A Ship's Tale (4 page)

“If your work is as good as your words, well eh, a strong back is welcome. There's much to be done, and no time to do it all.”

I was about to say something in return but the last of the three, a huge burly great bear of a man, now leaned towards Bowman and spoke in a quiet voice, “You'll want to know, no one followed. As soon as it's dark, we'll unload.”

“Good show,” nodded Bowman. He jerked a thumb in my direction, “This chap calls himself Flynn.”

“Yes, I heard.” The giant hove near and loomed over me.

“Harris,” he said, extending a massive hand that all but swallowed up my own. I had to wonder if I'd get it back whole.

The expression on the face above me, with its sandy jaw-lined beard, was reassuringly mild. The beard was repeated in a fringe of hair around the back of his head, which left the top bare and shining pink. The overall effect was that of a vast benevolence, yet one had the overwhelming impression that in any fray this was someone you'd want to see in your own corner.

Finally he released my hand, which I cautiously flexed. “Excuse me a moment,” he said, and made his way to a large armchair. He lowered himself with a grateful sigh, and with a piteous groan from the chair, poured himself a measure of whisky.

Giving me an appraising glance, he then looked towards Bowman. “How much does he know?” he asked.

“Enough,” grunted Bowman.

Harris turned back to me, “Well Flynn, as Edward said, we've much to do and it means the world to us. I hope you'll not give us up, but bust your arse along with the rest of us, else I'll kick it into proper shape for you.” And he gave a gentle, kindly smile that made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. “Cheers,” he added, lifting his mug.

“I'll do my very best, Harris,” I gulped. Good God, I did seem to be committing myself, and, intriguing as it all sounded, I hadn't even known Bowman more than a few hours. “Never a good idea to always do your best. People will then always expect it of you,” Harris joked.

The company looked about at one another and took this in without further comment, then pulled up their chairs closer to the pot-bellied stove. Harris leaned forward, opened the door, and stirred the coals with the poker. Taking up the tongs, he extracted a large bit of coal from a nearby box and tossed it in, then fell back into his chair and began his report.

“The spare wireless parts were hard to find, but I've enough to put the radio right with the exception of a proper handset. I've got two pumps and several tins of petrol to keep them going a few days. Good new hoses and lots of rigging parts. Boris, go through and see what's of use and what's rubbish.”

“Aha, yes,” said Boris, pulling on his watch cap.

Harris waved a hand, “Not yet, wait until dark. Oh, and deep-six anything with ship's markings if we can't paint over them.” Boris nodded that he understood.

Whilst we waited for darkness, Harris and Bowman sat and told tales of their innumerable adventures during their many years at sea, some of it as shipmates. Between them, they had lived an odyssey that spanned many years and could probably fill a score of volumes if written down. Edward and Boris howled with laughter and volunteered little stories of their own as the evening wore on.

The place was cheery now, and we were starting to get to know one another. I could see that Edward, except when giving forth his low choked laugh, was a taciturn and reserved man. When he began to speak, his lips took on a nervous quiver, as if the words were stirring within, waiting to fall out. Boris was more easygoing and casually accepted most of life's tasks as not too much trouble. He'd been a rigger most of his life and was more at home aloft than on deck. That Russian accent of his was thicker than a London fog, but I suspected that he knew or understood more English than Bowman gave him credit for.

About seven o'clock, Harris got up and looked out of the porthole. “Well, Flynn, let's put that strong back of yours to some use. You help Boris unload. Bowman and I need to chat a moment. You too, Edward.”

“Right,” I replied. Rising, I laid hold of my coat and followed Boris up to the main deck. The instant the hatch opened we were greeted by a blast of frigid night air.

I hustled shivering into my coat, while Boris turned his face into the breeze as though it were a balmy summer's evening.

“Good night, not too cold,” observed Boris.

“I expect it is, if you live in Siberia,” I said.

He gave me an amused look. “No my friend, Siberia very, very cold.”

I shuddered, “I'll take your word for it, Boris.”

As we reached the gangway, I could make out an old ex-Royal Navy lorry parked on the bank. With the grace of a cat, Boris shot down the creaking old planks of the gangway, not even bothering to use the rope handrails. As I started after him I felt the ship roll a bit with the tide, and grasped the ropes whilst my knees struggled to keep my two feet under them. Finally reaching the bank, I looked over at Boris. “You make it look so easy!”

“Is only hard up top there,” he said, pointing aloft to the towering masts. “You slip here, you only splash. You slip there, you splat.”

