Free Coronation by Paul Gallico

pennants, Gwenny stared and stared. Her little mouth was open and her pale cheeks flushed. Once she raised her hand tentatively and waved it.
    Below, the others, and among them Granny Bonner, were shouting and cheering and waving just as though they were actually seeing the Queen go by and could be seen by her. Violet Clagg was weeping again, both with emotion and disappointment. Somehow even she had not been able to believe that the day could go so utterly and hopelessly wrong.
    Clagg had made himself into a foundation of steel supporting the two on his shoulders, but his heart was soft with gratitude. A small piece of prayed-for miracle was happening. He had made a mess of things, he, Will Clagg, who too had dreamed of paying homage to the Queen. He had got himself imprisoned like a huge booby behind a wooden wall. But at least one promise had been kept. His daughter was no longer blind.
    From her vantage-point Gwenny turned for a moment and looked down upon her mother, granny and brother. Her eyes were enormous and filled with wonder. The streaks of tears were still on her cheeks, but she no longer wept. Someone called up from below, ‘What’s she like?’
    The child said, ‘I saw her.’
    Another voice said, ‘That’s nice. Tell us about it.’ And someone else laughed.
    ‘She waved to me,’ Gwenny announced. She turned back once more to view the scene and suddenly began to wave her hand wildly, though at what or whom nobody could tell. The cheering was already beginning to spread northwards along the road leading through Hyde Park.
    ‘Hoy!’ the same voice which had enquired before shouted up from below. ‘What’s happening now?’
    Gwenny’s eyes were now even larger with excitement. She called down, ‘There was another one who waved to me, but she was fat and all black like my Topsy.’ Somebody murmured the name of Queen Salote and there was more laughter.
    In the excitement of the moment everyone had forgotten about Johnny Clagg, a small nondescript boy in a too long navy-blue mackintosh (Granny’s idea so that he could grow into it) stained dark with the day’s rain, his soggy school cap perched on the back of his head. There he stood, half-pint size, two eyes, two ears, a nose and mouth atop a soaked, coloured scarf, compelled to watch his younger sister favoured, hoisted to a vantage-point from whence she could see the Queen and everything else that was going on.
    Yet he had hardly noticed Gwenny being lifted up to the top of the barrier, for with the burst of cheering and the rumbling of the golden coach that heralded the approach of the Queen, Johnny Clagg had departed astrally from his envelope and from the side of Granny and his mother. He had melted through the barrier, changed his costume and now, clad in cuirass and helmet with chin-strap, with shining sword at his shoulder, he rode a coal-black steed as Captain Clagg of Her Majesty’s Household Cavalry in command of the troops riding beside and protecting the golden coach.
    Keen eyes alert, all of the senses including the sixth keyed up to the occasion and his responsibilities, Captain Clagg was prepared and ready for any eventuality.
    Hah! What was that? A sudden stir! A movement in the front rank of the crowd at the kerbside! An arm and a hand pointing something that glittered in the sun that had just broken through the clouds, and above it a face with dishevelled hair, wild rolling eyes and a broken, snaggle-toothed grin!
    A maniac! An assassin! The pistol aimed full at the royal pair as they drove by. Faster than lightning was the movement with which brave, vigilant Captain Clagg hurled himself from his horse. A mad howl from the crazed killer, a flash, a report! Slowly Captain Clagg sank to the pavement. The bullet intended for the Queen had lodged in his breast. The maniac was struggling in the hands of the police, but the danger was over. The Queen was saved!
    But Captain Clagg knew that his wound was mortal. Already kind hands had