Mercury Falling

by Robert Edric

  Devlin shielded his eyes and looked at the vehicle.

  ‘Good. I want you to go and keep an eye on that merry bunch. They’re expecting you. They know what they’re here to do, so it’s up to you to make sure they do it.’

  Devlin had spent the past ten days labouring up to his waist in water behind one of the dredgers. Anything would be better than that.

  ‘You heard me,’ the foreman said, smiling now. ‘Quick sharp.’

  The others parted around him as Devlin picked up his shovel and started walking.

  Approaching the bus, he saw that it was from the Sea Camp borstal at Frieston Low. Day-release inmates sent out to help with the more menial work. Before that, they’d worked at clearing up after the flooding. Devlin had seen the boys over the previous weeks, but had never approached or spoken to them. They were invariably kept apart from the other labourers and given the work even the casuals like Devlin considered beneath them.

  At his arrival, a warder climbed down from the bus and came to him. The man was overweight and panted heavily at every step he took. He said something to the gathered boys, but they paid little attention to him. Most were sitting or squatting on the ground and a pall of smoke hung above them. Some played cards on the flattened grass.

  ‘I’ve been sent to supervise,’ Devlin said to the warder. He wondered if he should hold out his hand.

  ‘You’ve been sent to do exactly what I tell you to do,’ the man said. ‘Supervise? Who told you that? You? I’ll give you this – you’ve got a sense of humour.’ The man held out his own hand and Devlin took it. ‘I’m Sullivan, by the way. And your presence among us here today is, as they say, obligatory. I supervise and you just keep what they call in the trade a watching brief. We clear on that much, at least?’

  Devlin nodded.

  ‘Don’t look so worried, sunshine; you drew the short straw, that’s all. Whoever sent you might have had it in for you, but play your cards right and this can be a cushy little number as far as you’re concerned. You and me can keep our hands clean while these idle little bastards get theirs dirty. See that drain?’ He pointed to the shallow drain running the length of the field alongside the bank. ‘We’re clearing it out. Another party started the work a month back and we’re here to finish the job. We can easily stretch this one out for two or three days by my reckoning. It’s water, that’s all, and whatever we think we might be achieving, it’ll come and go as it pleases, so we do what we’re told to do, pretend it’s work, and then move on to something else probably just as pointless. Where’s the point in breaking into a sweat in that particular little scenario? Didn’t we learn anything after this last lot?’

  ‘The flood?’

  ‘What else? I spent every day of last week – not me personally, you understand – filling sandbags. Sandbags, I ask you.’ He looked around him at the scattered boys.

  Devlin guessed there were thirty of them.

  ‘Besides, you won’t get much out of this lot. Blood out of a stone most days. What’s your name?’

  Devlin told him.

  ‘Well, Devlin, this is how it works. I tell the lazy little bastards what to do, and then you sign off on my dockets for the work done. When it’s time for a break or to leave, you can help me to count them all back on board and then sign off again. I can’t make it any simpler for you.’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose you can,’ Devlin said, mostly under his breath.

  Sullivan turned back to the boys and started calling their names. Each one rose in a desultory manner and picked up a shovel or a bucket or a rake. They walked along the course of the shallow drain and then slid down into it until they were up to their shins in its stagnant water.

  ‘You won’t drown,’ Sullivan shouted to them. ‘And if you do, we’ll clean you up nice and proper before boxing you up and sending you back to your mother.’

  Devlin waited beside the man, wondering what was expected of him.

  The last of the boys were sent to that part of the drain beyond the bank and started work there.

  Watching them, Devlin saw that they did little. Six shovelfuls to fill a bucket where one or two was normal. Rakes and shovels splashed around in the water to no effect. Boys chopped at the surrounding low bank and then scooped up the dislodged soil from the water and threw it back on to the slope.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Sullivan said. ‘Why bother? Government, see? Home Office. This is what they call “rehabilitation”.’ He stretched the word out to each of its unbelievable syllables. ‘Supposed to be teaching them something useful. Happening all over the country, apparently. Teach them something useful and they stay out of prison proper. Ask me, most of this lot ought to be taken straight there when their time’s up at the borstal. They’re laughing at us, every single one of them, because they know that all this ends when they’re eighteen. After that, they get a clean slate and start all over again. Useful? I ask you. Digging out a blocked drain that some bone-idle farmer hasn’t even thought about clearing in the past twenty years. How on God’s good earth is that useful?’