“Right, well I shall try not to splat,” but I wasn't feeling at all reassured as I looked up into the darkness.

Reaching into the back of the lorry, Boris threw back the tarpaulin. There were buckets of paint, great tins of petrol, and boxes of damned near everything one could wish for. It was staggering.

“Where did all this come from?” I asked in amazement.

Boris looked through the mass of goods, and lifted out a hauling block marked
HMS
Princeton
. “From this,” he said, indicating the letters on it.

“Good Lord man, don't tell me we're reduced to theft,” I said in alarm.

“Hardly,” came a voice behind me. I turned to see Harris making his way towards us. “The
Princeton
is in the scrap-yard. Damned pig of a ship. She'll be broken up soon and needing none of this.”

Then it came to me. Harris was more than a mere deckhand, and might be the inside connection to the scrap-yards of the Royal Navy, whence he could easily smuggle things out bit by bit unnoticed. After a moment I worked up the courage to ask him about the possible connection. Even as I spoke, I thought I might have overstepped so I made my question short. He could always laugh it off, but I was rewarded with a ready reply.

“Aye that's true, every word,” he said carefully. Then he looked me in the eyes and gave me that kindly smile again. “And a word to no one,” he added sweetly.

I suppressed a shiver. “Well, I have to say it's brilliant. Up to now I was thinking that the ship couldn't ever be saved, but with that main cargo hold, you might carry it off.”

Harris smiled, “Not a thing done slapdash.”

“I had no idea that you were so well organised,” I added lamely. “So much in fact, you must be the one who
organises
the endless supply of whisky in green unmarked bottles.”

“No, that was sent up by Betty, a long time friend of Bowman's wife, Meg. She runs a distillery on the Isle of Islay and gave a gift of a keg sometime ago.”

Harris once more bent his disquieting smile upon me, but mercifully at this point took his smile and clambered up into the back of the lorry with Boris. Each threw out a sack to me. I caught one while the other well-nigh caught me. I gathered them both awkwardly into my arms and began to trudge back towards the gangway. The fog that I had earlier seen gathering was now rolling in thicker by the minute.

“I feel like a grave robber in a Sherlock Holmes mystery,” I called back to Harris.

“Sherlock Holmes robs graves?” asked Boris.

Harris looked up with an amused glint in his eye. “Yes indeed, simply doted on it,” he remarked blandly. “Everyone knows that grave-robbing and the violin were the great Sherlock's favourite pastimes, mate.”

Boris turned and gazed at him narrowly. Harris rolled his eyes skyward, “Oh never mind,” he said absently, “let's have at it now.”

It took a long hour to unload that bloody lorry. It seemed as though a bit of every ship scrapped must have been in there. Bowman, Edward, and Harris sorted things for storage locked together in a constant fray over what was or wasn't useful. Boris stood by silently, perhaps unable to determine what exactly they were on about. I envied him his poor English; then again he seemed to have an unflappable nature.

When the last bit of gear was safely stowed on board, we all filed back below deck. Between the pot-bellied stove and the heat of our labours, the cabin seemed positively tropical, a welcome change from the crisp night and the thickening fog.

“I must be getting soft,” I groaned as I pulled off my coat, and fell into a chair. I was ready for a nice cup of tea, but Bowman was busily pouring another round of whisky, so I held out my hand for a mug of the restorative.

“It's a shame the sail locker doesn't shape up to the cargo hold,” Bowman said.

“Why?” I asked, “How much sail is there?”

“Not much that's useful. Too much mildew and rot. Ha! I know what ye're thinking. All that rigging won't move a wind ship with nothing to catch the wind. Aye, but we're hoping to get lucky.”

“Lucky?” I asked. I turned to Harris, who sat back with his eyes closed smoking a pipe comfortably held in the corner of his mouth.

“Good canvas is hard to come by, and what we do find is too small,” Harris sighed. “Why, you'd have to stitch so much together, it'd probably split in a dozen places in the first hard blow. It's simply not for the doing.”

“How would you sew it if you had it?” I asked. “Doing it by hand would take forever.”

Harris settled back even further and blew out a smoke ring. “No need for that. We've friends in the garment trade, Jewish folk I helped get out of Europe when things got bad. Really nice people and they have quite a fleet of sewing machines, including some heavy-duty industrial ones. They're watching out for a volume of canvas. We already contacted some retired sail-makers to help with the sewing on the bolt ropes, making the cringles, and all those other finishes, without which the sails would be useless. I think I'll pop by there tomorrow and see if there's anything in the wind, so to speak. Care to come along Flynn?”

