Authors: Gordon Ferris
“
Tortilla Flat, Of Mice and Men
…”
“
Grapes of Wrath
! What did you think of
Grapes of Wrath
?”
“I wept,” she said simply.
“Will you marry me?”
“And share my Penguins? Never!”
They tried clearing our table and sweeping up around us. Finally they put upturned chairs on the tables, so that we sat in a forest of thin columns. We took the hint at last
and I walked her home through Bloomsbury to her digs in Russell Square. It felt companionable and right to hold hands all the way. Her fingers were long and slim and hot. We weren’t sure what
to do on the doorstep and ended up with a brush of lips on lips. It was enough to get a taste of lipstick and wine and cigarettes, and I wanted more. But she seemed to blink, as though coming out
of a dream. She backed away and slipped inside. Yet something had begun. It was easy to involve her in my business. Easy to get involved with her, period. That’s my excuse.
SIX
I woke early, but lay wondering at the turmoil in my mind. Nothing had happened last night. Had it? Why should it? She was my client. I was working for her. Running a detective
agency didn’t put me among the bankers and accountants, but it warranted professional standards. Didn’t it? Besides, if I wanted to pick up a girl who liked books as much as me, I
should hang around libraries. And yet… we hadn’t been able to stop talking, comparing notes, trumping each other, flashing our best sides. We were kids showing off, excited by the
promise of adventure. That’s all. But I should have kissed her again. Properly.
I got up and dressed and stopped myself three times from lifting the phone and calling her newsdesk. It’s a character defect with me, over-reacting at the merest sniff of a chance with a
lively girl. I shoved her out of my head. I pulled my chair up to my desk and switched into SOE planning mode. I had work to do. But as I began to lay out the operation, all I could see were the
risks for her. Maybe I should have called her and put her off. I had the phone in my hand when the boys arrived. I put it back in its cradle.
They were punctual: army training. I’d met them in the pub a couple of months ago, and over a few ales we became instant pals. As with Eve, you recognise your own type. I get them to do
some stuff for me: recces of hotels and offices, tailing philanderers, that sort of thing. I can trust them. Four of us cloistered in my little office. Four men, two chairs. I took one, Midge the
other. Midge Cummin, by common but unspoken assent, was my number two. An ex-sergeant in the Paras, one of the few who survived Arnhem. He was unemployed and living off the pittance of his demob
pay supplemented by jobs like this, but his boots shone like he was Honour Guard at Sandhurst.
The other two sat on the floor with their backs against the wall. A pall of smoke already hung from the ceiling and at the rate we were puffing the cloud would envelop us all within the hour. I
opened the window and watched the breeze stir and suck at the foul canopy. Maybe Prof Haggarty was right; I should give up the fags.
I went through my analysis of the layout at Tommy’s warehouse and briefed them on the plan, such as it was. There would be a lot of improvisation. I asked Big Cyril what he thought about
the timing. He was squatting against the wall tugging at his beard. He was Navy and looked exactly like the bloke on the back of a packet of Players. Cyril Styles was the quiet man who killed with
his bare hands, or with a knife or anything that came to hand, in his former life as a platoon leader in Special Boat Squadron.
“It depends on the tide. I’ve checked the tables and we should get floated at 21.35. It’s already dark by then. But you said we’ve no idea what time the raid will
happen?”
“That’s true,” I said. “We could be wasting our time tonight, but you’ll get paid for turning up. I agreed with Tommy Chandler that if nothing happens this time,
you’ll still get a couple of quid each. The bonus – twenty a man – gets paid when – if – we nail these bastards and stop the thieving.”
“Sounds fair enough to me,” chipped in Stan Berry. We all reckoned Stan’s mom had slept with a Jack Russell. He was five foot nothing, wiry, and kept his hair short and spiky.
He couldn’t sit still on his scrawny arse for longer than two seconds. For the last twenty minutes he’d wriggled and twisted like he had fleas. But this was the guy who’d bailed
out of his burning Lancaster over Cologne, spent six months in a German POW hospital before escaping on crutches through the lines to France, then Spain, and took the next seat on the next
Lancaster to bomb the bastards again. For the crap food, he said.
I would put these three men up against a gang ten times their strength and still bet my house on them. If I had a house. But it was important never to get all four of us in the same pub. Unless
they were watering the beer.
