Frances peered gingerly over the edge at the water ten feet or so below. The brick walls of the lock sprouted ferns and weeds and were dank and slimy with moisture. At the far end, the heavy wooden gates were closed against the water above the lock. Pip was pointing and giving more lessons.
‘The gates are V-shaped to withstand the weight of water, and those big wooden balance beams sticking out each side are for pushing them open and shut. There’s a walkway along the top of them over the gates so you can get across, holding onto those iron rails. You can’t see the paddles because they’re always underwater, but they’re worked by ratchets on each side which you turn with a windlass.’ Pip cocked her head, listening. ‘We’re in luck. Here comes a pair of boats. Now you’ll be able to see how they work through a lock. If they’re boaters they’ll be very quick. Watch carefully but for heaven’s sake stay out of their way.’
Frances watched them approaching, the motor boat pop-popping along far ahead of the butty, which followed on a long tow rope. Both boats were loaded, black sheeting strung tent-like over the cargo, their gunwales only a few inches out of the water. The motor slowed to come into the lock below, the boatman steering it with one hand behind him, the other hand forward on the engine lever. The butty was steered by a fresh-faced girl of about her own age, nothing like the old crones at the lay-by. She was wearing a shabby-looking coat and a woollen scarf wound like a turban round her head. As the butty came gliding silently into the chamber the man unhooked the tow rope from the motor stern and threw it onto its fore-end. He shinned up the ladder in the wall and pushed the bottom gate shut on his side. The girl was already on the opposite lock wall, tying the butty to a bollard before she shut her gate. The boatman passed close to Frances as he headed for the top gates and he gave her a nod. He was young, too, and dressed the same as weasel-face – flat cap, jacket, waistcoat, cord trousers, boots – but he had a nice face. She watched him winding up the ratchet with a bent piece of iron and the girl doing the same on the other side.
The water in the bottom of the lock began bubbling and swirling and rising and the pair of boats rose with it. When it had stopped, the man pushed his gate open, leaning his weight on the beam. The girl was back on the butty and he stepped onto the motor’s counter, now at his level. The engine pop-popped throatily as the boat moved forward, nosing the other gate open. As he came abreast of the butty’s fore-end, he scooped up the tow rope and fixed it to the motor’s stern again. The butty, tugged along, followed docilely, its wooden rudder trailing a flowing plume of horsehair. The girl had one arm hooked over the tiller and was mixing something in a bowl. As she passed Frances, she gave a smile and a wave of her wooden spoon.
‘Nice scarf yer’ve got there. Wish I ’ad one loik that.’
She would gladly have handed it over, but the butty was out of reach. The whole lock process had taken a matter of minutes, and yet neither the man nor the girl had seemed in any great rush. Every movement had been unhurried, the big boats controlled with ease. They had made it look quite simple.
‘This,’ said Pip, holding up a bent piece of iron like the boatman had used, ‘is a windlass. My windlass. I’ll give you one of your own later and you must never lose it. And don’t ever lend it to anyone else either. Now, we’ll shut the top gates and drop the paddles. I’ll do this one and you do the one on the other side.’
The other side meant walking yet another plank – the narrow and slippery walkway over the bottom gates – not so bad now that the lock was full, but it was still a long way down to the water on the outside. She held onto an iron rail until she reached the lock-side and ran up to the top gate. The heavy balance beam refused to budge an inch.
Pip was leaning against her beam, walking backwards and pushing rather than pulling. She shouted across. ‘Go round the other side and put your back into it, it’s much easier and a lot safer.’
Frances copied her and after a few desperate shoves the beam started to move; once she’d got it going, it swung over smoothly.
Pip came across to show her how to drop the paddle. ‘You put the windlass just on the end of the spindle, give a half-turn back, release the safety catch, then take the windlass off quickly and down she goes.’ The ratchet rattled down with a crash. ‘Now, we’ll open the bottom paddles to let the water out of the lock. Cowley lock’s always left ready for uphill boats. The lock-keeper usually sees to it, but we’ll save him the trouble.’
