Exit Unicorns (Exit Unicorns Series) (45 page)

“Christ, we can’t see damn thing now,” Pat mumbled, looking warily up into the snarled branches. Along the high ground strolled a squad of police in ordinary dress, parallel but slightly in advance of the marchers.

“Why aren’t they decked out like their compatriots?” Pamela asked over the nervous babble that had begun to percolate in their ranks.

“Don’t know but I don’t think it’s good,” he shivered as a flutter of unease passed its fingers up his spine.

The next field was well-hedged and provided only strange, rippling glances of police strolling along, occasionally talking to men who seemed to be idly standing about in the fields. Seen through the lacework of gray branches and glossed leaves it lent a slow-motion, sinister feel to the atmosphere which was quickly tensing. Between the leaves and branches they could see more men, not police anymore, men armed with clubs and cudgels, their gait as easy as if they were out for a Sunday after-church ramble.

The junction of the next two fields was a gully overgrown with bramble and gorse, surrounded by tall trees. From these trees a young girl emerged, silver winter light pale-fingering her brown hair against the shadow of the trees. A chilly smile turned her lips up at the corners, she couldn’t have been more than fourteen. She raised her hand up from the shadows, the glitter of a large stone clutched against her small palm. A spasm of rage contorted her face and she flung the stone straight into the marchers.

“Incoming,” Pat yelled as warning to those behind them who couldn’t see what was happening. But the girl’s hand had unleashed more than her one stone, for it appeared that she had been the signal to those on the high ground. All around the marchers fell a hard, unflinching rain of stones, bricks and bottles. Pat heard a scream behind him and turned to see a girl drop to the ground, blood streaming from a gash in her forehead. Stunned and blinking she was pulled out from amidst the marchers by the police and towed toward one of their vehicles.

What Pat could now make out on the high ground chilled him to the core, close to two hundred people milled about, all heavily armed, chatting amiably with the police, white-banded special constabulary amongst their ranks. Ducking his head every few seconds to avoid the rocks, screws, bolts, nails and bottles that rained down with impunity, he saw men and a few women as well armed with crowbars, iron bars, lead piping, cudgels, and some elaborately spiked and gleaming instruments of punishment. A small body of marchers broke panicking through the hedge, seeking safety in the open field. The police herded them quickly back to danger in the open road and it was then Pat saw what was happening and knew the worst was still to come.

“Dear God, the police are here for them.”

“What?” Pamela shouted back, her coat pulled up taut over her head, providing a fragile shelter from the missiles pouring down on them.

“The police up there on the bank are here to be certain we don’t retaliate against them.”

“No,” Pamela said faintly, turning away from him toward the field. An industrial bolt missed her head by a half inch.

“Come on,” Pat said grimly and pulled her to his side, affording her what little protection his body could give her.

Ahead of them the field tapered to an end in a small laneway that was heavily treed. The lane met the main road at a sharp angle, providing a convenient bottleneck. The police flanked the marchers front and left, leaving their right flank completely exposed and fully open to the head of the laneway.

Pat cursed to himself, he was willing to bet they were being delivered like a tidy package into the hands of a bloodthirsty mob. Delivered by the very men who were supposed to protect them. There was nowhere to go but forward though, so the march pressed on, bleeding and bruised. The fallen culled from their midst by stone-faced policemen.

The first ranks of marchers had barely come abreast of the laneway when from its dark tunnel burst what looked to Pat to be about sixty men armed to the teeth with a dazzling array of homemade weapons.

The police put up a slight show of resistance and then melted like sieved butter through the ranks of armed furies. Some few marchers managed to get past the armed cordon. Pat and Pamela were near the front but not as it turned out near enough, for they along with the main body of the marchers were as effectively cut off as if they were cattle fed into a funnel.

From the left, on a path hidden by the sharp turn of the main road, stood another phalanx of angry men, shored up by piles of stone, brought there specially for the occasion. The entire road was descending into chaos. Pat grabbed Pamela’s hand hard,

“We’re going to have to break for it, into the field.”

