“They’ve downed dad.... And I think they’ve done for him.... They kicked him on the head.... They’re after me now——”
Eddy said, “Stick near me,” and the next moment Sid gave an angry squeal, because someone was twisting his arm back. Eddy turned round and hit a man under the chin, sending him staggering back under the feet of a plunging horse. The sight of the trampling hoofs so near the man’s head turned Eddy sick; he swore and caught at the rein, and dragged the horse sharply sideways. The policeman riding it brought down his truncheon violently on his arm, which dropped nerveless and heavy at his side. Hands caught at his knees from below; he was dragged suddenly to the ground, and saw, looking up, the bleeding face of the man he had knocked down close to his own. The next moment the man was up, trampling him, pushing out of the way of the plunging horse. Eddy struggled to his knees, tried to get up, and could not. He was beaten down by a writhing forest of legs and heavy boots. He gave it up, and fell over on his side into the slimy, trodden mud. Everything hurt desperately—other people’s feet, his own arm, his face, his body. The forest smelt of mud and human clothes, and suddenly became quite dark.
Someone was lifting his head, and trying to make him drink brandy. He opened his eyes and said, moving his cut lips stiffly and painfully, “Their principles are right, but their methods are rotten.” Someone else said, “He’s coming round,” and he came.
He could breathe and see now, for the forest had gone. There were people still, and gas-lamps, and stars, but all remote. There were policemen, and he remembered how they had hurt him. It seemed, indeed, that everyone had hurt him. All their principles were no doubt right; but all their methods were certainly rotten.
“I’m going to get up,” he said, and lay still.
“Where do you live?” asked someone. “Perhaps he’d better be taken to hospital.”
Eddy said, “Oh, no. I live somewhere all right. Besides, I’m not hurt,” but he could not talk well, because his mouth was so swollen. In another moment he remembered where he did live. “22A, Old Compton Street, of course.” That reminded him of Arnold. Things were coming back to him.
“Where’s my friend?” he mumbled. “He was knocked down, too.”
They said, “Don’t you worry about him; he’ll be looked after all right,” and Eddy sat up and said, “I suppose you mean he’s dead,” quietly, and with conviction.
Since that was what they did mean, they hushed him and told him not to worry, and he lay back in the mud and was quiet.