The Restless Sea Page 2

  He is in a putrid darkness. The air is close, the stench makes him gag. He hears the crowd approaching, Stoog still shouting his name. His heart hammers in his chest. The footsteps draw nearer. He presses himself into the inkiest of shadows, the bile filling his mouth as the smell infests his nostrils. The door swings open and a ray of light picks out the pole suspended above the trough of muck. Jack holds his breath and shrinks into a ball. He hears the scuff of boots on the ground, senses the energy of the crowd.

  Then his heart lurches. Something shifts in the gloom. He is not alone.

  His companion moves to block the door, a large, impassable, barrel-chested shape.

  ‘There’s a lad on the run,’ says one of the pursuers. ‘You seen anyone?’

  A low voice growls back: ‘Can’t a man take a shit in peace?’

  Jack’s knees are seizing up, but he does not dare move. The man stands at the door, and the crowd mutters and moves away, the shadows through the slats of the shack darkening and lightening as they go. They drag Stoog with them, still kicking and biting.

  Jack collapses to the filthy floor and retches.

  The crowd has gone, and now the creak and crunch of the cranes fills the air once more, the sound of foremen shouting their orders and the trolleys and trucks rumbling past. The man at the door steps out into the light. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘Let’s be seeing you.’

  Jack has no choice but to follow. Even though the air outside is still fetid with the stink of the river, it is nothing compared to the latrines. And now there is also the faint, sweet scent of cut wood, for Surrey Docks is a timber dock and there are planks piled in every corner, huge logs bumping and rolling against each other in the water, packed on to the narrowboats that wait on the canal, even swinging above their heads.

  Jack eyes the man warily. ‘Why didn’t you turn me in?’ he says.

  The man shrugs. ‘You want to watch yourself with those dockers,’ he says. There is a tear in the arm of his shirt that reveals the striking colours of blue and green tattoo ink on his skin. Great patches of sweat have stained his armpits, and even the creases of his face are ingrained with grime.

  ‘I can handle it,’ says Jack. ‘My dad and my brother both worked the docks.’ His legs have stopped trembling and he pulls himself up straighter, squares his chin.

  ‘And where are they now?’

  ‘Fighting the Jerries.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that.’

  ‘I’d be doing the same if I was old enough.’

  The sailor shakes his head. ‘What are you? Fifteen? Sixteen? Give it a couple of years and you’ll be squeezed into a uniform too; sent off to the knacker’s like those carcasses we bring in to the Royal Docks.’

  ‘I’m no coward.’

  ‘What are you running from, then?’

  Jack looks at his feet. ‘Nothing. A misunderstanding.’ He feels the weight of the bracelet in his pocket and colours.

  The sailor sighs, his cap lifting as he scratches the back of his head. ‘You want to steer clear of a lad like that,’ he says. ‘He’s got a badness about him that ain’t going to lead nowhere good.’

  ‘Does it look like we’re friends?’

  ‘It looks to me like you is on the edge. One push and you’ll end up just the same.’

  ‘I’m different. He doesn’t want me working here, but that’s what I’m doing from now on.’

  ‘I ain’t talking about working here, boy. Just as I ain’t talking about signing up to another man’s war. I’m talking about freedom. Changing your destiny. Choosing your own path. I’m talking about the ships.’

  ‘Ain’t that just swapping one uniform for another?’

  The man roars with laughter, youthful eyes bright beneath his tattered sailor’s cap. ‘I don’t mean the Navy, boy. You want to be a merchant seaman. No one telling you what to do except for your own kind.’

  ‘But I ain’t never even been on a boat.’

  ‘Ent nothin’ to it. Listen.’ The man leans closer. ‘I was like you once, except I had no ma or pa, not a penny to my name. I slept in ditches and drains until I was eight, and then I found myself a berth. Now I’ve sailed to every country you can think of and plenty you can’t. I’ve seen wonders you’d never imagine: beasts of the ocean, castles in the sky, men that breathe fire, women what change shape. I’m free to work when and where I want. Hell, I’ve even got me own stash of gold.’

  And he laughs and his great jaw opens, and Jack can indeed see the yellow metal glittering in the back of his dark mouth.

