We were going to start a second line of tents, but here will be better for you, shielded by the hedge. The wind always comes from over there." He pointed over the hedge. McBride put his rucksack on the ground, reached into it and pulled out his tent. It sprang out of its own accord, causing Donny to hurriedly step back. "Bugger me, its got a life of its own," he muttered. McBride pulled the metal pegs out of his bag.
"Here, I'll get a stone to bang 'em," and he was off, searching the hedgerow.
The lad insisted in knocking in the pegs, whilst McBride threw the rucksack inside the tent, took off his heavy anorak and threw that through the opening as well.
"Come and eat," said Donny." McBride sat down on the grass with the others. Some had canvas chairs, mostly the older people who had badges declaring them members of the Green Party. One elderly lady wore a Friends of the Earth badge. Donny grabbed a couple of aluminium mess tins, and ladled some of the stew into them. It was just like old times for McBride. While they were eating, Donny introduced some of the others, by pointing at them. "This is Fred," pointing at the old man with a beard, "and this is Tony," another youth, but bigger than Donny. At each of them, McBride smiled and said "I'm John."
Whilst the meal was in progress, a truck rumbled along the road, and two guards who were on the gates, shouted loudly for reinforcements. Within seconds people were running for the gates, placards on poles in their hands. The truck, loaded with pipes, which were probably drill casings, was being prevented from turning into the gates only by the two guards. Shortly there were maybe twenty or thirty protesters in the truck's path. The shouting was deafening McBride. This was an impasse. The truck was stuck and the line of protesters just stood looking at the huge bonnet of the truck, it's diesel engine idling. And so it remained for half an hour, until police sirens could be heard in the distance, and growing louder by the minute as two police cars tore down the road and screeched to a halt. Police clad in black overalls and wearing helmets piled out, and charged at the line, swinging truncheons. There was some wrestling from the younger men, but the Green Party members backed down. The police arrested two of the men at random, and led them away to the police vehicles. The lorry revved up and started to move through the gate. It was obviously not going to stop, so the remnants of the crowd backed off to avoid injury. Accompanied with yells and catcalls, the truck moved across the field.
The next morning, extra reinforcements arrived, this time four exceptionally burly men, accompanied by The Big Man. He entered the caravan, and called over the grey beard Green Party man Fred to join him. There was another 'coordinator' Michael, who appeared to live in the caravan, and ran things when the big man wasn't there.
After about half an hour, they all came back out of the caravan, and The Big Man shouted for everyone to gather round. He told the people that they had let two trucks through yesterday, and that just was not good enough. The whole reason they were on the site was to ensure no work was carried out. They must stand up to the police. "Try lying down in the road, then they can't drive through," he advised. He was getting quite worked up about it, and told them that he was recruiting extra people as fast as he could. If they had any friends that they wanted to invite, now was the time to do it.
The Big Man had arrived in a very old Land Rover, and eventually he got in and drove away in a cloud of diesel smoke. He left the four recruits.
Cruise the Storm Page 25
