Chapter 12 of 'The Knock 'em Down Boys' - Bait for The Gasheads.
Rat, Sparky and the boys take on The Gasheads when they are seriously outnumbered and only loyalty ensures that El Pigface gets out alive.
Chapter 12
Bait for The Gasheads
When we had spoken to the rest of the lads, we decided to move off towards the streets around the ground in order to find the Gasheads.
Our plan was simple.
Our small mob would locate the Gasheads, hold them in place while we contacted Ghandi, Scratch and the other lads, and finally show ourselves to be serious and dependable candidates for the full adult mob.
Easy as that.
We headed towards the streets between the train station and the ground, walking in a loose formation that could be linked together tightly when threatened. Each of us was organised, standing next to the lad we would support and defend when under attack.
There were sixteen of us. We were largely silent, looking and listening for signs of the Gasheads. We were business-like and focussed.
We were ready.
When it came to it, we moved quickly.
We waited until the Gasheads saw us, took our bait and stormed after us.
Their lads were jumping over cars and barriers and swarming into the traffic leaving the ground after the match. There were plenty Gasheads and they were slapping the bonnets of cars that were screeching to a halt as they tried to get to us.
We intended to choose where we took the Gasheads on and then spring our trap with Ghandi and Scratch. So we made it seem like we had lost our bottle and that we were running away.
You’d be surprised. No matter how obvious this strategy is, other lads will fall for it. When your blood’s up, and you’ve probably had a bit to drink, then you’ll naturally want to believe your own hype that you’re some kind of invincible fighter – some kind of warrior God.
And so they were after us without thinking, responding to their emotions only.
We kept ahead of them, kept them running, and let them keep shouting so that they could wear themselves out a bit.
We led them into one of the slim backstreets around the Manchester Road area. Half way down the street we stopped, turned, formed our usual close ranks and stood ready for them.
The Gasheads stopped at the top of the road.
I looked at Sparky. He was set firm. Waiting.
The Gasheads were shouting the usual insults, meaningless and over our heads, but they weren’t moving inside the street.
A few moments later, it was obvious why.
Fair play to them, they hadn’t shown all of their cards and their numbers were growing.
We had sixteen lads, and as more of their boys turned up, their mob swelled in comparison to ours. The volume of noise and abuse from The Gasheads increased too.
Thinking back, I’d guess at about forty or so of their lads. Memory isn’t that trustworthy, I know. But I do remember thinking that there were a lot of them, and comparatively few of us.
I sent the text to Scratch identifying our location and making sure to point out to him that the street we were in had two ends, with us in the middle, and the seemingly massive group of Gasheads bunched up at one end.
Our little spotter, who had first located The Gasheads for us, was detailed at a safe distance to record the coming fight, which at this point didn’t seem would last too long.
I looked at Sparky who turned to talk to our lads.
“There are plenty of Gasheads, sure, and more than there are of us. But we’ve taken on bigger groups than this lot – and won. And you know the plan. The others’ll be here...we just have to hold on.”
I could sense that things were about to go off, and so could Sparky. He turned to face The Gasheads, making sure that it wasn’t just us who could hear the steel in his voice. I checked my mobile. Scratch had sent three words: on our way.
“Stand your ground,” shouted Sparky. “No one runs. No one goes down. No one gets separated from the group. We’ve fought a lot harder lads than this. Knock ‘em down. Make sure they stay down. Look for the next one. Watch the lad to your right.”
The Gasheads ran at us then.
I remember thinking that the expressions on their faces as they made what they imagined were epic battle cries, made them seem like they were straining really hard for a shit – stupid rather than intimidating.
The first few punches that connected smashed that idea out of my head.
It was probably only a few minutes of fighting that it took for Ghandi and the other lads to arrive.
But it seemed longer.
Once The Gasheads got to us, they were raining punches and kicks into us hard. And not just from their frontline boys. They were coming over the top and around the lads we were dealing with in their frontline too. When we parried or dodged an initial attack, then a secondary lunge or kick from a lad behind their frontline was catching us.
And The Gasheads got wise to us quickly.
We had formed into two tight lines and effectively blocked the passageway down the street. This meant that The Gasheads’ numbers didn’t count because if they couldn’t get around us, then they could only line up with the same amount of lads as us in front of us. Assuming that we kept up our strength and kept knocking them down, then we could deal with them line by line.
The same move The Spartan three hundred used at The Battle of Thermopylae.
The Gasheads knew that if they were going to maul us, then they would need to break us up and get round behind us.
And that’s exactly what they did. Using the weight of their numbers they began to lean into us and push us forward in front of them with their shoulders. It must have looked like one almighty rugby scrum from the distance our spotter was recording.
Some of their lads took some serious smacks to their temples as we tried to counter their strategy, and when they hit the floor we fairly tried to make sure that they stayed there. But it wasn’t enough from us, and we started to fracture under the weight and sheer pressure of their numbers.
