Billy Boyle Read Online Free PDF Page B

walked along the Thames until I noticed a side road marked Downing Street. Everyone had heard about Number 10 Downing Street, the home of the British prime minister. I turned the corner and all of a sudden there it was, a couple of bobbies and a Royal Marine standing guard. If I’d moved quick enough, I could’ve gone up and knocked. Instead, I turned around and went back the way I had been headed. No sense getting Winston all riled up.
    Getting my bearings in London made me feel less isolated and alone. I had a hard time realizing that I was simply out for a stroll, passing by places I had heard of all my life, that lately had become even more important as symbols of the fight against fascism. I remembered Edward R. Murrow talking about brave Londoners under the Blitz. Now I was one of them. A temporary Londoner, anyway. I couldn’t help getting caught up in all that heroic last-stand stuff, but I wasn’t so sure about the brave part.
    I thought about what Uncle Dan, with a good dose of Irish Republican reality, would have to say about the British Empire and its capital city, London. I walked on, my feet starting to ache and a gritty tiredness creeping up on my eyelids. It was still light out and too early to hit the hay, so I trudged on, wanting to case the layout of the city streets as much as I could.
    I was on Whitehall Street, another famous name symbolizing the British government, a street that Uncle Dan would spit on with joy. Whitehall emptied out into a big square, with a large water fountain in the center and a big, tall column off to the right. Trafalgar Square and the column dedicated to Admiral Nelson. Traffic flowed around the fountain, and young girls, walking arm in arm with guys in uniform from half a dozen countries, craned their necks up and stared. I heard English, French, and other languages I guessed were Polish and Dutch. I heard a Brooklyn accent and a couple of southern drawls, too, but no Boston accents, no one to remind me of home. I put my head down, feeling alone and tired, and turned right, away from the gaiety and this symbol of English world dominance.
    I wandered down a crowded wide street jammed with traffic and pedestrians for a while but took a left into a more interesting little side street, deciding to try to loop around and find my way back to the hotel. Wellington Street—geez, did the English name everything after generals and admirals? Anyway, Wellington Street reminded me a little bit of Boston with its shops and narrow, curved turns. Coming from the direction of the river, the smells and the small streets almost made me nostalgic for my waterfront beat in the North End of Boston. I used to patrol the wharves along Commercial Street, and then turn in on Battery Street to check the shops on Hanover, all the way down to Hay-market and city hall. That was my first assignment as a bluecoat outside of South Boston, and it made me feel like a man of the world.
    I first worked out of Station 12, at the corner of Fourth and K Street in Southie. I could walk to work, and my beat took me along F Street, right past the five-and-ten and Kresge’s, where I used to beg my mom to take me to shop for toys when I was a kid. I’d walk by the big glass windows and practice twirling my baton, like Dad taught me, dreaming of the day I’d be a detective, just like he was. Some days, I didn’t feel that much older than the kid who used to press his face against those store windows and dream of buying one of those six-gun cap pistols with belt and holster, just like Tom Mix. But that was the beginning of the Depression, and those six-guns gathered dust, until one day just before Christmas. They were gone, replaced by a display of matching knickers, mittens, and wool cap. I remember thinking that my folks had to have been the ones who bought them, skipping home through dirty slush, counting the mornings left until Christmas.
    But there was no gunfight at the OK Corral for me that Christmas. I can