  Devlin nodded his agreement to everything the man said.

  Mid morning, Sullivan rose to his feet and blew a whistle. The boys climbed out of the drain and sat in the sun.

  ‘Half an hour,’ Sullivan said to Devlin. ‘It seems a lot. Used to be what they called “discretionary”. You know what that means?’

  Devlin did, but shook his head.

  ‘It means I used to be the one who decided how long the break lasted. Me. New rules and regulations, see? Everything’s written down these days. No good arguing with any of it. Besides, one of yours could do the work of ten of these idle little bleeders. They know it, I know it, and our lords and masters know it. Everybody knows it – the Drainage Board, your bosses, my governor, everybody.’ He became more exasperated and breathless with each unhappy addition to the list. His argument was with everyone and everything. ‘They even considered sending the farmers and landowners a bill for the work. Imagine that.’

  ‘They could afford to pay it,’ Devlin said.

  ‘Oh, you been in that game, then, farming?’

  ‘Not really. But once the salt’s gone off the land, it’s still worth money.’

  ‘I daresay. What, and we’re only adding to their coffers with all this?’

  ‘None of my concern,’ Devlin said.

  Sullivan took a solitary cigarette from his pocket, lit it and smoked in long breaths. Devlin lit one of his own.

  ‘Is this all we do?’ Devlin asked him. ‘Watch over them?’

  ‘What more do you want? Believe me, we’ll have our work cut out if one of them tries to leg it.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘You think they don’t try? We get two or three every month in the summer. Some of them are just kids. Shoplifting, petty theft. We even get them sent to us for truanting. Some of them take to the life, some don’t. We even get a few who try—’ Sullivan stopped talking.

  ‘Try what?’ Devlin said.

  ‘You know …’ Sullivan held a fist to his neck and tilted his head.

  Devlin understood him. He looked along the line of resting boys.

  ‘And you can guess who gets the blame for that, can’t you?’

  You, Devlin thought.

  ‘That’s right. Muggins here. Me and all the others. Apparently, we should have been keeping a closer eye, spotted the so-called signs. What so-called signs? It’s the same when the little bastards start fighting among themselves. We should have seen that coming, too.’ He pushed the last of his cigarette into the ground and looked at his watch. ‘Twenty-two minutes.’ He took out his whistle and blew on it. The boys rose slowly to their feet and resumed their work.

  ‘Getting warm,’ Sullivan said. ‘Let’s go back to the bus. We can see better from up there. I got a flask.’

  Devlin followed him to the bus and the two men sat looking out at the expanse of the surrounding fields. Further along the main drain, the dredgers and graders were movin
g noisily along the embankments.

  Sullivan took out his flask and poured them both a drink.

  Devlin sipped at the sugarless liquid and pulled a face.

  ‘I’m supposed to be losing weight,’ Sullivan said, patting the tight globe of his stomach. ‘Medicals. You wed?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  Then Sullivan clicked his fingers and said, ‘You’re Jimmy Devlin’s boy. Thought I saw the likeness. You used to live over Moulton way.’

  ‘I am Jimmy Devlin,’ Devlin said.

  ‘No offence intended. You know what I mean.’

  ‘He buggered off when I was a kid. We haven’t seen him in years. The odd story, but that’s all.’

  ‘He’s still your father,’ Sullivan said.

  ‘Might as well be dead for all it matters. Neither use nor ornament to any of us. Never was, never will be.’

  ‘I see,’ Sullivan said. ‘I still see him on the rare occasion, this bar or that. He used to take bets for the Corrigan brothers over in Wisbech.’

  ‘That’d be him.’

  ‘He’s a popular man. You ought not to be too hard on him.’

  Devlin tried to remember the last time he’d seen his father but the memory was beyond him.

