And then the fight cleared from its stance by the gates and went shoggling and wabbling over to the Docks, the dozen scabs held firm enough, the bobbies bashing to try and get at them and rescue them. Old man though you were, you wouldn’t have that, you pushed a foot in front of one of the bastards, down he went with a bang on the calsays, somebody stepped on his mouth and his teeth went crunch. And there, in the heave and pitch of the struggle, were sudden the waters of the Dock, dirt-mantled, greasy in oil from the fisher-fleet, the lights twinkling low above it, folk cried In with them! Dook the scab sods!

And in they went with a hell of a spleiter, one of them, the foreman old Johnny Edwards, crying Lads, lads, I can’t swim! Alick Watson beside you gave him a kick: You can’t, you old mucker? Now’s the chance to learn, over he went, your heart louped in your mouth. Then some body cried to look out and run, the bobbies were coming in a regiment, near.

And you looked round and there b’God they were, the calsays clattering under their feet, waving their sticks, Christ, never able to face up to them. Around to the left was the way to take nipping by the timber yard over the brig. All the chaps running helter-skelter you scattered, the bobbies wouldn’t spare pickets now except to bash in their brain-caps, maybe, after seeing one of their lot on the ground. B’God, this would be a tale to tell when you got back safe to Kirrieben.

And then the lot of you saw you were trapped, in the flickering light and the scud of the water, a gang of the bobbies had raced across and cut you off, big and beefy, they were crying We’ve got you, you sods!

And you all half-halted a minute and swore and ebbed back a bit, you couldn’t see the bobbies’ faces or they yours, they wouldn’t mind, bash down and bash till their arms grew tired and then haul a dozen of you off to the nick.

Then two of the chaps cried Come on, lads! and ran straight for the line of running bobbies, all of you like sheep at their heels, gritting your teeth, nieves ready for the crash. Then you saw the foremost of the running chaps throw up his hand and wave it in front of him right in the bobbies’ faces, swish, the other did the same and a yowl went up, bobbies dropping their truncheons and clutching their eyes, you got a whiff running and staggered, and near sneezed your head off. Christ, that was neat, whoever thought of it.

But there’d be a bonny palaver the morn!

And next day the Daily Runner came out and told of those coarse brutes the Gowans strikers, and the awful things they’d done to the working folk that were coming decent-like from their jobs. And all Craigneuks read the news with horror, every word of it, chasing it from the front page to the lower half of page five, where it was jammed in between an advertisement curing Women with Weakness and another curing superfluous hair; and whenever Craigneuks came on a bit of snot it breathed out Uhhhhhhhhhhhh! like a donkey smelling a dung-heap, delighted, fair genteel and so shocked and stirred up it could hardly push down its grape-fruit and porridge and eggs and bacon and big salt baps, fine butter new from the creamery, fresh milk and tea that tasted like tea, not like the seep from an ill-kept sump. And it said weren’t those Footforthie keelies awful? Something would have to be done about them.