Rue End Street

by Sue Reid Sexton

  The sun had vanished in a wash of white cloud. The beach was stony and half-covered with seaweed so I slithered over towards the water’s edge and hurried along the shingle, dodging waves as I went. A train whistled behind the houses. Another far bigger pier was visible some way along and a khaki-coloured crowd was gathering there. As I neared, I picked my way up the beach to the ferry office. The rain arrived suddenly and sang on its roof so I had no alternative but to shout.

  ‘Return?’ said the man. He was old and had a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. He looked like Clark Gable.

  ‘No, thank you,’ I said. ‘One way.’ (One way? I thought. What if I never came back?)

  ‘Pass?’ he said.

  ‘P... pardon?’

  ‘Louder, dear. I can’t hear you. It’s raining, in case you hadn’t noticed.’ He pointed at the roof. ‘You need a pass, otherwise you can’t go. This is a special. You could be an enemy alien.’

  I slumped against the counter.

  ‘I don’t have one,’ I said.

  ‘Pardon?’ he said.

  ‘I said I don’t have one,’ I said. ‘But I’m not an enemy. I’m only twelve.’

  ‘You look fourteen at least to me. Anyway, you might be acting on orders.’

  ‘Please? I’m looking for my dad. I think he’s in Greenock.’

  ‘You look like trouble. Where d’you get all those cuts?’

  I sighed and walked away.

  By then the rain was vertical, making it suddenly dark, and I couldn’t hear the sea any more.

  This was stupid, what I was doing. I’d no idea how I’d get home even if I did get on the boat, or where I’d go in Greenock. But somehow I didn’t care. I just couldn’t give up. I stood in the doorway while the rain battered on the roof and watched the soldiers shuffling across the pier, men like my dad, dressed as my dad had been last time I saw him, and made a silent apology to Mr Tulloch.

  There were several boats at the pier but I guessed the biggest one was the Lucy Ashton, for Greenock. So many people swarming about and everyone shouting over the rain, it was hard to see anything at all.

  ‘Hurry up at the front,’ they yelled.

  ‘Move along. Keep it coming!’ bawled a sou’westered ferryman.

  Greenock had vanished completely in the rain, and as I gazed back along the shore Helensburgh was fading fast. A motor car came round the side of the ticket office, jet black like the rooks, and the soldiers got out of the way. Without meaning to, I left the doorway and followed it. Meaning to even less, I joined the cavalcade of one, and shadowed the ferryman, holding my head high and trying to look like I was meant to be there.

  ‘Make way! Watch your back there!’ said the ferryman.

  The crowd parted enough for the car to get through. I smiled graciously at anyone whose eye I caught, as if the car was mine, and followed it as it murmured over the rain-soaked pier. My world was so inside out it might as well have been mine.

  We reached the gangplank, and the car stopped. I wasn’t sure what to do. A man in a fancy cap got out of the driver’s seat. Ignoring his look of surprise, I beat him to the door handle at the back and before I knew it, I’d opened it and stood back smiling at the passenger inside.

  ‘Who are you?’ growled the driver in my ear. He was old and smelled of putty.

  ‘New cadet,’ I smiled back. ‘Special.’

  A man in uniform got out of the car. I saluted with my left hand and took the smile off my face. The man looked at me with some surprise.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ he said.

  I was about to say hello when the driver poked me in the ribs and a voice from the gangplank called over my head.

  ‘Welcome, sir. I’m Captain Carter, sir. This way if you don’t mind.’ He had a plummy voice like the doctors in the hospital when I went to find my mum after the Blitz.

  ‘Of course, Captain, lead on!’ said the important man, and he turned to me. ‘My suitcase, young lady, in the boot. And remember, always salute with your right hand. Never the left.’

  ‘Yes, sir, of course, sir, right, sir, will do,’ I said.

  The driver glared at me then went swiftly round the back and opened a door there. I followed him. Luckily it was a small suitcase, but heavy. I lifted it out with two hands and waddled towards the gangplank. Behind me the back door banged shut, then the side, then the driver’s. I turned to see the car back through the crowd then turn and leave the pier.

