by Carol Rivers
‘Jesus ain’t saved us from Whitehall,’ one man roared, trying to silence the drum player. ‘So shove off and let us march.’
Pat was horrified to see the drum go rolling down the street and the members of the Salvation Army run off to chase it. Pat knew of the unrest amongst the unions from his rounds. The marchers weren’t bad sorts, but their mood was ugly.
He tried to squeeze through with his bicycle. But the crowd was agitated. He began to feel nervous. Suddenly a big, burly man blocked his path, muscles bulging under his dirty vest. The hairs on the back of Pat’s neck stood up. He didn’t seem to be part of the demonstration but had come out from one of the houses.
‘Who’re you then?’ demanded the bruiser, lifting a beer-jug to his lips and swallowed noisily. Some of the beer escaped down his chin and stained the top of his vest. ‘Are you with this lot?’
Pat shook his head. He seemed to be hemmed in on all sides.
It was the wrong answer, he realized as the man’s lips curled into an ugly smile. ‘That’s a nice bit o’ machinery you got there.’ He reached out and grabbed the handlebars. ‘I’ll bet it goes at a speed, don’t it?’
Pat swallowed hard. He had a sick feeling in his stomach. He knew he couldn’t stop the man from taking his bicycle if he wanted. Even if he yelled and screamed no one would be interested in all the confusion.
He searched the crowd for a familiar face, but of course found none. The disruption seemed to have spread. A man wearing a red-spotted neckerchief and an eye patch pushed another man with such force that he fell over.
‘So, let’s be havin’ it then, lad,’ said the muscle-man, pulling Pat’s bicycle towards him. Though he was terrified, Pat refused to let go. In the next moment, his arm was nearly pulled out of its socket. The pain made him cry out and yet he hung on. The bicycle was the property of the PLA, and if it was stolen, he would lose his job.
Gritting his teeth, Pat yanked back. The pedal hit his shin and once again, he let out a yelp. The man laughed, his beery face and smoke-fouled breath making Pat vow never to want to smoke or drink with Willie again. Then suddenly he was pushed right off his feet. The man had his bicycle, wheeling it off triumphantly. Pat tried to get up but was bowled over by one of the demonstrators. Pat knew he was really in trouble now. The blow of landing on his bottom had sent the wind from him, but he managed to crawl away from the jeering crowd, struggling to his feet, determined to follow his bicycle. He could see it disappearing round the corner and he yelled at the top of his voice.
‘Hey, stop, thief! If you don’t, I’ll set the law on you!’ Pat surprised even himself at what he’d threatened. It wasn’t as if he’d really go to the police. No one in the East End liked the law or ever called for their assistance.
‘What did you say, you little pip-squeak?’ The hulk turned, staring menacingly at him. Pat stood shaking as he saw his bicycle was shoved against the wall. Dropping the beer-jug, the man lurched towards him and grabbed his collar.
‘Call the law on me, would you, you damned perisher?’
In his last gasping moments of his life, as Pat decided they must be, he wondered why he had been so foolish as to make the one threat that would act against him. Only a dimwit would call out such a thing. But he’d been angry and frightened, and at a loss as to how he could stop his bicycle being stolen.
‘Arggh . . .’ Pat choked, as he struggled to breathe. ‘I didn’t . . . didn’t—’
‘Didn’t what?’ spat the ale-foamed lips in his face. ‘Don’t try wheedling your way out of this, you little blighter. I’m gonna show you what happens to lippy kids like you that have got gobs bigger than—’
Pat felt the hold on his neck loosen instead of tighten. The big man in front of him stood still, swaying slightly, his eyes slowly glazing over. Releasing Pat’s shirt, he folded at the knees and fell flat on his face. Pat scrambled away, hauling himself up to peer at his rescuer. It was none other than the woman in breeches, wearing a young boy’s cap. The coarse breeches did very little to hide the slenderness of her thighs and hips. Her top half was covered by a thin brown tunic, belted as before, narrowing her small waist. In her hand was the remains of the drunk’s own jug, which she had just flattened him with. Pat stood in awe, never having seen such an athletic female before, and it was all he could do to rouse himself from the shock.
