Trinidad Street (62 page)

He paused and looked round. Alf Grant was still there, but he was staying at the edge of the crowd, his arms folded across his chest, silent.

‘Stuff going back to work!’ came a voice from the crowd.

‘Yeah, we want our eightpence a bleeding hour!’

The rumble of agreement swelled. They were all with him, but Will could feel the initiative slipping away. He had to shout louder to get them back again.

‘That’s right, that’s just what they said. And friends, you got a chance to say the same.’

Now they were listening again. He felt a huge exhilaration. He had them. They were hanging on every word. He cast his eyes over them, pulling them in. He spoke with clear emphasis.

‘Do you know what else Ben Tillett said, friends? He said it was the dockers’ own fault if they couldn’t get more than a rotten penny an hour more. Those were his very words. Our own fault! Because he don’t believe that we’re ready to back him. He don’t believe we’re ready to come out on strike and demand our rights. Tell me, friends, are
you
ready?’

All around him a great shout of assent went up. It raced through Will’s blood like strong liquor. He spread out his arms to quieten them down. Now was the moment.

‘Then you got to show him. Show Ben Tillett what you’re made of. This very evening, there’s a meeting at West Ham, a meeting for every docker in the union. This is your chance, friends. This is when you can say what you think. You got a right to tell ’em, and got to use that right. The gov’nors ain’t going to give way on this, friends. We got to show ’em we mean business. We got to show ’em this evening. I’m going to West Ham. My dad here’s going. What about you, brothers? Are you going to have your say?’

There was a roar. They were with him, every one. Will was borne up
by it, the concerted power of all these men. He felt ten feet tall. He was a giant. He could fly. He waved his clenched fists in the air.

‘
Eight
pence!
Eight
pence!’ he yelled above the shouting.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Alf Grant and the other foreman disappearing into the safety of a transit shed.

The men took up his chant. Will jumped down off the box and the men parted to let him through. With his father at his shoulder, he strode towards the gates. The men fell in after him, still chanting, and they all marched out of the docks, the leader and his army. Will had at last found something to fill the hole Siobhan had left in his life.

‘You should’ve seen it. It was wonderful, flaming wonderful. You ever been to Trafalgar Square, girl?’

‘Once,’ Ellen said.

It had been with Harry, on a cold winter’s evening almost unimaginable in today’s stunning heat. She remembered the lights reflecting in the waters of the fountains, and the great lions, and the way she and Harry had laughed at the pigeons landing on the head of a woman foolish enough to encourage them with seed.

‘. . . As far as you can see,’ her father was saying. Ellen dragged her attention back to the present. This was important, what her father was telling them. He and the other men had just come back from a mass rally in the square.

‘Hundreds and hundreds of men – dockers, lightermen, stevedores, carmen, tugmen, sailing bargemen, ship repairers, coalies, deal porters – every trade you can think of what works in the port. They was all there. And the banners – you’d’ve liked the banners, all bright colours and silk embroidery. Beautiful. And the bands. I tell you, it brought a lump to my throat, it did, seeing us all there. We are the people, you know. We’re what England’s all about, not the King, nor the bloody government, nor the Army. It’s us, the working people. We are something. And do you know, I think a lot of us knew that today. We knew we counted.’

Ellen nodded. She understood what her father meant.

Martha said nothing. Ellen guessed that she just wanted to hear the outcome of the meeting. But her father was too full of the day’s events to give it away. Flushed with heat and triumph, he was spinning the tale out, savouring every moment as he relived it.

‘We got ’em on the run now. Sir Albert Rollit, him what was arbitrating for the men working on the overseas ships, he decided for us. Said we should be paid eightpence and a shilling. You should’ve
heard the cheering! Rang round the square, it did. I reckon they could’ve heard it at Buckingham Palace.’

‘So you got it, then? Got what you was asking for?’ Martha said.

The men would be going back to work in that case, and the worry about rent and food would be over.

‘Ah no, not all of us. Just the men on the overseas trade. Clever, see? Keeping us divided, hoping we’ll fall out and squabble amongst ourselves.’

‘No port rate, then?’ Ellen said.

‘That’s it, girl, no port rate, and not a word about union recognition, neither. And nothing for the coalies or the lightermen. So do you know what happened?’

