Give Us This Day (35 page)

“Well, then, ‘tis none o’ my bizness, is it?”

“Yes it is. You’re a shareholder, the same as everyone sitting round this table. And in any case, you’ve always kept your end up down there and I’d appreciate your opinion. Say whatever you’ve a mind to say.”

Bickford frowned, slowly massaging the side of his long, thin nose with his forefinger. “Well an’ good, Mr. Chairman. Well, yer’s what I have to say. Time was when my Uncle Hamlet was called upon to haul a circus lion all the way down the Exe Valley and put Swann on the map doin’ it, as some of you might remember. I was only a tacker at the time but I can tell you this: Uncle Hamlet woulden have coaxed no lion into one of they bliddy contraptions. That old rascal would’ve been running free on Exmoor yet if Uncle ‘Amlet hadn’t had a waggon an’ team back of him.”

It was enlistment with the opposition, but George welcomed the comment for all that. It relieved the unbearable tension and went some way towards liberating successive speakers, inhibited by the bluntness of Godsall and Rookwood. Markby was for the gamble, pointing out that the reputation of Swann had been built on innovation and conceding George’s claim that a fleet of sixty waggons, designed for heavy traffic, would give them an impressive start over every other haulage firm in the country. “A twopenny-ha’penny carrier on my beat has already captured the Whitby fish trade with one of those light vans,” he said. “As time goes on we’ll have to face up to stiffer and stiffer competition, not only with other hauliers but with the railways. I’ve got word they’re talking about putting in two-tonners at Darlington, and one or two of the bigger distribution centres up north. I say let’s take the plunge and be done with it!”

Young Edward took the same line although, operating in hilly country west of Offa’s Dyke, he had the same claim to neutrality as Bickford. He had read the brochure three times, he said, without benefit of private discussion with his brother, and it seemed to him, a new boy among them, that the entire future of haulage lay with power-propelled vehicles. He sat down, blushing, but then, against probability, Jake Higson came down on the side of caution, and so did young Wickstead. Not because either of them doubted the long-term prospects of motor haulage, but solely on grounds of expenditure. A cheaper scheme with the emphasis on experimentation should be considered, they said, for the virtual wiping out of the central reserve fund would leave every region at the mercy of a bad winter, of the kind some recalled in the past when half the roads in the country turned to slush, river valleys overflowed, and an impossible strain was put on teams, waggons, and waggoners.

Clinton Coles, speaking for Ireland, took a characteristic line. An inveterate gambler, he was for immediate expansion, but his support did not mean as much as it might have done. Careful consideration had been given to the Irish terrain and there was far less competition over there than in the other regions, even in Scotland north of the Tay and in North Wales, where one-man carriers were thick on the ground.

When everyone had had their say, including half-a-dozen comparative newcomers who had nothing new to contribute, George asked Godsall to frame his amendment during a lunch break and put it when they reconvened at one-thirty. He did not join them for the usual convivial session at the old George Inn, judging it best to leave them to argue among themselves over their beer and beef sandwiches. Instead he took himself off to his tower, having no stomach for food but carrying his brandy over to the embrasure where he had a clear view of the Thames, shimmering in summer heat that seemed to slow the passage of the tugs and barges shooting London Bridge. He no longer felt like a schoolboy holding a blotched exercise but like a general facing incipient mutiny, and he longed with all his heart for his father’s counsel. It was here, he supposed, in every cranny of the ancient chamber where Adam had spent half his life, but he was too bewildered and too tired to locate it. His mind grappled with the verdict resulting from a show of hands. Markby, Edward, and Jack-o’-Lantern were all he could count on. Plus, possibly, two or three of the newcomers, who had little to lose and were still sufficiently awed by his father’s ghost to vote for his successor. Seven, more likely six, facing the landslide of hardheaded experience and prestige set in motion by Godsall, Rookwood, and Higson, men whose support he desperately needed. It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough. His father said he would win through in the end and so he would, he supposed, when it became obvious to every child in Britain that the horse would follow the longbow and the three-decker warship. But by then he would have lost his headstart and all a switch-over would mean would be a jockeying for position among the nation’s leading transporters. He was not interested in that kind of campaign.

