As the train moved slowly along the pier, Sampson was distributing the money from the kitbag about the pockets of his coat. The gun remained in the kitbag, and I thought he meant to leave it in the compartment. But as we climbed down from the train with not more than a couple of dozen others, he picked it up, saying to Hopkins:
'Take it easy, will you? I've done this trip a dozen times and never once been searched, nor seen anybody searched.'
Of course, he had to have the gun with him. I'd have been off in a moment otherwise.
The pier was a provocation to the sea, a thorn in its side. The water flew up to left and right of us, and sometimes both at once. Dover glowed above us but the pier had not enough lamps, and those mainly over notices of close type mounted on steel poles. What I took to be the customs shed was before us, and beyond it, the steamer, beating about underneath a signal that controlled its movements and looked like a railway signal.
To get to the boat, you had to cross the customs shed, and it was the thought of doing this that had silenced Sampson and Hopkins, for there was the money, and there was the gun. After a short platform conference with Sampson, Hopkins handed me my ticket. We had to go one by one, of course. Sampson, I was pretty sure, had transferred the revolver to the inside pocket of his coat, for he kept his hand there like Napoleon, and the kitbag looked empty in his hand. 'They ask me about the bulky article I'm carrying,' he said, as we stood in a circle of three before the customs shed,'. . . and I give them a little demonstration.'
'No,' said Hopkins, 'we turn about, and we fucking scarper.'
Sampson smiled at that, but I didn't think his smile was to be taken as agreement.
We broke, and filed into the shed, with Sampson at the head of us. It was a draughty wooden hall, like a village hall, and with that kind of smell, and three swaying gas rings. There was a man on a kind of pulpit, who watched as we fell in with the queue of people filing through between the open door on the train side, and the open door on the boat side. He wore an ordinary suit, no uniform, and did nothing but watch. On a bench at one side sat a man in a uniform: half sailor, half policeman, and this one didn't even watch. Another bloke at the far door, which was pointed towards by signs reading 'Exit' and 'Sortie', wore an ordinary suit, and he was looking at tickets as quickly and lightly as if it was a pleasure boat in the park that we were boarding. As the three of us moved towards him in the queue, I thought: I will speak out now. I looked at the copper, who was looking away. I looked at the man in the pulpit, but it was the wrong look I had back from him. No encouragement there . . . And yet it was possible to end the matter quickly. The crisis would come before you could say Jack Robinson. Maybe I ought to cry out those very words. Any would do Sampson was alongside the ticket inspector, giving him a warning look, as if to say: I dare you to inspect my pockets. The man did not, but simply glanced at the ticket and passed it back.
Yet Sampson did not move on. With the same steely look, he asked the man: 'What's the crossing time today, mate?'
Any words would do, if cried out loudly enough.
'Bank on one hour forty-five minutes,' said the ticket inspector, 'but could be half an hour more or less depending.'
The inspector was on the dead level, but it seemed likely for a moment that Sampson would express dissatisfaction with the answer given, for he still did not move forwards toward the boat. There was no escaping the fact ... he enjoyed being on the edge of disaster. Hopkins was now nudging me towards the attentions of the inspector, and Sampson had at last moved a few paces towards the boat so that, as my ticket was inspected, I stood with Hopkins right behind me, and Sampson directly in front. Things might be free and easy once we made France, but twenty miles short of France they were still very far from that. This was not an elopement but more like a kidnapping, an abduction. My mind was full of words from the shilling novels.
And my chance was now.
But I was like the trees declining into the river at Thorpe- on-Ouse; the blind, rolling bells of the Minster on a Sunday of fog and rain; the drowning man who sees the surface of the water but lacks the will to reach it...
On the boat, two minutes later, we sat under an awning next to the wheel. Sampson lit a cigar. The kitbag was on his knee. Had he returned the gun to the bag?
Hopkins looked all-in with anxiety.
'Is it bloody worth it?' he said, over the sound of the engine engaging gear, and the wheel beginning to turn, which took the boat not only backwards away from the pier, but also up.
