Young Petrella (27 page)

“For a few months before I joined the police, yes. I wasn’t very successful.”

“It may have been the wrong sort of club. I have a feeling you’re going to be very successful in this one.”

“Has Freebone been told?”

“He knows that he’s got the job. He hasn’t been told of the intended – er – rearrangement.”

“I think you may have some difficulty there. Phil’s one of the most obstinate people I know.”

“I will have a word with his Bishop.”

“I am afraid clergyman do not always do what their Bishops tell them these days,” remarked Costorphine.

“This isn’t a job on which we can afford to make a second mistake,” continued Romer.

Petrella looked up.

“We got a man into the Consort Line about six months ago. It took some doing but we managed it in the end, without, as far as we know, arousing any suspicions. He was engaged as an ordinary seaman, under the name of Mills. He made voyages on all three of the ships, and gave us very full but absolutely negative reports. He was on his way home a fortnight ago in the
Albert Consort,
and was reported as having deserted ship at Marseilles.”

“And hasn’t been seen since?”

“He’s been seen,” said Romer. “The French police found him in the foothills behind Marseilles two days ago. What was left of him. He’d been tortured before he was killed.”

“I see,” said Petrella.

“I’m telling you this so that, if you go in at all, you go in with your eyes wide open. This is an international crowd, who are calculating their profits in millions. And who must be responsible, directly, and indirectly, for hundreds of deaths a year. A single life is not of great importance.”

“No,” said Petrella. “I can quite see that. . .”

A fortnight later the new Missioner came to the Sark Lane Mission. This was a rambling, two-storey, yellow brick building in the style associated, through the East End, with temperance and good works.

The street doors opened into a small lobby, in which a notice said, in startling black letters:

WIPE YOUR FEET

Someone had crossed out
FEET
in pencil and hopefully substituted a different part of the body. On the left of the lobby was a reception office, which was empty.

Beyond, you went straight into the main Mission room, which rose the full two-storey height of the building and looked like a drill hall, half-heartedly decorated for a dance. Dispirited red and white streamers hung from the iron crossbars which spanned the roof. A poster on the far wall bore the message, in cottonwool letters, “How will you spend Eternity?”

At the far end of the hall three boys were throwing darts into a board. Superficially they all looked alike, with their white town faces, their thick dark hair, and their general air of having been alive a lot longer than anyone else.

When, later, Mr. Freebone got to know them, he realised that there were differences. The smallest and fattest was a lazy but competent boy called Ben. The next in height and age was Colin, a dull boy of fifteen, who came to life only on the football field; but for football he had a remarkable talent, a talent which was already attracting the scouts from the big clubs, and was one day to put his name in the headlines. The oldest and tallest of the boys was called Humphrey, and he had a long, solemn face with a nose which started straight and turned to the right at the last moment, and a mouth like a crocodile’s. It was not difficult to see that he was the leader of the three.

None of them took the slightest notice of Mr. Freebone, as he padded across the scarred plank flooring to watch them.

In the end he said, “You’re making an awful mess of that, aren’t you?” He addressed this remark to the fat boy. “If you want fifteen and end on a double it’s a waste of time going for one.”

The boy gaped at him. Mr. Freebone took the darts from him, and threw them. First a single three; then, at the second attempt, a double six.

“There you are, Ben,” said the tall boy. “I told you to go for three.” He transferred his gaze to Mr. Freebone. “You want Batchy?” he said.

“Batchy?” said Mr. Freebone. “Now who, or what, would that be?”

“Batchy’s Batchelor.”

This was even more difficult, but in the end he made it out. “You mean the caretaker. Is his name Batchelor?”

“’Sright. You want him, you’ll find him in his room.”

He jerked his head towards the door at the far end of the building.

“Making himself a nice cupper,” said Ben. “I once counted up how many cuppers Batchy drinks in a day. Guess how many? Seventeen.”

“I’ll be having a word with him soon, I expect,” said Mr. Freebone. “Just for the moment I’m more interested in you. I’d better introduce myself. My name’s Freebone. I’m the new Missioner.”

“What’s happened to old Jake?” said Ben. “I thought we hadden seen him round for a bit. He dead?”

