Death and the Dreadnought

by Robert Wilton

  It was a good parallel. We all did it as Lieutenants and Captains: pretend we were raising morale and understanding the real conditions of the men, by getting under their feet for twenty minutes each morning and evening.

  ‘Often?’ I said.

  ‘More than most. Every… week or two.’ He thought more. ‘Mr Sinclair was a – he was a worrier. About the details. About the men.’

  I nodded. ‘Type of officer that doesn’t make any difference, and tends to frighten the horses, but the lads get sort of fond of him. That one?’

  ‘That’s the feller.’ He leaned forwards a fraction. ‘You weren’t a worrier yourself, I think sir.’

  ‘Bloody terrified. Especially when the champagne ran out.’ He nodded, neutral. ‘So there was nothing here he’d need to … to inspect? Records, that sort of thing?’

  He gestured to his left. ‘We’ve the drawings office just next door. The detailed plans that everything in the yard is worked from. Everything from… from the shape of the bow to the size of a bolt. But they’re only brought in from the Holborn Office when we need them. If he wanted them he could see them while they were there, or call them back, or get duplicates.’

  ‘You’ve had some trouble with the men, I think.’ His face hardened. Battery Sergeant-Major MacNeice had never had trouble controlling men. ‘Sabotage, I was told.’

  ‘Told by whom?’

  ‘By someone even more senior than you in the Thames Ironworks Company.’

  He considered me for a moment. ‘We’ve had our share,’ he said. And then his shoulders dropped, and he leaned in, more earnest. ‘It’s a new time, Mr Delamere. I’ve known trouble in the yard before: bit of belly-aching, bit of barrack-room law; drunkards and hotheads; fights and shoddy workmanship and down tools for an hour or two. In my time I’ve had to kick a bit of discipline into the odd gobshite; you know how it is. Corporal’s justice.’ I nodded. ‘But now… now it’s political too. They’re not just unhappy for they’re poor; they’re angry at the whole world.’

  ‘So what’s happened?’

  He sniffed. ‘This and that. The old Trade Union man here – nice old uncle called Merridew – well, they ousted him, and replaced him with a new man: Raikes – as vicious a little shit as ever settled in the mud at low tide. Then… Go-slows: organized – co-ordinated, yes? The whole yard, every single sod, working just 10% slower. Nothing specific you can spot or punish, and then at the end of the day you wonder and the end of the week you know. The mechanism on one of the big cranes’ – he nodded over my shoulder – ‘was got at; that department had to stop for two or three days before we got it fixed. One of my foremen got too angry with one of the riveting gangs; night-watchman found him that night – he’ll live, but he got a fair going over.’ The mouth twisted. ‘Lines are being crossed, Mr Delamere.’

  ‘If it turns out that it wasn’t I who killed Sinclair – only an outside chance, I realize – could his death have been tied up with these protests?’

  He puffed his cheeks out. ‘Doesn’t seem likely’, he said. And it didn’t. ‘Not saying it’s impossible. Surprisingly easy to kill a man, even if you don’t mean to. But even the worst of them, even now, they’d think twice before a killing. Not a deliberate killing, of one of the managers. And anyway: how’d he come to be in the yard?’

  ‘Could he have… I don’t know, could he have heard about some act of sabotage? Come and find out who was responsible? Try to stop it?’

  I knew the answer before I’d finished the question. ‘If he knew something like that,’ MacNeice said, ‘why didn’t he tell me, or the police, or bring someone else with him? Makes no sense.’

  He was right. It made no sense.

  We sat in silence for a few moments, reflecting on how little sense it made.

  ‘On the whole,’ I said, ‘it’s probably more likely that I killed him.’

  He smiled, and nodded. ‘That it is.’

  Very slowly – fingertips only, and not touching the trigger – I picked up the pistol. MacNeice’s eyes never left mine. I put the pistol in an inside pocket, and stood. He stood with me.

  ‘I heard about what you did,’ he said. ‘At Modder River.’

  ‘Long time ago, Mr MacNeice. I was more innocent in those days; and more stupid. Long forgotten now.’ I opened the door.

