“It sounds like an adventure when you begin to talk about it,” said Corky. He gave a little chuckle. “Blimey, I wish I could’ve seen your face when you was trying to break loose!”
Ted leant away from the wheel and over to the two boys. “Take it easy now, relax. Don’t tire yourselves out with talk. Another ten minutes should see us with the knees under the table, and gettin’ on the outside of a good feed.”
And now it was quiet in the cab, as the lorry sailed along the night road with the safe happy beat of the engine. To the boys it was as though some mighty machine-heart was impulsing their own little fagged-out organ of life to good sound action.
24 Edgar’s Road Café
“Night work,” said Ted, “it makes a
bloke quiet.”
“So, here we are,” said Ted, pulling up and waiting for a clear road.
“There’s suddenly lots of traffic about,” remarked Corky.
“Yay, I suppose so,” said Ted. “We’re just runnin’ into loads of night stuff from the Midlands. I ’spect they want to make London early, to catch the markets, see. Later on well be coming on the heavy stuff from the north, Lancashire and Yorkshire; and a few Scottish tubs.”
“Ted, don’t you ever sound your horn?”
“Naw! Blimey, you’d be turned off the road. That’s one thing we night blokes can’t stand—a lot of noise and fuss. Doin’ a couple of hundred miles a night we’ve got to take the job easy, our nerves ’ud never stand up to all that daytime honking and swinging out yer mitts.”
“But how d’you give your signals?”
“Oh, we do it with the headlights, just a little flick on an’ off. You watch——”
Ted switched his headlight off, and then on again. Away up the road there came a reply—a breaking-off of the long white arm of headlight from another lorry. At this Ted drove safely on the wide parking ground outside the lighted café. Then he gave another matey flick of the headlight to the driver who had slowed up to allow him to cross the road.
“What did you do that for?” asked Ginger.
“Oh, just a brotherly sort of ‘Thanks, mate, good night.’”
“Look!” cried Corky, “he’s giving you one back.”
“Sure he is,” said Ted.
“It’s all done by kindness,” remarked Ginger. “Why’ve you put the lorry so skew-whiff, Ted?” And he gave Corky a dig in the ribs to get out.
“They all look like they’re at sixes-and-sevens,” said Corky.
Ted chuckled: “You’ve got to be a lary on this job. All the old drivers stick their trucks in a position where nobody can hold them in.”
It felt very cold to be down on the ground. Ginger was away inside Ted’s top coat with the tail of it trailing along the cinders. Ted took off the radiator cap and peered inside to see how he was for water. Then he tested the binding ropes, tugging on each one the whole way round. He stood back a bit, and sized up the load. “A driver’s nightmare is a moving load,” he said. “Once they begin slipping a bloke doesn’t get a minute’s rest, he’s worried the whole time. I once had a load of cotton—big stuff in bales—and the loader must’ve been a raw hand—I’ll never forget it—the bottom corner bale must’ve come loose—the whole lot slipped. Sudden-like it was. I’d just crossed Barton Bridge, an’ lucky I had, for it practically brought the lorry over with it. Blimey, I was thinking after, if it’d happened on the bend near the bridge I’d’ve ended up with the whole load in the water.” He added: “A mate of mine once did.”
“Tell us about it,” said Corky.
“I’ve told you, haven’t I? Over came his load, an’ took him, lorry an’ lot over the dockside into the Thames. Now I’ll just give these tyres the once-over.”
Ted was giving sharp little kicks at the giant covers, and bending down to test the inside wheels.
“Shall I try some?” said Corky.
Ted shook his head. “No use, son, it takes years to get the feel. D’you know what, I could tell you almost to a pound what pressure is in each one!” He gave a little spit of satisfaction. “Ready, boys? Follow me.”
It was all very exciting to walk in among the motors, they were so many different shapes in the darkness, each with its curious shaped load humped mysteriously against the night sky.
Corky gasped: “See there—that’s the trailer we came up on! I could tell it anywhere. Let’s see if old Ginger’s jacket is still on the back.”