Winding the paddle up was a lot harder than dropping it. She found that she barely had the strength to turn the windlass on the spindle, and Pip had to take over and finish the job for her.
‘You need to build up some muscle power, that’s all. And always make sure the safety catch is properly engaged; if the ratchet slips when you’re winding, the windlass can fly off and hit you.’
With the paddles up, the lock chamber was emptying fast, the water churning and whirl-pooling outside the gates as the lock water escaped into the cut below. When the levels were even, they opened the bottom gates ready for the next boats.
‘Time to go back,’ Pip said. ‘But first we’ll have to wind the motor – that means turning round.’
Winding the seventy-foot-long narrowboat in the canal was akin to turning a huge lorry in a narrow country lane, but Pip managed it smoothly without getting stuck on any mud.
‘Have a go on the tiller now, Frances. Let’s see how you do. Remember, push it the opposite way to where you want to go – right to go left, and left to go right.’
They swopped places, Pip perched out on the gunwale, while Frances stood on the counter, gripping the metal tiller behind her. She could feel it vibrating, expectantly, awaiting her commands. Right to go left and left to go right. Mercifully, the cut went straight for a while until they came to a gentle right-hand bend.
‘Don’t cut your corner,’ Pip said. ‘Keep going right round the bend.’
She pushed the tiller a little to the left and the Cetus responded obediently, her fore-end swinging round to follow the curve of the bank.
Pip beamed. ‘I think you’re a natural. It’s instinctive with some people, you know. Others never quite manage it.’
After the bend, though, she was dismayed to see a pair of boats bearing down on them and taking up what looked like most of the cut.
‘Keep to the right,’ Pip reminded her. ‘But well away from the bank. Pass as close to them as you can.’ She leaned over and tweaked the tiller a fraction. ‘You can move over a bit more. You’ve got loads of room.’
They passed within a few feet of the other motor, so close that Frances could see that the steerer had blue eyes when he turned his head briefly in their direction and nodded.
‘How d’you do?’
The remark had been addressed to Pip, who called back above the combined put-putting of the two engines. ‘How d’you do?’
The butty, following at the end of its sixty-foot tow rope, took a while to reach them and the boatwoman steering repeated exactly the same terse greeting to Pip, who gave the same answer. No waves or smiles, just nods and those few words.
They arrived back at the depot lay-by just before dark, and Cetus was returned to her berth beside Aquila. The wharf was empty now except for a dog or two, sniffing about. Boat doors were shut, hatches closed, portholes covered, no chinks of light showing for enemy bombers to see. Pip was going off to have supper with friends in Ealing and invited her along, too, but she felt too tired to eat and too tired to make the tedious journey all the way back to Aunt Gertrude’s flat.
‘You can sleep on the boat tonight, if you like,’ Pip told her, apparently still fresh as a daisy. ‘We’ll stoke up the stove and you can make yourself some tea, or cocoa. There’s tinned food in the larder, if you get hungry. I won’t be late back.’
When Pip had gone, she sat down wearily on the side bunk. There was no room to walk around, barely room to stand upright – not that she felt like moving. Her legs and arms were aching, there was a huge and painful bruise on her shin
and it felt as though she’d done something nasty to her stomach, either from winding up the paddle or heaving at the lock gates. On top of all that, her brain was spinning like a top with everything she had been taught during the day, most of which she would never be able to remember.
After a while, she roused herself to stoke the fire, put the kettle on the stove, take down a mug and the cocoa tin – all reachable without moving from the side bunk. Later, she cut a slice of bread and spread it with margarine and plum jam. Then she made up her bed with Vere’s padded sleeping bag and Aunt Gertrude’s pillow and blanket, and wound up her alarm clock. No point in setting it as she had no idea what time she was supposed to get up. She poured some water into the dipper, washed her face, cleaned her teeth and undressed – awkwardly in the cramped space – wriggling into her pyjamas before switching out the light. Pip had lowered her previously invisible bed out of a cupboard in the wall and her feet touched the end of it, while her head was stuck in the hole under the little overhead cupboard.
