Major Harrison knelt down and scooped the feather-light dregs of humanity into his arms ignoring the myriad of lice that crawled onto him, he held the infant close.
‘Who found her?’ He whispered.
The rest of us had all presumed she was female. But to be honest, so horrendous was her condition; her sex was the least on the list of our considerations.
I coughed, ‘Me Sir, I found her.’
The Major straightened up, got to his feet and stood rocking her gently from side to side. She gave a feeble moan. We all held our breath wondering if she might scream at the sight of strangers: but she didn’t. She just lay there in Harrison’s arms whilst he rocked her like he was used to holding a baby.
‘She needs medical care, has anyone sent for an ambulance?’
‘No Sir, we thought, she was…,’ I swallowed, ‘we thought she was dead.’
Harrison nodded, took his charge in one arm and stroked away the matted hair stuck to her forehead. ‘She needs to be bathed,’ he whispered, ‘and given some fresh clothes.’
I nodded, turned to the others and gave them a sidelong glance. They took the hint and left the room. ‘Sir,’ I said, my voice low, ‘Shouldn’t we inform the police?’
‘Yes, I suppose we should, but someone placed her in one of our donation skips to be found by us.’ He looked up, ‘now why do you suppose they would do that?’
‘Because we care?’
‘Yes, but there has be more, do you think the donor cares too but isn’t able to show it?’
‘Possible.’
‘Yes, it’s possible. And we should inform the police, but I wonder if doing so might put that person in danger. Perhaps it would be wise to wait until she’s a little stronger and then, maybe, she might be able to tell us what happened.’
And so we did. Major Harrison took her to his home, where Beth Harrison and Glenys our shop assistant bathed and de-loused her. They dressed her in our finest donated clothes and fed her into health. Each morning, when we asked about her, the Major would smile and say how pleased he and Beth were with her progress. His only consternation was that she’d not spoken a word, nor had she cried or laughed.
After a week, he and his wife brought her to us, still unable to walk without their help but her change in appearance brought gladness to all of our hearts. He sat her on the edge of a hardwood chair, where she teetered slightly then gained her balance before dangling her thin, scab-covered legs towards the floor. She stared around the hall, her huge dark eyes resting on certain objects and each of our smiling faces: what sadness had those eyes seen, I wondered. What horrors had she endured to cause a little girl to remain mute?
‘How old do you think she is?’ I asked the Major.
‘Beth thinks four but I don’t know, she’s been through such a lot, it’s hard to say.’
‘Could she be foreign?’ asked Kelly.
‘We wondered that, so Glenys tried speaking to her in Welsh, but she didn’t respond.’
‘And I tried a bit of my schoolgirl French and German.’ Volunteered Beth and shrugged her shoulders letting us know that too; hadn’t worked.
‘Nursery rhymes,’ I shouted from the back of the hall. ‘Has anyone tried singing to her?’
And so it began. We searched our memories for childhood songs and took it in turns to sing to Sally Ann, the name we gave her for the time being, and prayed something might make her smile. But once: when we were sorting out a new batch of clothing, Kelly gave us a burst of Oranges and Lemons, and the reaction from Sally shook us. She ran to the door, opened it and before we could reach her, sped along the street. She could have been run over by a bus or anything, if Major Harrison hadn’t called back to the shop for something; and blocked her path.
‘That’s it,’ Kelly said, ‘maybe the song could tell us something about where she comes from. You know: the districts of London.’
We pulled open a map of the city and traced the areas mentioned in the rhyme, this time keeping guard on the door: we sang the song again. The words Old Bailey caused another strong reaction from the little girl, eyes wild she ran around the shop yet not a sound did she utter. The Major agreed to look into it and contacted some of our associates who worked in the area of the Old Bailey.
In the meantime, Sally’s scabs fell away one by one and her wasted little body began to fill out: we, Kelly and I had never seen the Major and Beth so happy.
The first answer to Major Harrison’s enquiries came when Sister Margaret arrived at the Hall late one Friday evening. Kelly and I were busy loading the vans with food and hot drinks for the homeless, when her rigid-peaked bonnet threw a huge shadow across the yard.
