Death and the Dreadnought

by Robert Wilton

  ‘Ah; yes – that reminds me, Quinn. I need you to go and collect some clothes for me.’

  ‘Of course, sir. Where from?’

  ‘From Ironmonger Row, Quinn.’

  He gazed at me for a long time.

  ‘We’re not really on top of this business, sir, are we?’

  19.

  I met Joshua Merridew, until recently Secretary of the Thames Ironworks Shipbuilding Company branch of the United Society of Boilermakers and Iron and Steel Shipbuilders – God alone knew what he put on his visiting cards – in the middle of the evening in a private room in McArdle’s chop house on Golden Lane. He was sitting stiffly upright, next to the sash window which wouldn’t close properly.

  He was a white-haired old lion. Nature had made him big, and fifty years of manual labour had toughened him, and a decade or two of speechifying had taught him poise and dignity. In the chop house snug with its cracked and greasy panelling, the occasional flaring of the gas light conjured weird shapes on the walls, and deep shadows in the face in front of me.

  MacNeice at the shipyard had said that this Merridew had been ousted as Secretary by a new man, Raikes. With Raikes, I wouldn’t know how to approach what I wanted to say. Given the instinct of his followers to tear me limb from limb, I wouldn’t know how to approach him at all. The old regime seemed more likely to talk about what was going on at the yard, and fractionally less likely to try to murder me. So, Merridew it was.

  I played it relatively straight. My name was Delmar, which was close enough to have been misunderstood if it became necessary to backtrack. Mercifully he hadn’t seen my picture in the Sketch, and I didn’t remember seeing him during my escapade at the yard. I didn’t pretend to come from anything other than stiff-collared end of society, but I claimed I was interested in writing a popular book about the relationship between government and industry in the new century.

  I opened with a rather wide-eyed and breathless picture of the power of the labouring masses as seen from Piccadilly. Voice low and rich and rolling, he came back with how societies have only achieved enduring stability and greatness when they have treated their working classes with dignity and fairness. This more or less set the framework for our discussion, and we batted it back and forth from there.

  Merridew spoke with heavy eloquence. He was obviously better-read than I was, and more experienced at debate. But having been chased along Piccadilly by more than a few of the labouring masses, I could at least put a bit of feeling into my curiosity.

  ‘But then,’ I said, ‘if your picture of the fundamental loyalty of the worker is true, Mr Merridew – his commitment to playing his full and equal part in society – how do you justify go-slows and strikes and so forth?’

  ‘If the employer has broken his contract with the worker, the worker is no longer obliged to fulfil his duties within it. He finds himself in the same position as the American colonists who rejected the tyranny of King George, or the Parliament men who disproved in theory and in practice the Divine Right of Kings.’ I remember a cockney corporal in my battalion who’d been taught to read late, and in his off-duty hours was working through the great historians. A regular Cicero, with 25 letters out of the 26 anyway, and the best-read man in the outfit.

  ‘But this is more than just not fulfilling a contract: it’s actively obstructing or even damaging the work.’ He hesitated. ‘Let’s take your own yard. You and your colleagues are building Britain’s newest battleship. That’s a source of pride, isn’t it?’ He nodded, watchful. ‘They’re doing their bit to protect their country, their society.’

  ‘Every man has his duties to his society, and he takes pride in meeting them. But conceive then his pain, when he finds that another part of society is taking his labour for granted; expecting his duty without giving him his due.’

  ‘That’s worthy stuff, Mr Merridew. But – sabotage? Dragging your feet’s one thing; burking dock cranes and delaying a battleship is something else.’

  ‘Sabotage is an extreme charge, often levelled and rarely proven.’

  ‘I’ve talked to others. I can prove it.’

  ‘These are grave times. The fundamental relationship of trust–’

  ‘Can be fatal. Wasn’t one of the company managers murdered in the yard recently?’

  He looked genuinely shocked. ‘But that was nothing to do with my lads.’

  ‘Wasn’t it? Mr Merridew, I’ll take your word for it. You know your men and I certainly don’t. But it seems rather a surprising coincidence, don’t it? Trouble at the yard, sabotage – and then a manager gets killed.’

