The police on horseback galloped into the crowd, lashing out indiscriminately with their truncheons as the horses knocked men, women and children over and trampled them underfoot. Hemmed in as he was, Adam tried to reach his father and Ronnie who had been standing in front of him and Walt moments before but were now a few feet away having been swept up in the people trying to escape the horses. The police on horseback were twisting round in their saddles and smashing their thick heavy truncheons down on unprotected heads with enough force to crack skulls open, leaning out as far as they were able. They had no mercy on anyone, not even women or children. The yelling and screaming were deafening, people falling as though they were dead, blood spraying over the crowd and police and horses alike, and blood-curdling shrieks such as Adam had never heard before.

Of one mind, he and Fred fought to reach Ronnie and their father, aiming to stay on their feet amid the bodies on the ground and those folk struggling to get up to avoid being trampled by the horses’ hooves. He was close enough to Ronnie to see his little brother’s terrified face and his father slightly bent over the lad as he tried to protect him, when it happened. One of the policemen, who couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty, saw what his father was doing, and purposely aimed for him. He brought his truncheon bang smack into the middle of John’s forehead, and as he crumpled, the policeman stretched right up in his saddle to take another swing at Ronnie who had frozen with fright. For a split second it was like watching something in slow motion, something that you know is going to happen but which you are powerless to prevent.

Who threw the half-brick that hit the young policeman in the middle of his face Adam would never know, but there was no doubt that whoever it was saved his brother. One moment the raised baton had been aimed to smash down on Ronnie’s head, the next it had fallen from the policeman’s hand as he collapsed on the horse’s neck. As Adam grabbed Ronnie, Fred reached them, and then the three of them were pulling the inert figure of their father up off the ground. Somehow they struggled to the edge of the crowd, expecting any moment to have their skulls caved in. People were trying to get away and scattering here and there, some being chased by running police who were still striking out with vicious intent, and others, like them, lugging the injured along as best they could.

‘Pete and Walt?’ Fred gasped as he and Adam lifted their father between them and stumbled away from the crowd, Ronnie not saying a word for once.