‘Story for another time, Norman. But they put the word about to all the other shipbuilders, all the repair yards. I had my ma and uncle back at home, and me the only one able to work. Tried the docks too but there was nothing for me. We were close to losing our room. That’s when Captain Moon took me on. Didn’t know me from Adam.’
‘Did he know about the thieving?’
‘He knew.’
‘Why’d he hire you?’
‘I do not know, mate, I do not know. Perhaps he believes in giving a bloke a chance. He had the boat in the repair yard when I came in asking for work. He saw the shipwright send me packing and offered me this job there on the spot. Been working for him ever since. Thirteen or fourteen year.’
We were both tired, and the chat dried up. I must have dozed off as the next thing I knew I was woke by his hand gripping my arm.
‘They’re here,’ he whispered.
Chapter Five
Through the holes in the canvas I could just make out a dark boat moving up alongside us. All we could hear was the slip of oars through the water, then the softest thud as its side touched ours. On its deck were five figures, scarves over their faces. I gripped my neddy and held my breath.
One of them struck a match and lit a torch. A black claw rose over the gunwale and hooked itself on the top rail. The boat tipped a bit, then a dark head rose over the side. Hands appeared, and the figure hoiked itself up and onto the deck. As it stepped toward us, another head rose over the balustrade.
Belasco leapt out from under the awning. The first bloke grunted in surprise, then turned back to his boat, scrambling to get over the rail. I flew at him and grabbed his arm but the skin was all greased up and I couldn’t get a hold of him. He pulled away; I stumbled, dropping my neddy and falling to the deck as the bloke jumped over the side and into the electric launch, crashing down onto one of the men below. Yelling to rouse the guvnor, I jumped to my feet.
There was another bloke in the launch using the torch to light a rag stuffed in a bottle. Belasco was reaching over the side, cursing and shouting. He had one of them by the hair, but as he tried to pull him aboard the bloke with the bottle hurled it. It smashed against the saloon wall behind us, exploding into flames. The sky lit up, and I caught a glimpse of the men, all bare-chested, greased black and holding more bottles stuffed with rags. One of them brought down a club on Belasco’s arm, while the other three lit their bottles from the torch. As one, they launched them at us.
The guvnor burst out of the wheelhouse at the same moment one of the bottles smashed on the sun-deck above. Paraffin. Another bottle flew at the saloon windows, crashing through and spraying the floor inside with fire. The last came hurtling through the air towards me. I knew at that moment I had to get out the way but I was frozen: I couldn’t take my eyes off it. Then I felt myself knocked to the floor, with Belasco on top of me and the bottle of paraffin exploding in the pile of awning aside us.
‘Fire!’ cried Moon, ringing the bell again and again. ‘Fire! Fire!’
The flames were all around us, growing and spitting. Shouts were coming from the other boats around the dock. We got to our feet to see the villains pushing the launch away with their oars, their torch doused, the deck black again. Its engines rose; its propeller ground the water; its speed picked up.
As Moon rang the bell over and over, Belasco raced over to collect buckets from the bow, tossing them to the guvnor and me. Cinders burnt all along the deck as smoke drifted from the doors and windows of the saloon.
The guvnor held a bucket, staring up at the sun-deck where the fire was lighting the sky. I shook him hard. ‘Water! Now!’
We dropped the buckets in the creek, hoisting them them up by their ropes and turning to throw them onto the flames, Belasco and Moon doing the same up by the prow.
Watermen and bargees were climbing aboard from all parts of the dock, each with buckets of their own. Some went up to the sun-deck, others to the saloon, organized in silence like it was born into them. Chains of men and women and children passed buckets to each other, coddled in smoke and lit by the yellow of the flames. Orders were given, and the air was filled with the sound of shouts and curses, coughing and choking, the hiss of water on heat, the splash of buckets.
‘Man down!’ came a cry. A couple of women rushed past me to the prow. Through the smoke I saw them lifting Moon to his feet and putting him on a bench as he gasped and retched. While they helped him recover, I hauled up more water, chucking it onto the flames behind, the guvnor doing the same on one side, a boy wearing only a pair of shorts on the other. We worked for ten, fifteen minutes, emptying bucket after bucket, choking as the smoke ripped at our throats. My muscles ached, my eyes were blurred and flooded, yet still we hauled and chucked, hauled and chucked.