‘Good evening Sister Margaret.’
‘Good evening Kelly, is the Major around?’
Kelly nodded towards the Hall and we watched as she strode up the steps without another word. Once the vans were fully loaded and our volunteers had driven to their various directions, we returned to the kitchen to clean up for the night. We could hear Major Harrison’s raised voice and decided to linger with our duties, in case he needed us: for Sister Margaret’s tongue could be deadly at times. At length they both came into the kitchen; Major Harrison looked shaken, as though he’d been given the worst news in the world.
‘Did you two hear our conversation?’ Sister Margaret asked.
‘Only that the voices were raised,’ I told her, ‘and that the Major is upset.’
She looked at each of us in turn, then at Harrison’s grey tense face.
‘We may need a team to go on a dirty mission,’ she declared. ‘How many of your men have the stomach to do it?’
‘All my men and women have the stomach for the Lord’s work,’ blurted the Major, ‘but Kelly and Watson are my finest.’
We said later how his words filled us with pride, and although it might be considered a sin, it felt good, and so apt when we learnt the depth of the terrible circumstances we underwent.
Our mission took us to a rag-and-bone merchant’s yard, not unlike the famous Steptoe and Son’s place as portrayed on the television screens. These days the tatters preferred words like re-cycling and eco-friendly to be used in their job description and Blake, the yard’s gaffer, was no exception.
‘I’d say it was a good thing that you didn’t involve the police in this matter,’ he whispered to us as we stepped out of the car. ‘’Cos those involved have the power to squash all their lines of enquiry, if you know what I mean?’
‘So we believe,’ said the Major, ‘yet you are brave enough and willing to face their wrath?’
‘It took me a while to think it over, but now I know what they’re doing, they’ve got to be caught.’ He nodded towards his truck painted with the logo Blake’s Eco-clean. ‘Get in,’ he whispered, ‘I’ll take you to ‘em. But I warn you, it’s extremely dirty business.’
The route took us to where high-class shops with ornate railings and bull’s-eye bow windows stood side by side in a cobbled street. Blake pointed to one, ‘See that double fronted shop with its brass plates?’ We nodded, ‘well a peer of the realm owns it and he’s responsible for the state of your little girl.’
We’d been warned to observe but say nothing, no matter how incredible the news appeared. I stared at the antique furniture behind the old curiosity style shop front: and thought I could smell the bees wax in the polish. I wondered what connection expensive antiques could have with our little Sally Ann but said nothing; though I could feel the rage seething under the Major’s skin.
Back in Blake’s van he made a detour and headed out and away from the clean streets of the city and up to a large rubbish tip where he slowed down towards its huge gates. He cut the noise of the engine and coasted forward – the van’s bonnet almost touching the barrier. He flashed his beam and in the van’s headlights, I saw eyes flicker and dart away. Dogs: I thought, scavenging for scraps of cast-off food, but I was wrong. Blake pointed to another pair of eyes, then another, and soon we saw pale thin limbs scurrying over the heaps of rubbish; left by tippers in piles, ready for the daytime bulldozer to flatten.
‘God help them,’ prayed the Major and we all said amen. Waifs similar to little Sally were running from us, their scrawny legs covered in sores and when they looked behind, their eyes shone wild in the motor’s beam.
‘Ah, now you know why I brought you here – to see these kids at work.’ Blake’s laugh held no mirth, ‘I say work but they’ve known no other life. Their job is to forage the rubbish tips for anything of use,’ he turned off the ignition and looked out of the cab’s windscreen and into the still night air. ‘The aristocrat loses nightly at the casinos. He manages his debts by this slave trade, using kids smuggled in from abroad.’
‘Asylum seekers?’
‘No,’ Blake whispered, ‘the children of migrants looking for a better life.’
‘You mean somewhere in the world they live worse than this?’
He shook his head. ‘No they were conned, stripped of their belongings and hidden from the world. When Sister Margaret asked me if I knew of a sweatshop near the Old Bailey, I told her no. Then something nagged at my memory concerning the antique shop. There was a trial brought against a transport company caught filling their freight trucks with illegal immigrants. Lord ‘B’ was cited as being involved.’