  ‘I wept buckets when we lost my own father,’ Sullivan said. ‘Worshipped the ground that man walked on. We all did.’

  ‘Good for you,’ Devlin said, again the words more mouthed than spoken.

  ‘It’s everything, family is,’ Sullivan said.

  ‘Not to everybody.’

  Sullivan fell silent after that and Devlin did nothing to prolong the conversation.

  After a few minutes during which neither man spoke, Sullivan said, ‘I suppose you got your reasons, I’ll give you that. And I daresay if you could get ten sensible words out of any of this lot, they’d tell much the same story. “Broken homes”, they’re calling it.’

  Then Sullivan fell asleep where he sat in the warm bus.

  Devlin went outside and walked to the closest of the boys, most of whom, knowing Sullivan’s routine, had already stopped working.

  ‘You come to crack the whip, then?’ a boy of fifteen or sixteen asked Devlin.

  Devlin made a whipping motion. ‘I might have.’

  The boy laughed. ‘And how many of us do you think it would take to pull you down here and hold your face under a foot of water?’

  Devlin smiled at the empty threat, turned and walked back to the bus.

  9

  THEY WERE BREAKING up the airfield beyond Tattershall. The Americans had recently gone home. Good riddance. Shame. Either gone home or down to one of the new bases in Suffolk. Jet planes, a different thing entirely.

  Duggan suggested to Devlin that they drive over to the airfield on Sunday. Suggested – as though Devlin had any say in the matter. Duggan’s father insisted on keeping the Sabbath – ‘That’s what he calls it – the bloody Sabbath’ – but Duggan told Devlin it would be the only time to go. The unguarded pickings would be rich, easy to load and even easier to sell on. Always lots of hands held out for that kind of stuff.

  But on the day, nothing came right. Even from half a mile away Devlin could see that too many others had had the same idea, and over thirty lorries and vans already stood parked along the broken runway. Duggan shook his head and swore at everything he saw. Scavengers roamed the recently abandoned site singly and in small groups.

  ‘Waste of time us coming,’ Duggan said as he drove along what remained of the runway. Mounds of reinforced concrete rose all around them. What little remained of the aircraft themselves after all those years had been cut into pieces far too heavy to lift.

  ‘This will all go to the contract boys in Peterborough and Lincoln,’ Duggan said. ‘I should have guessed. The broken concrete – worthless, that stuff, even with the steel in it – will go to shore up the Welland at the Coronation Channel, and the chopped-up metal will already be sold to the Sheffield mills. Good stuff, that. Aluminium. Light. They can smelt that back down. Shame, a ton of that stuff would have seen us sitting pretty. I should never have let you talk me into leaving it this late.’

  Devlin laughed at the remark, but mostly at Duggan’s disappointment.

  ‘Besides, there’s too many others here.’

  ‘Do you know them?’ Devlin said.

  Duggan looked around them. ‘I’ll know some. I usually do. They’ll be amateurs, most of them, spoiling it for the rest of us. I might get a bit of business done one way or another, but apart from that we might as well call it a day.’ He pointed to the few remaining buildings in the distance. ‘Might be something in there worth having a butcher’s at. I’ve got a man in Corby who buys metal window frames sight unseen. Don’t ask me why. We’ll have a recce, shall we?’ He climbed down from the cab and Devlin followed him.

  After a few paces, Duggan turned and indicated the far side of the runway, where most of the others were now gathering. ‘You go and have a shufti over there,’ he told Devlin. ‘And keep shtum. We’re here for a look round, that’s all. I wouldn’t put it past the Lynn coppers to send someone in civvies.’

  Devlin considered this unlikely, but said nothing. Not his place. Or was this Duggan doing what he always did and letting Devlin wander out into the open while he kept himself nicely tucked away in the background?

  ‘I’ll go and give the buildings a once-over,’ Duggan said. ‘Back here, half an hour. Anybody asks for me, tell them where we’re parked up. Anyone tells you I owe them money, tell them I’m dead and buried.’ He laughed at this and then turned and walked away from Devlin.

