GATHERER

ALEX MILLER

Skinny Malingky long legs,

-big banana feet,

-Took all the children,

-and made their Mammys’ weep.”

Scottish childrens' rhyme.

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Alex Miller 2008 alex.miller@cengage.com

PROLOGUE After nearly an hour of caution borne of the will to survive, the mother of the wolf family cautiously approached in the hope of a meal. She saw her intended prey’s eyes flicker and it made her want to run but her need of food for her pups forced her to continue her slow cautious stalk. When the Viking's eyes moved again she growled quietly and sank into the tall grass to wait. She had time and it didn't look as if the human was going anywhere.

When the sun disappeared behind the clouds again she inched a bit closer. She could see from where she was that the human’s eyes were still moving slightly so the meat was obviously fresh but it didn't look as if it was in any kind of trouble because it didn't struggle.

The Viking came back from unconsciousness slowly and it took a few minutes for him to realise what had happened and that he'd been lying there, on top of his captives, for some time.

He saw that he'd sunk into the mire a few more inches because he could no longer see his helmet on the grassy mound. He didn’t feel any movement under him but that was not to say that the Scots were dead because he could feel nothing. Nothing at all.

Unblinking eyes stared at the darkening sky and he watched gathering flocks of black clouds tumble eastward high above him, silently racing towards his homeland while the only feeling he was aware off was his cold shallow breath shivering in his chest.

A dull ache at his temple reminded him why he couldn't move.

Neither his arms or legs would work; all of his body was paralysed except his eyes and a slow terror built in his active mind when he thought of the animals that might come.

“This is no way for the son of a Viking King to die.” He thought, “-If only I'd stuck to the plan and not been so arrogant, the stupid woman would never have managed to outwit me and make me pay the price.”

A shadow flew past his face. Then another.

The first of the birds landed and tentatively hopped forward a few yards from him and others soon followed. They bounced back and forth around him, fighting each other for position, but for the moment, stayed well away. The Viking Prince tried shouting at them but no sound came from his throat. It occurred to him that they were not approaching as quickly as he knew they could and he struggled to expand the periphery of his vision. With great effort he looked to

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his side and saw that there were perhaps twenty large ravens on the brown grass at the edge of the swamp ten feet away and realised their greedy cawing would attract bigger predators. He also became aware of a painless unpleasant tingling in his lower body that felt as if his flesh was being chewed off it's bones.

The female wolf gnawed and tore hungrily below the knee at the second leg joint of it's prey, but it would have to hurry. It's opportunist meal was fast disappearing into the bog and only the right thigh and buttock of the human was still visible in the safe area.

It tried earlier to get to it's prey's neck but the quagmire was too capturing and would surely swallow her as well if she wasn't careful.

A short time ago she'd returned in the dusk after taking the first limb to her den. That would keep her offspring busy until she returned with her own meal.

For hours the eight Scots and the would-be king continued to sink slowly into the bog. The clan's captor lay on his back, stranded like a turtle on top of them. The three Scots faces still above the surface knew they were to die with their countrymen. With painful realisation and sorrow they probed and reached around him with their arms and legs as they choked. All round him and over him, wherever they could get a hold, grasping him in a death grip with them forever.

When the cold mud that had suffocated his captors beneath him seeped into his mouth and nose, the Viking prince prayed unblinkingly to his Gods and asked for forgiveness from his father in failing his duty as a son. Black clouds burst forth and answered him cruelly with thunder and lightning while the torrential rain added to the depth of the swamp and he sank out of sight into history.

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CHAPTER 1 The passenger side window was barely open, maybe quarter inch, just enough to let cigarette smoke out and the occasional stinging missile of mid-April's horizontal rain in. When Sander and Mary Thomson left their home in Stirling an hour ago the weather had been fine as a summer's day. Now, like some Hollywood special effect, winter clouds whipped their way across the dark sky from the West at storm speed.

Mary had been watching her husband for ten minutes. Watching him closely while the increased gale continued it's attempt to wrap him in his raincoat. Coat tails flapped aggressively like snapping corners of a black flag while the strong wind chattered at his trouser legs and face Now and again she saw him do a little unrehearsed dance; moving his feet to silent music; balancing with difficulty against the strong gusts that powered up the hill.

She laughed quietly as he angrily shoved the point of his blown-out golf brolly into the soft earth and shook her head in amusement when he leant against a young silver birch no thicker than his arm. In the circumstances they seemed to welcome each others support.

She reached across and pumped the horn on the middle of the steering wheel as the first flakes of sleet exploded and shimmied across the windscreen. Sander turned at the sound and she pointed at the metal grey clouds in the West, beckoning him back to the shelter of their car. He waved her away impatiently and lifted the binoculars to his eyes again.

Cocooned warmly inside the buffeted Mazda, she wished he would finish what he was doing and return. Sander stood on the edge of the grass covered hill in the trees, straining and leaning into the cutting wind. Watching, waiting for something to happen.

She thought of all the nightmares he'd suffered.

The last, the other night, had been the worst of many, so far. He'd been a much bigger man before all this had started. Now, in many ways, he was weak as a child. His strength sapping condition and his nightmares had taken care of that and seemed to have awakened a gripping uncertainty in his ageing bones.

His grey streaked hair and beard matched the slush colour of his skin and he still looked heavy, but not nearly as solid as he had been

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in the past. The gradual weight loss had suited him at first and he'd been feeling much better because his knees and ankles hurt a lot less.

Then he sailed past his ideal weight three months ago with ease. Six weeks on the racking pain in his back had cut his usual six feet by a few inches and Mary finally convinced him he should go see his doctor.

Of course he was scared. Especially the racking sound of his dawn chorus cough. But his appetite was great and although he was eating like a horse he admitted to her he was scared shitless. He'd lost sixty pounds in the last six months but had aged the same in years, in her eyes, at the same time.

Now, with the knowledge of two hospital results and last weeks doctors appointment locked firmly in his mind every waking minute, his grey skin had seemingly become stretched tighter over his skeleton. The illness squeezed the meat off his bones like someone recently buried and he spiralled downwards, into shadows of the man she once knew. It hurt her gravely but there was not a thing she could do about it.

For the past year or so he'd been eating for two. Only this baby was not a friendly one. It didn't stop growing nine months later and come out crying; wanting it's own air and space in the world. No, it stayed where it was like a parasite and dined on it's host. My host she thought. I'm married to a lovely man who's a disease ridden larder for inoperable cancer. Sander was the only person in her entire life who didn't need her to be strong for him and she didn't want to lose him.

But she was going to. And soon. They had always been each others pillar of strength in years passed but now that strength was disintegrating rapidly away from him with each breath and she knew that some time in the near future, she was going to be alone.

Abruptly aroused from a deep sleep three nights ago she'd shouted and cried at him to please stop while he frantically punched and kicked the bedroom air, bellowing at an unknown, unseen assailant. He came out of it at last, soaked in sweat, exhausted, realising yet again it was just another nightmare. Drenched and trembling he collapsed to his knees in tears. Same tears as always.

Life, there for living and no time left.

He could not and would not, come to terms with his sickness and refused all offers of help. She'd lost count the number of times they'd ended on the floor, rocking, cuddled together in their quilt, trying not to make plans for a future that would soon end. She knew he

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would never give up and she worried about him, knowing his strong reserves of stamina would only make his pain worse in the future.

Sander Thomson angrily insisted he had to go back to Milltown, one way or the other and she had no say in it. He would go back, with or without her. It was her choice. She didn't often fight with her man but he was desperately ill and she talked to him, cajoled him and, in the end the discussion had taken on an uncontrollable life of it's own and grew to a rare, full blown shouting match.

Her husband hadn't slept at any time during the three nights since the nightmare and he was exhausted. She knew he tried to sleep but she always felt him get up and found him reading in the living room when the sun came up. Since that night he'd taken to sleeping during daylight, dozing uncomfortably in a chair, all because he was scared to close his eyes in the dark. Mary grew accustomed to him moving around their apartment in the small hours over the past weeks. She patiently waiting for him, knowing he would eventually come to her as he always did. Yesterday he reluctantly got round to telling her the truth.

During and after his explanation her mind conjured a pair of extremely large fluorescent hands, sky blue and bodiless, floating in the dark bedroom, coming to get her. He'd been defending her, as always.

She used to laugh his dreams away and would tease him about why, when she did dream, which wasn't all that often, it was always in black and white. And how come he always dreamt 'virtual reality wide screen colour with quadraphonic sound.'

But it had become too serious to ignore recently and the joking had stopped. What was happening to him bordered on breakdown.

Now that he knew he was dying he was fighting an unfightable battle and wouldn't give in. Not too something he couldn't see. The tears and anguish over the last half year when he'd the nightmares.

He'd always been in control of his life in the past.

Now, 'it' controlled him.

Getting on for fifty had taken its toll, especially cartilage trouble in his knees, and his bronchial chest. Now this. He knew he should have stopped smoking years ago, when he always talked about it. Now his time was limited. She sometimes wondered guiltily what would take him first. The Breakdown or the Big C.

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CHAPTER 2 Her husband could see the whole area had been changed radically. Bulldozed flat, drained and top soiled. Smooth green grass grew on most of it.

Sander Thomson could just about remember where his last childhood friend had died. He sensed through the binoculars, more than saw, where it was. The place was buried under the red ash football park.

When he screwed up his eyes and closed his mind to the echoing babble of schoolchildren pushing up through the wind and rain from the play area below, he remembered clearly that period in his childhood with sharp edges.

Looking down on the drab concrete spread of the railway goods yards and his old junior school with it's web of neighbouring, tree lined streets, he thought how easy it was to imagine having a stumbled search through a Victorian attic and blundering into this tired old train set from long ago.

He shivered in the sleet and scanned the toy town scene below him, panning slowly north, “Railway shunting yards still relatively busy,” he thought, “-in spite of the cutbacks, job losses and privatisation, They've demolished the big concrete coal scuttle though; and closed the turntable.”

He reflected with warm happiness the hours he and his pals used to spend in long hot summer grass watching the giant steam locomotives turn to collect emptied wagons.

He remembered a faraway Friday when his father, confusingly dressed in his good weekend white shirt, and clean smelling working overalls for a change, had shook him awake from a deep happy sleep.

It had happened two weeks before his eighth birthday and the early February wind whistled mournfully across the tight valley, under the eaves of their new home in the cold morning dark.

“C'mon son,” he said quietly, shaking his youngest, “-it's time to get up if you want to see the Union leave. Be quiet as a mouse or you'll wake up Billy.”

Sander moaned again. He turned away from the hall light spraying the room from the open door and drew his knees up to his

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chest when the covers were thrown back. Mr. Thomson gave his son a playful slap on his night shirted backside and strolled quietly out of the bedroom whistling lightly on his way back downstairs for breakfast.

The youngster swayed on the edge of the bed, feet dangling near the floor and rubbed gritted sleep out of his eyes with both hands.

He shivered, contemplating the thick frost patterns on the inside of his bedroom window and the shiny hard cold linoleum that lay before him all the way to the bathroom downstairs, closed his eyes again for a few seconds on the edge of the bed and while he pulled his night-shirted tight to his body he thought of crawling back under the covers into the lovely warmth, just for a minute. By the time he flew across the room on tip toe and down the stairs, every inch of his skin was covered in goose bumps.

Sander flushed the toilet, got rid of his father's old collarless shirt and plunged both hands and face into the wash basin. The warm water his mother left him was a luxury and he dried and dressed in double quick time then walked sleepily through the living room towards the warm smell of the kitchen seeing his father lace up his metal capped work boots.

“Morning Da',” he said as he passed. Sander noticed his old man had trod a clean polished work boot on the arm of the settee to tie his laces but decided to keep quiet. “ If that was me doing that,” he thought, “-I'd get a thick ear.”

He knew if he said something about it he'd still get a thick ear, so he said nothing and kept walking.

His father started a reply but fought a cough instead. Hastily removing the third or fourth cigarette of the morning from his mouth, Sander watched as an inch or so of ash floated towards the fireside rug.

Willie Thomson coughed loudly again and an oily rag appeared out of nowhere, quickly covering his mouth. The next hack was long and breathless and Sander didn't think his father was ever going to inhale again.

Willie Thomson wheezed his cheeks full and crouched, red faced, over the fire guard, the loud sizzle from the coals signalling the evaporation of the discharge. He spat again and relaxed back in his armchair, retrieving the still glowing cigarette from the tiled hearth as he did so and took a long slow puff while he put his head back to relax.

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“-that's much better Sander,” he stated, “-always get your tubes cleared first thing in the morning. It sets you up for the rest of the day.”

He smiled a rare one at Sander and gestured him to the kitchen with his hand, composure fully reinstated, “-away you and get your porridge son-,” he said breathlessly, “we'll have to leave in ten minutes or so to catch the six o'clock tramcar at the bottom of Ashfield St.” Half way through breakfast Sander heard the front door open with it's peculiar metallic scraping sound.

“I'm away Lizzie. I'll see you at tea time,” his father shouted at his wife from the hall, “-do you think that son of yours wants to see the latest engine I've built?” Sander panicked, grabbed the last piece of toast and jammed it between his teeth, “Coming Da,” he shouted,“-I'm just putting my shoes on.”

The youngster hopped on one leg to the living room door and shouted after his father, “-I'll catch you up before you get to the Dummy bridge.”

The front door closed and he heard his fathers heavy footsteps fade down the path. “You better get a move on son,” his mother amplified what Sander already knew, “-you know he won't wait for you!”

Sander finished tying his laces and zipped up his new Dan Dare jacket. It was supposed to be for his birthday but his mother let him wear it, just this once, for the special occasion. She came around the table and criticised him with her eyes while she smoothed his collar and finger-combed his hair back off his forehead.

“You'll do,” she said and smiled, “-just you mind keep yourself clean and do what you're told-,” She fussed a bit more than usual, touching here, tucking there, “your father's work is a big place for a boy your age. And dangerous too. So you mind listen to what he tells you.”

Lizzie Thomson handed Sander one of her husband's old lunch tins with sandwiches and a couple of biscuits inside and a wrapped surprise.

Her purse came out and she pressed half a crown into his hand, “Get yourself a drink and a sandwich in the works canteen at ten o'clock with your Da' and I'll see you in the bakery at twelve.”

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She turned Sander around by the shoulders, pointed him at the back door and playfully skelped his backside.

“Now scoot!”

When they arrived at Vulcan St in Springburn, Sander was shown where to stand outside the main gate of his dad's factory and warned not move an inch until his old man got back. He had a vague recollection of some woman placing her hands on his shoulders and his father talking to her with a twinkle in his eye and then he was off.

He had to help supervise the start of Union of South Africa's journey through north Glasgow to the Clyde docks.

Sander still didn't have a clue what the 'Union' was but was wary enough of his father’s temper to do as he was told in this strange dirty street. It was all grey buildings, chipped pavements and dark windows. Not a blade of grass in sight. The only colour in the entire street were pole-strung decorations and a red window box, full of yellow flowers, high above him on the top floor of the tenement opposite.

He opened his surprise package from the dinner tin and found his mother had made him up a small bottle of milk and given him one of her treacle currant scones spread with fresh butter for tea-break.

While he ate he looked up at the colourful bunting and banners.

He remembered the noise and screech of whistles and works klaxons and the strong odour of cigarettes and whisky that came from his fathers sweating skin, even at that time in the morning.

Giant green wooden gates creaked open slowly and the crowd lining the street ooohed and aaahed in anticipation, then cheered hysterically, as a deep dark green polished steel, iron and brass monster roll-crept, on tram rails, out of the engine works atop an enormously wide wooden carriage.

Sander stood transfixed by the locomotive as it snailed past him and the others. Two hundred tons of 'Union of South Africa' thundered slowly past his open mouth and wide eyes, towering over him and shaking every bone in his body until the earth seemed to sway.

A few minutes later the rumble of thunder that had broken through the soles of his shoes, giving his legs pins and needles, faded as the procession went on it's way down Springburn Rd., towards the Clyde docks and the African Gold Coast.

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When his old man came back he'd laughed heartily at the expression on his son's face. The desired effect had happened the way he thought it would.

After the excitement Mr. Thomson took Sander into the factory and introduced him to some of his work mates. The loud horn at tea break made Sander jump and he had a picnic with these blackened faced, laughing and greasy boiler suited giants among the oil and grease at his first ever manly meeting. It was the one and only time in his life Sander could remember his father ever taking him anywhere.

He shook his head in the wind and his mind pulled him back.

“The Seven Bridges still look solid enough. Chirnside School as well. Kids seem happy enough, wonder if they know? I hope to God they don't. Playing fields sealed our old haunt the 'Marshy'. Where some of it happened....”

It had been wet for ages and it was getting colder. Puddles were forming below in the fields he looked at today for the first time in nearly 40 years.

“Feels strange and weird to be back and everything's so much smaller.” He said to himself, “-the hours and miles we used to play as kids. If I was fit now I could walk the area in minutes.”

On, refocussing. Up the hill where they'd sledged in wet winter snows. “Everybody between the ages of eight and fifteen years turned out on Tin -Town Hill when the snow was just right. We used to spend hours and hours running up the slippy slopes and quick seconds coming back down again.”

