48

Pawns can only move forward. They can never retreat.

Tuesday, November 5th

It was there in the sky: red. Red flickering brown, red flashing pink, but always like some sinister dusk or neolithic dawn. Chimneys were drawn up tightly in soldierly rows across the skyline and as we turned the corner a long low street of artisans’ houses was bright with the firelight, like some Kensington speculator had given them the pink-distemper-and-brass-lion’s-head-knocker treatment.

The crash of fireworks went on all the time and the tear-away sound of rockets wooshed and pattered way overhead. The lines of windows were twisting with reflected flame and suddenly the bonfire appeared from round the corner. It was a huge flaming altar of fruit boxes, heaped together and twisted with flames into a fiery cubist nightmare. The apex of the flame was about thirty feet high and from the very tip a whirling vortex of sparks moved violently upwards on currents of heat, and then slid sideways towards the cold ground like a swarm of wounded fireflies.

The bonfire was in the centre of a large open site that had probably been flat since the bomb-damage squads of the war had checked the number of corpses against the list of residents, sprayed the site with chemicals and framed it with the fencing that now was bent and trampled. The site was covered with irregular clumps of waist-high weeds and nettles. I wondered if there was anything here that Dawlish would like for his garden.

From the far side of the site there was a sudden patchwork of flame. Tangled skeins of yellow, unravelled spools of green and neat scarlet patches tumbled across the ground like an upset sewing box.

‘Toes,’ said a laconic voice behind me. I turned to see two men pushing a huge Victorian pram full of old cardboard cartons and pieces of wood. Behind them there was a hoarding full of wrestling advertisements. ‘Doctor Death,’ said one of them, ‘versus the South London Vampire – Camberwell Baths.’

There were lots of people scattered across the site in large groups and small groups, not mixing but holding their own little parties. We walked across the uneven ground, avoiding the large pieces of junk that had been dumped there over the past twelve months. Only non-inflammable items had survived the survey of the bonfire tenders. As we skirted a deep hole a group of men were sharply silhouetted on to the white-hot centre of the bonfire. I watched the two men who had passed us throw chunks of wood from the pram high on to the pyre. On the other side of the fire the spectators were drawn as if with yellow chalk on a blackboard, but each figure had only one side depicted, their backs melting into the darkness and the haze of the remaining wisps of fog.

Behind the fire, four men were standing round one of the few trees that remained on the site. I saw the sulphurous yellow glare of a firework. Then the group and the tree disappeared into the darkness again. There was a tiny flicker of yellow flame as one of the men thumbed his cigarette lighter. One said, ‘It’s gone out’ and someone else said, ‘Go and blow on it, Charlie,’ and they all laughed. All around us there was the flare and bang of fireworks and a pitter-patter overhead where rockets were spitting at the stars. There was a soft buzz as something landed at my feet. ‘Oops a daisy,’ said a fat woman walking towards me and we both leapt aside as there was a great smash of sound.

Hallam had dropped behind to have a cigarette without offering them to me. I could see the outline of figures against the light reflected in the house-fronts, but it was hard to know which one was Hallam until there was the loud cloth-tearing sound of a rocket, then the intense white light of the parachute flare which it had contained. Suddenly the whole site was as light as midday. I looked back in the direction we had come. I saw Hallam. He was dressed in his black melton overcoat and bowler hat with a bright yellow silk scarf. The thing I noticed about him was that he was carrying a .45 pistol and it was pointing directly at me. The flare surprised him as much as it did me. I saw him push the huge pistol into the front of his coat. The flare was beginning to die now. I looked around and saw the small crater I had almost fallen into. I dropped into it as the flare went out. It was very dark, the fire was behind me and Hallam in front; I peeped over the edge of the hole to see if I could see him.

He was standing in the same place. He had wrapped his scarf around the gun. Two old women were picking their way carefully past the crater. ‘Look out, Mabel,’ said one of them and the other one caught sight of me and said loudly, ‘Cor, look at him, dear. He’s had one over the eight, all right.’ The other one said, ‘One over the eighteen, you mean.’

It was all Hallam needed to locate me. I decided to get up right away and get close to the two old ladies. There was a crash and rip of a .45 bullet passing above my cranium. ‘Oops,’ said the old ladies. ‘There’s a loud one.’ Hallam wanted me to stay right where I was until he came over to do his task and then leave me there. The two old ladies said, ‘Aren’t they terrible?’

I felt in my pocket for the fireworks I had brought and found a ‘Tiny Demon’. I lit and carefully threw it at Hallam. The explosion had him leaping aside and a man who saw it said, ‘Stop throwing those bangers, you hooligans. I’ll have the law on you.’

I lit another and threw that at Hallam too. He was ready this time but the blast had him keeping his distance. A man passing by said, ‘Are you all right down there?’ and his friend said, ‘It’s just an excuse to get plastered for some of them,’ and they hurried away.

Behind Hallam, the fireworks were bright green and yellow, popping and sending little showers of golden rain into the sky. It gave me a chance to range him in. I watched the fine red tip of the firework land near Hallam’s feet and for a second or so he didn’t see it and when he did he moved fast. There was a big blast but Hallam was merely a little shaken. I looked around for some way out of this fiasco. The whole site was crowded with people coming and going, blissfully unaware of Hallam trying to kill me.

A man was looking into the crater, saying, ‘Have you slipped?’

‘I’m not drunk,’ I said. ‘I’ve twisted my ankle.’ The man reached down a large hard hand to help me. I came to my feet like a man with a twisted ankle and there was a stab of flame as Hallam fired again.

