The Devil in the Dock

by Richard James

  “Mr Babbington,” began the woman. “Would you be so good as to return your charges to the workhouse? I had rather see them put to work than walking the streets again.”

  Mr Babbington gave her a surly look, straightening his cravat at his collar before replying. “Miss Beaurepaire,” he mumbled, trying to salvage what dignity he could, “I am grateful for your interventions. Do offer my thanks and highest regards to your constables.” Placing a battered hat upon his head, Babbington turned his feet to the door, bidding his charges follow him. Clearly sensing they’d had enough mischief for the day, the boys fell into line behind him and, one by one, they marched from the room. Some of the last stragglers loitered by the door until a sharp look from the woman at the desk sent them on their way.

  “They’re from St. Olave’s,” she explained to Bowman as she caught his eye. “He has no authority over them, so they roam where they will.” She was tidying the contents of the cupboard as she spoke. Babbington had clearly been in a state of agitation whilst within. Papers and books had been pulled to the floor and maps and ledgers lay dishevelled on the shelves. Shutting the door behind her, the young woman blew an errant hair from her face and held out a hand.

  “Alma Beaurepaire,” she offered by way of an introduction.

  Bowman took her hand. “George Bowman, Scotland Yard.” He swallowed hard, blushing at his inadvertent use of his Christian name.

  “Yes, George,” she replied, briskly. Bowman swallowed again. “You are to accompany me to St. Saviour’s Dock where I shall place you under the auspices of the loading officer.” She was reaching for her hat at the desk.

  “Have you been matron here long?” asked Bowman, removing his hat from his head.

  “These last three years.”

  Bowman played nervously with the rim of his hat, turning it this way and that as he spoke. “And you are placed here on account of the children?”

  Alma stopped to look the inspector up and down. “It’s an unusual thing to find a female in a police station is it not, George?” Bowman blinked. Her continued use of his first name was both disarming and unsettling. “Unless the woman in question is either inebriated or has been beaten by her pimp,” she continued, fixing her mob hat to her head with a pin. Bowman blanched at her forthright language. “But there is such a great number of workhouses in the area and we have more than our share of errant children.” She slammed the ledger shut at her desk in preparation to leave. “Your commissioner, in his wisdom, has decreed that the fairer sex are better suited to the task of policing them. So, George, here I am.” This last was said barely inches from the inspector’s face.

  “Miss Beaurepaire,” he stammered, “would you be so kind as to escort me to the dock?”

  A smile played over her face. Bowman sensed he was being toyed with. “My, but aren’t we the stuffy sort?” Alma clapped him on the shoulder, “Hold your fire, Inspector Bowman. It doesn’t do to rush a girl.” With a smile playing about her lips, she walked briskly to a flight of stairs heading down to the cells. “Samson?” she yelled, her hands on her hips. “I’m headin’ out to the docks with my new friend George.” She flashed Bowman a smile. “Be sure to man the desk while I’m gone!” Not waiting for a reply, Alma Beaurepaire swept from the reception room, pausing at the top of the steps to turn to the inspector.

  “You comin’”?

  Swept up in her wake, Bowman dutifully followed her into the street, accidentally dropping his hat at the top of the steps as he did so.

  In the few minutes he had been in the police station, Upper Grange Road had become busy. Doors had been thrown open onto the street, letting forth a multitude of men in shirtsleeves, tattered trousers and hobnailed boots. Each house seemed to be home to several of them, piling out as they struggled into overalls and aprons. Turning from the slums, they moved as one towards the river. The air was full of oaths and cigarette smoke. As Bowman walked with his companion, he felt part of a movement of men.

  “There’s a boat come in,” Alma explained. “There’s goods to unload.”

  Terrace after terrace of crumbling slums lined the way to St. Saviour’s Dock, broken only by the occasional appearance of chapels and dye, glue and Indian rubber works. The streets were awash with humanity.

  “Twice a day they try their luck at the docks,” Alma was saying as they followed the throng into a thoroughfare known as Neckinger. “If they’re hired, there’s half a day’s pay in it.”

