Tales of London's Docklands (17 page)

The Tilbury-to-Gravesend steam ferry,
Rose
, approaching Gravesend town pier, 1950s.
(Author's collection)

‘“It cost us twenty quid just the same,” I pointed out.

‘John winked and said, “We'll have to put that down to wetting the babies' heads, won't we?” and laughed.

‘He was a fine fellow and a good mate was John,' George said softly. ‘And I never placed another bet in my life.'

The ship's gang had been silenced by George's tale, and they sat for some minutes before continuing their round of cards, spellbound as Bert and George walked off along the dock quay, heading for the public house known to all dock workers as the top canteen.

15

O
LD
D
AVE AND THE
S
COTCH
W
HISKY
I
NCIDENT

O
ld Dave, as he was universally known in the docks, was in his mid-60s. He had been a docker since leaving the Royal Navy in 1919, almost forty years earlier. He was close to the state retirement age of 65. That meant nothing to dockers in those days, simply because the state retirement pension was totally inadequate for working-class people to live on. Neither was there a contributory works pension scheme for registered port workers that could produce extra funds to augment the derisory state benefit. Therefore, apart from being relegated to a ‘B' man's status (the over-65 ‘A' and ‘C' men who had their fall-back guarantee reduced from eleven turns to four turns each week till they left the industry), the old fellow could go on offering his services on the free call to ship workers and quay foremen all eleven turns each working week until the day he died – and like most of them, he did.

Dave was a veteran of the First World War and it showed. He had never enlightened anyone as to which branch of the Royal Navy he had served in, but it was obvious from his perpetually nervous state that it had been dangerous. He was always on edge, fraught and shaky. Nevertheless, he was a lovely old man in every way, the sort of chap anyone would wish to have as a grandfather. (I hasten to add that my own grandfather was of the same benign disposition. They were both Mr Pickwick-type characters.

Dave wasn't very tall, about 5 feet 7 inches, but he was rotund. He was not obese, just nicely rounded. Only when he removed his cap, which wasn't very often when he was working, could one see he was bald on top. The bald part, which was shiny and red, looked as if it had been waxed, and the grey hairs that circled his cranium, almost from eye to eye, gave the top of his head the appearance of the sun rising through a grey morning mist when he bent down. Well, at least it did to me.

Dave was a docker of the old school, a quietly spoken man, when he spoke at all, which wasn't very often. He always came to work wearing a dark suit with a waistcoat, in the pocket of which he sported a silver watch. The watch was attached to a silver chain and an Albert, which was anchored in place to a buttonhole in the waistcoat. In his lapel would be a flower, which he removed on the quay and let gently fall into the dock each morning. No one ever asked him why he did that. Nor did he ever volunteer to tell. Whatever his reason, it was something personal. A ritual.

Dave was on the Port Authority ‘A' list of dockers – that is, dockers who were allocated to jobs by the Port Authority labour master from the Dock Labour Board compound. (They were not to be confused with ‘A' ‘B' and ‘C' category dockers as listed for work purposes by the Dock Labour Board manager; those men did jobs that had not been manned by perms.)

Old Dave and I had been sent to work with a freight-striking gang. Striking gangs were made up of eight men, six to push handheld wheelbarrows and two to load the barrows with cases, cartons or other packages. Our gang had been assigned the job of striking freight from rail trucks. The rail trucks carried mixed loads of cartons and cases all of sizes, shapes and weights destined for various Australian ports as cargo on a P&O liner. Dave and I were given the job of breaking out the freight and loading the hand-propelled barrows for the men who would remove the struck goods from the rail trucks into their respective bays in the transit shed. The scene is now set.

We removed the tarpaulin covers from of the rail trucks, folding each one before we cleared the freight. Then, having removed the cases and packages, we put the folded tarpaulin cover back in each truck. We had progressed down the shunt, having unloaded about a dozen trucks before the mid-morning tea break. We had struck some 40 tons of dead-weight cargo – a large proportion of the goods were lightweight cartons and cases, of little value to us as we were paid by the dead-weight ton. Then we came to a truck of Scotch whisky, Black Label. Old Dave's eyes lit up.

‘I could do with a drink,' he said. They were the first words he had spoken all morning.

‘There's about 300 cases here.' I replied. ‘Help yourself.'

‘How do I get one open?'

‘Christ, Dave! You've been working here for forty years. Surely you must have learned something. Do what the customs openers do. Get your hook under the steel bands with a chock of wood and stretch them. Then push your knife blade under a slat to ease the nails up. Put the chock between the slat and the end of the case and give it a couple of taps with your hook to ease the nails out of the end of the case. Pull the nails out with your hook, slide the wooden slat out, and help yourself.'

‘You do it,' he said. I did.

He took a bottle of whisky out of the case with trembling hands, unscrewed the cap and took a long draught. His old eyes lit up like stars, and he smiled a rare smile.

‘I've never been able to afford this stuff on the wages I've earned in the docks. This Black Label is a lovely drop of stuff. It's beautifully smooth, like Chinese silk. I get a half-bottle every Christmas from my children. Here,' he said, ‘try a drop.' He offered me the bottle.

‘It's not for me, Dave. A cup of tea or a glass of milk is my tipple. Anyway, I think you've had enough.'

I was about to take the bottle from Dave's hands and replace it in its case when the lead wheelbarrowman came into the rail truck. Dave went deadly pale. We loaded six cases of Scotch onto the wheelbarrow and the trucker hurried off at speed.

‘Holy Mary!' said Dave, who was a Roman Catholic. ‘The Port Authority Police will be round here in a few minutes. Do you know who that bloke is?'

‘Yes, that's Turner,' I replied.

