Our Time Is Gone (50 page)

I believe that God is good to everybody, bad and good, it doesn't matter. I wrote to Peter some time ago. I hope the lad is well and that you'll see him one fine day. If I get a chance to write again, and you'd like me to, I will. Now about what Denny asked me to do. I was going to see you off to Mount Mellery when you were better. Now, being called up I can't. We're all over the place with this war. Twelve out of Price Street are killed. Over thirty gone altogether. I hope it soon ends. I hope Anthony is well and safe, also Denny, and may I conclude by saying
meas
—
le meas
. You ought to know what that means. I remain, yours faithfully,

J. K
ILKEY
.

‘That's done!' he exclaimed. ‘Now I've fixed everything.'

Then he went to bed. He blew out the candle. A flicker of light from the lamp in the rear of the house filtered through the window, and seemed to make a small pool upon the linoleum-covered floor. The street was silent, the whole city was silent, so silent that he imagined he could hear from the jetty the murmurous wash of waters against its walls. Later, a long wailing sound broke across the river. The river was towards the sea, and the sea carried ships he had stood in, loaded, unloaded. They sailed all the seas. He thought now of his years of work on those ships. A tug blew from somewhere in the direction of the Gelton Basin. But he was dead asleep and did not hear it.

At a quarter past nine the next morning four men came to the house. Mr. Kilkey stood fast. Finally they dragged him from the house.

CHAPTER VIII

I

About half-past six in the morning Mrs. Fury woke to the sound of violent knocking from the floor above. Mrs. Gumbs, who never trusted anything so mechanical as an alarm clock, was banging on her floor with a stick. The woman in the room below sat up in the darkness. She picked up a curtain rod and answered back by prodding the ceiling with it. She got out of bed and groped about on the chimney-piece for a match. Quickly she shut the window. The morning air was like a cold tongue touching her face. She lit gas and stove, and whilst the kettle boiled she dressed.

She could hear Mrs. Gumbs pottering about above. Ten minutes later she made tea. Peering out through the window she saw mist rolling up Edcott Court. Here and there a light broke upon the darkness. Edcott Court was waking up.

This tall, gaunt-looking, severe-faced woman, a face softened only by the eyes, large, innocent-looking eyes, moved about the room, gathering things together to give some tidiness to the place before she went off for the day. She washed, arranged her hair, without the aid of a mirror. She possessed none. It never occurred to her for a moment to look into one.

This astonished Mrs. Gumbs, who once had to climb the stairs back to her room to take a last glimpse at herself before she faced the world. But she made no mention of Mrs. Fury's being mirrorless. Some people liked them, some hated them. Mrs. Fury must hate them, she thought. She came down and knocked at the door.

‘Come in.'

‘'Morning.' Morning,' she said, shuffling into the room with her hands pushed into the sleeves of her coat. ‘Cold, this morning,' and, giving the appearance of great age, she went across to the chair and sat down. ‘Had your breakfast?'

‘Yes,' Mrs. Fury said. ‘And I'll be ready in a second.' She gulped down her tea.

‘Oh, there's no hurry, I assure you! Just thought I'd come down. Had much of a breakfast?' she asked, and her eye roved the table with its one cup without saucer, the piece of white linen spread, a half loaf, butter.

‘As much as I want,' Mrs. Fury said, going to the door for her coat.

‘You know, what you eat before you go on this job,' said Mrs. Gumbs, rising slowly from the chair, ‘what you eat is of great importance. Sounds queer, doesn't it? But it is. And you—well, you're making your first trip to the ships. When I first began I was sick as a dog. But now I just have tea and dry bread. Something more substantial later on.'

They went out together. The stairway was in darkness. Awkwardly they clip-clopped down and the mist came up to meet them, cold, clammy.

‘I don't understand,' Mrs. Fury said, wrapping her coat together about her. ‘It
is
rather cold this morning,' and she went on ahead of her friend.

‘Well, you'll see what I mean, Mrs. Fury,' replied Mrs. Gumbs. ‘At the moment it would be wise to hold one's breath. Jove! It's foggy.'

‘Terribly foggy. I hope we don't fall into the dock.'

They emerged from the hood-like entrance to the stairway. Edcott Court was shrouded in white. Ahead and behind them doors banged and other women emerged. Voices hailed. Mrs. Gumbs suddenly caught her companion's arm.

