He came to the ruined houses. There was a tumult of yells, and a crowd of thirty or forty lads went streaming across the open waste, waving sticks.
‘Come on! come on, Jago! ‘Ere they are!’
A fight! Ah, what more welcome! And Dove Lane, too—Dove Lane, that had taken to bawling the taunt, ‘Jago cut-throats,’ since …
He was in the thick of the raid. ‘Come on, Jago! Jago! ‘Ere they are!’ Past the Board School and through Honey Lane they went, and into Dove Lane territory. A small crowd of Dove-Laners broke and fled. Straight ahead the Jagos went, till they were suddenly taken in flank at a turning by a full Dove Lane mob. The Jagos were broken by the rush, but they fought stoutly, and the street was filled with a surge of combat.
‘Jago! Jago hold tight!’
Thin, wasted and shaken, Dicky fought like a tiger. He had no stick till he floored a Dove-Laner and took his from him, but then he bludgeoned apace, callous to every blow, till he fought through the thick, and burst out at the edge of the fray. He pulled his cap tight, and swung back, almost knocking over, but disregarding, a leather-aproned, furtive hunchback, who turned and came at his heels.
‘Jago! Jago hold tight!’ yelled Dicky Perrott. ‘Come on, Father Sturt’s boys!’
He was down. Just a punch under the arm from behind. As he rolled, face under, he caught a single glimpse of the hunchback, running. But what was this—all this?
A shout went up. ‘Stabbed! Chived! They chived Dicky Perrott!’
The fight melted. Somebody turned Dicky on his back, and he moaned, and lay gasping. He lifted his dabbled hands, and looked at them, wondering. They tried to lift him, but the blood poured so fast that they put him down. Somebody had gone for a surgeon.
‘Take me ‘ome,’ said Dicky, faintly, with an odd gurgle in his voice. ‘Not ‘awspital.’
The surgeon came running, with policemen at his heels. He ripped away the clothes from about the wound, and shook his head. It was the lung. Water was brought, and cloths, and an old door. They put Dicky on the door, and carried him toward the surgery; and two lads who stayed by him were sent to bring his friends.
The bride and bridegroom, meeting the news on the way home, set off at a run, and Father Sturt followed.
‘Good Gawd, Dicky,’ cried Poll, tearing her way to the shutter as it stopped at the surgery door, ‘wot’s this?’
Dicky’s eye fell on the flowered bonnet that graced the wedding, and his lip lifted with the shade of a smile. ‘Luck, Pidge!’
He was laid out in the surgery. A crowd stood about the door, while Father Sturt went in. The vicar lifted his eyebrows questioningly, and the surgeon shook his head. It was a matter of minutes.
Father Sturt bent over and took Dicky’s hand. ‘My poor Dicky,’ he said, ‘who did this?’
‘Dunno, Fa’er.’
The lie—the staunch Jago lie. Thou shalt not nark.
‘Fetch mother an’ the kids. Fa’er!’
‘Yes, my boy?’
‘Tell Mist’ Beveridge there’s ‘nother way out—better.’
THE END
TO LONDON TOWN