A Place Called Freedom - Ken Follett [94]
“He’s right,” Charlie piped up. “Look who’s here—Sidney Lennox. He’s up to no good, we can be sure of that.”
Some of the coal heavers were nodding agreement now, and Mack began to think he might persuade them. Then he heard Lennox’s voice yell: “Get him!”
Several men came at Mack at once. He turned to run, but one tackled him and he crashed to the muddy ground. As he struggled he heard the coal heavers roar, and he knew that what he had dreaded was about to begin: a pitched battle.
He was kicked and punched but he hardly felt the blows as he struggled to get up. Then the men attacking him were thrown aside by coal heavers and he regained his feet.
He looked around swiftly. Lennox had vanished. The rival gangs filled the narrow street. He saw fierce hand-to-hand fighting on all sides. The horses bucked and strained in their traces, neighing in terror. His instincts made him want to join in the fray and start knocking people down, but he held himself back. What was the quickest way to end this? He tried to think fast. The coal heavers would not retreat: it was against their nature. The best bet might be to get them into a defensive position and hope for a standoff.
He grabbed Charlie. “We’ll try to get inside the coal yard and close the gates on them,” he said. “Tell the men!”
Charlie ran from man to man, spreading the order, shouting at the top of his voice to be heard over the noise of the battle: “Inside the yard and close the gates! Keep them out of the yard!” Then, to his horror, Mack heard the bang of a musket.
“What the hell is going on?” he said, although no one was listening. Since when did coal drivers carry firearms? Who were these people?
He saw a blunderbuss, a musket with a shortened barrel, pointed at him. Before he could move, Charlie snatched the gun, turned it on the man who held it, and shot him at point-blank range. The man fell dead.
Mack cursed. Charlie could hang for that.
Someone rushed him. Mack sidestepped and swung a fist. His blow landed on the point of the chin and the man fell down.
Mack backed away and tried to think. The whole thing was taking place right outside Mack’s window. That must have been intentional. They had found out his address somehow. Who had betrayed him?
The first shots were followed by a ragged tattoo of gunfire. Flashes lit up the night and the smell of gunpowder mingled with the coal dust in the air. Mack cried out in protest as several coal heavers fell dead or wounded: their wives and widows would blame him, and they would be right. He had started something he could not control.
Most of the coal heavers got into the yard where there was a supply of coal to throw. They fought frenziedly to keep the coal drivers out. The yard walls gave them cover from the musket fire that rattled intermittently.
The hand-to-hand fighting was fiercest at the yard entrance, and Mack saw that if he could get the high wooden gates closed the entire battle might peter out. He fought his way through the melee, got behind one of the heavy timber gates, and started to push. Some of the coal heavers saw what he was attempting and joined in. The big gate swept several scuffling men out of the way, and Mack thought they would get it shut in a moment; then it was blocked by a cart.
Gasping for breath, Mack shouted: “Move the cart, move the cart!”
His plan was already having some effect, he saw with an access of hope. The angled gate made a partial barrier between the two sides. Furthermore, the first excitement of the battle had passed, and the men’s zest for fighting had been tempered by injuries and bruises and the sight of some of their comrades lying dead or wounded. The instinct of self-preservation was reasserting itself, and they were looking for ways to disengage with dignity.
Mack began to think he might end the fighting soon. If the confrontation could be stalled before someone called out the troops, the whole thing might be perceived as a minor skirmish and the strike could continue to be seen as a mainly peaceful protest.