him down. There was a bit of blood on his forehead, but nothing on the rest of his body except for a bruise that would blacken over the next few days. George wet his handkerchief and handed it to Tom as he motioned for him to wipe his forehead. Seeing that George was taking care of Tom, the coachman got back up on his cart and led the horse away – any delay would cost him money.
‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ George asked.
‘Yeah. It was lucky you shouted,’ Tom said as he wiped the crusting blood from his forehead and winced at the pain. ‘I would have been stood stock still if you hadn’t. That shove helped too. I avoided most of the barrel.’ He stretched his back. ‘Still gave me a bloody great thump though. I’ll feel that one in the morning, no doubt. Let’s see what else they need us to do.’
He turned to walk away, but George grabbed him by the arm.
‘We should call it a day. You’ve had a nasty bump. That could be a head injury too,’ he said, gesturing towards Tom’s forehead again.
Tom shook his head and tried to hide another wince. The smile was back again. ‘There’s nothing wrong with my head,’ he said. ‘If we’re quitting work, do you think we should volunteer?’
George let go of his arm. ‘Come on, let’s go home. I’ve had enough for one day.’
‘I’m serious.’
George wiped the smile from his face, knowing it was doing him no favours in this situation.
‘I’ve been thinking about it a lot. No matter what else I do, I keep coming back to the same thought.’
George tried to show compassion and lighten the mood. ‘I know, you haven’t shut up about it since the other day.’
At that moment the dock master ran over to them and started shouting. He was an overweight man, his belly threatening to escape his waistcoat, and his hair was balding, leaving a sweaty pate of pink flesh.
‘What the hell is going on here?’ he shouted when he had got his breath back from the run. A frown crossed his face.
‘You.’ He pointed at Tom, who was still stretching his back, visibly uncomfortable at the pain. ‘What did you do? Why are you slacking?’
Tom shrugged. ‘I’m not,’ he said. ‘The cart’s full, and we’re going back for more.’
The dock master wasn’t appeased.
‘Don’t lie to me. I heard a commotion, what’s going on? If you’ve caused any damage…’
It was at that moment that he noticed the destroyed brandy barrel. It was a wonder he hadn’t seen it sooner, the stench of brandy was strong in George’s nostrils. The dock master’s eyes widened as he took in the broken wood and the precious cargo draining away through the cobbles.
‘You damaged the cargo,’ he said through gritted teeth.
‘What?’
The dock master grabbed Tom by the collar, even though Tom was a good foot taller than him.
‘Do you have any idea how much that barrel was worth? More money than you’ll ever have.’
‘What?’ Tom said again, unsure. ‘I didn’t do anything. You’re mad.’
‘Damn right I’m mad. How are you going to pay for that?’
George moved to help Tom, but couldn’t see how without angering the dock master further. Instead he tried to calm him down.
‘Tom didn’t do anything, sir. The tail board on the cart broke and the barrel rolled off. If you ask the coachman he will vouch for us.’ The coachman wouldn’t be back for a while, but at least it might buy them some time.
The dock master turned to George, still holding Tom by the collar.
‘Who asked you? As far as I know you’re just as much to blame as this idiot is.’
Tom used that moment to break free of the dock master’s grasp. With a lurch, he pushed the smaller man away with both hands. He moved backwards and tripped over a cobble, but thanks to his low centre of gravity, managed not to fall.
‘I didn’t break the barrel, sir. In fact, it almost broke me.’ As a gesture of goodwill, Tom checked the man over to make sure he wasn’t hurt. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, my friend and I would like to get back to work. There are plenty more barrels like that that need moving and if that doesn’t get done, then I guess you’ll lose even more money.’
The dock master trembled, in shock from Tom’s shove, then nodded.
‘Fine. I’ll chase that coachman for this. But if either of you lads does anything like this again, if you put one finger where it shouldn’t be, then I will make sure that you never work anywhere on these docks again.’
He walked away, his pace slightly quicker than a walk like someone trying to escape a confrontation with an enemy without drawing attention to himself.
‘Now get back to work,’ he called over his shoulder, as if it was his idea and not Tom’s.
‘That was close,’ Tom said, grabbing George by the arm and leading him away. ‘Come on, let’s get this over and done with.’
They went back to work, but before long the conversation had returned to the war.
‘Well now, I think they’ll take me,’ Tom said out of the blue, and George rolled his eyes at him, even though Tom wasn’t paying attention. ‘They need more men, they’ll take anyone that can hold a rifle at the moment. Besides, what have I got to lose? I’ve not got much here except my old mum. It’s gotta be better than this. Anything is better than this.’ He stopped and gestured at the barrel he had been rolling towards the new cart. The previous coachman hadn’t come back.
He stretched his back and groaned at the pain. Injuries were common around the dock, and Tom was lucky it hadn’t been worse. Every week one or more of the lads working on the dock ended up in a ward, or sometimes worse: a mortuary.
George grunted. It wasn’t so much that he agreed with Tom – he resented the fact that he had only thought about his mother and not his friends – but Tom had that way of getting you to see his point of view.
George thought about Tom leaving, and about working on the dock alone. It didn’t appeal to him. They made a good team.
‘If you go, Tom, I can’t go with you,’ he said.
‘Sure you can, if that’s what you want. Why not?’
‘For a start, I’m not old enough. You have to be nineteen before they’ll send you abroad, eighteen if you just want to stay at home doing something boring.’
He saw the dock master prowling along the path and gestured to Tom to resume their work. ‘At least, that’s what my dad always told us. He’s been counting down the days.’
‘Ah, come on now, George.’ Tom shook his head as he always did when he thought George was being unreasonable. ‘If you want to sign up, they’ll take you. By the sounds of it they’ll take anyone. That old dock master over there might even be in khaki soon. You’ll see.’
They both laughed at the thought. It was a welcome relief to the melancholy that had settled on them during the day, and finally Tom was smiling again.
‘You don’t want to wait till eighteen or nineteen to go down the recruitment office. You’ll be sat twiddling your thumbs, hearing about all the heroic deeds we’ve been up to out there. It’ll all be over by the time your eighteenth birthday comes, then what’ll you do? Start another war, just so you can fight in it?’
He was poking fun at George, but the smile was so warm it was difficult not to get dragged along in his wake.
‘Perhaps I will. It’d show you.’ George thought for a moment. ‘They’ll know I’m not old enough