by Ian Porter
Ruby and Pemberton had been given orders to keep an eye on the crowd forming at the top of the square by the foot of the National Gallery’s steps. The crowd was already twenty deep behind the stone balustrade above the square, which was the only thing stopping people tumbling ten feet down into the French village below. There was the potential for those at the front to be crushed against the stonework or pushed over it by a forward sway if numbers got too densely packed. But there were plenty of other officers on crowd control duties. Ruby and Pemberton were there to keep a watchful eye out for pickpockets, some of whom were sure to be in attendance.
Pemberton was there supposedly to gain experience but Ruby was not so sure this was true. This suspicion had grown from the moment she had been introduced to him at Leman Street. Given Sergeant Granger’s ‘green as grass’ comment about his new recruit, she had expected a wet behind the ears young fellow. But this man was close to her own age.
And then there was the police van journey. There was the usual banter between excited young men. And of course having a woman in the mix, and a slightly older one at that, only added to the ribald humour. Especially when that woman could put any of them in their place with a rapier thrust of her tongue, which had the naïve scamp who had made the mistake of making a remark against women, age or both, ruefully having to listen to the jibes of his mates after he had been verbally knocked down. And Ruby was quite happy to go along with all this. She was not averse to adding fuel to the conversation fire by calling her fellow constables ‘boys’ in a mock contemptuous way. And if anyone was bold enough to mention she ought to be kept under control by her ‘old man’, they were told with some little certainty that her husband ‘could eat you boys for breakfast’. Cue much laughter and further ribbing, though if the rumours about her husband were true, they knew that behind that claim lay a terrible accuracy.
But Pemberton had kept out of all such social interaction. He had been monosyllabic when Ruby, or any of the other constables, had attempted to bring him into the group dynamic. Ruby had got the feeling that it wasn’t him being morose, shy or aloof. It was not the lack of confidence of a raw recruit or even a desire to simply concentrate on the task about to be tackled, which had brought the one word answers. No, she thought him guarded. And on arrival at the square, he did not seem at all overawed by the crowds or the extraordinary sight that had befell them. It appeared to be water off a duck’s back, as if he were a seasoned professional.
Perhaps he was actually an experienced officer who was there as muscle because Sergeant Granger thought a mere woman would not be able to bring in a villainous pickpocket single handed? And given that pickpockets often worked in gangs rather than as individuals, it would be a reasonable precaution. But if that were the case, why the subterfuge? No, there was more to PC Cyril Pemberton than met the eye. Pickpockets were not the only ones on whom she would be keeping a wary eye today.
Ruby noticed the hedonistic atmosphere around the square. Everywhere she looked the usual expressions of misery and gloom that the war had imparted on people, had been replaced by a level of jollity. People were laughing, joking, mucking about. Yes, you could always see a level of alcohol-fuelled gaiety in a pub, but this was the first time in three years, since the excited novelty of the war had worn off, that Ruby had seen such mass levity in an outdoor crowd.
She wondered whether it could simply be due to the good news coming from the Front. Allied tanks had pushed the Germans back further; with thirty thousand enemy soldiers captured. But the news of the first great counter offensive victory at Amiens had come through some time ago, and since then she had not detected any great improvement in the war weariness of the public. She knew the newspapers never had fed the populace the true story of how appalling the war had been going. The news reports bore little relation to what she knew to be true thanks to the stories she had received via Sylvia’s and Nashey’s grapevines. So the news, though very positive, was not so markedly different from what had gone before. According to the press, it had always been just a matter of time before the reported acute food shortage of ‘the Hun’ came back to haunt them, and now, sure enough the inevitable Allied gains were taking place. In minimising the bad news to date, the newspapers were unable to make as much impact as they would have liked with their new supremely positive headlines.
Perhaps the atmosphere was merely created by the excitement of seeing the impressive mock up French village? After all, it was one thing to see a poorly reproduced black & white image of a war torn village in a newspaper, it was quite another to see it in the flesh as it were. It brought you closer to the war somehow. And the fact that it was Allied tanks that were turning the war our way, and here was such a tank, in Trafalgar Square of all places, for all to see, was certainly impressive. And there never had been any loss of patriotic fervour when it came to excited crowds coming out in droves to buy war bonds.
She made a mental note to keep an eye out for anti-war protesters. Now things were on the up, any anti-war sentiments were liable to be met with even more fierce resistance than usual. She thought the atmosphere in the square was reminiscent of a pub on a Saturday night. Crowded and full of cheerful bonhomie, but such a scene could turn ugly in a heartbeat. A wrong word here, a knock of someone’s drink there, and suddenly there were men throwing fists at each other. And both the ex-Suffragette and present day police officer in Ruby made her well aware that Westminster could become one big punch up at the drop of a hat, or the raising of a protest banner.
