The Glory Boys

'Get your fucking hands off me,' she spat the words at him, and with his free hand he hit her hard across the mouth, and the metal of the battery container caught her lip, bulging and reddening it until the skin broke, and the trickle, highlighted by the softness of her skin, made its way down to the side of her throat. She started to struggle then, without feeling the pain in her head as McCoy clung to her hair, and oblivious of the numbing ache in her arm where Famy had twisted it behind her. With her other hand she reached into the void behind the light, and her fingernails found the flesh of McCoy's face. She heard him cry out in a mixture of pain and astonishment as she raked her nails across his cheeks. The hand let go of her hair, and before she could affect the grip across her back McCoy's foot had lashed into her head. She tried to turn away, but again the foot came, guided now by the light.

Accurate and vicious, striking through the long hair that offered no protection to her ear.

Then McCoy was on his knees beside her, hands in her hair again, and this time there was no resistance. She moved her head toward him, following his will, and saw the long weals across his face, saw his eyes, alive with rage.

Famy tightened the grip on her arm, so that she convulsed, then lay inert, the struggle over.

Famy said, 'She searched your things, then mine.'

'Roll the bitch over.' McCoy was panting, and they pushed her so that she lay on her back. The Arab had his weight across her legs, high on her thighs, and he had pinioned her arms to the floor above her head. She closed her eyes and felt McCoy begin to search her. He started at her neck and worked quickly and expertly across her body, running over her breasts, down her waist, rough and uncaring till they fastened on the note-book in the pocket at her hips. Fingers forced their way inside the fold of the material and pulled the pad out. She opened her eyes fractionally and saw him peering at her close, tight hand-writing, flicking the pages over, torch close to the paper.

'What does it say?' said Famy, impatience growing as the other man concentrated.

'She's a bloody tout,' said McCoy.

'What's that?' said Famy, his voice rising.

'An informer. A spy. There are names here, people living in the house, times and dates of arrival. We're here too, when we came in, when we went out yesterday. She's a clever little cow. You've no tags, no maker's marks in your clothes, right?'

'We took them out before we came.'

'Well, it's written down here.'

McCoy waited, the big eyes delving into the young face beneath him. She could sense the chill in his voice, horrible and without pity.

He said, 'Who are you? Tell me why you came.' The glazed, fear-filled face peered vacantly back toward him and beyond.

'Who are you, you cow?' He hit her again, this time with the edge of his hand, finding the tip of her chin bone, jerking her head back, banging it on the boards. Still she said nothing, and he struck her with his fist clenched hard into the softness below her rib cage. She gasped for air, fighting to force it down into her lungs, tried to draw up her knees from under the Arab to protect her defenceless body.

'You'll get it again.'

She started to try to speak, but there were no sounds at first, just the effort. Her chest heaved and writhed before the words came. There was a final act of defiance.

'Get off me, you pigs. I'm a police officer. Get your pig-shit hands off me.'

The thought in Famy's mind was immediate. Just two days earlier on the road to Boulogne the police had been waiting for them. Now here, in the supposed 'safe house', the police were again close to him.

'How did they know?' he shouted. 'How did they know we would be here?'

McCoy saw her reaction to what Famy had said, the flick of her head forward to stare at the shadowy face above her. It was that movement that sealed his resolution.

His hands came down, settled on her throat, and tightened.

She tried to speak of drugs and hippies, but the air was already denied her. Then there was nothing, only the sinking, and pressure of the hands and the blackness when she tried to see.

When McCoy had finished he realized that Famy was no longer beside him. It had been easy. In the world in which he moved and fought the penalty for touts was clear-cut. There was coughing in the far corner.

'Pull yourself together, you stupid bugger,' he said. 'Get your things in your bag. We're moving out.'

The house was quiet, at rest, as they went down the stairs, through the door and on to the street.