London Pride Read Free Page A

the Tower and they all went to the school in the Casemates so you could be friends with everyone. It was nice living in the Tower of London, like being in a village only right in the middle of the City. They had their own hospital in the Barracks and their own church on the Green and there were lots of wonderful places to play, out in the Casemates when it was dry, sitting in one of the arrow slit windows when it was wet, on the Green before the visitors arrived and even in the gun park on the Wharf overlooking the River Thames where you could strut about lording it over the visitors like anything because they were never allowed there. You weren’t really supposed to be there either but that made it all the better.
    That afternoon they played in the Casemates, British Bulldog and long rope skipping and ‘What’s the time Mr Wolf?’ until heat and exertion finally slowed them down. Then they paired for gentler games like tops and dabs and hoops, and Peggy and her very best friend Megan found a quiet corner down by the archway that led to the Green where they could chalk out a game of hopscotch.
    The chalking out took longer than the game becauseboth little girls were very particular about it. The squares had to be perfectly straight before they were satisfied with them, so there was much spitting on fingers and rubbing out, and they’d only just hopped the first round when Megan scrambled to her feet and put her grubby hand to her mouth in alarm.
    â€˜Oh lor’!’ she said. ‘Here comes the Bully boys. I’m off out of it.’ And she went at once, trotting through the arch into the Casemates before Peggy had time to pick up the pebble for the next go.
    The Bully boys were Fred and Sam the ten-year-old twins of Sergeant-Major Bullough, and most people ran away from them. They were rather undersize for their age, but what they lacked in inches they more than made up for in aggression. They had rough red hands and big booted feet and the fair hair that could have redeemed their faces with some softness if only it had been allowed to grow was cut back to a mere eighth of an inch of stubble so that their skulls looked misshapen and brutal. They walked like battering rams, bent forward from the waist, fists clenched and bullet heads to the fore, squat faces scowling.
    Just the sight of them made Peggy feel uneasy, but she stood her ground and put on a bold face, because she was seven years old now, wasn’t she, and a soldier’s daughter and born in the Tower, and she had to be brave.
    Even so, Fred, who was the first to reach her, looked horribly fierce. He came straight to the point. ‘Stinko says you’re staying up fer the Keys ternight. Is that right?’
    â€˜Yes,’ she said, standing defensively, her body turned away from him as though they were fencing, and her toes flexed just in case she had to run.
    â€˜Yeh. Stinko said,’ he nodded. ‘That’s all right then.’
    She felt vaguely glad that it was all right, but she remained alert because the words were more ominous than their meaning.
    â€˜Me an’ Sam are going on a ghost hunt after the Keys,’ he said prowling round her so that they were face to face again. ‘You game?’
    â€˜A ghost hunt?’ she said, her heart quaking at the idea.
    â€˜Take you with us if yer like,’ Sam said. ‘Our mum’scleaning the Salt Tower. We got the keys.’ He had such an eager expression on his face, he looked as though he was barking.
    Peggy didn’t want to go on a ghost hunt at all. She knew there were lots of ghosts in the Tower, because everybody who lived there knew that, but until that moment, being a sensible child, she had managed to avoid thinking about them.
    She tried to temporize, using her mother’s formula. ‘Don’t know,’ she said, staring him out. ‘Depends.’
    â€˜What on?’ Sam said.
    She didn’t know the answer to that,