‘There are one or two things I'd like to tell you,' she began. ‘Now you're a respectable married woman who's had a bit of trouble, see! You've come here to live so you can be quiet, and left alone. But I want to tell you that some of the women you'll meet won't be to your liking, Mrs. See! And there's another thing. They're free with men. Some of them are young, and some of them are like us—
not
so young. Understand! Now this morning we're going to a ship that has no name. Washed off so to speak. She has a number. She's just returned from taking troops to the East. So I hear. You see, when you're on this job you get almost like a sailor, you begin studying the tide tables and noting in the paper what ship has come in. And what's gone out. We all do it. Anyhow, I thought I'd better tell you in case. See! Mind you, I can tell you're a woman above that sort of thing. You know what I mean. Easy familiarity. But we can't all be good, Mrs., can we? Ah, well! Here we are,' she concluded, as they left Edcott Court behind them.

Mrs. Fury stopped dead and turned round. Something made her stop to look round. But there was nothing to see except the mist rolling up the Court. There was not a sound. When she spoke her own voice sounded strangely loud.

Mrs. Gumbs said they'd better get on. They were now on the Dock Road. Far ahead they heard voices, occasional laughter, but they saw nobody.

‘It
is
foggy this morning, isn't it?' said Mrs. Gumbs, taking a more deliberate hold on the other's arm. ‘Fog is bad for everybody, but terrible for sailors.'

‘It's so silent here, isn't it?' Mrs. Fury remarked, and her thoughts turned to her husband. Somewhere, far beyond this fog, he lived. Somewhere, at the other end of this white world. She
must
write the poor man to-day.

‘Isn't it? Almost like the grave. Funny, isn't it, being here in the middle of the fog! So quiet. You'd hardly dream there was a terrible war raging, would you? I suppose there'll always be wars, and men will fight in them. They wouldn't be happy if they weren't doing something.'

Mrs. Gumbs's philosophing went in at one of Mrs. Fury's ears and out of the other. Her companion's comments upon the world, upon women and marriage and war, even this fog, roused little interest in the woman. She was too continuously absorbed by some inner conflict that went on in her mind. If she wasn't thinking of her husband she was thinking of her children. She thought of husband and son at sea, as she walked along the Dock Road. Mrs. Gumbs had her head a little bowed, her hands still tucked into the sleeves of her coat. Looking at her from behind she might have been praying on her way to work. But beyond the fog lay the river, and beyond that the sea. And somewhere on that sea her husband and son.

Almost instinctively Mrs. Gumbs respected the sudden silence of the older woman. She liked this woman. She liked the way she carried herself about the world, head erect, looking it in the face. She admired her faith, and she admired something else, something that never quite defined itself, perhaps it was a sort of innocence in the woman.

‘It's not getting any warmer, I must say,' remarked Mrs. Gumbs, feeling that the time for silence was up. ‘I do hope you'll get on all right this morning.'

‘I will,' Mrs. Fury said. ‘It's not the first time I've seen these docks, you know.'

There! thought Mrs. Gumbs, just listen to that! Well! well! We'll soon see.

Sometimes they stopped dead as a huge shape loomed up.

‘Careful! careful!' Mrs. Gumbs said. ‘Have to watch yourself on these mornings. Nearly walked into that lorry.'

The mist became thicker, they groped their way along. Above them stretched the ghostly line of the overhead railway, and to their right, the tall warehouses gave the road a kind of canyon effect. To the left was the river, and towering above it, sheds, cranes, coaling stations, graving docks, foundries, stables, yards—and the fog poured over and into them.

‘Careful now,' Mrs. Gumbs said. Though she could not see more than five yards she sensed that they had reached the dock into which they were to go. Suddenly she halted. ‘Here we are, Mrs.,' she said. ‘Down here. Can you see that shed?' she asked.

The other replied: ‘Yes, I can see it,' although she couldn't see it at all.

‘Well, that's where we go,' went on Mrs. Gumbs, ‘and when we get there we line up in the shed same as the dockers do, see? And then some get sent to this ship and some to that ship. Stick by me and you'll be all right.'

They passed through the gate. In the small wooden hut doorway stood a policeman, behind him a bright fire blazed.

Mrs. Gumbs said: ‘Good morning.'

‘Good morning,' he said, and immediately withdrew into his hut.