Even after forty years the scar across the pinkie of his right hand throbbed gently to remind him of the time he almost lost his finger under the steel runners of his sledge.

“We used to have a 'den' up there as well, in the summer. They've cut down most of the bushes and trees. Still, they were great days.

Exciting days.” “[Crying days and dangerous years],” his memory reminded him.

Sander hesitated when he reached the Glasgow-Aberdeen rail line, “Can just about make out the old quarries through the trees, or what's left of them that is. Filled in and landscaped.” He thought to himself, “-modern regimented boxes standing guard over regimented streets.”

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He was thinking about the relentless desire planners had to change things, even though what was working usually worked well and didn't need to be changed from where most people stood.

He panned slowly back toward the Marshy, past the puddles on the football field. Lots of rubbish, whole area looking run down; coke cans, cardboard boxes, lollipop wrappers and stuff, newspapers, sticks and stones, '...break your bones…'

As the years moved on he'd wondered what the place might look like to old eyes, but had never made time to go back and see. Until now that is.

“No Sander, it wasn't finding the time to go back, was it?” He thought to himself, “-It was finding the courage to go back, wasn't it?” Over past years, he'd driven past the edge of where he grew up; but always past. Now the view from where he stood brought back lost memories. Nearly every close childhood friend he'd ever had was dead.

Jimmy, the last at 12 years old, was lost forever in the mire somewhere under that same playing field. The police and authorities drained it and found nothing other than peaty mud, like quicksand in the movies, that went to forever. Jimmy's body was never found.

He caught himself pointing as if showing an unseen companion.

He found he was holding his breath while Déjà vu teased distantly at his nostrils..

Memories of sweet smelling blood and claustrophobia swayed in his head while a white hand fought it's way out of the soil. Dripping, covered in old dark dried blood, oozing wetness. Wrapped around it was a thick root. Black, glistening, powerful. Pulling down. In the fist he thought he saw something.

“Looks like a watch.” He shouted out, immediately embarrassed by his outburst. Clutched hard in white bloodless knuckles was the timepiece he'd lent Jimmy all these years ago. “[Here, take it! Take it back Sander. But come and help us.]” a voice shouted in his head.

“Jimmy's voice?” His own shouted in disbelief and he fought to hold the thought but it was too far and too many years away.

Struggling to focus through the sleet he rubbed at his eyes and blinked quickly a few times.

“Clean the lenses. God!…” he shouted louder this time, “-It is Jimmy, isn't it? Quick, find the place again Sander. Hurry. -For God's sake hurry!”

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The pain in his lower chest came slowly, as he knew it would.

When his eyes came back into focus he saw a small torn tree branch, storm-bound in a deep pool of water. It's topsail was a ragged piece of supermarket bag that held on wearily, chattering briskly in the wind. He remembered the puzzled look of awe in Jimmy's eyes as he sunk slowly away from him beneath the dark icy water of the Marshy and knew it would be in his nightmares until the day he died.

'The Marshy' pond was one of their favourite haunts. It was only 2 or 3 metres at its deepest but he remembered clearly the horror the last time he saw Jimmy Sutherland staring back at him. Fighting for air through the reed laced ice. Arms wind milling as he churned quiet silt under thick brown water, trying to escape the monster only he and his pals could see.

Jimmy's pleading mouth throwing out silent bubbled screams of green water. Unknown dark plants forming into tangled fists and tightening their hold round his chest and throat. Jimmy swallowed and slowly coughed peaty sludge many times before he sank motionless away with the black shadow and disappeared into the darkness.

For years afterwards Sander dreamt about this time in his childhood a lot. He didn't think much of the nightmares in his teens as the memories faded but he knew his early years had eaten away at his ability to feel for other people.

Both his mother and father were dead, as were Mary's parents. His brother lived in Canada and he hadn't seen him for over twenty years. One sister didn't want to know him since he remarried and his oldest sister Cathy, who lived a couple of miles away, saw him very occasionally.

Other than Mary, his own children and the three grandchildren, he didn't seem to be able to, or want to, care deeply for anybody else. He was sure it had been knocked out of him in those short years.

The sleet suddenly whipped to hailstones from the west and strummed heavily on his broken golf brolly beside him while more echoes of the past unfolded in his mind. He shivered uncontrollably and turned the binoculars towards the faraway screams of the children in the playground as they scampered noisily indoors out of the stinging torrent.

Stoatin' white rain, his mother called it. He allowed himself a smile when he remembered the old days when he and his pals used to

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catch it and eat it before it had a chance to melt. That was when it was clean and not full of acid for killing trees.

He remembered the good times he used to spend with his own children, playing in the snow; building snowmen and the great fights they used to have. Now they were grown up and married or with partners.

Regret rubbed at his mind about the times he hadn't spent, and probably wouldn't spend, with unborn grandchildren from his own kids. The memories he still wanted to give them were hard to ignore and another shiver racked his already shaking body and iced the back of his neck.

The few minutes of hail dusted everything with pale winter white.

More than half the sports field was now under water.

“Typical Scottish weather for the middle of April,” he thought while watching the park get whiter, “-and no matter what drainage they use on the park below, it'll still never stop my nightmares until I draw my last breath."

He sighed heavily, kicked the useless umbrella across the hillside, turned angrily and slipped on smooth shoes and his worn knees up the greasy embankment towards his wife. He hurried to throw his drenched coat into the back and climbed into the drivers seat.

“Damned rain, always plays up my rheumatics.” he observed to Mary for the millionth time. Shivering uncontrollably he fumbled and lit the cigarette Mary had left for him in the ash tray.

“Stop shaking you old fool. Its the middle of frigging Spring and you're shaking like a 3 year old who just wet himself.”

He drew in deeply and let out a long smoky sigh. For once he managed to fight the obligatory urge to cough. The beginning of a headache formed and it tapped annoyingly on the front door of his mind.

“You okay?” Mary stretched out a cool hand and felt his forehead “Yes love, I'm fine thanks.”

Sander sighed and turned his head to look at her. “God, after all these years I'm still deeply in love with your brown eyes.” he thought.

She noticed there wasn't much conviction in his reply. He was somewhere else again. He took her outstretched hand in his.

“It's changed so much,” he said, nodding in the direction of the school, “-yet it's exactly as I remember it.”

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When he stopped shivering and warmed up he found he was staring through infinity past the sleet blurred screen. The first real home he could remember was a couple of hundred feet below, half a mile away as the crow flew from where he'd parked the car. The foggy memory grew rapidly and became crystal clear.

The boulder his father and brother found in the back garden soared into his mind and raised old feelings of fear and revenge.

“Good God,…' he said to her, “…I haven't thought about that in over 40 years.”

“What?”

“The boulder,” he replied, “…they dug up a big boulder from our garden when we first moved in to the housing scheme in 1949.”

It was only when Sander was much older and in his teens and had collected references from other folks' lives to judge by, that he decided he wanted to know the truth about his childhood and Skinny.

Thinking back, it was probably at the time of the boulder that 'it' all started but there was nobody he knew left alive who might know the truth. The nausea of the memory changed quickly to anger and pain, both rising at the same time, fertilising a cramp in his chest that caused an almost full cigarette of ash to fall to his lap.

No longer cold, he released his white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel and gunned the engine. He checked his mirrors and reversed too quickly off the grass onto the street. The car skidded slightly as its rear wheels thumped heavily off the opposite pavement.

Mary threw him a look of fear mixed with disguised worry but understood his quick temper. She laid her hand gently on his arm while he fought with the shift and frustration to find the right gear.

He jammed the stick into first and slowly pulled away from the street overlooking Milton and decided, against Mary's better judgement, to search for somewhere for them to stay the night.

“One night, just one night…” he thought, “…just one night for my pals. They would expect it.”

A single tear got held up in his beard as it fought its way through the grey towards his chin.

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CHAPTER 3 The Thomson's moved from Bridgeton to Milton in early 1950 when Sander was nearly eight. He was youngest in a family of six children and at the end of the war, still the bairn of those four left alive; himself, a big brother and two older sisters.

He was hazily sure he should have had two other women in his life but remembered them only as visitors to the Thomson home in Bridgeton, rather than kin folk. He didn't know much about them except they had died. At the time of her death Margaret would have been the oldest of the Thomson children at seventeen years.

Just before the end of the night shift in a Clydebank clothing factory a cluster of stray bombs, intended for the biggest shipyard on the river Clyde decided to pick a juicer target and whistled a quarter mile across the water, blowing her and her fellow machinists into fresh air.

His other sister Janet was a real mystery to him. The family never, ever openly discussed her death but he heard snippets over the first years of his life that she would have been five years old on her next birthday had she lived.

In 1930 Willie Thomson, out of work for two years, managed to get himself a job with Glasgow Corporation Cleansing department as a scaffie come relief driver on a refuse collection cart. He'd never driven a team of horses before but bluffed and lied desperately because his family had to eat.

The collection route took them past his close mouth in Slatefield street and he harried and pushed the first driver to let him take the reins. Bursting with pride that first morning he clattered the shire horses and his vehicle carefully into the cobbled street, his whole family rushing out to cheer him.

Janet, his favourite, barefoot in her flowery dress and bubble hat, her long red tresses flowing out behind her as she tried to keep up, ran beside them shouting and laughing at the men and the enormous, beautiful horses towering above her. That happy, sunny morning was to be the beginning of a dark life for Willie Thomson when his child tripped, stumbled and fell beneath the iron rimmed rear wheels of the heavy cart as it rounded Slatefield Street into the Gallowgate. Her tiny, fragile body never had a chance and it destroyed her father. Willie Thomson never took control of a vehicle again for thirty years.

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Nobody in the family was allowed to talk about it and his old man grew another, final layer in his destiny to becoming a tyrant like his own father had been.

Willie Thomson was the second oldest of five brothers and a sister at the turn of the century and his old man was a strict Victorian disciplinarian and beat the hell out of them for the smallest error in what he saw as correct behaviour, and so naturally, the pattern repeated itself to his own children.

When he got older Sander thought he understood some of the reasons why his father was so hard. Didn't condone it, but understood. Then again, throughout the years his older sisters and brother told him many times he was lucky he'd missed most of the worst things that had happened in, and to the family.

When they moved to Milton all their furniture and household brica-brac were stacked by friends and relatives on the back of a flat-top coal delivery lorry and it chugged away from Nuneaton Street to the cheers and goodwill of his family's long-time neighbours.

Sander's mother and his sister Janette held back to clean and lock up the old two room and kitchen, before returning the keys to the company landlord in the next street. The women then escorted a bemused seven year old from his old home in the tenements of Bridgeton, through a back close, some side streets and onto the main thoroughfare of the Gallowgate that led to Glasgow city centre where they waited on the wet pavement for an electric tramcar.

The adults saw a No16. to Springburn approach and his sister snatched his hand tightly, leading him onto the middle of the cobbled street and he wondered what the two rows of polished steel strips were for.

A high pitched threatening hum of metal on metal made him look along the line of the rails and in the distance he spied a one eyed, yellow and brown monster looming towards him and hid behind his sister's coat, terrified of the hissing, electric sparks being thrown from the top of it's head. It clanged and swayed nearer them, growing larger by the second. Sander felt the cobbles under his feet vibrate and began to fret with fear. “What's the matter with you son?�

Sander looked up at his mother and bubbled incoherently, pointing at the giant vehicle that threatened to run him over. His mother looked in the direction of the tram and shook her head, tutting,

18

“Don't be silly, ya' wee daftie. It's only a tramcar. It'll no do you any harm as long as you stay back from the rails.�

When it lurched and slowed past them to a halt he was picked up and jostled up a winding metal staircase into the nose of the leather seated tram.

The three of them sat upstairs and had the front saloon cabin to themselves. He saw his sister lift and pull on a leather belt that controlled the window and she slid the wooden frame open, so he could feel the wind on his face. The excited youngster rested his chin on crossed arms, his attention glued to the route all the way to Glasgow Cross, onto and along Argyll Street, under the 'Highlanders Umbrella' and past the Kelvin Hall and Art Galleries.

He watched the sights and sounds of Glasgow slowly sway past, taking it all in, especially the red leather smells of the trams and the Glasgow noise and bustle which stayed with him a long time and, along with the dozens of cheap penny journeys he and his pals made during their summer school holidays and on week-ends from Milton to Calderpark Zoo, he kept the fond memories of tramcars in his head for years.

The tram turned north past a big hospital, clanged noisily beside the Botanical Gardens and finally the last few uphill miles brought them to the terminus outside a giant steel works in Saracen next to Possilpark tram Depot.

Then another flummoxed, breathless drag to the top of Archerhill Street. It was a long, hard slog for a seven-and-a-half year old. By the time they reached the brow his wellingtons were chaffing sorely at angry shins and sweat was running down his back in rivulets.

When they climbed the steep, snaking hill and passed over what he and his pals would call the Dummy railway bridge he noticed an immediate change in his mother's attitude as she left the slum years of Glasgow behind her forever. She'd been looking forward with all her heart to moving into a newly built, modern home for months.

She approached the brow that overlooked Milton and could see nothing but rain-cleared blue skies, green trees, fields and clean houses. Both women grinned broadly, gave gasps of realisation at the same time and hugged and danced with each other and a rather perplexed Sander.

No more factories with belching chimneys. No more noisy dark pubs, foul language and fights to contend with outside their windows every weekend. Sander's mother had been on the

19

Corporation housing list for more than twenty years and she was sincerely overjoyed when asked if she would consider a house in the new Milton estate.

The new scheme was one of the first to take the spill over population of a demolishing Glasgow. It was the first time she would have running hot water and a bathroom to call her own and it had taken a lot to convince her husband to get him to agree to the move away from his roots and drinking dens.

The women sauntered down the tree lined street ingesting the glow and the cleanliness of the country air. Sander dragged a few yards behind, his tired child paces struggling to keep up.

He asked yet again where they were going. His feet rub-burned at the top of cheap wellingtons and he was needing a 'sit down' toilet.

Lizzie and Janette Thomson nattered excitedly and mostly ignored the drone of Sander's whining.

Janette stopped and he caught up. “-but Janette-,” he pulled at her sleeve for the hundredth time, “-where are we going? Will we get there soon?”

“We're nearly there Sander. Stop asking so many questions.”

She was a good bit overweight and was breathing hard after the three-quarter mile climb from the tram stop. She grabbed his hand, pulling him along with her as she waddled after her mother.

“We'll be at the house in five minutes or so, so stop your moaning or I'll give you a thick ear.”

“What house?” Sander was puzzled. “-are we visiting somebody?”

“It's a surprise,” Janette said guiltily and looked at her mother for guidance.

Mrs. Thomson nodded, “Ach - you can tell him now,” she said, “we're almost there.”

“We've got a new house,” boasted his sister, “-and it's got a big garden all around for you to play in and mothers got a brand new kitchen.” Sander didn't understand what was going on.

“Have we flitted?” he asked. His mother confirmed with a deep, tired sigh of contentment and was unable to keep the widening grin off her face “Aye son,” she nodded, “-we've got the hell out of Bridgeton at last.”

20

“What about my pals,” he asked fearfully, “-an' my school. What about my school pals?”

“You'll soon make new pals son…” his mother wasn't really listening to him, “…and you'll be going to a new school as well.”

He protested but his questions fell on deaf ears.

When the trio turned the corner into Ashford Road Sander spotted the blue flat top at the bottom of the road on the corner. He grabbed at his mothers sleeve again.

“Look, there's Billy and Da',” he shouted, his past life immediately forgotten. Sure enough the two men of the house were lifting the last piece of the furniture off the back of the lorry. The three tired walkers approached quickly and Willie Thomson let go his corner of the settee to wave a greeting.

He just managed to re-grab an end before it contacted the pavement. Nineteen year old Billy and his dad were red faced sweating. They'd done a good job. All the major bits of furniture, none of it in showroom condition but was theirs, were in the right places and spaces. If Willie had read his wife's instructions correctly that is. And it'd been done before she arrived, as he'd planned with Billy.

Sander ran ahead and shot up the path, mounted the four concrete steps to the open front door and disappeared inside.

Seconds later his head reappeared at the door, a look of total confusion in his eyes.

“What rooms mine?' he yelled excitedly at no one in particular, “this house has got great big wooden stairs all of it's own.”

The rest of the family settled around the settee at the front door.

They heard Sander's echoed footfalls clumping over the bare floor boards of the upstairs bedrooms. A few seconds later they were followed by a loud crump when Sander launched himself off the fourth step of the bare stairway into the hall.

“That's enough o' that Sander,” Lizzie Thomson called over her shoulder, “-you'll break your neck.” Sander stuck his head out of the doorway, “Billy-y!” he yelled again, this time at the top of his voice. He had the look of a boy in total shock. He stood wide eyed and pointed when his brother approached the doorway.

“My God, Billy, look, there's an enormous bath in there and it's stuck to the floor.”

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Willie Thomson coughed and spluttered when he laughed, tossing his finished cigarette stub into the garden.

“Oi!, We'll have less of that swearing young yin.” he shouted, “as soon as we're finished unloading the dishes and things you'll be getting shoved in it to get cleaned up.”

Everybody laughed when Sander's eyebrows shot up in realisation at his father's plans and then in the direction of the bathroom.

“No way Da.'” he shouted. He jumped the front steps to the path and skeedaddled around the back of the house for further exploration.

