The Billies started to swarm like a leaderless hive until Ha-Ha’s voice mustered them to action. “Haud it the gether.” And then: “Kick their fuckin’ cunts in.”
The gang reorganized and with a hateful roar, the first of their projectiles sailed up through the air and into the bright motorway light. The Bhoyston danced backwards, letting the glass shatter at their feet. They watched the weapons turn to glitter, and then one by one their green tops flashed in the bright light as they launched back down on to the waste ground. The Catholics held the advantage; by shooting downhill their weapons travelled further and found their targets more easily. Half-bricks made a dull thud and crack as they caught boys in the ribs. Other boys jumped and danced like nylon scarecrows as bottles of piss exploded at their feet.
The air was thick with volleys of religious hate, but the boys were enjoying themselves, having the time of their young lives. The Bhoyston soon found their half-bricks and stones returned to them, dirty and wet from the Dennistoun mud. Rocks thrown by the younger boys missed the bridge altogether and clattered dangerously to the busy motorway below. There was a blare of car horns.
Mungo was rooted to the spot. The brick had slipped from his fingers and his legs disobeyed the order to run. As missiles flew all around him, some of the wounded boys started to retreat back to the little wooden village; they had purple welts on their blue arms and bloody hands clamped over ears that were surely ringing with pain. Half-grown men fell to the ground clutching split skulls, the bravest warriors screaming for their mammies.
The night went suddenly quiet, the sound of splintering glass and stone on bone stopped. The Bhoyston on the bridge had thinned, their casualties retreating back to Royston. The Dennistoun Billies started to clap their cold hands together, roaring over the motorway. The shouting gave the scared boys courage and it coalesced in a bawdy, shouty round of “The Sash My Father Wore.” The Bhoyston had lost control of the high ground. When only a few remained, some of the older Billies picked up their hammers and swords and charged the bridge. The Billies threw their arms wide as though they were scaring grouse from the heather. But not Ha-Ha. Ha-Ha ran with purpose, determined to catch the Fenians. Mungo watched his brother pursue the last of the Catholics back into Royston, well beyond the point where he was safe. The edge of his tomahawk glinted in the car headlights.
The wounded Protestants let out a cheer. Bobby Barr, the broken-armed ginger, raised his serrated knife into the air. “If ah ever see that wee Tim bastard wi’ the bleached hair ah’m gonnae knock the fuck out of him.” The other boys made similar pledges: the revenge they would take, who had fought well, whose bottle had found its target. The bragging and showmanship made Mungo’s stomach lurch. It seemed cowardly. He slunk into the darkness, glad it was over.
He had done what had been asked of him and, best of all, he hadn’t hurt anyone. Mungo burned to tell James this: he would go there now, he would run, he would press his face into the tenement buzzer and declare proud, mad love as Ashley already had. Why should he not? Mungo was drunk with the hope of it. He threw his head back, enjoying the rain on his hot face, and exhaled all the air he had been hoarding inside.
He had half-turned towards the estate when it caught him on the side of the head. The crack was so loud that he thought his skull had exploded, it was a sound like a hockey stick hitting a tight, water-filled drum. His vision exploded like the sky on fireworks night. Then everything went white.
The side of his head was hot with pain and, with his hands still in his pockets, he fell sideways into the mud. When the bright light faded and he could finally open his eyes he saw the Billies scatter like spooked sheep; some tucked their tails in tight and ran in a gallop, others ran backwards, flailing under the blows of their attackers. Mungo lay on the ground and watched the green and white hoops tear through the royal blue. Only one or two of the bravest stood their ground with weapons drawn. They were soon run through, fresh faces sliced open with box cutters, tennis rackets cracked over skulls. He watched Bobby Barr run as a boot flew into his kidneys. His face had twisted in pain, but all the wind was booted from his body and he couldn’t even scream.
Mungo was writhing in the dirt, blinking, when soft brown eyes looked down at him and there was a flash of a perfect, dazzling smile. He was a beautiful boy; dazed as he was, Mungo was still winded by his beauty. He had the broad-boned nose of a proud Sheltie and dark eyebrows under thick black hair, parted as neat as any parish priest’s. He seemed to be saying something, but Mungo couldn’t hear him over the din in his skull. Mungo raised his hand to ask for help. Then the boy’s foot rose up high and came down like a hoof on the side of Mungo’s head.
The white flooded back. It felt like when he sat by himself in the darkness and Jodie turned on the big light, the bare bulb with no lamp-shade, and it burned his skull. The foot came down again and again, trying to sever his head from his body. Mungo could hear the rubbery squeak of the trainer against his face. He could taste the blood from his ear and the salt from his eyes in his mouth and in a delayed reflex he pulled his hands up to cover his face.
The stomping took on the rhythm of a happy jig. Mungo couldn’t see through the pain. The foot came down again and then travelled the length of his body. Then the beautiful boy walked the length of Mungo. He did it in marching strides, like a cartoon Nazi. He turned above Mungo’s head, goose-stepped on his heel and made to walk back down the fallen body. The next foot never fell.
Ha-Ha was there, the tomahawk above his head, and he cleaved it down on the beautiful Catholic and the boy fell like a wasted sapling. The side of his brother’s face was scarlet. There was a curtain of his own blood falling from a line that stretched from his ear to his mouth. It was already raised and puckered white at the edges, like the torn fat on a rasher of bacon. Ha-Ha tapped Mungo with his toe and then he turned, axe above his head, and started hacking at the forest of Fenians.
Mungo lay on the wet ground. He could not lift himself from where he had been stamped into the earth. He would have frozen but for the inferno of his pain. And as the fighting raged above him, he closed his eyes.
* * *
The Catholics retreated over the motorway bridge. Mungo could hear Ha-Ha roar after them, singing sweet promises of chibbing and buggery. He lay in the mud and the spitting rain was cool against his face. He gently probed the inside of his mouth with soiled fingers; he had torn through the fat of his cheek and at least one of his back teeth was cracked. The mud protested as he tried to stand. Several times his legs slid out from under him and he fell back into the grass. When he eventually freed himself, he saw how he had left a perfect outline, like a snow angel that had been pressed into the filth.
Other boys had not been so lucky. There was a crowd gathered around a twelve-year-old who had liked to skateboard and always helped his granny wash the outside of her windows. Mungo had seen him out on the high ledge as his granny clung to his waist. On the other side, some Billies had caught a flame-haired Catholic boy, and in a circular ceilidh, they were taking turns to dance on him. He would be lucky to live.
Mungo held his hands to his ringing head as he stumbled across the battlefield. He was having trouble breathing. He feared that his ribs might be broken as he inhaled the damp night air in little lopsided sips. His eye had scabbed shut already and there was dirt trapped under the swelling; he could feel it scrape against his eyeball. It caused a blinding pain to put weight on his left foot, but because the pain shot up from his ankle through his hip bone, he couldn’t tell which parts of him were calling for attention. He wanted to sob, to cry for the waste of it all.