  Uncertain what was expected of him, Devlin wandered towards the other men. Some he recognized from previous encounters with Duggan, but most were strangers to him – men who watched him come towards them and who then stopped talking as he passed them by. Mounds of cable and rotted sleepers stood higher than the scavengers. A column of giant tyres rocked where men climbed on it. The fact that the tyres had been stacked like this suggested that they’d already been sold and were awaiting collection. Men rolled smaller tyres along the concrete apron.

  ‘Forget it,’ a man said unexpectedly to Devlin as he watched this. ‘We were here first.’

  ‘They’re aircraft tyres,’ Devlin said. He remembered watching the sleek green-and-silver bombers coming and going from the place.

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, son,’ the man said.

  ‘If you say so.’ Devlin walked to where others were peering into oil drums and then kicking them and rolling them around to determine if they might still contain something. Duggan liked oil drums.

  Someone had lit a fire and a column of black smoke rose in a straight line into the still air. Devlin wondered why anyone would attract attention to the place like that.

  A man with a dog on a lead came to him and asked him where Duggan was. The dog strained on the lead and growled and bared its teeth at Devlin.

  ‘Who’s Duggan?’

  ‘Duggan Duggan. Don’t play the smartarse. Me and him have got a bit of business. He said he might be here. I seen you with him a few times. You’re his current skivvy.’ He spat heavily at his feet.

  ‘Get the dog away,’ Devlin said.

  ‘What, him? Wouldn’t hurt a fly.’

  Devlin motioned to the distant buildings.

  ‘Got his eyes on the window frames, has he?’ the man said. ‘He’s got a good nose for that kind of thing.’ He looked disdainfully at the others around them. ‘Half of this lot don’t know their arse from their elbow. I even heard one of them say he was going to start loading up some of the broken concrete. Idiot. Where’s Duggan parked?’

  Devlin indicated the distant lorry on the runway.

  ‘Tell him Billy from Holbeach Clough was asking after him,’ the man said. ‘I’ll catch up with him. He knows where I am.’ He kicked the snarling dog and the animal finally fell silent.

  Devlin watched him go. He felt confident that he’d kept up Duggan’s end of things. He was s
tarting to talk the same language. It was a world in which he would soon belong in his own right. It had already occurred to him to suggest to Duggan that he buy a smaller van so that the two of them might work separately on occasion and increase their profits. Duggan would laugh at the idea, ridicule it, and only then perhaps consider it.

  A man at the drums kicked one over and then slipped in the old viscous oil which poured slowly from it across the warm concrete. Others gathered around to laugh at him as he struggled to stand upright.

  Leaving the small crowd, Devlin went back to the lorry.

  Half an hour had passed. In Duggan’s world, that might mean an hour, or even two, or even a whole day if something else cropped up while he was away. From Devlin’s vantage point, he searched for Duggan, but saw nothing. Distant figures moved among the buildings, but everything was distorted in the haze. He’d tell Duggan about the drums, the tyres perhaps, but little else. The man with the dog. Let Duggan decide.

  He wound down the window to let air into the overheated cab, and as he did this a man came to the running board, climbed up and looked in at him. Devlin recognized him as the older of the two brothers – Patrick – who had bought the cisterns from Duggan.

  ‘Duggan said you was here,’ Patrick said. He pushed his head into the cab and looked around. ‘What you seen?’

  ‘Nothing worth the effort,’ Devlin said.

  The man laughed. ‘Like that, is it? He’s teaching you good.’

  ‘He’s over there.’

  ‘I know. Colm’s with him. You spent that quid yet?’

  ‘What quid?’

  ‘“What quid?” he says. You not too hot sitting in there?’

  ‘A bit,’ Devlin said.

  ‘Listen, you ever fancy doing a bit of business with us on your own account, we’re easy enough to find,’ Patrick said. ‘Autumn soon, we’ll be laying up for the winter. Over at the wintering ground close by Swineshead. You can’t miss us.’

  ‘I work with Duggan,’ Devlin said.

  ‘’Course you do. I’m just saying, that’s all. Things change. We all need to push a few bits and pieces to one side now and again.’