  She had an easy gait, her long arms swinging loosely by her side. She plainly felt at ease here amongst the grime and filth. Bowman envied her for it. As Alma turned to him, she caught Bowman looking at her and raised a quizzical eyebrow. He looked quickly away.

  The closer they got to the docks, so the more filthy the streets and houses became. Stinking ditches ran between the slums now, their smell rising to mix with the odour of spice and steam emanating from the wharves ahead. Faces peered from broken windows. More than once, Bowman saw them spit into the street.

  “How do you come to be in London, Miss Beaurepaire?” Bowman asked as they picked their way carefully through the fetid streets.

  “Misfortune,” she replied, matter-of-factly, stroking an errant ringlet from her eyes. “My mother died in Australia, when I was just five. My father had died four years earlier. He was the governor of a penal colony in New South Wales. I spent some time in an orphanage then found myself a passage home.” Bowman threw her a questioning look. “My father’s family are from Sussex. Of course, they had never known me, so they shunned me. I was on my own.” She shook her head at Bowman’s look, “Don’t feel sorry for me, George. I’ve found my place in this stinking city. Believe you me, the Outback has got nothing on Bermondsey.”

  Bowman pulled his coat about him as a wind whistled through the alleys on their route. The river was in sight now as they emerged from Rose Court. “Do all these men work at the dock?” Bowman was casting his eyes at the masses about him. Each man had a look of hunger in his eyes, a desperation to find employment for the day. The inspector was jostled and shoved as he walked.

  “It’s a monster,” Alma laughed. “It’ll chew ’em up and, at the end of the day, it’ll spit ’em out. If they’re lucky.”

  As they rounded the corner, St. Saviour’s Dock lay before them. A great gouge in the Thames shore, it cut into the south bank of the river like a scar. The Thames was swollen at the height of its tide. Gentle waves lapped at the wharves that rose from the water. They soared over several storeys, great escarpments of brick and mortar. Printed across each in black painted letters of four feet high were names such as Meriton, Shuter and Hamlyn; each wharf large enough to hold unimaginable quantities of spices, coffee and tea, flour, grain and other goods to be consumed by the voracious city. Passing along Dockhead and into Shad Thames, Bowman saw a foreman posted outside the entrance to each of these great warehouses. It was towards these men that the pressing throng was headed. In a moment, they were overcome with bodies pressing to be first in the queue for work. Shouts echoed off the walls, arms were held aloft and Bowman even saw some punches being thrown in pursuit of a morning’s employment. It was a scene of desperation. Barrows and carts were commandeered and brought to the wharves. Looking through the open wharves to the dock beyond, Bowman noticed wooden gantries being swung out over the water in anticipation of an arrival. In just a moment more, Bowman saw a great, three-masted clipper breaching the Thames wall. A swell of water preceded it, which swept through the length of the dock and, at parts, onto the narrow walkways. As the clipper lowered her sails, ropes were thrown ashore to be secured on the quayside. Men shouted orders from the decks to those below. Extra ropes were thrown. Bowman could even see sacks of produce being thrown prematurely to the wharves. Here they were stacked or loaded onto waiting carts and pushed away; rice to the rice mill, hops to the brewery. The wood that clad the iron skeleton of the ship groaned and creaked as she was brought to bear. Bowman could see deckhands scrambling to bring in the sails and fold t
hem away. Hatches were flung open in anticipation of the great disgorging of goods. All was activity.

  “Let’s leave them to it,” Alma said as she turned to the inspector. She was amused to see him so interested in the processes of docking a ship. “I need to take you to the loading officer.”

  Stepping deftly between the hordes, they made their way down Shad Thames. The clipper now secured, the carts and barrows were brought close and loaded with large sacks and wooden chests. A musty odour escaped the open hatches and mingled with the sweat and tobacco that hung in the air. Bowman recognised it as tea. The ship and its cargo had clearly come a long way. Walking down some steep steps towards the river, the inspector took his opportunity to look out over the Thames. His view to St. Katharine Docks on the north bank was obscured by ships and boats of all sizes, each awaiting their turn to berth. Clippers and schooners were moored alongside rowing boats and ferries in the middle of the river.