And there it was. It looked poor and tattered as it hung there; but seemed to take new shape when Ginger got inside it. He grunted in pleasure, “Cast thy bread on the waters——” and into the café they went.
It was a gloomy place, though brightly lit. Smells of hot fat, chips, and tobacco smoke gave homely greeting to the three. It had two long tables, and a few small ones. About thirty customers, everyone a driver or mate, were sitting eating, drinking, or smoking. The majority sat singly, eating in silence. The whole place was absent of any café chatter. Three or four were around a gambling machine, popping pennies in, and pulling a handle.
“Well, I expect I can get one of the drivers to give you a lift back to London,” said Ted. “Just a minute, I’ll go and have a word with one of them.”
The boys looked at him. And looked at each other. Ted was serious, and Corky made a grab at his coat as he was moving away.
“Thanks very much, Ted, we’re both dead grateful to you,” he began hesitantly, “but, just the same, we’d rather you didn’t bother about asking anybody to give us a lift back.”
“Why not?”
Corky gazed earnestly at Ted.
“If Ginger feels the same as me, and I believe he does, then it’s no use. We can’t turn back half-way. We must see what the North looks like, else we’ll always feel that unsatisfied itch.”
“That’s right,” said Ginger. “I reckon Corky has spoken for me.”
“Mind you, if things don’t pan out, then we’ll come back. That’s how it is, Ted. I’m sorry, but we’ve got to go on this time.”
“Cor strike a light! You don’t have to be sorry to me. I’d be the last one to tell anybody to do something they don’t want. You’ll see Manchester and Liverpool, I’ll guarantee you that. You can have a look round the docks, try to get on a boat. How does that suit?”
The boys nodded agreement to this.
A young man with shiny hair, and wearing a light blue suit was dropping his penny in a big automatic gramophone and selecting the record he’d like to have played.
“That’s Cyril, the bloke who drove you up,” said Ted.
“The Scammell and trailer bloke?” asked Ginger. “He’s all poshed up, ain’t he?”
“He does look like a bit of a speed merchant,” said Corky.
“Matter of fact,” said Ted, “his girl works here. That’s why he keeps the old toe down all the way from London—so that he’s an hour or two to spend in talking and laughing and playing records for her.”
“Clumsy way of courting, don’t you think?” said Ginger.
But there was no reply, for the gramophone had rolled loudly into, “Bluebells I gather, take them and be mine.” And Ted moved up to the counter.
Cyril was whistling and occasionally breaking into accompaniment with words as his eye caught Doris at the back of the counter.
“All my life
You’ll be my Valentine....”
“What’ve you got, Doris?” asked Ted.
“Sausage and mash,” said Doris. “I’m not sure about whether we’ve any stew left. But we’ve some chips and I think there’s a few chops.”
“I’ll have chop and chips,” said Ted. He looked at the boys. “What about you two?”
“Chop and chips sounds good to me,” said Corky.
“Just the ticket,” said Ginger.
“Tea?”
Three nods.
“One large and two small?”
Ginger looked up at Ted. “Ain’t you goin’ to have a large’n too?”
“Ga
rn,” said Ted. “You’d better make it three large, Doris.”
“Plenty of sugar in mine,” said Ginger.
“Where’d you pick him up?” asked Doris. “Ain’t he a saucy little blighter!”
“I’m sorry,” said Ginger, grinning, “but could I have my tea now, please.”
“Go and sit by that table over there,” said Ted, “near the bell-fruit machine, and I’ll bring ‘em across. Oh, and by the way, Doris,” he said softly, “would you put an egg on two of ‘em please, if you have any.”
She gave him a look, questioning.
“Picked ‘em up a few miles back. Come all the way from London they have, an’ walked a good stretch. I reckon they ain’t had a decent feed the whole day.”
“Serves ‘em right,” said Doris. “Kids of today don’t know when they are well off.”
“You might have some boys of your own one day,” Ted remarked.