  ‘Excuse me!’ I said as loudly as I could, and wobbled my way up the rutted gangplank and onto the deck. The ship’s funnel gave two loud blasts and the crowd folded round the gangplank. It was all I could do not to duck with every sudden noise.

  ‘That way, love,’ said a sailor in a duffel coat on the ship’s deck. The captain and the important man had disappeared. I followed where the sailor had pointed and knocked on a door. The important man and Captain Carter were talking and ignored me as I hovered, until the captain nodded at a corner by porthole so I put the case there. That done, he glanced over the important man’s shoulder and indicated the door with his eyes.

  Back on deck I felt the ship’s engines rumble into life and everything underneath me shook, like when the bombs fell. I gripped the handrail and scuttled behind a lifeboat to hide. Freshly blackened boots shuffled past beyond the curve of the lifeboat. I thought hard about Mr Tait and not being scared and how everything always passes, no matter how bad. But this was idiotic.

  ‘Full up inside!’ called a voice. ‘Use the upper deck! No complaining please, it’s a short crossing.’ The rain battered on the lifeboat’s tarpaulin and slid in globes off the side. There was just enough space for me to squeeze underneath. ‘Yet another fine mess,’ I thought, my sudden courage all evaporated like steam from a kettle. This was stupid, illegal and dangerous. I had to get off. I’d just have to brave it, get my head up and go. I gulped some air and stood up.

  ‘You’ll have to wait for the next one, mate,’ said the ferryman to some soldiers. ‘There’s no room even up on top. Go back to the terminus and wait. There’s no way I’m risking the safety of these men by overloading.’

  The four men argued with him but he blocked their way on the gangplank. I thought about sneaking round him, and off the boat, maybe no-one would notice, but he was too big, so instead I ducked back under the lifeboat and shivered. Then a scraping noise and a ‘thunk’ told me the gangplank had been pulled back onto the pier.

  ‘Oh no!’ I whispered.

  ‘Cast off aft!’ I heard.

  ‘Aft cast off!’

  The engines roared louder and the boat shook off the pier side. The hiss and gurgle of water churning removed all possibility of shore. I was going wherever that ship was taking me and I had to hope it was Greenock. There was no going back. But the other side of the water and all the boats in between had disappeared into the rain. How were we to avoid ramming all those other ships? We were sailing blindly into a white blanket of rain as if we were going off to heaven. I thought briefly of throwing myself overboard and swimming back to the ferry terminal to save my life. Seagulls turned around the boat, girning and chasing each other like children in a game. Then the ferryboat blasted its foghorn as if it was yelling ‘Stop raining!’ at the top of its voice. Another boat hooted back out of the mist and a couple more from goodness knows where. The boat began to shoosh through the water and I looked over the side at the spray building up beneath me. Suddenly we lurched to one side and then the other and I knew we were out in the open sea. I was glad to be close to the lifeboat in case I needed it.

  Ships loomed out of the mist. Some of them were small but others were huge and rose above us, grand and unmovable, solid cliffs of smooth grey metal with giant chains straining into the water. Some were top heavy like castles, piled high with lookout stations and guns and turrets, making the men on them seem like tiny little ants. The ships hummed as we went past, or clanged with metal like a blacksmith’s, and one played a series of bells like in church. A small boat
slowed down as it passed and the people on board waved. I didn’t mean to wave back. I did it without thinking, just being polite, but of course they weren’t waving at me. They were waving at the people on the upper deck and I had given myself away.

  A lady was driving the little boat. ‘You’ve got a stowaway!’ she shouted to the people above me and pointed.

  ‘Is she good-looking?’ someone shouted back, and people laughed, then the little boat zoomed away towards Helensburgh.

  We were in the middle of the sea and both Greenock and Helensburgh were lost in the mist. I hugged myself tight and shivered against the wind, hiding my head in my knees, all my gallusness gone. My next problem was how I was ever going to get off without being arrested and sent to a camp forever.

  But suddenly the rain stopped and the clouds lifted like the curtain at the La Scala and the sun beamed through and I saw hundreds of ships spread out in front of me like silvery trinkets set on the pewter sea. Greenock town was behind them with cranes and chimneys and factory buildings and smoke and noise exactly like we had in Clydebank, and the green hills rose steeply above, dotted brown with autumn and lined with houses.

