Crusaders by Richard T. Kelly Read Free Book Online Page A

ago now? I was on back-shift, right near the end of it, more’s the pity. And this bliddy great coal truck – well, the dreg on it was fettled, see? It come down on wuh so fast I couldn’t get out the road. So it went right owa this here hand. Quick as a wink. I can still feel it now when I think.’
    John had flinched. With the fingers of his good left hand, Tommy took a consoling grip of the dorsum of his right. ‘Now your grandda – him being the deputy – he ran and fetched us a bit bandage and that, from the first-aid box. Cos he was good like that, your grandda. And wor marras got us up and out, sharp as they could. Hugh here, he was banksman, see? He did the cage, got us to surface. Doctor from the ambulance station were readyfor wuh. I knew, but, in me’sel. That was me done. Ruined, y’knaa ? Stupid thing, but. It shouldna happened.’
    Tommy paused and trailed his good fingers over some tufted blades of grass. John felt a shiver run through him, heedless of the sun’s warmth. He realised, mortified, that his eyes had moistened, and he ducked his face into his chest.
    Tommy looked up. ‘Aye, that was how ah felt and all, bonny lad. I’ll tell you this, but. I passed out for a bit, after, while the doctor were seein’ to us? When I come round, he were stood over wuh, all solemn, like. And he says, “Tommy, son, now listen, I’ve stitched you up, and you’ll be grand. But I’m very sorry to have to tell you – you’ll not play the violin ever again.”’
    Seasoned chuckles in the group. Tommy was pulling a music-hall face of dismay. ‘I says, “Eee, doctor! Divvint tell us that, man, I’m down to give a recital in the club Tuesday neet …”’
    John watched the old men, their sides heaved with suppressed jollity. The sudden levity he found yet more impressive than the earlier stoicism, and he rubbed at his wet cheek. Alec’s eyes were on him. ‘Are y’alright there now, bonny lad?’
    John swallowed, nodded. ‘It’s just, it’s not bloody fair is all,’ he said into his chest. He had thought himself barely audible but when he looked up, Alec was grinning in a skewed manner at his old pals. ‘Whey, d’you hear that, eh? He’s a Labour man, this lad. Red-hot Labour in the making, why aye.’
    Aways across the field a brass band struck up, a deep mournful swelling that brought forth applause. John felt himself stir. For the duration of the opening bars he was sure he was hearing ‘The Lord is My Shepherd’, or some variation on the same. But on all sides of him it was a different set of words that Langley Park were singing or mouthing. John listened with care, until there came a great final surge of brass, a crash of cymbals, and words that seemed the stuff of hymnal.
    O saviour Christ, who on the cruel tree, for all mankind thy precious blood has shed
    In life eternal trusting, we – to thy safe keeping leave our dead .
    He looked to Alec, who nodded a grudging respect amid the louder acclamation.
    *
    In the dwindling days of that summer they gathered at Alec’s bungalow, under the sober supervision of Armstrong’s Undertakers Ltd. Bill was one of six who bore the coffin out into the street, Alec’s Langley Park mates Hughie and Tommy among the others. Carefully they lowered and passed the casket into the compartment of a horse-drawn hearse, tethered to two placid pit-ponies dressed with black plumes.
    Alec had fallen by his own garden-gate, angina pectoris the stealthy killer, and left behind no instructions for his interment. Bill addressed the needful formalities with a certain grousing scepticism. ‘There’s nee point the Church putting a mark on a man in death when it never laid a finger on him while he was living.’ Yet he recalled one matter on which his father had been most specific , and that was cremation. ‘He always said to me, “From naught I came, and to naught I’ll return.”’ It was then a simple matter for Bill and Audrey to agree that the minister of