“Yeh, with a piece of cotton on a stick, a match for a float, and a pin with a worm at the end—catchin’ sticklebacks for supper,” snorted Ginger.
“Let’s make for this Seamen’s place,” said Corky hurriedly.
28 The Hard Search
“—A human body has got to have some
root, some streets that it walks down
regular, familiar faces and places.”
CORKY went on in hope and fear to the Seamen’s Union, Ginger following. At last they found it in the basement of a big building. There was a long queue of men. Big ones, small ones, mostly old or middle-aged. Corky hesitated. “It makes you feel you don’t know what to do,” he said. “They must be busy inside, and they won’t be able to pay much attention to what we ask them.”
“I wonder are other tramps as hard up for time as we are?” said Ginger. “Nothing to do, all day to do it in and we ain’t got a minute to spare.”
It was very hard to catch an eye. There wasn’t much talk going on, for the men, though in a queue, were standing rather singly, and each one just staring blindly ahead of him.
“Leave this to your Uncle Ginger. I’ll find a bloke that ain’t self-hypnotized.” Now Corky followed Ginger.
There was a short man rolling a cigarette, and as he ran his tongue across the paper Ginger got in front of him and began: “Is there any chance of getting on a ship, guv’nor? I’d like to have it straight up, d’you think me and my mate stand a chance?”
The little man looked at the boys in a pleasant comradely manner. He didn’t smile. That rather knowing twinkle that might have come to another’s eyes did not come to his. He listened, solemn and serious, and let his head shake a little as he answered:
“Not very much, boys, no, I’m afraid not. There’s lots of seamen hanging round these days. Of course, most often there’s room for a boy or two on a ship, but there’s a way of getting on. I don’t see how you two could get to see the bos’un.”
“But how did you first get on?” asked Corky.
“An uncle of mine took me,” replied the man, then added: “He didn’t like me. No seaman would go out of his way to get somebody he liked a berth at sea. But the young ones keep pestering their relatives, until in despair they take ’em. Just to teach ’em a lesson, sort of. Though it seldom works out that way, for much as a man may hate his job and hate the sea, he gets from her something the land don’t ever give.”
“If we was to go along to a big ship,” put in Corky, “and ask to see the captain, or bos’un, d’you think they’d take us on?”
“Most unlikely, I should say. They’re all signed up beforehand. You know a ship sails to time, and it’s got to have all hands aboard when it does sail. You can’t start any men at sea.”
“Think we could get on a fishing trawler?”
“Well, I don’t know anything about them,” said the man. “I only know it’s a rotten hard job—half-frozen most of the time. Working night and day when you make your catch. Then come ashore and spend all your dough.” He looked at them sympathetically. “Not that I want to discourage you boys,” he went on, “but that’s how it is. What you might do, you might go round to a few of the shipping offices. The best they can do is take your names. I’ve heard that comes off occasionally. They might send for you at a pinch.”
It was at that moment the boys found themselves in the cold bleak draught of Reality. Standing there, listening to the seaman talking gently to them they felt how the outside life really was. You could dream; think; plan; talk; but when it came to doing something you eventually must take yourself out and meet things as they actually are. You had to take all your dreams, aspirations, and abilities, and put them flush up against the world’s unlovely reality. Then you saw where you stood.
“We didn’t expect to come across so much messing about,” said Corky. “It don’t seem to turn out the way we’d always fancied it.”
“It never does, son,” said the man. The queue was moving up, he had to hurry on a little. “Don’t let yourselves get downhearted. It don’t pay in the long run. Never say die. S’long.”
They were out in the Liverpool street. People were hurrying along; men with brief cases, women with bags, one or two carrying baskets—they mostly had good clothes and shiny shoes; here and there a youngster speckled the crowd, talking in high eager voice; with busy cars running along the road. Three bike bells were pingling. More tramcars piled along, and people looked for numbers and destinations.
