The Secret Journey

by James Hanley

  The huge bundles of raw hides appeared out of the hold. Mr. Kilkey landed them on the platform, unbent the hook, cried: ‘Lower away there.’ At the same time the shore crane began its song, and the big hook and chain came through the air, and finally to rest just above Mr. Kilkey’s head. He bent on the load to this hook, cried: ‘Take her easy.’ The load swung quaywards. Below a second sling was ready. ‘Heave away,’ he cried, and his little finger began circling the air again.

  He looked down into the depths, but he did not think of the depths, nor of the rising sling, the load of hides. He thought of his son Dermod. He wondered what he was like now, after all those months. Probably fast asleep in bed by this time, but where? He wished he knew. He thought of his landlady. ‘Mrs. Ditchley said I was a fool. Perhaps I am.’

  Suddenly a hand gripped his trousers-leg, and a voice cautioned. ‘Look out, man. What’s the matter with you? Another move forward and you’d be down that bloody hold, and that’d be the last of you, Joe Kilkey.’

  Mr. Kilkey gave a little jump, swung round, said, ‘Hello, Taylor. Didn’t see you.’

  The huge sling was rising higher. The man laughed. ‘Why should you want to see me? Damn it, man, are you half asleep or what? You’re standing on the edge of a nice long drop. Anything wrong?’

  His concern made Kilkey laugh. ‘Wrong? No. Why? And I’m certainly not asleep.’

  ‘Perhaps not,’ said Taylor, ‘but you were bloody near down that hold.’ He let go the trousers-leg and walked away.

  Mr. Kilkey cried: ‘Steady there.’ The sling was out of the hold, swinging gently in the air. To Kilkey it was like the sudden rising of a mountain. ‘My God,’ he said to himself, ‘I’ll have to be more careful. Don’t know what’s the matter with me lately. Damned if I do. Can’t get that kid out of my head at all. I hope there’s nothing wrong with him.’ He unbent the hook, bent the load to the shore crane. Cried: ‘Take her easy.’

  Another sling was loaded below, a voice was crying, ‘Ready above there! Hey!’

  Finally Joseph Kilkey woke up. He realized something. It shocked him. He was in the middle of his work, and he wasn’t a bit interested in it any more. He was boss of the whole hatch and he stood there dreaming. The slings were actually rising faster than he could deal with them. Something was wrong. ‘It’s this thinking about that kid,’ he told himself. ‘Lately I’ve begun to get worried about him. I ought to do something about it. I will too, soon.’

  The slings rose and fell, the winches rattled from stem to stern, the whole ship seemed to tremble beneath the energy of machines and men.

  Now he stood well back on his platform, looked at the winchman, half in shadow.

  ‘Coming up,’ he cried. ‘Steady she goes.’

  But he could not get his son Dermod out of his mind. He had followed him all the way to work, along the greasy roads, down the dark quays, up the shaky gangway. He was on the hatch-top beside him, he was down the hold. He was everywhere. ‘Must do something about it to-morrow. Something tells me he’s ill.’

  ‘Look out there, Kilkey,’ cried the winchman.

  ‘I’m looking out, don’t worry yourself,’ replied Kilkey, and ducked his head as the chain of the travelling crane came past him.

  The shaded lights of the cluster hung over his head; he stood within this circle of light, but beyond it he could not see. Two walls of banked-up darkness, faint sounds in the distance, churning water, dripping pipes, and somewhere away down the river a faint voice shouting, ‘Hoy there.’ The slings rose and fell, the winches rattled, it became the rhythm of the night’s work, of the ship, and it absorbed Joseph Kilkey. Maureen and his son faded away from his mind, were lost somewhere in that outer darkness. This small circle of light enclosed, and held. They worked on till three when the whistle went. The cries ceased, the winches stopped, and clouds of steam rose from beneath them. The pipes were boiling hot.

  Mr. Kilkey stepped down to the deck, made his way slowly across the starboard bulwarks, stepped over coiled ropes, slings, nets, piles of wood, hammers, wire. And then he stood there looking into the darkness. Behind him he could hear the men from the different hatches shuffling off. Soon he was ringed by the silence of the ship. A man came up to him then.

  ‘Anything wrong, Joe?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing wrong with me, Dave,’ he said, standing with folded arms. ‘Just going aft to have my grub.’