Both women shook their heads. There was no stopping Tom now. They were required to be a sympathetic audience.

‘Harry Gosling, he tells us as how this is a test case for the Federation, how the gov’nors’ll be expecting us to take what’s offered and go back to work. He says we got to stick together and support each other until the job is finished.’

‘Just what you been saying,’ Ellen commented.

‘That’s right. And all them men, from all them trades, including the ones what have been granted the eightpence and a shilling, they all agreed with him. When it was put to the show of hands, they all voted to stay out until everyone’s got what they are rightfully due. It was a wonderful moment. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. I was so proud of ’em. All them hands so straight and determined, all them men willing to stay out till we won the day. I could’ve cried, honest to God I could. This is a turning point, just you wait and see; a turning point in the history of the docks. The men have found the way to make themselves heard at last.’

When Ellen left a little later to see if Gerry had arrived home, she found that the whole street was buzzing with the news. Nearly all the men who were employed in dock work had been to the meeting, and the women had been awaiting word of the outcome. Now they were gathered in small groups, chewing it over.

It was another sweltering day, and what with that and the uncertainty over the strike, tempers were getting short. It gave Ellen an uneasy feeling, walking the short stretch of pavement to Alma’s house. At her parents’ place, she was at one with the strikers; it was her family right in the heart of it. But once she went back to Alma’s it was not the same. Gerry was unaffected by the stoppage, as plenty of his customers worked in the myriad manufacturing trades of the East End, and
Alma’s job at the Rum Puncheon was still going, despite the fact that the men no longer had drinking money. For the time being, it was going on the slate, and the temperature and the idle hours made for good custom. Ellen had the impression that people fell silent as she passed and that the eyes following her were not altogether friendly. She pretended she had not noticed. She nodded and spoke to people as she went by, refusing to believe that those she had been brought up with would turn against her just because she was not directly affected by the strike. All the same, she was quite relieved to reach the safety of the house and put the front door between herself and the street.

Later on in the day, an amazing piece of news reached them. All over the docklands, the women were coming out on strike and marching round the streets encouraging others to join them. In Millwall, the workers were leaving the great food-processing factories and demanding a better hourly rate. Most exciting of all, at Maconochie’s the ringleader was said to be Daisy.

The whole street turned out to welcome the girls home. Tired and sweaty but euphoric, they arrived back, still headed by the triumphant Daisy. Ellen fell on her sister and hugged her.

‘I always said you’d make a union leader.’

Tom patted her on the back. ‘You done wonderful, girl. Wonderful! I’m that proud of you.’

Basking in the glory, they all went to Ellen’s for tea, since she was the only one who still had food on the table.

Gerry returned home to find a full house.

‘Mum gone?’ he asked, seeing nothing but various Johnsons.

‘Yeah, she went in early. Percy’s busy up the Puncheon today, what with the girls coming out and all. Chalk on that slate’s going to be a mile long at this rate,’ Ellen said.

‘He won’t have no beer to sell soon. They’re saying up the market the breweries have only got three more days’ hops and four days’ coal.’

This really did silence them for a moment.

‘Blimey,’ Wilf Hodges said at last. ‘We thought we’d run short of food, but we never thought we’d run out of beer.’

‘Food’s getting blooming ridiculous,’ Ellen said. ‘There’s hardly anything up the West Ferry Road, not fresh stuff, and what there is is a dreadful price.’

‘You shouldn’t buy nothing what’s more expensive than usual, girl,’ her father told her. ‘That’s profiteering, that is. Making money out of the working man just because there’s shortages. Shopkeepers ought to be shot for lining their own pockets at a time like this.’

He turned to Gerry. ‘What’s it like up in Poplar now the carmen are out, eh? Made a difference, I’ll be bound.’

‘Made life blooming impossible, that’s what,’ Gerry said gloomily. Though he did not dare say so in front of his father-in-law, he thoroughly disapproved of the strikes. They interrupted trade something dreadful.

‘Good, good. I knew it would. Do you know how many men are out now? Sixty thousand! Sixty thousand men all refusing to work.’

