Fear to Tread (6 page)

“They all gone to work.”

“What?” said Mr. Wetherall. “The boy as well? But he’s—”

“He’s gone fifteen,” said the old lady, who seemed to have her wits about her. “Why shouldn’t he work? I started earning a wage when I was eight,” she added.

“I—well—it can’t be helped.” Mr. Wetherall felt frustrated. “I’ll come back this evening.”

“You’re the schoolmaster, ent you?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll tell him you called.” She parted her gums in a smile which might have been malicious, but was probably merely friendly.

Mr. Wetherall walked back to the school, deep in thought. When he got there he sent for Peggy.

“Do we know anyone on the railway?” he asked.

“Plenty, I should think,” said Peggy. “It’s a favourite job round here.”

“Crossways?”

“I’ll have a look. Any particular sort of person you had in mind?”

“Well – I don’t want a boy who just joined last week as a porter. Someone with a bit of seniority—”

Peggy was back within five minutes. “William Fisher’s the man you want.”

“Bill Fisher. Yes.” Mr. Wetherall had to go back nearly twenty years to place him. A fat, cheerful boy, always late for school but popular with everyone.

“He’s administrative grade,” said Peggy. “I think that means some sort of staff manager. And he was at Crossways when he last had a note of him. That’s the number. Extension 341.”

Extension 341 admitted that it had heard of Bill Fisher. It rather thought he had left Crossways and gone to Waterloo. It suggested an extension number at Waterloo.

This extension was even more helpful. It thought Fisher was definitely at Waterloo. It suggested another extension.

Here Mr. Wetherall found his man.

After he had introduced himself he mentioned what was in his mind. Like all schoolmasters and clergymen he was skilled in asking extraordinary favours of comparative strangers. He decided to stick, as closely as possible, to the truth.

“You see,” he said, “this boy – he’s just leaving – I’m not happy about him. Crowdy’s the name. He’s got some sort of job on the railway – at Crossways, I think – with his father. I wanted to talk to someone who could give me the form—”

“Delighted,” said Fisher. “Was there anything particular you had in mind?”

Mr. Wetherall said it was difficult to talk about it over the telephone.

Fisher thought this over. What, he suggested, did Mr. Wetherall say to a talk over a bite somewhere that evening.

Mr. Wetherall said that would suit him very well.

“I’m off at six,” said Fisher. “I usually have a snack at a place by the Elephant – I don’t suppose it’s much in your line – Jock’s Café. A lot of railwaymen use it.”

Something stirred in Mr. Wetherall’s memory.

“Jock’s Pull-In for Carmen,” he said.

“That’s right. You know the place? Say six-thirty.”

“Splendid,” said Mr. Wetherall. “Splendid.” He rang off. He had the distinct feeling that he might have started something. The odd thing was that, at the time, he felt quite pleased about it.

Jock’s Pull-In was more pretentious than its name suggested. It was a long, bright room, full of marble-topped iron-legged tables. It was crowded with railwaymen, mostly outdoor men and drivers. The place had its own car park, formed of a blitzed site, at the back of the restaurant, and this was packed with vans and trailers.

Fighting down the feeling that he was making his way into a club to which he did not belong, Mr. Wetherall steered a course down the centre gangway and got in behind one of the few empty tables.

He studied the menu which offered “Egg and chips, sausage and chips, bacon and chips, steak and chips. Or mixed, with or without tomato.”

That seemed fair enough.

“Eggs, bacon, sausages and chips,” said Mr. Wetherall to the girl. “No tomato.”

“And coffee.”

“Yes – and coffee.”

“And bread and butter.”

“All right. And bread and butter.”

The girl disappeared and Mr. Wetherall took a quick look round the crowded room.

The proprietor was a fat man, with jowls like a bull-dog, small bloodshot eyes, and a thin fringe of grey hair which lay like a moat round an island of mottled flesh. The customers called him Pop.

He was serving one section of tables himself, as well as handling the cash register. There was a second girl who operated the tea and coffee urns and served another section of tables. The girl who had taken his order seemed to be just a waitress. The three of them were running the place on their own, though there were no doubt slaves behind the service door slicing countless hundredweights of potatoes, and frying numberless eggs and sausages and rashers of bacon in unfathomable seas of fat.

It was clearly not a place for people without a talent for hard work.