* * *

Godsall’s amendment, promptly seconded by Rookwood, was lucid. It proposed a scaling down to ten Swann-Maxies, placed at carefully selected depots in favourable terrain, and limited the maximum expenditure to twenty thousand. After a two-year period the whole position could be reviewed. If the figures were encouraging he would withdraw all his objections. George saw the real sting was in the tail of his speech, however, when he said: “Thus restructuring of the entire network will be avoided, for what is this proposal but a return to regionalism? Do any of us want that, with all the wasteful rivalry it entailed in the old days? Let any power-driven vehicles we put into commission prove to us they can run independently of the horse. Don’t let us set ourselves up as a target for a Punch cartoon, with lame-duck vehicles pulled home by horses, the way half of them are as yet.” He sat down and when George did not immediately rise, he said, “I take it you’ll exercise your right to reply, Mr. Chairman.”

“No,” said George, “I won’t. Not out of pique but because I’ve said all I have to say in that brochure. We’ll take the amendment. All in favour?”

Three hands went up at once, those of the proposer, seconder, and Jake Higson. Two others followed more reluctantly, Bickford’s and Luke Wickstead’s. Then five of the six new men voted in Godsall’s favour, a total of ten. Markby, Young Edward, Clint Coles, and Coreless, one of the new men from the Polygon area, stood with George. Dockett, for reasons best known to himself, abstained. The amendment was carried, ten votes to five, with one abstention.

They broke up without the usual jocular exchanges. The tension of the meeting carried over into adjournment, but Godsall approached him looking troubled and said, “No hard feeling, George? I only spoke out of my deepest convictions.”

“That’s your privilege,” George said, “but you’re wrong, for all that.”

“I’m not that much of a gambler,” Godsall said. “We’ve all come a long way since the ‘sixties and for most of us it was a hard, uphill pull.” Then, hands in breeches pockets, he lounged off without stopping to confer with his supporters and in ten minutes all but young Edward had gone.

Edward said, falling into step with his brother as he crossed the yard to the tower: “I wouldn’t take it that hard, George. Ten Maxies will prove your point in less than two years, won’t they?”

“It’s not the same, lad. The Gov’nor saw what I was driving at. It’s Swann’s loss that they couldn’t or wouldn’t.”

“Will you be catching the train at London Bridge now?”

“No. Someone from the Midlands is waiting to see me. He wrote for an appointment four days ago and I told him I couldn’t see him until after conference. He’s only in town for the day.” He took a card from his pocket. “
‘James L. Channing. Birmingham Castings’
. Have we ever hauled for them?”

“No,” Edward said, promptly, “but I’ve heard of them. Steel people, working exclusively on Government contracts.”

George smiled, his first smile of the day. “You’ve got the Gov’nor’s memory,” he said. “Tell him how it went, will you? And say Gisela and I will probably be down for the inquest on Sunday.”

“I’ll do that, George,” and he plodded off, with that curious Sam Rawlinson gait of his, deliberate, square-toed, vaguely aggressive, and George thought,
He’ll be a big man in this outfit before long. Bigger than any of us, I wouldn’t wonder.
He turned to climb the steps to the turret, having been warned by a clerk that James L. Channing, whatever he sought, had already been appraised of the end of the conference and shown up to the eyrie. It was unusual to receive customers up here nowadays, but George had no stomach for the main office, with its clutter of clerks and chatter of typewriters, for the story would be all round the yard by now. The New Broom had taken the beating of his life. The wheelwrights and the farriers could breathe again. The turret drew him as a source of respite.

Two

Snailpath Odyssey

H
e was a tall, angular man with piercing grey eyes that gave George an impression of intense seriousness calculated to reduce the most frivolous to instant sobriety. The kind of man who would stand no nonsense from anyone, who could quell a riot by simply standing there. Very erect, superbly self-contained, and resolved to be accepted at his own high valuation. A man of authority and integrity, seldom, if ever, caught off guard. He said, civilly, “Your business is completed, Mr. Swann? You can spare an hour?” George said he was at his disposal and apologised for keeping him waiting. There was only one visitor’s chair in the turret so George motioned him to it, taking his own seat behind the desk with his back to the light. It gave him a marginal advantage and Channing was clearly a man in whose presence one looked for such advantages.