‘River’s at a standstill,’ Jack said. ‘I went down and had a look this morning. Not a ship nor a barge nor hardly a skiff moving. I never seen nothing like it.’

‘Don’t forget the women an’ all,’ Daisy put in.

‘I ain’t forgetting, girl. That was real brave of you, that was. We’re all proud of you.’

‘They say there’s troops standing by,’ Gerry said.

‘What? Who says?’

‘Up the market, they’re saying it. Soldiers, supplies and forty army motor lorries, all ready and waiting to drive into the East End and go down the docks.’

‘I tell you something, they won’t get past us. We’ll stand up to ’em.’

‘Oh, Tom.’ Martha was moved to protest at last. ‘Oh, Tom, you won’t go facing soldiers, will you? Not that. Leave that to –’ She stopped herself just in time, but they all knew what she meant to say –
leave it to the younger men
.

‘If a job’s got to be done, it’s got to be done.’

‘What do they need to send the Army in for, anyway?’ Ellen asked.

‘London’s starving, girl. You said it y’self. Ain’t nothing fresh in the shops. And the stuff in the docks is stinking to high heaven. Ain’t you smelt it, all the stuff left in the sheds and on the ships? Rotting away in this weather, it is.’ Tom spoke with relish. ‘We might not have no money left, but London’s got no food and no coal and the carmen are fighting on every corner.’

‘You’re telling me,’ Gerry said. ‘You should see ’em. Anyone comes along in any sort of cart, a dray or a flatcart or a van, the strikers jump up and drag the driver off and cut the traces.’

‘Hooray!’ cried Daisy. ‘That’s the stuff!’

Teddy and Jess joined in, cheering and clapping, and the rest of the family laughed. They were all in it now, and they were going to win. Only Gerry remained silent.

It was not until all the Johnsons went off home that he ventured to say anything.

‘I don’t think your dad and his mates know just what they’re doing,’ he told Ellen.

‘Of course they do,’ Ellen said, loyal to the last.

‘You ain’t seen them carmen at work,’ Gerry went on. ‘Blooming madmen, they are. Won’t let a thing through. If this goes on much longer, I’m not going to have anything left in the lock-up to sell.’

‘Dad says it’ll be over soon,’ Ellen told him.

‘Yeah, but what does he mean by soon? There’s this bloke told me of this load of stuff going begging over Stepney. Nice stuff, he said – chinaware, tea sets, just what I need. But it’s no use if I can’t get it back to the lock-up. Someone else’ll get it and that’ll be a good bargain lost. God knows, I can’t afford to miss a good bargain. In fact, I got a mind to go over there with a pony and cart and fetch it myself.’

‘Oh, Gerry!’ Ellen thought of the tense atmosphere in the street, the looks she had been getting, how she brought in through the back way what little food she could buy. ‘Don’t you go saying nothing like that out there. They’re all of them right behind this strike. They’ll have your guts for garters.’

‘Them out there? It weren’t them I was thinking about. It’s them flaming carmen.’

‘Is it worth the risk, Gerry, just to get a bit of stock?’

Gerry looked at her as if she had spoken heresy. ‘But it’s a bargain, love!’

She sighed. It was no use even trying to deflect him when he was in pursuit of a fast penny.

‘You just be careful,’ she said. ‘And keep your mouth shut about it round here an’ all.’

‘Don’t worry, love. They’ll get the troops in soon and things’ll soon go back to normal. We’ll be all right, you and me and the kiddies.’

But that was what worried Ellen. Heaven knows, she and Gerry had had their hard times, but at last their debts were paid off and they would be all right. But the rest of the street would suffer. And that caused jealousy and resentment. Of course, she did what she could to help, slipping half-loaves and saucers of marge and twists of tea to worried mothers with young families to feed, but it was difficult when nearly the whole street was going short. She could not perform miracles. She took a look outside before she went to bed. People were still out there, even in the dark. It was still hot and nobody had to go to work the next day. To her overwrought imagination, it seemed that they were talking about her family.

The next day Maisie arrived at Ellen’s, trailing children, with little
Billy wailing feebly in her arms. Ellen sent the older ones out to play in the street and made a cup of tea, generously sugared. Maisie drank thankfully.

‘Oo, that’s lovely, that is. We run out of tea two days ago.’