The unwelcome thought crossed her mind that Vere had probably been right. Life on a narrowboat was going to be much less romantic and carefree than she had imagined. One short day had been enough to demonstrate that bald fact, let alone the three long weeks of training that lay ahead. She was aware that Pip had been watching her closely, noting everything she did, or failed to do. She could walk the plank without falling off, and maybe she would learn to steer all right, and maybe she’d be able to work the locks, eventually, but what of all the other tests and trials lying in wait that she didn’t even know about yet?
She could hear men’s voices on the wharf outside, only a few feet away from where she was lying. Rough voices, rough speech, the scrape and crunch of heavy boots, the smell of strong tobacco. Boatmen.
After a while, the voices stopped, the footsteps faded away and another sound reached her ears from further along the wharf: someone was playing an accordion and singing. Another boatman.
A cold winter’s night, an’ I run by the light
Of Waddington’s headlamp, the moon.
The fore-end is boastin’ a thin skim of ice
An’ I reckon ’twill thicken up soon.
The goin’ is slow and there’s two miles to go
And the boozer there shuts in an hour,
But ’tis just the same way on a mornin’ in May
When the chestnut bloom’s in flower.
There were several more verses on the tribulations of narrowboat life, each finishing with the same refrain about the chestnut blooming. Her brain had stopped spinning, her senses were calmed. She lay quietly in the dark, listening.
Five
THE GIRL SAID, ‘I’m not at all sure it’s going to suit me. I’ll have to see.’
She had climbed into the same train carriage, carrying a heavy suitcase and a bulky roll of bedding which Prudence had helped her put up onto the overhead rack. Then she had plonked herself down on the seat opposite and started to munch a bun produced from a paper bag. She was a large girl with big hands and feet and a square jaw. Her name was Janet and she was a trainee as well, she announced, having spotted Prudence’s bedding also up on the rack. There were more buns in the bag, but she didn’t offer one. She went on talking through mouthfuls.
‘I’ve been in two minds, haven’t you? I mean, how can they expect us to do men’s work? We won’t have the strength.’ From the way she’d carried the suitcase and the bedding, she seemed just as strong as a man. ‘I didn’t fancy any of the services, you see, and I thought this might be a good idea, but now I’m not so sure. We have to work from dawn to dusk, you know. They don’t give us any time off until we’ve finished the first trip and, even then, we only get a few days’ holiday before we have to start the next one. I told the woman at the interview that we ought to get more days off but she just said it was the way it worked. I don’t know how they think we’ll cope, do you? And I’m not going to be put upon. I won’t stand for that.’
She talked most of the way to Southall, devouring two more currant buns. Prudence soon learned that she had been a shorthand typist with a lace-making company in Nottingham, that she had an elder brother called Rodney who was at sea in the Merchant Navy, and that she lived with her widowed mother. Her mother had seen the advertisement about canal jobs for women in the Nottingham Guardian newspaper and thought it sounded quite nice, and that it would keep her out of the services.
‘She didn’t want me getting called up, you see, and being preyed on by soldiers. A lot of service girls are immoral, she says, specially in the ATS.’
Her mother had thought much the same, but Prudence couldn’t imagine soldiers preying on Janet who looked capable of taking care of herself.
They arrived at Southall station to discover that the van which was supposed to meet them wasn’t there. Janet said she’d a good mind to go straight back home but, after twenty minutes or so, it turned up and took them to the depot of the Grand Union Canal Carrying Company at Bulls Bridge. A man in the office sent them to find a Miss Rowan and the training boats, Aquila and Cetus.
The boats, tied up in a long row along the wharf, were painted in lovely bright colours but the people on them were not so lovely. They stared in silence, and when Janet asked one old woman where Miss Rowan’s boats were she went on staring as though she’d been spoken to in a foreign language.