“Don't you disappear son,” his mother shouted after him, “-we'll be having something to eat soon.” Lizzie Thomson lifted herself wearily but happily off the couch, “Well,” a delightfully tired voice with a grin to match said, “-I suppose we'd better get a move on.”

The laughter and banter still tickled his ears when Sander skidded to a halt on the white chip speckled bitumen path round the back of the house. The rear garden was enormous and behind it was the biggest field he'd ever seen in his whole life.

It went on and on and on into the distance as far as he could see.

And the tall grass, it swayed and rippled like golden waves in the sunshine. It was as big as the house in his eyes. Well, bigger than him anyway by at least a foot. The back of his mind asked him if there were any wild animals living in it. He cautiously walked over to the rusty fence that had seen better days but still doing it's job, mainly due to the two rows of barbed wire strung along the topmost strand.

Carefully placing his hands between the jaggers he climbed onto the ordinary wire that laced the bottom rungs. Stretching as tall as he could he still couldn't see over the grass. He climbed the last rusty plain wire and slowly stretched again. Not so far away he could see a long grey, seven pillared iron bridge, stretching away in the distance.

Behind it, steam rose wispily from lots of smoke stacks.

“Trains! Wow! We live next to trains!”

He yelled and gave a whoop of delight which made him lose balance. His hands and feet jerked back and forth under him a few times, like an unbalanced circus high wire act. He thought of the barbed wire and grabbed at the dried out moss covered post to his left. Mistake.

The rotted wood cranched and gave way, tumbling him head over breakfast time into the field. Banging his face hard, his nose felt as if

22

had exploded and he almost cried but fought the urge by telling himself explorers were made of stronger stuff.

Tentatively he opened his eyes and got up, wiped away blood that trickled from his nose on his bare arm and looked around him. He couldn't see anything else but thick straw coloured grass all around and a cloudless blue sky above. When he spat, the copper taste in his dry mouth frightened him a little, but he continued with his adventure. Crouching down as small as he could he delved deeper into the golden grass, the pain in his face forgotten and played at being lost in Africa.

Pushing his way through dense jungle a warning came from his imagination that he had to be ready for wild animals but especially the tribe of Zulu's he heard lived in this part of the jungle. He was lucky when he picked up an axe he found lying nearby.

Hefting it expertly in his left hand he nodded slowly to himself to confirming the perfect balance he felt.

“Must have been dropped by some explorers they captured,” he said to himself confidently. Sander stalked through the jungle holding the stick ready. It didn't take him long to fight his way about six miles through the coarse foliage and he was wondering how far he would get before nightfall when he heard a screeching, high pitched howl.

It sounded as if an animal was dying a long, painful death. The shiver up his back chilled his neck hair and he immediately became still. The boy's knees quickly hit the brown soil and he crouched again, hoping that whatever caused the blood curling noise, was upwind of him.

A cold black shadow fell over him and he looked up into the sky.

The first lumps of rain fell on his face as a massive white edged black cloud obliterated the sun then the noise of the downpour slapping into the long grass became deafening. He was alone and soaked to the skin in a matter of seconds as trickles of fear caressed his dry throat and he wanted nothing more than to get out of the wind and rain and back to his family.

He coughed as quietly as he could and spat onto the path he had been cutting through the farmer's field, his nosebleed having stopped a few minutes earlier and turned back to his house.

“San-derr!” Billy shouted for him.

“San-derr!” Billy again.

“I'm stuck Billy!” Sander shouted, his voice a little scared.

“Sanderrrrr, where are you?”

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He heard Billy's tone changed to impatience and his imagination became reality, making his heart beat a little faster in his chest when he realised his brother couldn't see him.

“Over here!” Sander answered cautiously, fear taking over. At the same time he was thinking what the terrible screaming could have been.

“Sander, where the heck are you?” Billy was beginning to loose patience with him. The train whistle blew again. “I'm over here,” Sander jumped up but didn't quite clear the height. Billy saw his young brother's hair bob momentarily about fifty yards away then disappear again into the wheat and laughed out loud, “You'd better get your backside out of that wheat field before the farmer shoots you,” he shouted, “-C'mon, your dinners nearly ready.”

He climbed up on the fence and tried to spot his young brother again but only saw the wind moving across the tops of the wheat like waves. He tried again.

“Shake some stalks hard Sander and I'll come in and get you.”

Sander pushed his way through the wheat in the direction of Billy's voice and saw his brother's head sticking up as he stood tall on the fence.

“C'mon you wee bugger, my dinners getting cold.”

Billy was laughing while Sander continued his difficult push through the wheat and finally he emerged from the cereal on his hands and knees. His clothes were covered in loose earth and grass and he was out of puff with only a few feet to the fence. Strong hands grabbed him, dusted him off and soon he was on top of his brothers shoulders. They kidded and laughed their way back across the raw earth of the back garden to the kitchen door at the rear of their new house.

Lizzie Thomson had her second wind and was cooking happily away at her new stove whilst Janette got the table ready for dinner.

The boys horse played their way into the kitchen and Lizzie's contented aura changed rapidly into a worried frown in the steam off the pots. She turned quickly at the noise of the door opening, instantly saw their feet and thrust an open palm in their faces.

“HEY! STOP you two!” she shouted, “-Just hold it right there.”

The boys froze in the middle of their sparring contest and looked down to where there mother was now pointing.

“Don't you dare,” she threatened, “-don't you dare put a foot into

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this kitchen until you get your filthy shoes off!” She grabbed a wet washcloth from the sink and tossed it over to Billy. He caught it casually one handed at eye level and got drenched for his skill.

Sander turned away sniggering.

“Oh, you think it's funny do you -?”

Billy grabbed him, throwing an arm around his neck, rubbing the dirty washcloth all over his face. Sander wriggled away and drew the back of his hand across his mouth in disgust. He dry spat a couple of times and cried out to his mother in his moaniest voice, “Aw Maw-awe! Tell him to leave me alone. That rag's stinking.”

He continued dry spitting imaginary dirt.

“You're both filthy,” reprimanded Lizzie, “-get those shoes off at once and go and get cleaned up when your father comes out the bathroom.”

She turned back to the stove, banged her fist on the kitchen wall above the cooker and shouted, “Bill - your dinners nearly ready.”

“Aye, Aye. Just coming.”

They heard muffled splashes as the head of the family got out of the tub through the wall. Sander squealed with laughter again when Billy grabbed him a second time and tickled him to the floor.

“Stop it, you two,” Lizzie shouted, the heat in the kitchen making her irritated “…for goodness sake behave yourselves.”

Billy wrestled his young brother onto the linoleum covered floor, the youngster trying hard to squirm away. Too late. Billy pinned him down and kept tickling him until the laughter hurt and he was gasping for breath.

“No - No - C'mon Billy - No - No -Stop ittt!” Sander's high pitched screams would have cut glass.

“What-the-bloody-hells-going-on-here?” their father's voice boomed.

An after bath Willie Thomson glowed clean in the living room doorway. Billy stopped what he was doing. Immediately.

“You!” A finger pointed then crooked in his direction, “-C'mere!”

The women watched the colour drain from Billy's face.

Lizzie spoke first, “Bill-?”

Her husband secretly winked at her. She relaxed.

“I wasn't doing anything wrong Dad, honest,” Billy's voice shook.

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“C'mere I said!” he spoke quieter, slower, “…and - don't - you damn - well - argue - about - it.”

Billy walked toward him as slowly as he dared, head and shoulders slumping. “Turn around.” his father ordered, an index finger cutting a circle in the air in front of his son's eyes.

“Wha-?” Billy choked on the sentence.

“Turn around I said.”

No give-away expression on his face or in his eyes. Sander dragged a sliver of courage up from somewhere and stammered quietly to his father, pleading for leniency for his brother, “-he wasn't doing anything Da - honest,” he mumbled. “-we were only playing.”

He didn't look directly into his father's face either. Willie Thomson just pursed his lips and slowly shook his head from side to side.

Sander knew there was nothing to be done.

“This is what happens to people who don't do as they're told.”

Billy cringed slightly, expecting a whack on the head or something worse. Instead his father winked at the rest of them and jammed a soaking wet cold bath sponge down the back of Billy's shirt collar, grabbed him around the chest from behind and wrestled him towards the ground.

“Get him Sander,” Willie shouted and tumbled along with his oldest son onto the floor. Sander flew across the kitchen whooping with delight and relief. His added weight carried the three of them playfully into the living room, all arms and legs. Two minutes of wrestling, tickling and laughter later Lizzie interrupted the macho display. She stood, hands on hips, happily surveying her men on the floor.

“You're mince and doughballs are on the table if any of you are interested.” Billy squeaked back at her through his brother's arms, tight around his neck, “Hey Maw, could you put mine on a plate? I hate eating off wooden tabl-sss ” The rest of his reply was cut off when his old man stuffed the wet floor cloth deep into his mouth.

“Enough! C'mon you two, enough!” Willie cried out breathlessly above the ruckus. Billy crawled away from his fathers grasp and Sander sat on the floor hiccuping. Both older men helped each other to their feet laughing and headed for the kitchen.

“Come on Sander,” Billy jibed over his shoulder, “-you'll have to

26

eat the lot, and more, if you want to put on some weight to fight us.�

Willie Thomson put an arm around his older son's shoulder and they walked to the dinner table discussing the different wrestling moves they'd tried on each other.

After a great dinner things were cleared away and when most of the furniture was in place and the necessary clothing sorted out for the morning's work they settled down in the living room to listen to the radio.

Sander was allowed to stay up and listen to his favourite space fiction adventure, The Red Planet, after the seven o'clock news on a Friday. He loved anything to do with science fiction, aeroplanes, spaceships and things and it was one of the rare occasions when all the important people in his life were together at the one time as a family.

While he lay in his usual position on the rug at the fire by his parents feet the direct heat and flaring imaginary figures in the burning coal made him drowsy and he was asleep before the news finished.

Billy and his Dad went upstairs to clank bolt the family's metal bed frames together while the women unpacked wooden tea chests full of bed linen and curtains and things.

Soon the frames were assembled and when their beds were made up by the women Billy came quietly down stairs and carefully carried his snoring wee brother to his first night in Milltown.

Sander vaguely remembered being picked up and hearing someone distantly say something about the fresh, clean air getting to all of them.

During the next few weeks everybody in the house was kept busy painting and decorating every surface of the walls and ceilings. The smell of paint was so clean and fresh. Even his father laughed and joked with the rest of them. Sander had great fun, finger drawing cartoons on the chalked out windows. God made the sun shine and life was as good as it was going to get.

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CHAPTER 4 A few weekends after the move Sander's father and the rest of the family laboured hard, clearing site rubble and trash off the uneven waste ground that sloped steeply away from the house up to Sander's wheat field.

Previous plans they had made to dig it over and build some order from the thick weed and stone covered chaos had been put off for various reasons, again and again, until a letter arrived from the Council reminding them of their obligation and contract of rental.

They had been hard at it since early the previous day and the whole family, including Sander, decided to retire indoors only when it was getting dark. Sore bones and stiff muscles the next morning took their toll on the Thomson's and they all made various excuses to get back to the garden as late as possible. Late afternoon on Sunday they took yet another pause from the heavy, back breaking work to have their umpteenth cup of tea and a sandwich.

Lizzie Thomson, her sweat soaked hair tucked under a mass of rollers and a flowery head scarf complimented by one of her old baking aprons, looked like the archetypal fat Russian peasant woman.

She sat heavily on the step at her back door and surveyed the work they had done so far.

“Willie-,” she called tiredly to her husband lounged at the rear of the garden over their borrowed one wheeled barrow, “-this is going to take us ages to finish it at this rate.”

“Aye. I know hen.” he answered quietly. His gaunt look and black set eyes were a sign to her that her man was starting to feel the strain of twelve hour shifts working at the factory and the gardening.

She'd been thinking about the problem for a while and decided it was time to offer her usually unwelcome opinion on men's work. The daily clank of heavy landscaping machinery and powerfully revving motors from the building site across the road had tickled at an idea in her head all day yesterday and this morning. “…see instead of us digging all that soil from the back of the garden and trying to lift it by hand to the front, why don't we get-,” she threw her thumb in the direction of the building site, “…why don't we get one of the drivers of they big machines to level it for us?” Her husband slowly shook his head, “How much money have you got?”

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“Just a couple of pounds to see us through till you get your wages.”

“Aye, I thought as much…” He shook his head a bit more vigorously, “…it would probably cost us at least a fiver…” he answered sarcastically, “…and I haven't got anything to spare. At least not for some papist Irish labourer, who should have done it for us in first place.”

Sander's mother was told. Put in her place by the tone of her husband's statement. “I just thought…” she tried again.

“Well, don't you bother thinking hen…” he interrupted, getting to his feet, “…just you get on with the work I've given you and shut up.”

He scanned the rest of his family. “Right you lot,” he ordered, “lets get back to work.” An hour later they came upon the biggest and heaviest of all the boulders. It was barely sticking up out of the peaty soil. The others had been moved with the borrowed wheelbarrow but this one was something all together different.

The more they tried to excavate it, the bigger it got. Billy and Willie Thomson dug down to about waist level and it grew into an six foot grey monster. They realised it would take more than two or three bodies to shift it. After sweating and swearing like a trooper for three hours his old man finally decided he'd had enough and called in the Irish experts.

The offer of thirty shillings soon encouraged a dozer driver off the building site and he arrived, it seemed to Sander at the time, in a giant yellow steel insect. Nearly an hour later, after much cursing and shouting, the earth gave up it's chain bound package. The yellow bulldozer's strength was severely tested and it's engine strained and screamed with effort but the rock released and came out of the ground. And when it did it was with an unbelievably wet squelching sound of air rushing into a muddy vacuum.

The smell that permeated the area around the hole was disgusting.

Neighbours and their children who had gathered to watch fell back as if a giant hand slapped them away. A sweet fetid odour arose like an invisible phoenix out of the wounded earth, grabbing everybody by the throat and made them gag and vomit. The hole they discovered beneath the boulder had previously been filled in with all sorts of odds and ends of old rubble and bricks and had been roughly cemented over.

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The cement work was very old and cracked easily when the rock was forced from the earth. Sander imagined he heard a barely audible hissing and gargling sound coming from the fissure which seemed to laugh at him. An expression of confused fear on his father's face when he stared into the hole and then at his wife made Sander and look at his mother. She was walking cautiously towards her husband and the hole in the ground, a tea towel over her mouth and nose.

“What is it Bill?” she asked through the cloth.

“-…don't know Lizzie,” he coughed a lie at her, “…it's awful, isn't it?”

He'd come across that smell before and it was the smell of death.

In 1944 his unit in the Highland Light Infantry had fought hard in muddy days to gain a few yards of farm buildings and trenches in Belgium. Under heavy artillery fire they 'dug in' and discovered a platoon of enemy soldiers, entombed under the buildings in what looked like their unit's headquarters. They'd been interned for weeks.

Direct hit by the looks of it. He turned to Billy and whispered, “We'll cover it over for now. I'll bring home some stuff from work tomorrow and we can get on with the garden next weekend.”

Billy dry gagged through his sleeve, “What is it Da? Its stinking!”

He felt he was going to be sick again.

“I don't know son. It could be anything. Maybe its an old graveyard or it could be the farmer who owned this land buried some cattle after that outbreak of foot and mouth. Remember, in 1948? What ever it is, we'll cover it up and reseal it as soon as we can.”

That night everybody in the house had nightmares.

Sander's was a tall skinny featureless man. Rippling slowly in and out of the shadows in his bedroom. There, but not there. Floating towards his bed. Climbing up. Kneeling astride him, hard on the muscles of his arms. Unbearable weight pinning him to the mattress.

Sander tried to cry out because of the weight on his chest but the pain was so bad he couldn't breathe.

The iciness of the thing in black shineworn clothing with giant insect-long arms spread over his entire body. It knelt cold on his upper arms pushing the feeling out of his muscles.

He watched terrified as long freezing fingers interleaved in his own and pinned him to the pillow. Malingky towered ten feet above

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Sander and slowly lowered itself, dripping some sort of slime, towards his face. He was scared to look into it's face but the terrifying smell drew his attention around and he lost the fight. Two dirty yellow inhuman eyes, shaped like a chameleon's, rotated in that head. They worked individually of each other and the creature watched him and all around the bedroom at the same time. It hesitated and quickly spun towards Billy when he turned and moaned in his sleep. The quick movement caused the smell of burning matches to waft from his coat flaps and dead, smothering sulphur sweat ooze from it's skin.

Skinny's damp breath withered flowers and turned the grass brown around them in the field he was now trapped. It's tongue, too big for it's mouth, was leathery hard and hairy, like an giant insect and rattled off his teeth as it tried to taste the air. Threatening Sander. It's head thrown back, giggling insanely but no sound; just that over-powering match striking smell. Preying on eight year old instinctive fears, swaying imperceptibly back and forth, back and forth, like a mantis on the hunt.

Hunting for him. He awoke choking and screaming around 3.30 am trying to force blood from the back of his mouth. Billy shook him roughly out of the nightmare and hushed him.

“Shhhh, Sander, s'okay…” he whispered urgently, “…shh, it's okay, be quiet. You'll wake up Da'. You're having a bad dream, that's all.”

