Read Online Give Us This Day by R.F. Delderfield - Free Book Online Page B

all he could see in the gloom beyond was a tall stack of packaged cotton goods, awaiting shipment to Madras or Calcutta, no doubt. A polite voice at his elbow startled him a little.
    “Can I be of service, Mr. Swann?”
    He turned, stepped down, and faced Wesley Tybalt, sleek and tidy as a solicitor’s clerk in his dark, waisted frock coat and high cravat stuck with a gold pin. George must pay the fellow well to enable him to dress like that , he thought, remembering that Tybalt’s father had always worked coatless with slip-on sleeves to spare his shirt-cuffs. He said, casually, “No, no, Tybalt, I was only poking about, taking in all the changes you’ve made. What’s in there, for instance?”
    Wesley said, very civilly, “Long-term storage, sir. We’ve taken to locking the warehouses that aren’t in daily use. We had an epidemic of pilfering last year. Mr. George thought it a good idea, sir.”
    “It is,” Adam said. And then, “Do you get much yard pilfering these days? In my time it was limited to waggons making overnight stops.”
    “We’ve put a stop to it, sir. No reported case since just before Christmas and then we nailed our man. He’s doing two years’ hard, I’m glad to say. Can I offer you tea in my office, Mr. Swann?”
    “No, thank you,” Adam said, wondering what it was about the fellow he didn’t like, and asking himself why he found himself making an unfavourable comparison between the spruce Wesley and his fussy little father. “I’m catching the five-ten from London Bridge and merely looked in to have a word with Mr. George. The weighbridge clerk said he was away in the regions.”
    “Yes, sir, that’s so. Since the weekend, sir.”
    “Do you know where, exactly?”
    “Er… no, sir, or not since he moved on into Central. He’ll let me know, however. He always wires or telephones in when he’s away. Any message, sir?”
    “No, no message. You’ll give my regards to your father when you see him?”
    “Certainly, sir. But I don’t see a great deal of him now. I moved out to Annerley when I married.”
    “How often do you see him?”
    “Oh, whenever he looks in, sir. Are you sure you won’t take tea, sir?”
    “Quite sure, thank you. Haven’t all that much time,” and he drifted off, wondering whether the crumb or two he had picked up during the brief exchange had any significance outside his imagination. There had been that split second hesitation concerning George’s whereabouts, and a defensive narrowing of sandy eyebrows when he asked about the pilfering. Nothing much, certainly nothing to justify Sam’s comment that Wesley Tybalt wanted watching. All it might mean was that he was covering up for George’s philandering and that spelt loyalty of a sort. There was the swanky way the chap dressed, an impression that he considered he had hoisted himself a niche or two above his Bible-punching father, and one other thing that might or might not have significance: the fact that Wesley watched his progress the whole way across the yard to the gate and only slipped out of sight when he stopped to speak to the weighbridge clerk on the way out.
    “Are we busy, Rigby?”
    “On the jump, sir. Things slacked off during the celebrations but they’ve picked up since.”
    He put a spot question, striving to make it sound offhand. “Do we sub-contract to that North Country haulier, Linklater? I came across him in the old Polygon this week.”
    “Linklater? No, sir. We used to but they’ve got their own yard in Rotherhithe now.”
    “Ah. Well, good day to you, Rigby.”
    “Good day, Mr. Swann,” and he left, stumping slowly down Tooley Street in the direction of the river, but stopping opposite what had once been his favourite coffee stall, run by an ex-cavalryman with a long, facial scar, acquired, so he said, serving with the 9th Lancers, known as the Delhi Spearmen after their fine performance in the Mutiny.
    He crossed over and ordered a cup of coffee for old times’