Then, slowly, it all ceased. We stood, our eyes sweeping the decks for sparks and smoulders. The air was thick with the smell of burnt wood and sewage; the decks and benches were slick and charred. I patted the boy’s back and held out my last bit of toffee for him.
‘Thanks, lad,’ I said.
His face was streaked with wet and soot.
‘Cheers, mister,’ he said, his voice quite hoarse. ‘Saved her, didn’t we?’
He limped off past the engine house to find his family.
Those who were working nearest the flames were heaving and retching with the smoke, bent double on the seats while others poured bucket after bucket of water over them, cooling them down.
‘Who was it?’ asked a grizzled old fellow in only his drawers. ‘Saw a launch tear off.’
‘Covered the name,’ answered Moon. He sat heavily on a bench, the river people all around listening. ‘Covered their number too. They tried to board last night and all.’
‘Anybody else have trouble?’ asked the guvnor through his coughs.
Nobody had.
‘Anybody see who they were?’ I asked.
‘They went past us,’ said a well-fed woman whose fellow was clutching her arm while he retched over the side. ‘Had their faces covered.’
Nobody knew anything. They stood around talking for a while, cooling down, then they shook Moon’s hand and went back to their boats.
In the still night, the captain made his way around the wet, charred boat, taking in the damage. It was hard to see just what it was like in the lamplight, but it didn’t look good.
‘That’s it, then,’ he said when he sat back down on the benches with us. He coughed. ‘We’re finished.’
‘No, Captain,’ said Belasco. ‘This ain’t going to stop us. I’ll fix her up the best I can tomorrow and we’ll take her out on Saturday just as we always do. We won’t be beat by that prick. He won’t drive us out.’
Captain Moon didn’t reply. He bent over, his elbows on his knees, and covered his face with his hands.
Chapter Six
I didn’t get back to my room in the Borough till seven that morning. The sun had already been up for a few hours and I was tuckered out, the taste of smoke still in my mouth, my eyes blurred and weeping. Mr Askell, the rent collector who lived in the ground floor rooms, was in the hallway when I opened the front door. I gave him a good morning but he ignored me: he never spoke least he was asking for money.
I paid a visit to the outhouse, then climbed the stairs, wanting nothing more than to get some kip and hoping that Lilly was really gone this time. I’d only met her a few nights ago, but she’d somehow got herself attached to my bed and I wanted it back to myself. That one room was the only place I had. But soon as I opened the door I saw her there, laid out asleep on the bed, the chamber pot full to the brim on the floor. Draped over her was Mrs B’s shawl.
I snatched it off her.
‘I thought I told you to leave.’
She opened her eyes slow, blinked, and gave me a smile.
‘Don’t go on, Norm,’ she murmured, shutting her eyes again. ‘I’ll go later.’
She turned to face the wall.
I was too tired to argue. I pulled off my boots, my stockings, my britches, and lay down next to her. For a few moments my mind turned over what had happened that night, then my eyes became heavy. Just as I started to drop off, I felt her fingers on my drawers.
I was back at Coin Street about five that afternoon. Ettie answered the door looking fed up. Her usual tight bodice was hanging loose from her skirts, the long brown hair that was always up in a knot before the baby came falling ragged down her back. There was something about Ettie that got to me, even in a state like this. I felt good just seeing her. Behind her in the parlour the child was asleep in a wooden box on the table, and by the open window sat Mrs Campbell, a friend of hers from the mission. Before Ettie went away she was one of the deaconesses working for Reverend Hebdon’s lot. She was always busy at meetings, visiting the slums of Southwark and Bermondsey, helping in the women’s sanctuary and teaching in the ragged school. But since she came back from her cousin’s with the baby, she’d been too busy to go back, and the guvnor told me that the other ladies there had cut her off. They were too proper, that was the problem. Wouldn’t have been the same where I came from, but that’s the type of lady the mission attracted. Except for Mrs Campbell, it seemed.
‘He’s not here, Norman,’ said Ettie, holding my eye in the unsettling way she always did. ‘You won’t believe what’s happened.’
She took a telegraph from the table and handed it to me.
SIR. NEED YOUR ASSISTANCE ON URGENT CASE. MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH. COME TO THE ANGEL, COVENTRY IMMED. S. HOLMES.
I read it again. It didn’t make sense.