  The ferryboat stopped rocking and the closer we got to the shore the slower we went, passing between two towering warships and lots of little puffers whose chimneys bulged with black smoke like a train. When I looked back for Helensburgh it was gone, wrapped in the blanket of mist we had just left.

  They cut the engines and we drifted to a standstill against the side with a thud that nearly shook me overboard. Men were shouting fore and aft. Smoke from the funnel swooped down around my head, hung a second then flew off into the breeze. I waited for someone to either arrest me or cheer that we had arrived safely, but no-one seemed bothered. Having considered handing myself in, I decided instead to try the head-up thing again and walk casually off the boat.

  But three soldiers had other plans.

  ‘Hello, sweetheart, did you have a nice trip?’ said one.

  ‘How much d’you think we’d get for this one then?’ said another, looking me up and down.

  ‘Got anything interesting under that coat of yours?’ laughed another.

  ‘Aw, don’t make a face like that,’ said the first. ‘We’re only having a laugh.’

  ‘Throw her in irons! She can walk the plank!’

  They laughed and so loudly it was like a clap of thunder. I waited until they’d finished and then, trembling inside, said as sternly as I could, ‘I’m looking for my dad,’ as if it was them who had stolen him.

  ‘Yeah, but the captain’s looking for you,’ said one. He grabbed my arm and set off towards the captain’s cabin, dragging me along beside him.

  ‘Let go,’ I yelled. Ella flashed into my mind and I kicked and twisted, which made them laugh all the more.

  ‘I found the stowaway, sir,’ he said, at the cabin door.

  ‘Not now,’ said Captain Carter and he glanced at the important man, then back at me. ‘Good God, what have you done to her?’

  ‘Nothing, sir, she was like that when we found her.’

  The important man turned to face me and took the pipe from his mouth.

  ‘Ah, the new recruit,’ he said, without getting up. ‘Did you have a pleasant trip?’

  No-one else spoke. Captain Carter pointed at the door and the soldiers let go of me and left.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I said.

  ‘Come here child,’ said the important man. ‘Let me look at you.’

  He stared at me for ages as if each streak of purple was extremely important. I reached up and flattened my hair and straightened my coat. He was smart in his important uniform with gold edging, but he had smudges of pipe ash down the front and one yellow finger which he poked into his pipe for a second before reaching into his pocket for a box of matches.

  ‘If you want to go impersonating people you have to study your subject first,’ he said. ‘The first lesson for any new recruit is how to salute an officer. You got that wrong. I must applaud your bravery, however.’ He paused a moment and I had to force back the smile that was trying to spread across my face out of pure nerves. ‘But this is a very serious breach of security at a time when we need absolute dedication from all our citizens and especially our armed forces who must be allowed to operate without distraction, not to mention time-wasting.’ He sat back in his chair and lit his pipe. ‘What are you doing here anyway?’

  ‘I’m looking for my d... dad,’ I said.

  ‘On this ship?’ he said.

  ‘No,’ I said. I glanced at the captain who nodded. ‘No, sir,’ I went on. ‘They sent him to Greenock.’

  ‘They?’ A layer of pipe smoke oozed across the room at me. It was sweet, like my gran’s toffee.

  ‘The p... police,’ I said, and gulped.

  ‘The police? That’s interesting.’

  A pause passed.

  ‘I hope you find him,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ I said. ‘S... so do I.’

  ‘I’ll have her taken back, sir,’ said Captain Carter. ‘We can keep her in one of the engine room lockers on the journey.’

  The air fell out of me. In a locker?

  ‘There’s no need for that,’ said the important man, getting to his feet. ‘Surely you can phone Helensburgh Constabulary from here? Or hand her over to Greenock.’

  ‘There’s the refuelling to see to, sir. We’re due at four.’

  ‘You see the important time you’re wasting, young lady?’ said the important man.

  They went on discussing what was to be done with me as if I wasn’t there. Outside the porthole I could see the gangplank, empty, and beyond that a huge building, the ferry terminal perhaps or a station entrance.