'Want to know the likelihood of 'em sending detectives after us?' Sampson shouted back. 'Nil. Never known it to happen. They can't run to it. We might as well be on the bloody moon.'
'But there's no custom house on the moon’ said Hopkins.
'Yes’ said Sampson, 'well . . . how do you fucking know, anyway?'
We sat and watched the wheel turn, blue smoke floating over our heads from the funnel. We had a bench and were under a little cover, so were better off than some, who sat about on coils of rope getting the hard word from the crew as and when they got in the way. Again, nobody spoke, and this, I guessed, was because the second customs house lay in wait on the pier side.
'Why do you not pitch the shooter over the side, and buy a new one in France?' I asked.
But Sampson made no reply, or I might have been drowned out by the wheel. I ventured another question, half hiding it, so to speak, behind the screen of the paddle wheel noise:
'Did you never think of doing the Lost Luggage Office at York?' I said - at which Sampson glanced at me but looked away; Hopkins looked at me for a longer time. Evidently, he had heard the question if Sampson had not.
'There's a lot of treasure in there,' I said, 'I've seen it with my own eyes.'
At this, Sampson did give me a proper look, and it was one of his dead-eyed ones. I had been ashamed of myself in the customs shed, and now wanted to make amends with a little boldness. But I looked away first.
It was freezing on the deck, and we began to be soaked, by the sea and the rain flying at us from the side.
Sampson stood up, saying: 'I could do with a nip.'
'Best not to be seen below, though,' said Hopkins.
Sampson was standing before me, hand half in his gun pocket as before, empty bag dangling by his side.
'Come on,' he said, jerking his head. He was still riled over my lost-luggage questions, and could have shot me without the sound being heard, such was the roar of the wheel. It would then have been an easy matter to pitch me over the side, for the deck was emptier than before, most people having paid the little extra to go below, into either the dining room or the bar, which we were now walking towards, looking like drunks already. The entrance to the bar gave directly on to a staircase. Above the doorway, I saw a sign: 'Dover Ales', and at that moment I knew I was seasick. Sampson ordered three pints, and I just looked at mine, for I was coming to hate the rise and fall of the boat, most particularly the way it would rise and then not fall for a little while, but boom along at a height as if flying, before crashing back down.
The bar was tiny and bright, and packed, and there was a mass of metal poles, so everybody had something to grip on to, just as all the bottles were fixed in place behind the bar. Sampson paid for our pints, then stood behind me, blocking the doorway. The bar moved like a pendulum, and I watched my glass until half the beer had flown away. Hopkins was pressed up next to me on the other side, along with a bloke in a waterproof who was doing his best to hold on to a spirit glass, and light a cigar. 'Crack boat, is this,' he said, to me.
Even Sampson had had his fill of that place after ten minutes, and we walked back up on the deck, where I saw a low line of muffled whiteness against the dark blue of the night sky.
'Is that France?' I said, as we regained our former perch by the wheel.
'Well spotted, Allan,' said Hopkins, sarcastic-like.
A fourth passenger had come to the bench while we'd been in the bar. He turned and looked at us as we sat down, whic
h seemed to cause Hopkins to rise immediately to his feet, and move towards the railing of the boat, just to the side of the wheel. I could not make out the reason for this sudden spring, although I did notice that the new fellow on the bench wore wire spectacles in exactly the same style as my own.
Chapter Twenty-four
The boat made some of its biggest bounces as it moved up towards the dock at Calais. Here was the Gare Maritime: I could picture those words in my head, having read them in the Railway Magazine. It was not quite a mirror of Dover but a simpler place: customs house and station on the dock like a stage, large hotel behind; the town low, wide and dark in the background with one spire like the hub of a cartwheel. The French shouts came towards us as we moved across the illuminated water.
Sampson, with his kitbag, his gun, and his pockets full of money, was foremost in the queue as the gangplank was dropped. I was behind him; Hopkins was behind me. At a nod from a rough customer in a black guernsey (I could tell he was French, but I couldn't tell how I knew), Sampson started walking forwards, and I followed.