‘I remember it,’ said the Major, ‘and he sued the paper for defamation of character, didn’t he.’
‘Yes, but I recall seeing the transport logo on a lorry parked up beside a mate of mine’s tanning works, that’s when I made the connection to ‘B’ as the paper’s referred to him.’
‘He employs these poor wretches?’
‘Not employ Major Harrison, abuses and exploits.’ Blake turned the engine on again, gave the throttle a rev and said, ‘now I’ll take you to the store where the poor little sods live.’
‘Why can’t we let the police know?’ I asked.
‘Because, my good man, the chief copper for this area, is a mate of ‘B’s and will whitewash the whole scene before daylight comes.’
‘But does he know what this ‘B’ is up to?’ asked Kelly.
‘Doubt it but they’re good mates and as he helped him over the smuggled refugees business, I no longer trust his word.’ As Blake drove away I looked through the rear windows and felt rather than saw the little mites resume their nightly toil.
The scene in the old warehouse outmatched anything Charles Dickens could have described. Children from five to twelve or more worked alongside a conveyor belt of scrap whilst their supervisor sat on a pile of cushions high above the floor.
Standing around a bench in the room’s corner bony little hands scrubbed lengths of timber with sandpaper held between splinter-punctured fingers; whilst others took old chairs apart, careful to save every stud, nail or tack in the process. Horsehair ready for re use, was stacked in a corner with squares of old polished leather, easily passing for antique I’d say, ready for the work of the upholsterer.
Confused and afraid by the sight of our uniforms; the watcher ran from his place and tried to escape by the back door, where Blake was ready to catch him, place his hands behind his back and render him harmless. Whether the children knew we had entered the warehouse or not, they continued doing their work without a pause.
The Major rang Sister Margaret who arrived with a squad of helpers ready to take the ragged urchins into their care. She brought the journalist with her, the one who broke the story suspecting Lord ‘B’ of slave trafficking.
‘Jason Armstrong,’ he said, holding his hand to greet the Major, he looked around the shed and his eyes rested for a moment on the whimpering throng being wrapped in blankets, unable to grasp what was happening to them. He clicked his fingers to someone waiting in the shadows, ‘I’ve brought my cameraman with me. This time our errant do-gooder won’t slip away.’
Major Harrison greeted the reporter but held up a hand toward the movie camera mounted on the photographer’s shoulder, ‘No, these poor children have been exploited enough. I’ll not have their images spread across the world’s media.’ When he saw the disappointment in Armstrong’s face he softened his tone, ‘By all means show the work they’ve been forced to do. Describe the injuries to their bodies, their state of starvation and filthy attire, but leave them some dignity; something for the future.’
‘Unless we get B, they’ll have no future.’ He nodded for his cameraman to proceed, ‘this has to go on the news tonight. I’ve a friend risking her life to bring this story to the world’s attention: she’s in the casino with a hidden camera. If the owners find it, she’ll have no future too.’ He made to stop the Major approaching the camera, ‘Please Major Harrison, we’re all in danger here.’
‘You can film the children leaving, their backs to the camera as we load them into the vans, that should be enough.’ He waited for Armstrong to agree, ‘Good, okay Sister Margaret, will you lead them to safety.’ Upon closer look, we thought that some of the little wretches weren’t children at all, but under the rags and sores it was hard to tell.
Without warning the carousel stopped and music, tinny and nerve tingling could be heard amongst the mound of cushions where the supervisor sat. We all looked up: I glanced across to Kelly and saw him shake his head in disbelief. Like the stylus of a gramophone stuck in the groove of an old vinyl record, a faint eerie voice sang out, When will you pay me? Say the bells of old Bailey, over and over again.
‘They dread that tune,’ a gruff voice in the dark uttered, ‘it informs the supervisor that the conveyor has stopped. You idiots. Don’t you realise? There is always trouble when work is halted.’ The cameraman swung round and zoomed towards the voice, his infrared dot cutting through the unlit corridor and transferring an image on the window of his camera. ‘Got’cha,’ he shouted as he moved, camera on his shoulder, into the recess and disappeared.
–
(c) 2024 Pat Barnett.
