They climbed the steps to the shopping centre. From that distance, a hundred and fifty yards from it, he hated the place, and his thoughts were of avarice, its corrupting influences and ostentation. He saw the woman and Jamal skirt a gang of white youths. His brother would be avenged, his Faith protected, when the man came from abroad and they struck the target that was given them.
Looking for opportunities on Luton's streets was how Lee Donkin spent his days and evenings. Then, if he had found some and could buy, he spent his nights nodding out in the arms of injected heroin.
The best opportunities, and he had experience to back his opinion, were about in mid-morning: women pushing prams and buggies along the Dunstable Road, the Dallow Road or the Leagrave Road on their way to the town's shopping centre. Going to spend, weren't they? Cash in their purses, hadn't they? Never going to fight, were they? Lee Donkin, nineteen years old, fed his addiction with mugging and bag-snatching, and if the victim went down on to the pavement that was their fault for being flicking stupid and resisting, wasn't it? He had spiked hair, bleached white blond, but it was too distinctive when he worked and then he had his black hood over it. What made Lee Donkin most proud was the knowledge that he was a considerable statistic in the offices of the town's police station, among the detectives in the anti-street-theft team, but he had not been successfully prosecuted since he was sixteen when he had served thirty months in a young offenders' institution. Now, he reckoned, he was too smart for them. He was small and short but that was deceptive: his wiry body rippled hard muscle…He had an opportunity. A woman, not old but using one of those hospital sticks and bad on her feet, was ahead: she'd just missed a bus into town and was going to walk. She had a handbag hooked on her elbow, and he closed on her. Alongside that section of the pavement was the school playing-field over which he could leg it when he'd done her.
The hand of Lee Donkin slid into his pocket as his pace increased, as he came nearer to her, and he used his thumb to prise off the little leather sheath that covered the blade of the knife.
8 November 1936
This is the beginning. It is what I have come for.
Albacete is behind us. I have woken as if from a nightmare, and that was the barracks at Albacete.
It has been an incredible day and I have felt such pride at being here. I have little time to write because, free from the nightmare, I will need all the sleep tonight that it is possible to have. Tomorrow I — Daniel and Ralph with me — will fight and be tested.
We were brought in buses last night to Madrid — and with every mile further from Albacete our spirits rose, and there was much singing in many languages. Our turn came and Daniel led our bus in 'It's A Long Way To Tipperary', and by the third time round we had everyone, Poles, Germans and Italians, whistling with us and even trying the words. We had a few hours' sleep in a park, under clear skies.
This afternoon we were formed into squads — platoons and companies — and most of us were issued with rifles. They are old and French, from the Great War, and each man given one had ten rounds of ammunition. I do not understand why we did not have more military training at Albacete: instead our brains are bulging with political stuff from the commissars. I have a rifle and so does Ralph, but not Daniel. We were marched up a main road in Madrid, like Regent Street in London, that is called the Gran Via. It was incredible.
At first the pavements of the Gran Via were empty, except for long queues at bread shops, but as we marched up the middle of the road people emerged and waved to us, or clapped and cheered. I marched as best I could, with my rifle on my shoulder, and felt such pride, and my good friends were either side of me, and there were near to two thousand of us. We were a magnificent sight, and those citizens of Madrid recognized the gesture we had made in coming to help them. A woman shouted — I know it because Ralph translated for me: 'It is better to die on your, feet than live on your knees.' And many yelled what we had heard when we first came to Spain: 'They shall not pass.'
Later, when we came to the top of the Gran Via, we heard very clearly the noise of the artillery barrage falling on the forward positions, and none of the three of us sang any more. It was so close and so deafening. There, the roadside was at first deserted, but people must have heard the stamp of our marching boots, and they appeared from barricaded doorways and cheered us with such enthusiasm, as if we were their saviours and would drive back Los Moros, the Moorish troops of the Army of Africa…Of course we, of the XIth International Brigade, will drive them back from the Caso di Campo.
As we reached the trenches, the second line, where we will spend the night, I asked Daniel how he would be able to fight if he did not have a rifle. He said, very calmly, 'Don't you be worrying about it, Cecil. I expect one of the brigadiers will drop one and I will pick it up.' At first I did not understand what he meant. Now I do. The shelling is continuous, but I am sure we will get used to it and will sleep.
I have seen wounded men carried back through our second line, and I try to look away. What I have seen is ghastly — it is better not to look at those men. Strange, but I feel more anxiety for Ralph and Daniel than for myself — enough of that!
Tomorrow we fight — I hope God will look after my brothers in arms, and me — and the day after tomorrow we are going to have a party! — Ralph and Daniel have promised it, because it will be my birthday.
Joker of the Pack
He held the notebook in front of his eyes and lingered on each sentence, every pencilled word. Voices were in his ears, but Banks ignored them, and the card game…That morning, the Delta team had been, in the dawn light, down the motorway in convoy — with the sirens going and the motorcycles ahead — to Heathrow, to deposit the Minister for Reconstruction. They had waited with him until it was time for his flight to Amman, the first leg of his journey home to Baghdad.
The team — less the Royal and Diplomatic guys — were now in the canteen of the police station at Vincent Square, a usual watering-hole when they were stood down and killed time before the next briefing. The talk at the far end of the table, which slid past Banks, was of clothing kit, a tour of the business end of Downing Street organized by a Special Branch sergeant, and a new modification to the Heckler & Koch's telescopic sight…The only image of the morning that had lasted with Banks was the insistence of the Minister — going home to bloody Baghdad — that he should shake their hands individually, thank them one by one. God, and they weren't bullet-catchers: none of the Delta team would have chucked his body into the line of fire to save the poor bastard. The plane had barely started its taxiing run before they had been on their way back for the canteen, cards and chaff talk.
'Hey, Banksy, what you got?' He was with Cecil Darke, far away. 'Banksy, are you in this world or out of it?'