The Waterway Girls

by Milly Adams

  Alf shrugged. ‘Miss Polly Holmes for you, Bet. Another lamb to the slaughter, or is that a duck? She looks wet enough to have webbed feet, but give her ’ell anyway. She’s late. Lost her tit for tat, too, it seems.’

  Bet laughed, a great booming sound, as Polly remembered her lost hat and winced. What on earth must she look like? Miss Burrows was beckoning to her. ‘Polly my dear, let me rescue you from Alf, who any minute now will be snatched up by the powers that be and given a gun, heaven help us all. Makes you feel the war will be won in a click of the fingers, doesn’t it? Or not. I am Bet, Elisabeth Burrows, and I’ll be your trainer. That is if you prove satisfactory to me, the team and the life, and what’s more, we to you. But that’ll be known all in good time, I suppose.’

  Polly echoed before she could stop herself. ‘All in good time.’

  Bet laughed. ‘Ah, yes of course, you’ve spent time at the Ministry and with Potty Thompson. Come along, let’s take you to the canal and my narrowboats and leave Alf to his hive of industry.’ She battled with the door again, and gestured Polly out before her into the yard where men still bustled and music still played over the tannoy. Somewhere a man shouted, ‘Shift your arses, for pity’s sake, you gormless lumps of lard.’

  Together they hurried towards the canal frontage, and as they passed an idling lorry it backfired. Polly jumped. The driver jerked forward, driving into and out of a water-filled pothole just beside them. Bet and Polly leapt back as the wave of muddy water threatened to drench their legs. Bet yelled, ‘Watch what you’re doing, Henry.’ He hooted, and yelled through the open window, ‘Can’t stop, won’t get the old tart started again. Got to pick up some gear.’

  A couple of blokes in overalls crossed their path and saluted Bet. One said, ‘Your Marigold’s out of dry dock, I ’eard, Bet, so you’ll be off to Limehouse to pick up a load. That your replacement boater?’

  ‘Maybe,’ she said. Polly hung on that word. Maybe. A woman left an office huddled under an umbrella which was promptly blown inside out. Polly heard ‘Bugger and blast’. The woman waved at Bet, tucked the wrecked umbrella under her arm, but didn’t stop as she ran to the canteen.

  Bet gripped Polly’s arm and hurried her towards the canal. ‘This is the canal frontage, Polly.’

  ‘We had a similar one at our sailing club, but smaller.’

  ‘Ah, so do you understand about the dry dock too, where repair work is done?’

  Polly nodded. Together they stood for a moment gazing at the canal, then Polly studied the three narrowboats moored further along to her left, some twenty yards away. To the right of where she and Miss Burrows stood were many more narrowboats, packed closely together like sardines in a tin, smoke curling from their cabin chimneys, their painted sides bright beneath the grey of the sky. They were moored stern first against the kerb, stretching their great length out across half the cut. Top planks rested on stands along the length of the empty holds. People moved around on the craft, some men ran along the planks, and women in long skirts and any old jackets or cardigans were heading along the concrete strip towards the two of them, carrying string bags. On their way to the shops, presumably. No umbrellas for them either.

  Miss Burrows said, ‘That’s the lay-by where we all moor up at the kerb and await orders.’

  Polly tried to brush her hair out of her face, but the wind and rain only swept it back again. The water ran down her face and neck.

  Miss Burrows said, ‘We’re landsmen, or bankers, to these boaters, until we prove ourselves. It takes time but can be done, if we’re committed to the job.’ There was a warning in her voice.

  Polly looked again at the narrowboats nudging and tugging at their moorings, and at the width of the cut. It was time for another question because her dad had said she should ask things in an interview. Across on the other bank were trees and sheds, and beyond, through the gaps, a grey sky. No questions there.

  ‘So, this is Bull’s Bridge, on the Grand Union Canal,’ Polly murmured at last, but that wasn’t a question. The water lapped and slapped at the frontage in front of them. It was then Polly realised that the rain had almost ceased. The wind, though, was whipping up the surface of the canal into a hissing fury. Come on, ask something.

  Polly said, ‘Let me get this straight. The boats come in from the Birmingham direction, moor up here and then set off again for Limehouse Basin once they have orders. They need the space to manoeuvre, so that’s why it’s so wide? Then they come back to Bull’s Bridge and turn right to head up the northern Grand Union Canal past Cowley.’

