Gazooka by Gwyn Thomas Read Free Book Online

stirring draught for lazy kidneys,’ said Caney, very softly.
    â€˜Speak up, Caney,’ called the voters on the outer fringe of the group, and Caney repeated what he had said, taking off his slouch in case this might be muffling some of the sound.
    â€˜How will it take him?’ asked Gomer. ‘This draught, how does it operate?’
    â€˜It varies,’ said Caney. ‘Sometimes when it begins its healing work there is a flash of discomfort, and I have known surprised clients come back to me hopping.’
    â€˜Hopping? What do you mean, hopping? Let’s have the truth, Caney.’
    â€˜One leg seems to leave the ground as if trying to kick the kidneys into a brighter life.’
    We all drew more closely around Caney and said very quietly: ‘Duw, duw, duw!’, which was a way we had of invoking God without committing ourselves unduly.
    We turned to the part of the field where the sprint was shortly to begin. Erasmus John was entering into the brutal phase of his life as an official. He was dissatisfied with the rate at which the athletes had been coming out of the pavilion and he was prodding the various runners into position with his gun. He was putting some of them, including Cynlais Coleman, on edge and they were threatening to go home if Erasmus did not point the barrel of his weapon the other way.
    â€˜The only boy he isn’t prodding with that flintlock,’ said Milton Nicholas, ‘is his own favourite, Keydrich Cooney, that red-thatched, chunky element on the side there, with a scalloped vest and the general bearing of a tamed ape. His speciality used to be cross-country events on muddy terrain and a chance to shove slower rivals into lonely ditches. But he emerged as a runner in sprints when he outpaced two bailiffs who were trying to shove an affiliation writ into Cooney’s pocket. Erasmus John will handicap Cooney forward until he is practically biting the tape when the gun goes. See how he’s edging on now while Erasmus keeps the other runners in a sweat of anxiety. What Herod did for child welfare Erasmus John will do for foot-racing.’
    The gun went off. The crowd surged forward around me and I could see nothing of the race’s details. Then there was a shout and a groan and I saw Cynlais Coleman shoot into the air, well in sight even above the taller heads around me. I jumped, too, to see if there was any sign of fresh smoke from Erasmus John’s gun because Cynlais looked to me as if he had been shot. For a second the crowd broke and in the gap I saw the red head of Cooney flash past the tape.
    It was not until that evening that I learned with any accuracy what had happened. We had led Cynlais home between us. He had refused to get out of his running costume and he looked shattered. He refused to say a word. After we had delivered him to his home we met at Tasso’s Coffee Tavern.
    Normally when we went into Tasso’s the conversation was in full cry even before Tasso got his hand on the hot-water tap. But that night every topic seemed to be lying dead just behind us. Gomer Gough and Uncle Edwin stared at each other, at Tasso and then at themselves in the gleaming side of the urn. Tasso was very much slower than usual getting to work on the taps. He took down a large bottle, fished into it and brought out a wrapped toffee.
    â€˜ A ccept this rum-and-butter toffee, Mr Gough,’ said Tasso. ‘It will sweeten your mood.’ He waited until Gomer had the sweet in his mouth and the first traces of softening in his eye as the sugar struck his palate. ‘ A nd what was the foot-race like, Mr Gough? What befell Mr Coleman the Comet?’
    For a few moments Gomer could not marshal his words. Then, as the voters of Meadow Prospect often do when they have some outrage to describe, he highlighted some of the principal incidents of his story, with gestures as broad and dramatic as the size of Tasso’s shop and the position of the urn