Everybody was doing something. They each had a busy little life to look after. If you were looking for one for yourself, you were likely to be unlucky.
High and alone, a clock struck two. Annie Laurie was mellowly sprayed around the air from a red-faced man’s cornet—’Gid me her promise true—p’yaa, p’yu, p’yoo!
Up the street were many doorways, big round ones, that had shiny brass plates, curved and meeting the eye.
The boys read the names: Dempsey Shipping Line, Blue Funnel Line, China Mutual Steam Navigation Company.
“It don’t seem right to me,” said Ginger, “going in an office to get a berth on a tramp steamer.”
“No, it don’t,” said Corky. “It’s like a bull-fighter signing on at the Labour Exchange, seeing if they can find him a day’s work in the old bullring. I never thought of it that way—some vagabond who wants to be a lion tamer, or a jungle explorer, or sword-swallower, going to an office and asking them do they want any.”
“It was suggesting itself to my mind, Corky, that a feed would be more the doctor’s order,” said Ginger. “This searching for work is done better on a full stomach.”
“Don’t I know it. I’ve had some,” agreed Corky. “Now there’s two ways you can get stuck into it. One is being hungry and desperate so that your starving guts force you to find something. The other is with a stomach laden with rich food, right up to the gullet—that would make you feel you wouldn’t want anything to eat for a month, and your spirit that independent you wouldn’t care what people said to you.”
“The identical way for me,” chirped Ginger, somewhat feebly. “Fill me my ‘derby kelly’ and I’ll face the world!”
“You’ll have to half-face it,” remarked Corky, “we’ve only enough for a half-filling.”
It was hard to find a suitable place. The restaurants looked rather expensive, and the boys didn’t feel quite up to the commissionaire anyway. Looking inside the large gleaming swing doors of the State Café they became ashamedly aware of their bodies, grubby and sticky, under the tattered, dusty working clobber.
“Gorblimey, if there was only a little stewed eel shop somewhere—or a nice little Lyons tea shop. London wouldn’t be London without Lyons.”
They came across a little tea bar and had a shrimp sandwich and a cup of tea. They hadn’t much money now. They never thought to break into their wages which were still in their pockets.
“I feel more hungry than when I went in,” said Ginger.
They went off to search for a job.
Somehow, people working in shipping offices do not like to be troubled. It seems hard for them to bring an interest to two boys applying for jobs as cabin boys. At the fourth place of call an elderly man kindly explained the situation to the boys: “Shall I tell you something? We get half the kids in Liverpool dropping in here asking for jobs aboard ship! Some days, yesterday was one, I can scarce get going on my books for a string of boys coming in here very politely and asking me, 'Is there any chance of a start on one of your ships, mister?’”
The inside feelings of the boys began to show on their faces.
“Just a minute,” said the man. “It does happen now and again that we can give a boy a job. Let me have your names and addresses.” He took out his fountain pen. The boys were suddenly dumb. A trifle of impatience came to the man’s face.
“I’m sorry,” said Corky. “Afraid we haven’t got any address at the moment.” Out of the big door, down the steps and into the street they went.
“The old feet are aching.” Ginger’s voice was quiet, almost to himself.
“I fancy it must be the sea,” said Corky. “They say it draws your feet.”
They went on, not talking, not looking where they were going. Corky was slightly in front. Occasionally he had found himself taking over the lead from Ginger. He didn’t want it, not really, but he didn’t mind. It worked out that way. In some spots Ginger simply shot ahead. He knew how to talk. He could get things straight in his mind. He could handle people. But in moments like this he let Corky do the leading.
“Remember that place where we saw the big liner, along by the floating dock?” Ginger nodded a reply. Corky went on: “We’ll go there. I saw other ships around there.” He looked at Ginger. “I’m sorry about the feet. I wish there was something I could do.”
They walked on along the streets. Down across the Pier Head where the tramcars whizzed. They didn’t look to the river. They made doggedly to the landing place at the big dock.
