Against the Law

by Peter Wildeblood; Max Lerner

  Since the weekly bath was our only source of hot water, most of us washed our hair in it, emerging in a golliwog-like condition of which Mr. Cockayne could hardly be expected to approve. The problem of hair-oil was acute, and we solved it in three ways. Some of us, if we were sufficiently well-paid, would save up for weeks in order to buy a bottle of Vaseline Hair Tonic, which cost half a crown. Others would use melted margarine, or skim off the cocoa-butter which floated greasily on their evening mug of cocoa. The third stratagem was to bribe one of the prisoners who acted as servers in the Roman Catholic church to steal the oil out of the votive lamp; it was said to be pure olive oil and was highly prized.

  On Thursdays, for a few hours, we were as clean as kings; for the rest of the week we stayed dirty. There were two wash-basins in the Shop in which, officially, we were supposed to wash our hands before going to meals. These were provided with cold water, and no soap or towels; furthermore, their use was effectively prevented by the rule that only two men were allowed in the recess at the same time. Men who had been working all morning amid dust and grease, and who had probably visited the lavatory as well, therefore went off with unwashed hands to lunch, to break their bread and mop up the soup, and afterwards to wash up the dishes in lukewarm water with no soap or detergent. Among the prisoners I knew there was at least one who was receiving treatment for syphilis.

  According to the book of rules for the guidance of Convicted Prisoners the chamber-pots in our cells were intended for the purpose of making water during the night. As we were locked up in our cells for fourteen hours every day they were, of course, used for defecation as well. We emptied them out every morning and rinsed them in cold water. There was no disinfectant, but about once every three months we were given a tablespoonful of Harpic. By this time the pots were usually lined with an evil-smelling crust of dried urine.

  The lavatories on the landing—one to every 22 cells—were frequently blocked up. After I had been at Wormwood Scrubs for several months I thought it might be interesting to see what happened if I complained about this. In theory, every prisoner had the right to see the Governor if he had a complaint to make. The procedure was as follows:

  I had to get up as soon as the bell was rung at 6.30 a.m., make up the bed, tidy my cell, wash and get my face lathered ready for the razor. When the warder came round with the blade I had to shave hurriedly, rush with my chamber-pot to the recess, empty it, rinse out my wash-basin and fetch more cold water for the evening, finish dressing and find the warder in charge of the landing, to give him back my razor-blade and get permission to make a Governor’s Application. This was officially supposed to be done before 7 o’clock and, as the blades were often not issued till 7.10 there was always the chance of being told that it was too late.

  In theory, it was only necessary to apply to the Landing Officer before seeing the Governor. In practice, Mr. Cockayne insisted on seeing every prisoner who made an Application, so that he could find out what they were complaining about. I therefore had to go down to the ground floor and stand in a queue outside Mr. Cockayne’s office. The man in front of me was a character called Dizzy, who often talked to himself and had been known, on occasion, to start screaming, quite suddenly. He glared at me suspiciously and mumbled something about mice.

  I followed Dizzy into the office. Mr. Cockayne smiled amiably and, cocking his head towards Dizzy, remarked: ‘Scruffy-looking type, isn’t he? What can you do with men like that?’

  I said that you could always put them into lunatic asylums, since Dizzy was in my opinion not so much scruffy as potty.

  ‘Ah!’ said Mr. Cockayne, ‘I quite agree, but that’s a problem for the medicos. All I can do is to try and keep them clean. Now, what can I do for you?’

  I said that the lavatory on the North East side of the fourth landing had been blocked up for several days, and was beginning to smell. The pan had overflowed, and the contents were forming a pool on the floor.

  ‘People will throw chunks of bread down them,’ said Mr. Cockayne crossly. ‘They’ve got no imagination. Is it next to your cell?’

  I said that, fortunately, it was not.

  ‘Well, I’ll tell the Works about it.’

  The Works was a depressed-looking party of prisoners who went round poking in the plumbing with a flexible rod known as a Snake.

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘You’re getting on all right, are you? Not having too bad a time?’

  ‘Not too bad, sir.’

  ‘That’s good. I’m glad you’ve made up your mind to do your sentence the easy way. We get some men who spend all their time complaining, you know. The other prisoners put them up to it.’

