Mars bars from his rucksack and they started to eat. There wasn’t any money for sweets, Dad said, but they could run faster than Mr Hamid, who had the shop at the bottom of the estate.
Below them, the police were forming two solid walls of blue, pushing the miners back to clear the roadway. Of course, Ray Earnshaw was down there. He always was. The strike was everything to her dad. On the pickets all day and sometimes at night, and then meeting at their house or down the Institute every evening. On the picket. Planning the picket. Talking about it all for hours and hours. Last night they’d all been crammed into the living room. Cathy hadn’t listened for long, but she’d heard them talk about buses. Buses of scabs. Buses of pickets from round the county. Buses of pigs from London.
In the months since the strike started, there’d been fighting at the other pits. They’d seen it on the telly, and listened to the talk. Now it might actually kick off here and Cathy was determined to get a good view.
‘There’s Mick.’
Cathy saw her brother approaching the picket, with his mates around him. They were greeted and absorbed into the growing ranks of miners like they belonged. Which they didn’t. Mick was workshy. That’s what her dad said. At least, that’s what he’d said before the strike.
As it had so many other days, the crowd at the pit gates formed into lines. The miners on either side of the road, pinned in place by a wall of blue uniforms. And in the centre, the thin, grey stretch of roadway, a no-man’s land to the locked pithead gates.
The chanting started. From their hiding place, Cathy and Heathcliff could hear the raised voices.
‘Miners united will never be defeated…’
Maybe. But the strike had been going for ages now and Cathy was sick of it. Sick of having no new things. Sick of her dad spending all his time with his union mates. He didn’t even go on at her about school any more. She couldn’t remember the last time he’d properly looked at her. Or spoken to her other than to ask when she was going to have dinner on the table.
‘Look..’ Heathcliff sounded eager. Excited even.
A line of vans and buses was making its way along the road from town. In the front were two white police vans. Behind them was a bus, its windows blacked out to hide the occupants. And behind the bus, two more police vans.
‘Let’s go down there.’ Heathcliff scrambled to his feet.
Without a word, Cathy followed him.
They stopped at the side of the road, where a caravan sat on the grass. It was covered with posters and graffiti and served the miners as headquarters for the pickets. It also served Cathy and Heathcliff as a hiding place.
‘Scabs! Scabs!’
The chant was louder now. Harder. Aggressive and angry. The miners were pushing forward against the police lines.
The first police van was almost at the gates when the miners surged forward as one. They made it to the bus and were pounding its sides with their fists.
The doors of the first two police vans swung open and officers poured out. They were in full riot gear, helmeted and armed with truncheons. The miners began to fall back at the sight.
‘They’re going to lose,’ Heathcliff said. ‘Come on.’
He grabbed a large rock lying near his feet and darted forward. Cathy tried to grab his arms and hold him back, but he was gone. She followed him into the melee.
‘Fucking scabs!’
The voices around Ray were getting angrier by the moment. The jostling gave way to serious shoving as the men tried to force themselves between the bus and the gates to the pit.
He looked up at the sides of the bus. Through the blacked-out windows, he could see faint shapes within. Who were these men, he wondered, who would betray their brothers, who were not prepared to fight for the cause? Were they frightened, those men inside the bus, as they listened to the fury all around them? They should be, because Ray was beginning to be a little afraid himself.
A swinging truncheon clipped his shoulder. There wasn’t much force behind it, but it hurt, nonetheless. The doors of the second police van opened and another wall of blue poured out. The bus was moving forward again, forcing its way inexorably through the heaving mass of men. A huge stone flung with great skill and force suddenly crashed against the helmet of the policeman in front of Ray. The man staggered and started to go down. This close, Ray could see his face through the visor, frozen with panic. If he fell beneath the heaving mass of angry men, or beneath the bus wheels…
He was wearing the uniform, but he was just a boy. Not much older than Mick. The pickets weren’t the only lines Ray Earnshaw wouldn’t cross.
Ray reached out a hand and grabbed the copper’s arm. With a grunt of effort, he pulled the lad back onto his feet. He saw the relief and gratitude on the boy’s face for a second before the surging crowd separated them.
Ray was pushed back against a solid wall of men behind him. He looked around, but knew none of the faces. These weren’t his men. They were from other pits. Their faces were hard. There’d been a lot of violence on some of the lines, and for the first time, Ray was uncertain. He believed in the cause. He didn’t want the scabs working. But this was starting to look like war. And he was too old for a war. He had a houseful to feed and he coughed and wheezed every morning when he woke up. A war was what it was going to take, but without some cash in their pockets, Ray didn’t think any of them were going to last that long.
The crowd around him shifted, and Ray found himself near the edge of the crowd. He turned.
‘What the…’
His daughter stood in front of him at the edge of the crowd. ‘What are you two doing ‘ere?’ He stepped forward and grabbed Cathy’s arm. ‘This is no place for kids. Get out of here.’
Cathy shook off his hand, her face fixed in defiance. Heathcliff was at her side, as he always was. A shout went up behind them as another police van drew forward to be immediately surrounded by shouting, angry men.
‘It’s not safe. Get her out of this,’ he told Heathcliff.
Another flurry of violence erupted near the police van. Ray shoved his way forward. He had to try to calm things down. At this rate, someone was going to get seriously hurt. He was close to the van when he heard a noise. Short and sharp, almost like a gunshot, followed by a roar from the crowd. A second sound overtook the first as the door of the police van shot open and the occupants poured out. Ray could see one man was bleeding from a wound on the side of his neck. His eyes as he scanned the crowd were full of unmasked hatred.
‘A nail gun!’ The words were passed through the crowd. Ray cursed silently. What sort of a fool would fire a nail gun into a police van full of men?
Then he saw Mick. His son was standing near the van, looking like some wild creature. His eyes were wide, his mouth spread in a grin. He looked almost joyful.
‘God help us.’ Ray scanned the crowd, desperately looking for the nearest familiar face. ‘It was Mick,’ he said. His mate closed his eyes for a fraction of a second. ‘Shit.’
‘Just get him out of here.’
‘Right. Come on.’