They heard the springs from their parents bed and Willie Thomson banged and bellowed through the wall, “-what the hell is going on in there!”

The boys heard their mother mutter something.

“It's all right Da'…," Billy shouted quietly, “…Sander's had a bad dream.”

“Well, you keep him quiet now or I'll come through and tan your backsides. I'm up at 5 o'clock and if I don't get my sleep I can be a right sore-head, can't I?” “He's fine now,” Billy shouted again, quieter this time, “…he's nearly asleep.” Billy fell back on the bed relieved. He hated it when his father took a drink.

At dinner time the next evening his old man decided the nightmares were probably something to do with the headaches they had all yesterday.

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Sander's mother got a slap for saying his was probably the result of the six screw tops of McEwan's Pale Ale beer and the half bottle of whisky he'd swallowed, after saying he had no money.

Willie Thomson got a mate to truck home a rusty sheet of inch thick steel plate the next night from work. The two men of the house filled over the hole and covered it with the steel plate and new cement. The following weekend, earth and top soil was laid over it, the garden cleared of the remaining rubbish and levelled. Grass seed was sown and in a month the boulder episode was a distant memory beneath the light green shoots.

During the first few weeks or so Sander awoke every morning early. His uncontrollable screams wakened the whole family when Skinny Malingky sat on his chest. Every morning nose blood coughed from his throat over already soaked pillows. For most of the first week he was thrashed every morning by his raging father. Not for the blood but for the bed wetting. His mother finally managed to control her husband by putting herself in danger, telling him she would take her son to the family doctor in Possilpark to see if anything could be done. Doctor Montgomery examined Sander and told her he had weak blood vessels in his nose and that he would grow out of it in a couple of years.

No one discovered, or cared, why Sander's father began to act in the demented way he did. But it was the start, as far as Sander was concerned, of a campaign of hatred which lasted until his old man died of cirrhosis when his youngest son was fifteen. Lizzie Thomson's husband was no longer the man she'd known or married. He'd become unbearably bad tempered and was drinking more than usual. A lot more. His nightmares of the war returned with a vengeance. Some mornings Sander and his brother heard his mother's muffled crying when she went back to bed but were innocently unaware that sometimes the crying was their father's fear and remorse.

Sander would never go to sleep immediately because he was terrified out of his wits by dreams of the figure he'd named Skinny in his mind. His family couldn't understand why he was having so many disturbed nights and tried to help in various ways but Sander knew he would be in trouble if he stayed awake so he faked it.

Pretended to sleep for the sake of peace and quiet. Safe from his father's rage. He would lie in bed frightened, kept awake by the strange noises from the attic above him and from inside the walls as the house settled and boogey man night sounds seeped in from the quiet countryside around him.

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Sometimes he forced himself to stay awake well into the morning, listening to the muffled radio sounds and conversation from downstairs in the bright living room, where there was safe light.

Lying quietly in the dark he heard his parents and the rest of the family say good night to each other and lay still, trying to breath evenly, when his brother tip-toed into the room and quietly creaked himself into bed.

Into early morning he lay and listened to the breathing sounds the rest of the family made in their dreams while the hours crawled towards dawn. His attempt to stay awake from terror was lost in the battle with the coming nightmares.

Street lights shined eagerly through wind blown trees outside his bedroom window and drew spattered shadows on the bedroom wall past the faces of evil he imagined lived in the thin patterned curtains.

Threatening shadows in corners moved and came towards him as the moon slid across the sky, getting ready to touch him in his sleep.

Preparing to welcome Skinny from the cracks in the night. Eventually he fell asleep exhausted and the fear of his young life was on him again.

It was always the same. Cornered in an earth-quaking field of heaving, sifting black soil and trapped on all sides by the relentless chase of skin-tearing razor sharp thorns. He was running through knee deep wizzy black earth and it sapped the strength from his legs like fine dune sand on a steep beach, slowing him to a virtual standstill.

Someone or something hacked a rough corridor to freedom for him out of a high dangerous rent in the threatening barrier. Too far away for him to ever reach. The exit tantalisingly moved higher out of his grasp every time he tried to get to it. His face and body were a mass of cuts and blood coursed from his ears and head while he fought desperately with the whipping wind and thorns.

Skinny hissed blackly through the barrier like a flying fog and barred every escape route, growing easily, mysteriously, to heavily overpower the fading strength of his young arms and legs. It jumped on his chest. It's great cold weight making them both sink easily, slowly, into the soft ground. Sander never got away. Not once. He only woke up screaming into a blood soaked pillow and the taste of zinc filth flooding his head when the black earth finally overcame his breathing and he found it was useless to fight back against the monster.

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It was months before Sander got an unbroken nights sleep. The odour of disgust in his mind was everywhere in the house and on his clothing. Slowly, as further weeks passed, the episodes melted away from the front of his memory.

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CHAPTER 5 On occasions when the family stayed up late the coal fire would still be red in the morning. Sander learned to pack it for the day and keep it slowly 'cooking' by half-smothering it with a mixture of tea leaves from breakfast and potato peelings from the night before. It was an art keeping it lit all day.

If the tea leaves were too wet he would come home at lunch time, the fire would be out and he would have to start again. If too dry the fire would burn out quickly, coal would be wasted and again he would have to start again. Sometimes he would sleep late for school and struggled to get his chores done.

It was a toss up between his father's or mother's hand across his face, or getting the belt from the headmaster for being late. At eight years old it was some choice.

His mothers punishment was generally a playful slap. A reminder.

But his father's? That was a different story.

His was normally a full blown, flame raged open-handed blow. He worked with steel and iron all his life and had hands as hard as ebony. His father's hand always won. Most days when he overslept, he went to school late.

He'd rather face a belting from the headmaster anytime than a beating from his old man. Arousing his father's temper was not one of the best things anyone could do. It wasn't that he was strict most of the time. He was strict all the time. He was always on at his kids or his wife for something.

“Tidy this up. Clean that. Move that out of here. Is my shirt ready Lizzie? Did you clean my shoes? I'm talking to you, bloody well answer me when I'm speaking to you.” or “Don't-you-bloody-welltalk-back-to-me! Who do you think you are anyway?” which usually came with the crack of a blow followed by a scream or whimper of pain, depending on the ferocity of his temper.

Sander's mother didn't always avoid it either. Everything had to be just right for him for he was head of the family and chief bread winner and never let any of them forget it.

Sander supposed he was lucky being the 'baby' of the family and didn't know the earlier years. And none of his sisters or brother were ever able to explain how his mother appeared to be on her children's side when they were in conflict with Him, but always finally sided

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with Him when he had calmed down.

And Willie Thomson never ever seemed to have enough money in his pocket. That's because he spent it. Pubs, bookies, women. Always wanting to be popular with his cronies. Always buying drinks for everybody in the place.

Outside the immediate family everybody thought he was a great guy. The best. A straight arrow. Always ready to go out of his way to help. Always a laugh and a joke. The women loved him. He would do anything for anybody.

His family knew different. The children knew better. His favourite tool of terror was his trouser belt or his twenty-two inch, quarter inch thick, leather shaving strop.

The Thomson's were settled in their new home and Sander had been investigating the local shops with his mother and was being dragged yet again towards his house, down their side of a dual carriageway that was Ashford Rd. He was thinking why it was that old people always seemed to be rushing around when, as they neared their new house, he noticed a boy near his own age running through the trees and down the grassy slope towards them. He was wearing the immediate post-war clothing. Short grey trousers above the knee, a multi-coloured Fair Isle sleeveless pullover without a shirt and a pair of black wellingtons, turned down to his ankles. The ginger haired boy came skidding to a halt in the grass, baring their way.

“What's your name?” he demanded breathlessly.

“Sander Thomson.” Sander replied shyly. He drew a little bit closer to his mother; didn't like the look of this threatening boy.

“Do you live about here?” the stranger demanded again.

“What's yours?” Sander asked him, ignoring his last demand from behind his parent. The ginger haired boy beamed a big smile and pointed at a house through the trees.

“Jimmy Sutherland!” he shouted proudly. Turning around, he pointed up at a house on Harmatray Street, “-I live there with my Mum and Dad and my big brother n' my big sister. We've been here for a-ges.” His manner said that this was his patch and he wanted to know what a stranger was doing on it.

“I live…”

“D'you want to play with me and my motors?” Jimmy interrupted

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hopefully, “…I've got all of them out on the pavement with my garage.”

Sander turned to his mother. A smile and a nod gave him permission and the two new friends ran off together up the hill. She walked after them up through the trees and across Harmetray Street to the gateway of Jimmy's house. Mrs. Thomson put her grocery bags down and introduced herself to a tall, thin, red haired woman who was tending newly planted roses with a trowel in her hand.

“Your garden is looking lovely.” Mrs Thomson said with a degree of envy. Jimmy's mother looked up, creaked to her feet with some difficulty, stretched her back, snapped off the right hand glove and held out a sweaty, talc covered hand.

“Thank you,” she said smiling. “…I'm Sadie Sutherland. Pleased to meet you.”

Lizzie smiled her appreciation at the welcome and surveyed Sadie and her garden some more. She noticed her new acquaintance had pretty bad arthritis in her hands and was also thinking she would like her front green to have roses as well when Sadie Sutherland spoke again, “…The Council have only put a couple of inches of good earth on top,” She continued and pointed around the rest of the garden, “…the under-soil is mostly clay.”

“Oh I don't know about that-,” Lizzie said in appreciation, “It still looks great. I wish my garden was as good as this.”

“You've just moved into 278 Ashford, haven't you?” Sadie Sutherland said. It was more a statement than a question.

“Aye - How long have you lived here Sadie?” Sander's mother asked.

“Oh - quite a few months now.” She picked up a box of matches with some difficulty and lit a cigarette, offering her new neighbour the packet. Lizzie Thomson refused indicating she'd given it up.

“-I see there's talk of a new school going up in the fields behind your house soon-,” Sadie said, “-that'll save us a bit of a walk when it opens, if it ever does, that is.”

“Does your boy go to Parkhouse?”

“Yes,” Lizzie replied, “it's the only school within walking distance.”

“Sander'll probably be going there as well…,” Mrs. Thomson

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replied enthusiastically, “…if you want, we could take turns in the week and save a lot of time. My daughter Janette will be taking Sander there in the next couple of weeks at the start of the new term.”

“That would be great Lizzie-,” Sadie Sutherland said and smiled a big grateful grin, “-because my legs aren't what they used to be,” she shook her head and grimaced, “-too many years cleaning cold closes on my hands and knees.”

Lizzie Thomson tutted, sighed and nodded in agreement. It wasn't so long ago she'd had to do the same.”Well-,” Sander's mother said wearily, “-I suppose I had better be away and get the tea ready,” She said her farewells and closed the garden gate behind her.

Sander whined about wanting to stay and play with his new pal when his mother told him to grab his side of the handles on the heavy grocery bag again.

“I've got to get the dinner ready, Sander,” she insisted, her voice raising to a shrill pleading, “-Janette's working late again and your father'll be home soon and if his dinner's not on the table he'll go through the roof.”

“He'll be all right here with us if you want to leave him playing,” Sadie Sutherland shouted, “-when we're going in for tea I'll bring him down to you.”

“-You sure you don't mind?” Lizzie gratefully replied. The break from her non-stop questioning son would be bliss.

“Not at all. He'll be fine here-,” Sadie confirmed. She'd noticed the strain on her new neighbour's face when she mentioned her husband, “-be about hour or so and it'll always give James someone to play with to keep him out of mischief.”

Sander's new found friend had dozens of cars and lorries of all shapes, colours and sizes. Sander was in heaven. 'Your right I'll be okay,' he thought, 'this is tee-rrific.'

It was going to be a good place to live and he didn't want to waste any time.

He took no heed of his mother as she said her good-bye's again and waddled off towards their house.

It felt as if the boys hadn't been playing for long when Sander was delivered to his house down the street. Jimmy shouted after him, promising to come first thing in the morning.

There were many such meetings in the days and weeks to come.

Jimmy took him to the neighbouring houses where he met Ian

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(Plum) Duff, Brian Morton, Denny Wilson and the rest of the 'gang'.

They played together in what was left of the summer holiday and became an inner circle of firm friends.

The day arrived too soon when Sander was pulled out of bed one morning, fed, dressed in new clothes and taken by his older sister to his first day at Parkhouse junior school.

He was ceremoniously marched up to the top of Archerhill Street junction, turning left over the Dummy railway bridge, down a side street and through a maze of lanes to the gates of the only open Primary school so far in the area. “You go in there and behave yourself. I'll be back for you at dinnertime, after my work.� His sister about turned and lumbered away to catch a bus into Glasgow.

Sander didn't know what to do. What was his family be thinking about. There was no way he was going to stay in this playground until his sister came back for him and he came to a decision.

He waited until Janette passed behind the railing topped low school wall towards her bus stop and sneaked out the gates, following her, bending down or kneeling hiding behind fences and hedges, like stalking a prey almost, all the way to her bus stop.

Unfortunately for him he was discovered when he rounded a corner and came face to face with her at she waited at the bus shelter. Janette Thomson went red in the face with anger and belted him hard on the ear because he had followed her. She was not pleased at all because she had to take him all the way back and would lose money by being late for work. She was getting married soon and needed every penny of her wages. Had to. Anything to get away from that bugger of a father and his abuse.

She grabbed Sander roughly by the wrist and dragged him screaming, flowing tears of frustration and fear and kicking at her, back along the street to the school gates, into the playground and up to the second years' classroom door. She made embarrassed apologies to the teacher while her young brother's tantrums continued in the hallway.

When he calmed down a bit and stopped screaming he saw that many other children were playing happily inside the room and lots of colourful charts, pictures and drawings decorated the walls. After about ten minutes he stopped acting bewildered, pulled himself together and forgot about sneaking away to kill his sister for abandoning him.

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A bell rang somewhere and everybody piled noisily out of the classroom into the playground. He was last outside. 'I'll have to learn to be quicker.' he thought to himself. He followed and caught up with Tommy Barr and a small boy called Jacky, a couple of 'friends' he had made playing in the art class sand pit, They led him from the playground into the school assembly hall and everybody was given a third of a pint of milk in a glass bottle, a straw and told to sit down quietly and drink it.. This wasn't so bad after all. He loved milk.

In no time at all another bell rang and everyone stampeded back to the area outside their classrooms where they were cajoled into straight lines by a big male teacher with a whistle. He looked to Sander as if he would have loved a stick to go with his whistle as well. The man walked up and down their line, yelling at them to be quiet and to form an orderly line, two abreast, for marching into the classroom.

“Who was he kidding? What's an orderly line? What's a breast?”

The girl in front of Sander let out a yelp when she was clipped on the ear for talking. “Okay, so you don't talk or move in a class line when there's a teacher about.” he thought.

The teacher’s booming voice threatened them, at risk of their lives, to walk sensibly and quietly to their classrooms and take their seats. When they got back to the room some of the young braves cheekily tried to lift their combination chair and desks off the floor but the one who stood out for Sander the most was none other than Jimmy. He'd been visiting the school nurse earlier and had returned with a sticking plaster over his upper arm. Great, he was in the same school. Even better, he was in the same class.

Jimmy was eight and a half years old, nearly six months older than Sander and was in his second term, fourth grade, at Parkhouse.

When they went out to the playground for a break he introduced Sander to a big boy called Robert Smith who had moved in along the street from Jimmy a couple of days before.

This introduction could only be a good thing. To say Robert was big was an understatement. He was gigantic, standing a head taller than anyone else in the school except the teachers and he had hands like shovels. Good for punching bullies.

Sander's first impression was to stay away from him because this guy looked like trouble but found Robert had the same sense of humour as himself and they got on well immediately. He had a face

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like a bulldog and a shock of thick red hair. No one in the school bothered Sander or the others after Robert and Jimmy introduced the 'blood brother, ceremony. A straightened out safety pin, jabbed painfully into the pad of each of their thumbs, and their blood mixed. After a few weeks it was like having his own personal giant to protect him. If the M60 rifle had been invented Robert Smith would have handled it with ease.

Unfortunately for them he had a rather natural streak for attracting trouble, did Robert, and they suffered more than once over the next year or so until the opening of the new school being built adjacent to their streets.

That was when Robert left them. And it was the first time Sander thought of Skinny Malingky since the episode with the boulder.

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CHAPTER 6 The first time ten year old Sander and his pals realised Chirnside school was to be built was when several flat top lorries, overflowing with what looked like steel fencing and things, arrived on the corner of Ashford Rd fifty yards from his house, and reversed onto the grassy waste ground that bordered the Marshy.

The gang were having an early Saturday morning game of rounders on the triangle of grass and trees opposite HarmatraySt. in the calm spring sunshine. They had been playing for about an hour and were starting to get bored.

Jimmy left to have an early lunch and the others were drifting away, one at a time, when the convoy pulled up with a roar of engines, much shouting and blowing of whistles. Other trucks arrived at various intervals all the way around the reverse question mark shape that was Ashford Rd and by the time they were unloaded there must have been close on a hundred men.

They immediately began digging, cutting, drilling, chopping, yelling and swearing, working till dusk when another whistle blew and they were gone as quickly as they'd arrived.