‘Why’s Holmes asking him for help?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ said Ettie. ‘But the minute he read it he had his coat on and was out the door. Wouldn’t even go upstairs for an overnight bag.’
We laughed. The guvnor’d never met Sherlock, but he’d read every story Watson had written and followed all the cases in the papers. Not because he was an admirer: the fame of Sherlock Holmes made him spit and curse. He’d pick faults in every deduction that bloke made, and had bilious attacks whenever he heard his name.
‘I like your boater,’ she said. ‘Green and yellow suits you. But you must let me do that patch, Norman. It’s the wrong shade.’
‘It’s not that bad. He leave any message for me?’
‘You’re to go to the boat by yourself. He says the visit to Polgreen will have to wait until he returns.’
I wasn’t too happy to hear that. Moon and Suzie were going to a wedding party in Lewisham tonight, and the guvnor was supposed to be guarding the boat with Belasco and me. It meant it’d just be the two of us, and that wasn’t enough. It was clear after last night that this case wasn’t just about a bit of property damage; if we weren’t careful, someone would be killed protecting the Gravesend Queen.
‘Will you have some tea with us before you go, Norman?’ asked Ettie.
I sat down at the table, glad to spend a few minutes with her. She’d been away six months or so, and I’d missed her more than I had a right to. I only wished Mrs Campbell wasn’t there;
I hadn’t seen Ettie on her own since she’d come back, and I had questions to ask her. She’d refused to explain to the guvnor where the baby came from, but I wondered if she might tell me. He reckoned it might be hers; she’d been away long enough for it not to be showing when she left. If that was right, he believed the father had to be Inspector Petleigh, since he’d been courting her just afore she left. I never thought she liked the inspector much, so to me it seemed more likely it was an orphan Ettie’d taken pity on, or maybe the child of a young girl who couldn’t look after it. The guvnor’d asked her over and over, but she just wouldn’t say. It was driving him wild, and I had a feeling that somewhere in her heart she enjoyed that just a little.
Mrs Campbell smiled. ‘Are you on an interesting case, Mr Barnett? Something about a boat, I hear?’
Ettie handed out the tea while I told them about the fire the night before.
‘He looked and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed,’ said Mrs Campbell in her low, Scottish voice. ‘Exodus.’
‘Each one’s work will become manifest for the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done,’ added Ettie, a pleased sparkle in her eyes for having thought up a verse about fire in the midst of her exhaustion. ‘Corinthians.’
‘Those who do evil fear the light, Mr Barnett,’ trumped Mrs Campbell. ‘Be strong in the Lord and his mighty power.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ I said, taking one of the ginger nuts Ettie offered me and hoping the versing was over.
Mrs Campbell was neat and proper, her blouse and skirt not long out the shop, her boots clean and polished, and she watched me close as I ate the biscuit. Colouring, I tucked up my jacket, hiding the patch.
Ettie bent over the baby and stared at it sleeping. It clucked and raised its hand. Ettie tensed. Then the hand fell. She straightened with a sigh and went over to sit at the table.
‘How is she?’ I asked. Ettie still hadn’t found the baby’s name.
‘She does what she’s supposed to.’ She smiled. ‘Quite often. Oh! There was something else he wanted me to tell you.’ She looked at Mrs Campbell. ‘Please excuse me, Mary.’
‘Oh, don’t mind me,’ answered her friend, picking up a tract as was sitting open on her lap.
Ettie cupped her hand round her mouth and whispered, ‘You’re to go to Lewis’s shop and borrow a …’ She glanced back at Mrs Campbell, who was pretending to read the tract, then made a pistol sign with her thumb and forefinger. It made me grin; she pursed her lips, trying to stay serious, and whispered again: ‘You’re to shoot in the air if the men come back. Scare them off. And you’re not to try to catch one, not until William’s back.’
I finished off my tea and stood. ‘Anything else?’
‘No, but be careful, Norman.’ She held my eye and I felt a sudden anger that Mrs Campbell was sitting there, her face now upturned. ‘Please. Don’t take any risks.’
‘I’ve the deckhand with me. He knows how to look after himself.’
There was a knock at the door. Ettie opened it to find Reverend Hebden stood there.
He removed his fine topper and greeted us, then glanced at the infant sleeping in the box. He frowned, as if he didn’t expect to see her there. His eyes fell to the floor, then rose to look at the child again.