  ‘Soldiers don’t forget, Mr Delamere.’ He shook his head. ‘You may be a rogue. But you’re no coward.’

  He stepped closer. ‘Which may,’ he said reflectively, suddenly distracted and looking past me into the yard, ‘come in handy.’

  17.

  I stepped out onto the walkway and the whole world was staring up at me.

  From where I stood to the water’s edge was two hundred yards at the least. This area of the yard was about as wide. That whole expanse was a swarm of faces. God knew how many thousands of men. They’d decided to do their speechifying in the yard, not in public; they’d picked the shipyard offices – home of authority – as their backdrop. Looked like they were just getting warmed up. And I’d stepped out centre stage.

  I think I’ve made my feelings about crowds and public prominence pretty clear.

  ‘Well, Sir Harry, I enjoyed our little natter. You mind how you go, now.’

  I don’t know whether they’d been touring the yard while I’d been talking, or just gathering, but the speakers were only now starting up the steps towards my gantry: three in worker’s best, two in smarter coats and hats, somehow unusual and oddly familiar. It was one of the latter who pointed up at me and said something, and now I caught a more general murmuring. The smarter-dressed pair each had a white ribbon pinned to their jackets.

  Someone in the crowd shouted: ‘It is him, too!’ Well, what do you expect if you let working men read newspapers?

  I turned to look at MacNeice. He was still taking in the size of the crowd.

  Beside them was the Thunderer, a great dark hulk dominating the scene. The bow – where Sinclair had died – looked like you could reach out and touch it from the gantry. The stern was at the water’s edge. I had the fancy that the swarm below me might pick the half-finished ship up and carry her away, ants with a stone.

  The air was thick with the stink of oil and scorched metal.

  ‘Hadn’t realized they were going to come and preach right here’, MacNeice said. ‘I came to keep an eye and stop any of the enthusiasts breaking my windows or messing up the drawings next door. We’d given them the day and said we’d turn a blind eye to them coming through the yard, as long as they didn’t smash the machinery or go for the ship.’ He looked at me straight, and winced slightly. ‘Um – chance they may not see you as company property, Sir Harry. Not covered by the insurance policy, so to speak.’

  At the foot of the steps, a couple of sportsmen were shouldering their way past the platform party and starting up towards me.

  I didn’t even contemplate using the revolver. I’d be torn apart before I’d got more than a couple, and their blood was hot enough for any foolishness.

  I glanced the other way along the gantry. It ended in a closed door, set in a partition wall. I looked at MacNeice.

  He shook his head. ‘Locked.’

  ‘Key?’

  ‘Not here.’

  ‘That’s a great help.’

  I looked past him into his office. With its windows it wouldn’t last more than ten seconds as a final redoubt. The advance party from below stairs was halfway up now and meant business, big lads with purposeful faces. I looked at MacNeice. Short of using him as a rampart, which I confess I did consider for a moment, it wasn’t right to involve him.

  ‘Right ho, then’, I said. ‘I thank you for your time, Mr MacNeice. See you across the river.’

  He nodded. ‘Sun on your back, Sir Harry.’

  ‘Let’s be ‘aving you then!’ It was the first of the lynch mob announcing his arrival at the top of the steps. I’m not sure what he thought he meant by the expression. Rather like Inspector Bunce reading me my rights, I sup
pose. Having got it out the way, anyway, he started towards me, and from below there was a cheer of encouragement.

  I bowed slightly to the tough, and set off running in the other direction.

  As soon as I moved there was a roar from the crowd, Derby Day excitement, and it echoed hollow and wild off the hull next to them. Halfway towards the door I had the Webley out and when I was a few yards out I fired three shots at where the lock ought to be, and I was just wondering what would happen if I’d misjudged it when I ran out of gantry and had to launch myself at the door.

  I hit it full force with my shoulder and there was a shrieking of wood and glass and I kept on going, and somewhere in the mess my head made contact too. Then I was stumbling round and through and clutching for support and I was at the top of another flight of steps. Nowhere else to go, shouting behind me, and I started down.