We fragmented into smaller groups, but still groups large enough for us to keep our discipline and look to fight as a unit.
All of us except El Pigface.
Some big bloke had pushed through between us and before we could react a flood of their lads broke through and filled the space that seemed to stretch out like a valley between us.
If you’ve seen that bit in The Lord of the Rings movie where the bad guys blow a hole in the fortress wall of the good guys and then the bad guys steam in through the hole like a tidal wave, well, that’s a bit like what this felt like for us.
I moved quickly towards Sparky when I saw that El Pigface was separated.
I shouted to Pigface, but he obviously couldn’t hear me.
The Gasheads were swarming over him and pulling him down to the point where I couldn’t see him anymore.
I shouted to Sparky that we needed to do something and I strained to see Scratch, Ghandi or anyone at the top of the street – but there was no one there.
Swinging wildly, and without any finesse, the bottom of my fist caught the chin of an oncoming Gashead.
As he fell down, I created a brief window where a passageway was made to where I guessed that El Pigface was, probably somewhere underneath the crowd of Gasheads whose feet were stomping up and down like machine pistons.
I lunged forward, stepping over the lad I had just put down, and stamping hard on his chest for good measure,
I can’t say exactly why, but I knew that however he had done it, Sparky was right behind me then.
I flew into the crowd of Gasheads who hadn’t noticed me in their stamping frenzy.
It wasn’t a planned move that I executed next and probably looked like something from American Wrestling.
Both of my arms were outstretched like I was about to be crucified and I just ran into the crowd of Gasheads.
My momentum, and the shock of the hit, sent three of them flying and I could see El Pigface curled up on the floor in a ball, desperately trying to protect himself from their blows.
Sparky was beside me and for a second it looked like we might have them about to run.
But they were just shocked.
We both forced our way into the middle of the group of reforming Gasheads, determined to protect El Pigface, but more likely to go down in the foetal position with him and take a good kicking.
There were so many of us all squashed together when they reformed that you couldn’t really fire off a decent punch or kick. We were restricted to using foreheads, elbows, even teeth, and me and Sparky started taking blow after blow to our cheeks and the bones underneath our eyes.
Turning my head to take away the full force and sting of a vicious elbow about to connect with my eye-socket, I was able to look at the entrance to the street.
They were there: Ghandi, Scratch and our back up. But they weren’t moving. They were standing still.
They were watching us.
We had been taking a leathering for another thirty seconds or so, though it seemed a lot longer, when Ghandi and Scratch decided to make their move.
It was as if they had been waiting, making a final check that their investment in us was a secure one, and now they had decided that we were worth their effort.
The Gasheads didn’t realise what was happening at first, and me and Sparky took another couple of decent whacks before the full force of Ghandi and his lads landed on them.
When the police finally arrived, and we had dispatched most of The Gasheads in the pincer attack we had planned, we pulled El Pigface up roughly and with one of his arms slung around each of us, we melted away like any of the other lads who were fit enough to walk into the streets.
El Pigface looked like a victim of The First World War being dragged out of the trenches.
As we lurched along slippery cobbled streets, El Pigface’s weak legs pumping on auto-pilot in order to keep propelling him forward, I looked at his face.
His hair was now dark red and slicked flat against his skull. I couldn’t make out one of his eyes. The side of his face was swollen and red raw. A single, purple, skin pulled tight, throbbing bruise that was swallowing up what had been his features. And he was bleeding from a cut above his eye which had splashed out and down over his jacket front in what looked like bucket loads.
We had slowed down to a walk and El Pigface was beginning to really struggle to breathe when a car stopped with a skid on the uneven surface in front of us.
“Get in!” shouted a voice as a door flung open.
We stood still for a moment, like startled rabbits.
“Fucking get in!” shouted the voice again.
Ghandi’s voice.
We bundled into the car, squashing El Pigface between us in the backseat as Scratch drove off before I had even shut the door.
“He looks bad,” said Ghandi, turning around in the passenger seat and surveying the pulpy mess that was now El Pigface’s face.
There was only enough space in the Town’s tight back streets for a single car to move up and down the cobbled brick conduits.
There were still sirens, louder or quieter dependent upon the lane or intersection we travelled through.
We barrelled along the lanes, smashing wheelie bins over the bonnet and not stopping at the almost impossible to predict junctions between lanes.
When we got him to hospital, I took Pigface into accident and emergency and stuck to our rehearsed story.
All lads who enjoy what we do need a story for if something goes badly wrong. We kept our story simple. We didn’t know each other. El Pigface had been attacked, obviously, and I had found him and picked him up, before bringing him here.
When we found out about Pigface’s injuries, it was clear he would be out of action for a while: three broken fingers, four broken ribs, and he had sustained such significant damage to his right eye, that even after several operations it couldn’t be saved.
Three fingers, four ribs, and one eye.
El Pigface wouldn’t forget the Gasheads soon.
And neither would we.
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