by John Harris
She’d had her eyes on the papers that littered her desk all day, hardly raising them to eat and drink, and when I walked in she was looking pretty done in. She glanced up quickly as I closed the door, however, almost as though she knew it was me, and I saw the exhaustion cross her face and the tears flood into her eyes.
She threw down her pen and came round the table to me. “Oh, Jess,” was all she said as she leaned against me, light-headed with fatigue. Then she lifted her head and sighed.
“We’ve been at it all day. We’ve scoured the town for charts and compasses.”
“What’s it all about?” I asked. “I was on my way home from the station when I saw the crowd. Is it what we’ve been expecting? Are they going to fetch the Army out?”
Kate nodded. “I think so, Jess.” She drew a deep, shuddering breath. “Oh, Jess, it’ll be so dreadful if they have to do it all with these small boats.”
“We can do it, Kate,” I grinned. I’d no idea then just what was proposed, but I was trying to cheer her up. “Come on, give us a smile.”
She raised her eyes and gave me a weak smile then she brushed the hair out of her eyes and sat down.
“Where’s Dig?” I asked.
“In the manager’s office. He must be worn out. He’s been on that telephone all day, taking it in turns with the manager. First it’s the Senior Naval Officer. Then it’s the police. Then it’s the harbourmaster.”
Dig was alone when I found him, talking into the mouthpiece of the telephone, polite, quiet, dusty and dried-up as ever, but suddenly alive. He looked up as I entered, and his eyes smiled, though he went on talking. Eventually he put the instrument down and I saw the tired, prematurely old look had gone from him. He looked excited and alert.
He didn’t waste his breath welcoming me. “This is a dreadful thing, Jess,” was all he said.
I didn’t reply. Words seemed suddenly inadequate. “Can I help?” I asked.
“It’s almost all done now, Jess.”
He wiped his brow with the back of his hand and seemed to droop with weariness. “I’m ever so pleased you came, Jess,” he said. “I’m glad I’ve seen you before I go.”
“Go?” I stared. “Are you going?”
“Yes.” Dig replied. “They’re our boats, a lot of them.”
I stared again. “But you don’t know one end of a boat from the other.”
“Rubbish!” Dig’s voice was unexpectedly firm. “You can’t work in a boat-yard all your life and learn nothing about boats. Besides, the manager’s going. Old Wiggins has gone already and he’s seventy if he’s a day. Surely I can help? Everyone’s needed.” He was poking at papers on the desk, his eyes down and hidden as usual. “P’r’aps they can even manage better here without me.”
“You’ll be sick,” I said, and suddenly felt how stupid the words were.
“I know.” Dig smiled shyly, looking up for a moment. “I always am. Still, I ’spect other people will be, too.”
Suddenly a feeling of affection for him swept over me. He was drooping and dusty and thin and far from strong. His sense of duty to Ma had dulled his appetite for happiness. But he was risking his little share, offering himself with the meanest of them, the roughest of them, taking a chance on the sea he hated and feared.
I thought of Minnie. I’d been breaking my neck to get home to her and sort things out, but I decided this was a bigger thing. This couldn’t wait. Minnie could.
“I’m coming with you,” I said abruptly. “Could you use another hand?”
Dig was silent for a moment, fiddling with a pencil, then he looked up. “Not half, Jess. We could – especially people with experience.” He paused. “But, Jess, didn’t you ought to go down to the docks? There’s big ships down there going over. They’re wanting officers to relieve ’em.”
“No,” I said. “I’m here now. I’ll stay here. I can handle a boat as well as a ship – probably better.”
We stared at each other for a moment, both of us embarrassed by our own emotions, and I caught a glimpse of moisture sparkling at the corner of his eyes. Then, while we were still waiting for words to come, the telephone rang again, harsh and sharp and nervous in the silent room.
Dig gulped suddenly. “Give your name to Kate, Jess,” he said.
He paused and reached for the telephone, halting with his hand on it while it continued to ring in jarring tones.
“It’s fitters we’re short of, Jess. We’ve got to get to Dover and these engines haven’t been run all winter.”
“Yorky’s in town,” I said, thinking of him immediately. “He’s only across the road. He’ll go.”
