Tuppence to Tooley Street by Harry Bowling Page A

directed to, and it opened into a hall where a few people were sitting around on wooden benches. A weary-looking individual sat at a desk at one end of the room and he sighed as Danny presented him with his papers. Once the preliminary questions were over, the young ex-serviceman was told to take a seat and wait.
    ‘Got a snout, mate?’
    Danny looked at the elderly character next to him and shook his head. The man turned his attention to the floor, hoping there would be an odd discarded cigarette butt lying around. The green linoleum offered nothing to his watery eyes and he turned back to Danny. ‘Goin’ fer a job, then?’ he enquired in a squeaking voice.
    Danny was about to say that he wasn’t waiting for a tram when he saw something in the elderly man’s face. The pale blue eyes were dull, and the lined, unshaven face looked thin and trouble-worn. The stranger’s expression was apathetic and seemed in keeping with his general appearance–his shoes were down-at-heel and his clothes were shabby. Yet there was something else, there was a friendliness about his face, and Danny swallowed his hard words. ‘I’m signin’ on fer work. I’m just out o’ the Kate.’
    ‘I was in the last turn-out,’ the man replied. ‘Nineteen I was when they sent us ter France. I got gassed. Still get the wheeziness sometimes. Me doctor said I should pack up the smokin’, but I told ’im straight, yer gotta die o’ somefink.’
    Danny smiled and looked up at the metal rafters in the high ceiling and at the poster-covered walls. One poster showed a ship sinking with the words ‘Careless Talk Costs Lives’ emblazoned over it. Another poster showed an air-raid warden wearing a gas mask and there was a list of instructions about what to do in the event of a gas attack. Another poster was headed ‘Conscientious Objectors’. The poster was too far away for Danny to be able to read what was said below the heading, but his thoughts turned to Ben Morrison. He would probably be at the tribunal by now.
    The elderly character had managed to scrounge a cigarette and came back grinning. He lit up and was immediately racked by a fit of coughing. When he had recovered sufficiently he wiped his eyes on a dirty handkerchief and nudged Danny. ‘’Ere, son, if the bleeders offer yer work at the lead mills, turn it down. I was there fer six months. It nearly finished me, I can tell yer. What wiv the stink an’ the ’eat, I lost over a stone in weight. Can’t afford ter lose that much, can I? My ole woman reckons I’m so skinny, I’ve gotta be out in the rain fer ages before I get wet. Me doctor told me ter go on oats, porridge I mean. Trouble is, me ole woman ain’t much of a cook. She made us some this mornin’ an’ it looked like bloody cement. When I come ter fink of it, it tasted like bleedin’ cement as well!’
    ‘Mr Daniel Sutton!’ a voice called out, and Danny looked up to see a bespectacled man beckoning from an open doorway.
    ‘Good luck, son,’ his new friend spluttered between fits of coughing as Danny got up from the bench.
    The small office contained a desk, a filing cabinet and little else. More posters adorned the walls: grinning workers staring out from behind machines, their toothpaste smiles looking maniacal to Danny as he glanced at them. The wording urged everyone to join the struggle for victory. The official told Danny to take a seat and he himself sat down at the desk with a loud sigh. When he had made himself quite comfortable he took off his glasses and proceeded to polish them on a large white handkerchief. Finally satisfied, he put them back on and addressed himself to the papers on the desk.
    Danny felt an immediate dislike for the man. He slumped down in his chair and glared. The official began his routine by first resting his elbows on the desk and tapping the tips of his fingers together, next he put his thumbs against his forehead in a display of deep concentration and started a low humming. Danny