Two huts had been erected. The first larger one was filled to the gunwhales with all sorts of navvies tools and building equipment. The other was home for a small, dirty-haired thin man in his fifties, who gamped along with a strange looking limp. And an enormous brown, dangerous looking dog, that didn't.

It turned out it wasn't a dog at all but a vicious evil killer from hell on a chain. It followed it's master around everywhere, trotting too quickly and maniacally with him, always on the look out for someone to rip apart, wearing a permanent teeth snarling grin on it's lipless mouth.

Sabre seemed to hate all living things, especially children, and wanted to extinguish the life from everything within it's scent. The gang had never seen a Doberman before and they grew to respect it in a very short time.

It only took two days to erect a wicked looking spear pointed fence around the area which was meant to turn their playground into an impregnable fortress.

Running south from behind Sander's home all the way up to Denny's at the top of Edward St. it cut sharply east, parallel with the

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Dummy railway to the Seven bridges, where it went northwards alongside the main Aberdeen line to the top of the hill across from Tin Town, snaking back around Ashford Rd to join where it began.

“Tresspassers Will Be Prosecuted” signs stuck out the ground every hundred yards or so along it's length, threatening fines or jail for anyone who disobeyed. It completely boxed in their play area. Or so the planners thought.

A few days later it took Sander and his friends ten minutes to burrow under the fence behind his house and regain illicit entry to their favourite haunt. They were watching from behind the tall grass on the hill as more blue smoking trucks arrived and belched onto the site.

Denny, as always, asked the obvious.

“-wonder what they're doing?” he said, confused.

Jimmy's reply was tainted with sarcasm, “-don't know Denny,” he said, “-but that's an awful lot of diggers and stuff for building us a gang hut.”

The rest laughed at Denny's stupidity. “-och, I was only making conversation.” he whined, going into a huff.

The gang chewed milky grass stalks and watched as a collection of various metal monsters were unloaded slowly and carefully sixty feet below them. Denny tutted loudly to attract attention and spoke again.

“I heard my dad saying the other day he was talking to some men who were measuring up the land and they said it's going to be a school.”

“Well it better be a Prody school or there'll be hell to pay.” threatened Jimmy. He nudged Plum, who was lying on the grass next to him.

“No offence Plum,” he apologised, “-but I'm fed up walking up that hill to Parkhouse every day in the rain.”

“Probably more houses,” Plum sighed.

They threw the subject back and forth for a few minutes, trying to figure out what was happening while they watched more lorries arrive and the serious work began. Half an hour later the boy's had to retreat back to Sander's back garden when the first of the massive yellow Caterpillars climbed the hill and threatened to overrun them.

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In a week the Cats and other equipment turned the beautiful rolling grass hill between their streets and the railway into a barren, black field of mud.

Same with the football park everyone had marked out on the 'Prairie.'

Battlefield war games disappeared as well when the machines devoured everything in their path. Every child in the area gave a collective sigh of relief when they stopped short of the Marshy pond they all loved.

Survey tests had showed it would have to land filled.

For days all roads that led to the site were covered with a four inch film of mud and earth from dozens and dozens of giant tipper trucks whose sole purpose was to disgorge tons of earth and rubble into the pond.

The gang's hearts sank in a mixture of childhood anger and worry while the muck grew, pushing back the brown water of the pond towards the other side of the small valley.

Every morning on the way to school, Jimmy and the rest of them took heart when they discovered what the workmen had dumped the day before, had all but vanished. Half the Marshy had succumbed but the rest was fighting back, greedily devouring the earthy mulch.

Suddenly all work stopped and there was general celebration among all the children of the area that they still had somewhere to loose themselves in play.

When hundreds of rough wooden crosses appeared all over the bare earth, the gang thought some worker's must have been killed and buried there. Sander's brother had a good laugh at him and his pals, telling them the crosses were surveyor's marker's the construction crew would work from.

The boy's thought it was about time they fought back. For days, after tea, they climbed under the fence at dusk and spent hours digging up and replanting stakes in different positions. They were caught and chased by the 'watchie' and his dog a few times.

Hopelessly outpaced and scared of being caught, they decided it was better to have at least kept some of the Marshy than to loose the seat of their pants, or worse, to the dog from hell.

Weeks later their interest in the site was rekindled when they discovered a maze of imaginative cross-trenches being excavated all over and into their hillside. It was Brian who noticed the two parallel lines, thirty yards apart, much deeper than the rest.

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“The shallow ones are probably for the foundations,” he offered, “-but I haven't a clue what the deep ones are for.”

A few days later all was revealed when the deep ditches were painstakingly lined with wooden moulds and poured with concrete.

Everyone knew at once because Jimmy's Eagle comic had explained the process in a glorious colour centre-spread only a few weeks previous.

“I think they're making tunnels,' Denny said confidently.

The rest of the gang were sure they saw an exclamation mark spark above his head. Just for a second. Light bulbs weren't very bright in his house.

“We know!” tutted Jimmy, “-we're not stupid. But what do they want with tunnels under a school?” Brian offered a possibility.

“Maybe it's going to be a multi-storey building and they'll punch in some piles in for support.”

Next day the gang's mother's were complaining noisily about the endless banging as the pile driver's worked all day and far into the night. The din continued despite complaints to the council and site management and went on interrupted for two weeks.

The youngsters waited every evening after tea until the 'watchie' and his black devil dog had done their rounds and disappeared into their makeshift home for dinner. Only then did they climb through the fence onto the mud covered hill side.

When it was dry it was easy to play games among the deep ruts and piles of earth cut and spread over the slope by heavy machinery.

They created dozens of miniature roadways and bridges for their toy cars and lorries or had a great time imagining themselves winning the war against the Germans or Sioux nation.

When it was raining or had been wet, the place was a bog. A sea of clinging mud. Shoes were sucked off their feet if they trod in the wrong places but in general they usually managed to go sneak home quietly and clean up before their parents found out.

It didn't take the construction crews long before the buildings started to take on the shape of the two tier school. Every day when they returned from Parkhouse it seemed to have grown another few feet. All kinds of machinery and equipment for digging, dredging and mixing was unloaded all day long, much to their entertainment.

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One Saturday a barely moving police escort snailed into view out of the drizzle from the direction of Bishopbriggs, it's blue lights strobing the afternoon dusk. Fifty yards behind, a giant low loader filled the width of Ashford dual carriageway, echoing magnificent power as it rumbled and shook the ground while it crept towards them. They grabbed their bikes and took off along the pavement to get a closer look.

An hour later two giant dark green painted boilers and tons of metal pipes got cranes to unload them into the deep walled pit facing the back of Sander's house.

Jimmy reckoned this was to be the main boiler house. By the time the green monsters were unloaded and blocked in position, it was dark and the pals watched the worker's light up the entire building site with arcs. Next day concrete roof panels were swung over the pit walls and incarceration for the boilers was complete. Jimmy was right. It was the school boiler room and it suddenly hit them the deep ditches were tunnels running the heating pipes along beneath the class rooms.

The following Saturday after lunch, Sander, Jimmy and the others met up with Plum and broke into the site again, managing to avoid Sabre and his master Gurgunza, who usually drank too much whisky on a Friday night. They reckoned he was probably late starting his binge because of the work he was involved in the night before. They gave him his nickname after the mad professor from Capt. Marvel comics.

Small, weedy, protruding yellow cheekbones and a pair of glasses made from the bottom of milk bottles He had a horrible habit of pushing his loose frames up off his nose with one finger while giving anyone within reach a snatch view of his disgusting ochre piano teeth.

The gang almost called him 'Banzai', after the Chinese cook from their Blackhawk comics, but reckoned it would have been too much of an insult to their favourites' chef.

For once they managed to avoid Gargunza's prying eyes and razor temper by playing quietly in the deep walled trench that surrounded the boiler room out of sight of his hut.

They climbed up, and into the half completed building, testing their Tarzan skills against each other, imitating Johnny Weismuller in the serial they watched thatmorning. Filched ropes were knotted and

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secured over roof beams in the timber skeleton on the first floor and they climbed and swung their way around the imaginary jungle, oblivious of what went on outside their world.

Games metamorphosed and transformed to suit the mood and soon they split into two fighting units of G.I.'s and Geuks.

Glassless window and door frames led to twenty feet of fresh air and the hard ground below. Using ropes and scaffoldings they agreed the room above should be used as a safe sanctuary H.Q. for all. A knotted rope to ascend; a cold length of builders pipe to slide down fireman fashion.

Tarzan changed to Korean battlefields to fire-fighters at a blaze in New York back to Korea with mortar and grenade skirmishes.

After a while Jimmy called a truce, informed everyone he was going for a crap and left the theatre of war. He reappeared out of the bushes up on the railway embankment a few minutes later and rejoined them.

“I've thought of a better game,” he announced slyly, “-a much, much better game than this.”

Denny moaned disapproval and Sander spoke up bravely.

“-that's just because we're winning this time,” he shouted, “-every time you're getting beaten at anything you always change the gam.” A finger pointed threateningly at him.

“You!” Jimmy snarled, “-you just shut your mouth!” Jimmy's glare made Sander drop his eyes and go mute. Pecking order restored the leader continued, “We're going to have a test of balance.”

Denny and Plum stood down from the face-off, dropped handfuls of grassy earth they'd gathered for ammo' and sat down, eager to find out what Jimmy had in mind.

“I'm getting fed up with this game anyway,” Plum said, “-look at the state of me.” He pointed to his dusty cement covered trousers and the splats of drying earth flecked over his almost new jersey, “my mother will kill me!”

His big hands dusted off his crossed legs and he leaned forward ruffling soil and earth out his hair, “-what you got in mind, pal.” he said.

Jimmy got to his feet and motioned them to follow. Plum, Sander, Denny and Brian clambered after him while he crawled and groped

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his way through the maze of low joists into the topmost completed part of the building.

Their leader held a cautionary hand up, stopping his friends a few feet behind him. He gestured towards the Marshy pond and they saw the site watchman and his dark predator, quarter a mile away, chasing some kids back to the fence, his walking stick raised high above his head, imperilling the invaders.

Jimmy suddenly jumped to a bare window space and began shouting and gesticulating like a mad man, thumbs at temples, his fingers fanning like a demented pianist.

“Yahoo-Hoo! Ya bandit!” he screamed for all his worth.

A split second before Gurgunza completed his turn he crashed to the floor out of sight, laughing hysterically.

The others peered between the wall spaces and saw the 'watchie' spin at the sound, stare at the school in disbelief for a few seconds, remove his cap and scratch his head. He shrugged his shoulders and continued with his rounds.

“Next!” Jimmy shouted.

Plum laughed in agreement, seeing the joke and took his turn.

Each outburst and dance became more and more ridiculous. Each time Gurgunza spun quicker but never saw them. When Brian announced they'd better stop before he screwed himself into the ground they fell to the floor boards, choking for air, trying to breathe through the dust unsettled by their laughter. Denny was the most affected by the fine powdered cement and sawdust and had to remove his inhaler from around his waist, to give himself a much needed jolt.

One time Gargunza's dog was half way across the waste ground between them and they kept deathly still until Gurgunza called it back. The watchman had better things to do on a Saturday afternoon than play hide and seek with some stupid children. It was time for the football results, his tea and maybe a wee whisky later on.

With the first dare of Jimmy's test successfully completed they looked to him for further instructions.

“Next is-,” he thought for a few seconds then snapped his fingers.

“Got it!” he shouted, “-next is Jimmy's Superjumps.”

He took to his heels and the others played follow the leader. After three or four easy leaps they breathlessly slid to a halt on a dry

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concrete floor before a wide chasm. Twenty feet across, it fell away into opaque darkness towards the basement below.

Despite the others protests Plum and Jimmy located a builder's walk plank across the gap. The crevasse looked even more dangerous as the board seemed to stretch away into the distance. They made sure it fitted evenly on either side and was flat on the concrete floor.

Jimmy leered at everyone triumphantly while he watched their unsure reaction.

“The final test!” he displayed his hands at the obstacle, “Ta-raa!”

Sander shook his head slowly, “-Jimmy, this is daft.”

“Aye, Jimmy,” Plum agreed, “-it's a bit too dangerous.”

Plum and the others knew Sander didn't like heights of any description. Denny once said he was the only person he knew who got dizzy standing on the edge of the pavement. Brian was the first up for it. Trying to catch Jimmy out. The leader failed to take the bait.

“Okay, OKAY!-” Jimmy huffed slightly and walked back and forth across the floor, shaking his head with disappointment, “-if I do it first, will you all take a go?” He scanned them seriously. The boys looked around the room, trying to gauge any reaction in each others expressions. Testing. Probing for clues of what to do.

Plum spoke first again.

“-are you sure you want to do this pal?” he asked quietly.

Jimmy angrily shrugged Plum's hand off his shoulder.

“Why-?” He stared his second in command straight in the face, “are you chicken or something?”

Plum's face turned scarlet, his voice thick with insult.

“Chicken? Eh?” he pulled Jimmy roughly away from the edge, “…I'll show you whose chicken, ya prodi basket!”

The big boy took aim and fled across the plank, bouncing each long stride in time with it's trampoline twang. It sagged dangerously when he reached the middle but held fast until he got to the other side.

Jimmy waited until the wood settled and followed. Plum was the heaviest but the leader made it crack noisily as he shot across. Sander heard Brian take a deep breath and he shot across too. It looked as if he had his eyes shut most of the time.

“C'mon Denny! C'mon Sander!”

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The others taunted the young boys of the gang. Denny glanced at his best friend then at the long board.

“Awe Gosh!” he said under his breath, “-what's to lose?”

Sander stood by himself waiting for the plank to settle. He was having a bad time finding the resources of bravery in himself and didn't see Plum sneak away.

Jimmy shouted from the far side again.

“Hey! Sander! Look!”

He bent over and hefted a piece of precast the size of his fist and dangled it over the edge, “-it's not very deep.”

When his pal let go of the stone Sander watched it cut through the dusty air and disappear into the abyss. Mentally counting the seconds before impact he felt giant butterflies tremble way down deep in his stomach. When the splash came nearly three long counts after the brick fell away from Jimmy's hand, it made his knees shake with a life of their own.

“Two hundred feet deep!” he gasped in disbelief, “-can't be!

That's impossible!” The others watched from across the way as he struggled with the arithmetic.

“-can't be that deep,” he said shakily.

“C'mon Sander. We're waiting.” Jimmy's impatient voice sang again.

'Does he never shut up?' Sander thought, '-I have to find a way to save face.'

Lifting a hand to his cheek he rubbed hard at his right eye.

Feigning dirt. “Aye, -in a minute.” he shouted at them, “-I've got something in my eye.”

“Stop kidding on Sander,” Jimmy replied, “yer chicken, aren't you?”

“I'm no kidding-” Sander was still rubbing away at self inflicted tears when Jimmy picked up another brick-sized piece of concrete. He threw it with some effort across the gap and it exploded in pieces at Sander's feet. Denny was getting worried.

“C'mon S-Sander,” he pleaded, “-if I c-can do it anybody c-can.”

“Just don't look down,” Brian encouraged.

“Aye-,” Jimmy finished the sentence for him, “-don't look down or you'll fall to the centre of the earth.”

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He laughed gleefully at his cruel joke and wondered to himself if he wanted to have such a coward in his gang.

“You can do it Sander.” Plum returned unnoticed.

The last to cross over slid his left foot onto the three inch board. It rocked slightly beneath him.

“-for God’s's sake Sander!” Plum again, “-get a bloody move on.

We want to get to the next level before it gets dark.” Sander took a couple of deep breaths, trying to reinforce his depleted adrenaline and spoke out. As much for his own confidence as to reassure his socalled friends he could do it.

He held fast to the rough brick wall behind him and swayed back and forth on his left foot, getting ready to run.

“Shhhh!” Jimmy signalled them to be quiet. Sander froze.

“What is it?” Brian whispered, “-what's going on?”

Jimmy scowled at him and put a finger to his lips. They listened for a minute but heard nothing except the slight howl of wind through the wide rafters above. Jimmy shrugged and nodded his head.

“Nothing there,” he said quietly, “-sure I heard something though-” Before he could discuss it any more he was interrupted.

“Right,” shouted Sander, “-I'm ready.”

It was a real test of growing up and Sander had to fight hard with himself to stop from turning around and running away from his friends, tail between his legs. But that would have meant disgrace and he had to show them he was as brave as they were. He did it.

He felt as tall as a house when their cheers filled his ears. And he didn't mind the hard back slapping from Plum either but the joke was on him.

“-and I caught Jimmy's stone on the floor below,” Plum laughed as he explained, “-counted to three I did, and splashed a bigger one in a puddle outside.”

“Aye,” confirmed Jimmy, “-we knew you'd been reading the science section of my Eagle comics, so we kidded you on,” Sander shook his head in disagreement, smiling knowingly, “-I knew it couldn't be that deep pal-,” he replied confidently, trying to bluff it out.

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“Aye, So you did-,” Jimmy replied brusquely. He grunted disbelief and laughed again, “-but you should have seen the look on you face though. It - was - a - bloody - picture!”

The gang argued happily out the building at dusk into a thunderstorm. Making their way quickly in the torrential rain they ran to the boiler room path that led to their escape through the fence at the rear of Sander's garden.