“Right. You all know your job. Midge takes one boat, Cyril takes the other. I’ll be with Midge, Stan goes with Cyril. And remember – no killing! This isn’t Jerry. Hear
that, Cyril? No knives, no garrotting, and absolutely no guns.”
“What if they’ve got ’em?” asked Cyril, disappointed.
“Or there are ten of them,” chipped in Stan.
“You’ve got surprise and experience on your side.”
“You sound like my old sergeant major just before he sent us out against a Panzer unit,” said Cyril.
“What happened?” asked Stan.
“We lost,” said Cyril dryly.
“Still, we’ve got these.” Midge picked up one of the pickaxe handles he’d brought and thwacked it into his hand with a ringing smack.
“But try not to brain them, fellas, OK? We want to hand them over to the bobbies in one piece, everything in working order. If we can.”
I stared each one in the eye till I got the look that said they understood.
“There’s one other thing. We’ll have a passenger tonight. A reporter who wants a scoop. I’ll take personal responsibility. None of your names will show up.”
“What the fuck, Danny? A passenger? This is no time for a fucking passenger,” said Midge.
“I said it’s my responsibility. OK?”
There were a few more grumbles but no serious objection. I wonder what they’d have said if I’d told them the reporter was a girl? One shock at a time.
At eight o’clock I was walking along the cobbles towards the Anchor Tap, a pub in Horselydown Lane, the frontier to a run of narrow streets and warehouses just down river
from Tower Bridge. The streets were empty; the warehouses shut for the day, and all the workers – draymen and lightermen – safely home with their feet up listening to the wireless and
reading their paper. Sensible blokes. But they’d left their spoor on the air like a tribe that had just folded its tents: acrid fumes of coal fires from guttering braziers, the sharp stink of
urine and dung from the Clydesdales, and ripe malt and hops from the Anchor Brewhouse. It set my senses alight and made me wish I was meeting this girl for a quiet drink instead of a gang for a
midnight ruckus.
I pushed though the swing doors, into the bar area and ducked into the little back room behind it. Four rough lads were throwing darts, another was sipping his pint and scanning the racing
section, and a bargirl stood polishing her counter and dreaming of the first kiss from her beau when she got off work at ten.
No Eve. Late, as usual. I turned to walk through to check the other rooms when the fella with a paper coughed. I turned. He was waving at me to join him. Then I saw the dark eyes below the brim
of the flat cap and the slenderness of the hands holding the paper. I nearly burst out laughing. I signalled to her to follow me and went on ahead. One of the darts players gave me a funny look as
though he’d spotted a rendezvous between homos.
The Tap is a warren with a dozen boltholes downstairs and up. I took a seat in an empty room down the narrow corridor and waited. She appeared in the door clutching her paper and her pint.
Smaller than your average bloke but no midget, she wore a scruffy pair of flannels, a jacket that must have come from a jumble sale of lads’ cast-offs and a creased blue shirt and tie. I
guessed she’d bound her breasts to keep them flat. The boots looked like genuine labourer’s with hard toes and plenty of scuffs. Her face was scrubbed of make-up and showed off its
strong lines. Her tangle of hair had been ruthlessly shoved under her cap. It bulged under the strain. In a weird way the look suited her, and I had a very odd fancy to grab this pretty lad and
give him/her a sound kissing.
“You look like a docker. Quite a pretty one, mind.”
“Was that a compliment?”
“For what we’re up to, yes.”
“What do I have to do?”
“Nothing. You are here purely as a spectator. If things get messy, stay clear. Whatever you do, keep out of the lads’ way.”
She nodded and looked suitably serious, yet there was a glint of mischief in those interesting eyes that made me wonder if she really understood what I’d got her into. I tried to put it
across.
“If things go pear-shaped, you have to be prepared to dump the jacket and the boots, and swim for it. And this is no sweet-smelling lido; this is the Thames. More turds than fishes. Do you
understand?”
“I don’t intend to drink it.”
I sat back. Either she was a bloody good actress or she didn’t realise what a thoroughly stupid idea this was. And how likely it was to go horribly wrong.