  ‘I cannot conceive of any reason why any member of my union should want to do such a terrible thing.’

  He wasn’t saying it was impossible. ‘Sinclair was–’ I caught myself. ‘–Was that the name? What had he to do with the yard, and with sabotage?’

  ‘Mr Sinclair had been preoccupied with the sabotage. He had even ventured to consult me once or twice – before I was – while I yet had the honour to represent the men. He agreed with me that it betokened some deeper breakdown of relations – a breakdown more fundamental and worrisome than any dockyard apparatus. We hoped to rebuild it.’

  I didn’t hide my scepticism. ‘Sounds an implausibly enlightened attitude, from a senior manager.’

  ‘Perhaps the limitation is in your imagination, Mr Delmar, and not his attitude.’

  ‘Perhaps. What was Sinclair doing about it?’

  ‘He and I had spoken once – casually – on the edge of another meeting. We then met privately, at his request.’ He looked uncomfortable. ‘And then – after I passed on the Secretaryship of the Union – he persisted in attempting a private meeting with my successor, Raikes.’

  ‘How private was “private”?’

  ‘Private. I received the impression that he had no authority for his conversation, and he knew that I – that Raikes – would be in an uncomfortable position were it known we were meeting a representative of the managers without the usual formalities and consultations.’ He leaned forwards. ‘His was a sincere concern. He wanted to know about relations, and arrangements, between the company and the workers. He was interested in attitudes among our workers towards foreign interests.’

  ‘Foreign interests?’

  ‘There are… some, in the movement, who would say that the interests of labour transcend these national boundaries. That national boundaries are only an artificial system of chains to divide a universal class who are naturally one.’

  ‘I think I read that there’s a delegation of foreign Trade Unionists visiting you at the moment.’

  ‘That is so. There is a conference of Trades Unionists from all Europe happening in Birmingham, and the visitors will see London, and Glasgow, and diverse of our great industrial centres. In the century since their revolution, the French have refined the philosophy of the equality of man in practice. Germany has produced the most advanced thinking regarding the proper rights of the labouring class, as you may know.’ He had an optimistic idea of my reading habits, but I let it pass. ‘There are active groups from Belgium, and Switzerland, and a dozen other lands. Some rather… wild spirits from the Baltic – Latvians. As Secretary, I received a letter proposing that they visit our branch of our Union, in the Thames Ironworks yard.’ Something flickered in his face. ‘I own that I was cautious, sensing the tension between a man’s natural loyalties to class and to country, but – well–’

  ‘Good old Raikes took over the Secretaryship, and he got to send the reply.’

  ‘A most auspicious visit. We may each learn–’

  With a creak that was more shriek, the door of the snug swung open. We both turned. ‘Well, well, well,’ said the man in the doorway.

  He was average height, and slender. Not an immediately impressive figure, until you looked at his face. Dark, strong eyes. They didn’t give Merridew more than a glance, and then he was focusing on me.

  ‘Well, brother Merridew,’ he said, still not looking at the other ma
n, ‘it appears your devotion to our cause cannot be restrained. You fancied you’d help me out by having a meeting on our behalf. Load off my shoulders, was that it?’

  Merridew’s face was thunderous.

  I can’t think of a human I’ve taken a more instant dislike to. Which is saying something, given the number of people trying to murder me on sight that week. It was pretty clear who this chap was.

  He half-turned and, very deliberately, pushed the door shut with his finger. Then he picked up a stool, placed it carefully at the head of the table, and sat as if he was now presiding over our meeting. He brought his hands together in front of him, fingertip to fingertip, and continued to consider me.

  While the door had still been open, I had surreptitiously lifted my hand from my leg – a signal of calm, of confidence that I hadn’t lost control of the situation.

  As soon as the door clicked shut, I’d wondered if I had miscalculated.

  ‘This is Mr Delmar, Raikes,’ Merridew said. Each word was spat heavily. He wasn’t bothering to hide his anger. He’d have loved to beat Raikes to death, there and then. It was hardly surprising; St Francis of Assisi would want to beat Raikes to death after ten seconds in his company. But the proud old man had to swallow his bitterness, and I started to understand something of the power that the Secretary of the Union had, in their strange underworld of organized labour. ‘Writing a book. Allow me to reassure you that this is none of your damned business.’