‘Sit, please,’ said Ettie, pulling a chair from the table. ‘Would you like some tea?’
‘No, thank you. It’s only a brief visit. I … uh …’ He was staring in my direction like he wanted something out of me. He was a bit younger, though not a lot, with a fine, strong build. His topper was on his knee, his finger picking at the weave. ‘Is your brother here?’ he asked at last.
‘No,’ replied Ettie. She stood by the fireplace as if in alliance with me. ‘You said there was a matter you wanted to discuss with us?’
‘Yes, yes of course.’ He lifted his glorious head and straightened his back. ‘The mission’s grown since you’ve been away, Miss Arrowood. The men’s side is bringing in a few hundred more, and the school’s added an extra class. Pleasant Sundays have been a great success. Mrs Campbell might have told you.’
‘Yes,’ said Ettie with a tired smile. ‘Praise the Lord.’
‘We also have some new benefactors, and they’re keen to begin a medical mission.’
‘That’s wonderful,’ said Mrs Campbell, clapping her hands together.
‘You always wanted one, Reverend,’ said Ettie.
‘For His glory.’ He looked from one woman to the other. ‘I was hoping, that is the committee were hoping, that the two of you would take charge of it together. There’d be no salary at first, but when we find more subscribers we’ll be able to offer you both a stipend.’
‘Well,’ said Mrs Campbell slowly, her eyes fixed on the tract in her hands. She seemed uncertain. ‘There is such a great need.’
‘You’d train the deaconesses and send them out. Ensure they had medical provisions and so on. They’d serve the area north of Paradise Street in Rotherhithe to Marygold Street in Bermondsey. You both know those parts well. We could do so much good, and bring many more back to the church. I’m truly hoping you’ll agree. You with your nursing experience, Ettie, and you with your way with the poor, Mary. You’re my most capable ladies.’
‘We’re not your ladies,’ said Mrs Campbell.
‘No, of course. I didn’t mean … I meant only—’
‘And when did you hope this would begin?’ interrupted Ettie.
‘We hope to begin training the ladies in September.’
‘I have a child to look after,’ said Ettie sharply.
Now the Reverend was surprised. He blinked and drew his head back.
Ettie raised one eyebrow and pointed at the table. ‘Or are we pretending that little thing in the box doesn’t exist?’
Mrs Campbell now coloured. She brought her teacup to her lips and had a swallow. The holy man nodded, but he didn’t look at the box.
‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘I thought a wet nurse.’
‘I’ve no money to pay for a wet nurse.’
‘Perhaps one of the girls from the sanctuary?’
‘Without being paid?’ demanded Ettie, glaring at him. ‘How dare you suggest that!’
Mrs Campbell put her cup and saucer back on the side table but missed somehow, and the cup clattered to the floor. The baby squawked.
‘Ettie, I’m so sorry,’ said Mrs Campbell, jumping from her seat. ‘I’ll get a cloth.’
The baby’s little foot jerked up above the edge of the box as it started to make unhappy noises.
‘Oh, not again, please, darling,’ said Ettie, getting to her feet.
Reverend Hebden also rose from his chair.
‘Perhaps we can discuss this another time,’ he said, just as the baby started to bawl.
On the way to the pier, I picked up a little pistol from Lewis’s shop on Bankside. It was the same one he’d given me before, battered and silver, cold in my hand and strange in my pocket. I got a bit of bread and watercress from a woman outside St Saviour’s and crossed London Bridge, through the crowds of folk chewing straw and watching the ships. It was another still, muggy evening, the sky covered with a golden cloud. I found a place to stand halfway along the bridge and watched the river as I ate, the sailing ships from all over the world anchored on both sides, their masts and rigging filling the sky in a haze of rope and wood. It was busy tonight, a line of low barges labouring upstream, the steamboats hurrying past, burping out clouds that disappeared the moment they formed. To my left the bawleys and smacks queued for Billingsgate, the seagulls flapping and crying above them. Up ahead, Tower Bridge rose like the entrance to a blue and enchanted land. The entrance to the rest of the world, I used to say to my old darling Mrs B. How she used to love coming here of a summer’s night to see all the business of the Empire and the ocean laid out before us. I shoved the last of the watercress in my gob, and just as I chucked the paper over the side I fancied I heard her laugh from somewhere in the crowd. A smile came to my lips, then just as quick I remembered the cuckoo in my room. Mrs B’d forgive me, I knew it. But I had to get that woman out of my bed.