‘Take your bicycle and follow me,’ the woman commanded forcefully, throwing aside the broken china. ‘And be quick! The police are here.’
At this warning, Pat shook himself out of his trance. He grasped his bicycle, though his hands were still shaking, and flung himself on the saddle. Ignoring the pain of his very sore neck, he pedalled fast after the running figure that sprinted like the wind over the cobbles. She seemed to know the path ahead and Pat fixed his eyes on the flying breeches, bracing himself for – God help him – whatever might lie ahead. One glance behind him told him he had no choice. For they were being followed closely by every other man at the demonstration who had spotted the advance of the law.
Chapter 15
Pat stood still, his heart almost stopping with fright. He didn’t have a clue where he was. A tall man with a black beard and hat addressed the woman in a foreign language. She seemed to agree and he reached out for Pat’s bicycle. But Pat refused to let it go.
‘I’ll not be robbed twice,’ he argued.
‘This man is my friend and won’t harm you,’ the woman told him. ‘If you want to see your brother, it is best you don’t know where he is. Tie this around your eyes.’ She drew a scarf from her pocket.
‘Not on your nelly!’ Pat exclaimed, and when he recoiled, clutching his bicycle firmly, she smiled.
‘It is for your own safety. Should ever you be questioned, the truth won’t spill from your lips.’
Pat didn’t like the sound of this at all. Why should he be questioned? Who were these people? But he wanted to see Frank.
‘Quickly,’ she ordered him. ‘There is no time to waste.’
Pat didn’t know what to do. To m Redwing, his hero, brave son of a sailorman and student at Greyfriars, wouldn’t hesitate. If it was the Bounder who was in trouble, he’d not be shrinking away from danger, but facing it.
Reluctantly he nodded. The man took his bicycle, and the woman tied the cloth round his eyes. A firm hand attached to his shoulder and pushed him forward. He’d never been blindfolded before. Where did they intend to take him? Would he be parted from his bicycle?
His fear deepened as he was eventually halted by his guard. There was the sound of a lock being drawn and a door squeaking open. He could tell it was a heavy door because it scraped on the ground. Then he was being pushed inside and he smelled the stink of horses and straw.
‘Where am I? And what about me bicycle?’ he shouted, wanting his sight back.
‘Soon you will meet your brother,’ the woman told him.
Pat felt himself lifted and placed on a floor. Someone gripped his arms and pushed him down. There were whispers and the sound of boots shuffling close. Next, the noise of a tailgate being latched up. Was his bicycle with him? He reached out, sliding his hand along the bench. He felt the softness of canvas, the tethered strings tied to the covered wagon. The jogging movement began, the sound of hoofs rang out over the cobbles.
Pat listened to all that went on. His ears were pricked, though he was deafened at times by the thunder of his frightened heart. Well, he wasn’t dead yet. And the woman had talked about Frank in the way a friend would, though he couldn’t quite think how.
The same clock chimed eight that had chimed seven an hour ago. He heard hoots from the river and then another clear sound that he recognized: a busker, singing, ‘It’s a A Long Way to Tipperary’, so out of tune that people would give old Tickle Mary, as he was known, money to send him away. The Mutt ’n’ Jeff drunk regularly staggered the fifty feet of pavement outside the Roxy in Commercial Road. Pat sat up, listening even more attentively now he knew they were leaving Stepney.
; Pat began to count. He would stop counting when the cart turned and begin again, then try to keep the numbers in his head . . .
‘I’ll leave you to wait up for Pat,’ yawned Wilfred that night. ‘I can’t keep me eyes open a moment longer.’ He gave a bark of a cough and folded his newspaper away.
‘I’ll give him a chewing off when he comes in,’ Birdie vowed as she peered through the lace curtain. It was too dark to see anything, but still she looked.
‘Boys will be boys,’ Wilfred said reasonably. ‘And Pat is a good lad. If you ask me, he’s started his courting. And the last thing he’ll want is for his sister to know his business.’