I did not trust the steadiness of the ground as I gazed around the customs house. This time there was no pulpit, and the man waiting to look at the tickets sported a uniform, as did half a dozen others sitting about. Two of these were drinking coffee from metal cups, and these two also wore rifles over their shoulders. I looked at these strange, disconnected fellows, who spent their lives killing time half in one country, half in another, and wondered which of them would cop it if Valentine Sampson were to be stopped and asked to turn out his pockets. Sampson would certainly shoot, because he had nowhere to flee to.
He handed his ticket to the French official, who looked it over slowly. Slowly, too, he handed it back, and once again Sampson asked a question or made some remark. It was in French but evidently not carried off quite right, for the official had to lean over and ask for it to be repeated. The official's answer was quite loud, and a lot of pointing went along with it. With Sampson looking back towards me from just before the 'Sortie', Hopkins nudged me forwards, and I thought: I could crown Hopkins, then double back on to the boat and what would Sampson do? Fire across the customs hall and risk all to stop me fleeing? But the thought came once more: if I got away from them, they got away from me. They were nearer to making their escape now, and I was the only one with power to stop them. I was the sleuth hound; the tables were turned somehow. Or was that the confusion of an exhausted mind?
Very likely; I could not keep my thoughts in a straight line; and the strangeness of France added to the strangeness of all.
We crossed the rails by a walkway, then stepped under the cover of the platform for Paris. Except that there wasn't a platform, so the train, which was in but not ready, stood very high. It was a towering engine; brown inasmuch as it had any colour. Compound cylinders, and a mix-up of gadgets sprouted all over it - it was an engine built inside out. That was for ease of maintenance; it didn't look beautiful. . . but handsome is as handsome does. The tender was massive, overflowing with queer-looking French coal, and I wondered whether it was meant to run to Paris without stop. Hopkins was by my side; Sampson was ten yards off, buying wine and hunches of bread at a stall; beyond him was a promising sign: 'Bureau des Postes et Telegraphes'. Any attempt to telegraph was likely to be a palaver though, with me not knowing the language or the telegraphic address of the Chief, not to mention the likelihood of the Chief being dead. Sampson came up to us, carrying three bottles of wine. They were everyday articles - clear bottles without stoppers, and the loaves which were split with some sort of paste on the top. I bit into the bread, and it was soft and strange and more-ish; I then lifted the wine bottle, and put a load of that in, and when I looked towards Sampson again he was grinning at me.
'They do themselves pretty well this side of the water,' he said.
A thin man was close by, viewing the papers on a circular cabinet outside the book stall. I took this to be Hopkins, but looking again, it was not. A porter was moving towards me with a trolley, setting down little wooden steps at the doors of the train. Imagine doing that every time one came and went. These Frenchers were barmy
Still no sight of Hopkins ... Sampson still drinking before me. Dead chuffed, he was. He'd made his breakaway, and he had his ready money. Well, half of it... a certain quantity, at any rate, the balance being at the left-luggage place in Charing Cross.
He passed his bottle to me, even though my own was in my hand. I put my own down, and took a drink from his. It was the same but different; and that went for the whole of France. Harbour, sea, night sky . . . the very rain that fell. There was a softness to the place . . . more of a womanly touch to it all.
Things really were more free and easy on this side of the water. As Sampson put away the last of his wine I had the freedom to move a little way from him towards the sign, and the door marked 'Bureau des Postes et Telegraphes'. I could see through the window. Electric light. Bank-like inside, with men in starched collars behind polished brass grills ... All this going off at midnight, or near enough.
There were half a dozen windows: 'Postes', 'Telegraphes' and 'Bureau de Change'. I had about me the twenty quid that Sampson had paid me. I could change it, and use some of it to telegraph the Police Office at York station, or, failing that, the Stationmaster. 'Tell wife all well'. That would be my opener. I set down the wine bottle I was holding . .. and one of the telegraph clerks was eyeing me through the window. The thing about the bloody French ... all the buggers were hoity-toity, not just the toffs. Just then, Miles Hopkins walked out through the door, and I saw an extra word amid all the signs inside: 'Telephones'.
