Vanessa de Haan - The Restless Sea

He dodges the new sentry, posted fresh this week in case of Nazi invasions. Stupid guard isn’t even looking in his direction, but the man does catch sight of Stoog, which makes Jack smile again. But the sentry can’t stop Stoog: the older boy shakes him off and is now yelling Jack’s name, and pushing past bemused gangs of dock workers. Jack begins to wonder whether he’s made the right choice. Carl isn’t going to be happy. Carl’s dad even less so.

Although it is evening, the docks are still in full swing: there is always cargo for the lightermen to deliver ashore or for the stevedores to load carefully into holds. There is such a tangle of masts and funnels, cranes and ropes that it is hard to determine what is river and what is dry land. Dockers and sailors whistle and shout to each other, struggling to be heard above the whir and grind of machinery, the bump and clatter of barges, and the splash of the water. Jack has the advantage of surprise, being the first runner, but the gathering crowd soon closes up on Stoog. Dockers don’t take kindly to outsiders. Stoog is swearing and wriggling, but he is no match for men who spend their days hauling and heaving freight.

‘Stop that bloody thief!’ Stoog is shouting. And now hands are reaching for Jack too, grasping fingers with torn, black nails, knuckles stained by tobacco. He tries to dodge, but he is tiring. He manages to pull away once more, jinking down behind the metal feet and runners of one of the large cranes and then between a stack of crates. He is alone, but it won’t be for long. His brain is working at high speed, his eyes processing in double-time. There is a wooden shack. He twists into it before his followers around the corner. It is a risk he has to take; he cannot push himself any further.

He is in a putrid darkness. The air is close, the stench makes him gag. He hears the crowd approaching, Stoog still shouting his name. His heart hammers in his chest. The footsteps draw nearer. He presses himself into the inkiest of shadows, the bile filling his mouth as the smell infests his nostrils. The door swings open and a ray of light picks out the pole suspended above the trough of muck. Jack holds his breath and shrinks into a ball. He hears the scuff of boots on the ground, senses the energy of the crowd.

Then his heart lurches. Something shifts in the gloom. He is not alone.

His companion moves to block the door, a large, impassable, barrel-chested shape.

‘There’s a lad on the run,’ says one of the pursuers. ‘You seen anyone?’

A low voice growls back: ‘Can’t a man take a shit in peace?’

Jack’s knees are seizing up, but he does not dare move. The man stands at the door, and the crowd mutters and moves away, the shadows through the slats of the shack darkening and lightening as they go. They drag Stoog with them, still kicking and biting.

Jack collapses to the filthy floor and retches.

The crowd has gone, and now the creak and crunch of the cranes fills the air once more, the sound of foremen shouting their orders and the trolleys and trucks rumbling past. The man at the door steps out into the light. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘Let’s be seeing you.’

Jack has no choice but to follow. Even though the air outside is still fetid with the stink of the river, it is nothing compared to the latrines. And now there is also the faint, sweet scent of cut wood, for Surrey Docks is a timber dock and there are planks piled in every corner, huge logs bumping and rolling against each other in the water, packed on to the narrowboats that wait on the canal, even swinging above their heads.

Jack eyes the man warily. ‘Why didn’t you turn me in?’ he says.

The man shrugs. ‘You want to watch yourself with those dockers,’ he says. There is a tear in the arm of his shirt that reveals the striking colours of blue and green tattoo ink on his skin. Great patches of sweat have stained his armpits, and even the creases of his face are ingrained with grime.

‘I can handle it,’ says Jack. ‘My dad and my brother both worked the docks.’ His legs have stopped trembling and he pulls himself up straighter, squares his chin.

‘And where are they now?’

‘Fighting the Jerries.’

‘Sorry to hear that.’

‘I’d be doing the same if I was old enough.’

The sailor shakes his head. ‘What are you? Fifteen? Sixteen? Give it a couple of years and you’ll be squeezed into a uniform too; sent off to the knacker’s like those carcasses we bring in to the Royal Docks.’

‘I’m no coward.’

‘What are you running from, then?’

Jack looks at his feet. ‘Nothing. A misunderstanding.’ He feels the weight of the bracelet in his pocket and colours.

The sailor sighs, his cap lifting as he scratches the back of his head. ‘You want to steer clear of a lad like that,’ he says. ‘He’s got a badness about him that ain’t going to lead nowhere good.’

‘Does it look like we’re friends?’

‘It looks to me like you is on the edge. One push and you’ll end up just the same.’

‘I’m different. He doesn’t want me working here, but that’s what I’m doing from now on.’

‘I ain’t talking about working here, boy. Just as I ain’t talking about signing up to another man’s war. I’m talking about freedom. Changing your destiny. Choosing your own path. I’m talking about the ships.’

‘Ain’t that just swapping one uniform for another?’

The man roars with laughter, youthful eyes bright beneath his tattered sailor’s cap. ‘I don’t mean the Navy, boy. You want to be a merchant seaman. No one telling you what to do except for your own kind.’

‘But I ain’t never even been on a boat.’

‘Ent nothin’ to it. Listen.’ The man leans closer. ‘I was like you once, except I had no ma or pa, not a penny to my name. I slept in ditches and drains until I was eight, and then I found myself a berth. Now I’ve sailed to every country you can think of and plenty you can’t. I’ve seen wonders you’d never imagine: beasts of the ocean, castles in the sky, men that breathe fire, women what change shape. I’m free to work when and where I want. Hell, I’ve even got me own stash of gold.’

And he laughs and his great jaw opens, and Jack can indeed see the yellow metal glittering in the back of his dark mouth.

Jack shakes his head. ‘There’s my mum, my sister …’

The man is suddenly serious again, urgent. He thrusts his face right up against Jack’s, and Jack can smell the tobacco on his breath. ‘I can see you’re a brave lad,’ he says, ‘but it takes a proper kind of bravery to turn your life around.’

Then he puts his head back and laughs again, moving away as he does.

Jack catches sight of something in the sailor’s hand, winking and blinking in the sunlight. ‘Oy!’ he says, snatching at the bracelet. ‘That’s mine.’

The sailor holds the jewel out of reach. ‘No wonder you was running,’ he says. ‘It’s a fine piece …’

Jack blushes, ashamed, but the anger is a stronger emotion, and he lunges again, grabbing the bracelet from the man’s hand and backing away.

The man grunts, as if satisfying some inner itch. ‘Perhaps it’s too late already,’ he says. ‘You’s in too deep.’

Jack doesn’t want to listen any more. He has inched far enough, and now he turns and stumbles away from the latrines, slipping back among the dock workers, those men with the same worn and weary expressions as his father. He keeps his head down, cap pulled low, occasionally throwing a glance back over his shoulder, but the gold-toothed sailor has vanished into the maelstrom of the docks.

A little further on, he finally reaches his destination. Carl nods a curt hello. He is shorter and stockier than Jack, and he keeps his hair shaved close, which makes his neck look thicker and his shoulders broader. ‘What’re you doing here?’ he says.