  ‘Wheelhouse again?’

  ‘’Spect so.’

  ‘God, you love that wheelhouse,’ the man said. ‘Well, I’m off.’

  After a few minutes Mr. Kilkey went along to the saloon, and from beneath one of the tables picked up his raincoat. Unfolding it he took out the parcel of food that Mrs. Ditchley made up for him, left the saloon and went aft. It was quite dark in the wheelhouse, but he took the piece of tallow candle from his pocket, lit it and stood it on the deck. Then he sat down to his early morning meal. He unwrapped the parcel and discovered it was egg sandwiches. ‘Not so bad,’ he said to himself.

  But they weren’t the same. No meal was now. Everything was different when she was there. The whole of life was different. Mrs. Ditchley did her best, but it wasn’t like having your food parcels made up by Maureen. ‘Don’t know why,’ he mused, ‘don’t know why, but I’m beginning to get a bit fed up with it. If only she’d be sensible.’

  If. Like asking for the moon. ‘One time I thought I’d married that whole Fury family, but here I am completely on my own. Never seen that feller she went off with, but he’s certainly gone to her head.’ He ate one sandwich, took a sup of cold tea from his bottle. ‘They all know. All these fellers here know. How they find out everything beats me. Well, I must say I’ve had a few surprises in my time.’

  He thought of the nightly ordeal in coming to work. More than one worker had hinted that lots of men were wanted in the army. Plenty of hints flying about. He knew what it all meant. Some of the old chaps coming out of their holes and corners, just waiting handy to fall into his job. A good job, a responsible job, worth four pounds a week. They knew. Course they did. Hadn’t the boss told him? Best stevedore along the line of docks. Well then, why should he have to join any army, even if he was the best man Pattenson’s had?

  ‘I never seen so many fellers, supposed to be fellow-workers, I’ve known and worked alongside them for years—never known so many of them as anxious to get hold of my job. Jokes. Some jokes. Hints. More than hints.’ He flung away the remainder of his tea, wrapped up what was left of the sandwiches and went outside. He threw the parcel into the river. Food for the hungry gulls. Then he walked round the poop, stood leaning over the rail.

  Though it was quite dark he could follow the river, trace silent and rooted ships lying there, cables down, anchor signals hanging from their masts. ‘Hell of a lot of ships in lately. No room for them. Every berth occupied. But that’s just the war.’

  He could hear the dead water lapping against the quay, and once the great hawsers creaking. He stood back, leaned against the bulkhead. There was a ship ahead, and they were washing down her decks. He could see the structures clear against the grey sky. He left the poop and hands in pockets walked slowly the length of the ship, soon finding himself climbing the fo’c’sle-head ladder. From this end he could see more of the river. Shapes passed, tall and small, ships and barges, tugs, lighters, and once a four-masted tramp went by, drawn slowly along to her anchoring berth by a tooting tug.

  You looked to the left and life was in the river, to the right and there stood the city of Gelton, sprawled under the moonlight, silent, deserted. A heightened silence, an awe, a complete sense of isolation as though with the coming of darkness all life had flown out of it. Tall buildings massed like sentinels on the front, and beyond them a towering structure of praise to the works of God, and huddling about at this structure’s feet the warrens of streets and alleys, byways and cul-de-sacs, the entries, the dark corners, turnings which landed you into the unknown. You stood on the fo’c’sle-head and the river pre
ssed in on you, the buildings pushed towards you, the sky weighed down.

  ‘Better cut straight along and pay my dues at knock-off,’ he thought. ‘Get the new issue button as well.’

  Turning, he looked back upon the ship. To-morrow night she would be gone. And another ship would be in her place. He would be on that ship, and the next, and the next. They were loaded and unloaded, they sailed off down the river, in the morning, the evening, and in the night. They passed out of sight and he forgot all about them. Some never came back. This one might not return. There was a war on.

  ‘Wonder where Denny and his son are at the moment,’ he asked himself. Then he looked at his gun-metal watch, saw it wanted only another three minutes. ‘Think I’ll get back,’ he said, and made for the ladder again. When he reached the hatch there was nobody in sight. He saw them on the platform, leaned over, and looked down. The voices he heard were ghostly voices, but the ghosts laughed, smoked, ate their sandwiches and drank their tea.