They both bent double, running as best as a slow crouch would allow, unable to dodge the sticks and stones any longer, such was their profusion. A man dashed up from the lefthandside of the road and smacked Pat across the head with what appeared to be a broken off chair leg, then not satisfied he raised his arm and whacked Pamela solidly across the back. She let out a small ‘oof’ of surprise, stumbling to stay on her feet as Pat pulled her harder towards the field. Around them, people screamed, were cudgeled to the ground, beat about the head, shouted and cursed at.

Marchers dazed and injured staggered to their feet, limping towards the bridge, only to be forced off the road and into the fields where yet another armed contingent awaited just this eventuality. Out of the corner of his eye Pat saw a man on his knees being cudgeled about the face and head.

“Say you’re sorry,” his attacker screamed, spittle flying from his furious lips.

“Sorry,” the man said, hands held up to try and catch the blows.

“I don’t believe you” his attacker replied and set about quite happily beating the man again.

The two of them stumbled onward, dodging clubs and rocks. Just ahead of them a photographer raced, turning back and forth in a strange dance, his black eye on the world clicking and whirring in rhythm with his steps.

To their left, in an open expanse of field, an old woman was clubbed down with three sharp blows and then finished neatly with a broadside to the face from a flagpole on the end of which the Union Jack fluttered gaily in the breeze.

“We better help her,” Pamela said and before Pat could stop her, she’d slipped his grasp and ran towards the prone woman. Pat cursed and ran after her.

The old woman lay facedown, gray hair streaked gruesomely with blood. Pamela knelt beside her in the long grass.

“We’ll get you help,” she said patting the woman’s outstretched hand. Pat saw the five men approach from out of a ditch before she did. And he reached her just in time to find the three of them neatly surrounded by five club-wielding brutes, smiles on their overheated faces.

“Well, what have we got here?”

“Please, we need to get her to an ambulance,” Pamela said turning her face up towards them. “She needs help now.”

“Ah where’s the pope then when ye need him, go ask him for help, Fenian bitch,” the man raised his arm, extending the stick in his hand to full length where a nail glittered evilly at the end of it. Pat stepped forward to shield her and caught the full brunt of it in his arm, he felt the nail rip a good two inches down before it was torn out.

He heard a sharp scream and saw Pamela being dragged by one arm and her hair towards the river. Three of the men had taken her while the other two stayed behind, clubs slapping their hands, a look of anticipation in their eyes. He knew he’d never seen such concentrated hatred before.

He stood for a long moment, eyes locked with their own, feeling the breath wash in and out of his lungs and then feinted to the left and as they lunged shot through to their right running for the river. The bank was awash with armed attackers throwing people into the river and forcibly clubbing them back into it when they tried to crawl out. He couldn’t spot Pamela in the melee and panicked, his mind churning with all the ugly possibilities. He scanned the bank and the water where people were wading in a panic for the far side. His heart skipped a beat, halted for a terrible split second as he saw a black-haired girl facedown in the water and then resumed beating a second later as a man pulled her out. It wasn’t Pamela. The photographer from moments before was hip deep in the river, trying to keep his camera above water, his precious pictures safe while a man slogged behind him repeatedly hitting at the photographer’s arm with a lead pipe.

And then he saw her, fifteen yards upriver from the photographer, kneeling in the river, hair streaming and eddying on the river. He started to run and then crashed to his knees as a stunning blow caught him hard in the kidneys. His attackers having knocked him to the ground were happy to deliver a couple of blows to his head before they moved on. Rising up on his knees and fighting back a wave of nausea from the pain, he desperately searched the river again and saw Pamela struggling to get up on the bank. And saw the man on the bank who waited, spiked stick in hand for her. He yelled and then cursed his stupidity, for hearing his voice she’d raised her head and gave the stick-wielding thug the opportunity he’d been waiting for. The nail caught her right below the cheekbone, sinking deep in the hollow until it made contact with her upper jaw. Even from a distance he could see the surprise in her face, the shock and her first instinct to tear away from the offending object. Blood sprayed as the nail tore out and then streamed brightly down her face.

He made the water’s edge seconds later, the look on his face enough to make the attacker seek meeker pastures and flee back towards the bridge with great haste. He checked both banks of the river and seeing they were still thronged with swinging clubs he grabbed Pamela by the shoulders and pushed her upriver through the current.