  ‘I hope you don’t think anybody’s put me up to this, sir. I just thought you ought to know.’

  ‘O.K., but you want to be careful, you see. There’s a lot of villains in here.’ This was a standing joke, at which we both laughed in a ritualistic manner. ‘I don’t like to see people like yourself mixed up with a lot of hooligans, it doesn’t seem right.’

  I went away. The lavatory remained blocked, standing defiantly in the middle of a brownish lake. I complained to the Landing Officer, to the officer in charge of Works, and to Mr. Cockayne again. It remained blocked for six weeks. Eventually the Snake was inserted to unheard-of depths, and emerged with a dented Golden Syrup tin. ‘There,’ said Mr. Cockayne, ‘what did I tell you? Hooligans.’

  When a man arrives in gaol, he is warned against becoming too friendly with the other prisoners. This may be good advice, but it is not very practical. Prison is a forcing-house for friendships, desirable or otherwise; it would be quite impossible to spend one’s whole sentence in self-imposed solitary confinement.

  The two warder-instructors in the Tailors’ Shop, who eventually became good friends of mine, were always warning me, at the beginning, against Dan.

  ‘I see you’re walking round with that Starling. I wouldn’t, if I were you. He’s no good.’

  ‘How do you know?’ I asked.

  ‘I know all right. I’ve seen too many of them. Approved School, Borstal, the Scrubs, and then a nice long spell at Wandsworth or the Moor. If he was ever going to go straight he’d have done it long ago.’

  ‘Nobody seems to be doing much to change his mind, do they?’

  ‘What’s the use? You can’t do anything with blokes like that. They’ve got to make up their own minds, that’s all. Starling’s always fiddling something.’

  I knew that this was true. During the last few weeks Dan had ‘fiddled’ a number of things, usually for my benefit. They included two raw onions, which I had eaten secretly in the middle of the night, and an orange, which had caused endless trouble. Fruit of any kind was entirely unknown at the Scrubs, and I was haunted for days afterwards by pips and fragments of peel, which shot mysteriously out of my clothing whenever I was speaking to a warder.

  ‘Dan,’ I asked, when we were next on exercise together, ‘what are you going to do when you finish this lot?’

  ‘Go screwing again, I suppose.’ Screwing meant burglary.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, there ain’t nothing else I can do, is there? Got to earn a living somehow.’

  ‘And get pinched again, and do eight years’ P.D.?’

  ‘Sounds bad to you, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I think it’s a pity. Dan, how did all this begin?’

  He told me the story. His father was a hopeless drunk: ‘He’s been through the whole bloody lot, and now he’s on the Hilda Glider—that’s cider—and when they get on that you can’t do nothing with them. He pushes one of them handcarts round, delivering bread, and most nights he just crawls into the barrow and goes to sleep among the loafs.’ Dan’s mother was living with another man. She had had a great struggle to bring up the family, and the children spent most of their time hanging around on the streets and playing on bomb-sites. At eleven, Dan had got into trouble with the police. He and a gang of other small boys had been found at the Zoo, trying to br
eak open a slot machine to get at the chocolate. I forget the exact details of Dan’s progress as a juvenile delinquent, but it all began with the slot machine. Instead of being given ‘a clip over the earhole’ by his father, he was brought in front of a juvenile court and, from then on, was technically a person with a ‘record’.

  At sixteen, he went to Borstal. ‘I didn’t know nothing when I went in,’ he said, ‘but by the time I come out I was as shrewd as any of them.’ From the older boys he picked up all the tricks of the burglar’s trade, and learned to look upon himself as a man at war with Authority. He went into the Army and was moved from regiment to regiment before eventually being discharged with ignominy. After the war he worked for a gang of safebreakers, until he was caught. It was a terrible story, and one that seemed to give no grounds for hope.

  But who was I to judge? I was, after all, a criminal myself. It was no use complaining that I was misunderstood by Society, if I made no attempt to understand people like Dan. I did not believe there was anything I could do, but I passionately wanted to know—how had all this come about? Was it inevitable? And whose fault was it? Had Dan chosen to be the sort of person he was, or had the choice been made for him?

