The Man in the Street

by Martin Howe

  “I hate them.”

  A group of fishermen, heading for their boats, noticed the distraught old lady, registered the smirking faces of the marchers, stopped and turned their backs on the column until it had passed. Then one of them ran after the old woman and threw his arm around her.

  “Don’t worry Gracie, they’re all bastards. If any of them turn up round here we’ll sort them out.”

  “Oh Dick, when I think of our Stephen away fighting in North Africa, and I see that lot, it makes me so angry. And they have to bring them here. I don’t know, I really don’t know.”

  She shuffled off shaking her head.

  A squalling flock of seagulls rose into the air as the marchers approached and swooped noisily back and forth above the column. The birds had been feeding on heads and entrails thrown overboard from a trawler, listing awkwardly on the exposed sand of the inner harbour, and barely visible from the dockside. The stench of fish scented the still air and the inane whistling of the hidden fisherman gutting his catch formed a stark discord to the shrill cries of the gulls. This cocktail of smells and sounds was intoxicating and Tony, overcome, thought of walking along the Promenade in Blackpool, hand in hand with Emily and their children. Often they walked as far as Fleetwood to buy fresh fish from the quayside market, then back home, their house only one street over from the beach. To be detained here on an island in the Irish Sea, just across the water from where he’d grown up and still had his home, seemed so ridiculous, it was the only conclusion he could come to, so bloody absurd he could scream. The rising sun was warm on the back of his head, he felt the prickle of perspiration breaking out across his back and the damp chill on his forehead. In his discomfort he irritably discounted any personal responsibility for his predicament and blamed the world around him. Looking up into the pale blue sky he took a deep breath and yelled at the top of his voice, “Fuck you all.”

  Immediately, there was an echo from a young man in blue stained overalls coiling rope ahead of them, “Fuck yourselves, you bastards.”

  Catcalls from the prisoners drowned him out. Eric clapped Tony on the shoulder and smiled, as a soldier pointed his rifle towards Tony and bawled at him.

  “Shut it you, any more of that and you’ll be in trouble.”

  Seeing Eric beside him he said grimly, “I might’ve known, we were warned about you.”

  “Nothing to do with me mate, I’m just minding my own business.”

  “Don’t mate me, it’s Sir to you.”

  “Nothing to do with me, Sir.”

  Turning again to Tony, the private prodded him in the side.

  “Remember, you’ve been warned.”

  The flood tide was running in the inner harbour. A line of small rowing boats roped together in a snaking line along the water’s edge started imperceptibly to rock back and forth as the current began to flow. A black-headed gull that had been perching on the lead boat fluttered several feet into the air at the sudden movement, before settling again, its ruffled feathers catching a breath of wind blowing in from the open sea as it landed. Tony cast a backwards glance at the distant skyline as the column shuffled forward into a narrow cheerless street of terraced houses – Croft’s Circus he noticed – the weather appeared capricious, banks of dark clouds were building, their drifting bulk shading a dark strip of ocean below the horizon, white caps flecked the intervening green vastness. His mood demanded that the elements be kind, but he was fearful and ill-prepared for disappointment. He shuddered as the buildings closed in around him.

  A whistle blew as an ancient steam engine – the name “Pender” resplendent in peeling gold letters on its green liveried boiler – shunted five carriages slowly across an intricate system of points – sparks flying from screeching wheels – into Douglas Station. Smoke and steam poured from its chimneys and billowed above the blackened roof of an imposing red and white signal box, before being wafted inland. Amber overtones tightly enveloped the ornate Victorian red brick railway buildings, as the rising sun bathed the morning in glowing light. Twin towers, four storeys high, framed the low-lying booking hall and loomed over the ramshackle column, casting the detainees in chilly shadow, as they approached the terminus up a slight incline from the quay. They halted in the cobbled station yard, hemmed in by a cordon of soldiers and a camouflaged, armoured vehicle which was parked across the bottom of a flight of steps that led up to two gilt-topped brick turrets which marked the main entrance to the concourse from Peel Road. Nobody was allowed onto the platforms and the porters and ticket collectors had been instructed not to speak to any of the prisoners. A small crowd of onlookers had gathered under the iron and glass canopy of the ticket office and they jeered as the detainees swarmed in front of them. A policeman walked smartly up to the head of the column, saluted and then spoke a few words to the Lieutenant; who returned the salute and ordered the prisoners to march through the waiting room onto the platform.