Dig spoke over the shriek of the telephone. “Ask him, Jess,” he said. “Let him know what it’s all about, though. It wouldn’t be fair, else.”
“Listen here” – I spoke slowly – “can’t you stay behind?” He looked at me gravely. “No, Jess! I’m going. Wiggins’ have no right to let people go on this business – whatever it is – without us offering to go ourselves. ’Sides, suppose something happens? It’s best it should be me ’stead o’ someone younger and hopeful and happy.”
The overflow of the crowd outside the boat-yard had drifted into the pub across the road, a shabby little place that had something of a station bar-room’s cheerlessness about it. A stone-topped counter it had, I remember, and cast-iron table legs. The only things that didn’t seem out of keeping with the silent-faced men in oilskins and jerseys were the lurid pictures of windjammers in Cape storms that hung in vast frames on the walls.
Dance music was blaring from an unvarnished loudspeaker on the black marble mantelpiece alongside the bar. By the way no one was listening, I reckon it must have been bawling out music all day long, carelessly, as though this were just another summer. But the grave-voiced announcer, who interrupted with the news even as I entered, was the real reason for its volume.
There wasn’t much happiness in the bar, only a bleakness, like the chill of funerals. Everyone there seemed to be aware now of what was going on across the road and across the Channel. The news was brief but enough to set everyone’s mind racing and take the pleasure out of drinking.
Only Yorky was an oasis of happiness in the room. He and Old Boxer were not drunk but they were obviously well on the way. Yorky had reached the state when he was insisting on entertaining everybody.
“What’s it to be?” he was saying as he gave his concertina a few preliminary squeezes. “‘Down at the Old Bull and Bush’? ‘All the Nice Girls Love a Sailor’? Or ’ow about the old ballad, ‘Throw Out the Lifeline, Mother, Someone is Sinking Tonight’.”
Without giving anyone the chance to reply he plunged into his old favourite, the only thing he could play properly, the nostalgic “Shenandoah”, his rasping voice croaking in time to the tune.
Old Boxer was in a corner, as usual, like a man with his back to the wall defying anyone to deny him drink, a group of empty glasses in front of him. He looked up as I arrived, and hurriedly emptied the glass he held.
“Yorky,” I said, “they want you at Wiggins’.”
“Shenandoah” whined to a stop. “Me? What for? What the ’ell’s goin’ off? What’s everybody muckin’ about at?”
“There’s something big in the wind,” I said. “They want all the small craft they can lay their hands on. Wiggins’ are running the show here. They want to know if you’ll go.”
Yorky stared at me in silence for a while, then he took a hurried swig at his drink. “I thought summat was up,” he said. He closed the concertina methodically and finished his drink. Then, “Is it dangerous, love?” he asked calmly.
“Probably,” I said. “Is it a go?”
“Is it for our lads on t’other side o’ t’Channel?” He looked up over his shoulder. I nodded and he dragged his cap straight on his round head and unhooked his feet from his stool.
“OK,” he said. “I’ll ’ave a ’ap’orth, kid.”
He paused and glanced at Old Boxer sitting huddled in his corner.
“They want deck-’ands, too?” he queried.
Old Boxer glared up at him, taking the hint. “They didn’t want me before,” he snapped. “Now they’re shouting out for me.”
“There’s no shouting being done,” I said.
Old Boxer seemed to shake himself free of the inertia that had been on him for days, ever since the destroyer had landed us in Ireland. “I’ll go,” he said dully.
“’Ere, Jess.” Yorky jabbed me with his concertina.
“What about a bit o’ gear, though? A bloke can’t go to sea like this ’ere.” He dragged at the waistcoat they’d given him in Londonderry, a tight blue affair that forced his stomach out between the buttons. “Can’t say I fancy muckin’ about underneath a engine with a weskit on.”
“I’ve got a kit-bag full of stuff at Ernie the Weasel’s place,” Old Boxer said wearily. “That god-damned Fee took it to pay me rent last time I was home.”
“I’ll get it for you,” I said. “I pass the place on my way to the Steam Packet. We can share it.”
We hurried outside and split up, Yorky bustling across the road towards the boat-yard, his concertina under one arm, his parcel under the other. Old Boxer hesitated on the step for a moment as I moved away.
