He woke up, sweating profusely, his heart beating wildly and his mouth dry with fear. He wanted to weep with exhaustion, sorrow and pain; to grieve for what had been and was now lost — for ever? But he held back — he was a man, and men do not cry.

     He felt across the bed to gain comfort from Lorna; his wife’s presence was always reassurance that he was not alone in his living nightmare. But her side of the bed was empty and cold. Of course, she was not there: his nightmares bruised her body just as they bruised his soul. No, how could she sleep with him snorting like a pig, yelling and thrashing about the bed? Not only was he a danger to her, but she also needed her rest — they had to think of the children.

     Yes, think of the children. Tears welled up in his swollen eyes. He brushed them away with the back of his hand; only kids and women cry. He must think it through and make sense of what had happened to him. Yes, work it out, clear the mind. Perhaps if…

     The May Rally had a carnival atmosphere as Pete, with the other Yorkshire miners, some with their wives, paraded around the town with their banners. It was only the early days of the strike, morale was high, and it was a beautiful, sunny day. He, and about a dozen other miners from his colliery, had volunteered to stop overnight in order to picket the local collieries, so they left after the speakers had finished their rallying cries.

Later on, relaxing in the social club where they hoped to drum up support for the strike, they sat horrified as television news pictures revealed details of the ensuing riot that had taken place after they had left the rally. As they were taking their leave to go home to their lodgings, one of the friendly club committee men approached him.

‘Pete, don't go out the front door, the police are waiting outside. Take my advice, and go out of the back door.’

Pete smiled at the absurdity. ‘Are you kidding, Phil? We haven't done anything wrong, so why should we worry about the police?’

‘I'm telling you, Pete: if you go out of the front door, you'll be arrested; we've seen it all happen before to Yorkshire miners. Just take my advice.’

Pete turned to his comrades, and after a brief discussion with them he shook Phil's hand.

‘Tell your members we've appreciated their support, and their welcome, and thanks for the advice, Phil, but we've decided we're not going out the back door like thieves in the night. Goodnight, and let's hope we meet again sometime.’

     He drifted out of the club into the cold night air, relaxed and chatting to his mates. In the light of the street lamps, they stood joking at the bottom of the steps, waiting for the stragglers to catch up. An occasional, good-natured jibe at the police was either ignored or greeted humorously.

‘Where are you from, lads?’ asked a flat-hatted police officer with a short-cropped, bristling moustache. Pete was surprised by his genial attitude.

‘Yorkshire!’ someone shouted exultantly, as he came down the steps.

‘And where are you going now?’

 ‘Home!’ yelled some of the lads.

‘We’ve arranged lodgings for the night,’ Pete interceded, always believing honesty to be the best policy, ‘and that’s where we’re going now.’

‘Well, off you go then’, said the man, whom Pete now reckoned to be an inspector in charge of the situation. ‘Come on, let’s have you on your way.’

Pete waited for a few stragglers, so they wouldn’t get lost or isolated, but eventually the police started herding them away from the club entrance area. They began walking the short distance to the bus stop, the police close on their heels.

‘Look — what are you following us for?’ demanded Paul, Pete knew to be a pleasant-natured chap in his late twenties. ‘We haven’t done anything wrong — why aren’t you out chasing burglars and rapists instead of following us around?’

A tall, set-faced copper pushed him viciously.

‘Go on — keep moving!’

Paul turned to face the policeman, but Pete grabbed hold of his arm.

‘Come on Paul, let’s keep moving. They only need half an excuse to arrest us; don’t give him the satisfaction.’

Some of the lads began moving outwards, only to be pushed back into the fold.

‘Stay together, lads!’ Pete shouted, remembering the scenes he had watched on the television report. ‘There aren’t enough of them to arrest us if we stay together.’

Seeing the inspector pointing him out and, wanting to keep out of trouble, Pete relinquished his role as a self-appointed guardian and walked well forward of the group.

Suddenly, three white Transit vans, headlights glaring, appeared on the scene. As they approached, they slowed down and decanted their contents of bullyboys, equipped ready for action.

Now surrounded by police at the rear and on their flanks, the situation was far more threatening. Pete could feel his guts knotting at the realisation he was likely to be arrested.

