Tales of London's Docklands (16 page)

The SS
Ebo
was a passenger and cargo liner that traded between the Port of London's Tilbury Docks and pre-selected ports down the West African coast from Dakar in Senegal to Luanda in Angola. The ship was secured fore and aft to her discharging berth in Tilbury Docks by wire hawsers and nylon ropes attached to cast-iron bollards concreted into the quay. From her cargo holds only an hour before the ship's down-hold gangs had begun to discharge cocoa beans into Thames lighters for that expensive commercial commodity's final lap in its sea voyage, upriver to the import merchants' processing factories.

The West African cocoa beans were to be transported to a destination in east London, where they would undergo the process of fermentation, followed by roasting, after which they would be ground down into a fine powder and used in making chocolate and other food and drink products. It was of paramount importance that the cocoa beans should not become prematurely wet or damp during the discharging operation, simply because they quickly begin to deteriorate. So the rain inevitably brought an abrupt stoppage in the discharging operation. And the rainstorm was building up a bout of mental and physical aggression in George. (For the benefit of the reader of this tale, the over-side discharging piecework rate paid to dockers for carrying out this particular operation was 3
s
1
d
per ton per ship's gang.)

‘Yes, it's still damn raining,' George replied, ‘and it won't bloody stop this morning by the looks of it. Sod it.' And he walked further into the transit shed, keeping himself distanced from the other gang members.

George wasn't a man to waste words, and what he had just said was generally more than his speech quota for a whole day. He was an odd sort of character, with a curious antisocial disposition, who didn't appear to like or even to trust other people – he was a maverick who always kept his fellow dockers at a distance, never making friends. George was a loner with a grudge, and it was obvious he could be a very dangerous man if he was antagonized.

To describe a man such as George is difficult: he was sort of short to medium in height, that is, he stood about 5 feet 7 inches. He weighed something like 14 stone. He had deep bluish–greyish eyes and a pug nose, which showed it had received a thump or two in boxing rings or in street brawls. Sadly, all his facial features appeared to have been etched onto a large mangelwurzel-shaped head, a concoction that was capped with a mop of black wavy hair that was going grey around his ears and neck, a feature, oddly enough, that enhanced the magnificence of his ugliness. As one wag had suggested, he could have made more money being exhibited in a chamber of horrors than he would ever see working as a wage slave in the docking industry.

Finally, in addition to his unfortunate cosmetic appearance, there were his physical deformities, including rounded shoulders that caused his head to hang over his chest, reminiscent of Neolithic man. He had long arms that bulged with muscles and that, from the rear, gave him the appearance of a gorilla. On the end of the arms were two huge hands. Had they been yellow, anyone would have been forgiven for mistaking them for two bunches of bananas.

He looked what he was: a tough, vindictive character with a grudge against society as a whole and no individual in particular, who was always on the look-out for a fellow protagonist with whom, or on whom, he could vent his intense, built-up aggression. That, I must advise the reader, was a problem in the docking industry, where virtually every man had been trained as an assassin by instructors employed for that purpose within His Majesty's armed services.

‘The ship's mate isn't likely to order us to take off the beams and hatches again in this weather,' Bert said. ‘What about playing a hand or two of cards? It will help to pass the time away till the rain stops.' There was a mutter of approval from several members of the ship's gang, who came forward and volunteered to play, seven in fact. That almost made up two sets of players, but they were still one man short.

‘We need one more man for a game of cards,' Bert called out, but nobody else came forward to play.

‘What about you, Terry?' Terry was our resident Communist Party gang member, with degrees in political economics and philosophy. He looked up from scrutinizing the contents of his
Daily Worker
newspaper, sneered down his nose, gave Bert a look of utter contempt, and carried on reading.

Bert shrugged his shoulders and then said, ‘What about you, George? A game of cards to pass the time away?'

‘No, not me,' George growled, slowly shaking his mangelwurzel-shaped cranium.

‘Why not?' Bert taunted him. ‘I've come to believe there's something very odd about you. Come to think about it, I've never seen you have a bet on the dogs or horses. In point of fact, I've never seen you have a bet at all, not even in Smoky Joe's Café. You won't even play a hand of cards. Are you afraid of losing your money?'