“Then I won’t waste your time, Mr. Swann. It was courteous of you to receive me at a time when you were obviously fully extended. Birmingham Castings would not mean anything to you as we have never done business, but you will have heard of us, no doubt. We are a firm of armourers, engaged with Government contracts. Naval mostly, but we do some commissions for the army. I know your firm rather better, of course. It has an enviable reputation.”

His precise manner of speaking was disconcerting, particularly after a heavy day, so that George thought, I was
a fool to let the appointment stand… This joker will want action and immediate decisions and I’m not in the mood to break new ground…

But the man plucked at his curiosity and he said, “Good of you to say so, Mr. Channing. What can I do for you, if anything?”

Channing’s thin lips twitched. It was probably as close as they ever came to a smile.

“Probably nothing. You were represented to me as my sole remaining hope. By a mutual friend, I might say, Gideon Fulbright. Your father, I believe, hauled for Fulbright over a long period. He seems to hold your father in great esteem, Mr. Swann.”

“Most customers did. But my father has retired, Mr. Channing.”

“So I understand.” Surprisingly he broke off and shifted his searching gaze to the belfry.

“This tower was his office?”

“For forty years. He started here in the ‘fifties and never cared to leave it.”

“Interesting,” Channing said and it was more than a formal comment. But then, with shattering directness, “I probably know a great deal more about Swann-onWheels than you know about my undertaking. I understand you are putting motor transport into commission.”

“A limited number of vehicles, largely for experimental purposes,” George said, more and more baffled by the man, “but none are on the road as yet.”

“I see.” He paused, placing the tips of his slender fingers together, flexing them rhythmically and breaking contact so that George saw it as a self-energising gesture, almost as though it was a means of lubricating the brain. “My business would hinge on that. Would you be prepared to tell me, in strictest secrecy, how far you are advanced in the field?”

“I don’t mind telling you. As a matter of fact, it’s generally known in the trade. I have two vehicles ready to run up in Manchester. Another eight will be commissioned later in the year. I planned a fleet of sixty but my associates are not prepared to commit the firm to that extent. That’s what we’ve been discussing all day.”

He could not have said why he was unburdening himself to a total stranger, and a very unforthcoming one at that, but it slipped out and somehow, in the oddest way, it comforted him, enlarging the area of communication between them. There was something about Channing that suggested he was in the presence of another pioneer, another gambler even. Someone who, like George, was not only able to drive himself but would back himself into the bargain and that down to the last halfpenny in the petty-cash box. He said, “Might I offer you a brandy and a cigar, Mr. Channing?”

“Thank you, Mr. Swann. That’s very civil of you,” Channing replied.

George busied himself with the drinks and while he was pouring, and reaching into the back of the cellarette for the cigar box, he heard the rustle of stiff paper. When he turned Channing had spread a draughtsman’s tracing on his desk. “There’s my problem, Mr. Swann. It could be yours, too. In passing, are you able to identify it?”

“It looks like part of a gun turret. For a heavy calibre gun, I’d say.”

“Thirteen point five. The largest they fit. It’s not strictly a turret. It’s the cupola, the crown of the mounting, and I am bending the rules more than somewhat by showing it. However, I can hardly ask you to haul something of that nature two hundred miles without returning the confidence you have extended to me. That drawing, one could say, represents the biggest single humiliation of my professional life. You see, I’m here in the capacity of a supplicant, Mr. Swann, but my pride and reputation might yet be salvaged. With your help. Your good health, Mr. Swann,” and he raised his glass and emptied it without seeming to move his lips.

George picked up the drawing and studied it carefully, a three-dimensional sketch of a squat, wedge-shaped block measuring, at a rough guess, twelve feet across and six feet in height.

“What’s its overall weight, Mr. Channing?”

“Without mountings? Something in excess of six tons. That’s confidential, of course.”