“Now that’s not nice, Ben,” said the tall boy. “You don’t say, ‘Is he dead?’ Not when you’re talking to a clergyman. You say, ‘Has he gone before?’”

“Clergyman or not,” said Mr. Freebone, “I shouldn’t use a ghastly expression like that. If I meant dead, I’d say dead. And Mr. Jacobson’s not dead anyway. He’s retired. And I’ve got his job. Now I’ve told you all about me, let’s hear about you. First, what are your names?”

The boys regarded him warily. The man-to-man approach was not new to them. In their brief lives they had already met plenty of hearty young men who had expressed a desire to lead them onwards and upwards to better things.

In the end it was Humphrey who spoke. “I’m Humphrey,” he said. “The thin one’s Colin. The fat one’s Ben. You like to partner Ben we’ll play 301 up, double in, double out, for a bob a side.”

“Middle for diddle,” said Mr. Freebone.

At the end of the third game, at which point Mr. Freebone and Ben were each richer by three shillings, Humphrey announced without rancour that he was skinned and would have to go home and get some more money. The others decided to pack it up, too.

“I hope we’ll see you here this evening,” said the new Missioner genially, and went in search of the resident caretaker, Batchelor, whom he found, as predicted, brewing tea in his den at the back of the hall.

He greeted the new Missioner amiably enough.

“You got lodgings?” he said. “Mr. Jacobson lived up at Greenwich, and came down every day. Most days, that is.”

“I’m going to do better than that,” said Mr. Freebone. “I’m going to live here.”

“
Live
here?”

“Why not? I’m told there are two rooms up there.”

“Well, there
are
two rooms at the back. Gotter nice view of the factory. It’s a long time since anyone lived in ’em.”

“Here’s someone going to start,” said Mr. Freebone.

“There’s a piler junk in ’em.”

“If you’ll lend me a hand, we’ll move all the junk into one of the rooms for a start. I’ve got a camp bed with my luggage.”

Batchelor gaped at him.

“You going to sleep here
tonight
?”
he said.

“I’m going to sleep here tonight and every night,” said Mr. Freebone happily. “I’m going to sleep here and eat here and live here, just as long as they’ll have me.”

The next week was a busy one.

As soon as Batchelor saw that the new Missioner was set in his intention and immovable in his madness, he made the best of it, and turned to and lent a hand.

Mr. Freebone scrubbed, and Batchelor scrubbed. Windows were opened which had not been opened in living memory. Paint and distemper arrived by the gallon.

Almost everyone fancies himself as a decorator, and as soon as the boys grasped that an ambitious programme of interior decoration was on foot, they threw themselves into it with zeal. One purchased a pot of yellow paint, and painted, before he could be stopped, the entire outside of the porch.

Another borrowed a machine from his employer without his employer’s knowledge, and buffed up the planks of the main room so hard there was soon very little floor left. Another fell off the roof and broke his leg.

Thus was inaugurated Mr. Freebone’s Mission at Sark Lane; a Mission which, in retrospect, grew into one of the oral traditions of the East End, until almost anything would be believed if it was prefaced with the words, “When ol’ Freebone was at Sark Lane.”

It was not, as his charges were quick to remark, that he was a particularly pious man; although the East End is one of the few places where saintliness is esteemed at its true worth. Nor that he interested himself, as other excellent Missioners had done, in the home life and commercial prospects of the boys in his care. It was simply that he lived in, with, and for the Mission. That, and a certain light-hearted ingenuity, allied to a curious thoroughness in the carrying out of his wilder plans.

The story will some day be told more fully of his Easter Scout camp; a camp joined, on the first night, by three strange boys whose names had certainly not been on the original roll, and who turned out to be runaways from a Borstal institution – to whose comforts they hastily returned after experiencing, for a night and a day, the vigorous hospitality of the Sark Lane Scout Troop.

Nor would anyone who took part in it lightly forget the Great Scavenger Hunt which culminated in the simultaneous arrival at the Mission of a well-known receiver of stolen goods and the Flying Squad; or the Summer Endurance Test in the course of which a group of contestants set out to swim the Thames in full clothes, and ended up at a debutante’s Steamer Party. In which connection Humphrey claimed to be one of the few people who has danced, dripping wet, with a royal personage.