But Birdie had her own opinion on the matter. She didn’t think Pat’s poor timekeeping was at all to do with a romance. Pat had told her as much himself; that he was more interested in adventuring with Willie than going out with girls. Though of course, a pretty lass could have taken his eye and she dearly hoped this was the reason for his unusual lateness.
Birdie tried not to feel so anxious, but she was. Fifteen . . . nearly twenty minutes past the hour of nine and it was much later than he’d ever stayed out before. If Harry hadn’t told her that Pat had said he’d be home by nine, she wouldn’t have known even that.
‘Good night, girl and God bless,’ her father said, patting her shoulder. ‘And don’t give the boy too hard a time.’
Birdie nodded and once he was gone, making his way slowly up the stairs after visiting the closet, she tried to turn her attention to the events of the day. Had she been too hard on Don, as Harry had suggested? Yet, if his theory was correct, and Lydia and James were so much a part of Don’s life, then if she loved Don, she must love who he loved too. Well, she did already! Almost. James was a dear little boy, and must miss his father dreadfully. Birdie had the deepest sympathy for him. But all along, she had supposed a different outcome to the one she had seen today. Lydia was meant to be looking for husband number two. Had she not put away her mourning clothes? And wasn’t James the right age to take to a new man? Don, his uncle, should remain his uncle. But a man of good conduct and background – and wasn’t there a sprinkling of these at church? – would make Lydia a perfect husband.
Birdie stood up and paced the floor. For a while, she was lost in the game of matching up Lydia to a new husband. A new life awaited Lydia, but would she grasp it if Don’s shoulder was there to lean on?
Giving the fire a fierce poke and folding her arms across her chest, she collapsed into Wilfred’s chair. She could see Lydia now, sitting at the desk in the office. Was it too comfortable a chair to leave?
Birdie jumped up as the clock struck a quarter to ten. Lydia was immediately forgotten as she came back to the present. Where was Pat? She flew to the window and lifted the curtain. The gaslights gave a dull yellowy glow in the mist that was settling on the street.
She drew in a sharp breath, the feeling of dread coming over her. Pat had never been out this late. She knew something was wrong. She had known it ever since the minute hand of the clock had passed nine.
What should she do? Wilfred must be asleep by now. Should she go out to search for Pat, even though the night was threatening fog?
Harry was whistling his way along the dark street, having enjoyed a pint at the White Horse in Poplar. In the company of his crew he had been making plans for the next day. Ned Shorter was an old hand, experienced enough to take over in his absence. The section of drains they were about to repair in the East India Dock Road was tough going. The earth was as solid as concrete and there were rats in the drains as big as the terriers that were sent to chase them. But the latrine waste was the worst. There was enough to sink a battleship. Their eyes watered and the stench was vile. He needed someone he could rely on, like Ned. If this job worked well, he’d talk to Ned about buying a wagon.
The challenge of the work was what Harry liked. Identifying the sewerage tunnels and their problems wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and that left the way open for him. The broken shafts and ancient soakaways of London city were held together often by luck, and carrying out repairs to the network was inexhaustible. He’d spent half the war digging trenches for the army. Now he was building a reputation in civvy street. He didn’t want drunkards working for him. He needed muscle and a willingness to graft hard. He’d found this in his crew and paid them a fair wage. He kept them happy and they, in return, were to be relied upon.
The night was gathering around him as he strolled towards home. A fine, wet mist hung around the eaves and skittered over the cobbles. The houses looked homely on either side: little nests that were warm and cared for, though he had to smile as a loud cursing came from one front door.
‘Bugger off, Jack!’ exclaimed the woman, a chink of light exposing her muscular arm directed towards the man. ‘When you’re sober, you can step over this doorstep and not a moment before.’ The door slammed, the man fell back and limped miserably along the road. A couple passed him, arms linked, laughing pitilessly as he heaved his stomach contents into the gutter.
The mist enclosed Harry, and the scent of the docks, the tar and weed that clotted the grimy water and discoloured the surface, filled his lungs. The brisk walk had got rid of the effects of the glass of ale and he was eager to open his own door and be warm and snug inside. As he came to the alley he always cut through, he saw a figure in front of him, bent down. The mist was creeping over the silhouette, but there was something about it he recognized.
