I hoped the name didn’t reflect the local habits, and that the car would be all right; but I couldn’t face being shut in it any longer. I wanted to explore on foot, smelling the sea in the wind. I felt a few drops of rain in it instead, turned back a moment, then looked up at the sky and caught my breath. Over the warehouse rooftop opposite blazed the last streaks of the glorious sunset; and against them, stark and black as trees in winter, loomed a network of mastheads. Not the simple mastheads of modern yachts, nor the glorified radar rigs of the larger ships; these were the mastheads of a square-rigged sailing ship, and a huge one at that, the sort of things you would expect on the Victory or the Cutty Sark. The last time I’d seen anything like them was when a Tall Ships rally had put in, and that only on local TV. Had the tourist bods moored one here, or something really old? This I had to see. I pulled my light anorak closer about me and walked on into the deep shadows between the wide-set streetlights. The hell with the weather, the hell with everything! I was a bit surprised at myself. No doubt about it, rebellion had me in its grip.
An hour and a half later, of course, I was regretting it bitterly. My hair was plastered flat to my wind-chilled scalp, my soaking collar was sawing at my neck, and I was desperate for my dinner. All those odd little places I remembered were just boarded holes in the high walls now, or seedy little cafés with fading pop posters and plastic tables barely visible through the grimy glass; and every one of them was closed, and might have been for years. The sea was within earshot, but never in sight; and there was no trace of masts, or of the signs you’d expect to a tourist attraction either. I would have been happy enough now with something microwaved at home, if I could only get back to my car; but just to cap everything, I’d lost my way, taken a wrong turn somewhere around those featureless warehouse walls, and now everywhere was strange. Or simply invisible; either some of the streets had no lighting, or it had failed. And there wasn’t a soul about, nor even a sound except my own footsteps on the cobbles and the distant breath of the ocean. I felt like a lost child.
Then I heard voices. They seemed to be echoing out around the corner of the street ahead, and so desperate was I that I’d gone rushing round before I’d realized that they didn’t sound at all friendly; more like a brawl. And that, in fact, was what was going on. At the street’s end was the sea, with only a dim glimmer to distinguish it from the sky above; but I hardly noticed it. There was a single light in the street, over the arched doorway of a large warehouse, now half-open; and before it, on a weedgrown forecourt, a tight knot of men were struggling this way and that. One tore himself loose and staggered free, and I saw that the remaining three – all huge – were after him. One swung at him, he ducked back, stumbling among the weeds and litter, and with a twinge of horror I saw metal gleam in the fist as it swung, and in the others as they feinted at him. They had knives, long ones; and that slash, if it had connected, would have opened his throat from ear to ear. They were out to kill.
I stood horrified, hesitant, unable to link up what I was seeing with reality, with the need to act. I had a mad urge to run away, to shout for the police; it was their business, after all, not my fight. If I hadn’t baulked at that stop light, perhaps, I might have done just that, and probably suffered for it. But something inside me – that spirit of rebellion I’d raised – knew better; it wasn’t seeking help I was after, it was an excuse to run away, to avoid getting involved, to pass by on the other side. And this was a life at stake, far more important than a stupid trick like running a light – far more important even than any question of courage or cowardice. I had to help … but how?
I took a hesitant step forward. Maybe just running at them, shouting, would scare them enough; but what if it didn’t? I hadn’t hit anybody since I had left school, and there were three of them. Then in the faint gleam my eyes lit on a pile of metal tubes lying at the roadside, beside a builder’s sign, remnants of dismantled scaffolding. They were slippery with filth and rain, but with a heave that made my shoulders crack I got one about seven feet long loose, heaved it over my head and ran down the slippery cobbles.
None of them saw me at first; the victim slipped and fell, and they were on him. I meant to shout, but at first only a ridiculous strangulated hey! came out; in the middle it cracked and became a banshee howl. Then they noticed me, all right. And to my horror they didn’t run, but rounded on me all three. I was past turning back now; I swung the tube at the first one, and missed by a mile. He leapt at me, and in a fit of panic I just clipped his outstretched arm on the backswing. He fell with a howl, and I saw a knife fly up glittering into the air. Another feinted at me, jumped back as I swung the tube, then flung himself forward as it passed. But it was slippery enough to slide through my hands; the end poked him in the belly and stretched him on his back on the cobbles. Hardly believing what I was doing, I swung on the third – and my feet skidded from under me on the wet smooth stones, and I sat down with an agonizing jar. He loomed up, a hulking shadow against the halo of light; I glimpsed white teeth in a contorted snarl, the knife lifting and slashing down.
Then something flashed over me, feet crashed on the cobbles, and the shadow drew back. It was the man they’d been attacking, a hunched, taut figure with a shock of red-brown hair, bounding and bouncing forward, dodging the clumsy slashes the bigger man aimed at him with an ease that looked effortless. Suddenly his own arms lashed out; there was a gleam of metal and a terrible tearing sound. They whirled into the light for a moment, and I saw long slashes in the tall man’s rough coat, and blood spurting from them. I struggled up, then flinched back in fright as the darkness seemed to burst out at me; I flung out a punch, and felt a stab of agony in my upper arm. I yelled with the sudden pain, and louder with the anger that hissed up like a rocket in my head. A leering, slobbering face, greyish and sickly in the dim light, shone out suddenly in front of me, capped by a cockatoo crest of green, a mass of gold ear-rings jangling. I smashed at it with my good arm, felt the blow connect and exulted – till the rocket burst, or so it felt, and my teeth slammed together with the force of the impact. I doubled over, clutching my head, unable to see or even think straight, my mind crazed across like a mirror by the blow. I heard a yell beside me, a burst of noise and expected the worst, the sharp agony of the knife or the blunt bite of boots. But my back bumped against a wall and I straightened up, grateful for its support, and forced my eyes open in time to see the three shadows go clattering away for their lives down the street towards the sea, one limping badly, another clutching his chest; the third they were dragging between them, his feet scrabbling helplessly at the rounded stones. A black trail like a snail’s glistened where he had passed.
The man they’d been after was crouched down against the wall to my right, by the doorpost, clutching his ribs and breathing heavily. I thought at first he was injured, but he looked up and grinned. An ordinary enough grin, on a lean, mobile face. ‘Now that’s what I call timing!’ he said, and chuckled.
‘Who were they?’ I managed to croak out.
‘Them? Just Wolves, as usual. Out for anything that’s not nailed down, and a good few things that are – you know!’ He looked up suddenly. ‘Hey – you don’t know, do you? You’re not from this side of town, are you?’