Doris shoved the teas across. Then, as though ashamed of what she was doing, said brusquely, “Here, give ‘em a piece of apple pie each to be going on with. It’s on me.”
Ted got back to the table, and the gramophone had stopped.
“It’s quiet,” said Ginger. “Or is it me ears that’s chocked up?”
“No, it is quiet,” said Ted. “They mostly are, these night caffs. I stick to this one because for one thing I’m used to it, an’ for another they don’t stew the tea. That’s one thing that puts me off, stewed tea.”
“How comes it there doesn’t seem to be so much jawing going on?” asked Corky. “I mean for a place where people eat.”
Just then Doris brought three plates, each heaped with brown crispy chips, a juicy lamb chop tucked shyly beside, and the round yellow eye of an egg peeping out.
“Ooh, thanks!” gasped Corky, smacking his lips.
“Lovely grub,” said Ginger, grabbing a knife and fork, and rolling up sleeves. “Bless you, lady,” he said to Doris, “an’ may your shadow never widen.”
“I expect yours will after that lot,” remarked Doris.
When the boys had given some measure of satisfaction to their ravenous appetites, Corky said: “You were just about to tell us, Ted, the reason this place is not so noisy and chattery as most cafés; why is it?”
“Night work,” said Ted, “it makes a bloke quiet. You get stuck there at the wheel, all alone in your cab, night after night, racing north, then south, sitting alone and thinking away to your little self, and in time it sort of dries you up. I mean you get that way that you’ve worked everything out in your head—an’ there don’t seem nothing worth yapping about. Now take a fellow working on days, he gets lots of things happening around him. I mean he starts off with reading the newspaper, fills his head full of news. Next thing he begins talking about it. Murders, two-headed babies, how much some millionaire’s left, earthquakes, starving countries, football results, racing, and that caper, an’ it’s something an’ nothing when he’s done, because he only knows what they’ve told him. He ain’t worked it out for himself. He don’t get the time. He’s never alone. But a man working on nights begins to think. People take him to be surly, but he’s not. He can’t help it. He’d sooner sit silent, with his mind empty, and waiting for something worthwhile coming into it, than just have titbits of chatter flitting through it the whole day. Why, look at old Edgar across there, I mean him with the big head, bent down over the table.”
“He’s got a knife, carving something out, that him?”
“Yay, that’s him. Making a doll’s house he is. He’s been at it since I can remember. Doris tells me the kid he began making it for is now married with youngsters of her own—an’ old Edgar ain’t finished the doll’s house yet! Now I’d gamble me an’ him haven’t had more than five minutes chat together in all the years I’ve been coming here—yet we’re friendly as can be. I know him as well as I know anybody, an’ he knows me. Well, he owns this place, an’ occasionally he’ll lend a hand with the work, just when he feels like.”
“When they’re busy, I suppose?”
“Naw, when he feels like, an’ only then. The place might be empty, an’ he’ll decide to start making pancakes. Coo, you never tasted anything like Edgar’s pancakes! Matter of fact,” Ted’s voice lowered, “he wouldn’t let lads touch ‘em.”
“Why? Why wouldn’t he? Does he think they’re too good?”
“No, it’s not that. It’s what he puts on them—liqueur brandy! Doris reckons it costs a few quid a bottle, an’ Edgar don’t half ladle it on, an’ only charges tuppence each for ‘em.”
“I wish he’d make a few now,” said Corky. “What do you say, Ginger?”
“I ain’t saying anything. Dumb Dick, that’s me—after old Ted’s lecture on silence. I reckon I’ve let myself out proper, I mean in your opinion, Ted?”
Ted laughed: “I can listen to you any time, Ginger. I can listen to young kids, too, the ones that have just started going to school. It’s these clever kids that get me, some of these secondary school pundits, keep talking out loud about their homework in the bus—‘I haven’t finished my Latin verbs, an’ my trig, an’ there’s my beastly physics which I ought to have done last evening.’ I can’t stand kids who want to be clever an’ don’t know how to start, but do. You an’ Corky are all right, you keep saying things, an’ he keeps weighing everything up.”