  Raikes ignored him. He was still watching me.

  He didn’t blink. He never blinked. But the dark eyes narrowed, and then a thin smile crept up his face, like something he’d practised. ‘Sir Henry Delmar, would that be?’ He turned his head towards Merridew, but still the eyes stayed on me. ‘Pity you weren’t at the yard today, Merridew. Sir Henry gave us a demonstration of his acrobatics. Very spry, he is.’

  Now Merridew got it: a frown, a flicker of shock, and then he was looking at me with fury.

  ‘Well now, brother Merridew,’ Raikes said quietly. Merridew was like an old boiler, steam seeping out of every crack and ready to explode. ‘It appears we’re both looking for reinforcements, does it not? Here’s I coming to meet our foreign comrades. And here’s you talking to… to someone who individually and generally represents the enemy of the worker. Curious, surely. Unfortunate.’

  ‘He lied to me,’ Merridew said. He wouldn’t even look at me.

  And Raikes laughed. It was a short, vicious yap. ‘Oh he lied to you, did he? I suggest you need to do a bit of remedial reading, brother Merridew. A couple of pamphlets on the betrayal of labour inherent in the bourgeois economic system, that’ll put you straight.’ Still looking at me, still not blinking. ‘Don’t talk much, do you Mr Delamere?’

  He emphasized the ‘Mr’ like the House of Lords had just blown up.

  ‘Man of action, is that it?’

  Let a talker talk.

  ‘You’d like to kick me through the window.’ The idea that the world hated him seemed to give him great satisfaction. ‘You’d like to see me swing.’ He glanced at our surroundings, then back to me. ‘But you’re at the wrong end of town, Mr Delamere. In the west end you could whistle up a dozen of your bullies and have me horsewhipped. Out here… my town; my terms. You’d just disappear. Another lump of flotsam, bobbing in the river and washed away with the tide.’ He smiled. ‘You were pretty active today, weren’t you? What the hell did you think you were playing at? You – and Sinclair – what are these bizarre games you play? What do you think you’ll achieve? What do you think you can change?’ He leaned forwards, fingers still neatly together, manner mild and pedantic. ‘Your world is dying. You will be swept away.’ Said like the town clerk discussing the new sewage system. ‘Nothing personal, Mr Delamere. Whether my colleagues had torn you to pieces today, or whether you get strung up next week, you’re just a part in the machine, as much a victim of the system as anyone. Nothing personal.’

  He leaned back, the tone pitying. ‘But Mr Sinclair was so desperate to try to meet me.’ He smiled. Every word was enunciated so carefully, one long elegant sneer. ‘Hoped to persuade me to… what? Take another sixpence and help him start his war sooner? Play up, play up, and play the game? Such a problem for you, isn’t it, that workers aren’t gentlemen?’

  The smile turned nastier again. ‘But then, it seems that the gentlemen aren’t gentlemen either. Did you knife Sinclair, Mr Delamere?’ I waited. ‘D’you know, I’ve the suspicion that maybe you didn’t? You’re a killing gentleman, no doubt of it. But that was a hot killing.’ He gazed at me. ‘And you’re cold. I don’t really care what you do to each other, but I confess I’m curious. Then you killed another man, didn’t you? Perhaps you’re going to kill me, too.’

  I leaned forwards, and lowered my voice. ‘I can assure you, Mr Raikes,’ I said, friendly-like, ‘that that would be entirely personal.’

  The smile died, and the neat arrangement of his fingers became contorted. ‘Make your jokes,’ he said quietly. ‘Play your games. Rome is burning.’

  He stood, and left.

  ‘There goes the new age,’ I said, false jovial.

  Merridew glared at me, wounded pride. Eventually, he said: ‘You have ruined me.’ He slumped. ‘You have tricked me, you have mocked me, you have ruined me. I’ll have no chance with them now; none. No respect.’ He shook his head. ‘I am finished, because of your damned games.’

  I felt sincerely sorry for him. I preferred his version of trade unionism, and I’d take Attila the Hun over the odious Raikes. And in his way, he was a good man trying to do good as he saw it. ‘You were ruined anyway,’ I said. ‘Raikes and his kind have made you as obsolete as the wooden ships.’