  ‘It makes me laugh,’ Mr. Kilkey exclaimed to the depths. ‘Must have been standing right on the edge that time Taylor came along and grabbed my leg.’

  It worried him. It was a sign of weakness, of inattention; he began to feel that he was changing, something was wrong, he hated himself for such silliness. ‘Fancy a feller having to come along and tell me to take care of myself.’

  It was a shock, especially when you had spent most of your life on hatch-tops, directing the stowing and unstowing of holds. ‘Must pull myself together.’ He smiled to himself. He’d been telling himself that for some time now. Everything had gone to the devil these past two years.

  ‘Even the Furys have left Hatfields, and that’s a break if you like.’

  But the revolution in the Price Street household was the worst of all. It had been a blow. Once he had made sure Maureen was returning to him. But that was a wild, fugitive hope. ‘Kidding myself. She bowled herself into it, then hated me, and her mother on top of that. Well, God made me old, and he made me ugly.’

  She didn’t love him any more. But what about Dermod?’ Something is wrong with him, I’ll bet a dollar.’ And for the tenth time he told himself that he must do something about it. Make Father Moynihan laugh again and say, ‘Yes, but you never do, Joseph.’

  ‘Quite true. I never do. I am a fool of a man. Mrs. Fury told me that, so did Denny. Ah well,’ he ended up as the whistle blew again, and the men returned.

  When he took the hatch-top again he was well awake. He would watch his step.

  Morning grew and the first streaks of light appeared in the sky. The shapes grew bolder, the shadows began to vanish. Darkness rolled up over the river like a film and certain landmarks stood out clear under the light. The Battery, the Clock Tower, the Customs Houses, the lines of offices. Beneath it all the river was turbulent, swift running, carrying patches of light and darkness with it as it swept towards the sea. Mr. Kilkey saw it, the others saw it. The whole of Gelton looking out from their windows would see it. The broad river with the first of its burdens. A line of barges, bows awash, passing beneath the stern of a great liner, that in the night had veered round a little and so blotted out the view of the big wooden pier that jutted out from the opposite land like a sheath.

  The light grew stronger, and then there drifted slowly riverwards the first warning hum, rising from the streets and roads and lanes of Gelton. It climbed air, sounding like the wing-beats of some ghostly bird, and so reached the river itself and the ears of men. Gelton was waking up. Now one, now another ship’s bell rang out; the reverberations seemed to make circles in the air, sweep to the river’s surface and vanish. A man climbed a rigging. One hauled down the signals. Another paced to and fro upon the bridge. A boy with tousled hair waved a hand towards Mr. Kilkey’s ship, as clinging to the little house on his barge he was swept by, a white blob amidst the black mass of coal that lay piled in the holds. A ferry steamer passed across the skyline, her wake dancing behind her. A weak sun came out, flung light on the water, then disappeared again.

  Meanwhile, aboard the Fortunia, the slings and nets still rose and fell with monotonous regularity. The shed below was piled high with strong-smelling hides. The depths to which Mr. Kilkey now looked down had increased, he could see right down to the very frame of the ship. He saw a vast steel chamber, with men moving about inside it, their footsteps thunderous, their voices volcanic; and rising into the outer air came the smells, the imprisoned smells from far countries, and they rose into Mr. Kilkey’s nostrils. But the sea could keep all its smells. In an hour from now he would be ashore, and able to light his pipe. It gave out a far better smell.

  He could see two lines of men ascending the gangway of the ship ahead. He saw her derricks unshipped, heard the old cries around hatches, heard the hatches themselves flung off. Another ship to unload, another ship to load for to-morrow. The river was lined with them. He counted them. He had never seen so many ships in the river before. And he never would again, he thought. It was as though all the ships of the world had raised anchor and set their course for Gelton.

  Joseph Kilkey brought up his last sling, and he let it hang suspended in the air, for seven bells rang clearly from the bridge of the ship ahead. It was time to go. He was a free man. Even as he got off the hatch his relief was below, waiting.

  ‘Morning,’ Kilkey said, and left the hatch, went straight to the saloon and took his raincoat. He then left the ship.

  Down all the roads and streets leading dockwards the day men were streaming. They poured in a flood through the dock gates. The air rang with cries of ‘Morning,’ ‘How do.’ The night world was going home to sleep. A man caught up with Mr. Kilkey as he turned out of the gate, caught his arm.