When the food arrived it was excellent. Mr. Wetherall added a name to the mental list which all Londoners carry of good and unexpected eating places. The rashers were real thick, pre-war ones with an even division of fat and lean. The butter was real butter.

At that moment Bill Fisher arrived. It took him a little time to reach the table, because he seemed to know almost everyone in the room.

“Well, and how are you, Mr. Wetherall? Nice to see you. You’ve got yours, have you? That’s right. You start away. Pop always does you well here. You oughter try his steaks—”

“Steaks?” said Mr. Wetherall faintly.

“Steaks it is. And not gee-gee neither. Ah – there’s the girl. And how are things tonight Miss Russell?”

“The name, Mr. Fisher, is Bessie.”

“Well, there now. And I thought it might be Jane. You know, Bessie, with a figure like yours you oughter be on the stage.”

“It’s only the linoleum that keeps me from the boards, Mr. Fisher.”

“Smart too,” said Mr. Fisher. “Better than Bob Hope. Makes up her own gags. I’ll have the same as this gentleman, Bessie.”

“It’s a popular place,” ventured Mr. Wetherall.

“The Railwayman’s Arms, you might call it. Or the Van Drivers’ Home from Home. It’s handy, see. And Pop used to be on the railway. In the old London, Brighton and South Coast. He used to walk in front of the engine with a red flag, didn’t you, Pop?”

“That’s right, Mr. Fisher. I used to clear the cows off the line. Always glad to see a friend of yours—”

The last part of the sentence seemed to have a question mark at the end of it.

“More than a friend,” said Fisher. “This is my old schoolmaster. Many’s the time he’s tanned the hide off me, Pop.”

“I expect you earned it.”

“Of course I earned it. I was the worst boy in the school.”

“Well, any time you pass, Mr. Wetherall, just drop in. I can give you as good to eat here as anywhere up West.”

“Thank you very much,” said Mr. Wetherall. “I’m sure you can.” If he spoke a little absently – and if he also failed to hear some of the early part of Fisher’s conversation – it may have been because he was trying to work out how Pop had suddenly become aware of his name.

“—just a paster,” said Fisher.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.”

“He was a label-sticker. Worked in the Forwarding Office.”

“Who did?”

“Old Crowdy,” said Fisher patiently. “The chap you were asking about.”

“And that was at Crossways?”

“That’s right. All the stuff that comes in goes through the Forwarding Office. The clerks mark it up – Special Delivery, C.O.D., Carriage Forward – whatever it might be. Pasters we call ‘em.”

“I see,” said Mr. Wetherall. He explained, with some suppressions, the details of Crowdys’ case.

“Seems a bit of a waste to me,” said Fisher. “If the boy’s got talent, like you said.”

“He’s over fifteen,” said Mr. Wetherall. “I can’t stop him if he wants to go – or rather, if his father wants to take him.””Dispatch clerk isn’t much of a job. Mind you, it’s cushy. He won’t come to any harm. But he won’t get fat on it, neither. If he’s got a good headpiece he wants to get on to the administrative side. “Like,” Fisher added without any shrinking modesty, “me.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Wetherall. “I was afraid it might be rather a dead end.”

“Can’t you talk to his old man?”

“I tried that,” said Mr. Wetherall. He told Fisher something about that.

“Well, that’s a rum go, if you like,” said Fisher. “Old Harry Crowdy fly off the handle. I’d never have thought it of him. With another chap I’d suggest he might have been tight, but drink don’t take Harry Crowdy that way – it mellows him. That’s the way it is with some people—”

“Look here,” said Mr. Wetherall – he didn’t mean to say it abruptly, it was just that the thought had come into his mind rather suddenly, “Is there really such a lot of stealing on the railways?”

Fisher didn’t answer that immediately. When he did there was a noticeable shade or reserve in his voice.

“There’s quite a bit,” he said.

Mr. Wetherall realised that some explanation was due. “It’s not just curiosity,” he said. “I lost a food parcel myself last week.”

“You’re sure it was sent?”

“That’s what everybody says,” said Mr. Wetherall. “That’s what the police wanted to know. Yes. I am sure. But I couldn’t prove it.”

“You’ve been to the police, then.”

“I reported it. They weren’t very enthusiastic.”

“They wouldn’t be,” said Fisher. He laughed, but he didn’t sound amused. “It’s tricky. If they put a foot wrong on a thing like that they get up against the Union.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Wetherall. It was a new factor.

