As Hammers Fall. Mark Svendsen
Joe’s face, her hands efficient with the handkerchief she’d whipped from his pocket.
‘As if there isn’t enough violence in the world.’ He took the cloth from his mother with a press to her hand. She nodded at him, so intense a look of fierce pride as he’d never seen shining from her eyes.
‘You’re all right. Nothing serious. Now you go straight home and stay there. Your father and I’ll be back for tea before tonight’s meeting. You get Molly and Tommy home safe.’ Joe nodded.
He caught sight of Molly held between Mrs Griffiths and Miss Thorpe. Mick was there too. Joe pushed his way over to her.
‘Are you hurt?’ he asked, expecting maybe blood or, imagining the worst, a cut on her perfect face. Before he could look Segeyev’s voice brought him back to the present.
‘You must go!’ he commanded. They could hear the Loyalists thumping up the front stairs of the wooden rotunda. The Socialist crowd surged behind them, forcing them to follow the Peace Army kids.
Segeyev stood beside him. His finger traced the faint blood track down Joe’s cheek,
‘“Their heart’s blood dyed its every fold!”‘ he said nodding his head almost imperceptibly. Then he turned towards the Loyalists who were heading down the back stairs.
‘Halt!’ he bellowed. The sound of his voice stopped them for a moment, but even Segeyev couldn’t hold them for long. At last Joe could hear real police whistles in the street.
‘We’d best leg it or they’ll arrest us!’ Joe grasped Molly’s arm dragging her with him. Her touch was electric. ‘Hurry or we’ll have to swim the river!’
‘Between the devil’s and the deep blue sea,’ Molly laughed, unrestrained and loud.
‘Go home!’ Kathleen’s voice counselled good sense above the tumult. ‘The little ones will be safe with us once you’ve made yourselves scarce.’ Joe nodded.
‘Mick, Tomas! Run!’ he screamed.
They ran like billy-oh. Not looking back. Out of the Domain and down into George Street. Shriek of whistles and din of voices in their ears. Bedlam in their wake.
Chapter 3
That’s the wrong way to tickle Mary,
That’s the wrong way to kiss.
Don’t you know that over here, lad
They like it best like this.
Hooray pour Les Français
Farewell Angleterre.
We didn’t know how to tickle Mary,
But we learnt how over here.
Anon. To the tune of ‘It’s A Long Way To Tipperary’.
A few slow buggies sagged up George Street after their turns around the Botanical Gardens, the occupants and their sweat-bathed horses all as limp as eucalypt leaves in the afternoon’s heat. Too hot to show any sign they heard the sounds of agitation echoing up from the Domain, or they were so used to the Socialists’ meetings they simply paid no mind. It was a slow Sunday afternoon in need of a storm. Verandah beds with mosquito nets would give only small comfort in the city’s houses that stood high on their spindly wooden crab’s legs, craning to catch the cool.
Running footsteps and relieved whoops echoed along the dull city street.
‘They were going to kill us for sure!’ Mick yelled as he ran.
‘No, it’s only our Joe they’ll be wanting dead! They’ll just be wanting to hurt you a lot!’ Molly laughed.
‘Heeeya!’ Mick yelled. ‘Let’s go back again! There’s a stoush on!’ He was serious but the others laughed at him as he headed back down the street towards the Domain. Relief and excitement flooded them, hearts booming like cannon on the front line.
Tomfool whooped in excitement, for no other reason than to hear his own voice louder than the sound of four pairs of Sunday best boots clattering on the roadway.
‘I’ve been robbed!’ Tomfool called. They laughed louder, sillier, at him. ‘I’ve been robbed!’ he sang out again and again as he dashed along the footpath behind Molly.
‘Tomas! No!’ Joe puffed as sternly as he could. Tomfool stopped cavorting to turn with a devastated look.
‘Maybe later,’ Joe recanted. Tomfool beamed, pushing his tomato and blood-smeared, turned-out pockets back into his trouser legs.
Molly stopped dead.
‘Come back here, Micky Doyle!’ she called, without looking.
Tomfool ran on.
As Molly turned to look for Mick, Tomfool crashed into her, knocking her sideways. Molly ended-up sitting on her rear end in the middle of the footpath in a very unladylike fashion – laughing loudly. Tomas and Joe stopped beside her, bent over and panting. Mick paused, torn, drawn towards the donnybrook but wanting to be with his friends, before he ran, decided, to rejoin them. No pursuers could be seen or heard, only snatches of song wafting up the street. God Save the King and The Red Flag mixed with other lively tunes in a musical duel.
They laughed again.
‘That’ll be your mother for sure,’ Molly said. They all pictured Kathleen O’Donghue, hands on hips, singing it at them like every note was a Mills bomb.
‘It’s like she says,’ Molly panted. ‘The right wing are such blockheads because they don’t have any decent songs. When she starts the Internationale the Loyalists won’t have a hope!’
They laughed even more.
Joe Hill smiled wider than a cracked watermelon, with elation and with … just being alive.
‘There hasn’t been a reaction like that since after the last Referendum vote,’ he puffed. ‘Dad should be pleased. Segeyev was, and Mum too.’
‘Shame we couldn’t have a crack at ‘em, though,’ Mick added, almost ruefully. ‘You wind ‘em up Joe and I’ll knock ‘em over!’
Molly still sat akimbo on the footpath.
‘No, they’ll only be wanting Joe Hill dead!’ Tomas grinned at her.
‘Tomas, you’re a fool,’ Molly said. Her green eyes glinted up at him. ‘A lovely fool but a fool for sure!’ She laughed, her red hair bouncing as she shook her head like a mop with a straight-cut.
Joe couldn’t help but laugh with her, especially now he could see there were only a few red scratches on her cheeks and no deeper gravel wounds.
‘Thought you’d have a bit of a sit-down on the way home, Moll?’ Mick panted.
Molly smiled that smile at him.
‘By the sweet loving Jesus,’ Joe groaned, covering his unbidden utterance with a catch of breath.
‘I was looking at that fellow at the pub,’ she said, nodding towards a blonde-haired soldier at the window. ‘He’s Babushka’s new lodger.’
Mick and Joe gave the bloke a furtive once over. Mick didn’t like what he saw.
‘He’ll fit right in,’ he said, ‘he’s got a head like a boarding house pudding.’
‘I’ve been robbed?’ a voice whined. Tomfool pulled at Joe’s sleeve and pointed across the street to the crowd of men milling around the doors of the pub for the six o’clock swill.
‘I’ve been robbed?’ Tomfool asked again.
‘Why not play it? For divilment!’ Molly suggested, her eyes aglitter.
‘Tweak a few noses,’ Mick agreed. They both still simmered like a kettle just off the boil. Only Joe was reluctant.
‘Come