“How’s yer face?” he asked tightly in her ear as he glanced behind him to be certain no one was following.

“It hurts,” she said in a small voice, the hand that clutched the side of her face streaked with drying and fresh blood. “Where are the police?”

“Standin’ on the road talkin’ to the stone-throwin’ bastards.”

“Oh God,” she said hollowly, “how can this be happening?”

“It’s Ireland,” Pat said bitterly, “how could it not?”

They had to wade a good half-mile by Pat’s estimate before they reached a comparatively safe spot.

Pat made her sit and then hunkered down in front of her, “Yer goin’ to have to let me look at yer face.”

She nodded but didn’t move her hand away from her face. He took her fingers gently and pried them away from her skin. They came away with a sticky, sucking pop, a fresh well of blood appearing in their absence. With all the blood it was hard for him to tell what the damage was, though it didn’t look good. There was a deep open gash following under the cheekbone and blood was beginning to run out of the corner of her mouth from the cut inside.

“How bad is it?”

He shook his head, forcing a smile onto his face, “Not so bad, couple stitches an’ it’ll be fine.”

“You’re not a good liar, Pat,” she said and made a grimace that he realized with a shock was meant to be a smile. “I suppose I got the better end of it. They spent a good minute trying to decide whether they should throw me in the river or rape me. All things being equal I’m glad they decided on the first option. Are you okay?”

“I’m okay.” He looked around eyeing the pale winter light. “We’d best get back on the road, find ye an ambulance. What the hell is that?” For from the sodden ball of her coat she had pulled a square black object.

“Exactly what it looks like,” she said, and checked the camera over for damage.

“Yes but how’d ye get it?”

“The photographer threw it to me, I guess he thought I’d have a better chance of keeping the pictures safe than he would.”

“But I saw him with his camera only minutes ago.”

“I think he must have had two, one to decoy and the other with the actual goods in it.”

“An’ which do you have?”

“Won’t know until the film’s developed will we, there’s extra rolls taped to the bottom too.” She looked the camera over with an air of excitement that disturbed Pat.

“That thing is only goin’ to invite all sorts of trouble, ye’ll never get it past the police when we find ye an ambulance.”

She rose to her feet, clothes soaked and icy, a look of grim determination on her face.

“I’ll not go in one of those damn police tenders, not after what they did. I’ll walk. There’s only seven miles left to Derry, let’s go.”

It was a shattered and bleeding lot that staggered into Derry while their opposition seemingly had jumped in their cars, taken time for tea and refreshments, only to show up in force on the streets leading into the town. Faces, now unhappily familiar appeared on the escarpments of Spencer Road on the outer fringes of Derry, stones rained down and police, amiable faced and compliant, allowed the attackers to have their fun.

Once again, Union Jacks danced at the front of the marchers, leading the way into the town with old Orange songs that gloried in the spilling of Catholic blood. And then, after seventy-five miles of road paid for with blood and broken bones the marchers were denied entrance within the walls of the town on the grounds that it was too inflammatory.

“Sacred an’ hallowed Orange ground is more like it,” Pat muttered, as the weary mass of marchers was shunted down yet another re-route. “They’re lettin’ those bastards up inside the walls though ye’ll note. Leaves them in an optimum position to keep droppin’ rocks on our heads with the police neatly lined up to protect them against us of all things.”

“Four days ago I’d have thought you were cynical,” Pamela said bleakly, a bruise spreading out from her cheek in deep and heavy shades.

Ahead of them loomed the Guildhall and the streets were now lined with crowds of friendly, cheering faces. Pat searched them wearily without even knowing what he was looking for until he saw the fine blonde hair, the freckled nose and the smile that burst out from the mass of faces at him. She was waving wildly and he grinning back was swept past her and onto the Guildhall Square.

Michael Farrell, injured on the road into Derry, was hastily brought in from the hospital to speak to the weary crowd and the people of Derry. He summarized the events of the march, reiterating the goals and intents of the People’s Democracy. He was followed by other speakers of the PD and then he nodded at Pat, a questioning look on his face. Pat nodded in return and winding his way through the crowd, took the speaker’s platform.