“There’s a lot of pilfering everywhere. Docks, road transport, warehouses. I don’t suppose the railwaymen are worse than anyone else. It’s just that they got special opportunities. A lot of the stuff they handle’s scarce stuff. There’s a market for it, see. And it isn’t like putting it in a warehouse. If it goes from a warehouse you know who’s responsible. On the railway it goes through a lot of hands.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Wetherall. “There are bound to be losses. I can see that. But is it just a lot of casual pilfering, or is it organised?”

“Sauce,” said a voice.

A tall man had drifted up, as silently as a snowcloud. Mr. Wetherall got a fleeting impression of a scrubbed red face, close cropped hair, light blue eyes, and a pair of large red hands. One of these hands came over Mr. Wetherall’s shoulder and picked up the sauce bottle from the middle of the table.

For just a moment longer than was absolutely necessary the newcomer remained there, leaning on the table; he looked at Fisher, who opened his mouth to say something then shut it again.

Then the man was gone, as suddenly as he had come, threading his way back to a table at the door.

“Why should he bother to come all the way over here?” said Mr. Wetherall. “There’s plenty of sauce on the other tables.”

“Oh, he’s a character,” said Fisher shortly. “Guardsman, they call him. Believe he was in the Guards once.” As he spoke, and with great rapidity, he was pushing the last few chips into his mouth. Now he swallowed the remains of his coffee, stood up, said: “I’ll settle with Pop next time. I’ve got to run now—” and he was gone.

Mr. Wetherall sat still. He suddenly felt very much alone.

Panic is a curious thing. Like the tide advancing over a salt- marsh, it comes by strange channels. One moment it is not there. The next and it is everywhere.

Suddenly everyone in the room seemed to be talking louder than was necessary. One group at the door, where the Guardsman sat, with his arm half round the man next to him, was particularly noisy.

Mr. Wetherall looked round. It seemed to him that people were avoiding his eye.

He forced himself to sit back in his chair and to breathe slowly. It was like being at the top of a precipice. If you sat quite still, after a time confidence returned.

The girl was serving the table next to him. He called her, and found he had to call twice, because his mouth was dry. She came quite readily.

“How much?”

“Egg, bacon, sausages, chips, coffee, bread and butter. That’s four shillings.”

Mr. Wetherall had two half crowns ready in his pocket and he slipped them to the girl. “Keep the change,” he said, “and tell me is there anywhere here I can telephone?”

“Through that door.” She pointed to a door in the corner, beyond the service door.

When the girl had gone Mr. Wetherall picked up his half-empty cup and sipped at the cold coffee. “I shall count to ten,” he said to himself.

Then he put the cup down, got quickly to his feet, and walked to the door. Beyond it was a passage, dimly lighted. He went along it. At the end the passage turned. To the right were some stairs, going down. On the left was a door clearly an outside door. Mr. Wetherall put his hand to the handle and uttered a prayer, which was answered. The door was not locked. It led out into the car park.

As he went through it and closed it behind him, he thought he heard footsteps coming along the passage he had just left.

There was no light at all in the car park. He could make out the shapes of lorries all about him, and he felt his way past the tailboards of two of them, and then along between the side of a third one and the wall. He felt safe in the dark. He stood whilst his breathing steadied, and he wondered if he had been behaving like a fool.

There was a long, spreading fan of light. Someone had opened the door. Then footsteps on the gravel. It was two men. They came straight out, walked to the front of the lorries and stopped a few paces away from where Mr. Wetherall was standing, squeezed between the outside lorry and the wall.

“As long as they aren’t going to move this one—” he thought.

The nearer man was Pop. He recognised his voice, without being able to hear what he said. Then, as the other man moved, his nose picked up a well-known scent. It was Parma Violet. That could mean Prince. Mr. Wetherall hardly felt surprised. If Pop was engaged in buying blackmarket food there was nothing extraordinary in Prince being one of the people selling it to him.

They were using a torch inside the cab of the next lorry but one. The murmur of voices went on. Then the cab door slammed. Pop said: “Where are you for? The Aldershot Ladies?” And Prince’s voice, quite amiable, saying: “Mind your own bloody business, Pop.” Headlights flicked on, the engine started, the lorry moved forward, swung right, right again and was gone. Pop walked slowly back and slammed the door behind him.