As Hammers Fall. Mark Svendsen
– he was sick of extricating Mick from jealousies of Mick’s own imagining – the fellow had only enquired, innocently enough, about Molly’s welfare and now look where they were headed.
‘If you had the choice between pulling your head in right now or finding out if we know how to fight, what would it be?’ Joe asked the soldier. Mick relaxed knowing Joe was still there. The soldier gazed at Joe, trying to figure out what his game was.
But Joe focussed on Mick. He knew his face would be tightened into that ready scowl, three furrows deep above his pugilist’s nose. His cleft chin thrust forward, eyes glittering with that unnatural blue that seemed poached from another body and fixed in the face of someone old before his time. Joe had seen it in a hundred bloody blues they’d been in together. He placed a hand on Mick’s shoulder.
‘Pick a fight you know you’ll win,’ he murmured.
‘So we just leave this Loyalist dog off his chain?’ Mick sneered. ‘He doesn’t scare me!’
‘He’ll have ten mates if he’s got one, all full of last drinks and primed to go,’ Joe soothed. ‘We’ll see him soon enough up some dark alley. Besides,’ he added, ‘you told Babushka you’d bring Molly home before dark, didn’t you.’ Mick softened at that.
‘When we meet him again, we’ll make sure we’re ready,’ Joe whispered.
‘Just watch your mouth, son!’ Mick growled at the soldier, spitting out the word “son”. He lowered his fists as Joe pushed him towards Molly on the opposite footpath.
‘Feisty little Fenian aren’t we?’ the soldier dismissed the bit of unpleasantness and turned back into the bar to laugh with his mates.
‘Come on, Moll,’ Mick said, holding out his hand. ‘I hate the smell of spit and bad company!’
Joe nodded in agreement. He hated pubs too. He’d spent too many days waiting with Mick outside some bar for his father or, after Mick’s mother first died, playing on the bar room floor in the sawdust, full of spit and beer spills, with him. Everyone up and down the whole length of the South Brisbane wharves knew them both by name. Every tapster, shyster, sailor, lady of loose virtue, Unionist, copper, criminal, as well as all the Russians, tried to keep Micky Doyle on the straight and narrow. Which was just as well as Joe Hill had nearly had enough.
Molly led Mick off hand in hand. Joe followed close behind, but Tomfool had crept along the footpath under the bar windows until he was close to where the soldier sat.
Tomas jumped up suddenly, thrusting his head and shoulders in through the window. Eyes bulging like an angry monkey he screamed in the unsuspecting serviceman’s face,
‘They’ll be wanting to hurt you a lot!’
The Digger jumped back, knocking the table over. His two remaining beers smashed on the tiled floor. Tom grinned like a madman.
‘What the blazes!’ the soldier swore. He tried to save the beer in his hand and whack Tomfool at the same time.
‘You bloody galoot!’
Tomas backed out as quick as he’d entered, banging the back of his head hard on the bottom of the hopper window as he scarpered.
‘Hoy, you!’ the Digger bellowed, wiping froth from his uniform. ‘You owe me two beers!’
But Tomas ran down the street, dodging the hansom cabs and buggies that had begun to appear just on closing time, he babbled loudly,
‘They’ll be wanting to hurt you a lot!’ as he rubbed hard at the back of his head.
But the soldier hadn’t finished with Tomfool. Downing his remaining beer he hobbled up the street. Joe turned at the kerfuffle.
‘Damn it, Tom!’ he swore loudly. ‘Why can’t we just walk home for once without you annoying someone!’ Molly and Mick turned too.
‘What’s he done now?’ Mick asked. He wasn’t in the mood for any tomfoolery.
‘Stop that idiot!’ the soldier yelled. His voice rang clear above the sudden six o’clock busyness.
‘Quick, Tomas,’ Molly called. ‘Quick! Time for tea!’ Not that Tomfool needed any encouragement, either to escape the trouble he was in or to get to his spot at the table. They were nearly at the tram. But the soldier was a stayer.
‘Stop that miserable … Socialist!’ He yelled his best insult as he hobbled across the uneven road. Only now could they see he carried a cane and dragged his left leg. Joe felt bad. Mick’s shame at his earlier outburst was written across his face. But being in the wrong never stopped Mick and as for feeling guilty about it? Hah!
‘Hop-a-long!’ he laughed at the Digger. The three of them were ready to jump the tram the moment Tomas caught up. Mick grabbed Tomfool’s arm and turned face to face with …
‘A copper!’ Mick moaned. ‘Of all the miserable!’
‘So, what do we have here?’ asked the policeman, his gaze roving over them, noting with interest the red rosette, the white, and the green.
‘Sergeant O’Hagen, what a happy surprise,’ Molly said, smiling her best smile, her eyes all aglitter, eyelashes aflutter. ‘How is Mrs Kerensky?’ Not waiting for a reply regarding the Sergeant’s landlady, she was interrupted by the arrival of Hop-a-long.
‘That runt there owes me two beers!’ he said, perforating the air with his cane. ‘I demand … remedy!’ he panted. Tomas moved behind Molly, a grin still flickering around his lips. Mick and Joe prepared for battle, fists clenched.
‘If it isn’t enough that these red-flaggers be allowed harangue decent people in the street but they drag along their tame monkey to attack them too,’ Hop-a-long began, but was interrupted by O’Hagen.
‘Attack people you say?’
‘Yes, attack!’ Hop-a-long repeated. ‘I was sitting in the public bar minding my own affairs when this, this … idiot,’ he said jabbing his stick at the hapless Tomfool, ‘jumped through the window and startled me.’
‘I thought you said he attacked you, sir!’ O’Hagen interrupted as Hop-a-long tried to stare Tomfool down. Tomas shadowed Molly’s every move. His ruse was more or less successful and Hop-a-long found himself glaring balefully at Molly instead of his hidden adversary. His ire could not outlast her smile.
‘Well, I was startled by this … this … fellow!’ Hop-a-long continued, but his heart was no longer in it. They all relaxed a little.
‘This … monkey, as you so kindly put it, is a little simple, Mister … Mister …?’ Molly asked for a name but continued without. ‘And as such he’s under the guardianship of my family. At the moment that means me.’
She smiled as she finished.
‘No,’ O’Hagen continued. ‘ I don’t think I caught your name either, sir?’ he finished, all very proper, taking the final wind from Hop-a-long’s sails.
‘Name, sir?’ he asked again.
Hop-a-long glanced to Tomfool but saw only Molly.
Polite and belligerent in the one look, Joe thought. Isn’t she better than breathing.
‘Winterson,’ Hop-a-long replied. ‘Harold Charles Winterson,’ he continued. ‘Everyone calls me Harry. But look,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to make a formal complaint, just a good telling off from you, or a swift kick in the seat of his pants.’ Harry Winterson’s voice trailed off.
‘Then you’ll not be making a complaint regarding the alleged attack?’ O’Hagen pressed. Winterson was beaten.
‘No,’ he said. ‘But I would like you to caution this buffoon. If I catch him spilling people’s beer like that again I’ll …’
‘Now, let me caution you, sir, against making threats,’