  “Some of them have been there for days,” Alma was saying as they walked. “That’s why we need the likes of you, George.” Bowman flinched and looked around. For her to use his Christian name in so public a place was quite inappropriate. “To guard the tea for the British.”

  Turning his gaze upriver, Bowman took in the brutal majesty of Tower Bridge. Still under construction, it resembled nothing less than the skeleton of some great beast dug up from the mud of the Thames. Two great scaffold towers had been erected on massive piers sunk into the riverbed. Inside them, Cornish granite obelisks were rising, solid and immutable, topped with Portland stone. A gantry was slung between them at their tops and suspension cables were slung to the riverbanks on either side. If he squinted against the spring sun, Bowman could make out some of the four hundred men employed in its construction, scurrying from one side to the other or climbing the impossible height to the gantry unaided. It was little wonder people referred to it as the Gateway to the Empire, though Bowman thought it looked more like a gaping mouth, eager for satisfaction. London’s appetite was endless, he mused, and he wondered if even the ships now moored in the Thames would be enough to sate its hunger.

  “It’ll be the end of us, that’s for sure.”

  Bowman turned to see Alma Beaurepaire staring up at the bridge with him. “You cannot halt progress, Miss Beaurepaire. Especially when there’s an Empire to feed.”

  Alma flashed him a smile and an enigmatic look that Bowman couldn’t read.

  His thoughts were interrupted by a scream for help. Suddenly alert, Bowman looked around to find the source of the distress. As he bounded back up the steps onto Shad Thames, his eyes scanned the length of the wharves. Amongst the bustle at Corder’s Wharf, he saw a man lying on the ground near the water, his face a mask of agony. In a flash, Alma was next to him, marshalling those around her to get help. Trying to make sense of the scene, Bowman saw a cart upturned next to the man, its cargo of sacks spilling onto the dockside. Some had split as they fell, releasing puffs of a yellow spice that dissipated on the wind. Alma was kneeling now, offering such comfort to the man as she could. As Bowman approached, he could see the man’s leg was crushed between the clipper and the dockside. Men leaned against the great ship’s side, trying to heave it away from the dock wall as the unfortunate wretch on the ground writhed and grimaced in pain.

  “The cart rolled into me, knocked me over,” he was panting. “I lost my footing.”

  “Get that cart back on its wheels,” Alma was commanding. “Let’s sling him on it and get him to The Sisters Of Mercy.”

  Bowman was impressed with her calm demeanour. “There’s a convent nearby,” she was explaining to him. “They have an infirmary.”

  Bowman sprang to help some men right the cart, brushing it clear of dirt and dust as best he could. Laying some sacks across it to offer some comfort, his thoughts turned to the poor man’s version of events. Looking at the flagstones that lined the floor in Corder’s Wharf, he could see they were level. In order for the cart to have rolled into the man, it would have to have been pushed. Easy enough amongst this number of men, he thought, for it to have happened by way of an accident. Looking about him, Bowman saw one still point in all the activity. Halfway up the dock, a man was leaning nonchalantly against a door, drawing on a pipe as he watched proceedings with a calm detachment. Bowman recognised him at once. It was the man with the clouded eye from Willow Walk. Quickening his step, Bowman rounded the cart in pursuit. Finding his progress along the dock impeded by the sheer crush of men, he called out to stop the man. A few heads turned in response. As he neared the doorway where the man had stood, he found his path blocked by a horse and cart. He slapped the beast on its flank in frustration, trying in vain to peer round its sweating hide. By the time it had moved, Bowman had lost sight of the man. Puffing out his cheeks in exasperation, Bowman swung his hat from his head to wipe his brow on a sleeve. His frown cut deep into his forehead. What was the name the man with the cigar had mentioned on Willow Walk? Bowman searched his thoughts. The Kaiser. Was that the man with the clouded eye? He heard a struggle behind him. Turning, he saw a small party employed to remove the injured man from the dock. Under Alma’s calm direction, they were hoisting him onto the cart, cradling his shattered leg as best they could. Bowman could see it was nothing more than a mulch of blood and bone. His screams echoed off the wharves and warehouses as they lowered him onto the soft sacks. As the man clutched at the air in agony, his body convulsing with pain, something about his hands caught the inspector’s attention. Stepping a little closer, he could plainly see his fingertips and nails were stained a bright yellow.