‘Yes!' Dave repeated. ‘He's a police informer. He'll shop us. What shall we do?'

I said nothing, but stepped out of the truck and lifted the running board from out of the doorway to stop the other barrowmen entering.

‘Urinate in the bottle, Dave. Be as quick as you can. Fill it up.'

‘Do what?' he said.

‘Piss in the damn thing, you silly old sod!'

‘Oh! Right!'

He did as I asked him, but he was shaking like a leaf on a tree in a high wind.

‘That will look more like a bottle of bloody cocktail than a bottle of whisky by the time you've finished with it,' I said. ‘For Christ's sake, give me the bottle.'

I took the bottle off him, replaced the screw top, then ran my gloved hands over it to remove any prints, placed it back in its case and nailed the slat back into position. I then turned the case over, put the point of my hook in between the steel bands and turned it to tighten them. I hurriedly jumped out of the rail truck and replaced the running board so the barrowmen could enter. I put the broached case of whisky on the top of the next barrowload of cases. All this action went on while Old Dave just stood where he was, rooted to the spot. He was as stiff as a tailor's dummy, and more scared than a rabbit. It didn't help matters when I quipped, ‘We could get six months for this.'

‘Do you know who it is Turner reports to?' he said. ‘It's that copper they call the Red Cap. You know, that bloke who the lads say served in the Military Police during the last war. He's a really nasty piece of work; he acts as though he's still in the army; he'll turn this place upside down when he gets here.'

Of course, I had to laugh. ‘Good luck to him, Dave,' I said. ‘He'll have his work cut out. Let's hope he doesn't find the only warm bottle in the consignment.'

‘What do you mean?' he said.

I smiled and winked at him, ‘You work it out, Dave,' I told him.

When the next wheelbarrowman came into the truck I said, ‘I'll take this set for you, Charlie. You can give Dave a hand loading up while I'm away. I've got to go to the toilet.'

Charlie must have known something was wrong. There wasn't a toilet within a quarter of a mile, but he kept quiet, took my hook and helped Dave load my barrow.

I set off, pushing the wheelbarrow with six cases of whisky which I took straight into the warehouse lock-up. I had to pass a HM Customs watcher, who had a key to the lock-up where the whisky was being stored till shipment, and the receiving clerk, who was tallying the cases as the barrowmen went past him. When I got to the stowage I pushed the set up against the existing stacks, took the broached case off the barrow I had just brought in and put it several tiers further along the stowage. I walked out of the lock-up and left the barrow by the customs watcher. I jokingly asked him to keep an eye on it till I came back from the toilet. Then I quickly made my way back to the rail truck and told Charlie to collect his barrow from outside the lock-up.

I had hardly arrived back to help Dave load the next barrow when a Port Authority Police car arrived carrying the Red Cap and one other, a bloke I had never seen before. The two of them walked quickly along the freight-striking bank at the back of the transit shed. They looked in the rail truck we were working. The Red Cap glared at Dave and me but said nothing. He walked up to the customs watcher and whispered something, then went to the receiving clerk. The Red Cap took the tally sheet and looked down it.

‘Where is the break in the number of barrowmen?' he asked the clerk.

‘What do you mean?' was the reply.

‘When they went from six to five.'

‘Just there.' The clerk pointed to a spot on the tally sheet.

‘How many cases is that?'

The clerk counted, then said, ‘Fifteen sets.'

‘How many cases of whisky is that?'

‘That's fifteen times five, times six, that equals 450 cases.'

‘Right,' said the Red Cap. ‘I want those last 460 cases weighed.'

‘You'll have to get the shed foreman's authority to do that,' said the clerk.

‘Then go and get it,' replied the Red Cap.

‘You get it yourself,' replied the clerk. ‘I'm not leaving this consignment. It's more than my job's worth.'

‘Then don't let any more cases into that lock-up till I get back,' he said, and walked off to the shed foreman's office.

He soon returned with the foreman, who ordered the gang to fetch a set of scales and weights. They did, and then discreetly vanished. All of them.

‘There you are,' said the foreman. ‘Now, if you want the last ninety cases weighed, you can do it yourself.'

‘Get the freight-striking gang to do it.'

‘What striking gang? They've all disappeared till you've cleared off. You don't expect them to stand around waiting for you to implicate them in a charge of pilfering, do you? It's like asking men to dig their own graves before shooting them. But you would know more about that than me. Besides, I'm not paying double handling money on the say-so of an informer, especially that one.' He nodded towards Turner, who was the only one of the gang in sight.

‘Are you refusing to help the police in the execution of their duty?' the Red Cap said, assuming the threat might change the foreman's mind.

‘Cut out that crap to me,' said the foreman. ‘I've got a ship waiting to load out there.' He waved his thumb towards the dock. ‘Neither the customs watcher nor the receiving clerk has reported anything damaged or tampered with. If you want the cases weighed, get on with it. Turner will help you.'

Between them, the Red Cap, his sidekick and Turner weighed each of the ninety cases of whisky. Of course there was no shortfall in the weights. If looks could kill, Turner would have dropped dead on the spot. Not because he had passed on duff information, but because he had not reported how the loss of weight in the case had been made up. The Red Cap knew full well he had been made a fool of. He came to the rail truck we were working in. I had told Old Dave to clear off till they were gone.

‘Right,' said the Red Cap. ‘I know you lot have had a drink. You had better be on your toes because I'll have you.'

‘Yes, right!' I said. The Red Cap and his sidekick walked off, got in the police car, and drove away.

The striking gang reappeared as if by magic. It was obvious they had had a drink or two, or maybe three.

‘Have you lot been over the pub while this shindig's been going on?' I asked. All I received in reply were some broad smiles and rows of beer- and tobacco-stained teeth.