George walked over to the card school group and, raising his big fist, firmly jabbed a banana-sized index finger into Bert's chest. He said, ‘Nothing you could do would frighten me.'

Bert, who had been sitting down, suddenly stood up. He was several inches taller than George, and as powerfully built. He glared down at the smaller man.

‘If that's the case, get your money out and play, you tight-fisted little sod.' His attitude was threatening.

George's eyes narrowed, then he said, ‘I used to be an idiot like you lot. If anything I was more addicted to gambling than all you lot put together. I used to take wagers on anything.'

‘So what brought about your cure from that addiction?' Bert said and laughed. ‘A trip to Lourdes, was it? Or perhaps it was a long psychiatric session with Sigmund Freud on the way we see ourselves? Or was it because you woke up one night from having had a dream about heaven, and thought that you'd seen the light of God? Or is it simply because you really are a tight-fisted, miserly little sod?'

Blood was about to be spilled. Then one of the other gang members quickly broke into the verbal confrontation with, ‘So what cured you of the gambling habit, George?'

George sat down on a tea chest and began to tell us this story. It was as though he had been waiting for years to unload his burden onto someone because the words of his tale came out of his mouth so naturally.

‘It's funny how some people meet, isn't it? I mean, meeting different people appears to be coincidental to most of us, but I'm sure that in most instances it's fate that brings us together for specific purposes. Now, take my case as an example. I first met my mate John Broomfield at Colchester Army Barracks in March 1940. We had both recently been conscripted into the army. He was an East End Londoner and I was from Dagenham, Essex. I knew his manor around Stepney pretty well because I was a van boy and worked for the Co-operative Wholesale Society, and our department made deliveries in east London, but John (except for his family's 'op pickin' 'olidays down in Kent) had never been farther than Woolwich before he had been called up for military service, and that was only because he and his mates used to cross the river on the Woolwich free ferry when they was a kids.

‘We hit it off right away, John and I. In fact I doubt if two young men had ever been more alike, without being identical twins, that is. We thought alike, we liked the same sort of things, we even looked alike, and we both had a mania for gambling. The other lads in our training squad used to rib us about it. They reckoned one of our dads had had a roving eye, and to have looked at us I'm sure they must have been right.'

‘Bloody hell,' Bert blurted out. ‘There can't be another freak walking about looking like you, can there?'

George either didn't hear the outburst or ignored it. He continued, ‘But the one thing we were both mostly attracted to was gambling, and it was the gambling bug that parted us in the end.'

‘How did that come about?' asked one of the gang.

‘Well, after we had been at the army training camp for a few weeks, we had become recognized as the unit's bookmakers. We would take bets on anything or anyone; for example, who would be first to be absent without leave, who'd be in the first overseas draft. You know the sort of thing I mean. Once we even took bets with a whole platoon that we could get our sergeant to miss what they all thought was his favourite sport, that was turning over our newly laid-out clean and blancoed kit, when he did his daily inspection.

‘The sergeant was an old regular and had served in the army since the First World War. That, as it turned out, was to our advantage, because it allowed us to lengthen the betting odds in our favour. What we had to do first was to find the sergeant's weak points in order to achieve our purpose. John and I, when we were cleaning our kit, racked our brains for the solution to the problem. Then John suddenly hit on a brilliant idea:

‘“I've got it, George,” he said. “You leave it to me, mate; just leave it to me.” He got up and, hee-hawing like a donkey with a bunch of fresh carrots, he virtually threw himself out of our marquee (the big tent that was our temporary home till we had finished our basic training), as though all the dogs of hell were at his heels.

‘On the following day the kit inspection was carried out as per usual, but by a second lieutenant and a corporal. Our illustrious sergeant was noticeable by his absence. I couldn't think how our luck had been so quick in coming, because when John had arrived back in the marquee, he hadn't said anything more to me about the affair, although after the sergeant's absence from the kit inspection he had happily collected our winnings during blanco time in the marquee.

‘Then, when we were sitting on our bunks, cleaning our brasses and blancoing our webbings the following evening, the sergeant appeared at the entrance:

‘“'ten-shun,” the sergeant's voice bellowed out. We shot up from our bunks onto our feet and stood like ramrods waiting for his next kind words.