  Jack shakes his head. ‘There’s my mum, my sister …’

  The man is suddenly serious again, urgent. He thrusts his face right up against Jack’s, and Jack can smell the tobacco on his breath. ‘I can see you’re a brave lad,’ he says, ‘but it takes a proper kind of bravery to turn your life around.’

  Then he puts his head back and laughs again, moving away as he does.

  Jack catches sight of something in the sailor’s hand, winking and blinking in the sunlight. ‘Oy!’ he says, snatching at the bracelet. ‘That’s mine.’

  The sailor holds the jewel out of reach. ‘No wonder you was running,’ he says. ‘It’s a fine piece …’

  Jack blushes, ashamed, but the anger is a stronger emotion, and he lunges again, grabbing the bracelet from the man’s hand and backing away.

  The man grunts, as if satisfying some inner itch. ‘Perhaps it’s too late already,’ he says. ‘You’s in too deep.’

  Jack doesn’t want to listen any more. He has inched far enough, and now he turns and stumbles away from the latrines, slipping back among the dock workers, those men with the same worn and weary expressions as his father. He keeps his head down, cap pulled low, occasionally throwing a glance back over his shoulder, but the gold-toothed sailor has vanished into the maelstrom of the docks.

  A little further on, he finally reaches his destination. Carl nods a curt hello. He is shorter and stockier than Jack, and he keeps his hair shaved close, which makes his neck look thicker and his shoulders broader. ‘What’re you doing here?’ he says.

  ‘Thought I’d come and check we were all right for tomorrow.’

  ‘’Course,’ says Carl. He peers at Jack more closely. ‘But what’re you really doing here?’

  Jack shrugs and tries to look nonchalant. ‘Fancy going to the pictures?’

  But Carl knows him better than that. ‘Whatever you’ve done,’ he says, ‘you better have left it at the gates. My dad’s not going to let us work together if—’

  Jack cuts him off. ‘It was nothing,’ he says. ‘Just Stoog kicking off …’

  ‘I thought you were putting all that behind you?’

  Jack cannot meet his eye. ‘I am. I have …’

  ‘A new start, you said …’

  ‘Just drop it, will you?’

  Carl doesn’t push it. He and Jack have been best friends for as long as they can remember – brought together on the docks, and in the same class since they were sent to primary. The boys watch Mr Mills work for a while. He is a deal porter: unloading and stacking the long planks that arrive on the steamers from overseas and the narrowboats from upcountry. It’s a skill that’s up there with the best on the docks, and means regular employment, a far cry from the casual labour that Jack’s dad had to rely on. But it’s still hard work. Jack can barely lift one plank; Mr Mills carries three or four at a time. He wears a leather cap with a long bit dangling down to protect his shoulders. It is like watching an acrobat, the balancing and judging where best to lay the next plank on the towering pile, the skipping from mound to mound, and all the time the planks on his shoulder tipping up and down while his legs and feet work to keep his body stable.

  When he spots Jack, Mr Mills jumps down from the top of the mountain as sure-footed as a goat, his muscles bulging and flexing with effort. He is breathing heavily, his broad chest expanding and contracting against his braces. His calloused hands are full of splinters. ‘Jack,’ he says, his low voice betraying h
is dislike. The scar on his cheek is a pale, raised streak down his red face; Carl’s family have Jewish blood, and the mark is a souvenir from the fight against the fascists in Cable Street.

  ‘Mr Mills,’ says Jack, nodding back.

  ‘I thought you two was going to work tomorrow?’

  ‘We are. But since he’s here now, can we go to the pictures?’ says Carl.

  Mr Mills rubs his scar and eyes Jack. ‘You’ll have to be up early …’

  ‘We know …’

  ‘I want you back by dark.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Or I’ll have your mother on my case …’

  ‘I’ll be back.’

  Mr Mills gives Jack another narrow look and then rubs Carl’s head, and Carl pushes him away, laughing, then the boys disappear once more into their city.

  Jack settles the cap firmly on his head, pulling it down tight. He creeps out without waking his sister. It is easier now that she sleeps in their mother’s bed. He will pick her up later in the morning, once his mother has been at work for an hour or so. The guilt that plucks at his insides is tinged with worry: Betsy still can’t read properly, and now that the school has relocated to the countryside it looks as if she never will. He knows she will be cross when she wakes – she likes to stick as close to him as his own shadow these days – but the docks are no place for a child.