Each of them in turn grabbed at one of the newly planted fence posts, commenting on the bad workmanship as it wobbled under their assault. Clambering down the framework of the recent cement wall they dropped over the steep sides in semi-darkness into the two metre trench as it began to hail.

While they waited for the stinging shower to pass the good mood continued and they discussed the memory of Gurgunza's comic antics. Denny picked up a stick and began poking and prodding at cement leaks that oozed between the timber slats onto the hardened base where they sheltered.

He hesitated and watched mesmerised as a wispy imperceptible white mist wafted lazily along the floor of the roofless tunnel towards them.

“What's that?” he pointed the stick in it's direction. It was then he noticed for the first time a feint pungent odour as the mist grew long searching fingers like live flames and began to climb up the side of the construction. Denny shouted again but his friends couldn't hear him. The bullet crashing of hail and splashing mini-waterfalls obliterated all sound.

Sander saw Denny open his mouth, pointing shakily up the trench when he shouted again. His eyes followed Denny's guide along the concrete base and he froze as a pale brown smoke grew steadily out of nowhere. He dreamily rubbed at his nose. It felt tight, as if somebody had punched him hard.

Everything slowed while long drawn out seconds passed between heartbeats loud in his chest. Then he saw Jimmy talking to Brian and Plum.

Brian was shaking his head sluggishly like a laughing openmouthed man at a carnival and he pointed, mockingly, at Plum.

Pinching his nose between his thumb and finger he laughed a long slow motion announcement of disgust.

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Jimmy's face broke unhurriedly into a similar declaration and he ploddingly punched Plum lightly on the upper arm. Sander couldn't take his gaze off them. Plum's reaction was painfully slow and still he watched, frozen in his day dream, as Plum dreamily lifted his right leg, feigned flatulence and mouthed silent words that Sander managed to piece together to mean that he certainly did fart that time.

Meanwhile Denny had unhooked his puffer again and was busy pulling long slow breaths on the mouthpiece.

Sander's fly on the wall vision of life crawling past was interrupted by a feeling that the high wall opposite was bulging outwards towards him.

He reached out and touched Denny who also took ages to react.

Sander watched him move his head towards him and saw that he was soaked to the skin. Flat blonde hair plastered darkly on his forehead while rain coursed down his face. As Denny faced him Sander was shocked to see an expression of terror in his friend's eyes as Denny's neck twisted around it's limit. Watching spellbound, a laugh grew in his head as Denny's violent “No!� threw raindrops of spray, like a dog shaking off water, outward into beautiful coils of coloured fluid.

Something made him turn his attention back to Jimmy and Plum.

They seemed to be yelling in terror and pointing across the gap as they fled slowly up the tunnel into the mist, a frame at a time.

An overpowering weight slapped Sander down hard and he fell helpless as a ton of mud and cement splattered around him. Forced to his hands and knees he tried to resist the weight but felt cold stiff liquid pour over his neck and back and slide under his chest.

When he tried to open his eyes they were forced shut immediately as the stinging pain of lime made him scream. Muddy cement forced into his mouth and he couldn't get air. The only sound he could hear was his heart beat getting louder in his head.

He didn't know how long it was he tried to fight the urge to breathe because all his efforts concentrated on the pain in his eyes and lungs.

Sander felt dull solid blows over his back and lower body and watched in growing terror as Skinny Malingky grew in front of him.

Pressure in his nose exploded into the back of his throat and the blood back up, having nowhere to go, making him cough into his ears. His eardrums popped and he knew he was drowning in his own

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blood and was crying for his mother when a fully formed Skinny stood over him, laughing and clapping his hands for more.

He had a terrible pain in his scalp and felt wet slimy fingers grasp him in a vice grip around his throat. It would have made him scream if he could have. Instead he kicked out in a frenzy as hard as he could while Plum and Jimmy pulled him from the tomb of mud and cement by his hair.

More fingers were stuck in his mouth and up his bloody nose, cleaning, digging at him. Hurting him. They dragged him over to a small cascading waterfall of rainwater and held him under it until the shock of the icy water brought him back to them. A human soup of warm mud, cement and blood sprayed over his friends and he heard them laugh and backslap each other with relief. He vaguely remembered being dropped a few times on his head as the boys carried him across the rest of the muddy field towards his home.

Skinny evaporated angrily before him and retreated back to the lair in sander’s mind. That was the first time the thing of is nightmares tried to take him and from then on he knew he would have to be on his guard.

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CHAPTER 7 Robert's Smith's family moved to Milton a week or so before the Thomson's rear garden grew grass. The houses at the far end of the HarmatrayStreet were recently completed but the roads were still unsurfaced earth.

Robert's old man had a secure white collar job at Abbotsinch airport and, compared with the other fathers in the gang, who mostly worked in steel factories and engineering companies as labourers, he was very well paid.

Mr. Smith was a red faced, red haired tower of a man at six foot six inches and close on seventeen stone and he smiled and joked all the time and was obviously so happy with his lot it took some of the dreich neighbours a long time to get used to his manner. As well as being the eternal optimist he was loud and he was noisy but he was a gem of a man that never ignored any of his son's friends when they called and went out of his way to be interested in what they were up to.

Most of his neighbours had moved from tenement slum backgrounds and although this didn't directly effect their positive Glasgow character, the incessant pounding they're pragmatism took from the Depression of the Twenties, the terror of the second World War and mass unemployment in between made them seem grey, cautious and unhappy.

Robert's father was always busy doing something around his garden, whether digging in new plants or planting vegetables and he had the best stocked plot in the area for miles around within a few months of moving in. His favourite pastime was sitting in the sheltered doorway of his garden shed at the end of an evening, watching the sun go down behind Archerhill bridge while sipping a well earned beer.

Big Davy Smith welcomed everybody as if they were a long lost brother or friend and his eldest son was the same. Davy went through the deserts of Africa from 1942 until demob in 1946, appreciated being alive and showed it. He relayed stirring tales to the boys about the war and strange aircraft that came from all over the world just to land and re-fuel at 'his' airport.

They were one of the first families in the street to have a car, a beautiful little brown Austin Ten and the very first to have the latest black and white television cabinet, with an unheard of sixteen inch screen. Knuckle marks were worn on the green paint of Robert's

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kitchen door from his open invitations to new pals to see Crackerjack or some other marvel of the cathode tube after school. The boys weren't allowed to enter by the front door. It was entirely reserved for her toffs by Mrs. Smith. She was a wee bit of a snob and the boys knew it but she'd had her nose put out of joint because her husband had accepted demotion to a less important job and her life of dinner parties in the more up-market King's Park area of Glasgow came to a screeching halt when the family had to sell up their semi in the south of the city and move into a council house.

Because of his father's brilliant attitude and of course the T.V., Robert was very popular with the gang and was accepted by all even though he spoke differently from the rest of them.

The only aberration during the months of delight watching Muffin the Mule and the rest of children's television was the day four or five families gathered around the T.V. to watch Princess Elizabeth get crowned Queen. The gang were bored out their brains, forced dressed in their best clothes and made sit still and quiet for hours of boring adult television. Force fed with china cups of tea that tasted like rusty water and tiny crustless sandwiches added to their misery.

After the lump of priceless jewellery had been located on the lady's head the adults in the room cheered and shouted their loyalty.

In the mid of an atmosphere of conjured patriotism Mrs. Smith presented each of the children with a Royal Crested half pint tumbler, filled with sweets, an orange and a shiny new half crown, bearing the new Queen's head. The side of the glass proudly boasted a labelled picture of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip on the side. Only then were they were then allowed to leave.

Amid threatening looks from their mothers, Sander, Jimmy, Plum, Denny and Robert tumbled out into the afternoon sun. Plum's and Robert's sisters stayed behind to soak up the matronly culture.

“You lot get yourselves home and get changed into your play clothes.” Mrs. Duff's glass cracking voice zapped their ears for the hundredth time that afternoon and Sander's mother spoke up in agreement, “Aye Sander, get yourself down the road and get changed.”

“Okay Maw, I'm going, I'm going,” Sander replied, embarrassed at being singled out.

“Ian-,” Mrs. Duff pulled Plum back by the shirt collar before he got to the door, “-remember you promised Jimmy and you would put in a new bit of fuse wire in the junction box so I can use the

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washing machine in the morning?”

“But I want to play with my pals-” “I need it fixed, Ian - today!” she reinforced her rising voice with a glare that would have melted butter. “-your father's coming home on Sunday and I want all his clothes laundered the minute he throws his bag in the door.” She turned and smiled sweetly at the other women, “-kids today,” she tutted and shook her head, “-they've always got something to say, haven't they?”

Plum did as many of the manly jobs around the house that he could manage to give his old man more time with the family when he was on leave from the merchant navy.

He made Ian promise to look after his princess while he was away. George Duff made him understand that the most important thing a man could do for another was to look after his woman.

The boys left the parameters of Robert's house as quickly as they could and got to the safety of the street. As they sauntered along towards Sander's and Plum's homes the main topic of discussion was the dullness of the last three hours. Robert took a bit of good natured ribbing about the teas and sandwiches but even he had to agree that a couple of thick 'sliders' made up with cheese would have been better than his mother's 'poofy' triangular pieces.

Jimmy walked on ahead to get his box of tricks and the rest of them turned their thoughts to what they were going to do with the rest of the day's holiday.

Jimmy ran through the living room and clattered up the stairs to his room two at a time. He loved doing electrical jobs around his pal's houses and wanted to be an electrical technician when he grew up. He climbed the shelves in his bedroom cupboard, pulling himself up the eight feet or so through the small hatch into the dark attic.

The dry smell of dusty fibre glass insulation and cheap pine timbers in his play room never ceased to give him a feeling of quiet security but he still felt the irrepressible urge to switch on his storm lantern as soon as he could. It was the strangest feeling and he'd started to have it quite recently but there was never anyone there when he turned but he still felt as if he was being constantly watched.

The loud click of a big bird's claws walking confidently across the tiles of the roof above, echoed loudly overhead in the tight space and it made him work faster. “Probably a crow or a seagull,” he thought.

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When Jimmy began throwing the tools and things he would need for the washing machine repair into his metal flip-top box he felt a heavy grip on his shoulder. Jumping with fright, he turned quickly in defence, at the same time banging his head hard on a roof beam.

The light went out and he groped blindly around in the darkness for the three-coloured torch he knew was near his oscilloscopes and telephone equipment.

He forgot about the blue Gillette's he had been using earlier to trim wiring and carelessly picked one of them up. The pain didn't come at him right away and he didn't give it a second thought when he dropped the blade and carried on his frantic search for the torch.

A wash of cool liquid seeped into his right eye and he panicked again when he tried to stand. He banged into something and bumped his head a second time, tumbling to the floor in agony.

Something big and smelling heavily of filthy mothballs fell across him and smothered him onto his back. He tried to scream but the weight of the furry creature on his back and shoulders stopped him and he pushed it away in disgusted alarm. Both his head and fingers were covered in a slippy stickiness and he had no idea what it was.

Badly shaken he crawled and fought with all his strength as fast as he could to get away from the thing, kicking out his legs rapidly in panic to get to the safety of the faint light seeping up through the attic hatchway and saw he'd kicked out the wire from the lantern switch.

“How did that happen?” he thought. “-I just replaced the old unit with a new one the other night. There's no way it could have been knocked out by accident.”

His finger found and tried the light switch and he yelled out when the severed nerve ends in his fingers screamed back in protest.

“Stupid bloody woman,” he hissed. He put his other hand to his forehead and it returned with more blood.

“I hate this damn place-” he raged, “I'll bloody kill her, her and her bloody washing' machine-.” Jimmy lashed out at his equipment in the cramped space and kicked in a frenzy until it came crashing down in a hail of sparks and bangs.

“I'll kill her. I'll damn-well get her, I promise I will.” he ranted, “she's broken all my equipment and by God she'll pay for it.”

He lay close to tears against the attic wall and let the cool breeze from the hatch waft over his face, fighting for control of his temper.

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A tiny giggle started way down in his stomach and grew into an eerie uncontrolled belly laugh. The pain in his fingers and head numbed while he sucked greedily at the blood from his injured hand.

Pinholes of light coming through the roof helped his eyes get used to the dark and he saw his mothers worn fur coat lying dead in the corner of the attic, draped crazily around her old tailor's dummy.

Jimmy shook his head at himself and silently cursed his stupid fear.

Crawling to the attic entrance he worked himself with some difficulty down into the hatchway, keeping his hand close to his chest for protection and lowered himself by his bloody elbows until he could safely drop onto the floor of the cupboard and into his bedroom. In daylight he saw three of his fingers were shredded and hurt like hell and ran down the stairs to the bathroom and forced them gingerly under the running cold water tap.

He was still hissing through his teeth with pain when the letter flap rattled on his front door.

“Jim-my. C'mon. What's keeping you?”

A mouth at the opening shouted for him.

Jimmy lifted his face off the vanity mirror and screwed his eyes open. Pale blue eyes with almost no iris's, surrounded by patchy veined blood, stared crazily back at him and he let out an involuntary yelp for his mother.

The letter box rattled again.

“C'mon Jimmy. What's keeping you?” Sander yelled through the door. Another deeper voice Jimmy Sutherland had never heard before laughed away up in the attic of his head, “You'll do all right son. You'll do for what I want done.”

When he got the Yale lock undone with the heels of his hands his pals put a few Elastoplast v-stitches across the cuts and roughly bandaged his three injured fingers together. He told them most of what had happened but omitted the part about his fear or the thing he thought he'd seen in the attic. They didn't need to know about his dreams either.

In spite of his injury Jimmy insisted in going ahead with the repair, as long as someone else agreed to do the work while he instructed.

Plum was nominated because it was his fuse box and they carried his tools over to Plum's house.

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The job done, the washing machine was plugged in and tested. The top loading twin-tub with it's spinner, worked fine and the gang retired out to Plum's front step.

Throbbing in Jimmy's fingers was giving him a lot of pain and the boys kept asking if he was okay. He lost his temper with them a couple of times but apologised because it was really sore and, after all, they were only offering sympathy.

Brian said he'd done something similar at Christmas, but not quite as bad, when he had wrapped his father's new ivory clad cut-throat razor. “-as if you had raging toothache in the tips of your fingers while someone stood on them with steel boots,” he remembered enthusiastically, “-and the pain didn't go away for ages.”

Jimmy looked at him balefully and Plum dug Brian hard in the ribs, “Shut up will you?” Plum hissed, “-it's bad enough without you reminding him about it!”

“Thanks a bunch Brian,” Jimmy sneered, “Your a real pal. I'm sitting here trying to forget this throbbing like a Spitfire's engine at the end of my arm and you keep reminding me,” he said sarcastically, “-thanks a soddin' bunch.”

They sat hushed in their own thoughts and Jimmy was wondering if he should tell them about the hand on his shoulder or the voice he heard in the bathroom, when Robert broke the silence.

“I'm starting with the milk on Monday morning!”

Right out the blue.

Amazed they turned and looked at him. He was grinning broadly at his proud announcement and waited for the questions. He wasn't disappointed.

“Who with?” Plum asked.

“-are you really starting?” Jimmy queried, not sure if they were old enough to work for the milk man.

“There's no way you'd get me up at 4 o'clock in the morning,” Denny sneered, “-Gosh,” he yawned, “-I'm tired just thinking about it.”

“Are they looking for anybody else?” Sander asked hopefully, “-I could really do with an few extra bob…” He continued, “…would you ask for us?”

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Robert thought moodily about it for a few seconds and tutted, “…well-,” he repeated nonchalantly, “…I don't really know. The 'milky' said not to bring anymore than four of my pals with me.”

The gang looked around at each other and nodded in unison.

They decided as one to 'jump' Robert and teach him a lesson. Amid red indian whoops of war and general bedlam they managed to force the oversized boy into Plum's front garden and pin him down on the grass without doing too much damage to Mrs. Duff's flowers.

Jimmy sat watching his gang punish Robert for being a 'tit' and laughed heartily when Sander, astride his big pals arms and chest and leaning over him, made the mistake of actually letting his spittle fall onto Robert's face instead of missing him.

The rest of them jumped off in disgust, ooohing and faking sickness, while big Robert chased Sander around the garden trying to catch him. It was like an elephant chasing a greyhound. No chance.

Robert soon got bored with the hunt and collapsed laughing back onto the step with the rest of his pals. He waved a suspicious Sander the okay to sit down with them again.

The others were eager to find out more about the milk run.

Robert explained it to them as he'd been told.

“The 'milky' says he's got to do a new run because of all the new houses that are being built around Liddesdale Road area and says he'll pay any helpers six half crowns every week for seven days work.”

“Fifteen bob's no very much for a full week,” Denny snorted.

“Well, maybe not - but he says we'll make about twice that on tips when we collect the takings for him on a Friday night.” “£4.10s a week wages?” Sander cried in disbelief.

He worked out the sum quickly on his fingers “-Good God -,” he shouted, much louder than he meant too, “-I could buy myself a brand new bike in three months!”

“-Aye, and with racing droopy's, a drinking bottle and five Chimano gears at that.” agreed Brian.

“I wish I could do it,” Plum said miserably, “-but I've got a paper round.” The idea of a new bike of his own stayed in the front of Sander's mind while he walked briskly down to his house to get changed. He could start a bank account at the TSB in Saracen and save for other things as well, maybe even a record player.

