The Restless Sea. Vanessa de Haan
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‘Just drop it, will you?’
Carl doesn’t push it. He and Jack have been best friends for as long as they can remember – brought together on the docks, and in the same class since they were sent to primary. The boys watch Mr Mills work for a while. He is a deal porter: unloading and stacking the long planks that arrive on the steamers from overseas and the narrowboats from upcountry. It’s a skill that’s up there with the best on the docks, and means regular employment, a far cry from the casual labour that Jack’s dad had to rely on. But it’s still hard work. Jack can barely lift one plank; Mr Mills carries three or four at a time. He wears a leather cap with a long bit dangling down to protect his shoulders. It is like watching an acrobat, the balancing and judging where best to lay the next plank on the towering pile, the skipping from mound to mound, and all the time the planks on his shoulder tipping up and down while his legs and feet work to keep his body stable.
When he spots Jack, Mr Mills jumps down from the top of the mountain as sure-footed as a goat, his muscles bulging and flexing with effort. He is breathing heavily, his broad chest expanding and contracting against his braces. His calloused hands are full of splinters. ‘Jack,’ he says, his low voice betraying his dislike. The scar on his cheek is a pale, raised streak down his red face; Carl’s family have Jewish blood, and the mark is a souvenir from the fight against the fascists in Cable Street.
‘Mr Mills,’ says Jack, nodding back.
‘I thought you two was going to work tomorrow?’
‘We are. But since he’s here now, can we go to the pictures?’ says Carl.
Mr Mills rubs his scar and eyes Jack. ‘You’ll have to be up early …’
‘We know …’
‘I want you back by dark.’
‘Sure.’
‘Or I’ll have your mother on my case …’
‘I’ll be back.’
Mr Mills gives Jack another narrow look and then rubs Carl’s head, and Carl pushes him away, laughing, then the boys disappear once more into their city.
Jack settles the cap firmly on his head, pulling it down tight. He creeps out without waking his sister. It is easier now that she sleeps in their mother’s bed. He will pick her up later in the morning, once his mother has been at work for an hour or so. The guilt that plucks at his insides is tinged with worry: Betsy still can’t read properly, and now that the school has relocated to the countryside it looks as if she never will. He knows she will be cross when she wakes – she likes to stick as close to him as his own shadow these days – but the docks are no place for a child.
Dawn is breaking. The sky is leaden, pressing down on him with a suffocating heaviness. It is cold, and he half jogs down the high street to try to keep warm. Past the air-raid siren. Past the navy blue police box, and the sandbagged shop fronts – the fishmonger, the greengrocer, the hosiery shop, the tobacconist, the pawnbroker. The stillness is broken by an ancient fire engine and a taxi pulling a water pump that trundle past in the opposite direction. Probably a drill. Everything’s a drill these days. Sometimes he wishes the Nazis would come and drop a bloody bomb. That at least might be exciting.
Jack has been good as his word, working the docks with Carl for the last two weeks, avoiding Stoog and the others. Today the boys are heading to the East and West India docks, Jack’s favourites, where the air smells of spices and oils, of spilt rum and sacks full of tobacco left to mature in the warehouses. Much of the work is still beyond even Carl’s ability – rolling or repairing the heavy barrels, or portering coal and grain – and they stay out of the way of the seasoned gangs with their vicious case hooks, but there is still plenty of work to be found. The boys take what they can get: an hour here or there loading and unloading the smaller carts and trolleys, separating cargo on the floors of the warehouses, jemmying open chests for the customs officials.
They cross from dock to dock, hitching a lift in a cart or a truck or a barge, or they take the train from the Royal Docks, with its vast refrigeration sheds packed with ghostly pale slabs of meat. There is cheese arriving from Europe, and fabric from India, apples and grapefruit from Australia, Palestine. Persian carpets, and silks from India pass beneath cars and buses dangling from great chains. Passenger liners deposit travellers from New Zealand, the Canaries, South Africa, Brazil. Everything is in multiples: lines of people, crates of food, stacks of timber, barrels of wine – once, even, four elephants for the circus.
Carl catches up with Jack on the bridge. The sky has lightened to a pale grey, and there is an eerie mist like a sheen on the river. They are dockside before first call-on, down where the cavernous warehouses and towering chimneys loom reddy-orange in the watery light. The familiar thud and crash of boat and barge mingles with the shouts and curses of men. Jack hears the warning to look out as an unsecured load crashes to the ground, sees the glint of metal as another worker digs his sharp case hook into a sack, savours the smell of coffee and cocoa beans on his tongue.
Today there is a shipment of bananas. Jack watches the green bunches trundle down from the ship’s holds on creaky conveyor belts. A man with a horse and cart waits patiently while the first lot of fruit is loaded on to trolleys for the waiting trains and lorries. Carl and Jack have worked with this man before. Once the bulk of the bananas have gone, they help him place the fruit into wooden crates and pack them around with straw. The conveyor belt creaks and squeaks and groans. Jack glances up to the gunwale of the ship, but the gold-toothed sailor is not there. The sailors looking back at him have skin the colour of the roasted chestnuts that he sometimes buys as a treat for Betsy in the winter, their white teeth flashing like chalk on slate.
The driver jumps on to the back of the cart and Carl and Jack hand the crates up to him. Jack’s arms ache: bananas are heavier than they look. There are other crates of fruit here already, apples and grapefruit that make the back of the cart smell like sunshine and sugar. Jack’s mouth waters.
When they have finished, the man hops down and chats to the dockers, while the boys rest their weary arms. The horse seems unfazed by the constant commotion. It stands with its head low, eyes half-closed, ears flicking one way or the other, resting each hind leg in turn. Jack runs his hand along the animal’s flank. It is soft and warm. He leans against it, sucking up the heat through his sleeves. After the hard work, his sweat is starting to cool.
‘Make the most of these,’ says one of the dockers to the cart driver, removing his flat cap and scratching his head. ‘Reckon you’ll be lucky to see any more for a while.’
‘Problems with supply?’ asks the cart driver.
The docker shakes his head. ‘Not at the other end. But these poor bastards are having a job getting through.’ He indicates another man, a sailor.
The sailor nods his head. ‘Sea’s swarming with Nazis,’ he says.
‘Going to starve us out?’
‘Don’t seem to make a difference what the cargo is. They’ll take a pop at anything. Even passenger ships.’
The men shake their heads and suck their teeth.
‘What if the country runs out of food?’
‘That’s never going to happen.’
‘Government’s talking about rationing butter and bacon in case we get short.’
‘Let’s hope it don’t come to that.’ The sailor shares cigarettes out around the group. They light them, the smoke curling in thin blue lines into the air. The smell reminds Jack of his dad.
‘You heading back out there?’
‘Got to.’
‘Got anything to protect you?’
‘’Course not. But I heard we might get a Navy escort.’
‘I’ll believe that when I see it.’
They stand in silence for a bit, pulling on their cigarettes. The tobacco burns