  Dawn is breaking. The sky is leaden, pressing down on him with a suffocating heaviness. It is cold, and he half jogs down the high street to try to keep warm. Past the air-raid siren. Past the navy blue police box, and the sandbagged shop fronts – the fishmonger, the greengrocer, the hosiery shop, the tobacconist, the pawnbroker. The stillness is broken by an ancient fire engine and a taxi pulling a water pump that trundle past in the opposite direction. Probably a drill. Everything’s a drill these days. Sometimes he wishes the Nazis would come and drop a bloody bomb. That at least might be exciting.

  Jack has been good as his word, working the docks with Carl for the last two weeks, avoiding Stoog and the others. Today the boys are heading to the East and West India docks, Jack’s favourites, where the air smells of spices and oils, of spilt rum and sacks full of tobacco left to mature in the warehouses. Much of the work is still beyond even Carl’s ability – rolling or repairing the heavy barrels, or portering coal and grain – and they stay out of the way of the seasoned gangs with their vicious case hooks, but there is still plenty of work to be found. The boys take what they can get: an hour here or there loading and unloading the smaller carts and trolleys, separating cargo on the floors of the warehouses, jemmying open chests for the customs officials.

  They cross from dock to dock, hitching a lift in a cart or a truck or a barge, or they take the train from the Royal Docks, with its vast refrigeration sheds packed with ghostly pale slabs of meat. There is cheese arriving from Europe, and fabric from India, apples and grapefruit from Australia, Palestine. Persian carpets, and silks from India pass beneath cars and buses dangling from great chains. Passenger liners deposit travellers from New Zealand, the Canaries, South Africa, Brazil. Everything is in multiples: lines of people, crates of food, stacks of timber, barrels of wine – once, even, four elephants for the circus.

  Carl catches up with Jack on the bridge. The sky has lightened to a pale grey, and there is an eerie mist like a sheen on the river. They are dockside before first call-on, down where the cavernous warehouses and towering chimneys loom reddy-orange in the watery light. The familiar thud and crash of boat and barge mingles with the shouts and curses of men. Jack hears the warning to look out as an unsecured load crashes to the ground, sees the glint of metal as another worker digs his sharp case hook into a sack, savours the smell of coffee and cocoa beans on his tongue.

  Today there is a shipment of bananas. Jack watches the green bunches trundle down from the ship’s holds on creaky conveyor belts. A man with a horse and cart waits patiently while the first lot of fruit is loaded on to trolleys for the waiting trains and lorries. Carl and Jack have worked with this man before. Once the bulk of the bananas have gone, they help him place the fruit into wooden crates and pack them around with straw. The conveyor belt creaks and squeaks and groans. Jack glances up to the gunwale of the ship, but the gold-toothed sailor is not there. The sailors looking back at him have skin the colour of the roasted chestnuts that he sometimes buys as a treat for Betsy in the winter, their white teeth flashing like chalk on slate.

  The driver jumps on to the back of the cart and Carl and Jack hand the crates up to him. Jack’s arms ache: bananas are heavier than they look. There are other crates of fruit here already, apples and grapefruit that make the back of the cart smell like sunshine and sugar. Jack’s mouth waters.

  When they have finished, the man hops down and chats to the dockers, while the boys rest their weary arms. The horse seems unfazed by the constant commotion. It stands with its head low, eyes half-closed, ears flicking one way or the other, resting each hind leg in turn. Jack runs his hand along the animal’s flank. It is soft and warm. He leans against it, sucking up the heat through his sleeves. After the hard work, his sweat is starting to cool.

  ‘Make the most of these,’ says one of the dockers to the cart driver, removing his flat cap and scratching his head. ‘Reckon you’ll be lucky to see any more for a while.’

  ‘Problems with supply?’ asks the cart driver.

  The docker shakes his head. ‘Not at the other end. But these poor bastards are having a job getting through.’ He indicates another man, a sailor.