“It’s our last chance,” said Corky. “I have a feeling it might come off.” At these words their feet picked up an eagerness.
The weary tramping, the long night in the lorry, the stretches that had had only scraps of sleep, the bits of snacks in place of meals—all began to tell. They made two weary little figures going down to the big dock. At last they reached it. They could see five ships alongside.
Suddenly, there was a big iron gate barring their way. A small door opened at the side. They went to it. A big policeman stood behind.
“Well, what are you two after,” he asked.
“We’re only going along to the ships,” said Corky.
“Have you got tickets?”
“What tickets?”
“Your sailing tickets. Or your seamen’s books.”
They stood back, puzzled.
“Look here, boys, what game are you on?”
Corky paused: he looked at the policeman’s face; it had whiskers, but the complexion was not too rough and red. It wasn’t one of those hard faces. He felt Ginger, just lagging behind his elbow. A gulp of some confiding spirit mounted up his throat—he decided on letting it out.
“It’s like this, sir, we want a job each. We want to go to those ships and go in and meet the bos’un. We have the feeling they’d take us on.”
The policeman looked down at the boys’ shining eyes. For some seconds he was in doubt as to which part of him ought to come out. The many years of his searching for law-breakers had created in him an instinct of suspicion. Unfortunately, it was this side of his nature that emerged—causing him to give an authoritative growl:
“Which reformatory have you escaped from?”
The boys shrank back, hurt, and a little frightened.
The man of the law saw this; his own opinion put itself to him:
“I’m asking you, which Remand Home?” His voice changed a little: “Or was it an orphanage?”
In a flash Corky weighed up the situation. They’d done no wrong, but it would be shaming to get into the hands of the police. The policeman was putting his foot over the bar at the bottom of the gate, making to catch the boys.
“Come on, Ginger!” Corky grabbed Ginger’s hand. He ran, pulling Ginger along with him. The policeman was shouting threatening words after them. But they didn’t stop. They ran and ran. It was near a place called Brownlow Hill where they finally stopped. A street of poor homes, many children were playing in the roadway. Men and women were sitting on doorsteps.
“Let’s go along here, Corky,” said Ginger. “It feels homely to me.
They walked along the street, it was friendly and all right. At the end they came to another road. They went down this one—a big square was before them. Set around it were many large municipal buildings with stone steps and public statues here and there.
Ginger came to a stop down at the bottom of the long stone steps, sat himself on the lowest one.
“Oh, Corky,” he sighed, “I’m all done up. I’m beat. If my Mum was here I’d cry into her arms at this very spot.”
“Aw, don’t let yourself get so down in the ribs,” Corky said, slowly bending his stiff legs to sit beside Ginger, and then pushing aside the feelings that were taking hold of him, he added: “It ain’t like we were at some corner of the globe.”
“We ain’t nowhere,” moaned Ginger. “We’re like a couple of corks floating about, bobbing all over the place on a little scummy tank of water.”
“What’s wrong with that?” asked Corky in a toneless, miserable voice.
“It ain’t human—that’s what it ain’t. You can drive beasts around like that, and even they don’t like it; but a human body has got to have some root, some streets that it walks down regular, familiar faces and places. I can’t for ever be at a loose end.”
Corky fastened his shoelace.
“Oh, I do mean it, from my heart I do,” went on Ginger. “The old guts have sagged in on me.”
And suddenly, an agony of understanding filled Corky. A gust of the other’s hopeless unhappiness entered him. And for one great paining moment he realized something—how it is and always has to be—suffering! Not himself alone as he had imagined, but every soul breathing the breath of life must accept its own inevitable misery!
He looked upwards. Across his long gaze swooped a lone gull’s flight.
“Ah, misery of the wandering feet,” Ginger was sighing. “How can it be, Corky, that a little home, no matter where or what, makes all that difference to how a guy feels?”
