miss the scrap.”
“Scrap?” I ragged up my hands, took hold of the cable.
Big Chas sang piously astride the generator, “Mighty are your enemies, hard the battle ye must fight.”
Over the other side of the green, strange wagons were pulling in. Even the vehicles looked sullen, hateful, as their engines revved and their headlights swathed us.
“Bissolotti?” I croaked nervously, thinking, hellfire. The new convoy was forming a crescent. The green was on a slope, and we were below them. Even as I paused to look, another set of headlights rummaged the darkness to our right. “Hell, there’s a lot of them.”
“Big mob, Bissolotti’s,” Chas agreed cheerfully. “What weapons do you usually use in a rumble, Lovejoy?”
My legs, mainly, I thought shakily. Or a Jaguar. I’m not proud.
“I heard he’s a gun man,” Ern said.
Those lunatics were actually pleased at the notion of an all-out battle with Bissolotti’s. I felt sick. This wasn’t my scene. A peaceful fairground, yes. But a military column tearing to a private El Alamein, a thousand times no. Soon I’d go for say a pee, and vanish.
For about an hour we worked on. Every few minutes I sussed out the growing arc of lights about the green. Bissolotti’s wagons began to pitch. We were only a hundred yards apart.
“They’re pitching,” I said apprehensively to Ern.
“Aye, Lovejoy,” he called laconically.
“Will we share the pitch?” I was hopeful.
Big Chas roared with laughter from somewhere under the Caterpillar’s railed wheels.
“Lovejoy’s worried there’ll be no rumble,” the idiot bellowed.
“Don’t worry, Lovejoy,” Ern said consolingly and caroled, “Ye that are men now serve him against unnumbered foes…” Big Chas joined in the hymn. I worked on, sane in a world of lunatics.
They hadn’t finished that particular hymn when negotiations began between the two fairmasters. Bissolotti with ten blokes met Sidoli near where we worked. Our fairmaster also had ten nephews. They stood in two cagey crescents, the bosses talking vehemently for quite a time before our lot returned, chatting animatedly.
“Ready, Lovejoy?” Sidoli called. Ray-dee, Luff-yoyee? He’d caught a glimpse of me on the Caterpillar bolting the hub’s canopy roof. “You get your wish!”
“Great,” I called back. That one wobbly word took three swallows.
“Come on, then,” Big Chas said. “Fight the good fight.”
Men were gathering into small groups from our wagons. The pitch was falling silent as the hammering and clattering ceased. Our people were talking. Groups formed. Tactics were being discussed. It was eerily happy, and here was I frightened out of my skin.
Madness. Sidoli was among a cluster of paraffin lanterns lecturing strategy. Heads nodded. Some maniac was dishing out steel rods. I thought, for God’s sake.
“Just finish this, Chas.”
“Won’t let a scrap interrupt work, eh?”
He and Ern left to join the nearest group, laughing and shaking their heads. “He’s a cool bugger,” Ern said admiringly.
“Good night, lads,” I muttered. I checked the scene once more, then slid off the wood on the dark side, nearest the enemy camp. “And good luck with the war.”
Across the damp grass the Bissolotti mob’s lanterns were wavering as their men assembled. Behind, our own lamps showed where clusters of blokes were being positioned. I crouched indecisively near a pile of wooden facades from the Caterpillar.
What were the rules for a rumble? From what little I’d learned, fairs were pretty orderly along time-honored lines. Maybe they were as set in their ways when it came to all-out warfare. Apprehensively I darted a few yards towards the Bissolotti vehicles, then hesitated. Surely the thing was to avoid both gangs, never mind the wagons?
Our own pitch was a circular layout on the green’s downslope. Ahead and above stood the Bissolotti crescent, all flickering lamps and din. A wall, terraced houses, and some sort of iron railing formed the perimeter where streets began. There were three exits for vehicles, but for an enterprising slum-trained coward, spiked railings were hardly an obstacle.
Suddenly the lights in the Bissolotti camp vanished.
In ours, there arose a subdued murmur, then somebody called a nervous order and the glims doused here and there until Sidoli’s pitch was black. I heard Sidoli yell. A hubble of voices responded, one panicky shout stilled by a threat. We’d been caught napping.
Only a sort of air-pallor from the nearby street let you see a damned thing. I went clammy, cursing myself for not having escaped sooner. If it hadn’t been for Joan’s loving farewell I’d be miles away by now. Bloody women. No wonder I’m always in a mess.
Somebody shouted, “Fan out, lads,” and somebody else shouted, “No. Two lots. Over there…” Then a third, “Bunch up. Get in line…” So much for Sidoli’s confidence. His men were a shambles. I began to move instinctively to my right. I’d once been in a real army and recognized only too well the authentic hallmarks of disorder. Time Lovejoy was gone.
I froze in mid-slink. Nearby there was a steady touch of movement. The night air somehow pressed on my face. A hoary old sergeant—a survivor—once told me, “Never effing mind what you frigging see,” he’d said. “Survivors feel. “ So I felt, lay down with my head towards the Bissolotti camp, and stayed still.