  He pulled his shoulders up again. ‘The worst of it is that they may be right. Their world of conflict between labour and owner – it is become permanent. It was unnecessary; now it is unavoidable. Satisfied, Sir Henry Delamere?’

  ‘I’ll be satisfied if I survive the week without one of your heroic artisans cutting my throat.’ I stood. ‘Get out of it now, Merridew. You’ve done your time, you’ve got your savings. Go and open a pub or play with your grandchildren. Otherwise the revolution will chew you up in its first turn.’

  I left him there, in the tiny wood-panelled dining room, an old broken horse slumped against the farmyard wall.

  I didn’t even glance at the man in the public bar I’d signalled to earlier. But he waited a few moments and then followed me out into the evening.

  20.

  I ensconced myself in another tavern twenty yards up the street, and bought a pair of drinks. A few minutes later Quinn joined me.

  ‘Clean?’

  He contrived to look more sour than normal. ‘Can’t say sir.’ He sat. ‘No one followed you obviously. But they could have any number of static positions in this warren. Your health, sir.’ He took a mouthful of brandy. ‘Didn’t like the look of the ratty fellow who shut himself in with you.’

  ‘You and the rest of the human race. But I don’t think he does his own dirty work.’ I took a swig. ‘Do you long for the revolution, Quinn?

  ‘Does it pay well, sir?’

  I smiled. ‘Well put. Seriously, though. Chappie back there’s got it all worked out. Fellows like me are doomed – anarchist bomb or swinging from a lamppost sooner or later – and the working man’s going to come into his own. I mean to say: you stuck in the Albany, polishing boots and haggling with the tradesmen – I’ve a terrible feeling I’m cramping your style.’

  He was giving me the look he usually gives when I’m contemplating a 50-1 shot at Epsom or a red-head in the saloon at Deauville.

  ‘I mean to say, his sneering at me, and at Sinclair: these wild errands we’re on, all the other games I’ve been involved in over the years. Damned diverting for me, naturally, but don’t mean a thing in the grand scheme of it all. And still scrabbling to win enough to pay the fees at the Albany.’ I raised a glass at my reflection, and drank. ‘To the fatuousness of the leisured life. I
know what he means.’

  ‘No sir.’ Quinn took another mouthful of brandy. ‘Begging your pardon, but no you don’t. Real poverty’s more than absence of money. Real despair is more than the absence of a job or a dream. It’s when you’re fighting every day just to stay alive, and to keep your kiddies alive. You remember the Cape, sir. Like that, but that’s your whole life. When time itself has no meaning, because nothing can ever change. So what’s the point of anything?’

  I considered it. One of my valet’s many virtues is a steady, deeply rational intellect. When he’s in philosophic mood, and chooses to string more than half a dozen words together, I pay attention. Eventually I said: ‘Which brings me back to my original concern. Why aren’t you cutting my throat in the small hours? Not wanting to push you too much on the point.’

  What passes for the Quinn smile creaked over the face. ‘I’ll bear the offer in mind, sir, thank you.’ And as quickly the smile was gone. ‘I’d be glad enough of a little more balance in the world. I’d be glad enough if those I was raised with weren’t having to scavenge for seabirds to eat in the lean seasons. If the babies weren’t dying in their dozens before they were out of the cot.’ He took a swig of brandy. ‘But I’ve seen the fast-lipped men. The smooth-talkers, and the dreamers. In a village meeting. On a boat. And they never brought more than chaos, and greater despair. You may tell your radical friends I said so.’ He nodded out of the window. ‘Your pal sir, I think.’

  I followed his glance. Down in the street, outside McArdle’s, the charmless Raikes was talking to another man and then apparently saying goodbye. They turned apart and went their separate ways.

  The other man had an unusual cut of hat and suit. Same as the guest speakers at the yard. Same as the man who’d try to murder me in my sitting room. I was leaning forwards, half out of my seat. Now the man disappeared out of my vision, off up the street.

  By the time I got downstairs and to the door of the tavern, he was gone among the knots of strolling people and the dusk.