‘“Right,” he roared. “Which one of you clever young bastards sent me a telegram saying my wife had just given birth to twins?”

‘Not one word was uttered by any of the men in the marquee, but their eyes all slowly worked their way towards the corner of their sockets, which was in John's and my direction. The sergeant's eyes followed them.

‘“Oh, so it was you young pair of bastards, was it? Get over to my office on the double. Now!” he shouted at the top of his voice. John and I went out through the marquee flap with the speed of light infantrymen, and with the sergeant bellowing behind us, “Left right, left right, left right,” till we got up to his office door. “Halt,” he yelled (which was just as well, otherwise we would have had to try marching through the wooden walls of the building) and we stood marching on the spot till he opened the hut door and barked the order, “Get inside.”

‘We marched into his office and stood to attention in front of his desk. He followed us in and walked round us, sizing us up before he sat down. His eyes didn't leave us for a second.

‘“Right now! What's your flaming game?” he demanded to know. I left it to John to explain. After John had told him about the bets we had taken on with the platoon, and the need for “his good self” to be absent from the kit inspection, the sergeant's face broke into a crafty smile and he winked at us.

‘“Oh,” he said, “that's all it was then, a bit of a caper, eh – boyish prank, no harm meant and no damage done?” he suggested.

‘“That's right, Sergeant,” said John. “No 'arm meant. It was just for a bet.”

‘“Oh I see. Just for a jolly old wager, was it? By the way, how much did you make at my expense?” the sergeant demanded to know, his eyes narrowing into what was a positive threat.

‘“Twenty quid, Sergeant,” John replied.

‘“Hmm, now,” he said. “I'm a gambling man myself and like to have a wager occasionally, so this is what I'll do. I bet you two twenty quid that, if I report this prank of yours to the CO, you will both get six months in a glass house. You may think I'm a hard disciplinarian, but you wait till those Red Caps get hold of you in a military prison. Then you'll think I've been giving you the kid-glove treatment.”

‘John, as quick as a flash, dived his hand into his tunic pocket and brought out four £5 notes. “No need for that, Sergeant. We accept that bet,” John said, and placed the money on his desk.

‘“It's a wager then,” the sergeant said, and picked up the cash.

‘“Yes, you're on, Sergeant,” John replied, and made to shake hands on the deal. The sergeant ignored John's hand.

‘“Get out of here, and don't you ever try any of those tricks on me again, or I'll have the pair of you roasted alive. Get me?” He was roaring at us as though he was a mad bull.

‘We didn't wait for a second longer, just in case he changed his mind. We went out of his office faster than a pair of greyhounds rounding the bend at a White City race meeting. When we had got back in the marquee, we dropped down on our bunks gasping for breath and wheezing like a pair of old steam engines. When I'd got my breath back, I said to John, “I thought we had made thirty quid on those bets?”

‘“Yes, George, we did, but the sergeant wasn't to know that, was he? He may have got twenty quid, but at least we got a fiver each,” and putting his hand once again into his tunic pocket, he passed me a nice, crisp, white £5 note.

‘“Well, at least we managed to salvage something out of those bets we took on, John,” I told him. “By the way, I thought the sergeant was a bit upset about those twins you fostered onto him, didn't you?”

‘“So would you have been if you was him,” John winked. “You see, when I left you the day before yesterday, I made a few enquiries about our sergeant. I discovered his wife was living in army married quarters near Kidbrook in Kent. What's more, the sergeant had been abroad in India for twelve months and had only had his first leave six months ago. I telephoned one of my mates in the East End. He works on the south side of the Thames just outside Blackwall Tunnel, and he sent a telegram for me to the sergeant here at Colchester Barracks, telling him his wife had had twins. The sergeant was given instant compassionate leave, and shot off home as fast as a bullet from a rifle, no doubt with murder on his mind. That's what got him away from the kit inspection.” John looked through the marquee flap entrance, back towards the sergeant's office. Then he said, “I always thought that sergeant was a real callous bastard, but he had us bang to rights just now, and he let us off. I won't forget that in a hurry.”