The situation became explosive: coppers kicking the heels of the miners in order to trip them up, and goading them in general. There were jeers, shouts of abuse, and swearing — by miners and policemen — until it reached a point where one of the policemen struck a miner heavily in the back of the neck with the flat of his hand. The man turned and drew back his fist.

‘Don’t do it, Colin!’ Pete yelled, but the police were already moving in. He turned and started walking away at a brisk pace.

As he approached the local pub, Andy, a fellow miner, ran by him, slowing down to a brisk walk — there were two foot-patrol officers strolling towards them.

‘Stop that man!’ yelled the inspector, passing Pete in favour of catching his escaping companion, whom Pete believed to be escaping from the mêlée he’d just left.

One of the patrol officers grabbed hold of Andy by the arm, but couldn’t hold him. Within seconds, other policemen joined in the arrest. Watched by the inspector, the four policemen stood around Andy in a circle and started pushing him one to the other, laughing as if it were some kind of joke. Then one of them grabbed him in a headlock and brought him down onto the pavement. The policemen took turns at kicking him, clearly enjoying what they were doing.

Standing with his back to the village pub, horrified by what he was witnessing, Pete was immobile. His natural inclination was to run towards them and try to stop the assault, but these were policemen, not muggers. Up to that moment in time he’d always respected the police uniform, and all that it implied.

He thought of running away, but couldn’t leave the man alone to his fate. He even thought of dialling 999 for the police. Ridiculous — they were the police! It was then that he realised the full horror of his situation: when the police cannot be relied on, there is nobody else to turn to. So all he could do was stand there and watch: at least, he would be a credible witness to the event.

Pete suddenly became aware that he was now the object of the inspector’s attention — he was sending a young PC running in his direction.

‘You’re not going to arrest me, pal!’ muttered Pete, hands out of jacket pockets ready to resist, his eyes glaring at the officer.

The copper suddenly changed direction, running towards where Andy was being assaulted.

As he passed by, something snapped inside Pete; he stepped forward and swung his right fist at him, connecting with the left side of his jaw. What happened next was surreal. The PC recovered his natural momentum, but instead of turning around to inspect the source of the blow to his jaw, he joined in the assault against Andy and began kicking him while he was lying helpless on the floor.

He could see the inspector at the far side of the iron causeway barrier waving his arms like a demented traffic policeman as he directed his men on the battleground. In one group, a miner was taking a swing at a policeman, whilst in another group all the participants were scrumming around on the floor.

Meanwhile, the coppers had finished delivering their punishment to Andy, and Pete saw them handcuff his hands behind his back while he was still on the floor, pick him up by his legs and the crooks of his arms, and carry him away to one of the Transit vans.

Pete stood there wondering what to do next. Should he stay where he was, in the shadows at the side of the pub? Too late, he realised he should have just cut and run for it — the inspector was walking towards him.

‘Right, we’ll have this cunt as well!’

‘I’m coming quietly,’ Pete muttered, holding out his wrists in open surrender.

With a policeman holding his arms stiffly at either side of him, he was lifted up and, with his feet barely touching the ground, was carried in the direction of the parked vans.

‘Give this one the special treatment.’

A shot of fear gripped Pete’s heart as his legs were kicked from under him. A truncheon was drawn across his throat — throttling him — to lift up his head as other coppers hoisted his legs to bear him towards the vans.

Dropped to the ground within the shadows at the rear of a police Transit, he struggled to his hands and knees. But a policeman was now draped over his back, pulling hard on the truncheon across his throat, trying to throttle him into lying prone. But fury now raged within Pete’s heart, giving him strength to rear up, his hands gripping the shank of the truncheon in an attempt to relieve the pressure on his throat.

The bobby was giggling in his ear.

‘The bastard won’t go down — grab his hands!’

Pete continued to struggle, but soon he was outstretched on the ground and tightly handcuffed, his torturer still sitting on his back. He felt the truncheon being drawn horizontally from over the back of his head, and its shank placed beneath his eyebrows and along the bridge of his nose. To his horror, his head and torso were then levered up from the ground by use of the truncheon, so that his body was arched backward, like a bow. Objects — ball pens? — were being pushed into each of his nostrils, stretching them to their limits. In the midst of his pain and humiliation, he had a distinct feeling that he had the face of a pig.  Some kind of plug was then placed up each of his nostrils and poked home. The truncheon was then shuffled to a position under his nose, and his head jerked back again. He tried to grope for the floor with the tips of his fingers in order to relieve the tension on his neck — the pain was incredible — but he couldn’t get any purchase; his arms weren’t long enough.