My aching muscles reproached me. “Well, I work all day, you know. I'm not sure that I could tackle another load so soon.”

Harris laughed, “Small chance we'll fetch a cargo tomorrow.”

I thought for a moment, “I'll give it a go, but it has to be at tea-time.”

“Not to worry,” said Harris airily. “No place is far away when I'm driving.”

“I've just remembered, I've some work to finish up at the Inn,” I said. Reaching for my pocket watch, I winced as I saw that it was after two o'clock in the morning. It was late…or early, depending how you looked at it. “I really must be going. I've enjoyed this evening, despite the work, and I look forward to seeing you again soon. Captain Bowman, Boris, Edward, and you, Harris—good night, everyone.”

As I bundled up against the night, I was wondering just what the devil I had blundered into, and what I had let myself in for. Soon I would have to be making other plans, and this sounded a good deal more exciting than working at the Inn. We shook hands all around, and I quickly climbed the ladder into the night.

Chapter 2

THE BEASLEY INN

Next morning the shrill voice of Mrs. Beasley, landlady of the Beasley Inn, woke me. As she was directly beneath the window of my attic room, I couldn't pretend to ignore her presence.

“Oh, Mr. Flynn, please come straightaway. Purdy has a poor little bird!”

I rolled out of bed and pulled on my shirt, then went to the old casement and peered out. Below, my esteemed landlady and employer, her round figure swathed in an overcoat and a most astonishing nightdress, flitted heavily about the garden, arms flailing helplessly and grizzled hair flying. “Mr. Flyn-n-n,” she wailed.

I had to wonder why people who own cats seem surprised whenever their pets capture a prize. These conquests, of course, customarily finish up with the termination of the luckless victim, following a lively round of recreational torture. Poor bird indeed. Miserable cat!

Purdy! Overweight, overindulged, and into trouble several times daily. Damned thing. Until I pruned back a branch that was too close to my little room, I never dared leave my window open for air, since Purdy made it his job to creep in whilst I was asleep or away. Once inside, he would not only give the bedclothes a liberal spraying, but was also thoughtful enough to leave a similar, more solid gift in my shoe. Once he ate a bird—or part of it—on my pillow. Of course, Mrs. Beasley refused to believe that her darling could be guilty of such villainy and in fact now regarded me with a degree of suspicion for having suggested it. I thought wistfully, what a handsome fur neckpiece one could fashion from a large cat pelt.

“Mr. Flynn, Martin, Katherine!” Mrs. Beasley cried. “You bad puss! Drop it! Drop it, I say!” I knew that neither the barman, Martin nor Katherine, the combined pastry cook and waitress, would pay any attention to her. It was
my
job. What a fearsome spectacle, to see this formidable lady acting the helpless female.

I heaved a martyr's sigh as I pulled on my trousers and shoes. I descended stairs and stepped into the sunshine, blinking with a slight bit of hangover from the night before. I was new to this area and had been here almost a week. Aside from Mrs. Beasley's alarms and her abrasive personality, it was quiet and restful. It was just a temporary job, but I was pleased with my position as gardener and groundsman for the property. The main pub building boasted a few guestrooms with combination pub and dining room in addition to three small one-bedroom cottages in the surrounding gardens. Mrs. Beasley was proud of her culinary prowess but she was not opposed to taking some credit for the skill of the pastry cook as well. A placard at the door of the pub read: Serving Luncheon, Tea, High Tea And Late Suppers By Arrangement. Another card advised: Bed And Breakfast Seasonally. By all accounts, the place was quite lively in the summer.

As I crossed the lawn, I encountered the thoroughly dishevelled Mrs. Beasley standing near her parlour door holding Purdy, a bulky ginger tom. “You nasty thing! How could you?” she was saying, as if the cat understood or cared in the least. He simply yawned as some stray bits of down floated gently off his mouth in the morning breeze. She turned and spied me. I averted my eyes from the undesired sight of her filmy nightdress, which may have looked more at home on Lana Turner or Hedy Lamarr.

“Oh Mr. Flynn, isn't it dreadful?” and she pointed to a scattering of feathers spread over the lawn.

“Yes. I'll see to it,” I said, and fled off to the shed for a rake.

Nothing meant more to Mrs. Beasley than her cat and her birds, though tragedy was the frequent and inevitable result of combining the two interests. The suet and crumbs she lavished on her little feathered friends would have been more sustaining if they'd been placed where a cat couldn't reach them.

