Impartiality Against the Mob Page 8

  “I believe another ship was deliberately sunk. I think the holds were battened down, everything that could be moved was taken off, and she was holed and sent to the bottom. I’m not sure. I wouldn’t say a word about this to anyone but you. I’m not even sure I ought to tell you, but I just can’t keep it to myself any longer. It’s beginning to prey on my mind.”

  Chapter 9

  ‘OLD HOMER’

  The name of the reporter who was at The Docker at the same time as Malcolm Brill, was Holmes. Whether that was why he was known throughout dockland and his part of the East End generally as ‘Old Homer’ he did not know and did not greatly care. He was a tall, pale-faced, thin – in fact spindly – man in his middle-thirties, but was often taken for the early twenties. His mop of dark hair concealed his high forehead; his huge horn-rimmed glasses concealed the piercing brightness of his eyes. He was something of a caricature of a man to look at, and although he was so noticeable few people took much notice of him. He wrote features of dockland places and personalities. Within the past three months, for instance, he had featured Willis Murdoch of the Dockers’ Union and Joe Stout the landlord of The Docker, who had been landlord of the old pub of the same name when it had been pulled down. Dock labourers, sailors, customs men, P.L.A. policemen, captains and mates of ships which come in regularly, especially those from Holland, Belgium and Northern France appeared in his articles, all of which were well-disposed if rather laconic types.

  His greatest triumph was to place a news item with the big newspapers, especially the big ‘evenings’.

  The one thing certain about Old Homer was that he would never betray a confidence, never write about anything he thought would do harm. The Willis Murdoch article, for instance, had been shown to the dockers’ leader before being set in print. Because of this, and because he had been on the same newspaper since he was sixteen – twenty full years – everyone who knew him trusted him. It was not, simply, that he was ignored; they literally did not notice Old Homer unless they wanted him to put a paragraph in the North Thames group of local newspapers for which he worked; except for Murdoch, none of the others knew that his work sometimes appeared in national newspapers, also. The snippets of gossip that he obtained were unending in number and variety. Births, deaths, marriages; loves, infidelities, divorces. All of these, of young and old, were good for his column.

  He seldom if ever used a pen to take notes; he relied on his phenomenal memory and no doubt this was one important factor in his being accepted by everyone. While his name appeared on all the weekly newspaper articles, it was never on the dailies, but he had a contact at each news desk. He seldom gave a full story, just a tip: “It might be worth having someone at Number Six Pier, Catherine Dock, tonight,” or: “There ought to be some fun at the Globe Steps tonight.” And this was usually enough to bring a man from Fleet Street.

  Tonight, he had gone in as usual, to pick up gossip.

  He was reasonably sure in his own mind that there would be a dock strike but that the final demands would be such that they could be met within two or three days. He marvelled at the stubbornness and insensibility of both sides. It had become almost a form of duel: honour could not be satisfied until one or the other had drawn blood. He had grown used to this and did not feel for the dockers’ case more than for the employers’, but he liked the dockers more because he knew them better.

  That night, within a few seconds of stepping inside, he had sensed that something was terribly wrong. Half the men carried weapons of some kind: hammers, bicycle chains, rubber hoses and truncheons; and obviously they were rejoicing in the prospect of using these.

  He was appalled, but had not commented or asked a question. He had heard a few threatening phrases, such as “We’ll show ‘em!” or “We’ll break their bloody necks!” or “We’ll tear them apart!” but no one had gone into detail, and he could only imagine that they were talking about blacklegs, if any men went into work after the strike. Undoubtedly they were preparing for battle, and were boasting to one another, until he could discern a pattern.

  “The old packing shed just inside the wall,” one man said.

  “The one with the hole in the roof.”

  “The lovers’ couch!”

  “Up lover’s lane, you mean!”

  They were deciding where they were going to hide their weapons, and were in as raucous and truculent mood as he had ever known dockers to be, but there was something different tonight: a note of savage triumph.

  Suddenly, the main door had opened to admit a stranger.

  As suddenly, practically everyone stopped talking. Weapons vanished into pockets, down waistbands, up jerseys; a few were slipped behind chairs, one man put a bicycle chain in his cap, and slipped it on his head. The men to whom Old Homer had been talking suddenly seemed to realise that he was not in fact one of them, and a man hissed: “Keep yer trap shut!”

  None of the dockers appeared to recognise the man who had just entered, but Holmes recognised him on the instant as Malcolm Brill, a fine feature writer and an exceptional reporter. He must be here to cover the pre-strike situation. Alan Holmes watched intently and after the first shock began to admire the way Brill handled the situation, so that gradually the mood of the men changed.

  One after another they slipped out, including the one who had threatened Brill. Five minutes later Holmes himself went out and cycled on his old machine away from The Docker, but before long he rested the bicycle against the wall and walked back. When he was at the dock gates he saw men going, in ones and twos, to the old packing shed. It was in fact the spot where, for years, the local whores had worked, and for years two old mattresses had been there, one by each wall; two at a time had been commonplace. The shed had been raided by the police a year ago and everything in it burnt and a new padlock put on the door, but tonight the padlock had been opened.