  ‘Yes, exactly right, Polly,’ Bet murmured. ‘The canals are transport arteries, which are doing their bit to deliver vital supplies, with the help of people like us. If we’re heading to Limehouse we use the Grand Union Canal up to Paddington, where it becomes the Regent’s Canal. The Regent’s Canal then runs to Limehouse Basin, or some call it the Regent’s Canal Dock, but either way, it’s where the canal meets the Thames. Don’t worry about those details. You’ll know the route after just one trip, it’s only a long strip of water, after all, and it’s hard to go wrong.’

  Polly smiled, her brain trying to keep up. ‘Much easier than trying to find my way to Southall from Mayfair, anyway.’

  Bet laughed that great booming laugh, and smiled. ‘Let’s go and see my babies, shall we? Look to your left, past those three narrowboats waiting for repairs, and in front of the largest fitting shed you’ll see Marigold moored. Her engine is now running perfectly, and beside her there’s the motorless butty Horizon. Can you see them?’ Her voice was urgent and as proud and fond as any mother’s, Polly thought as she stepped back and sighted the two boats double parked, lying parallel to one another, and lashed together.

  ‘The blokes working in the sheds are worth their weight in gold; they keep us running.’

  Bet set off, then stopped, turned, and looked hard at Polly. ‘You have been told they’re not barges, haven’t you?’

  Polly nodded. ‘Yes, Miss Burrows.’

  ‘Good. Well, just remember that you never call a narrowboat a barge to a boater, and never call a boater a bargee either. It sets them off something chronic. Barges are much bigger, and operate in wider waterways. And you must call me Bet. Miss Burrows makes me feel old but, at thirty, I probably am to you.’

  Polly hurried after Bet who had set off again towards the fitting sheds, the wind still powering off the water. Polly called, ‘And the cut is the canal, isn’t it? Or so Mr Thompson said.’ Bet shouted over her shoulder, ‘Quite right again, Polly. I suppose it’s called that because it was cut through the countryside, but who knows.’

  Polly smiled to herself. Perhaps she was doing well?

  They reached Bet’s boats. ‘This is Marigold, the motorboat moored alongside the frontage, and Horizon, the butty, lashed the other side of her, both at your service.’

  Bet leapt on to Marigold’s small rear deck which the cabin opened on to. ‘Chop-chop, don’t hang about, leg it over to Horizon’s cabin. The range is beating out heat in the cabin so it’ll be snug on board.’

  Polly stared at the narrowboats, which must have been seventy feet long. The motorboat deck on which Bet still stood was small. The cabin too – though it had what she thought must be the engine house attached to the back of it, and then another small cabin, or lean-to, attached to that. The rest of the boat was merely a massive hold for carrying the cargo, along which there were top planks similar to those she had seen on the ‘sardines’ at the lay-by. Around the sides of the hold and cabin was a narrow gunwale. She knew exactly what a gunwale was, from her sailing days: no more nor less than a strip of decking about four inches wide along which you could inch, or walk, depending on your courage.

  Would she be expected to inch her way along that to do something to the engine, or to get to the hold? And then it would be along the top planks? She swallowed.

  Bet was already stepping from the motorboat on to Horizon, the butty. Polly scrambled after her, handbag over her arm, her smart
straight skirt an encumbrance but she made it. Here too there was an empty hold behind the cabin. The rain had begun again, and was beating hard, the wind too, but she was beyond worrying.

  Bet Burrows waited at Horizon’s door, grinning. ‘Well done, you made it without a fuss, and I like the fact that you’ve not been unduly bothered about the wet.’

  She slid back what looked like a small horizontal lid above the cabin’s double doors. These doors Bet now opened; they led to a couple of steps down into the cabin. ‘Duck as you go down, there’s not much headroom,’ she said. ‘The slide hatch I’ve just shoved back helps access.’ She grinned. ‘Come into my parlour said the spider to the fly.’

  ‘I’ll drip all over the furniture and floor,’ Polly protested as Horizon rocked slightly in the wake of a butty and motor heading east towards Limehouse. An elderly man in a hat and shabby jacket stood at the tiller of the pat-pattering motorboat; a woman, with a heavy cardigan pulled tight, at the tiller of the butty.