Bells rang out from the old stone church, for it was Sunday. I planned to get a bit of work done on this quieter day. It was not until later in the day that I saw Mrs. Beasley neatly dressed in tweed, with her salt-and-pepper locks perfectly coifed. It was quite a contrast to the wood nymph of the morning.

“Oh, there you are Mr. Flynn. Out till all hours last night?” she enquired.

“I suppose so,” I began. “I took the footpath at the bottom of the garden to have a look at those old moored-up ships.” Her expression grew stiffer. Now what? Talking to her was like having to answer to my mum when I was younger. “It's a grand sight,” I added.

She looked down her nose at me and adjusted her glasses. “It will be far nicer when those wretched things are gone, and the people off them. Why, they're like shanties on the tide and home to a pack of tramps on the dole.”

“Oh?” I said in surprise.

“Indeed, yes,” she nodded. She lowered her voice to speak confidentially, eyes widening in dread, “And there is one worse than the lot, a horrid person called Bowman.”

I laughed. “I think I may have met the man,” I said as I clipped away at the hedge.

She became annoyed at this, “He's forever after the children.”

“Children?” I asked.

“Yes, from what's left of the orphanage up there.” She pointed to where the gently sloping downs climbed higher to the east above the water. I could make out part of a grey stone building. “The boys are drawn to those old wrecks and he's forever filling their heads with stories, even letting them climb the masts as if they weren't bad enough off loitering about such a filthy place. Oh! What a world!” She threw up her arms, and giving a tragic sigh, stalked back to the Inn.

By the location of the orphanage, I guessed it afforded a tantalising view of the vessels and waterway below. It came as no surprise that children were drawn there. I remember many times when I was young how my elders disapproved of me “hanging about that unsavoury element,” but to no avail. Nor did I find it surprising that Mrs. Beasley should find Bowman less than enchanting, remembering my own first encounter with him.

As I worked through the afternoon, I thought of last night and the courage and devotion each man brought to that grand old shanty on the tide. I had to laugh at the way Mrs. Beasley regarded it all, but I resolved to be very careful of what I said in her presence.

Promptly at four, a battered old Morris came bumping along the road and rolled to a stop with a jerk a few feet away. There was a loud hoot of the horn. Having never seen it before, I didn't look round until there was another hoot. It was Harris, and the little car was all but bursting at the seams with him. “Hello!” I called out.

Harris looked from the driver's window. “Get in before the old bat comes round again,” he said, trying to whisper.

I glanced back at the Inn amused. “I take it you mean Mrs. Beasley?”

“Aye, her Royal Hind-Arse,” he growled, keeping his voice low. “She's into everyone's back garden, has a kettle on the whole of mankind with a paddle that reaches clear to the bottom of the pot. You'd best watch yourself around her.”

He shook his head in disgust, and then creased his face up into the sinister leer of a cinema underworld chief. “Look 'ere mate, if that old tabby peaches (informs) on our mob, she won't live to see
us
do porridge (prison time),” he grated.

I chuckled, “Point taken,” I said. “She'll hear nothing from me. I just need a moment to clean myself up.”

“No time for that. In the car, in the car!” He insisted.

As I squeezed in beside him, Harris's knees seemed to be bent up under his chin. I pitied his discomfort until we got under way. I found I had to slump down and shrink against my door to allow room for his elbow whilst he changed gears. The car rattled, shook, and clanked in an ominous manner. Once we left the Inn behind, he raised his cap and slowly pulled it off. Now he was getting down to business. I found his driving skilful, but very fast. I held on like a white-knuckle flyer as he took the bends and weaved in and out of cars, carts, pedestrians, and bicycles.

I was surprised by the sight of others' equally startled faces flashing by outside my window.

“Is it really necessary to drive this fast?” I gasped.

“Oh, absolutely,” he replied cheerfully, giving the throttle an extra boost. The car shuddered, as did I.

I came to know quite a bit of Harris. He'd served over twenty years on various ships, and had known Bowman since he was a boy, even serving with him and under him on occasion and was perhaps the only living person to get away with calling him Uncle Billy. Harris currently worked for the Royal Navy as a storeman in the Chatham Dockyard. It was not just fate that brought him and Bowman together this time; it was now the items in the scrap-yards from many ships no longer useable.