  There was a lull in the visits, and Holmes sneaked across the road and found the padlock loose. He looked inside. No one was there but a pile of weapons showed up in one corner in even greater variety than he had realised. There was even an old revolver.

  Holmes slipped away and walked back to his bicycle. At every few yards he looked round, to make sure he wasn’t followed. This was the first time in twenty years that he had felt scared.

  He did not know what to do.

  If he knew what the men were up to it would be easy to make up his mind, but if he did the obvious thing and put through an anonymous call to the police, he might do untold harm to men he had lived among all his life.

  Was there to be a gang fight?

  Was there a group of dockers who wanted to stay inside the dock walls and so intensify the strike?

  Who would know the answers? he asked himself time and time again; who would know? Murdoch, of course, but he wouldn’t talk. Everyone who had been in The Docker knew, obviously, but they wouldn’t breathe a word. There were a few men in the district who might know and whose tongues could be loosened by a pound or two, but if he approached the wrong man it could lead to disaster.

  A loner by nature and by training, he was urgently in need of someone to talk to. Supposing he could find Brill? He went across to the pub again to find it nearly empty, and Joe Stout polishing glasses behind the bar. “The little chap?” bald-headed Joe asked. “He went off with Willis.”

  Holmes nodded his thanks and went out as two Indians or Pakistanis entered the pub, followed by two Jamaicans. He straddled his bicycle again and made a tour of the outside dock gate area but saw no one. Next he went inside the docks – he was known to everyone and never refused entry – wondering if he could catch up with Brill at one of the ships. The clanking and the squealing of cranes and derricks was unending. Ship after ship showed in floodlights and men were silhouettes against the brightness, but none was Brill or Murdoch. It was anybody’s guess where they had gone; to another pub, possibly, or to a lodge
meeting, or a Union meeting: Murdoch knew how to use the Press to fullest advantage. Disconsolately and also very troubled, Holmes left the dock. There was no desperate urgency, obviously the weapons were not going to be used until tomorrow—

  At the dock gates of course!

  Suddenly, his mood changed. Still on his bicycle he rode to three different dock gates, using short cuts which comparatively few people knew about. He had a vivid picture of each one in his mind, and of the equivalent to the old shed just inside Gate One. At the first there was a broken down railway carriage, once used for the same purpose as the shed. He leaned his bicycle against it and climbed in, shining his torch beneath the once-padded, now skeletal seats.

  Dozens more weapons here were only partly covered with old sacks.

  He cycled, heart beating fast, to Gate Three, where the most likely hiding place was a cycle shed close to a dilapidated warehouse just outside the huge wooden gates. The weapons here were in boxes with canvas thrown over them; and among them were two knives and an old prison flail. He left, his heart thumping, and went on to three more gates. At each, he found a store of weapons. Obviously the men planned to come to work tomorrow without any weapons, to make sure they weren’t taken away, and then fetch them from the hiding places. There was no danger of the weapons being found on their persons tonight as no alarm was on.

  By the time he had finished it was nearly nine o’clock.

  He was puzzled, alarmed, and exasperatingly hungry, and he did not know what to do. Willis Murdoch must know about these weapon stocks, since he had been at The Docker when talk had been so free, and Willis wasn’t a man to incite violence. At any other time, Holmes would have gone to see Willis, to warn him.

  They were going to make trouble at the dock gates but who were they going to fight? It didn’t make sense but there could be no doubt about the intention. He was nearer The Docker than any other pub when he felt he couldn’t go without food any longer; the choice lay between hot pies at the bar, washed down with beer, or hot pies at a small, mucky café, washed down by lukewarm tea or coffee. He could not face the café and went to the pub. More customers were present now, including half-a-dozen women, more truly girls, playing darts in a corner. The pie oven was nearly empty and Joe Stout was putting some cold ones inside.

  “Couple of hot ones for me, Joe?” asked Old Homer.

  “Two of the best,” Joe assured him, and took a couple out with his fingers, then wrung his hand exaggeratedly and blew on his fingers. “I should let them cool, Homer, if I was you.”

  Old Homer paid and went to a small table with his pies and tankard. The hot pies oozed fat, and a flavour all too rare these days. He enjoyed the food and the beer and the relaxation, only just beginning to realise how tired he had been after his burst of cycling. He was halfway through his second pie when the door opened and Willis Murdoch came in with Malcolm Brill.

  Brill’s the man I want to talk to! Homer decided. And he told himself that it was only a question of getting out first, waiting, and following the man from the Daily News. Obviously the newcomers would be here for a while so he did not have to hurry, and he did not relish the thought of standing about outside for too long. But after ten minutes he went out, passing Murdoch, who appeared studiously to avoid him. He went round to the side, where there was a small latrine with only a faint light outside the entrance, and came out a few minutes afterwards. After taking three steps, he was suddenly, frighteningly aware of men on either side of him. Before he could turn he felt a savage blow on the back of his head, and on the instant he lost consciousness.