  Bet followed Polly’s gaze, and explained, ‘They’re riding high like us because they’ve discharged their load somewhere. They’ll be heading into the lay-by to reverse to the kerb and moor up to await more orders. Come on, you’re getting wet and so is the cabin while you gawp, so shake a leg.’ Bet coughed, and somehow it caught, and continued, racking her body for at least a minute.

  Polly wondered if she should pat Bet’s back, but just as she lifted her hand Bet straightened, and smiled, coughed a few more times, then stopped. ‘So sorry. My chest’s been a total pain since pneumonia a couple of years ago. Come on, hop to it.’

  Polly stepped down two steps into the warmth, but at five foot four she was able to stand upright with a couple of inches to spare in a cabin, the tiny size of which completely took her by surprise, though it shouldn’t have. She’d seen it from the outside, after all, but … Yes, on their sailing boat there had been an apology for a cabin but it was a small day sailing craft, whereas this was for cooking and all sorts.

  To her left against the cabin wall was a small range, the flue pipe of which ran up and out through the roof. The space between the range and the door was taken up by shelves with things like washing powder. On the other side of the range was a cupboard, its front painted with large colourful blooms and a castle, on a black background. Cupboards and shelves filled every available space, and where there weren’t shelves there were horse brasses and pierced plates hanging on the walls.

  On the right was a narrow side bench, with a porthole above, against which the rain drove. Ahead of her, a young woman of about her own age sat on a bench at the rear of the cabin, leafing through a newspaper. Surely the cabin length was only about nine feet? The width no more than about six, perhaps seven feet? The young woman looked up; her hair was blonde and pinned into loops, with a tortoiseshell slide on the right-hand side. Crikey, thought Polly, that must have cost a bob or two. The young woman wore lipstick and was impossibly elegant, even in overalls.

  ‘Oh God, you’re dripping,’ the young woman said. ‘There’s a cloth on that hook to wipe up the floor.’ She nodded towards the side of the tiny range.

  Bet said quietly, ‘Verity Clement, this poor girl, Polly Holmes, is soaked through, and it is not her task but ours to–– Ah, I see you realise that.’ Verity was reaching for the cloth. ‘Good girl.’ Bet sounded relieved.

  Bet waved Polly towards the side bench immediately to the right of the steps, saying, as Verity swished the cloth around with her foot, then wrung it out over the bowl at the side of the range, ‘Sit yourself down, Polly, but before you do, let’s have your mac. No mopping up puddles until you’re taken on, or not.’

  Polly dropped her handbag on the side bench and shrugged out of her mackintosh. Bet threw it to Verity, who had returned to reading The Times. The mackintosh collapsed her newspaper and Verity yelped. Bet said, ‘Sorry about that, but do come on, Verity, all hands to the pump. You really should know the drill by now. Hang up the mackintosh, please. Tea is ready, I hope?’

  ‘Indeed, boss. The teapot is on the range rest.’

  Polly sat while Verity Clement hung her mackintosh on a hook to the right of the range, within arm’s reach, but what wasn’t? How could people manage in this tiny kitchen? What were the bedrooms like, and the bathroom? And where were they?

  Bet reached up, closed the sliding hatch and the cabin doors: the room seemed even smaller, but suddenly quiet, though Polly could still hear the rain. The floor was wooden and a hurricane lamp hung on the wall, but there was also an electric light hanging from the ceiling, and this is what illuminated the cabin.

  Verity resumed her seat, then pulled down the front of the hinged cupboard to form a small table in front of her, on which she rested her newspaper. She reached down a tin of biscuits from the cupboard, which was packed with groceries, and placed it on the table. She resumed reading, then said, without looking up from her paper, ‘Polly Holmes, you can see that the cupboard flap is our table, which, trust me, we can all reach from wherever we are. The light is powered by the battery. We have two batteries, and charge one off the engine while the other is doing its stuff. The hurricane lamp is used frequently to save the battery.’ She turned the page of The Times.

  Polly didn’t know if she should answer, but nodded, then said, ‘I see, thank you.’