Mrs. Fury stood looking round. She recognized something, a clock tower. ‘I know this place,' she said, a little excitedly. ‘I've passed through it so often that I know every stick and stone of it. I know. This is the Corby Dock.'

‘Quite right,' said Mrs. Gumbs, ‘but there's lots of things to know besides that.'

Now they heard a chorus of women talking and shouting as they entered the shed. At the far end they could see a cluster of lights burning dimly in the fog.

‘That,' said Mrs. Gumbs, ‘is where you have to line up. Mr. Dickson tells you off to your job, and then you go to the store shed for your things. Bucket, soap, scrubbing-brush. That's all. And then you go aboard, and scrub.'

They drew near to the light, the voices became quite distinctive now. They dodged behind chutes, skips, coils of rope, barrels and boxes, crept under cranes, stationary lorries.

Mrs. Gumbs remarked upon the state of the shed. ‘Always packed. Never seen it empty.' She stood by a great heap of soiled linen. ‘Bandages,' she said dryly. ‘Plenty of those about, these times. Unhealthy, I say, but what isn't down here? That's what I always say. You know, Mrs., there's something about these sheds. Well, I don't know how to say it, but somehow it's just like the end of a rotten mattress. Oh, well, here we are,' and suddenly they had come under the light.

About thirty women were standing there. All manner of dress, mostly coats of magnificent length, straw hats, here and there a shawl. A tall woman standing with her sleeves rolled up above the elbow looked so like Mrs. Fury that Mrs. Gumbs commented on it. Mrs. Fury looked at the woman and smiled. It was indeed. The living image of her.

A man emerged from a near-by hut, called out in stentorian tones: ‘Well, ‘ere yer are, are yer? Yer lot of hags! Give us the names.'

They called out their names. Mrs. Gumbs put an arm through Mrs. Fury's, an arm of moral support, whispered: ‘Of course, I told you!'

‘Yes,' the other whispered back, ‘but nothing I see or hear will affect me. I'm well trained. Don't for heaven's sake imagine that I haven't a strong stomach. That's just what I have. That's Mr. Dickson, I suppose?'

‘It is,' replied Mrs. Gumbs. ‘He's got a dull, dirty mind. But nobody takes any notice of him here. You heard him? “Hags,” That's nothing. Wait till we descend,' she concluded. She took out a handkerchief, blew her nose.

‘Descend?'

Mrs. Gumbs smiled. Used to it, eh? Made her want to laugh! Didn't know what ‘descend' meant! Yet she stood there, tall, so dignified, pretending that she had seen all this before, she had
such
a good stomach. She was
used
to it. The devil she was!' You'll learn, Mrs.,' she said, almost pityingly.

‘Who are
you
?' Mr. Dickson was standing in front of Mrs. Fury, staring at her.

‘I'm Mrs. Fury,' replied the woman, staring above and past him.

‘Oh!' and Mr. Dickson took a look round at the rest of the assembly and his expression appeared to say: ‘Well, fancy that! Just fancy that!'—‘Oh,' he continued,' seeing you standing there like that I thought you was the Holy Ghost. Come into the light, Mrs.——and who are you?'

‘You mind your own damned business,' said Mrs. Gumbs. ‘She's a friend of mine and she's down here to start work. Say there is none and I'll call you a damned liar.'

Mrs. Gumbs's hands came out of her sleeves, and for a moment Mr. Dickson thought she would strike him. The other women looked on, calmly indifferent.

Mr. Dickson continued. He made a rush towards the crew. ‘Line up there! Let's have a bloody look at you?'

They got into line, and Mr. Dickson's eye began to notice things. He went up to them. ‘You!' he said, digging his finger into a woman's fleshy shoulder. ‘
Armine
. Shed three,' and as she turned to go to the hut for her bucket and soap he cried out after her: ‘I'm sending you there because you're dirty. Yes,
you
, you,
Armine
! Shed three, and
you,
' he added, staring at Mrs. Gumbs, ‘
Aronsa
, shed five. Just suit you. What about your friend here?' He gripped the lapel of Mrs. Fury's coat.

She put a hand on Mr. Dickson, and gently removing his, said: ‘I came to work, not to be mauled. I hope you understand that!'

For once Mr. Dickson lowered his eyes. ‘H'm,' he thought, ‘a new one! Soon get her into turn.'