dance I’d led them over the years, or maybe just plain envy because I had something they hadn’t – good, wholesome, disease-free blood. These boys were out to nail me once and for all – and I guess that included anyone who was with me.

‘Cissie,’ I said, more calmly than I felt, ‘we’re gonna jump.’

She looked at me as if I were crazy. Then her gaze went to the open window and panic took over. She tried to yank her arm away.

‘There’s a roof just below,’ I said quickly, holding her tight ‘We’ll be okay. Just trust me.’

Bullets thudded into the plaster ceiling again and chipped wood off the edge of the landing. Gunsmoke rose from the stairwell, its cloud mingling with the floating white dust. There were more excited shouts down there and one or two banshee screeches. Heavy boots clumping on wood, single, wild shots. They were coming up.

‘Now, Cissie, now!’

She came with me, no hesitation at all, hopping across the gap onto the window’s deep ledge, our figures blocking the light for no more’n a fraction of a second as bullets shattered glass and frame beside us. We were gone, dropping like stones through the air, falling in an eternity of dread that took maybe three seconds, possibly less, the corrugated roof rushing up to meet us.

We both yowled in terror as the old, rotted iron gave way beneath us, a neat section breaking off like a trapdoor. Our fall continued, but was soon over as we landed on the piled coals in the yard below. Like the tin roof itself, it broke our fall, saved our legs, maybe even our backs, from being broken. We rolled down the small hillock in an avalanche, then sprawled across the concrete floor of the back yard.

I sucked air, too numbed to feel pain just yet, my eyes unfocused, seeing only a spinning blue expanse of sky above. The weight on top of me was Cissie and I let her head rest on my heaving chest while the dizziness slowed down. The edge of the roof we’d fallen through came into view, then the brickwork of the house itself, rising impossibly high into the sky – or so it seemed lying there on my back with lumps of coal digging into me. The little landing window was about a mile away.

My senses, nudged by fear, returned fast Any moment now there’d be gun barrels poking through that opening, aimed down at us. I pushed myself to a sitting position, bringing Cissie with me, my hands on her shoulders. She was blinking hard, trying to regain her own equilibrium, as I examined her face. But she got the question in first.

‘Are you all right?’ Her voice seemed distanced from the dazed uncertainty in her eyes.

Instead of replying I got a knee under me, then hauled us both to our feet. My gun was gone, lost when we’d crashed through the roof, and I swiftly scanned the yard. A stirrup pump stood in one dark corner and a two-handled zinc bath leaned against a wall; a dried heap of soiled clothing stood in a straw basket next to the rusted mangle; coal was scattered everywhere, making my search more difficult. But I found the Browning lying on the small drain covering beneath the yard’s tap.

Grabbing the gun and quickly checking it for damage, I bundled Cissie towards the back wall as more noises came from inside the house, shouts and footsteps beating the stairs, growing louder as they descended. We had to be over the wall before they pulled the double bolts of the big back door and turned its stiff key. And before those weapons appeared at the top window.

Without a word, I tucked the pistol into my waistband and folded my arms around Cissie’s lower legs. As I lifted her she reached for the top of the seven-foot high wall and dragged herself up, a final push from me helping her on her way. Then I climbed after her, toecap digging into the rough brickwork, elbows levering myself upwards. All this had taken a matter of moments, from leap to climb, and by the time I’d straddled the wall, Cissie had dropped to the other side. I took a swift glance at the landing window before following her.

Sure enough, the first gun barrel had shown up, a strained face looming behind it; I realized the Blackshirt was being supported by his cronies on the stairs below, because they hadn’t figured how else to reach the window. It gave us an advantage, gave us a chance to skip through the long stallholders’ yard at the rear of the houses before they’d worked out a decent way to take aim at us. Something crashed against the back door.

I knew it was dark at the end of the corridor inside No 26, even during the day, a small set of steps leading down to the yard door, another flight descending from there to the cellar, and because of the lack of light the Blackshirts were now scrabbling around for the door key and bolts and banging at the wood in frustration, all of which was allowing me and Cissie extra time. I decided to use it.

My left hand cupping the fingers of my gun hand, I took careful aim at the wrinkled-up face at the window above and gently squeezed the trigger with the pad of my index finger. The Blackshirt saw me though and his head plunged from view – now you see it, now you don’t – as the gun spat flame.

I heard faint cries as he fell onto the men supporting him and hoped they’d all taken a tumble. Wasting no more time, I dropped from the wall, grabbed Cissie by the waist, and started running through the debris of rotting stalls and barrows, weaving around wooden packing cases and lumps of metal, old wheels and mouldering cardboard boxes, making towards the big gates at the end of the yard.

We were halfway there when Cissie tripped over wire sprung loose from a busted orange crate. She stumbled into another box and went down, with me sprawling over her. That fall probably saved our lives, because at that moment a round of bullets whined over our heads, breaking up a trestle and snapping a stall’s wooden upright a few yards in front of us. Still on the ground, I aimed the pistol over my shoulder.

There were now two faces up at that top window, the Blackshirts’ shoulders crammed together, elbows on the sill supporting their bodies. One was pointing a machine gun, the other a rifle, and it was the machine gun that was spitting fire. Below them, arms and hands were appearing on the wall as the goons who’d managed to open the back door tried to follow us. I fired at the window first, four or five rapid shots in desperation, praying my ammo wouldn’t run out.

Even from that distance, the two holes that appeared on the forehead of one of those faces were neatly precise, but it was the shot man’s buddy who screamed and disappeared from view; the dead guy just slunk away, slipping out of sight like someone sinking into quicksand. My next shots were at the head appearing over the wall, the bullets chipping brickwork; luckily it was enough to make our pursuers duck down again. The hammer clicked on empty with my next attempt to warn them off and I knew that was it – the gun wasn’t jammed, it was empty. I tossed the useless piece of iron away.

Cissie and I rose together and we both realized we’d never make it to the end of the yard – once the enemy regained its nerve we’d be like targets in a shooting gallery. There was only one hope for us and there was no time for words: I pushed Cissie towards a nearby stall that backed up against a back-yard wall to our left. Leaping onto the stall’s flatbed, I reached down and hoisted Cissie up after me just as the Blackshirts began clambering over the far wall again. We scrambled over and dropped down into another enclosed back yard. I almost whooped with relief when I saw the back door to the house was wide open. We rushed straight into the welcoming shadows and, once inside, I wheeled around and slammed the door shut behind us, praying the Blackshirts hadn’t had time to witness our change of direction.