  At the foot of the steps, I saw bodies, faces, pointing arms, the flanking party coming in with perfect timing. I was already a few steps down as they started up; then I saw a girder stretching out beside me, a support for the stair and for the wall opposite. I brandished the pistol and yelled something equally pointless, and fired off a shot into the eaves to make them think a bit. Then I stowed the pistol and swung out over the bannister rail and dropped my legs onto the girder.

  I came uneasily upright, and set off across.

  A sitting baronet is not a sporting shot. Arms out straining for balance as I teetered along the girder, six rivet-pocked inches wide and leading me God knew where, I felt if possible even more exposed than when I’d dashed over the rooftops of the City. For one moment I made the awful mistake of adjusting my focus beyond the girder to what was below, and saw that the blur was in fact one seething mass of men. They were all shouting now, exuberant in the chase. And waiting for me to fall, baying for it. It’s not the first time I’ve sympathized with the fox: the bloody hounds always get more gobby when their pea-sized brains finally work out how good the odds are.

  I got across the girder with a sense of relief and immediately futility. I was going to run out of road sometime, and it might be right now. Vaguely I was aware of movement behind me, a bolder soul following me out onto the girder.

  Blank wall: wooden slats built up to extend a lower layer of bricks. But just a couple of yards away a rough window had been cut in the slats. Deep breath. Step back along the girder towards my now more cautious pursuer. Then I turned and jumped.

  My boot-tips caught the top of the brick half of the wall and momentum helped my arms reach for the sill of the window. Then my boots were scrabbling and I was pulling myself up and through the gap, and after the gloom there was breeze and light.

  There was a flattish bit of roof below me – a shed built into the wall of the yard – and it was luxury for someone of my experience in these altitudes. Within seconds I was on it and off it and dropping into the street outside, and I even had a moment to look around myself and consider the options.

  Just the one moment, and it left me only one option: a gate burst open – you don’t need a revolver when you’ve got a couple of thousand men leaning on a lock – and the mob exploded into the street. I was already running hard for the corner.

  As soon as I’d rounded the corner I started looking for promising doorways, but there was nothing that didn’t look like a dead end, and the hounds were too close on my heels for me to think I could hide.

  Then, thirty yards ahead, outside a tavern I saw an omnibus. And at the front of the omnibus the driver was overseeing some business with the horses… Changing them? I ran harder, looked closer, and as I got nearer one of the horses came free out of the shafts. Then I was there, and vaulting up onto the beast and digging my heels in. Fortunately, it was a horse with pretensions – some worn-out old dray with fraternal sympathies for the labour movement and I’d been stuck for good – and it skittered and wheeled and we were away.

  In a foot race with the average man – and I was in a foot race with about a thousand of them, fit youngsters all – I'm nothing out of the ordinary. On a horse I'm something rather exceptional. The mob dropped away behind, and I was left to work out where I was going, and to reflect on what MacNeice had told me about the head office and the yard and the workers, and to wonder who it was the two smarter-dressed speakers had reminded me of.

  18.

  I found Annabella Bliss in one of the dressing rooms at Jolly’s Theatre, talking to Quinn. Buried in a warren of corridors beneath the theatre, it was spartan space of badly whitewashed brick and one long wooden bench facing some cracked mirrors. There was a rich smell of sweat and what must have been make-up paint. But Bliss and her comrades had brightened it with postcards and pots of make-up and cast-off feathers and biscuit tins crammed with mysterious feminine necessities. Biscuits, perhaps. At the moment I walked in she was quizzing Quinn about Methodism in Cornwall during his youth, and he was answering her with sober courtesy. When it’s a matter of chatting with a pretty girl, Quinn’s as ecumenical as they come.

  My valet has naturally seen me in diverse states of dress and undress and, in the course of my somewhat eccentric career, some rather exotic get-ups. I still caught the faintest raise of an eyebrow when I sauntered in dressed a la Wapping. I’d regained my breath and composure during the ride on the borrowed horse, but I was still looking a little ragged and there was just a suggestion of disapproval in my valet’s regard.

  Miss Bliss said: ‘How was your visit to the yard?’

  ‘First tell me that you didn’t arrive here together.’

  ‘Different times, different routes, different doors, as you told me.’