  Malcolm Brill left The Docker, with Willis Murdoch, at ten o’clock. Murdoch offered to drive him to Fleet Street but was obviously tired, and Brill decided to catch a bus which would not only take him to Ludgate Circus and the north end of Fleet Street, but would give him time to think. And he needed to think. Willis went off and Brill looked about for Old Homer, whom he knew as Alan Holmes, half-expecting the stringer to be waiting for him. Perhaps Murdoch had scared him off. Brill was not sorry. He had learned a great deal and seen a great deal and preferred to put his own interpretation on to it all. As he settled down on a seat on the top deck, he smiled faintly; he wasn’t even sure that the paper would come out tomorrow.

  The bus stopped opposite some hoardings, and on them was a double crown poster, reading:

  The Covent Garden Theatre

  announces

  a Full Season of

  14 nights

  of the BOLSHOI BALLET

  From Moscow

  He wondered how Rose was getting on, but did not dwell on her. The whole of the situation at the docks fascinated him. Of the impending trouble he had no doubt at all.

  Rose’s hand was in Jack Ledden’s. She was aware of the slight pressure of his leg from knee to thigh. She was more acutely conscious of him than of any of the astounding virtuosity of the ballet dancers. She was thinking how tired she was of the boredom of her marriage; what a mistake it had been. Her heart hadn’t raced like this for years. Even the touch of his fingers excited her, so cool on her arm.

  Carol Entwhistle’s eyes were huge and glowing. She simply could not take her eyes off the stage. She had withdrawn her hand from her father’s and was leaning forward, so still that she hardly seemed to be breathing.

  Alec Hobbs slowly became very much aware of the fact that Norah Lofting was next to him, not Penelope. It was the first time he had been out on such an occasion without Penelope for nearly two years. His attention was drawn away from the stage, from the hushed audience, from Norah, until he could ‘see’ and think only about Penelope. The last vestige of doubt as to how he felt about her and how much he wanted to marry her was gone.

  The master of the S.S. Breem, at sea off the east coast of Britain with its hatches battened down, picked out the light of the motorboat with which he had a rendezvous, at about half-past ten. The wind was stronger and the sea choppy, but he did not give a thought to the men down below, although two more were close to death in the stinking hold. Soon, he was able to pick up the signals, and they were very positive.

  “Too dangerous tonight. Same place same time tomorrow night.”

  The crew of a small fishing vessel, coming home late because of a big catch, saw the signals.

  The master of the S.Y. Desdemona, in calmer seas, scanned the cliffs near Beachy Head on the South Coast for a signal. With him on the bridge was a younger man, also watching. The master, cap askew, trousers tight, all-weather jacket flapping, said in a taut voice: “If we don’t get in tonight half these poor devils below will be too weak to walk.”

  The other made no comment, and they stood together in the stillness with the sea lapping as they lay at anchor, until suddenly a light flashed three times in quick succession.

  “There it is!” cried the master. “Thank God for that!”

  Holmes came round with a splitting headache, and feeling very hot. Gradually he came to realise that he was rolled up in a sleeping bag which was tied round at his shoulders, waist and ankles. Only his head was clear. But he could not call for help any more than he could move, because of adhesive plaster stuck over his mouth.

  His rather plump, rather pretty, very blonde wife, in their three-bedroomed house in Bethnal Green, switched off the television, and bustled about with the late night chores. Her name was Harriet. She hoped Alan would be home before she went to bed, but it would neither surprise nor worry her if he were not. Sooner or later he would be here; sooner or later he would start banging away on his old typewriter, which she sometimes believed he loved more than he loved her or their three children. In a funny way, she loved it, too. That was why she called the battered old machine Old Homer, too.

  Gideon sat up late, poring over the facts and figures which Honiwell had left for him. He was absorbed in them, not far from obsessed. It was one of the few nights when he thought of one problem only, oblivious
of the crime taking place all over London. The break-ins, the burglaries, the rapes, the vice in all its forms, the telephone coin boxes being forced open, the smuggling, the passing of forbidden forms of drugs, the fixes, the plotting; the vast array of what could loosely be called the ‘professional’ crimes for which the police were on the watch. Squad cars would be at the ready, other cars patrolling, men on their beat talking to Information which might be miles away. London’s criminals and London’s police were locked in their nightly silent struggle.

  Dozens of ‘personal’ crimes were being committed, too, or being thought about or planned. The wife-beating, the child-bashings, the stealing from gas and electricity meters, perhaps, the murders by man or wife or lover who could not stand the anguish another minute. The petty pilfering and the major thefts, the embezzlements, the frauds, every crime in the calendar was being committed, planned or plotted, and the police would know nothing about any of them until they had been reported.

  They needed X-ray eyes!

  But Gideon still concentrated on that one major problem: of illegal immigration and its consequences. It wasn’t until his telephone bell rang, just before midnight, that he was jerked out of the absorption; and it wasn’t until the man at the other end said: “This is Edward Mesurier,” that he switched his thoughts to the troubles at the docks, his major preoccupation earlier in the day.

  “Two things, Commander,” Mesurier said, in his measured way. “The newspaper strike is off, at least for the time being. But I would very much like to talk to you about the situation at the docks, and have the man I assigned to the job with me. May we come and see you, at once?”

  Chapter 1o

  FEARS AND FACTS