'Come on, mates,' he shouted. 'Aht of the way fer the Duchess o' York she ain't done no 'arm, and lor blimey, ain't she a daisy?'
The people good humouredly gave way and for a moment Ann had saved the situation, but as Kenyon glanced over his shoulder he saw that the Greyshirts were in trouble. They were only a few yards behind them, but in turning they had knocked down a man; a threatening mob surged round their car. The black haired boy was being dragged off the back, the others were using their long heavy sticks freely upon their assailants.
Ann's new found friend was swept away from them in a sudden eddy of the crowd. A red, angry, drink sodden face was thrust over the side of the car, its owner glared at Ken yon.
'Bleedin' torf,' yelled a voice from the rear. 'Look at 'im wiv 'is ruddy chorus girls.'
'Chorus girls? Tarts, yer mean!' screamed a shrill voiced woman; 'an' honest people withart food in their stomachs I'd learn 'em if I was a man!'
Kenyon glanced round desperately. How was he to get Ann and Veronica out of this? The crush was ten deep on every side. Above their heads he caught a glimpse of the Greyshirts; the black haired boy had been hauled back into their car, but blood was streaming from his face, his eyes were flashing, and his mouth drawn down into a cruel vindictive snarl. With sudden venom he jerked a gun from his hip pocket, and blazed off with it into the crowd.
For a second there was absolute silence, then a howl of fury went up from the maddened mob. An irresistible wave like the surging of a stormy sea almost submerged the Grey shirts' car. Kenyon caught a glimpse of Ann's face, white now and terrified. Veronica sat, sneering almost, her eyes angry and flashing, but her hand trembled upon his knee and he knew that in the next few moments he must fight-fight for his life unless they were to be torn limb from limb and trampled under foot in the blind, vicious fury of a starvation maddened mob.
9
Burn Them! Burn Them!'
'Quick!' cried Kenyon to the girls, 'out you get no good staying here!'
Veronica slipped on to the pavement and Ann after her. It was only a matter of seconds, but before Kenyon could join them a little rat of a man had snatched at Veronica's necklace. It snapped, she grabbed at it, and the thread parted again, leaving a string of twenty knotted pearls between her fingers; someone jogged her elbow and they were jerked from her hand into the gutter. A wild scramble ensued, and Kenyon seized the opportunity to hustle the girls nearer to the Greyshirts. They, too, had abandoned their car and were fighting a small compact group on the pavement ten yards away.
Howling obscenities, a lean hag seized Ann by the hair and tried to pull her down. Kenyon abandoned all ideas of chivalry and hit the woman a smashing blow in the face. Her grip relaxed and she sank from sight with a little moan. The crowd surged over her, trampling her down into the gutter.
Veronica was struggling desperately with a sinewy lascar. He had her round the body, but years of outdoor exercise had given her slim form far more strength than might have been supposed. She beat her small, clenched fists furiously against his face, and after a moment he staggered back, half blinded by her blows.
Kenyon had turned to help her, but before he had a chance another woman had kicked him on the shin. Her boot was man's size and the pain excruciating. A fellow wearing a red sweater rushed in and began to hammer him with his fists, but Kenyon had been a boxing blue. A left to the jaw and the red sweater disappeared from view.
A few yards away the lights of a cheap eating house caught Kenyon's eye. It was of the type usually run by Italians; polonies and tarts covered with course coconut decked the window beside a water bottle with a lemon stuck in the top. If they could reach its shelter they would be safe for the moment. The Greyshirts evidently had the same idea; they were fighting their way towards it in wedge formation, the gigantic Mr. Silas Gonderport Harker at their head. Kenyon pushed Veronica in their direction and dragged Ann after him.
The lascar rushed in again, but Kenyon put out his foot and the man crashed to the ground; another dashed in ducked as Kenyon lashed out and grabbed him round the middle. They swayed together, locked in each other's arms up and down the pavement. Kenyon gave his assailant a quick jab behind the ear, the man grunted and staggered back, but as Kenyon thrust his way towards the lighted window of the little restaurant, he suddenly missed Ann she had disappeared.
A second later he saw her, still on her feet but out in the roadway, separated from him by half a dozen people. Her dress had been ripped away at the neck, showing the bare flesh of her shoulders, but she had snatched a short, thick umbrella from a woman in the crowd, and was beating wildly with it at the faces of the people who surrounded her. Kenyon dashed back into the road striking out right and left, irrespective as to whether his opponents were men or women, and the mob shrank away from the menace of his powerful blows. Ann had slipped to her knees by the time he reached her, but he used his long arms like flails and, clearing a space, lugged her to her feet again; yet it seemed that it could only be a matter of seconds before they were both dragged down, for his back was unprotected now and the mob was closing in again, snarling and angry.
Suddenly there was a resounding crash. A group of people had fastened on Kenyon's car with senseless fury, and tilting it, had thrown it over on its side. In the brief silence that followed Ann glanced wildly round. A mad animal blood lust glared from the mean faces that ringed them. Hundreds of cruel merciless eyes seemed to devour her in anticipation, and a multitude of claw like hands reached out to rip her shrinking body, but momentarily they were drawn back, and Kenyon seized her by the waist, half carrying, half dragging her towards the lighted doorway.
They were nearly there. The Greyshirts were already clustered in the entrance, and the big American was thrusting Veronica behind him when a well aimed brick caught Kenyon on the head. He staggered and fell.
The mob rushed in again, but Ann stood over him. She remembered having heard somewhere that to lunge at people's faces with the point of an umbrella was far more effective than to beat them about the head. As in some ghastly nightmare she prodded fiercely at the head of an aged crone who was bearing down on them. The point caught the beldame on the mouth, and her stream of hideous blasphemies ceased in a sudden whine. A chimneysweep, his face begrimed with soot, his red rimmed eyes gruesome in the flickering light, dived at her from the other side; she jabbed at him and he clutched his eye with a scream of pain.
'Well done, Ann well done!' It was Kenyon who had stumbled to his feet, blood streaming down his face, but grasping in his hand a short length of wood which he had found on the pavement. It was a Communist weapon and had two ugly nails driven through the heavy end.
He gripped Ann round the shoulders with his left arm and began to savage the people nearest to them with the bludgeon. A moment later they were hauled into the cook shop by the Greyshirts.
Ann sank fainting and exhausted to the floor, but Ken yon picked her up and barged his way towards Veronica, who stood half way up a narrow flight of stairs at the back of the restaurant. The whole place was a struggling melee of people. The Greyshirts were endeavouring to throw the customers and occupants out into the street.
Veronica pulled Ann beside her and Kenyon jumped back into the rough and tumble. It was short and sharp, only one big man who looked like a professional bruiser was giving serious trouble, but a china mug caught him on the side of the head, the Greyshirts closed in on him, and he was flung out in a heap, on to the pavement.
A bottle filled with stones hurled through the window, shivering the glass in all directions, and a slab of stone came whizzing through the open door. It caught the foreign looking youth who had started all the trouble on the foot, and flushing with pain and rage he whipped out his automatic again.