Her gaze eventually fell on a small knot of soldiers, whose hands were wandering up, down and beneath the clothing of star-struck young women who appeared only too keen to allow it to go on. Ruby glanced at her colleague to catch his eye, then nodded towards the cavorting group.
“Let’s go and break up that little love nest.”
Just for a moment Ruby saw argument in Pemberton’s eyes, but he kept his thoughts to himself, merely nodding in acceptance of her idea.
“Keep your wits about you,” she advised. “Soldiers can be nasty bits of work. Especially if they’ve had a few like this lot probably have.”
For once, her colleague made a bit of conversation, based on the fact that earlier in the war, as soon as a man in army uniform walked into a pub, everyone offered to buy him a drink. It being rude to refuse, too many home on leave soldiers rather overindulged. The government had responded to the situation by, controversially, putting a stop to the practice.
“We should thank our lucky stars they’ve made it illegal to treat soldiers eh Ruby?”
Ruby was immediately on her guard. Was he pumping her to see if she would say anything contradictory of the government?
“They had to,” she replied tartly. “You can’t have half the British army rolling around drunk as lords can you?”
“Yes, but you’ve got to admit, it’s coming to something when you can’t buy a lad home on leave a pint when he walks into your local,” he complained, before continuing with an accompanying sly smile. “And you must like a drink yourself I’ll wager!”
“No more than the next,” said Ruby abruptly, keeping her tone reminiscent of the clipped, professional one she used with the public when in uniform. “But there’s a pub on every corner where I live. And my husband likes a plate of whelks. And I like a cockle or two. You can find us with a glass in our hand, chatting to all who’ll listen, at the stall outside our local when we’ve a mind.”
“But I can tell from your accent you’re no East Ender. What were you doing before you were a copper?”
“I was a Suffragette. Last time I was on a protest rally here in Westminster I got a good hiding from a soldier. Not a copper mind you. A soldier.”
“Up to something were you?” asked Pemberton knowingly.
“Yes, you’re right there. I was up to minding my own business.”
This was said in an off-hand tone that told him their conversation was over a
nd to make of it what he wished.
Ruby then moved in on the group of uniforms, and the women whom they were groping.
“That’s enough of that,” she said. “There’s women and children here in the square. They’re here for a nice day out. They don’t want to see all these carryings on.”
The soldiers were taken aback and suitably shamefaced. It was the women who were the problem. They laid into Ruby verbally, before the policewoman paid them back with interest, informing them that girls who gave it away were known on the streets as ‘amateurs’. Whores looked down on them with contempt.
This cut the young women to the quick. There was no greater snob than those within the complex multi-strata that made up the English working class. For these women to be told that they were looked down upon by those whom they themselves considered the lowest of the low, was a shock. All but one of them now looked very sorry for themselves. But there’s always one. A tall thin young beauty threw back her long brunette locks to show her contempt. She was not about to take any advice from anyone, least of all from some copperette.
“Why don’t you just leave us alone copper? We’re all just enjoying ourselves while we got the chance. We could be gone of the flu next week. There’s enough as has already. My friend Joanie’s dead and buried. Fit girl she were. Played tennis only a fortnight since. Didn’t do her no good though when the Spanish Lady came knocking in Lambeth.”
Now it was Ruby’s turn to be shocked. She had been expecting an argument along the lines of the girls wanting to ‘do their bit’ by giving ‘our boys’ a last moment of happiness before they returned to the dangers of the Front. This was the first time she had heard the flu being talked of in such a way. As if it was just as deadly as the fighting. And now it even had a nickname.
Ruby thought it typical that something bad had been given a woman’s name. Couldn’t be the Spanish Lord could it? She wagered to herself that a man thought that one up. But now was no time to dwell on such things. She had to deal with this tricky young woman.
“Never mind all that,” she said defensively before regaining her police officer composure. “Khaki fever is what you need to worry about my girl! Dizzy…”
“Your old man don’t let you speak to him like that I’ll wager!”
The shout came from behind her. Ruby stopped what she was saying and whirled round. A section of crowd were laughing at the man’s comment on her marital arrangements. And as was usually the case, once one man in a lively crowd had found the gumption to shout the odds, others followed.
“Perhaps he does! But she won’t get any if she do! No wonder she’s jealous!”
“Everyone’s taking the rise out of you copperette! You’ve got more on your plate than a spinster at a wedding!”
“She is a bleeding spinster! But don’t worry girl. Get one of them soldiers to sort you out!”
“Yeah! You’ll be doing your bit and he’ll be doing his all right!”
Ruby had heard it all before in the Suffragette days. She knew that if she responded in the obvious way, namely to threaten to nick the lot of them, it would just bring more ribald comments. She decided not to feed them the ammunition. She simply turned back to face the young woman who had engaged her in conversation in the first place.
“As I was saying”, started Ruby, lowering the tone of her voice and speaking slower to add gravitas to what she was saying. “Dizzy girls with khaki fever like you lot will find yourself in a mustard bath with the Epsom salts next month if you’re not careful.”
