William Monk 09 - A Breach of Promise

hearing his teeth clatter. “Where?”
    “France! They’re gorn ter France!”
    Monk knew what that would be for. From there they would be shipped to God knows where: the white slave trade.
    “When?” He slammed the man back against the wall. Heregretted it instantly. He could have knocked him senseless, even broken his neck; but then he would be able to tell him nothing. “When did they leave?”
    “Yest’y! They went down to the docks … Surrey Docks … yest’y night.” He thought he was staring death in the face. “They’ll go out on the afternoon tide terday.”
    “Ship?” Monk demanded. “What ship? Tell me you don’t know and I’ll send your teeth out through the back of your neck!”
    “The
S-Summer Rose,”
the man stammered. “So ’elp me Gawd!”
    Monk dropped him and he slid to the floor, lying there sobbing for breath. Monk turned and ran from the room, out across the dripping yard and along the alley overhung with creaking boards and sagging half roofs onto the wider, crooked street. He had about an hour and a half before the tide. He would like to have gone home and changed into respectable clothes and collected some more money, but there was no time.
    He stopped on the narrow pavement. It was beginning to rain. Should he go right or left? Where was the nearest thoroughfare where he might find a hansom? Would he even get one in the rain? He had very little money left. Not enough to bribe anyone. It was a good three miles to the docks, even as the crow flies, farther on foot with all the twists and bends of streets. He had not time to go on foot, even if he ran, not and still search the docks for one ship, and that ship for two frightened girls, possibly kept below decks and bound.
    He turned towards the river and ran down the next alley and into another broader street. There were drays and carts in it, and one closed carriage. No hansoms.
    He started to swear, then saved his breath for running.
    Perhaps along Upper Thames Street, the closest one to the water, there would be cabs. It was too far! He needed to hurry. They would have to make a detour around the Tower of London.
    He stood on the curb waving and shouting. No one stopped. They all splashed by in the harder and harder rain, going complacentlyon their way. He started to run eastwards. Queenhithe Dock was a little ahead of him. Stew Lane Stairs were to the right.
    A long string of barges was pushing downriver, making slow way. The tide had not turned yet, but it would be slack water soon.
    Barges! On the river!
    He charged across the street, colliding with a costermonger’s cart, extricating himself with difficulty amid an array of curses from several passersby. He yelled an apology over his shoulder and sprinted down Dowgate Hill and along the narrow cut down to the stairs just as the last barge drew level. He yelled, waving both his arms, signaling the barge to slow down.
    The bargee must have thought it was some kind of warning. He eased a little, dropping back all the weight that his ships would allow. It was enough for Monk to run and leap. He barely made it. Without the bargee’s frantic help he would have fallen back into the icy water. As it was, he was soaked from the waist down and had to be hauled sodden and shaking onto the deck.
    “Wot the ’ell’s the matter?” the bargee demanded.
    “Got to get to the S-Surrey D-Dock!” Monk stuttered, shaking with cold. “Before the tide …”
    “Missed yer ship, ’ave yer?” the bargee said with a laugh. “Yer’ll be lucky if they ’ave yer. W’ere yer bin? Some ’ore’ouse up Devil’s Acre? Gaw’ lummy, yer look like ’ell! Wot ship d’yer want, mate?”
    “S-Summer R-Rose!”
Monk found he could not control the shaking.
    “That ol’ bucket! Yer’d be better missin’ it, believe me.” The bargee bent his back and pushed harder on his heavy pole, steering with almost absentminded skill.
    Monk debated for a few moments whether to tell the man the truth or not. He might help … he might not give a damn. He might even make his own extra money in the trade.
    They were passing under London Bridge.
    He was weary of lying. He hated being tired and cold and filthy, and pretending he was something he was not.
    “They’ve taken two girls to sell in France, or wherever they send them after that.”
    The bargee looked at him curiously, trying to read his face.
    “Oh, yeah? What are they ter you, those two girls, then?”
    “Their father died and