A wish struck into Corky, that he might be like that bird; that Nature, Mother of all simple life, take her serene ownership of him too. He felt he was near the end of something. Not another moment could he remain filled with this insupportable jangle of anguished emotions.
Then suddenly it was lifted. It just vanished.
A burst of joyous relief raced through him. He knew an intense gladness that made him pray. His heart sang wildly, in a delight of confident hope. Despair was gone. He turned all-smiling to Ginger.
“Brother, there’s nothing wrong for us! We ain’t being tossed around. We’ve lived and tried. And we ain’t done nothing that we need be ashamed of. The world will allus be here—we can have another go at it.”
He stood up.
“It’s our feet have gone to our heads, Ginger, that’s what it is. Like the outlook turning to pain and misery when you’ve got a bad toothache. And when the ache is gone, opening out to a blue sky and golden gladness.”
He put a hand on Ginger’s shoulder.
“We’ve each a home to go to,” he spoke slowly, in good heart. “And we’ve a lorry to take us there tonight. We’d better not start reasoning out in our thick heads what it’s all about. The whole family will go mad at having you amongst them. Uncle Dave I reckon he’ll be glad to see me.”
“Harken the old Sage.” Ginger produced one of his grins.
29 Return
It came to him how strange it was, that every
night when he was in his bed—feeling the
world to be aslumber—all this was going on.
“Now you don’t have to tell me your day’s adventures,” said Ted. “It’s written on your faces. Car yourselves down, as comfy as you can, and sleep.”
So Corky and Ginger squatted close together on the seat, Ted once again handing over his big coat to cover them. They now felt it would have been nice to take a last gaze at the Mersey, a final leisurely look at the city of Liverpool—but no. Only the anonymity of evening in a strange town was seen by them: roofs, structures, lights, and a halted glimpse of figures and faces where traffic signals were at red: all silent, for hearing in the cab was filled by the throbbing roar of the big diesel engine.
And their tongues they kept still, with all thoughts held within. Soon they slept.
The heavy wheels rolled along the road. Some seventy miles had been done when Ted made his first stop at a transport caf�
� in Stone, a half-hour run from Stoke in Staffordshire. The greedy sleep had hold of the young pair, grasping them in weariness and dreams. So Ted went alone into the café. He had a nice supper of Welsh rarebit and tea, read bits from an old newspaper that was lying on the table, filled in his driver’s log sheet, had a smoke, and then went back to his cab.
Settled at the wheel, he gave a glance at the two faces in sleep.
“What innocence! Bless ’em.”
Then an impulse made him peer close to the driving mirror and examine himself, and sigh:
“To think this mug was once like theirs!”
He pressed the starter, a couple of taps on the accelerator, and the lorry was off.
He rubbed a hand across his own face. “When the years, and the work, and a man’s thoughts and deeds all come out on him, it don’t leave him with much worth looking at.”
And away down the trafficked road the boys slept on peacefully. And occasionally Ted took his eye from the road, and turned in a fatherly fondness on the two figures beside him.
‘It is as though God,’ he thought, ‘had sent some loving protective peace on them in their sleep.’
Three hours had ticked by. Corky rose to a half-sleep, and felt the absence of a noisy rhythmic hammering. From the dream daze he was in, his waking mind nipped in with questions: “Why is it quiet and still?” And it struggled against the smothering dreams: “What was the noise?” “Where am I?”—and so Corky was nudged to wakefulness. He blinked his eyes.
Ginger was in the corner, curled up, drowned in sleep.
Ted was slumped over the steering wheel, his hands holding to it, and his head sunk to rest on it.
Outside was darkness.
Corky felt how the silence and quiet received an occasional interruption. His ear would meet a sound as of a humming bee from far down the road. High and louder—now it became an engine throb. Along and nearer, it was a lorry roaring up. At the moment of passing it would thunder its loudest—flash by, the noise decreasing, fading away and fading, till it was entirely gone.
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