He went limp, as if his body had realised there was nothing that it could do. It was a weird experience: he somehow became detached from what they were doing, as if their actions had nothing to do with him, but were being perpetrated on someone else.

‘Well, lads, there’s nothing I can do about it — just help yourselves,’ he thought rationally; and yet another part of him was hysterical at the absurdity of his excruciating situation.

He was lying outstretched on the ground, with someone standing on his handcuffed hands, while others were jumping on and off his back. Surely there were two of them? Yes, one in front of the other, jumping on him at the same time. He could feel the blood rushing to his head as though seeking to break out, and air exploding from his lungs until they were completely emptied. When they jumped off, he tried to gasp, stertorously, like a drowning man; but he couldn’t breathe in quickly enough because of the restriction caused by the plugs that had been stuffed up his nose. They jumped on him over and over again, as if his body was being used like a pair of bellows. But he didn’t have the slightest concern about the matter because the pain and humiliation was not happening to him — he, the person he knew as Peter — was somewhere else.

In a dream-like state, from a vantage point beyond himself, he saw the rear view of two policemen, one standing in front of the other, with the one at the back holding on to the sides of the waist of the one in front. While maintaining this position relative to each other, they were jumping on and off his body, which was lying prone on the ground. Then he saw a policeman jumping high into the air and, with great gusto, landing heavily on his back.

While these thought processes were going on, another part of him was experiencing what he was observing — the pain of the policemen’s boots on his back, and the acute discomfort of not being able to take in air quickly enough. It was as if there were two different personalities inside him: one aware of the agony while the other was completely oblivious to it.

Eventually, the jumping ceased and normal consciousness returned. He was now panting quickly and shallowly. The pavement was cold against his right cheek; saliva was dribbling from the corner of his mouth. The torture was over — sweet relief!

But no! His head was being lifted, and a hand placed over his mouth.

Pain shot through him once again as heavy feet landed on his bruised back. He felt one of the plugs blasting out of his nose, but the other plug was lodged at the opening of his right nostril.

‘Come on, lad, blow down your nose!’

Like a child, grateful that his cruel father’s chastisement was over, he dutifully did as the voice told him, and the remaining plug trickled out into the cup of a hand.

His humiliation was complete — it was over at last. His head was turned sideways, and something soft, some kind of cushion, was placed underneath it. He had a brief reminiscence of being tucked in bed when he was a child.

Stabbing pain brought him back to the reality of his situation — they were jumping on his head! Surely one copper was actually trying to stand on it; he could sense him losing his balance as the edge of a boot scraped along the side of his scalp. Then someone rubbed the sole of his boot along the side of his face as a gesture of disgust at who he was.

He felt himself lifted and, like a rag doll, thrown into the back of the Transit. He remained prostrate on the floor until, first one miner, then another, was thrown on top of him. He couldn’t breathe; he was being crushed; he was going to die. There was no sense of detachment now! He panicked, and fear gave him the thrust needed to get out from underneath the bodies.

 He sat on the bench with his head in his hands, wishing he were somewhere else. Shouting and swearing continued outside, and inside the van, but his nightmare was over…

     ‘He hasn’t had enough, this one! Come on, let’s have him outside and give him some more.’ So they dragged a renegade local miner out of the van by his feet, and the doors shut behind him. Somehow, it seemed to Pete that it was all happening to him again, and a great well of anger rose from within. 

‘Nooooooooooooo…’

‘Wake up, Pete! You’re scaring the children.’

Lorna was standing by his bed, looking frightened. ‘You’re wet through with sweat again. You need to see a doctor. You…we…can’t go on like this.’

‘No doctor can cure what happened, Lorna,’ Pete said, looking at his lovely wife through a film of tears. ‘I’m lost; and so full of hatred and bitterness for what those bastards did to me!’