Seeing me at large, unguarded on the platform, he immediately said: 'Where's Sam?'
And at that very moment, I could not have said.
But a second later Valentine Sampson came into view with more supplies of wine, saying, casual as you like:
'Train's due off in five minutes.'
The three of us walked towards a book stall, where Hopkins picked up an English paper. The crowd was thickening about us now as train time drew near - all French voices.
'Are we in it, mate?' asked Sampson, putting wine bottles into his pockets.
'It's today's paper’ said Miles, 'which means it carries news of what happened yesterday.'
He was looking at Sampson in a strange way. Nothing would get Hopkins out of his groove. He was scheming at all times.
Alongside the cabinet from which Hopkins had plucked the paper was a bookshelf - a little library in the rain. I picked up a small red volume called Paris and its Environs, with Thirteen Maps and Thirty-Eight Plans. A proper language! And I straightaway saw instructions for telegraphing and telephoning from France. Hopkins was watching me as I said: 'Reckon this might come in useful. It's only marked down as a bob 'n' all. . . Oh no, bugger that. It must be one franc.'
Another shout came from the platform guard, and Sampson just lifted the book and put it into my hand, saying, 'For Christ's sake, little Allan, get a shift on.'
The carriage had open seating, no compartments. After a great amount of shouting, the train left the platform at walking pace. To avoid the gaze of Hopkins, I looked down at the first page of my book: 'For those who wish to derive instruction as well as pleasure from a visit to Paris, the most attractive treasury of art and industry in the world, some acquaintance with French is indispensable.'
Hopkins and Sampson were speaking in low voices over the mighty sounds of the engine pulling away. Hopkins had been speaking over the telephone - he made no bones about that. Had he telephoned York? It must have been a pretty fast connection, if so.
I turned to the pages for Paris, and 'Post, Telegraph and Telephone Offices'. The chief telephone offices, I read, were in the Rue du Louvre and at the Bourse. There was a late telegraph office at the Gare du Nord. But telephone was the quickest.
On a later page, I discovered that it was the same time in France as in Britain; Germany and Switzerland had different times. In the se
ction at the back marked 'Language', selected words and phrases were given in English and French, and these were boiled down to the closest necessities such as 'How fond some people are of taking an immense lot of luggage'. Sampson was at his racing paper again. 'Of course, most multiple bets are just guesses’ he was saying to Hopkins, who wasn't listening, but continuing to eyeball me.
Some French words, I saw from the book, were the same as English. 'Omnibus' was 'omnibus'. 'Police' was 'police'. I then looked at some railway speaks: 'Nous allons bien vite.' We are going very fast. 'A quelle heure part le premier train?' At what time does the first train leave?
Having set down his paper, Sampson was saying, in connection with something or other: 'It's always supposed that the big ones are put up.'
Beyond the window, things were floating back fast in the darkness. 'What did your old man do for a living, Allan?' he asked me.
'Butcher,' I said, instantly. 'Yours?'
'Time’ he answered.
'He was a felon?' I asked, and Sampson's eyes went steely again.
I looked through the windows. The French houses were wrong, with the wrong roofs - like a man with a bad hat. We went at a lick through a station: its name began with 'B', and there was sea here too, or a lighthouse at any rate. We were next hurled over a great junction, and Sampson was looking at the other passengers in the carriage.
'Wouldn't mind giving her a shot,' he was saying.
Silence for a space, then Sampson said:
'That French cunt's staring at me.'
I looked up. He might have meant one of twenty. Not that they were all cunts, but they were all French. A woman sitting behind Hopkins was holding a baby, and the sight knocked me. I thought: one of those will be in my way before long, and the second thought came: will I ever see it? The baby was pounding as hard as it could on the shoulder of the woman but that wasn't at all hard. I looked out of the window:
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