I wondered what “Uncle Billy” thought of Harris's driving as I clung on for dear life, watching trees, houses, and villages rush by at a perilous speed. After a time I remembered to breathe. I had to remind myself that it was only the county of Kent, and not my life, which was passing before my eyes.

“Are we almost there?” I asked as we ran through Gravesend. “Surely it can't be much farther.”

“Almost there m'boy,” said Harris, his eyes fixed on the road.

Half reassured I watched the countryside as we passed, and suffered silently through another stretch of the journey. Behind the clouds, daylight would soon be failing. I became aware that we had moved into a built-up area and the traffic was increasing.

“Harris! I do need to be back soon. Where exactly are we going?”

He glanced at me from the corner of his eye. “Well, it's sort of East End-ish.”

I digested this morosely. “You rotten cheat!” I exclaimed. “You knew I'd never come along if I'd known we were going all the way to London. Haven't you heard that petrol is still being rationed?”

“Don't worry over that, it's special Navy reserve fuel. It's a nice outing for you, laddie,” he said. “Don't tell me you prefer the company of La Belle Beasley?”

This deserved no answer from me and I kept some colourful language to myself as we swung down Shooters Hill. Passing Greenwich and New Cross onto the Old Kent Road, we turned right and rattled over Tower Bridge. The traffic seemed to part miraculously at our approach; when it didn't, Harris cursed and chafed. I think he would have driven
over
the vehicles if he could. As we came into Whitechapel, looking at the bomb devastation was rather humbling. Whole stretches were flattened from the Blitz and by the latest super weapons. My own worries seemed very trivial by comparison. The East End had been hard hit, with the Luftwaffe being especially attentive to dockland warehouses, treating them to its full menu of destruction. The Germans used high explosives, incendiaries, and landmines in 1940, and then “doodlebugs” and V1 and V2 rockets in 1944. Of poor old Limehouse, the setting for many a tale of dark suspense, little remained. The Port of London had never shut down during the War, and river traffic had been periodically interrupted for mine sweeps.

We rumbled along for a time, before turning into a street having ruins to the left and the occasional intact structure to the right. Harris suddenly swerved, the engine whining, as he changed into bottom gear and ran into the kerb.
That
was how he stopped his car when there was no uphill available. “Here we are,” he said.

After bouncing for the past two hours, I sat numbly in the silence. I felt that some comment was warranted, but reproaches were pointless. “Wherever did you come by this car?” I asked.

“'Tis all mine,” he said. “I traded some magic beans for it,” then grunted as he pried himself out from behind the wheel.

I opened my door and all but fell out. I stretched my limbs painfully, wondering if my spine was now permanently deformed.

“What about that lorry you had last night?” I asked.

He looked at me blankly, “Why?”

“Well,” I said, “I thought we were coming to pick up sails. This car won't carry much.”

“As I said last night, I doubt we'll be so lucky as to have much to carry,” he said, “but we'll soon see.” He turned and crossed the battered cobbles of the street. I hurried along behind him, his pace nearly twice my own. He halted before one of the few undamaged buildings, an ancient-looking brick warehouse, and stood surveying its blackened façade.

“I don't suppose that Whitechapel is anyone's idea of heaven, but compared to what der Fuhrer had in mind for them…” He shook his head, led the way up the steps to the loading platform, and went to the warehouse door. Removing his glove, he knocked on the door with a heavy hand. The door opened a crack and an eye peered out at us.

“Don't break it in!” protested a foreign-sounding male voice. “My God, you sound just like the Gestapo.”

“Sorry,” Harris replied.

“Never mind. I should know by now it could only be you,” said a slender middle-aged man as he opened the door. He had dark curly hair and a thick beard. In his eyes I could see the shadow of grief, which was all too familiar these days. He wore his tailor's apron with an air of dauntless professionalism. The scissors at his belt and tape measure about his neck he wore as though they were the insignia of office.

As we entered, I looked about with interest. There were massive cutting tables heaped with bolts of cloth. Next to them a line of sewing machines, including some large heavy-duty ones, able to sew all sorts of materials. The whole place was a well-organised and successful workshop. Harris's refugees had done very well for themselves, and they had him to thank for making it possible.

The tailor was looking at me with curiosity, but Harris was already asking for news. “We've seen nothing,” he said to Harris. “There are many small lots of material as heavy as you need, not nearly enough. It would take too long to sew it together, and I couldn't guarantee the results in a strong wind. We have to find some very big rolls, long pieces large enough to sew for sails. Oh, but how rude I am!” He turned to me and held out his hand, “Brian,” he smiled.