James Herbert: ‘48

We exchanged looks but nothing more. I understood the all-out effort to capture me that day.

I was Hubble’s last-chance saloon. His final throw of the dice. His only hope. That is, my blood was his only hope.

One of his men stepped from behind a large poster advertising a Myra Hess piano concert (a regular event at the gallery during the grimmest days of the war), just outside the entrance, carrying with him a portable radio transmitter. I guessed that Hubble had used the gallery as his HQ that morning, directing operations from there, trying to drive me in this direction. Well, it couldn’t have worked out better for him.

Others emerged from the entrance and from behind pillars, a ragbag army of the damned. Jew-baiters, niggerhaters, corrupt in their minds and now corrupt in their bodies. These days they had someone else to hate. Me. I was their Jew and their Black all rolled into one.

Okay, I was stunned seeing Hubble standing there, sick and hunched up, but I hadn’t lost all sense. I pointed the gun at them and they all ducked, including their leader, who practically sank to his knees. I hadn’t forgotten the Colt was empty, but it seemed they had – unless they hadn’t even noticed. Waving it in the air gave me the chance to start running again. I managed no more’n three, maybe four, steps though.

Bullets from a Sten gun bit into the road before me, forcing me to leap back, a hasty two-legged hop, arms in the air as if in surrender. I just caught sight of a Blackshirt launching himself from between two pillars of the entrance terrace above me, swooping like a bat from rafters, expecting me to cushion his fall. I sidestepped, but he caught my shoulders, bringing me down with him. He must’ve winded himself, but even so, he managed to get me in a neck-lock. He squeezed tight, attempting to choke me into submission.

First I used an elbow, driving it hard into his stomach, then, with the same arm, I clipped his face with the gun barrel, bringing it up like a smart salute. Spittle dampened my cheek and neck as he blew a forced breath, and his grip relaxed just enough for me to break free. I twisted, swiping him with the gun barrel once more so that all opposition left him. He collapsed sideways and I scrambled to my feet.

His friends were hurrying through the vehicle alleys and more poured down the gallery’s steps, all of ‘em hollering banshee-like, eager to get at me and teach me a lesson or two. So what if Hubble wouldn’t let them kill me right off? I’d be dead sooner or later, and all in all, I think I preferred sooner. It looked like I’d have to force the issue.

I reached inside my jacket pocket for another clip, ejecting the used one from the automatic in my other hand as I did so. I noticed some of the Blackshirts were already pausing to lift their weapons and take aim. This was it, then, I told myself. The moment had been a long time coming, but I was more than ready. What was so good about living anyway?

A goon had already reached me as my hand came out of my pocket with the spare clip, screening me from the others. I regret to say it was a woman, hair cut nastily short, face and teeth smeared with grime, eyes red with shot blood vessels; regret, because I whacked her hard, fist wrapped around the metal clip, and I don’t like hitting women, never have. Hell, I never had.

Her teeth broke under my knuckles and she crumpled without a murmur. Her place was immediately taken by another Blackshirt and I knew it would take more than a punch in the mouth to deal with this mean-looking bruiser. Yeah, we’d tangled more than once before and one time he’d even introduced himself. McGruder was his name and he was Hubble’s first-lieutenant or captain of the guard, or whatever fancy and meaningless title Hubble had bestowed upon him. He was tall, six-three or more, built like an ox and, as far as I could tell, a long way off from the Blood Death. Big hands reached for me.

I moved back against the terrace wall, afraid to take my eyes off him, Colt and new clip of ammo still separated because of the previous distraction. By staring into his eyes I seemed to be delaying the final rush; taking my gaze away to reload would break whatever goddamn spell we were both under. He, and the others, drew closer.

The black Ford I’d seen earlier came out of nowhere, tyres squealing, brakes screeching, one of its four doors open wide so that it hit the big man with a force that sent him sprawling. I caught sight of two faces peering out at me from the open car door and a female voice yelled:

‘What are you waiting for? Get in, you daft bloody ape!’

The passenger, a man, had already slammed his door shut again but was indicating the rear door through the open window. The scattered Blackshirts were already moving in, some of them thumping on the Ford’s triangular hood with their guns and fists.

‘Get bloody well in!’ came the woman’s voice again and I guess it was her cursing that shocked me out of my stupor.

I yanked open the rear door and the Ford immediately took off, giving me a split second to hop onto the white-painted running board. I looped an arm through the lowered front window, gun still held tight in that hand, the other quickly tucking the clip into my pants pocket before grasping the top of the open door, and hung on for dear life as the Ford’s rush dispersed the Blackshirts again. A hand reached out from inside the car, grabbing my belt and trying to pull me in. That became more difficult as the Ford gathered momentum and the open door pressed against me, trapping me on the running board.

One of the goons had decided to stand his ground and I groaned when I saw him raising his Sten gun as we sped towards him. It was a stupid move on his part, taking his time to get a bead on me when he should have shot from the hip, because the car was on him before the gun was even chest-high. Self-preservation gave me the strength to push the door wide again and it caught the Blackshirt straight on, lifting the Sten and sending him spinning round, bullets spraying the air and busting the top windows of a nearby bus. The door’s recoil crushed my chest, the sudden pain causing me to drop my right arm and lose hold of the Colt It fell somewhere inside the car.

‘Will you get in here!’ came the woman’s voice again, frustration more than anger giving it its pitch.

Instead I almost lost my grip and tumbled into the road as she steered onto a kerb to avoid a truck blocking the way. I forgot my own manners, aiming a cuss at her that would’ve turned her cheeks red under any other circumstances. I hauled myself up and threw myself onto the back seat, the door slamming shut behind me of its own accord. Wheezing from the pain in my bruised chest, I sprawled across the lap of the other person sharing the back seat with me, the owner of the hand that had grabbed my belt moments earlier.

I noticed her sweet scent first, and then her gentleness as she tried to hold me steady. Breathing hard and shaking some, I looked up into her shadowed face. Her smile was as sweet as her perfume, and kind of, well, demure too. Leastways, that’s how it struck me. A line of sunlight through the window on her side shot sparkles of gold through her light brown hair.

The car bumped again as it left the kerb and I was jolted against her small breasts. Just as quickly I was pitched back into the other corner. The girl held on to the front seat, looking ahead over the driver’s shoulder, her face anxious.

As I steadied myself I took note of my fellow travellers. Oddly, the man in front of me wore a brown trilby and a tweed jacket despite the heat of the day. His attention was on the road ahead too, so there was no chance to catch his features. I noticed, though, that his straggly hair (with no barber shops around any more we all had bad haircuts, although I kept mine reasonably short with sharp scissors and guesswork) did not quite manage to cover the burn scars that fingered their way up the back of his neck from beneath his shirt collar.