Captain Cree turned up about a month after Mr. Freebone’s arrival. The first intimation that he had a visitor was a hearty burst of bass laughter from the club room. Poking his head round the door he saw a big, heavy figure, the upper half encased in a double-breasted blue jacket with brass buttons, the lower half in chalk-striped flannel trousers. The face that slewed round as he approached had been tanned by the weather to a deep russet, and then transformed to a deeper red by some more cultivated alchemy.

“Mussen shock the parson,” said Captain Cree genially.

“Just showing the boys some pictures the Captain of the
William
picked up at Port Said on his last trip. You’re Freebone, arnchew? I’m pleased to meet you.”

He pushed out a big red hand, grasped Mr. Freebone’s and shook it heartily.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” said Mr. Freebone.

“Nothing to my credit, I bet,” said Captain Cree, with a wink at the boys.

“I know that you’re a very generous donor to the Mission,” said Mr. Freebone, “and you’re very welcome to come and go here as you like.”

Captain Cree looked surprised. It had perhaps not occurred to him that he needed anyone’s permission to come and go as he liked. He said, “Well, I call that handsome. I got a bit of stuff for you outside. The
William
picked it up for me in Alex. I’ve got it outside in the station wagon. You two nip out, and give my monkeys a hail, and we’ll get it stowed.”

Humphrey and Ben departed, and returned escorting two sailors, dressed in blue jerseys, with the word
Clarissa
in red stitching straggling across the front.

“Dump ’em in there, David,” said Captain Cree to the young black-haired sailor. “There’s a half gross of plimsolls, some running vests, a couple of footballs, and two pairs of foils. You put them down, Humphrey. I’m giving ’em to the Mission, not to you. Where’d you like ’em stowed?”

“In the back room, for the moment, I think,” said Mr. Freebone. “Hey – Batchelor.”

“Old Batchy still alive?” said Captain Cree. “I thought he’d have drunk himself to death long ago. How are you, Batchy?”

“Fine, Captain Cree, fine, thank you,” said the old man, executing a sketchy naval salute.

“If you’ve finished stewing up tea for yourself, you might give a hand to get these things under hatches. You leave ’em out here a moment longer, they’ll be gone. I know these boys.”

When the Captain had departed, Mr. Freebone had a word with Humphrey and Ben who were now his first and second lieutenants in most club activities.

“He’s given us a crate of stuff,” said Humphrey.

“Crates and crates,” agreed Ben. “Footballs, jerseys, dartboards. Once he brought us a couple of what’s-its – those bamboo things – you know, with steel tips. You throw ’em.”

“Javelins?”

“That’s right.
They
didn’t last long. Old Jake took ’em away after Colin threw one at young Arthur Whaley.”

“Who were the sailors?”

“The big one, he’s Ron Blanden. He used to be a boy round here. The other one’s David,” Ben explained. “He’d be off one of the ships. Old Cree gets boys for his ships from round here, and when they’ve done a trip or two, maybe he gives ’em a job on the
Clarissa
.
That’s his own boat.”

“I see,” said Mr. Freebone.

“He offered to take me on, soon as I’m old enough,” said Humphrey.

“Are you going to say yes?”

Humphrey’s long face creased into a grin. “Not me,” he said. “I’m keeping my feet dry. Besides, he’s a crook.”

“He’s what?”

“A crook.”

“He can’t just be
a
crook,” said Mr. Freebone patiently. “He must be some sort of crook. What does he do?”

“I dunno,” said Humphrey. “But it sticks out he’s a crook, or he wouldn’t have so much money. Eh, Ben?”

Ben agreed this was correct. He usually agreed with Humphrey.

Later that night Mr. Freebone and Batchelor sorted out the new gifts. The foils were really nice pairs, complete with masks and gauntlets. Mr. Freebone, who was himself something of a swordsman, took them up to his own room to examine them at leisure. The gym shoes were a good brand, with thick rubber soles. They should be very useful. Boys, in those parts, wore gym shoes almost all day.

“We usually wash out the vests and things,” said Batchelor. “You know what foreigners are like.”

Mr. Freebone approved the precaution. He said he knew what foreigners were like. Batchelor said he would wash them through next time he had a boil-up in his copper.