  There was a hiss of steam and a squeal of brakes as the locomotive edged the carriages into position. A guard waved a red flag and the train clanked to a halt, sending thick grey clouds of choking smoke roiling beneath the shingled roof that covered a section of the platform. The soldiers followed the detainees and lined up along the back wall of the station facing the carriages, the prisoners formed straggling groups in front of them, their baggage strewn at their feet. Tony sat down on his case, reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and took out a battered tobacco tin. Inside was his dwindling supply of tobacco and a couple of cigarettes he had rolled back in Huyton. It was always a major decision when to smoke, but he had been feeling uneasy since his outburst on the quay and he knew it was what he needed to calm his nerves. Placing the cigarette between his lips he compacted the shreds of tobacco with his tongue, tasted the bittersweet flavour and smelt the pungent aroma. Aware that others were watching he took the cigarette from his mouth, held it prominently between nicotine-stained fingers, and said to no one in particular.

  “I know, I know, but God I need it.”

  Ray Ainsley sat down beside him on the case.

  “Don’t we all, move up and let me sit here, so at least I can breathe in the fumes.”

  As Tony lit the cigarette and drew in his first delicious lungful of smoke, the public address system crackled into life then immediately died.

  “I bet it’s that bloody Lieutenant again,” smirked Ray, breathing deeply, “no wonder he’s been sent over here, he’d be useless on a battlefield.” He exhaled slowly and just had time to hoarsely whisper, “Oh my God,” before collapsing in a fit of coughing. Tony, laughing, thumped him hard across the back.

  “Here have a drag on this, it’ll make you feel better.”

  “Attention.”

  Eric, who was sitting on his trunk nearby, leapt to his feet and stood crisply to attention, before saluting smartly in the direction of the ticket office. Many of the prisoners around him could barely keep a straight face and even some of the soldiers inadvertently smiled.

  “I can’t help myself sometimes,” said Eric in a tone of mock concern, “I think it’s a medical condition I’ve suffered from for a long time. Is there a doctor around?”

  “…leaving in approximately fifteen minutes. It should take us about an hour to reach our destination, which is the town of Peel. The front four carriages are for the detainees, the last one is for the military escort. Sergeant, will you see to it that the prisoners get aboard.”

  Tony managed to find a window seat in one of the compartments. The wooden benches were packed and men sat between the rows and on the floor in the corridor. Baggage was piled precariously in the racks above their heads and a soldier stood by each carriage door, which was padlocked as soon as everybody was aboard. The windows were wired shut and it quickly became stuffy inside the coach, with condensation streaming down the dirty glass. Tony spent the journey peering through the smears at the small rural stations of Union Mills,
Glen Vine, Crosby, and St John’s as they trundled by. He glimpsed rivers, herds of black and white cattle, a galloping roan mare, followed by its piebald foal and women bent double working in the compact fields that dotted the narrow picturesque valley. After St John the land opened up, flocks of sheep grazed the undulating grasslands, there was a man fishing by a foaming weir and then they were pulling slowly into the city of Peel, on the west coast of the Isle of Man.

  “As far from the bloody war as you can get,” pointed out an old man glumly. He was wearing medal ribbons from the First World War and had been silently sitting at Tony’s feet throughout the journey.

  “That’s without leaving the country,” he added as an afterthought, “back of bloody beyond.”

  He looked up at Tony and nodded.

  “But look on the bright side, I saw little enough of my wife when I was living with her. I’ll see a damn sight less now. You couldn’t give me a hand up could you? My bloody leg’s gone to sleep.”

