As the Crow Flies

The following Saturday morning I asked Granpa for a couple of hours off.

“Found yourself a girl, ’ave you? Because I only ’ope it’s not the boozer.”

“Neither,” I told him with a grin. “But you’ll be the first to find out, Granpa. I promise you.” I touched my cap and strolled off in the direction of the Old Kent Road.

I crossed the Thames at Tower Bridge and walked farther south than I had ever been before, and when I arrived at the rival market I couldn’t believe my eyes. I’d never seen so many barrows. Lined up in rows, they were. Long ones, short ones, stubby ones, in all the colors of the rainbow and some of them displaying names that went back generations in the East End. I spent over an hour checking out all those that were for sale but the only one I kept coming back to had displayed in blue and gold down its sides, “The biggest barrow in the world.”

The woman who was selling the magnificent object told me that it was only a month old and her old man, who had been killed by the Huns, had paid three quid for it: she wasn’t going to let it go for anything less.

I explained to her that I only had a couple of quid to my name, but I’d be willing to pay off the rest before six months were up.

“We could all be dead in six months,” she replied, shaking her head with an air of someone who’d heard those sorts of stories before.

“Then I’ll let you ’ave two quid and sixpence, with my granpa’s barrow thrown in,” I said without thinking.

“Who’s your granpa?”

“Charlie Trumper,” I told her with pride, though if the truth be known I hadn’t expected her to have heard of him.

“Charlie Trumper’s your granpa?”

“What of it?” I said defiantly.

“Then two quid and sixpence will do just fine for now, young ’un,” she said. “And see you pay the rest back before Christmas.”

That was the first time I discovered what the word “reputation” meant. I handed over my life’s savings and promised that I would give her the other nineteen and six before the year was up.

We shook hands on the deal and I grabbed the handles and began to push my first cock sparrow back over the bridge towards the Whitechapel Road. When Sal and Kitty first set eyes on my prize, they couldn’t stop jumping up and down with excitement and even helped me to paint down one side, “Charlie Trumper, the honest trader, founded in 1823.” I felt confident that Granpa would be proud of me.

Once we had finished our efforts and long before the paint was dry, I wheeled the barrow triumphantly off towards the market. By the time I was in sight of Granpa’s pitch my grin already stretched from ear to ear.

The crowd around the old fellow’s barrow seemed larger than usual for a Saturday morning and I couldn’t work out why there was such a hush the moment I showed up. “There’s young Charlie,” shouted a voice and several faces turned to stare at me. Sensing trouble, I let go of the handles of my new barrow and ran into the crowd. They quickly stood aside, making a path for me. When I had reached the front, the first thing I saw was Granpa lying on the pavement, his head propped up on a box of apples and his face as white as a sheet.

I ran to his side and fell on my knees. “It’s Charlie, Granpa, it’s me, I’m ’ere,” I cried. “What do you want me to do? Just tell me what and I’ll do it.”

His tired eyelids blinked slowly. “Listen to me careful, lad,” he said, between gasps for breath. “The barrow now belongs to you, so never let it or the pitch out of your sight for more than a few hours at a time.”

“But it’s your barrow and your pitch, Granpa. ’Ow will you work without a barrow and a pitch?” I asked. But he was no longer listening.

Until that moment I never realized anyone I knew could die.

CHAPTER

2

Granpa Charlie’s funeral was held on a cloudless morning in early February at the church of St. Mary’s and St. Michael’s on Jubilee Street. Once the choir had filed into their places there was standing room only, and even Mr. Salmon, wearing a long black coat and deep-brimmed black hat, was among those who were to be found huddled at the back.

When Charlie wheeled the brand-new barrow on to his granpa’s pitch the following morning, Mr. Dunkley came out of the fish and chip shop to admire the new acquisition.

“It can carry almost twice as much as my granpa’s old barrow,” Charlie told him. “What’s more, I only owe nineteen and six on it.” But by the end of the week Charlie had discovered that his barrow was still half-full of stale food that nobody wanted. Even Sal and Kitty turned up their noses when he offered them such delicacies as black bananas and bruised peaches. It took several weeks before the new trader was able to work out roughly the quantities he needed each morning to satisfy his customers’ needs, and still longer to realize that those needs would vary from day to day.

It was a Saturday morning, after Charlie had collected his produce from the market and was on his way back to Whitechapel, that he heard the raucous cry.

“British troops slain on the Somme,” shouted out the boy who stood on the corner of Covent Garden waving a paper high above his head.

Charlie parted with a halfpenny in exchange for the Daily Chronicle, then sat on the pavement and started to read, picking out the words he recognized. He learned of the death of thousands of British troops who had been involved in a combined operation with the French against Kaiser Bill’s army. The ill-fated exchange had ended in disaster. General Haig had predicted an advance of four thousand yards a day, but it had ended in retreat. The cry of “We’ll all be home for Christmas” now seemed an idle boast.

Charlie threw the paper in the gutter. No German would kill his dad, of that he felt certain, though lately he had begun to feel guilty about his own war efforts since Grace had signed up for a spell in the hospital tents, a mere half mile behind the front line.