  The sailor nods his head. ‘Sea’s swarming with Nazis,’ he says.

  ‘Going to starve us out?’

  ‘Don’t seem to make a difference what the cargo is. They’ll take a pop at anything. Even passenger ships.’

  The men shake their heads and suck their teeth.

  ‘What if the country runs out of food?’

  ‘That’s never going to happen.’

  ‘Government’s talking about rationing butter and bacon in case we get short.’

  ‘Let’s hope it don’t come to that.’ The sailor shares cigarettes out around the group. They light them, the smoke curling in thin blue lines into the air. The smell reminds Jack of his dad.

  ‘You heading back out there?’

  ‘Got to.’

  ‘Got anything to protect you?’

  ‘’Course not. But I heard we might get a Navy escort.’

  ‘I’ll believe that when I see it.’

  They stand in silence for a bit, pulling on their cigarettes. The tobacco burns and crumbles and turns to ash that flies away, dissolving into nothing.

  Above them, someone starts to rattle the conveyor belt. The sailors are leaning over the edge. One of them whistles, a shrill note that makes the men on the ground look up. ‘That’s us, then.’ The men start to disperse. ‘See you next time.’

  ‘Let’s hope.’

  ‘Good luck.’

  ‘See you.’

  The men tip their hats at each other. The cart driver drops his butt on the ground, grinds it out with his boot. At last he is ready to go. He jumps up on to the driver’s bench and the boys clamber up on the back of the cart. They lurch off, past queues of lorries, their goods covered in canvas, waiting to be sent to all the corners of the world. Past a warehouse full of vast tusks sorted into piles of various sizes. Past men in top hats, stroking their glossy moustaches.

  Jack leans against a bouncing crate. Carl tips his cap to the back of his head and rubs at his short hair. It looks soft, like the fur of the rabbits that hang in rows outside the butchers’ shops.

  Jack swings his legs, enjoying the ride. ‘You ever thought about getting work on a ship?’ he asks.

  ‘Funny you should say that,’ says Carl. ‘My dad’s been on at me to give it a go. Says the docks are a mug’s game. He’s not fifty yet, but his back’s done in and his shoulder’s all but seized up. Sometimes my mum has to help him get out of bed in the morning …’

  ‘What about them Nazis
?’

  ‘If the war lasts, then we’ll all have to face them somewhere, I guess.’

  The cart bounces and bumps as the city unfolds behind them: streets clogged with men and women and horses and carts and bicycles and buses and trucks. The shops are busy now, chalkboards propped up outside, doors swinging open and shut beneath bright hoardings advertising brown ale and Rowntree’s pastilles.

  At Covent Garden, the boys help place the boxes of fruit on to wooden barrows. A man walks past with a dozen wicker baskets stacked on his head, the tower swaying like a huge snake. Broad-bosomed women sit on the kerb, flowers in their hats, deep in conversation. Men pull barrows and crates this way and that. Horses chomp at bags of hay. Vehicles come and go. You’d never believe there was a war on.

  The cart driver presses a ha’penny into Jack’s hand. ‘Thanks, lads. See you again,’ he says.

  Jack pockets the shiny coin, swallowing his disappointment. Three hours of honest work earns less than the brief second it takes to snatch a wallet.

  They drift towards the arched entrance to the market. The air is a pandemonium of people bartering over fruit and vegetables and flowers. Beyond a clump of ragged children, Jack spots a familiar face. Vince.

  Carl puts a restraining hand on his shoulder. ‘Leave it,’ he says. ‘You’re doing good without them.’

  Jack shakes him off, pulling the ha’penny from his pocket and shoving it into Carl’s hand. ‘We can’t split this,’ he says, ‘it’s not enough.’

  ‘You got to stick at it.’

  ‘I’ve just got one more thing to offload.’

  ‘There’s always just one more thing …’ says Carl, but Jack is already making after Vince, who is sliding down a back alley, hugging the wall as if he wants to sink into the brickwork.

  Jack blocks his path. ‘I’ve been looking for you,’ he says.

  ‘Well now you found me,’ says Vince, his eyes glittering like the sewer rat that he is.

  ‘I’ve got a bracelet,’ says Jack.

  ‘I heard you had something.’