The Restless Sea. Vanessa Haan de

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ the floor while others blindly follow each other, staggering from one foot to the other, unsure which way to run. People fumble for their gas masks, trying to remember the drill. The straps pinch and catch at their hair; the rubber digs into their faces; the horrible smell fills their nostrils.

      The crowd takes on a life of its own and surges towards the Underground, sweeping everything before it, pushing aside anything that will not join the plunging wave. The girl in the pale-green coat is caught up in the rush. She stretches out for her luggage, but it has scattered and she is knocked one way and shoved another and then swept along for a little while, all the time trying to reach back with a pale hand for her bags. The policeman is too busy trying to calm the uncalmable to notice that the girl has been swept up by the hoodlums he had his eye on. Now her bags are lost, but at least she has been carried on the tide to the safety of the Underground.

      The siren wails through the empty station. The concourse is a mess of scattered things. Luggage is strewn across the floor like flotsam, bags split open, a favourite teddy has been trampled, the newspapers have toppled to the ground, the thick headlines declaring war smudged and smeared by a myriad of shoes. The ticket seller cowers beneath his desk. The guards and porters have disappeared. The only sign of life is a group of naval ratings who have remained on their platform and are being lined up by a young officer. The officer issues his instructions and smooths his impeccable uniform. The boys do not take their eyes off him, drawing confidence from his easy manner, the authority borne of fine breeding and education. They form neat rows of bell bottoms and white-topped caps. The officer calls out another command, and this time the words echo clearly across the silent emptiness. The wailing has stopped.

      The alarm is a mistake, a faulty air-raid siren. The station begins to fill up as people return to search for their lost companions, their abandoned luggage. Soon it is as if the concourse never emptied. The ticket seller clambers up from the floor, dusting the dirt from his trousers and resetting his cap upon his head. A new customer bangs at the window while the people behind him jostle for their original positions in the reformed queue. The policeman has long lost his intended targets. No doubt more will be along any moment. Pickpocketing is as much a problem today as it has always been in these crowded places, and the chaos of a war is not going to help matters. He spies the girl in the pale-green dress grappling for her bags and goes to help, his hand resting on his truncheon, his chin sweaty beneath its strap. Together they count the bags. None is missing. Now another figure emerges from the crowds, small and bird-like beneath a thick fur stole – the only one to be seen in such weather. The girl reaches out to her mother, and the policeman summons a porter to place the bags on a trolley, then touches his helmet in farewell as the porter relays the lady, the girl, and their luggage towards the sleeper for Inverness, skirting around a jumble of bicycles, freight, prams and trunks.

      The sleeper is already at the platform. Men are rubbing cloths over its black and maroon paint. The girl and the lady search for the correct carriage. Further along the same platform, the young naval officer is ushering the ratings into the dining car, the only carriage with any space left. The boys chatter and laugh as they jostle for a seat until the officer reminds them that they are representing His Majesty’s Naval Service, and they stifle their smiles behind their hands. Three pregnant women heave themselves into another carriage. A child cries, snotty hiccups that she tries to blow into a handkerchief. A toddler holds her other hand, sucking bleakly at his free thumb. Passengers already on the train lean out of the windows, hands grasping like sea anemones for a last touch of friends and family. One of them is the girl in the pale-green dress, but the woman she has left on the platform has already issued a brief goodbye and turned on her heel, and there is nothing to do but retreat reluctantly into the safety of her compartment.

      There are fewer people on the platform now, more guards and porters in their dark-blue uniforms, polished buttons and cap badges glinting. The doors slam and slide. The guard blows his whistle, and there is the whoosh of steam, and slowly, slowly the train starts to move. A woman with puffy red eyes runs alongside, trying to catch a glimpse of a friend or child slipping away. A guard manages to grasp her by the shoulders and hold her back. Someone screams, but the sound is drowned out by the train’s whistle. The carriages jerk forward, away from the confines of the hot and crowded station and out into the warm light. In the dining car, some of the boy seamen are already resting their heads against the windows, eyelids drooping, while others play cards or elbow each other and giggle when they think no one is looking. Their officer adjusts his tie and then runs a finger over the golden wings stitched on to his sleeve and smiles to himself. In the sleeper berth, the girl in the pale-green dress runs her hand over the starched white sheets and sighs. Outside, London begins to slip by faster and faster as the train gathers speed, past narrow gardens and rows of houses, the sun reflected in their windows, making it seem as if the city is on fire.

       CHAPTER 1

       Jack

      The boys tumble out of the station and on to the streets, laughing as they go. It is warm out here, but the air is fresh, and they enjoy the feel of the sun on their skin and the space to move away from the crowds. They follow the tallest of the boys, Stoog, a skinny, athletic-looking lad with hooded eyes and a pent-up energy like a coiled spring. He hustles along a line of people waiting to go in to the cinema, knocking a man’s hat to the ground. ‘Hey! What do you think you’re doing?’ shouts the man, shaking a fist, but the boys don’t care. They laugh and run faster until they finally reach the river and stop to catch their breath.

      It is high tide. In the afternoon sun the Thames gleams amber. The boys lean over the railings and watch the ships as the water slaps at the wall below. The shimmering expanse is as busy as the crowded streets behind them. Along the opposite bank a row of Thames barges, their sails neatly furled, swing and turn together on the tide. Sturdy tugs shoulder through the flow, hiccuping black smoke as they go, while another barge tacks across the running river, her dusky red-brown sails flapping and cracking in the wind. Motorboats carve their way past dredgers. The smell of river mud mingled with coal smoke, sewage, oil and tar is as familiar to the boys as the smell of their own mothers.

      Stoog is the only one who doesn’t lounge lazily against the rails. Instead, he prowls up and down the pavement. ‘Come on, then,’ he says. ‘Show us what you’ve got.’

      The boys turn, leaning back against the metal and digging into their pockets. They casually pull out a variety of watches and wallets, a lady’s purse, a gold watch chain. Stoog nods down the line, until he reaches Jack.

      Jack keeps his hands plugged deep in his trousers. He can feel the bracelet, the smoothness of the pearls under his fingers, the cooler sharpness of the sapphire surrounded by winking diamonds. It is the most expensive thing he has ever held, more valuable than a year’s worth of wallets and watches.

      ‘Go on, then,’ says Stoog.

      Jack shakes his head, gripping the bracelet more firmly in his fist.

      Stoog steps closer. ‘Go on.’

      ‘Not this time,’ says Jack.

      ‘It’s off my patch.’

      ‘It’s not your patch. We all work it.’

      ‘You work it because I let you.’

      ‘I can work anywhere I want.’

      ‘And who’s going to sell it on for you?’

      ‘You don’t own this city, Stoog.’

      Stoog takes a step towards СКАЧАТЬ