The Mammoth Book of Hard Bastards (Mammoth Books) by Robin Barratt Page A

“on”.
    We saw there were four of them, muscling together, to storm up the stairs. We needed space quickly, so being the front man, standing two stairs up, I zeroed in on the third guy, back right. Our eyes met and I knew straight away that this was “The Guy”, this was the one that I’d been waiting for since I started this job, the one that was going to do me like a dog’s dinner.
    Well, you’d better go hard, mate. “In, in, in. Attack, attack, attack.”
    I dived off the second step over the front two and grabbed his lapels, managing to pull him out of the doorway into the alley. I got pushed from behind, so while I still had hold of him I did a sacrifice throw, pulling him over the top of me and into the ground next to me. There was a sudden mêlée of legs round us, shouting and cursing, so by the time I sprang up he was up, too.
    I went straight at him with a spinning elbow strike to the head, guaranteed to put his lights out, my favourite technique. (First night I was shown this special technique by Gary, I accidentally KO’d four other students, one after the other, while “light” sparring, ’cause I couldn’t control the spin.)
    BANG. I felt like my elbow had hit a telegraph pole. He just shook his head, backed off and said, “C’mon in here, Sunshine, I’ve got something for you.”
    I saw a quick glint of a knife as he pulled it out of his watchband.
    Looking back, I think if I hadn’t got him with that elbow strike he would never have let me see that knife. A knife-man is a very dangerous person. Forget the movies, usually you won’t even see it before it’s in you. If he’s right-handed the knife hand will now be palm up, close to the body, bottom of the ribs. The left hand will come over the top to hide and shield it. Left elbow points at target. Left hand will quickly sweep away any guard you’ve got up. Knife goes in … bye, bye. It’s quick, sudden and lethal.
    The left hand went over the blade …
     
     
    The 1950s were good in Liverpool, but the 1960s were even better: the “Mersey Sound” music with the Beatles and a host of other groups; the comedians – Jimmy Tarbuck, Ken Dodd and others; the soccer – Liverpool and Everton … It was a great place to be. The clubs were playing Motown and soul from the US, too, brought back by Liverpool sailors.
    By 1962, Ryan had passed the exam to go to a private college, with its own swimming pool and sports field. His mum and dad were real proud of him. I failed the exam, so got to go to the concrete jungle high-school round the corner, no pool or field. The boys and girls went to separate schools next to each other.
    All sorts of ruses were employed to gain access to the girls’ school: bribing teachers, hot-air balloons, tunnels. Many a young man went blind in those tunnels, I can tell you.
    I managed to do quite well in History, Maths and English (tho u woodn’t no it …) and was doing OK in Science until one of my team (I’d never dob a team-mate in, Jimmy Golbourne, if ever you read this) put sulphuric acid in the teacher’s pet fish tank! Goldfish started behaving like piranhas in a feeding frenzy. We managed to save one and it became the school mascot. We called it Moby Dick. Everybody loved it. We gave it fish food, then sandwiches and sausage rolls, but I think it was the curry that killed it.
    Our team all got an “F” for our Science project. We got our own back on the last day of school, though. We super-glued the teacher to his chair and put a dead toad sandwich in his lunch-box. He was a horrible man; I did feel sorry for his fish, though.
     
     
    There was no way I was going to let this guy get within arm’s length of me. Our eyes locked and we both knew this was going to go all the way. I reached with my right and found the comfort of the “nunch”. I pulled them, sprang back and we were “into it”.
    This mongrel has to go. I try a classic “S” strike with the nunchaku. WHOOF – forward swipe catches