  ‘How much tobacco have you got in your tin?’ I asked.

  ‘Half an ounce. Why?’

  ‘If somebody pinched a quarter you’d yell blue murder, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Not half. I’d kick his teeth in.’

  ‘Well, if you feel that way, can’t you see how people feel when their houses get burgled?’

  “Tisn’t the same,’ said Dan.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, for one thing, the people as gets burgled is usually insured; for a damn sight more than the stuff is worth, like as not. I bet half of them is glad to see the last of it, I mean to say, supposing some geezer has given a couple of grand’s worth of diamonds to some bird, and then maybe he gets sick of her—wouldn’t he rather have the insurance money?’

  ‘Yes, possibly, but what about all the people who are under-insured, or not insured at all?’

  ‘That’s their look-out, isn’t it? Anyhow, I think screwing private houses is a mug’s game, unless you know there’s something worth having. Office safes is the best line. There’s always someone in a place like that what’ll go bent, if you promise him a big enough cut.’

  ‘What, a night watchman or someone?’

  ‘Yes, usually. You have to tie them up, of course, and sometimes bash them about a bit, just to make it look like they’re not on the firm. Not so as to hurt, naturally.’

  This Robin Hood view of things seemed a little too good to be true. ‘What about all the robbery-with-violence cases one hears about, then?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, there’s two kinds of R.W.V., Pete. There’s the silly slags what goes around coshing people regardless because it’s the only way they know to make a tickle. Then there’s the professionals what gets charged with robbery-with-violence just to make it stick better—which is quite a different matter. For instance, suppose there’s some screws-man that the law’s got an eye on; they can’t pin nothing on him but they think he should go inside for a nice long time, if it can be arranged. For the sake of argument, let’s say he’s got a little tickle planned at a private house, and somebody grasses on him. If they nick him for screwing, pure and simple, it’ll probably be two years or maybe three, so what do they do?’

  ‘They can’t very well charge him with robbery-with-violence unless somebody’s been hurt,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, that’s all cobblers. If it’s a tie-up, arranged beforehand, they can usually get the person to say they’ve been coshed as well.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘By promising not to charge them as an accomplice, of course. Blimey, do I have to tell you? What about McNally, for Christ’s sake?’

  ‘Yes, but doesn’t there have to be a weapon?’

  ‘There always is. I’ve known blokes be charged with “armed robbery” because they had steel tips to their heels. Or because they was carrying a packing-case opener. I tell you, you can’t win. The law’s got it on you, every time.’

  That night after tea—a hunk of bread, a pat of margarine, and a spoonful of watered jam—Basil came and sat next to me. He and Bob were working in the Library, the staff of which, apart from them, consisted exclusively of confidence-men of the most boring kind, who spent most of their time in trying to impress each other with their social qualifications. There was one whom Basil particularly detested. His name was Glubb, and he had formerly been a Councillor for one of the London boroughs.

  ‘What sort of a day have you had, and how was Councillor Glubb?’ I asked.

  ‘My God, I wish you’d been there,’ said Basil. ‘Bob and I have been sorting out the Theological section. It’s full of the most peculiar old tracts and Mormon hymn-books and things. There’s one shelf that really made us laugh most frightfully, though; it’s labelled “French, Devotional” and can you guess what the first volume is? Of all things, the memoirs of the Due de St Simon! I pointed it out to Bob and of course we both died, and that ghastly old nightmare Glubb looked over the top of his spectacles at us and said: “Some people seem to think they come to prison in order to laugh.” It was too much, really. What have you been doing?’

  ‘Actually, trying to find out what makes burglars tick.Dan Starling, in particular.’

  ‘Very dangerous, I should think, but probably quite entertaining as well. All the usual glib rationalisations, I suppose?’

  ‘In a way, yes, but I think he believes them himself.’

  ‘Oh, probably. I will say this for your Starling, you know: when I came in here I looked around and I thought—“All these people are dead.” You know what I mean, don’t you? That funny look in the eyes, and not seeming to listen when one’s talking. Well, I looked at Dan and I thought, goodness, here’s somebody who’s still alive. I don’t know how he manages it, after nearly two years.’