In startled recognition, he came to a halt. ‘Pat – Pat Connor, is that you?’ The head came up and the gaslight showed he was right. But to his dismay Pat looked as though he’d been through a hedge and backwards. His hair was almost standing on end and his boot laces were hanging loose. His shirttails were out and he wore no collar and there was a streak of dirt across his cheek. ‘What’s happened, Pat?’
‘I had a puncture.’
Harry bent down and looked at the bicycle wheel. ‘It’s too dark to mend here. And anyway, what are you doing out at this time of night?’
‘I’m in a jam, Harry. I can’t wheel it, else I’ll ruin the tyre. But I can’t leave it here, either.’
Harry saw the boy was shivering so he took off his own warm duffel and made him put it on. The jumper he wore beneath was sufficient for his own needs.
‘Not to worry, there’s two of us and we’ll carry it.’ Harry lifted the front and indicated the back to Pat. ‘We’ll have you both home in a trice. Now as we go, you can tell me how you got in such a pickle.’
They began to walk along, with Harry listening over his shoulder.
‘I don’t know as I can tell you. It’s supposed to be secret. Though you know about Frank already,’ mumbled Pat, sniffing and trying to catch his breath. ‘You’d never believe me anyway. I don’t believe it myself. And Birdie will kill me for being out this late. Did you tell her I’d be home by nine?’
‘I did indeed,’ replied Harry, keeping up a steady march.
‘I don’t know what she’ll say and I’ll have to tell her. I couldn’t do nothing but what I did, could I?’
Harry stopped, bringing Pat to a halt too. ‘Depends on what you did, lad.’ There was a shifting uneasily in the street behind them, but Harry saw nothing. He brought his attention back to Pat, who was struggling to keep his conscience to himself. ‘You’d better give your explanation a try, lad. Make it word-perfect for your sister,’ he replied easily, and set off again.
The story that came next kept Harry quiet to such a degree that, other than it being the truth, the alternative was that Pat had developed a vivid imagination. But when it came to the riot, and the blindfold and the jug-wielding female, Harry put this alternative to one side.
‘You’re saying,’ Harry put in as Pat took a breath, ‘that this unknown woman found you at Chalk Wharf with Willie, then met you in Stepney and saved your bacon?’
‘A rough encounter it was too,’ nodded Pat eagerly, ‘with a bruiser three times my size, maybe four, about to steal my bicycle. She clout
ed him with his own beer-jug and there was us escaping, and then me being blindfolded and carried in this cart with this other big bruiser and my bicycle—’
Harry stopped, looking round. ‘Did you hear that?’ he whispered.
‘No, what was it?’
‘Footsteps.’
They both looked this way and that, but the mist was turning to fog. Not a sound came from the silent street.
‘Harry, is someone following us?’
‘Why should they do that?’
‘Don’t know,’ rasped Pat, sounding choked and frightened. ‘But I’ve got the wind up now. After today I’d even believe in the fairies.’
‘I’ve not seen one of those yet,’ Harry dismissed, but his skin was now chilling in the damp night air. ‘Let’s get a move on.’
He didn’t add, as they pressed on, that he’d been listening for a while and had come to the conclusion that the yellow veil of fog could make excellent cover for someone who didn’t want to be seen, yet who was watching them.
Chapter 16
Birdie wanted to hug Pat so hard she’d squeeze the life out of him, whilst at the same time she wanted to tear him off a strip. It was only the sight of Harry standing with her brother, the bicycle between them, that stilled the reproach in her throat as she opened the back door.
‘Before you lay into him,’ Harry warned, lowering the handlebars and then passing his hand across his forehead, ‘it was unintentional that Pat kept out late. When I found him, he’d got a puncture and so we walked home.’
Birdie spluttered a few words of reprimand, but they soon died under her heartfelt embrace. She hugged him as if fearing he’d disappear. ‘You rascal,’ she managed lamely, her joy at the feel of him overcoming her terror. ‘I’ve been thinking all kinds of things.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘Didn’t mean to worry you.’
‘Is that all you can say?’
‘If it wasn’t for Harry I’d be even later. Might not be here now if it hadn’t been for—’