Janet sniffed. In a loud voice she said, ‘Dirty gypsies. I hope we don’t have anything to do with them.’
They found the boats eventually, but not Miss Rowan. Instead, another trainee called Frances appeared and said that she’d arrived the day before and that Miss Rowan had gone over to the workshops for something. Meanwhile, she helped them get their luggage onto one of the boats and down into the cabin.
‘Pip said you’re to share this one. It’s a bit smaller than the cabin on the butty because you’ve got the engine, but there’s no difference otherwise.’
Janet had hit her head against the ceiling as she’d clambered down. She looked round, open-mouthed.
‘We have to live in here? Both of us? I can’t even stand up properly.’
‘There’s more room than you think. I’ll show you where everything goes.’
The girl opened up cupboards, let down a flap that became a table and pointed out the cooking range and the box under the step where the coal for it was kept. There was scarcely space for them to turn around and look while she explained it all.
Janet said slowly and sarcastically, ‘Would you mind telling us where we’re supposed to sleep?’
‘Well, this is one bed – the side bunk – and there’s another bed that folds up into that cupboard at the back during the day which is much wider. I’ll leave you to unpack, shall I? You’ll have more room without me.’
When she’d gone Janet exploded.
‘It’s disgraceful! They got us here under false pretences. Nobody said anything about putting us in a place like this.’ She sat down heavily on the side bunk. ‘I’ll have to have the other bed. This one’s much too small for me. And there’s not going to be nearly enough room for my things.’
There wasn’t, which meant she took up most of Prudence’s cupboard space as well.
Miss Rowan returned and called down into the cabin. ‘How are you two getting on? May I come in?’
She was about half Janet’s size, but very firm when Janet immediately began to complain.
‘The cabins are small because the important thing about narrowboats is the cargo they carry, so as much space as possible is given over to the hold. I’m sure you’ll get used to it – most girls do. Why don’t you both come over to the butty cabin and we’ll all have a cup of tea together before I show you both round the boats. We won’t have long, I’m afraid, because we should be getting our orders soon – which means we’ll have to leave straight away. You’ll be learning as we go along.’
They climbed across to the boat tied up next door where the girl, Frances, had boiled a kettle on the range and was maki
ng a pot of tea. There was just room for the four of them to squash round the let-down table and Miss Rowan, who asked them to call her Pip, offered some digestive biscuits; Janet, Prudence noticed, took two. After that, they were taken round both the boats.
She followed in Janet’s stolid wake, clutching at every available handhold and trying to pay attention to what was being said. Miss Rowan – she must remember to call her Pip – was talking about snubbers and shafts and studs and straps and sheets. She struggled to take it all in, but it was impossible. They came to the room where the engine lived and were lectured about that as well – about handles and flywheels and compression levers. Also, about the bucket.
Janet, who seemed rather wary of Pip, and had been unusually silent, found her voice again. ‘You mean we’re supposed to . . . to use that?’
‘You’ll soon get used to it,’ was the brisk answer. ‘Now, let’s see how you both manage the top planks.’
A very long and very narrow walkway of planks had been erected across the length of the empty hold, leading to the front end of the boat, far away. Pip went across first and Janet, who seemed to have no nerves at all, bounced after her to the other side. Now it was Prudence’s turn and she was rooted to the spot with fear.
Pip shouted encouragement. ‘Come on, Prudence. You can do it. Just walk across, looking straight ahead.’
She put one foot on the first plank and then the other; the plank bounced and she froze, petrified.
‘Come on, Prudence.’
She forced herself to take another step, and then another, stopped, wobbling, with arms outstretched, trying to balance herself.
‘Don’t look down. Just keep going. You’re doing jolly well.’
Part of the way across there was a piece sticking up that supported the planks and she clung onto it desperately, but Pip was soon nagging her again. She stuck just the same at the next handhold and managed the last part in a desperate rush.
The Boat Girls Page 6