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£4.10s a week was more than his sister got at the clothes factory in bonuses for her piecework shift as a machinist. He'd seen his old man's pay slip once and it was nearly a third of his bare wage. “I'll be rolling in it.” he thought.

His sister's bike was the only girls bike in the gang and he didn't feel right not having a cross-bar; and that Sturmy-Archer gear shift, with it's girls lever to change up and down the gears; you had to free-wheel when you changed and always fell behind the others.

But a racing bike of his own; he had to have that job if it was the last thing he did. Going to Campsie Glen or to Wallace's Well would be an absolute dawdle.

Plum and Jimmy went out in the heat of the afternoon and sat on the pavement by Plum's house waiting for the rest of the gang to reappear with their clothes changed. While they waited they tore up strips of melting tar by the side of the new laid road, rolled them into marble sized balls and fired them at the crows in the trees opposite.

The other's arrived back, one at a time, as quickly as they could and they discussed what they could get up to.

“F-ff-fancy going up the Parkhouse swings?” Denny suggested.

“Naw Denny,” Jimmy replied, shaking his head, “-remember the 'parkies' after us for jetting up the big chute last week. We can't go there.”

“What about Springburn park then?” Sander said, “…we could go and catch sticklebacks.”

Plum said it was kid's stuff to stick a stupid net attached to a bit of bamboo into the pond anymore and he couldn't be bothered with the walk anyway. Other ideas came and were censured. The silence continued while they racked they're brains to find something interesting to do.

“Why don't we go over to the site and watch the navvies building the school.” Jimmy suggested.

“They're not at work today, remember,” Brian said sharply, “They've got the day off for the Coronation.”

“Even better,” replied Jimmy replied with a twinkle, “-we could steal some more wood and things for our hut.”

“We don't want to get old Tam into trouble again with his bosses,” Brian reminded them, “-he's been much better to us than

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that bugger Gurgunza was and gives us some of the things we want off the site as long as it's not too valuable-.”

“Sod old Tam,” Jimmy said, “he's just as bad. And a twisted alcoholic the same as Gurgunza was anyway.” They had just about made up their minds on the school building site when Denny piped up again, “I've been working on a new type of boggie round my back garden.” he announced. The others gathered round while he explained the intricacies of his new design. He'd got the idea at the pictures the other night. One of these Walt Disney shorts that was on before the main event. It had shown a Soapbox Derby somewhere in California where hundreds of kids and grown-ups were racing their home-made wooden and tin vehicles down specially build courses.

The rest of the gang agreed and settled for a look at Denny's new masterpiece. They jumped Jimmy's fence, took the short cut up the side of his house and climbed through the neighbours' back gardens to Denny's.

“Look pretty good to me.” Jimmy said after Denny had dug a tarpaulin wrapped bundle out of his garden shed, “Have you tried any of them yet?”

Sander and the others had been wondering why Denny had been asking them the past couple of days to keep any empty bean or soup tins they could lay their hands on. By the looks of it Denny had dismantled his own super fast 'spin' boggie and sawn through the main chassis and axles to get bits and pieces of it to build three strange looking wheeled scooters.

“All you need is one roller skate, some nails and a piece of wood.”

Denny explained, “-and if you want to travel in comfort-,” he held up his best one and smiled, “-all you have to do is nail a bit of carpet onto it for a seat.”

“Give it to a professional.” exclaimed Jimmy excitedly and grabbed it away from Denny, “I'm goin' to try it out!”

Sore fingers or no sore fingers Jimmy was going to be the first to try it out and his pals didn't argue. Mostly good fun to be with he sometimes took diabolical risks but they generally let him be the first to try something new because, in his loud opinion he always did everything right, unlike his pals who could never do anything right, at least as far as Jimmy was concerned.

As they waited while he sat and tested the theory, Sander remembered one time they'd put a rope swing over the big oak

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opposite Jimmy's house and were enjoying themselves trying to see how many could hang from it when Jimmy came running up after his tea, demanding and explaining he could do it better than any of them.

It was one of the times he was being a big mouth and a prat.

They all grabbed him when he swung back to the top of the fifteen foot hill and tied his feet together over the stick seat and harnessed him to the rope. They made sure his head dangled a few inches of the ground where they standing and tied his arms securely behind his back. He fought like a tiger, twisting and kicking out at them and promised violently about what would happen to them when he got free but they kept on anyway and by the time they were finished he was helplessly tied in knots.

He was still screaming blue murder at them when they let him swing away. He was right of course about the trajectory and although he had plenty of clearance at the top of the hill where they'd jumped on him, when he got to the bottom of the swing they worriedly dived down the grassy slope after him as his face contacted with the grass. It was a mass of cuts and green bruises and blood gushed from his chin, broken nose and stripped eyebrows.

He was not pleased at all and flew into a rage when they got him nearly untied. Fortunately for them he was in such a state he couldn't find the energy to fight them and slinked off to his house for repair.

Mrs. Sutherland appeared at each of their doors that evening when she got in from work, demanded retribution and got it. The entire gang were punished by they're parents and they never saw Jimmy again for a couple of weeks.

Reunion came in the form of Jimmy's tenth birthday party and everybody made sure they got him something good and apologised to him and his mother profusely for what they'd done.

Jimmy looked around for approval with an expression that said 'look at me. I'm the bravest.' Denny shrugged his shoulders and handed his pal the two steering paddles. Jimmy disappeared around the side of his house and onto the pavement ramp at the top of the steepest hill in the area that was Edward St. It wasn't a long street but it was a real test of skill and bravery to go down it on a guided missile without braking.

The gang usually had races on their pram-wheeled bogies down Denny's street and the corner at the bottom, called Fangio's, was a

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treacherous leaning outwards, left hander. Many of them had bad thigh scrapes and bruises to show for their trouble before they mastered it and everybody in the gang had fallen off at least three times. Brian's young brother broke his arm when he came off his brother's stolen racer on the bend recently and his father smashed the offending vehicle up so his youngest son couldn't hurt himself again. The boys soon put it back together again on the QT. and Brian was allowed to keep it in Plum's shed so his parent's wouldn't find out.

In early models most of their soapbox vehicles were made by big brother's or father's, out of broken tricycles and old prams, so they were slow but the gang had worked, designed and tampered with the basics to their own specifications. A liberal coating of Echo margarine or cooking fat on the steel jacketed, ball-bearinged axles made them into flying machines.

Plum's pride and joy was his 'Batcar,' the fastest of the lot and painted red and black to match the markings on their comic hero's supercar. He'd even managed to fit strong wooden paddle brakes for emergency stops.

Sander's had called his 'Bluebird,' after Donald Campbell's rocket car that held the world's land speed record. The curved 'bonnet' covered where he sat inside, and was made from apple barrel struts from the Fruit market where his five uncles worked and gave it the slick nose appearance of an American Super Sabre jet. Jimmy being Jimmy, called his 'Jimmy's Missile.'

Denny designed his after a visit to the Waltzer at the carnival and used a pair of rusty front wheels off his brother's wheelchair instead of fixed wheels, on the back. He painted 'Minedayit's Ain.' on the side because he'd learned to spin it around at will, on the way down the hill. Nobody else could master it so he had it mostly to himself. That suited him fine. He didn't like sharing his toys much anyway.

Jimmy sat atop the hill and his pals waited to see how he would do. For some reason he was taking longer to be his usual buccaneering self.

“What's the matter Jimmy,” Plum teased, “-are you chickening out or something?”

Jimmy ignored the jibe except for raising two un-bandaged fingers and sat staring purposefully at the bottom of the hill. His mind was somewhere else and his face had turned pasty white. He looked as if he was going to throw up.

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“Come on Jimmy, what are you waiting for?” The rest of the gang took Plum's cue and started on him as well. Sander watched Jimmy's attitude change from one of bravado to an 'unsure what he should do next' look.

The boys kept after him and he sat on the vehicle, his feet placed either side, pushing him backward and forward on the skateboard like a lone tobogganer at the top of the Cresta run, trying to make up his mind whether to go or not.

Jimmy was staring intently at the bottom of the street, concentrating, but wasn't seeing further than the front of his eyes.

Plum shouted again at him, “Come on Jimmy. If you're not going to go, give somebody else a shot,” he yelled.

Sander got a slight whiff of Skinny in the air and heard the low rumble of a lorry, far off in the distance. The heavy crash of struggling gears reached his mind as Jimmy was pushed over the edge by his pals and shot away from them down the hill like a bullet.

“No! Jimmy,” Sander didn't know where it came from but he screamed at the top of his voice, “No Jimmy, come back. Don't do it.

It's dangerous!”

The rest of the gang had already started running after their pal like whooping Indians as he picked up speed on the first steep part of the speckled bitumen pavement. Crashing gears whined and the powerful engine growl from a laden 20 ton tipper filled Sander's mind again and he took off after his pal, shouting for him to get off.

Sander didn't know why but he had to stop him before he had a bad accident.

The rest of the gang managed to catch up the hundred yards with Jimmy easily for he hadn't reached the point of no return yet; they ran along side him, taunting him to go faster, hollering and shouting before he reached the steepest part of the hill that snaked round and down to the right and then to the left at Fangio's bend.

Sander caught up with them and shouted at Jimmy, pleading for him to stop. To get off before it was too late.

“There's a big truck coming Jimmy,” he screamed in his ear. “The driver's new to the area and he'll turn it up here, thinking it leads to the school building site.” Jimmy let go of his grip on the right edge of the skateboard and waved him away.

The others yelled at Sander to get out of the way and let Jimmy

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get on with it. They shoved him and threatened him with a 'doing' if he didn't leave their hero alone. He tried explaining to them but they ignored his pleas.

The roar of the skateboard's ball-bearings whined higher as it rumbled into the first bend and Jimmy rocketed through it, completely in control. He let out a loud ya-hoo and a couple of whoops, laughing hard at the exhilaration of the speed and control he had of the machine.

Plum pushed Sander hard out of the way and the smaller boy sprawled hard on to the rough road, tumbling over a few times. He yelled and picked himself up immediately, nearly loosing balance again as he charged after his pal, who was now going as fast as gravity would let him before reaching Fangio's bend. Sander ran through the pain of torn knees and cuts to his hands and arms, managing to catch up with them again. This time he passed his pals with ease while the strong smell of Skinny clogged his nostrils.

He reached Jimmy, dived as hard as he could and grabbed his collar, wrenching with all his strength to the left as a large black shadow crushed over the both of them. Jimmy came flying off the skateboard, yelling with surprise. The two friends tumbled together through the thin privet hedge surrounding Plum's house and into his garden.

Jimmy got to his feet blazing with venom and looking for Sander's blood. How dare that little upstart spoil his chance for glory. He hit Sander a couple of times in spite of his smaller friend's protests and had to be dragged off by Plum and Denny.

The skateboard continued a short way down the hill, straight through the last few feet of Fangio's bend out of control and the squeal of air brakes, along with the juddering of heavy laden tyres on the dry surface, turned the gang's heads quickly in surprise. Giant black tyres crunched the skateboard flat as if it were an egg shell.

Jimmy struggled to get away from the boys who'd pinned him to the lawn and was still trying to get another punch at Sander who was sat on the grass holding his bloodied nose with both hands, tears pouring down his face.

Plum fought through Jimmy's rage, grabbed him by the shirt front and yelled into his face, “Sander saved your life Jimmy,” he spat, “-thank God he pulled you off or you would have been minced meat for sure.”

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Jimmy came out of his temper instantly and tried to explain something about a giant insect he was trying to get away from, but Plum's insistent shouting drowned out anything he had to say.

“D'you hear me Jimmy?” Plum shouted again, shaking him roughly to gain his attention. He grabbed a handful of Jimmy's shirt neck again and pointed at Sander who was still sitting on the grass in shock. Blood oozed from between his fingers and his clothes were torn at the knees and elbows.

“Sander saved your miserable life-.” Plum saw his pals eyes return to the present and spoke quieter, “-you owe him an apology Jimmy.

You shouldn't have climbed all over him.”

Jimmy turned his head away, fell to the grass on his forearms and sobbed through a sheet of tears, “I'm sorry Sander…,” he said, his composure coming back, “…I wish I had known, I didn't mean to punch you.”

He sat up a bit, wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands and turned around to his pal to apologise again.

“Are you okay?” he put a hand on Sander's arm for forgiveness.

Sander hissed through his teeth and shied away, dragged his shirt collar off his shoulder and showed them an angry gravel burn that seeped blood from thousands of pinholes.

“Of course he's not okay, you stupid bugger.” Plum spoke with some laughter in his voice now. “Thank God you're both okay,” he continued, “…c'mon we'd better get him into my house and have my mother take a look at him.” They picked up their younger friend, interleaved their fingers and carried him, chair style, around to Plum's back door. No one thought to ask Sander how he knew the lorry was coming.

When 4.00 am Monday morning came a bruised and stiffly sore Sander struggled briefly between his need for the comfort of a warm bed and getting a new bike and the new bike won. His mother got up with him and made sure he ate a plate of porridge with hot milk and insisted he wore an extra jersey. She argued with him but finally relented about his wellingtons when he insisted he wouldn't be able to run in them.

Robert and Brian were waiting beside the Circus bus stop for him in the wet darkness. Brian told them Jimmy had decided to give it a couple of days before he came on the run as his fingers were still pretty sore from his fight with the razor blades. They sheltered and

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shivered from soaking drizzle in a close-mouth and waited for the arrival of the milk float which silently ghosted out the ground mist about half past the hour.

The rising whine of its electric motor pushed it along at a top speed of about 20 miles an hour and they soon learned to run after it and jump aboard until the next delivery point to save energy.

They had too. The Milky wouldn't wait for them if they were slow putting down the milk so they had to catch up or be left behind. At the end of the first morning Sander and his pals were completely knackered by 8 o'clock and were not looking forward to the next shift. But they made it.

Terraced houses were quite easy to deliver too but by the middle of the week the boys were fighting with each other about who would do them, and who would deliver to the four storey flats that ran up the North side of Liddesdale Road, which was about two and a half miles long.

Brian reluctantly packed it in after a week because his parents said it was interfering with his studies and making him too tired for school. Jimmy started the following Monday bringing the team back up to the number Shuggie needed.

At the end of the first week the company driver, Shuggie Brown, who was no mug, told them he had the most important job of all, driving the float and looking after the delivery book. So he sat on his backside for most of the journey.

He said that in order to be fair he would revise the left/right book at the week-end to make sure everybody got an even chance at the flats.

This all took place in nearly seventy, four levels to a close, buildings. They only made a couple of mistakes each by the end of the first week and Shuggie Brown was quite pleased with their performance.

The best and fastest milk boy in each street section got a reward of a half pint of fresh watery orange juice but it still tasted brilliant.

Any milk they drank for their breathless thirst had to be paid for as did breakage's.

By the end of the first three months Sander, Jimmy and Robert had grown a few inches and were developing leg and arm muscles any marathon runner would be proud off.

Sander salted away most of his wages and tips into a TSB savings account every Saturday morning and bought himself a few small luxuries. His mother borrowed some of his cash hoard during the

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week but she always gave him it back on Friday night when she got her housekeeping from the rest of the family.

Robert bought himself a portable red and cream Dansette record player and a few of the hit parade records. Jimmy spent most of his at the ex-Army & Navy Supply Store in Stockwell Street buying up all the old working telephone, radio and communications equipment he could find and had an impressive collection.

He wanted to wire up the whole street for his pals to be in contact with each other by telephone and gave all the gang an army hand set with instructions on how to use it. He never mentioned the accident in the attic again, nor the cold sweat dreams he was having about Skinny Malingky and for nearly six months, before the crash, the boys lived high on the hog.

The weekend from Thursday, July 30th stuck in Sander's mind for a long time. The white bomb from hell made more of a splash in the Circus shops than it did in the Evening Citizen local rag. But not much more.

Shuggie had disappeared, as had become his habit every morning, into one widow Simpsons house at 7 o'clock for a cup of tea and a biscuit. He always parked the milk float on the steep hill above the Circus shops, well away from his woman's home, took the keys and the boys twiddled their thumbs for thirty minutes till he came back. It was okay when it was dry and sunny but when it was wet and windy, it was miserable.

Once or twice Robert commented about Shuggie's shirt hanging out and that he was doing more with his spoon than stirring his tea with it. He mentioned it as a joke a couple of times but Shuggie told him to mind his own business if he knew what was good for him.

The last week or so towards the end of the month passed slowly for Robert and he was finding it harder and harder to get up in the morning. He'd started giving Shuggie cheek and it was obvious from the development of the relationship it was going to end in tears for somebody.

The boys, especially Robert, had a hankering to have a go at driving the milk float. Sander and Jimmy always managed to kill Robert's appetite with a few threats of what would happen to him if Shuggie found out. Robert standard answer was that what Shuggie didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

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He'd asked the driver a couple of times for lessons but had been rebuffed with, '-It's more than my jobs worth,' or 'you're too young,' and other similar phrases. They were the usual distance through the delivery run when Shuggie parked the float and disappeared across the tree bordered common for 'his cup of tea'. This time he’d forgotten to take the ignition keys.

