‘So.’ Adam’s father looked at his sons one by one. ‘We meet back here tonight and come armed.’

‘Armed?’ Adam shook his head. ‘That’s asking for trouble.’

‘Don’t be daft. You’ll not have to use it but we need to show ’em what’s what.’

What’s what. For as long as he could remember that had been one of his father’s expressions and could cover everything under the sun.

It must have been the look on his face that revealed what he was thinking, because now his father’s voice was aggressive. ‘So what’d you do, eh? Let the beggars bring in the scabs and doff your cap at ’em while they’re doing it?’

‘Of course not.’ He was as mad as anyone at the way some miners – those who had given in now the strike had been going on for months – were being drafted into some of the northern pits from elsewhere by the police and the army. But however much it riled him, he didn’t see how a physical confrontation would help them. What good were pick handles or poss sticks against rows and rows of mounted police? And it wouldn’t be just a few either. For some time the reinforcements had been arriving, well-drilled ranks of big tall men, and the horses were different animals to the gentle beasts used down the mine. The police horses were great muscled giants with massive hooves and huge teeth, and from their vantage point on the animals’ backs the police used their batons like hammers. ‘But they’re expecting us to picket the gates at the colliery, you know that. Even if our lot go easy the police’ll make sure there’s a fight. They’re aching for it. They’ll provoke it and knock ten bells out of everyone and then stand back and say it was us who asked for it, same as they’ve done all over the country.’

‘He’s right,’ Walt said quietly. ‘You know Adam’s right, Da.’

Angry colour reddened his father’s sallow skin. ‘Well, if you four are too lily-livered to come along that’s all right by me, but I’m going.’

‘Me too. Can I come, Da?’ Ronnie might be the youngest and still at school but he considered himself as much a man as his older brothers. He had marched with them on various occasions, along with his mother and other bairns and womenfolk, but Adam had always been strongly opposed to this. It was one thing for the miners to put themselves at risk, quite another for wives and children. He had forbidden Olive to join them, as had his brothers with their wives and families, and his father had taken this as a personal criticism, which it undoubtedly was. Adam knew his father loved his mother dearly and why he would encourage her to expose herself to danger was beyond him.