There was a gasp from everyone within earshot. While unmarried pregnancies were a fact of war life and Marie Stopes’ new book was a best seller, talking of abortion attempts in mixed company, in public, was beyond the pale. It just wasn’t done. And certainly not by a woman police officer in uniform. Even Ruby was embarrassed once she realised what she had said. But it certainly had an effect. The soldiers and their groupies shuffled away together, looking askance at her.
Ruby feared that she had simply moved the action on to somewhere else, probably that narrow alley on the other side of the square behind the Edith Cavell memorial. She could only hope that perhaps one of the young women at least would think twice.
Her fellow police officer should have come to her defence when the crowd had been laying in to her, but he had kept quiet. Now he spoke up with a wave of his truncheon.
“Move along there now, you men,” he said to the crowd.
Most of the wags and their audience had already turned their backs once the copperette had not risen to their bait. They’d had their fun, and why waste time on a lady copper when there was a tank and a ruined French village to see and war bonds to buy.
“I don’t think we’ll have any more trouble from that lot,” he said with the pomposity of the know all, erroneously taking credit for the crowd’s loss of interest in his colleague.
He didn’t receive the thanks he was expecting. Ruby was looking out over the square, gazing into the crowd, deep in thought.
Pemberton looked around and soon spotted something.
“I think that fellow in the straw boater up at the top of the steps there might be a dip,” he said nodding in the direction of the man. “Just saw him deliberately bump into a wealthy looking chap. Wouldn’t surprise me if the fellow’s now missing a wallet. Let’s take a look.”
Ruby absent-mindedly agreed. As she followed Pemberton up the steps she was still thinking about what had just happened.
Even the crowd who made jokes at her expense, did so in the most good natured of ways. It was just good old ribald, slightly cruel London humour. There was none of the anti-authority feeling that might normally have sprung up from an altercation with the police. All the insults were against a woman who was stopping others from having fun, rather than against a policewoman as such. Why was everyone in such a devil-may-care good mood? She thought back on what that young woman had said. It was not a good mood. In a way, it was quite the reverse.
Chapter 30
“It would have been better to lock the stable door before the escape of the horse… the chances of achieving its (the precautionary instructions’) purpose would have been enhanced had it been published at the beginning instead of in the middle of the outbreak.”
The Times, 1918
Maud’s munitions factory had been on strike. And they were not the only ones. Munitions workers throughout the country had been downing tools. They had been driven to exhaustion and beyond. Enough was enough.
The explosion which killed several women at Maud’s shop had not been the final straw for her and her fellow workers, but the donkey’s back was certainly in great pain thereafter. It had been the refusal of the factory owners to allow the women to wear their fuses’ team posy for the day to remember their lost colleagues that had the poor creature collapsing with a snapped vertebra.
So Maud had been at home for a while, doing what strikers did, worrying themselves silly thinking about how they were going to pay the rent and feed their family. But the factory had warned the strikers they would bring in blackleg labour, so given many of the women were in a similar predicament to Maud, the threat of eviction making their grumbling stomachs seem minor in comparison, they had conceded defeat and were about to return to work.
Unfortunately Maud had been feeling increasingly ill throughout the strike, and as she was leaving the house for her first day back at the factory, a wave of dizziness came over her. It had to be ignored; there was no time to hang about. Being late for work was greatly frowned upon by the supervisors at the best of times, and the factory owners were sure to be in the foulest of moods given the recent behaviour of their workforce. She could be put back on lower paid work if she wasn’t careful, and she could not afford that. Rose was thus bundled into her pram and Maud rushed out of the house. As she closed her front door and turned to head off, she wobbled and had to lean back to put a hand on the door
to steady herself. Through her spinning head she cursed at the realisation that she had the flu coming on.
When Ruby had been ill, Maud had stocked up in case she was the next to get it. There was some Veno’s Lightning Cough Cure in the scullery. She left the pram outside, let herself back into the house and within seconds was taking a swig of the concoction.
******
Nash was just returning from a visit to Kosher Bill, when Sylvia’s assistant Norah Smyth hailed him from across the street. There were few women Nash respected more than salt-of-the-earth Norah. They had become friends soon after Nash had joined Sylvia’s Suffragette organisation.
Norah was from a very wealthy background. She had spent most of her considerable inheritance sponsoring first of all Sylvia’s East London Federation of Suffragettes and then her friend’s Great War work in the East End. Without her, the Cost Price restaurant would certainly, and the nursery possibly, have not existed. Norah had also been the official photographer of the Federation, capturing many memorable images of the campaign. If Sylvia was the most loved woman in Bow, Norah Smyth was a very close second. Almost everyone in the area called her Miss Smyth out of respect. Only her friends called her by her Christian name. And only one person had the temerity to call her anything else.