Jeffrey Archer: Only Time Will Tell

‘Tell me about the war, Uncle Stan,’ said Harry, aware that this would keep him occupied for several hundred yards.

‘Me and your dad joined the Royal Gloucestershire Regiment on the same day,’ Stan said, touching his cloth cap as if saluting a distant memory. ‘After twelve weeks’ basic training at Taunton Barracks, we was shipped off to Wipers to fight the Boche. Once we got there, we spent most of our time cooped up in rat-infested trenches waiting to be told by some toffee-nosed officer that when the bugle sounded, we was going over the top, bayonets fixed, rifles firing as we advanced towards the enemy lines.’ This would be followed by a long pause, after which Stan would add, ‘I was one of the lucky ones. Got back to Blighty all ship-shape and Bristol fashion.’ Harry could have predicted his next sentence word for word, but remained silent. ‘You just don’t know how lucky you are, my lad. I lost two brothers, your uncle Ray and your uncle Bert, and your father not only lost a brother, but his father, your other grandad, what you never met. A proper man, who could down a pint of beer faster than any docker I’ve ever come across.’

If Stan had looked down, he would have seen the boy mouthing his words, but today, to Harry’s surprise, Uncle Stan added a sentence he’d never uttered before. ‘And your dad would still be alive today, if only management had listened to me.’

Harry was suddenly alert. His dad’s death had always been the subject of whispered conversations and hushed tones. But Uncle Stan clammed up, as if he realized he’d gone too far. Maybe next week, thought Harry, catching his uncle up and keeping in step with him as if they were two soldiers on a parade ground.

‘So who are City playin’ this afternoon?’ asked Stan, back on script.

‘Charlton Athletic,’ Harry replied.

‘They’re a load of old cobblers.’

‘They trounced us last season,’ Harry reminded his uncle.

‘Bloody lucky, if you ask me,’ said Stan, and didn’t open his mouth again. When they reached the entrance to the dockyard, Stan clocked in before heading off to the pen where he was working with a gang of other dockers, none of whom could afford to be a minute late. Unemployment was at an all-time high and too many young men were standing outside the gates waiting to take their place.

Harry didn’t follow his uncle, because he knew that if Mr Haskins caught him hanging around the sheds he would get a clip round the ear, followed by a boot up the backside from his uncle for annoying the ganger. Instead, he set off in the opposite direction.

Harry’s first port of call every Saturday morning was Old Jack Tar, who lived in the railway carriage at the other end of the dockyard. He had never told Stan about his regular visits because his uncle had warned him to avoid the old man at all costs.

‘Probably hasn’t had a bath in years,’ said a man who washed once a quarter, and then only after Harry’s mother complained about the smell.

But curiosity had long ago got the better of Harry, and one morning he’d crept up to the railway carriage on his hands and knees, lifted himself up and peeped through a window. The old man was sitting in first class, reading a book.

Old Jack turned to face him and said, ‘Come on in, lad.’ Harry jumped down, and didn’t stop running until he reached his front door.

The following Saturday, Harry once again crawled up to the carriage and peered inside. Old Jack seemed to be fast asleep, but then Harry heard him say, ‘Why don’t you come in, my boy? I’m not going to bite you.’

Harry turned the heavy brass handle and tentatively pulled open the carriage door, but he didn’t step inside. He just stared at the man seated in the centre of the carriage. It was hard to tell how old he was because his face was covered in a well-groomed salt-and-pepper beard, which made him look like the sailor on the Players Please packet. But he looked at Harry with a warmth in his eyes that Uncle Stan had never managed.

‘Are you Old Jack Tar?’ Harry ventured.

‘That’s what they call me,’ the old man replied.

‘And is this where you live?’ Harry asked, glancing around the carriage, his eyes settling on a stack of old newspapers piled high on the opposite seat.

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘It’s been my home for these past twenty years. Why don’t you close the door and take a seat, young man?’

Harry gave the offer some thought before he jumped back out of the carriage and once again ran away.

The following Saturday, Harry did close the door, but he kept hold of the handle, ready to bolt if the old man as much as twitched a muscle. They stared at each other for some time before Old Jack asked, ‘What’s your name?’

‘Harry.’

‘And where do you go to school?’

‘I don’t go to school.’

‘Then what are you hoping to do with your life, young man?’

‘Join my uncle on the docks, of course,’ Harry replied.

‘Why would you want to do that?’ said the old man.

‘Why not?’ Harry bristled. ‘Don’t you think I’m good enough?’

‘You’re far too good,’ replied Old Jack. ‘When I was your age,’ he continued, ‘I wanted to join the army, and nothing my old man could say or do would dissuade me.’ For the next hour Harry stood, mesmerized, while Old Jack Tar reminisced about the docks, the city of Bristol, and lands beyond the sea that he couldn’t have been taught about in geography lessons.

The following Saturday, and for more Saturdays than he would remember, Harry continued to visit Old Jack Tar. But he never once told his uncle or his mother, for fear they would stop him going to see his first real friend.

When Harry knocked on the door of the railway carriage that Saturday morning, Old Jack had clearly been waiting for him, because his usual Cox’s Orange Pippin had been placed on the seat opposite. Harry picked it up, took a bite and sat down.

‘Thank you, Mr Tar,’ Harry said as he wiped some juice from his chin. He never asked where the apples came from; it just added to the mystery of the great man.

How different he was from Uncle Stan, who repeated the little he knew again and again, whereas Old Jack introduced Harry to new words, new experiences, even new worlds every week. He often wondered why Mr Tar wasn’t a schoolmaster – he seemed to know even more than Miss Monday, and almost as much as Mr Holcombe. Harry was convinced that Mr Holcombe knew everything, because he never failed to answer any question Harry put to him. Old Jack smiled across at him, but didn’t speak until Harry had finished his apple and thrown the core out of the window.

‘What have you learnt at school this week,’ the old man asked, ‘that you didn’t know a week ago?’

‘Mr Holcombe told me there are other countries beyond the sea that are part of the British Empire, and they are all reigned over by the King.’

‘He’s quite right,’ said Old Jack. ‘Can you name any of those countries?’

‘Australia. Canada. India.’ He hesitated. ‘And America.’

‘No, not America,’ said Old Jack. ‘That used to be the case, but it isn’t any more, thanks to a weak Prime Minister and a sick King.’

‘Who was the King, and who was the Prime Minister?’ demanded Harry angrily.

‘King George III was on the throne in 1776,’ said Old Jack, ‘but to be fair, he was a sick man, while Lord North, his Prime Minister, simply ignored what was taking place in the colonies, and, sadly, in the end our own kith and kin took up arms against us.’

‘But we must have beaten them?’ said Harry.

‘No, we didn’t,’ said Old Jack. ‘Not only did they have right on their side – not that that’s a prerequisite for victory-’