“‘Little man with his ear to the ground’,” chanted Ginger.
“You were a little man a half-hour ago,” chirped Corky, “an’ you’d something to the ground.”
“And it wasn’t my ear.”
“Remember catching him in your headlight, Ted?” laughed Corky. “You looked like Rip Van Winkle. Brought tears to my eyes, you did, Ginger. If I hadn’t known it was you, I’d have said you were some old pensioned-off fairy dwarf, waiting for the last trumpet.”
‘Yes, an’ I’d like to have seen you when you found yourself all alone, and me belting off on the back of the trailer!” started Ginger, with crafty insight. “I’ll bet you didn’t half do some mee-mawing to stop Ted. I’d have given anything to have been at the back of you, sizing-up your capers.”
“Turn the talk in,” said Ted. “Finish off the eats. The way you’re going on, you’ll have me as chirpy as a blinking canary. Come on, let’s be making tracks.”
The three rose.
“How much do we owe?” asked Corky.
“Nothing,” replied Ted.
“Oh, cut it out,” said Ginger. “We ain’t on the scrounge, Ted. Pay your way while you’ve got it, that’s the sort of bloke I am. Now what’s the damage?”
“Stop yapping. Doris has paid.”
“What! The lady behind the counter? She’s paid for our suppers?”
“Course she has,” said Ted. “What are you making all the fuss about?”
“Let’s go across and thank her, Ginger.”
“You’ve shown your thanks by the style you’ve cleaned your plates. Anyway, she ain’t the sort that goes in for the old malarkey, so wave, smile, and shout ‘good luck’—that’ll please her best.”
Doris returned a beaming smile and an intimate wink to the three. Slowly they made to the door. Half way across the floor they stepped out lively—Cyril had popped an Irish jig on the gramophone.
25 Storm and Stop
“They’d lam you Cockney kids better
manners if you lived in Wigan.”
THE three left Edgar’s and outside met a cold and unkindly night, and very dark too the boys found it. They walked slowly, for their legs had taken on an aching stiffness after the rest in the café. Behind their eyes a tired pulling signalled an urge to sleep.
“Now just get yourselves comfortably settled,” said Ted. “Here, take this topcoat, it’ll cover the pair of you. Now turn up your jacket collars, loosen your shirt-neck buttons, and perhaps you might untie your shoe laces, if you want a good sleep.”
Ginger looked at Ted. “Why, man, we’ll never get to sleep with all the hammering of the engine.”
“That noise will send you to sleep. It’s a regular rhythm and will rock you off just like it was a cradle song.”
Ted put his brawny hand across and pressed the starter. The big, dead engine snatched to life, rolling into muffled roars as Ted danced a foot on the accelerator. It sounded eager to be going. He switched a knob on the dashboard and there was an explosion of light from the head-lamps. He revved up, the gear lever gave a little grunt, he gently let the clutch in, and as the giant lorry drew away those powerful hands turned the steering wheel. At the main road a flick of a switch sent out the long beam of the spotlight. All was clear, he swung into the road.
Into the darkness they went. The two boys huddled warmly and contentedly together, their eyes were half shutting, but it was pleasant to watch this fierce torch of light startling the sleeping night hedgerows.
“If you don’t find sleep coming on, just you watch—just sink your whole sight on a red tail light.”
“Which tail light?”
“Oh, we’ll soon be catching one up,” said Ted.
And they did.
The boys would have watched it had they not been told, for it was away there in front, a little magic light that seemed to fly along the road—fleeting and alone—its lorry invisible.
“A driver must shun that sort of thing like it were a plague,” said Ted grimly. “Either he overtakes, or drops behind and lets it get out of sight. But if he sticks on the tail of it, it seems to hypnotize him. He begins to doze. Forgets what he’s doing, what he’s all about. It’s been the cause of many a wayside crash. But you two just watch it and I’ll have a nice little smoke.”
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