“You’re asking me to haul a six-ton load two hundred miles by a power-driven vehicle? That’s impossible, Mr. Channing, even over the flat.”

“But you have two such vehicles. Would it be at all practicable to couple them?”

The idea was revolutionary. Even George Swann had never contemplated coupling Maxies in an attempt to double their thrust. But was it so unthinkable? With some kind of platform to take the bulk of the strain linked to the sources of power. A flat-car, coupled between two railway box cars?

He said, “Give me a minute, Mr. Channing. Enjoy your cigar,” and took a sheet of foolscap drawing paper from the pile he had used for mapping the new network.

For five minutes or more he was sketching, drawing freehand but using the ruler to calculate the overall length of the fanciful cavalcade. The maximum load of Scottie Quirt’s prototype was around three tons but, as ever, that hinged on gradients. To drag a load like that up a one-in-eight slope was out of the question, even with a six-horse team of Clydesdales in support. It was a challenge of a kind he had never faced before, and it went against the grain to resist it, but only ignominy and danger to man and vehicle could result from a jaunt of that kind. He threw his pencil aside.

“If it was a five-ton load I’d risk it. Six is one over the odds, Mr. Channing.”

“Can you tell me why? In layman’s language? I’ve had no personal experience of power-driven transport.”

George explained why. It was a simple matter of engine thrusts and gradients. “I could risk hauling around two tons in excess over the flat, but you couldn’t climb with that weight at your back. You would need vehicles with caterpillar wheels and even then it would be a chancy operation. Where does it have to be hauled from and to?”

“From my foundry, in Bromsgrove, to the naval yard, Devonport.”

“Why can’t it go by rail?”

Channing was silent. Finally he said, sourly, “I wouldn’t be here, throwing myself on your mercy, Mr. Swann, if every other means had not been considered and rejected. The Admiralty, very properly, won’t cooperate. Why should they? The original section that this will replace was delivered and fitted, then found to have a twenty-three-inch fissure. It was my product, personally guaranteed by me. To get it to the nearest port, Avonmouth, would require a longish rail haul and no railway will handle it. It’s not a question of weight, you understand, but rather of width. There is up-traffic to be considered and lines would have to be cleared over the entire journey. The Government can arrange that on special occasions, but it requires two months’ notice. In fact, that’s our regular route. For the replacement, however, I have just one week in hand, Mr. Swann.”

“Why is it so urgent?”

“The ship is due to begin trials on the twenty-second of the month. The flawed part has already been stripped and discarded.”

“Couldn’t its replacement be fragmented?”

The lipless mouth twitched. “You may be a pioneer in motor-transport, Mr. Swann, but casting a gun-mounting of that size and quality is even more specialised. I’ve been at it, one way and another, since I was a boy apprentice in ArmstrongWhitworth’s workshops. If it could be done, and reassembled on board, I assure you I wouldn’t be here begging favours. Any haulier worth his salt could get it to Devonport piecemeal.” He rose and slapped his gloves, a gesture of resignation. “Thank you for giving me your time, Mr. Swann. It isn’t as if I was a long-standing client of your firm.”

“Don’t go, Mr. Channing.”

A thought occurred to him, emerging from the jumble of the past where mental lumber rooms were crammed with network trivia. Two or more years ago he had watched carpenters at work on a ditched Goliath in the old Polygon headquarters, at Salford. He remembered them using a crane to fit the huge central beam into its sockets and hearing how the Goliath, hauling an ill-secured generator into Rochdale, had fouled an archway and held up traffic for two hours on the main Manchester road. A Goliath, specially braced, could support a six-ton load, providing it was professionally bedded-down. But it would need, he would say, a team of a dozen horses, with post changes every ten miles or so to drag it over that distance. No waggoner, however experienced, could control a string of that size over two hundred odd miles of tortuous English highway from Warwickshire to the Tamar. Everything could happen and everything probably would. The team could become unmanageable in medieval streets, heavy with traffic and presenting any number of right-angled turns and bottlenecks. In the history of the network no vehicle had ever set out from base with more than seven horses in the traces. Yet the memory of that long, lean Goliath persisted. Somewhere, in this jigsaw of factors, there was a place for it, and his imagination conjured up a vision of an improvised cavalcade, a horseless Goliath, sandwiched between two Maxies, one pulling, one pushing from behind. He took up his Atlas and opened it at the two pages portraying the Midlands and the west.

