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Night of the Mohocks

Back then you used to see Mohocks in the stretch of woodland beside the River Teaver. A lot of them with shaven heads, dog ends stuck in their gobs, their arms bare and brawny and covered with tattoos. They never took much notice of Sticks and me, thank God.

One night we went to meet Jocelyn there and she was about half an hour late. Sticks was getting pretty worried, and then we saw her come running down to meet us. She said there was a crowd of boys after her; she’d gone around with them for about a year before we ever arrived and now they wanted what they had come to regard as their rights.

There was a babble of voices and one or two shrieks of excitement. Down the side of the kind of bowl that we were in, the valley that the estuary came through, was a bunch of fellows leaping through the ferns, laughing and joking and making fuck motions with their hips.

Sticks had a sober expression on his face. As they got closer I recognised one or two prominent Mohocks.

‘We better run for it, Sticks,’ I said.

‘Might be an idea.’

I grabbed Jocelyn’s wrist.

‘We gotta fly!’

I pulled her after me and made for the shady road which led up from the sand pits.

‘It’s no good,’ she said, ‘they’re going to catch us and when they do they’ll be angry with us for running away.’

‘All they’ll see is our steam,’ I replied.

Sticks grabbed her other arm and I found to my relief that we could run quite fast like this.

We cut along the stony roadway until well out of sight, then hid up along an embankment that was overhung by a holly bush tucked under an oak tree. After a minute or so the gang passed underneath us. It didn’t seem as if they were unduly worried whether they caught up with us. One said he was fed up and thought he’d go and get fish and chips and another said a beer would be great.

Five minutes later we foolishly ventured back to the sand pits. Sticks lay down under a broom bush and lit a cigarette. He held out his arms and Jocelyn slunk down beside him. I squatted against a tree.

A little while later I jumped to my feet because there were whispers in the bushes. With a screech the Mohocks bounded into the sand pit, some of them punching triumphantly at the air. Two or three went and stood over Sticks and Jocelyn.

‘Don’t they look lovely,’ said one.

Sticks lifted himself on his elbow and grinned. The guy who had spoken pulled Jocelyn up and held her in his arms. She slipped her arm around his back and smiled shyly. Sticks looked over at me and grinned, sick like. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes. The guys didn’t seem to be hostile, to them it was all just part of the fun of the chase.

One said to Sticks, ‘Got a smoke, mate?’

When Sticks passed a cigarette and lit it, the fellow flopped down beside him, to watch what was happening.

An argument had started among the Mohocks, though a good-natured one. Who was going to start the proceedings? The guy with his arms around Jocelyn said, ‘Whoever’s got more to show!’

Suiting his actions to his words he opened his fly to reveal a full-blown hard-on bulging with blue veins. The others laughed and a couple followed suit. The first guy took her into the bushes: he had satisfied his own judgement at least as to who had priority.

‘What about you?’ said one to me. ‘For all we know you could have twice what he’s got.’

I patted my fly and muttered something about a twisted scrote.

For a while there was a lot of ferrying back and forth as they went to Jocelyn for her favours. I could hear her talking and giggling with them every so often. What hypocrites women can be! And didn’t these Mohocks wonder why she had run away if she was so glad now to embrace them and give them what they wanted?

After a half-dozen had had their turn they asked Sticks if he wanted to be next. I thought for a minute Sticks was going to fly at the bloke who said this, but he looked at him for the longest time and seemed to conclude that the invitation was made in the right spirit.

Sticks got up and ran his thumbs around the inside of his belt as if he was making some kind of a calculation, then he said, ‘No, I need a crap first,’ and wandered off into the bushes.

It was getting dark when Jocelyn came out. Everybody was quieter now, more relaxed -- as after all they had reason to be. She looked back into the bushes -- they’d made a sort of bed out of ferns and leafy branches.

‘What about you, mate, do you want a go with her?’ one of them asked. I bit my lip -- I half wanted to, and Jocelyn smiled. She was a turn-on all right, but I didn’t relish a wet deck.

‘Too wasted,’ I said.

I was glad to get out of that one. Though Sticks had seemed to accept everything that happened that night as unavoidable, if I went with her as well he might take it as the final insult.

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