  I watched her a moment longer; I was trusting a lot to her good sense. ‘Right.’ I sat. ‘Not altogether satisfactory. MacNeice, the yard manager, confirmed they have a serious problem with sabotage; worse than I’d imagined, indeed. But he also confirmed that there’s nothing obvious Sinclair should have wanted or needed to drag me there to see that night. Even he can’t have wanted just to show off his damn ship at that time of night.’

  ‘At least you got away without being recognized.’

  ‘I did perfectly, right up to the moment when a couple of thousand outraged dockworkers and their guests recognized me, and chased me across London.’ I stopped. ‘Guests, now…’

  Bliss was looking genuinely shocked. She’d not got used to my fugitive habits; not by that point, anyway. ‘I said you should have worn a beard, and a bigger hat.’

  ‘So I could give ‘em a couple of verses of ‘He is an Englishman’ while they beat me to death?’ She looked sulky. ‘How are you, Quinn?’

  ‘Tolerable sir, thank you.’

  ‘How’s the old homestead?’

  ‘Tidied as best I can, sir. A lot of policemen with too much time on their hands are still fooling around the place. Trying to find anarchist paraphernalia in your linen, or hidden maps on the back of the pictures.’

  ‘Hope you’ve hidden the good port.’

  ‘’Fraid the carpet’s had it, sir. What with all the police boots and… the, er,’ – he glanced at the girl – ‘the incident with the foreign gentleman.’

  ‘Incident?’ Bliss asked; no tact.

  ‘Well, miss, Sir Henry was obliged to set light to a foreign person in the sitting room. The scorching was considerable.’

  ‘Oh.’ She looked at me then back at Quinn; I didn’t care for the tone and direction of the conversation. ‘Do these sort of strange things happen to him often?’

  ‘No–’

  ‘Yes, miss. Sir Henry has… an adventurous instinct.’

  ‘How exciting. Must be rather trying for you sometimes, Mr Quinn.’

  ‘Well, mi–’

  ‘When you two have finished–’ I managed to squeeze in. ‘Quinn – anything useful to contribute?’

  ‘Precious little so far, sir. Through a friend at the telegraph office I’ve tracked down that friend of Mr Sinclair you were asking about – Mr Greenberg.’

  ‘Oh yes – the Confedera
tion of Commercial Collaborators, or whatever.’

  ‘I got an address for that office; place up in Clerkenwell. Went and had a nosey around. Place looks pretty shut up, sir. Post not been collected for a few days.’

  I nodded. ‘Keep at it. And what about the Thames Ironworks Head Office?’

  ‘I’m afraid there’s a police guard on the place now, sir. I did one walk-past, but I didn’t want to risk a closer reconnaissance.’

  ‘No, that’s fair enough.’ I thought for a bit. ‘Well, it may have to be guile as well as stealth. Now, what else?’

  ‘Guests, sir.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘You were talking about the dockers, and you mentioned their guests.’

  ‘Yes, I did. They had a couple of guest speakers, and something about the look of them was a bit off, and a bit familiar. I think it must have been the outfits. Reminded me of the chap in my rooms, with his Homburg and a looser cut of suit. They had the same ribbon on their coats. ’

  ‘The one who – who had the incident?’ Miss Bliss seemed to find all this fascinating. ‘The one you set fire to?’

  ‘He. I remember he mentioned joining his comrades outside; when that march was on. He was foreign, certainly.’

  ‘Why on earth should a foreign Trade Unionist want to kill you?’

  ‘Apparently I’m in season,’ I said, with some heat. ‘National bloody sport, now, isn’t it, having a shy at old Delamere? Probably queues of the sods, stepping off the boat at Harwich and asking for a cosh and directions to Piccadilly. Any other useful tit-bits from your police pals, Quinn?’

  ‘Not much, sir. Couple of appearances from that Inspector – from the court – Bunce.’

  ‘Ah. Hasn’t caught the fatal flu or been knocked down by an omnibus, then?’

  ‘No, sir. Rather a persevering sort of body. Otherwise, they seem more interested in the naked lunatic – that ghost or whatever that people reported running over the rooves from Ironmonger Row.’