It was a beautiful calm, sunny morning and there was hardly anyone about. The slow tick of swinging keys teased from the steering column and it was too much for Robert. When Shuggie was safely out of sight he announced he was going to take a shot.

“You canny touch it Robert!” Sander hissed urgently, “Shuggie'll kill you if he finds out.”

“S'okay,” he smiled impishly and jumped into the driver's seat, “I'll just have a wee shot.”

Jimmy said nothing. He’d been wanting to try driving as well and had been watching Shuggie carefully over the last few weeks. If Robert was brave enough not to give a hoot about getting caught, then he was prepared to have a go as well.

The dead weight of nearly 700 full milk bottles were squashing the front tyres heavily against the pavement and it took all of Robert's strength, pulling hard on the steering, to straighten up the wheels.

Gravity made the vehicle crawl forward, imperceptibly at first, while the dormant electric motor whined slowly in protest against it's worn clutch. The slow overtaxed tyres crackled noisily on the rough road and the float inched forward, starting to pick up speed. Robert struggled with the hand brake, got it free and the float accelerated quicker down the 300 yard hill to the junction that led into the Circus.

He concentrated on the road ahead but when he turned on the ignition with his foot flat to the boards the delivery vehicle leapt forward out of control.

He was thrown back into his seat, surprised by the speed and then lost all control when the whiplash caused him to bang his face hard on the steering wheel.

Jimmy and Sander ran after him, whisper shouting as quietly as they could for Robert to stop but he'd lost control.

The lumbering float became a blue and white bullet and by the time it reached the on-ramp to the Circus shops, it was doing forty miles an hour. It shot across the empty road, flew the pavement onto the grass and targeted Knox's butcher shop as if on a revenge

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mission for the cows that gave it it's living. It zipped through a couple of Rhododendron bushes as if they weren't there and burst down onto and across the street, heading for the main precinct. The crash and smash of crates and bottles being thrown out and falling to the ground brought shopkeepers hurrying out into the bright sunshine to see what all the fuss was about.

Before it crashed on to the road and hit the foot high safety kerb stone above the first shops Jimmy and Sander saw a bloody faced Robert jump for his life and roll heavily onto the grass. A couple of bloody vested butcher's assistants, who'd heard the fracas came sauntering casually out of their shop smoking.

The sight of the runaway milk float, charging down on them and showing it's wheels and chassis as if in defiance at being slowed by the high step and clattering its way down twenty concrete steps towards them, milk and glass splashing everywhere, gave them no time to react and they just managed to avoid injury by diving for their lives to either side of the vehicle while it demolished the front of the shop in a thunder of glass and metal.

Sander couldn't believe it.

When the crackle of metal ceased and the dust settled he still stood there, frozen to the spot. Not knowing whether to cry or laugh. Jimmy fell to his knees on the road, laughing out of control and shouting, “-Beauty, -what - a - beauty.” over and over again.

Sander had to admit it was the most spectacular crash he’d ever seen but hadn't a clue what to do except get out of there as fast as he could. He grabbed Jimmy and dragged him to his feet. He was still laughing hysterically and Sander jostled him into the bushes, out of sight of the growing crowd. They made their way along the line of the road, silently crouched over in the tall weeds behind the tree line and came to a small gap in the hedge opposite where Robert was lying crumpled on the grass. He was holding his hands to his blooded face and shaking his head in disbelief at the carnage fifty yards away.

No one had realised yet he was the demon driver and Sander called to him as quietly as he could, “Robert?”

He hissed again, “Robert. Come on back in here. We've got to get away from the Circus before we get caught.” Their pal turned his head very slowly towards their voices, staring at the thick bushes wondering where the sound were coming from. Sander and Jimmy

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reached gingerly into the thorn bushes and shook branches so he could see where they were.

Robert looked at the shaking greenery in stunned recognition and started to crawl shakily on his hands and knees towards his pals but someone saw him move away and raised the alarm.

“That's the lad that jumped off it!” the man shouted in triumph. A shout went up and soon everybody was calling for everybody else to try and catch him. Robert got to his feet and ran in a crazy panicked circle towards his pals in the bushes as fast as he could, still shaking his head to clear it. He slid and fell to the milky grass a couple of times and it looked to Sander as if he had obviously hurt more than his bloodied nose.

“Quick, catch him before he gets away-,” the big red faced butcher roared in vengeance to no one in particular, “-somebody call the police. Just wait till I get my hands on him.” he snarled, “-I'll bloody kill him!”

The two pals faded into the bushes hoping that they'd not been seen and watched as the crowd become an angry mob. Other shopkeepers from the opposite side of the Circus encircled Robert, cutting off any possible avenue of escape.

“What are we going to do?” Sander asked.

Jimmy turned to him. His face was white with fear.

“I don't know what your going to do,” he stuttered, “-but Robert's on his own now; It was him that stole the milky's motor and I'm getting the hell out of here,” he shouted over his shoulder.

Sander took a last look at Robert and saw the mob surround and grab him. They pushed him towards the devastation he'd made of the butcher's shop.

Sander heard him shouting defiance at them, pleading for them to listen to him, “I tried to stop it!” he yelled, “-I tried to stop it!”

A white glistening 150 yard trail of milk and cream led away from the on-ramp of the Circus, straight across the grass and into the shopping precinct. A dozen or so dogs and cats appeared out of nowhere and for a few minutes they forgot any differences they had while they tucked hungrily into a free feast of pies, cakes, rolls, loaves and single and double cream.

One or two unwary shoppers slipped on their backsides on the greasy grass and the crowd grew from houses and shops to nearly a hundred strong. Sander shook his head and let out a big sigh.

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“God only knows what'll happen to him now,” he said loudly to himself and ran up the field in the direction Jimmy had fled. About ten minutes later he let himself into his house with his neck key and heard the worried repeated bell ring of a police car as it echoed from the shops and hoped that Robert was all right.

Later in the morning rumours about the accident spread through Parkhouse playground like wildfire, ranging from disbelief about big Robert Smith getting killed that morning to him saving the life of the butcher and his staff. He had been taken to Lambhill Police station to be interviewed about what had happened then onto Oakbank Hospital The doctor's said he had a very mild concussion, straightened up his nose and put three stitches in his forehead.

Robert was a boy full of surprises.

Just before 9 o'clock he walked into the school playground to a hero's welcome with an oversized bandage plastered across his nose after being dropped off by a police car. The sergeant had shook his hand, ruffled his hair and climbed into the back seat of the vehicle and, to the astonishment of his pals, threw a thumbs up sign as the car drew away.

Sander, Jimmy, Brian and Plum pushed their way through Robert's fans, wanting to know the real story and escorted him away from prying ears.

“What are you doing here?” Jimmy whispered.

“-We thought you'd be in jail or at the very least, grounded!” added Sander. Brian reached an arm up around his friend and led him away to a quiet corner, “-from what I hear you're lucky to be alive,” he said seriously, “-you sure you're okay?”

The four of them gathered in a huddle around their friend but Robert sat down hard on the low wall next to the head master's office and put his face in his hands. He winced at the pain in his head and footered gingerly with the bandage, opened his eyes and raised his eyes to face his friends, “I told them I was catching forty winks on the back, waiting for you two,” he indicated Jimmy and Dander, “…and Shuggie, to come back, when the noise and bumps of the float moving off wakened me up.”

“You what?” Jimmy nearly shouted. Robert gave the rest of them a wry smile and tutted at the interruption, “- I said,” he continued, “I told them when I woke up in the back I realised I was heading for

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the shops and climbed out over the side and jumped into the driver's seat to try and stop it, but banged my head.”

“-and they believe you?” everybody choired at once.

“Nae reason not too!” Robert shrugged his shoulders, smiled and laughed quietly, “-they think I'm a bloody hero, and-,” he added holding his head again, “-Shuggie got done for driving an unsafe vehicle in a built up area. Bad brakes.”

“But what about us-?” Jimmy and Sander dueted.

“I told them you'd left earlier for the paper shop in Liddesdale Rd. for sweets for me 'cause I was tired. When you came back to meet us it was all over so you must've gone home. Told them I couldn't remember you're addresses because I'd only been here a few months and my head hurt.”

He looked at his pals again but they saw his expression was more of relief than victory. He'd been lucky and he knew it.

“And that's it?” Brian's investigative brain was in overdrive.

“Think so-,” Robert said, “-all you two have to say, if anybody asks, is you'd been told by someone at the Circus I'd been taken to hospital.” The gang fell silent and wandered towards the sound of the morning bell that summoned them to class. Robert went home after an hour because he felt sick and the boys never saw him again until the following Saturday.

The first phase of their new Primary school was being opened in a few months and the bulldozed land and building site gave them the ideal place to lose themselves. The 'Marshy' pond was much bigger before the school started going up but the builders and landscapers had only filled in about half of it and the boys could still fish for frogs and tadpoles or try their hand at rafting.

A square mile of paradise, it was hemmed in at the East by the Aberdeen to Glasgow railway line and the 'Seven Bridges'. To the South of 'their mile' was the new school and behind it was the ever present goods rail line for the North of Glasgow which led to the Dummy Railway about two miles in the West. To the North lay the rest of the housing scheme, separated from paradise by a snaking, heavily tree lined ring road and a chain link fence. Early morning on Saturdays was 'a run around the table for breakfast and a kick at the cat' before delving into another adventure. They hadn't seen their pal for over a week. He wasn't at school. Probably his cut head.

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Robert actually enjoyed the new school for some unknown reason and had mumbled in passing once that if he got a good 'qually' pass mark next year, his old man was going to buy him the latest racing bike. His pals decided he maybe got himself another bang on the head at sometime and would be okay in a few days. The gang walked along Harmetray Street toward Robert's house, discussing what they were going to do at the pond that day.

Maybe Robert had been grounded again for something. Or maybe he was still sick. They walked as they talked and gradually became aware of a funny odour in the air as they approached his gate. Sander thought it was very like the smell at the boulder excavation.

The others decided it was gas. They picked up speed and burst through the wrought-iron gate at the run. Definitely gas. The whole place was stinking with it. “What do we do?” Jimmy asked. A radio was playing somewhere in the house. The Everley Brothers singing, “-don't want your lu-u-u-u-u-uvin', any more-.” Cathy's Clown.

Brian, “-we'll batter on the door?” “…don't want your ki-i-i-i-i-ises, that's for sure-.”

Stew looked at him, afraid of getting into trouble, “Are you sure the stinks coming from Robert's house?”

“I die each time-” Plum, “Batter the door in!”

“- I hear this sound-” 'Wha---?”

“There he go-oe-oe-oe-oes, that's Cathy's Clown.”

“Batter the door in!” The intensity of Plum's voice conveyed to them that he meant it.

“We can't just smash in Mr. Smith's door,” Denny whined, “He'll kill us and then our parents will kill us again.” It was the first time Denny had said anything. He normally wasn't fully awake at the weekends until around lunch time.

“How come nobody else has caught the smell?” Sander said.

“What time is it?” Jimmy asked. Sander looked at his Hopalong Cassidy watch he'd been given for his birthday. “Just after 8.00 am.” he replied.

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“Even the postman's not been yet. It's still early. Looks like there's been nobody about since last night.” Jimmy walked towards the path around the side of the building, “Let's go round the back.” The boys were starting to feel a bit funny and light-headed as they ran to the back door. Jimmy grabbed the back door handle. It opened easily.

“Robert?” Then louder, “Robert?”

Not a sound but the radio talking to the quiet house. The Everley Brother's finished. The boys moved slowly and cautiously into the kitchen. Somebody else started singing; sounded like Frank Sinatra.

The odour started to dreamily overpower them and they began to choke and cough together. Sander was still thinking of the boulder and Skinny Malingky. Plum bellowed.

“Open all the windows, I'll try and find the key for the gas mains.”

He took out a handkerchief and soaked it under the cold water tap. They all did likewise. Denny had to go outside and use his puffer because he could hardly breathe. Bad chest from pneumonia when he was younger. Jimmy, Plum, Stew, Brian and Sander checked the living room together.

Robert's Grandmother was sleeping peacefully in her armchair, book and glasses on her lap. Brian gave her a shake but she wasn't sleeping. She was dead. They stood in fright for a few seconds, staring at her in disbelief at how empty she looked.

Jimmy coughed again and moved first.

All windows in the living room were thrown open and the front door thrown wide to the wall. The boys filed into the hallway as one and set off up the stairs. Some of them held on to each others sleeves and jackets not sure if they were doing the right thing. None of them had never been upstairs in Robert's house before but they assumed it would be the same as their own.

First bedroom, top of the stairs, smallest, probably Robert's. They were scared to open the door but after opening the top hall window, they did. Robert was sleeping in his bed. Sander went over and shook him.

“Robert?” he whispered. Nothing.

Louder this time, “Robert?”

Robert lay faced to the wall. Blood on his bandage had turned almost black and Sander could feel icy coldness through the blankets.

Very cold. Sander turned him over and let out a small yelp. Robert's

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face was pale grey and his lips transparent black. Other than that he looked as if he was sleeping.

Jimmy opened Robert's window and stuck his head out for a gasp of fresh air. The rest of them jostled in the small bedroom and took turns. Plum came padding quietly from the main bedroom, face ashen, “I...I think everybody in the whole house is dead.” he stammered, his eyes glassing over with tears, “-everybody.”

The expression on his face said he wanted out of that house, and fast. Sander was gulping fresh air at the window when he saw the postman cup his hands coming up the street; he was lighting a cigarette. Realisation. Panic.

“Everybody outside,” he yelled at the top of his voice, “-the postman's coming and he's smoking.”

The boys fought each other out the room and crashed headlong down the stairs, deciding simultaneously that nothing they could do was more important than getting to the postman before he got any closer. They did. After a few seconds of doubt he believed they were telling him the truth and started the inevitable course of events these situations take.

When the police and fire brigade arrived the boys were mostly sprawled on the grass verge opposite Robert's house, getting rid of their breakfasts. One of the neighbours brought out some hot sweet tea and a couple of blankets for some of them.

A policeman and fireman confirmed Robert, his Mum and Dad, Grandmother and young sister had all perished. Looked like it happened the night before. Grandma had put her damp nightie over the top of the gas fire to dry and the pilot light had been put out by the drips. She'd fallen dead asleep listening to the radio. The boys didn't cry. They didn't feel anything. Just stunned. At their first death they stood mentally together. Shuffling of feet. Staring at the grass, heads down. Playing with fingers. Wringing hands. Minutes passed.

Denny spoke first.

“I'm g-glad we were the ones to find Robert.”

They all looked at him and then each other. A couple of them opened their mouths to speak but their eyes said they agreed with what Denny had said. They got to their feet quietly and slowly drifted away from death and went home. They didn't realise it at the time but this was what life had in store from them. None of them were allowed to go to the funerals. Children didn't in these days. Anyway,

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they preferred to remember Robert in their minds as they'd known him not as they had found him.

The boys told Tommy Barr and Jacky McDonald the real story when they came back from holiday down the Clyde coast. They were stunned for days like the rest of the gang were.

“This summer will always be remembered-,” Sander said a few weeks later to his pals at their gang meeting, “-and I wish to God that Robert hadn't helped us to start growing up so soon.” The last words on the matter were from the meetings leader, Denny Wilson.

The sombre mood of the time was summed up in what he said. The words spoken were their own personal Amen for Robert Smith. 'Bye Robert pal, you're going to be missed but we hope you can still see us.'

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CHAPTER 8 The builder's worked for two summers and part of the gang's new junior school was open at last. All Sander had to do was more or less fall out of bed straight into the classroom. He'd only one more year of primary to go and then it was off to the big boys world of high school. It took the builders two years to complete Chirnside school but the gang's favourite pond, where pirates and Errol Flynn live, survived.

At weekends and holidays Jimmy, Plum, Brian, Tommy and Sander and a load of other world savers and adventurers borrowed hammers saws, chisels and, nails and any other tools they could lay their hands on and lived in the Marshy. With stacks of discarded wood and empty oil drums left behind from the building site they became professional raft makers when they weren't busy fishing for tadpoles, hunting newts or catching bees.

On the evening of his tenth birthday Sander's elder sister Cathy brought home Freddy the rabbit. He was the best birthday present Sander ever had. Well almost. His black and white sheep dog Lassie had been brought home by Cathy from the Land Army a year ago and was by far his best friend. Lassie was almost an exact replica of the collie from the very first Lassie movie, and just as smart.

Sander didn't know it at the time but his parents had a few rows about whether they could afford to keep and feed Lassie and his pet rabbit. His brother Billy helped him build a hutch for Freddy and it was given a place at the back of the garden. A few weeks later Billy jokingly told him it was a pretty close run thing whether they kept the rabbit and Lassie and got rid of Sander instead.

Anyway, he was sworn by his father, at risk of life and limb, to look after it. Feed it every day, change the straw and clean out it's marble droppings once a week. During this time Billy taught him to 'set' the fire for his family returning from work each day. Rolled up newspaper, wrapped tightly around a hand then tied in solid knots, burned a lot slower when used as a base, enabling the coal to catch.

This was his main chore, along with washing the dishes every morning and laying the table for dinner before he went to school.

The gang started calling him Alexander the Grate. Make a good wife someday, somebody said. For weeks they had quite a few good natured running fights and wrestles about the nickname. It never stuck. Sander used to hate taking out the coal ashes every morning.

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