Someone from the darkness yelled, ‘Bloke there is holding bangers in his hand – you don’t want to do that, mate.’ Hallam shuffled to one side a little self-consciously. ‘I’ll be OK now,’ I said to my benefactor. Near by there was a whirling buzz as a Catherine wheel tore a golden hole in the night.

As the man moved away there was another pistol shot and near by someone laughed. Hallam had fired high for fear of hitting the man, and I started to think that he had decided to back me up against the bonfire, with the idea of tipping me in. All sorts of ideas occurred to me such as falling to the ground when I heard the next bullet in the hope that Hallam would come within striking distance. That plan assumed Hallam would be careless; there was no reason to think that Hallam would be careless. To my right there was the choking sound of a roman candle sending livid balls of fire high above my head. Two red spots moved towards me. One said, ‘Where did you put it?’ The other one said, ‘Under this bush, nearly half a bottle; Haig and Haig.’ They moved past. The other two men of a party of four lit another roman candle.

I had lost sight of Hallam, which made me a little nervous. I knew that as soon as the second roman candle went up Hallam would pinpoint me and he didn’t have so many rounds left in the pistol. The next shot might well prove fatal.

I moved in among the men and their roman candles like David among the Philistines. I put my foot on the roman candle and ground it into the earth just as the ignition began. ‘Here, here,’ shouted the biggest one of the men. ‘What the——hell you think you are on?’

‘I’m doing a trick,’ I said. ‘Hold that.’ I took the bottle of rum out of my pocket and gave it to him. ‘Suppose I don’t want to,’ he said. ‘Then me and my mates will smash your head in,’ I said in a surly voice. He backed away hurriedly. I searched through their huge box of fireworks and found a parachute flare. I put the stick of it into the bottle and lit it. There was a great roar of sparks and it took off to burst in a great white glow that momentarily dimmed the bonfire. I stayed close to the tree. There was a great ‘Ooohh’ and ‘Aaahh’ as the rocket burst, and I picked out Hallam in his bowler hat standing near the old Victorian perambulator. I had wedged three more rockets into the crutch of the tree. Hallam looked around feverishly. I depressed the elevation of the first rocket and lined it up with Hallam. I lit it.

‘Steady on,’ said one of the men.

‘Come away, Charlie,’ said his friend. ‘He’s going to do someone an injury and I’m not going to be around.’

As I was lighting the second rocket, the first one began to fire sparks, then it gained power and roared forward like a bazooka shell. It passed about six feet over Hallam’s head and about four feet to the right side. I lit a firecracker and let it burn its fuse well down before hurling it towards Hallam’s feet. By this time he was looking around and he saw the fire of the second rocket begin. There was a flash as he fired a pistol and a chunk of tree ripped a hole in my sleeve. The second rocket roared towards Hallam. It’s easy to see a rocket. It leaves a trail like a tracer bullet. He moved easily to one side and the rocket thudded harmlessly into the ground just beyond where he had been standing. He fired again and there was a crunch of breaking wood. I peeped over the crutch of the tree and saw a great snowstorm of sparks, like it was raining golden sovereigns. Beyond Hallam there was the asterisks of sparklers.

Nearer to me a man said, ‘Well, I’ll tackle him. I paid for those rockets and I’m going to let them off.’ His voice was slurred with drink and I thought at first that it was the men who had been looking for the Haig and Haig coming back to remonstrate with me, but they walked past the tree still talking. Hallam began to load the pistol. I could just see his movements in the gloom. To his right the bonfire was burning brightly; the wind had caught it, and the side which had hitherto been hardly alight suddenly caught fire with a roar.

I groped around feverishly for more fireworks. There was only one more rocket and some roman candles and groups of tiny bangers with rubber bands round them. I grabbed one bundle, lit them with my hand shaking so much I could hardly hold the match and tossed them in the direction of Hallam. I put the last rocket in the branch of the tree and lit it just as the bundle of bangers went off with a huge crash. It put Hallam off guard. My last rocket tore a yellow gash in the fabric of night. At first I thought it would hit him, but at the last minute he saw it coming and moved aside. It went into the soft earth a few feet behind him and expired softly. Two shots ripped notches into the tree. I shrank down behind it with the idea of running for the nearest cover. I looked at the brightly lit ground around me. There was no cover. Nothing between me and Hallam now.

I looked around the shadow side of the tree fairly low down, and as I did I saw what happened. The second or third rocket lying on the ground suddenly obediently discharged its flare. I saw Hallam’s whole figure silhouetted in the great white light behind him. I could read the wrestling ad about Dr Death. Hallam half turned, probably thinking that he was being attacked from the rear and as he did I saw his scarf was alight. The scarf hung from his hand like a great flaming walking stick and he beat it against himself to put the flames out. Suddenly there was an enormous sheet of flame into which Hallam disappeared. It flickered for a moment and I saw Hallam’s body twisted in the very centre of the flame. Then suddenly there was a roar like a jet motor, and where there had been flame there was nothing but a great white fireball, so bright that the bonfire looked dull and yellow. Some vintage, that Algerian wine. It was a Molotov cocktail to dispose of my mortal remains.

‘Cor, what a beauty.’

‘Hello, somebody’s thrown a match into a box of fireworks; easy to do.’

‘A few bobs’ worth of whizzers gone up there, Mabel.’

‘I bet my dog’s going mad.’

‘Mind how you go there, there’s a hole there. One drunk feller has fallen into it already.’

‘I wonder who clears it all up.’

‘We’ve got some cold sausages in the fridge or we can stop off for some fried fish and chips.’

‘Look at that green one.’

‘Oooooohh, what a terrible smell of burning food. Look at that smoke.’

‘Leave off, George.’

‘Hello, there’s a crowd gathering over there. I’ll bet there’s been an accident.’