stake here – mine as well as yours. If the French have been trying to stop us working on this railway, then they deserve a good hiding.'
'See?' said Kilfoyle. 'He's got balls, Pierce.'
Shannon was contemptuous. 'We don't need this ugly bugger,' he said, raising his weapon again. 'Go on – get out of here!'
It was a decisive moment. A menacing ring of Irishmen surrounded him. If he backed down, Leeming knew that he would be finished as a spy because he would be marked down as an outsider. The others would shun him completely. To win them over, he had to convince them that he shared their beliefs and commitment.
'Stop waving that cudgel at me,' he warned, 'or I'll take it off you and stick it up your arse!'
'You and whose bloody army?' demanded Shannon.
'Calm down,' said Kilfoyle, standing between them. 'We don't want you falling out with each other. Our enemy is the French.'
'And the fucking English, Liam.'
'Does that include Mr Brassey?' challenged Leeming. 'Or do you only curse him behind his back? Is he a fucking Englishman as well? Do you sneer at all of us?'
'Mr Brassey is different,' conceded Shannon.
'So am I. That means I come with you.'
'Over my dead body.'
'What's this idiot's name, Liam?'
'Pierce Shannon,' replied Kilfoyle. 'He's one of our leaders. Whatever Pierce says, goes. That's the way it is, Victor.'
'Yes,' reinforced Shannon. 'That's the way it is, shit-face.'
Leeming pretended to accept the decision. He glanced at the leering Irishmen around him. They began to jostle him. Without warning, he suddenly threw a punch that caught Shannon on the ear and knocked him to the ground. Leeming stamped on the hand that was holding the shillelagh, forcing him to release it. Two men grabbed the detective from behind but Shannon wanted personal revenge.
'Leave go of the bastard!' he yelled, struggling to his feet. 'He's all mine. I'll tear out his heart and liver.'
The crowd moved back to give them room. The two men circled each other warily. Leeming could feel the hostility all around him. His one mode of escape was to earn their respect. Shannon lunged at him with both fists flying but the blows were all taken on the protective forearms that Leeming put up. He responded by hitting Shannon hard in the stomach to take the wind out of him, then followed with a relay of punches to the face and body. Blood spurted from the Irishman's nose. It made him launch another attack but Leeming was much lighter on his feet. As Shannon lurched at him, he dodged out of his way and felled him with a vicious punch to the side of his head.
As their leader went down in a heap, three men clung on to Leeming so tight that he was unable to move. Shannon got up very slowly, wiped the blood from his nose with a sleeve then picked up his shillelagh. Eyes blazing, he confronted Leeming. Then he gave a broad grin of approval and jabbed him in the chest.
'I like him,' he announced. 'He's one of us, lads.'
There was a rousing cheer and Leeming was released. Everyone close patted him on the back. Kilfoyle came forward to pump his hand. Leeming was relieved. He had survived one test but a far worse one might lie ahead. In beating one Irishman in a fight, all that he had done was to earn the right to attack the French as part of a mob. It was frightening. Once battle had been joined, there would be many casualties. No quarter would be given. In the uninhibited violence, Leeming could well be injured. He thought about his wife and children back in England. At that moment, he missed them more than ever. The railway was to blame. He realised that. It had not only brought him to a foreign country he disliked, it was now putting his life at risk. Leeming wished that he were hundreds of miles away.
'Come on, Victor,' said Shannon, putting a companionable arm around his shoulders. 'Let's go and kill a few Frenchies.'
CHAPTER SEVEN
'Navvies are a race apart,' said Thomas Brassey. 'I've never met anyone like them for sheer hard work. I respect them for their virtues but I also condemn them for their vices.'
'They've caused so much trouble in England,' observed Robert Colbeck. 'When they've set up camps there, they've terrorised whole communities.'
'You can see why, Inspector. Ordinary, decent, law-abiding people are horrified when they have huge gangs of hooligans on their doorstep. In their place, I'd be scared stiff.'
'Yet you seem to have less problems with your navvies, sir.'
'That's because I won't employ known troublemakers. If I find someone trying to stir up mischief, I get rid of him at once. I also try to reduce friction by keeping different nationalities apart,' he went on. 'The Irish and the Welsh don't always see eye to eye, so I make sure they are never together. It's the same with the French. I never put them shoulder to shoulder with British navvies.'
'Yet you've now got a potential riot on your hands.'
'Only because we're in an unusual position.'
'Have you never faced this situation before, Mr Brassey?'
'No – thank heaven!'
They were travelling through the French countryside in a trap. The horse was moving at a steady trot across the uneven ground and they were shaken up as the wheels mounted the frequent bumps and explored the deep potholes. It was a clear night with a half-moon looking down dolefully from the sky. Behind them were two other traps and a couple of men on horseback. Most of them carried a firearm of some sort.
'What's the worst that could happen?' asked Colbeck.
'That we get there too late.'
'We'd have heard the noise of battle before now.'
'True,' said the other. 'I suppose that the very worst thing that could happen is that news of any violence would get out, and that would surely happen if the French are involved. Activities on this railway would then be reported in the newspapers.'
'You've had bad publicity before.'
'And plenty of it, Inspector, especially in this country.'
'But I understood that you were on good terms with the French government. Mr Filton told me that you'd had dealings with Louis Napoleon himself.'
'A businessman should always cultivate his employers. That's sound commonsense. Not that I ever expected to be accountable to a man called Napoleon,' he added with a rueful smile. 'It's a name that conjures up too many ghosts for any Englishman. But I've had to put all that aside. As it happens, on the few occasions when I've met him, I've found him an amenable gentleman.'
'How amenable would he be if French navvies were badly wounded in a fight with the Irish?'
'I hope that I never find out, Inspector Colbeck. That's why I was grateful for your advice. The plan might just work.'
'I've dealt with angry crowds before.'
'I'm sure.'
'Facing a Chartist march was a sobering experience,' admitted Colbeck. 'There were thousands of them and, if truth be told, I had a lot of sympathy with their cause. But I was there to police them so my personal views were irrelevant. Fortunately, no real violence erupted.'
'I pray that we have the same outcome tonight.'
'So do I, Mr Brassey.'
'It's not just the future of this railway that's at stake,' said the contractor, 'the next one would also be imperilled.'
'The next one?'
