The Storytellers One by Roger Mansfield (Schofield & Sims Ltd, Huddersfield 1971)

 

Maybe he wasn’t joking, Ernie thought. Bob was clever with hands and brain, the stop-gap of the shop with micrometer and centre-lathe, a toolmaker who could turn off a candlestick or fag-lighter as soon as look at you. ‘Do you mean it about a .303?’

Bob pulled into a lay-by and got out. ‘Keep clear of the headlights,’ he said, ‘but catch this.’ Ernie caught it, pushed forward the safety catch, the magazine resting in the net of his fingers. ‘God Almighty! Anything up the spout?’

‘I’ve a clip in my pocket. Strictly for rabbits’—Bob smiled, taking it back.

‘A waste,’ Ernie said. ‘The twelve-bore would do. Mixer-matosis has killed ’em all off, anyway.’

They drove on. ‘Had it since I left the army,’ Bob told him. ‘The stores was in a chronic state in Germany at the end of the war. Found myself with two, so kept one. I have a pot-shot with it now and again. I enjoy hunting—for a bit of recreation.’

Ernie laughed, wildly and uncontrolled, jerking excited shouts into the air as if trying to throw something out of his mouth, holding his stomach to stop himself doubling up, wearing down the shock of what a free-lance .303 meant. He put his arm around Bob’s shoulder by way of congratulation: ‘You’d better not let many people know about it, or the coppers’ll get on to you.'

‘Don’t worry. If ever they search, it’s a souvenir. I’d get rid of the bolt, and turn another off on the lathe when I needed it.’ ‘Marvellous,’ Ernie said. ‘A .303! Just the thing to have in case of a revolution. I hope I can get my hands on one when the trouble starts.’

Bob was sardonic: ‘You and your revolution! There wain’t be one in our lifetimes, I can tell you that.’ Ernie had talked revolution to him for months, had argued with fiery puritanical force, guiding Bob’s opinion from voting Labour to a head-nodding acceptance of rough and ready Communism. ‘I can’t see why you think there’ll be a revolution though.’

‘I’ve told you though,' Ernie said loudly. 'There’s got to be something. I feel it. We work in a factory, don’t we? Well, we’re the backbone of the country, but you see, Bob, there’s too many people on our backs. And it’s about time they was slung off. The last strike we had a bloke in a pub said to me: ‘Why are you fellows allus on strike?’ And I said to him: ‘What sort o’ work do you do ?’ And he said: ‘I’m a travelling salesman.’ So I said, ready to smash 'im: 'Well, the reason I come out on strike is because 1 want to get bastards like yo’ off my back.’ That shut ’im up. He just crawled back into his sherry.’

(From 'The Other John Peel' by Alan Sillitoe.)