“I’ll just nip back,” he said, “and get a bottle of something to keep us warm. Might need it if we’re out all night.”
“Then for God’s sake bloody well stay sober!” Yorky bawled almost from the other side of the road. “You’ll be no good to them lads over there if you’re drunk.”
Two
As I pushed through the crowd to the dark street I felt the desire to get home to Minnie growing more urgent. The idea that we should try and put our affairs in order had been getting stronger for days – all the way home – and the nearness of this desperate thing I was undertaking made it all the more important that I should leave with her blessing if not her love. Perhaps I was being melodramatic with myself, but it occurred to me I might not come back, and that if I didn’t get things straightened out now I might never get the chance. And I hated the idea of leaving the world without attempting it.
I wasn’t afraid. I don’t think I was being morbid. It was just a feeling that I wanted to see my affairs in order. Just as a chap might write a letter home before going into action or something like that. Minnie and I had been indifferent to each other too long. There was still plenty we could save from the wreck. There’d been happiness – even if its stay had been brief – and war, with death never very far off, wasn’t the time for domestic upheavals.
There were still a few people about when I eventually halted in the blackout under the point of light that indicated the entrance to Pat Fee’s lodging-house. Inside, I looked about me impatiently, anxious to be with Minnie. There was so little time before I must leave her again. There was so much to explain and, God knows, she wasn’t a good listener.
A little man with a long moustache and a stringy neck, who was playing patience in a room off the hall, jumped up as I entered, and whirled round almost as though he expected to be assaulted and robbed. There seemed to be something familiar about his stooped back, even about the fistful of cards he held in his hand.
“What’s this caper?” he was demanding. “Can’t a bloke ’ave a game of patience without chaps bustin’ in? Don’t know what this world’s comin’ to. Next thing, I’ll ’ave to lock meself in the closet for a bit o’ peace. ’Ere I was just settin’ ’avin’ a quiet game–”
“I’ve come to collect a kit-bag,” I said, interrupting.
“Belonging to Horatio Boxer.”
“’Orace Boxer!” he almost spat. “That drunken old swine. Time ’e paid ’is rent. Owes me five bob ’e borrowed for booze. Time ’e came back. Where’s ’is money? If ’e thinks ’e’s goin’ to get anythink without payin’ ’is rent ’e’s got another think comin’–”
“It’ll be paid.” I said. “I’ll pay you.”
“Ho, will you?” he said aggressively. “Well, you won’t pay me. ’Cos I ain’t got his bloomin’ bag. See? I don’t keep them things ’ere. Use yer loaf. Just the way to get beat up an’ ’ave ’em all pinched back. The boss keeps ’em. ’E’s bigger’n me. ’E can use ’is fists a bit, too. ’E takes charge of all unclaimed kit.”
“Where’s he live?” I demanded.
“You’ve ’ad yer time, mate. Can’t tell you.” He was picking his teeth with a match, half his dirty fist inside his mouth, and the words came out in a mumble. “Ain’t allowed to. ’E ’as other affairs not connected with this place. ’E don’t want dirty great matelots worryin’ ’im. ’E’s a gentleman.”
“Where’s he live?” I snapped, grabbing him by the arm and swinging him round. “This is urgent, you damn’ fool!” I was growing impatient, desperate to get home to Minnie, feeling almost as though fate was playing the dirty on me and keeping me away from her now that I’d made up my mind to settle our differences.
“Not so much of yer carry-on,” the little man was grumbling. “I ain’t allowed to tell you, I say. My boss is a gent an’ ’e likes to entertain young ladies now and then. ’E don’t want worryin’ with you. This ain’t the Waldorf, y’know, with a resident manager an’ a maid to scrub yer back in the bath.”
“Blast you!” I almost shouted. “If you don’t shut your rattle and come across with it I’ll screw your dirty little neck round!”
I hoisted him to the toes of his shabby shoes by the bunched coat in my fist.
“OK, OK. Let go me coat. You’re creasing it something cruel.” He struggled feebly inside his clothes, for all the world like a hooked fish, and held up a hand that still clutched a fistful of greasy cards. “’Ere you are. ’Ere you are. I’ve got it. ’Ere’s ’is address. I’ve found it. You can see ’im in the mornin’.”