  “What will become of him?” he asked Alma as the cart was maneuvered through the wharf to the streets.

  “He’ll never work again, that’s for sure,” she panted, her exertions showing in her flushed face. “If he’s lucky, he’ll finish his days in a workhouse for the invalided.” Bowman’s moustache twitched. “He’s no use to the Empire now, is he?”

  With a strange look that Bowman couldn’t quite interpret, she turned and led him back down the steps to the Thames. As they neared the river, Bowman saw a man walking towards them. He was decked in a smart frock coat and top hat to denote his station among the dock’s employees.

  “Inspector Bowman,” he was calling above the din. “I had word to expect your arrival.” He had an officious look about him and walked with a pronounced limp. “As you have seen, there is never a dull day at St. Saviour’s.” He shared a look with Alma who raised a thin smile in response. The man was holding out his hand in greeting. “I’m the loading officer for St. Saviour’s Dock,” he was proclaiming.

  “You have me at a disadvantage,” Bowman ventured, shaking the man’s hand.

  “Of course, forgive me,” replied the official with a smile. “My name is Bracewell. Cornelius Bracewell.”

  VII

  A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing

  The Tower Subway had lost some of its allure. Opened to great fanfare as a narrow gauge railway over twenty years before, it had spent the first months of its life propelling the wealthier citizens of London beneath the Thames in cable-hauled cars, twelve at a time. The lack of profit produced by so erratic and unreliable a transport, however, saw the discontinuation of the service within a few months. Now, at the presentation of a ha’penny, all of London could traverse the width of the river on foot. It had the appearance from within of a cast iron intestine, reaching through the mud from Tower Hill on the north side to Vine Street on the south.

  A small knot of intrepid pedestrians stumbled into the gloom, their fingers reaching for the greasy sides of the tunnel. It seemed to breathe and sweat with the movement of the river above, and the ground was given to mild tremors as they walked. Some found they had to duck, and hats were removed on account of the low ceiling. As they began their perambulations, one of their number broke rank and began to run the length of the tunnel. Holding his hands out to steady himself, the tall man with the beaked nose ran with his head low. He stepped carefully over the iro
n ribs of the tunnel that threatened to trip him at every turn. Where his hands brushed against the wall, he found them to be damp. Water condensed against the cold metal and ran in rivulets to the floor, mixing with the dust to make a stodgy, sloppy mess. Breathing hard, he at last reached the tunnel’s furthest end, bounding up the sloped entrance until the muscles in his legs burned with the effort.

  He emerged onto Pickle Herring Street, already pulling his coat from his shoulders. Walking at a pace, he passed up Potter’s Fields and through the churchyard at St. John’s, always careful to avoid the tide of men sweeping to the dock for employment. He knew full well that some would recognise him and so, his hat pulled low over his eyes, he slunk back into the shadows as they passed. Finally, he rounded the corner onto Upper Grange Road.

  Pulling his hat from his head and his kerchief from his neck, he took the steps two at a time. He breezed through the reception area, nodding at Samson at the desk. The portly sergeant nodded back. The hook-nosed man was relieved to be back. Taking a breath to calm himself, he walked purposefully to the back of the building and down a flight of stairs. Taking a key from his pocket, he opened a cupboard and reached up to a shelf, pulling a bundle of clothes from their place.

  Doing up the last of the buttons on his coat, the man caught Samson’s eye as he passed back into the reception area. The desk sergeant, busy scratching at his ledger, gestured with his pen in greeting.

  “Constable Thackeray,” he said, airily. “I trust you passed a productive morning?”

  Thackeray smiled in response and ducked through the door, placing his policeman’s hat on his head as he descended the steps to the street.

  VIII

  The Devil In Bermondsey

  Bracewell had an iron grip, noticed Bowman as he shook the loading officer by the hand. He was a compact man with a barrel chest, his ruddy face shining in the morning sun. Though he affected an easy manner, he was betrayed by his clenched teeth and narrow eyes. Bowman had the sense that the man was in pain.