  ‘Let me see the log,’ said the important man and they started peering over something on a table, not a log as far as I could see, and discussing whatever was important about this, that and the next thing. I stepped slowly backwards until I was at the door, then in one careful move I was out, along the deck, around the back of the cabin and down the gangplank.

  ‘Hey, you!’ came a voice. ‘Stop her!’

  I had walked briskly all the way, as if I was meant to be there. I slowed then and straightened my back as if this was the kind of thing I did every other day, leaving ships with important errands to do. I turned and waved to the man who’d shouted from the upper deck and gave him the thumbs up.

  ‘Won’t be long,’ I called, like a big fat liar, then I nipped behind a crowd of soldiers there so I couldn’t be seen.

  ‘Stop that girl!’ he called.

  Chapter 22

  Men in uniforms I didn’t recognise were waiting there in rows, slouched on bundles or hunched on the ground. They were a bedraggled lot and gazed up at me through drops of rain that fell from their hats. The sailor’s voice was soon lost in the din and no-one else seemed to notice me. Soldiers stood over the unhappy men. One of them said something to me I didn’t understand and I realised they were Germans! More Germans! I stared at them and one of them smiled. It made the hair creep on my neck and I backed off down the pier not sure what to do. Then I saw the sailor on the ferry coming down the gangplank so I hurried away. I wanted to run but couldn’t risk drawing attention.

  A little further on, a gangplank rose to another ferry and down it came men who looked like someone had thrown black paint all over them. But in amongst the black there was red too, and grey bandages, and the whites of their eyes staring out. They helped one another down, limping and hanging on to each other. No-one was smiling. One of them came down on a stretcher and I thought of Mr Tait on the steps at his own funeral. But I didn’t want to get caught, so I followed where they went and kept low amongst the crowd. The biggest ships were out at anchor but the quayside was lined with all sorts of other boats.

  A fancy building with balconies and pillars stood further along the dock. It looked fit to burst. Men were queuing to go in at one door and still more came out at another. It had to be the ferry terminal but it wa
s also the station, and when I sneaked in it was the giantest, noisiest, dirtiest, busiest railway station I have ever been in. I guessed it would make the perfect place to hide.

  But I was wrong. Apart from some WVS ladies at the entrance serving tea, a couple of ladies at the ticket office and two more with buckets near the toilets, it was all men. I stuck out like a sore thumb but didn’t realise until I saw two policemen watching me. They started towards me. A train roared its engine and a huge cloud of smoke shot up to the roof. I glanced about for which way to escape.

  ‘This is no place for youngsters!’ said one of the policemen. ‘What do you think you’re doing here?’

  ‘I came on a boat,’ I said. It was too late to run. ‘Where’s the way out?’

  ‘No you didn’t,’ he said. ‘How did you really get here?’

  I didn’t wait to answer, but darted round the soldiers and out a side door.

  ‘Hey!’ shouted the policeman.

  Not looking where I was going I ran straight into a sailor, smack against his chest so that I burst my lip and it started to bleed and swell. I wiped it with my hand. The sailor wore a dark jumper that rolled at the neck and a dirty white cap.

  ‘Oh my word, I’ve caught a little sprat,’ he said, blocking my way. ‘What are you doing here?’ He only had one proper eye. The other one didn’t open at all, like an everlasting wink. ‘Are you running a message?’ he said, pinning his one eye on me.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I said, so he laughed at me saying ‘sir’.

  ‘Well, no wonder you’ve got so many cuts. Look where you’re going.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  He laughed again. ‘Are you a spy?’

  I nearly said, ‘Yes, sir,’ and, ‘What do you think, sir? Of course I’m not a spy, sir,’ but thought better of it. I was in enough trouble.

  ‘You’ll be taken for a spy. Go on. I’m watching you. Off you go. Quick before they catch you.’

  ‘I’m not old enough to be a spy,’ I said. I put my hand in my pocket and squeezed my dad’s photo.

  ‘If you’re not old enough to be a spy, you’re not old enough to be hanging about here. You should be in the kindergarten with all the other babies.’