Something in his gesture as he brought a slip of pasteboard from his waistcoat pocket nudged my memory and swung me back across the years. I glanced round hurriedly. Sure enough there was a bowler hat hanging on the back of the door.
“Ernest Nanjizel!” I almost shouted. “Ernest Nanjizel! So you’re Ernie the Weasel! By God, I’ve caught up with you at last!”
Released from my grasp, he brushed down his shabby coat with a genteel air. “Ernest Nanjizel’s the name,” he agreed. “Never mind this Weasel stuff. I don’t like it, see? I don’t go much on it. Ernest Nanjizel’s the name. Always willing to oblige anyone. Used to be in business meself.”
“Not half you didn’t,” I grinned. I grabbed his arm again. “It consisted of pinching my suitcase about ten years ago, you little shyster.”
He’d obviously forgotten me, for there was bewilderment mixed with startled amazement in his eyes.
“I ain’t pinched nothing,” he said. “Don’t come the old acid ’ere, mate. I ain’t got no suitcase belonging to you or anyone else neither. You let a chap go.”
“I might have known I’d find you mixed up with Pat Fee,” I said. “What dirty games do you do for him besides swindling drunken matelots here?”
“Do a bit of runnin’ for him,” he admitted shiftily, a little subdued now. “Street-corner bettin’ and that.” He glanced at me suspiciously and asked, “You a cop, mister?”
“No.” I released him and glanced at the pasteboard in my hand, then I whirled as I saw him creeping to the door. I bounded after him and the two of us stumbled and fell against a rickety chair which promptly collapsed. “You little rat!” I snapped, still on my knees, “This isn’t his address. It’s his office in the town.”
“Oh, Gawd!” Nanjizel was lying among the wreckage of the chair, his arms flapping feebly, heedless of my urgent tones. “Oh, Christ!” he was moaning. “You’ve broke me back!”
“I’ll break your neck if you don’t give me his address,” I said. “This is urgent, you stupid little fool!”
I was good and mad by this time. If he hadn’t been Ernest Nanjizel I might have forgotten all about the address, and knocked up some shopkeeper for a jersey or borrowed some oil
skins. But I was suddenly determined he wasn’t going to trick me again.
“OK, OK.” Nanjizel shuffled sideways out of my reach – with a clatter as the wreckage of the chair round his legs moved after him. “I’ll tell you.” He babbled the name of a street and I scrambled to my feet.
“If it isn’t right,” I said, “I’ll come back and hand you over to the police. Or I’ll break your dirty little neck myself and enjoy it.”
“It’s right, it’s right,” he moaned. “You go away and leave me to die. You’ve broke me back.”
The address Nanjizel had given me was in one of the better-class districts of the town, and I decided to call there before going on to the Steam Packet in case Pat Fee was in bed. It was getting late by this time.
My thoughts were sour as I remembered little Nanjizel and his slyness. I was far from surprised to have found him in Pat Fee’s seedy lodging-house and grudged the time I’d wasted arguing with him. The Steam Packet was still a long way from me, and there was still a lot to do and precious little time to do it in.
“Blast Old Boxer,” I thought to myself, cursing him for the trouble he was causing.
I turned in at the block of flats where Pat Fee lived and rang the bell of the basement apartment. Pat seemed to have flourished and done well for himself, I decided, as I stared round the polished oak panelling. These were the places that had been occupied by the yachtsmen from St Clewes across the river before the war; the types with fancy caps and badges and not a single callus on their hands; the types who were careful to say “starn” for stern and had their photos taken holding the wheel well out to sea, but had a bloke to do all the pulling and heaving, and take over the steering when they wanted to come alongside.
The click of the door-handle interrupted my thoughts and Pat appeared. He was in his shirt-sleeves and braces and he seemed startled to see me. “Oh, Jesus!” he said, and he tried to slam the door to, but I shoved my foot in the opening.
“I haven’t got it,” he said hurriedly in answer to my demand, still trying to shut the door in my face. “It’s not here. Go on. Scarper!”