Chapter Seven
Evening was falling when I got to Old Swan Pier. It was on the other side of the bridge, right next to Fishmongers’ Hall, and I sat on a crate by the steps as I waited for the Gravesend Queen to arrive. The pier was busy. Paddle steamers were arriving from Essex and Kent. The Clacton Belle, the Koh-i-noor, the Oriole, the Glen Rosa. Just as Suzie said, these were bigger and better boats, and I watched them dump their passengers, the children tired and complaining, the unsteady, sun-faced men, the ladies with parasols and fans.
At the top of the steps stood an old soldier playing ‘God Save the Queen’ on a tin whistle, blasting it out as he tried to be heard over the honks of the oompah band drifting down from Swan Lane. Beside him a crippled boy sat begging on a crate. His face was burnt and peeled, his eyes too big and one lower than the other like it had melted. Both arms were twisted and bent, held upwards across his wide chest, the hands drooping and useless. He wore a pair of torn shorts, his legs bare. A cap lay on the floor. When someone threw him a coin, he’d pick it up with his toes and drop the money in a bag as hung over his shoulder. He didn’t thank them, didn’t smile, just sat there gazing at the river as the children slowed to stare.
The tired families trudged up to the embankment, into the moving horde of river-people, merchants, hawkers and chancers. Among these was a little gang of dippers following a well-to-do gent who was tacking badly from the refreshment he’d had on his outing. Easy to spot for me who’d lived close to that life, but the weary day-trippers could hardly see them. The youngest was maybe six year old, a little girl wearing a ragged dress, the oldest eleven or twelve, dressed posh and in full mourning: black coat and trousers, shiny boots, a silk tie and beaver hat. The gent’s family hurried ahead, keen to get to the cabs on Upper Thames Street, leaving him staggering and stranded. The lad in mourning stood a few yards ahead, pretending to search the crowd for someone, while his gang laughed and wrestled behind the gent. When the man got near, a little boy in white britches pushed one of his mates right into the gent, who stumbled forward into the older lad. In a flash the kids disappeared, dissolved into the crowd like they were never there. That was it. The gent’s watch or purse would be gone.
The traffic was dying down when finally I saw the Gravesend Queen poke its head out from under the bridge, dodging a tug pulling a string of barges upriver. At the helm was Captain Moon, his jacket off, while Suzie stood on deck. She gave me a wave, and the boat slowed as it approached the pier, pulsing with the heavy chug of the engine. I caught the rope that Suzie threw and tied it off on a bollard. She dropped the gangway and stepped ashore.
‘Have you seen Belasco?’ she asked, retying my knot. Her dress was marked all over with soot, her hands black. Her hair was wild and tangled.
‘He ain’t with you?’
‘Dad sent him home for a rest.’
Moon appeared at the rail, his pipe in his mouth. ‘Where’s Mr Arrowood?’ he asked.
‘Called away. He sends his apologies. He’ll be back tomorrow.’
Moon frowned at Suzie. A bigger paddle steamer, approaching from the other direction, gave a long ring of its bell. ‘Shut it,’ growled Moon, glaring at it.
‘Did you manage to fix up the boat?’ I asked Suzie. It looked seaworthy enough to me, but there was no mistaking there’d been a fire. Charred stains ran up the side of the saloon wall, and the paint on the balustrade was black and bubbled.
‘Good enough, I reckon. Been cleaning all day.’
‘Could do without that wedding party tonight,’ muttered Moon. ‘Lewisham and all.’
The bell sounded again from the other paddle steamer.
‘Move off, will you!’ called out one of its deckhands. ‘We got that docking!’
‘Give us a bloody minute!’ shouted Moon, suddenly angry. He turned back to us. ‘We got to go get cleaned up, Suzie. We’re already late.’
‘What about Belasco?’ she asked.
‘He’ll be along soon. Katie’ll take him over.’
Suzie untied the rope from the bollard.
‘You best get on, Mr Barnett.’
Moon went to the helm while we pulled up the gangway, and soon we were moving to a mooring about a hundred yards out in the river. We dropped anchor next to two barges, and Suzie tied the boat to an iron piling jutting out the water. When Moon had the engines shut down, he gave a whistle and a wherry pushed off from the pier. A woman was at the oars.