  Peel’s Art Nouveau railway station, with its steeply pitched slate roofs and windows, and stone surrounds picked out in black against white pebble-dashed walls, sat incongruously at the head of a picturesque harbour. The platform was deserted except for a police constable in his shirtsleeves sitting on a bench next to a row of steel milk churns. His bicycle was upended beside him, its back wheel slowly revolving, and a puncture repair kit lay scattered across the ground. As the train approached he leapt up and called out, grabbing his jacket from the back of the bench. The station-master and a police sergeant appeared almost immediately at the door of the ticket office and watched as the train pulled into the station.

  Alighting first the soldiers formed up slowly along the platform. Compartment by compartment the dishevelled, complaining prisoners were released and ordered to line up facing the sea. One of the last to leave the train, Tony, breathing deeply, smelt the pungent aroma of smoked fish. Stretching his cramped limbs he looked around at the dark creosoted wooden smokehouses stretching in a line along a small lane at the back of the station. Beyond, the lush green patchwork hills that surrounded the town were partly obscured by dense clouds of smoke rising lazily into the still air above the pitched, tar-covered roofs.

  “Get in line,” barked the sergeant, “we’re not moving until we have a decent show. Come on, we haven’t got all day.”

  Tony gazed at the haze drifting imperceptibly inland as it spiralled upwards. High above the pale dispersing wisps he spotted two birds of prey circling on the warm air, almost invisible to the naked eye, he stared hard before looking away, blinded by the bright light. Blinking, he slipped in among the other prisoners as they dawdled on the platform, their belongings piled haphazardly beside them.

  “This must really annoy these army types, used to everything in its place,” thought Tony and he smiled as he remembered a saying of his father’s, “A disorderly kit is a sign of an untidy mind.” He had heard it so often in his youth that it seemed the words were ringing in his ears, “You’d better buck up your ideas young man or you’ll come a cropper, mark my words.”

  His mother had written and told him his father had been mortified by his arrest. He’d received letters from her and Brian, and he’d seriously fallen out with his brother over the Fascists and the Jews and he’d bothered to write, but he’d heard nothing from his father, who was unable to forgive his son for proving him right. It was funny though, mused Tony, he was the person he thought of the most. The old bastard never gave an inch.

  “Column, quick march. Left, right, left, right.”

  The harshness of the order grated, and with his father’s voice admonishing him, Tony joined the ragged group that ambled along the platform and on to the quay. Passing out of the station’s shadow they could see the towering red sandstone walls and the blockhouse of Peel Castle rising vertically from a rocky outcrop that dominated the narrow entrance to the harbour. A flag hung limply from a pole on the highest battlement and people – only their heads visible – could be seen peering over the ramparts and looking down on the marchers as they approached the corner where the quay met Shore Road.

  The expanse of Peel Bay stretched out dazzlingly to a misty blue horizon. The men at the head of the column raised their hands to shield their eyes from the glare, while others glanced away. The tide was out and a vast expanse of yellow sand ran in a sweeping arc to the low brown cliffs in the distance. The deserted beach was sandwiched between a black meandering line of seaweed washed up on the low water line and the boulder-encrusted concrete wall of the promenade. Mirroring each other they ran together until, in a trick of the eye, they coalesced in the middle distance and vanished in a daub of light. Emerging from this haze at the far end of the promenade – a point of fascination for the prisoners – was their destination, Peveril Camp, the rows of newly uncoiled barbed wire, raw glinting gashes scarring the face of the quaint Victorian seaside town.

  The seafront was quiet and the occasional sightseer curiously surveyed the detainees as they approached noisily along the promenade only to glance away as they drew level, avoiding eye contact, and continuing to look out to sea. It was as if the men were phantoms, an anxious frisson greeting their presence but once they had passed they were dismissed as beings without form or substance. Encased in this bubble of unreality the column floated along the front – overhead a flock of gulls raucously climbed and swooped – passing fisherman’s cottages, guesthouses, small hotels, cafes, a boarded up amusement arcade, a sandbagged Home Guard post and a row of shuttered beach huts, before approaching the camp. Close up the high wire fence dominated the esplanade and searchlights were mounted on old telegraph poles at regular intervals along a section of the sea wall. Tangled coils of razor wire, higher than a man in many places, were piled along the base of the fence.