  Bet stood by the pristine blackleaded range. Her seaman’s sweater was steaming and would bounce the rain back, keeping the wearer almost dry. Will had one. Polly shut out the thought.

  The brass towel bar gleamed, the grate was heaped with burning coal. An enamel kettle hissed on the top of the range and a pot of tea waited on the side. A crocheted curtain was hooked to the left of Verity’s bench. Polly was thinking hard, because the cabin reminded her of something, and then it came. It was like the playhouse a neighbour had constructed for his children, with a pretend stove, and cups.

  Bet poured tea into three enamel mugs and handed them out. Polly clutched hers, warming her hands. Her hair and clothes were steaming as they had done on the train, only more so, but the bench was wooden so that was all right. A pool was forming at her feet again, and at the feet of Bet, who sat down beside her. Verity continued reading.

  Polly sipped her tea. She was desperate for the loo, and reached forward, putting her mug on the side of the range. ‘May I use your toilet?’ she said.

  Verity snorted into her mug. ‘Should have thought of that at the yard. Oh dear, she has much to learn and our naughty boss didn’t tell her.’

  Bet ignored Verity and said, ‘I’m sorry, I should have mentioned the plumbing, Polly. Verity is right, there is no toilet, instead there’s a bucket that’s kept in the lean-to at the back-end of each cabin. We usually call it just the back-end. We empty the bucket where we can, either borrowing a pub’s lavatory, or the cut. You might have noticed the water can and dipper on the roof of both boats. We use the dipper to gather water to wash our clothes or whatever. There are taps along the way for drinking water, which we collect in the water can. If you ever fall into the cut, keep your mouth shut.’

  ‘I see,’ said Polly faintly, crossing her legs, trying not to listen to the sound of the rain on the roof. It would be best not to mention any of this to her mother.

  Verity looked up, grinning, then ducked back down to her newspaper. Polly sipped her tea. ‘And the bedrooms?’ she asked.

  Verity shook her newspaper, threw back her head and laughed, but it was Bet who spoke. ‘Right, let me explain, starting with basics. This is my butty cabin, Polly. It’s bigger than the motor’s cabin because there is no gunwale; that takes about eight inches off the motorboat cabin width. A gunwale is––’

  Polly interrupted, ‘Yes, I know from my sailing days.’

  ‘Ah, of course, you said. Well, since the trainees bunk up in the smaller motor cabin it must seem unfair. However, as trainer I have to live on the boats for the duration of the war, except for occasional leave, so I choose the butty cabin as my permanent home. On the other hand, you,
as trainees, will move on to boats of your own as and when you receive your Inland Waterways badges. When you get your own pair of narrowboats, you can have your chance at the butty cabin then, but remember, there will be three of you, so willingness to share will be the order of the day.’

  Polly stared around the cabin, not really understanding. How on earth could this serve anything like even a quarter of anyone’s requirements, whether it was a paltry eight inches bigger or not – and where were the beds?

  Bet continued, as if reading her mind. ‘The older children would normally sleep in the butty cabin, utilising the side-bed on which you are sitting. Then there is the unfolding double cross-bed where Verity is planted, which I always keep down because I’m not going to mess about at the end of the day making it up. See the door behind it?’

  Polly nodded.

  ‘It leads to the back-end or lean-to, where the bucket and brooms, things like that are kept. I nip over the roof of the cabin and hoik ‘em out through the outside door. I also take my bucket comfort breaks in there. The babies and toddlers would sleep with the parents in the motorboat cabin, the parents using the cross-bed, the children the side-bed and perhaps the floor too. Soon you’ll see that the life of a boater is so busy that the cabin is barely used, except for sleeping, or perhaps a bit of sitting when eating. Beneath the beds are cupboards which hold the bedding. You must bring your own if you join us. Have you got all that?’

  Polly nodded, not a bit sure she had. Bet was off again. ‘Sometimes we strap up the boats abreast just as we are now, and travel in parallel on a wide stretch, or instead we tow the butty on a narrower stretch. But there’s time to learn all of that on the job.’ Bet leaned towards her. ‘I believe Mr Thompson at the Ministry gave you a vague brief in the interview?’

  Polly nodded. ‘Yes, he did.’

  She felt she was drowning in information and as one piece entered her head, another piece dropped out.