London Calling - James Craig [12]
According to the weather forecast, it was supposed to reach thirty-one degrees this afternoon. Sitting here in the sun, it felt a whole lot hotter. Inside the various layers of his riot gear, it was probably well above 40 degrees, possibly even 45. Up since 4 a.m., he had spent four hours sitting on a bus, and then more than six hours standing around in the sun, with the PSU (the Police Support Unit, the riot squad) ranged in front of him, and the mounted officers lined up behind. Their horses were ready to go into action at the sound of the Commander’s whistle, bolting towards the strikers whether Carlyle and his colleagues got out of their way in time or not.
Waiting.
Waiting.
Fucking waiting.
Nothing to do but stand around, with only the occasional hurled insult and the promise of a ruck offering some diversion.
This was nothing new. More than three hundred police officers bussed in from around the country had been living in a hangar on the airbase at RAF Syerston for almost a week now. Syerston was an hour down the road, in Nottinghamshire, where only twenty per cent of mineworkers were on strike. Here in Yorkshire, where Carlyle was currently pressed into service, the figure was more than ninety-seven per cent. That meant dozens of pitched battles up and down the county; and thousands of arrests. The working day consisted of fourteen-hour shifts, with the rest of the time divided into six hours’ sleep and four hours of wishing you were either working or sleeping.
Apart from the minor head injury, today was a fairly standard day. Peeling his tongue off the floor of his mouth, Carlyle tried to swallow. His head throbbed viciously, nastier than any bastard hangover he had yet managed to inflict on himself during his first two decades on the planet. Behind the pain, ‘I Fought the Law’ by The Clash was playing on a continuous loop deep within the mush of his brain. Under different circumstances, the irony would have made him smile. Now he just wished that Joe Strummer, Mick Jones et al. would kindly shut the fuck up and get out of his head.
Carlyle looked up at the gargoyle. ‘Got any aspirin?’
The paramedic grunted and tossed him a small foil-covered tray of pills pulled from his pocket. Carlyle popped two, and then another two, shoving the remainder into the inside pocket of his overalls. He grabbed a bottle of water from the low wall on which he was sitting, and took a cautious sip. His throat felt raw and it didn’t feel as if the pills would stay down. He felt the aspirin fighting their way back up, and swallowed hard.
‘Will I need stitches?’ Carlyle asked hopefully. Naturally squeamish at the best of times, he wasn’t a big fan of hospitals, but a couple of hours spent in one this afternoon would do nicely. He was in the market for some sympathy, and some hands-on care from a nubile nurse would go down a treat.
‘You’ll be fine,’ the gargoyle said, as he stripped off his rubber gloves and groped for the packet of cigarettes in the breast pocket of his uniform. ‘The brick, or whatever it was, basically bounced off your helmet. You should have a nice scar though. I’m sure it will look good for the girls.’
‘Thanks a lot,’ Carlyle grimaced, filing the comment away for future reference, all the same. Anything that helped with girls would be more than welcome. He wondered if he would have to pay for a new helmet. The old one had gone flying when he went down, and was now probably destined to become a trophy in someone’s living room.
‘Leave the plaster on for a couple of days,’ advised the gargoyle in a detached tone, sounding as if he was reading from a book of instructions. ‘If the cut opens up again after you take it off, go to the hospital.’ He glanced back down the road, whence the noise of the crowd ebbed and flowed. It was like listening to the spectators at a football match