We left the pub at nine. Once we’d gone beyond the pool of yellow light from the pub, darkness gathered round us like a silent crowd. These were warehouses, not residential streets; no
need for the lamplighter to string his fire from hissing globes. The four- and five-storey brick buildings loured above us. Overhead, cranes and walkways linked the river-fronted warehouses with
the rear ones. You could unload your ship and shift your load to storage through rat-runs in the sky. In the day it was full of shouts and crashing doors and creaking hand carts. Now, it was eerily
quiet, and I didn’t enjoy the claustrophobic narrowness of the streets. Our boots rang out on the cobbles and echoed round the maze of alleyways.
We came to Shad Thames, the eastern boundary of this enclave. I held her back in the shadows and peered across the road into the gloomy arches of St Andrew’s Wharf. I checked my watch; the
luminous dial glowed green. Nine-fifteen exactly. I looked again across the road. A light blinked twice then stopped for a count of five. Twice again, and we crossed the road and penetrated the
gloom. Hands guided us forward and I could smell the salt. As my eyes adjusted I could see the three shadows grinning at me.
“All set?” I asked, not whispering but keeping my voice low.
“Set, skipper.” I recognised Midge’s voice then his face as we emerged into a pool of moonlight. We stood on the wharf side looking down on the gathering waters of St
Saviour’s Dock. Below me, moored by rope to the wharf, were two boats, each with a two-stroke outboard motor. Big Cyril had done well. To our left the dock widened into the grey-glistening
Thames in the Pool of London. Across the other side among the darkened crenulations, stood Tommy Chandler’s warehouse.
I turned to the men and indicated Eve. “This is the reporter I told you about.”
“Does he have a name?” asked Stan, his inquisitive eyes running all over Eve.
I saw Eve’s eyes widen as she realised I hadn’t told them.
“Fellas? Just to set the record straight. It’s not a
he
. This is Eve Copeland, ace reporter on the
Daily Trumpet
.”
“Fuck’s sake, Danny!” said Stan, more offended by Eve being taller than him than by her sex, I suspected. He was echoed by the others.
“Enough! I said I’d handle this. She’s…”
Eve interrupted me. “I’m just along for the ride. I promise you, I won’t get in the way. And if things work out the way Danny says, you’ll all be front-page
heroes.”
The men grumbled but were softened by her attitude, or the promise of stardom. I called them back to business.
“How’s the tide running, Cyril?” This was his specialty. I hoped he wasn’t having flashbacks to the Dieppe raid. But as far as I could see he was enjoying it. Just like
old times.
“We’re at the last half hour of high tide, Danny. The current’s running like a greyhound. It’d have us all down at Richmond in two shakes if we went out now. But
I’m assuming Jerry will have thought of that too. If they’re coming out to play tonight.”
“Jerry?”
“Habit. Sorry.”
“Is the
Clever Girl
berthed?”
“She’s alongside. You can see her prow if you walk five yards.”
I did. I could see the sharp outline of her forward half across the water. Tommy told me she was a three thousand tonner, one funnel job. She took up three-quarters of the mooring in front of
the warehouse.
“When’s the best time – if you were planning to nick the goods?” I asked.
“In an hour the tide will hit high water mark. That’s when there’s calm, when the water balances,” said Cyril showing us with his hands.
“How long does it last?”
“Ten, fifteen minutes.”
“When’s the next high tide?”
“Three a m. That’s the one I’m betting on,” said Midge. “Dead time.”
“You could be right. But we need to be prepared for either. We’ll take turns watching. The rest of us settle down. This could be a long night.”
Midge took lookout first, sitting out at the end of the walkway in the shadow of a thick pile, gazing across the swollen river. Eve and I sat with our backs to the wharf wall. The wood warmed up
under us and as there was no breeze, the evening air felt mild. We shared a cigarette, cupping the glow, and kept our thoughts to ourselves. Mine dwelt on other nights waiting for action. The
weapon drops in France, with the wood-burning Gazogene truck parked in the wood. The quiet breathing of the Maquis around me, ready to chase the crates of ammo and guns swooping down out of the
night sky. Or before that, under a desert night flooded with stars, waiting for the roar of the guns to split the dawn. Back further, to a past that belonged to someone else; waiting for the
daybreak of my finals at Glasgow. Head buzzing with swotting and lack of sleep, terrified of failure.