  ‘Which way are you going?’

  ‘Your way this morning,’ replied Mr. Kilkey. ‘Got to pay my dues this morning, or I’ll never pay them. Should have gone down last week, but I didn’t. Seem to be getting behind in everything lately.’

  They fell into step and hurried along, facing an oncoming goods train that was moving ponderously north.

  ‘Taylor was telling me you nearly did the trick last night,’ the man said.

  ‘Oh aye.’ Kilkey laughed. ‘Don’t know what the devil I was thinking about. Lucky he was there. Might have been down that blooming hatch.’

  ‘You don’t look quite up to the knocker these days, mate,’ the man said.

  ‘Don’t I?’

  ‘No! As a matter of fact I’ve heard people saying you weren’t half the man you were. But then fellers talk, don’t they? If they had no tongues to talk with it would be sad for quite a few.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Kilkey said. ‘I’ve been a bit worried lately what with one thing and another. But hang it all everybody is these days. Wonder how the war’s getting on?’

  ‘Not getting on at all if you ask me. Them Germans are showing them something, according to what I read in the papers.’

  A newsboy coming along was stopped by Kilkey. He bought one. The two men stood, Kilkey holding the paper outspread.

  ‘Um! Big battle on the Western Front. Ah, sure, you read the same thing every day. Can’t believe the papers half the time,’ the man said.

  ‘Maybe,’ Kilkey said, not thinking of any Western Front, but engaged in reading with the greatest interest a small item in the centre of the page. He scratched his head. ‘I’ll be hanged,’ he exclaimed. Then he folded the paper and they went on.

  At the corner of Danton Street the man said, ‘So-long, Joe.’

  Mr. Kilkey waved a hand and was gone. He stuffed the newspaper into his pocket. ‘I’ll be damned,’ he said to himself. ‘I’ll be damned.’

  Desmond Fury organizing industrial battalions. Good heavens! Looked as though he were now using his heel on the workers, not his toe. And then he took the paper from his pocket, opened it, and stood by a kiosk reading all about the Captain’s progress.

  After a few minutes he went on again. He crossed the road, caught a south-bound tram and in twenty minutes he
was climbing the flight of steps to his union branch office.

  Inside he found Mr. Stiggs leaning over his desk. Joseph Kilkey went up to the counter and handed in his card.

  ‘Morning,’ he said. ‘You’re early this morning. Only after eight.’

  ‘The trade union movement never sleeps,’ Mr. Stiggs said.

  Mr. Stiggs did not stretch, or unbend; he unrolled himself, sat up, pushed back the peak of his cap, stretched his arms out, settled into a more comfortable position, and then took up the card. Mr. Kilkey paid his dues, the card was stamped, and from the fat white hand he received his new union button. This was made of brass, shaped into an anvil. Mr. Kilkey put it in his coat lapel. Then he took a good look at Mr. Stiggs. He was a stranger, quite new to the office. There was something about him that attracted Kilkey. When he smiled the smile enveloped the whole room. The walls and furniture appeared to smile back at him. When he laughed his whole body shook like a jelly. Then suddenly as though from sheer habit Mr. Stiggs pulled down the peak of his cap. Mr. Kilkey had never in his life seen such a big peak to a cap. It was light grey. Beneath it Mr. Stiggs wore a grey suit, and across his chest ran a massive silver watch-chain—Mr. Kilkey supposed it was silver. The collar was prodigious.

  ‘What d’you think about this war?’ Mr. Kilkey asked. He always spent a few minutes in conversation whenever he visited his union branch. Yes, what did Mr. Stiggs think about this awful war? Mr. Stiggs looked serious then. Kilkey leaned on the counter, one clenched fist under his ear.

  ‘No bloody good for any working-man,’ replied Mr. Stiggs. ‘Think it’ll last very long, mate?’

  ‘Nobody can tell that, can they?’ replied Kilkey. ‘All we do know is that every day thousands of good fellers are being killed. I suppose it’ll go on until those as run it get tired. I think it’s dreadful myself. And come to think on it I must say I’m surprised at the turn of things. I mean all these labour leaders becoming the very opposite of what they’re supposed to be. Ah well, it’s a queer world. You just come to this branch, haven’t you?’ he asked.