  I looked at Dan. Yes, he was alive.

  ‘And another thing, he’s really most terrifically kind. To you, I mean; not to anyone else. I’ve been trying for weeks to get him to buy me some sweets, but he won’t, he’s far too busy looking after you. There’s a lot of good in him really, but heaven knows what’ll happen when he gets out of here. Back to the old life of crime, I suppose. Bunny, for God’s sake stop throwing yourself about, I don’t want to be your next victim.’

  Bunny was a film cameraman of remarkably spindly physique, with horn-rimmed glasses and an excitable manner, who had been convicted of causing Grievous Bodily Harm to his wife. He was a rather timid creature, and none of us could understand how he could have caused Grievous Bodily Harm to anyone, except possibly by his expansive gestures; he was incapable of talking without throwing his arms and legs about in an agitated manner which, as Basil pointed out, might be excessively dangerous in a confined space.

  ‘I’m very, very cross,’ said Bunny, waving like a windmill. ‘Vic’s making uncalled-for remarks about my private life.’

  Vic leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs and grinned spaciously. ‘I was only asking where his old woman was now,’ he explained.

  ‘You know perfectly well that she’s trying to divorce me,’ said Bunny. ‘I went on Governor’s Application this morning to get a special letter to my solicitor. I think it’s most unfair of her.’

  ‘What’s she divorcing you for?’ asked Bob.

  ‘Hitting her over the head with an umbrella,’ suggested Basil, ‘the big brute.’

  ‘Nothing of the sort.Something much worse.’

  ‘Oo, go on, tell us,’ pleaded Vic.

  ‘Well, I don’t really know what it means.’

  ‘Come on, Bunny, don’t be shy.’

  ‘It’s too embarrassing.’

  ‘Bunny, I shall hit you.’

  ‘Moral degeneracy, whatever that is,’ said Bunny, blushing.

  Vic slapped his knees and hooted with laughter. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘You been pissing
in the sink.’

  I was still working in the Tailors’ Shop, but had by now been transferred to one of the machines for making button-holes. There were two of these, and they were said to have been constructed in 1890. Mine was called Potemkin, and the other Alice; the names had been scratched on their enamelled bases by some long-released prisoner. Alice was operated by an Australian adventurer who had incurred the displeasure of the police by owning five passports more than he was entitled to. We used to talk to each other, for no sensible reason, in squeaky pidgin-English, varying the routine occasionally by pretending to be Japanese prisoners with no roofs to our mouths. I do not know how this fantasy arose, but by the time Bill was posted to an open camp we had composed an entire parody of ‘Oklahoma!’ in roofless Japanese, called ‘Yokohama!’

  The machines, when they were in the mood, were capable of making a buttonhole in one-and-a-half minutes, but they were always going wrong. This was a considerable source of annoyance to the prisoners who were making trousers on piece-work rates. Some of them thought we were doing it on purpose.

  There was one Jewish prisoner who suspected us profoundly. He would come bustling up to our table, inquiring plaintively: ‘What have you done with my flies?’

  ‘We’ve broken down,’ said Bill. ‘Come back on Tuesday week.’

  ‘Yes, it’s all very well, but it affects my pay, you know. Can’t you possibly get on a little quicker?’

  ‘Finkelstein, you’re a one-man sweatshop,’ said Bill. ‘What’s a few pennies, more or less?’ and he dived under the machine, softly humming one of our songs, ‘The Sulley with the Flinge on Top.’

  ‘Supposing,’ said Mr. Finkelstein, leaning forward in a conspiratorial manner, ‘supposing I gave each of you a Woodbine?’

  This was bribery on the grand scale. I got out my tobacco-tin and pushed it carelessly under a pile of trouser-flies. ‘Tell me, Mr. Finkelstein,’ I said, ‘why are you so rich? I saw you coming out of the canteen last week with a pot of marmalade and a bag of biscuits.’

  ‘Ah, you see, I have a system. Every week I put away a little something, and in that way one creates a small reserve.’ He pulled two slightly battered Woodbines out of his overall pocket and slid them into my tin. As he waddled away, Bill sighed. ‘Marvellous, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘That bloke treats his two bob a week just like it was two hundred quid.’