“When you came to me, when you thought the haul might be possible. Did you have a road route in mind, Mr. Channing?”

“I did indeed.” He took a slip of paper from his wallet and passed it over. It was not a map but a list of place names with notes alongside. Bromsgrove, Worcester, over the Severn at Tewkesbury, Gloucester, down the Severn estuary to Bristol, north of the Mendip slopes to the flat, negotiable country around Bridgwater, due west through the pass between the Quantocks and the Blackdown Hills. Then on to Exeter and the right bank of the Exe, and thence, hugging the coast, a probe for practical gradients across what George thought of as the udder of Devon to Plymouth Sound. It was possible, given minute planning and any amount of luck, with himself and Scottie Quirt at the wheels, and Young Edward following on with the steadiest Clydesdales they had in the stables. It might be achieved, with outriders and civic co-operation in every town they traversed, but progress would not average more than five miles an hour. Say, sixty miles a day. And again given extraordinary luck. A four-day haul, leaving him three to make his preparations and join Scottie in bringing the Maxies from Manchester to Bromsgrove. Time could be saved by borrowing a Goliath flatbed from the nearest Swann depot—Birmingham, no doubt.

He said, trying to keep the excitement from his voice, “You wield some sort of Government authority. Could you get me an hour’s clearance through places like Worcester, Tewkesbury, Bridgwater, and Taunton? That’s imperative with a haul of this kind. We might—might, I say—manage on the open road, and I’ll plan a route bypassing every impossible gradient. It would mean extra mileage, of course, but given cooling-off time we could run from dawn to dusk.”

“I can get clearances,” Channing said. “We’ve done that before in emergencies by appealing to the local Chief Constables. Plus a certain amount of wire-pulling, I might add. The mountings could go by rail. But I can’t get that overall load below six tons.”

“That’s a risk that has to be taken, and I’ll take it. My pride is involved, too, Mr. Channing. Only today my associates as good as told me I’m living in a dream world on their money, and this challenge is tailor-made for a man in my situation. Get those clearances. Send on the mountings, and have tackle ready to load the turret on to a waggon I’ll have on your premises by this time tomorrow. I can’t guarantee the time schedule as yet. It depends on how long it takes to strip excess weight from my two motor vehicles and get them down from Manchester. Probably Wednesday, to be ready to move out on Thursday.” He paused. “I’d be right glad of your company, but I can’t risk passengers.”

“I’ll be on hand,” Channing said. “Good day to you, Swann.” And then, glancing round the octagonal room, “Fulbright was right about your firm. ‘Adam Swann,’ he told me, ‘would haul away the dome of St. Paul’s if he was given a free hand and a guaranteed contract.’ We’ve said nothing about mileage rates.”

“How can we? Until my father has been consulted as to routeing, I couldn’t calculate it to the nearest fifty.”

“Then your father still has a say in things here?”

“No. He just happens to know every bridlepath between here and the Grampians.”

He went down the turret steps behind Channing. The yard was closing down, and the skeleton night shift were lounging about the weighbridge hut at the Tooley Street entrance. “There’s one other aspect, Mr. Channing. Publicity. Is that out of the question, having regard to the nature of the haul?”

“I don’t see why. The cupola will ride under laced tarpaulins, I take it? I might even be able to help in that respect. We have a useful relationship with some sections of the national press.” He looked at his watch. “I should be able to catch the six-forty-five from King’s Cross.”

He clamped his tall hat on his head and moved across the yard to his waiting cab, a tall, angular bird, who moved like a heron searching a river margin for the next meal. George stood a moment, deciding the priority of his consultations. He could be in Tryst in just over the hour, spend two hours with Adam, and still catch the express north by midnight. Gisela would have to wait for a wire telling her he would be absent for upwards of ten days. It wouldn’t bother her overmuch. There had been many times of late when his dinner had gone cold and been fed to Laddie, their labrador.