Winners and Losers by Catrin Collier Read Free Book Online Page A

thoroughfare.
    A window opened above the police and steaming buckets of water were thrown over their heads. Agonized screams filled the air. The police lines thinned as officers helped injured colleagues limp away from the confrontation. An order was shouted from the front line.
    â€˜Hold firm! Draw batons!’
    Gwyn Jenkins stepped forward and yelled at Joey Evans, who stood, arms crossed, defiantly facing the police, but his voice was drowned out by the chants of the hostile mob.
    â€˜No blacklegs!’
    â€˜Right to picket!’
    â€˜Fair wages for all!’
    â€˜Fight or starve!’
    Half a brick flew through the air from somewhere behind Joey. It smashed into the face of a constable in the front line. Blood poured from his head, he staggered and his fall to the ground signalled the end of police restraint. Batons flailing, they charged into the crowd as two officers carried him away. Megan watched helplessly, while people ran to avoid the blows being rained down on them. Men pushed the women, children and babies behind them. Sticks and stones appeared from nowhere as a few intrepid colliers attempted to fight back. But their makeshift weapons were no match for the solid police batons. A policeman knocked a woman to the ground and Megan ran forward. But when she extended her hand to help the woman, the constable turned his attention to her.
    â€˜Come on!’ Joey appeared, grabbed Megan’s arm and pulled her back up the hill.
    Hearing footsteps, Megan glanced over her shoulder, expecting to see the police chasing them, but the woman she had tried to help and a crowd of boys were running behind them.
    â€˜Go home, Megan, before you get hurt,’ Joey shouted.
    â€˜I don’t see you taking your own advice, Joey Evans.’ She stopped and rested her hands on her knees to catch her breath, as the woman and boys disappeared up the lane that cut behind the shops.
    â€˜They’re bringing blacklegs in on the train to work the Cambrian pit. They won’t allow us to picket the station and until they do there’s going to be trouble.’ Joey followed the others up the alley.
    A dozen police rounded the corner and Megan joined her father, who had remained halfway up the hill, well away from the skirmishing.
    â€˜You see any colliers come this way, miss?’
    Terrified of the officers, yet too afraid to tell a lie in front of her father, Megan remained silent.
    Having always regarded miners as being overpaid in comparison to farm workers, Ianto Williams had no compunction about betraying them. He pointed to the entrance to the lane. ‘They went in there.’ He waited until the police ran after them before taking Megan to task. ‘Fine place you live in, girl.’
    â€˜Tonypandy is a good place and most of the people who live here are wonderful. It’s only like this now because of the strike.’ Megan listened intently but all she could hear was the steady tramp of police boots. The garden walls behind the houses were high, but not too high for Joey and the others to vault over, and she hoped that they were all safely hidden in the houses by now.
    â€˜If colliers tried to live on farm wages they’d know what it is to go hungry,’ Ianto sneered.
    Wary of offending her father any more than she already had, lest he take it into his head to drag her back to the Swansea Valley even if Joyce Palmer did offer her a job, Megan didn’t remind him that unlike the vast majority of colliers, farm labourers had gardens big enough to keep a few chickens and grow vegetables.
    She led the way back down the hill to the side door of the lodging house and lifted the doorknocker, bringing it down on a polished brass lion’s head.
    â€˜Do you know that boy who spoke to you?’
    â€˜He’s one of the neighbours.’
    â€˜Related to that Catholic?’ her father questioned sharply.
    â€˜His brother.’ She was glad to see the door opening.
    Joyce