  “They’re not taking any bloody chances are they,” muttered Eric tugging at the wire mesh as they passed, “even if you could get over this lot, you’ve still got to get off the sodding island. It’s enough to bring a good man down.”

  He leered across at Tony, who was staring grim-faced at the enclosure.

  “Come on Tony, me old mate, look at it as an extended holiday by the sea, which should suit you. A holiday camp with good sea views, its own beach and all the amenities you could ever want. Only trouble is, as you well know, it pisses down here nine days out of ten, but still, you can’t have everything.”

  Tony glanced at Eric and smiled wanly. The column had halted on Marine Parade in front of the main gate to the camp. Beside them, only feet from the wire that ran inland along the middle of Walpole Road, stood the Creg Malin Hotel. It was a massive three-storied building in drab brick, its frontage onto the sea buttressed at each end by a round neo-gothic tower, surmounted with a steep sloping lead-faced roof, topped with a triskelion weathervane. Much of its paintwork was stained and peeling and the iron railings on either side of the steps up to the main entrance were spotted with rust. A “Vacancies” sign hung at a slight angle in front of a set of dusty net curtains in one of the downstairs windows.

  “Bet the camp’s been good for his business,” said Tony as he dropped his suitcase onto the sandy road, “very reasonable rates for long stayers, especially for British Union members. Families and pets welcome.”

  Those around him laughed.

  The gates swung open and a contingent of soldiers marched smartly out, linking up with the column’s escorts to form a heavily armed corridor into the camp. Beneath their gaze the prisoners shuffled forward, passing in front of a beachfront terrace of nine small two-storey houses, before gathering on an expanse of flat land that had once been clay tennis courts and a public bowling green. They were ordered to face inland away from the sea. In front of them a grass-covered slope, criss-crossed by sandy paths rose steeply up to a long terrace of white-painted houses. Behind them the wire fence ran along the promenade to the low rocky cliffs on their left before turning inland and continuing up the r
ise to disappear from sight behind the buildings on the ridge at the top of the hill. It reappeared at the other end of the terrace and was visible to the prisoners for a short distance as it followed the incline down a paved road before passing out of sight behind the tall seafront houses immediately to their right.

  “Spacious innit?” muttered a young man standing next to Tony, his brow deeply furrowed as he squinted in the bright sunshine, “Don’t look like there are any bastard tents for us to sleep in, like in Liverpool. I was fucking freezing there I can tell you. Looks like I might get a decent night’s kip here, that’s something.”

  He held out a clammy hand, which Tony grasped firmly, only to let go instantly.

  “Name’s Sid, Sidney Stiles from West Ham,” he laughed, a shrill high-pitched cackle that had people turning to stare.

  “I’m a long bloody way from home, there’s no way my mates are going to make it up here.”

  He looked questioningly at Tony.

  “Beg pardon?”

  “Sorry, I’m Tony Cox from just across the water there, Blackpool, but it feels like a long way home to me too. Why are you here?”

  “Good fucking question. Ask meself the same thing every bloody day. I was one of Mike Moran’s boots in the East End. Mixing it with the red Jewish bastards, day in, day out and twice at weekends. Brought me in when they nabbed him. Never got round to letting me go, the bastards.”

  “Is he here?”

  “Don’t think so. Last I heard he was down in Brixton with old Mosley, but you never know. What about you?”

  “I was District Leader in Blackpool. Down to be the parliamentary candidate for Walton in the election that didn’t happen.”

  “Never? I bet you felt home from home in the nick there then. Bloody hell that’s the best tale I’ve heard in a while, fuck me.”

  Sid shook his head in disbelief, pulled out a dirty grey-coloured handkerchief and wiped the sweat from the back of his neck and forehead, then folded it neatly and put it back in his trouser pocket.