Free Onyx City (The Lazarus Longman Chronicles Book 3) by P. J. Thorndyke

caught Kovalev eyeing the paper as he stuffed it back into his jacket pocket. “Just some light reading somebody recommended,” Lazarus told him.
    Kovalev’s only reply was a slow nod.
    The identity of the thief was never revealed, but items stopped disappearing from the workshop. The following day Kovalev approached Lazarus during one of their tea breaks. He had purposely set himself apart from the rest of the group as they smoked their cigarettes and pipes and enjoyed one of the last warm days of the year before autumn fully set in.
    “So, what do our friends in the Socialist League have to say about us dockers?” the Russian said in a low voice.
    “Oh, the Commonweal?” Lazarus replied. “I’m not really in with them, you know.”
    “Who are you in with then?”
    “I haven’t made up my mind yet. Just trying to hear all sides and develop an informed opinion.”
    “You seem remarkably wise for a dock worker, I hope you don’t mind my saying. Why are you here and not in some job more suited to your education?”
    “I am afraid I am something of a charlatan. I have no formal education. I grew up in Stepney and my father taught me to read and write. All else I learned on my own. I joined the military and after I got wounded in the Soudan I had to make do back home without a penny to my name.”
    “Much like myself,” said Kovalev. “I come from Smolensk. Literate, but not highly educated. Education speaks nothing for a foreigner here anyway. I could have been a clerk or a banker in my own country. Here I am barely trusted to carry a crate without dropping it.”
    “My countryman’s distrust of the foreigner is despicable,” Lazarus agreed.
    “As are our respective countries’ abandonment of the soldiers who protect the lazy bourgeoisies. To fight for one’s country, only to face starvation and unemployment upon return is disgusting. And even the jobs that are available are little more than slavery. Dangerous and poorly paid. There was a boy here last month who lost his leg when it was crushed by a derrick with a faulty knot. And all he got for his agony was a dismissal. Now he is a cripple on the street. The rest of us, we brave the dangers and the long days for our fivepence an hour because we must.”
    “And we’re the lucky ones,” Lazarus said. “I pass the call-on crowd every day. Most of them would sell their mother for an hour’s work.”
    “Aye, and the work dries up as soon as a vessel is delayed by a storm. There’s no stability.”
    “Surely there must be some way for us to get organized,” said Lazarus, “like the tailors or the gasworkers.”
    “Trouble is that no one union is large enough to stand up to the masters. There’s a general laborers union over at Tilbury Docks led by Ben Tillett, and there’s the Amalgamated Stevedore’s Protection League, but if there’s to be strike action then the unions have to talk to one another. But anarchists disagree with Social Democrats. Jew disagrees with fellow Jew and goy alike. They call themselves union-this and united-that but who is to unite all these unions?”
    The whistle blew for them all to get back to work.
    “Listen, you seem like a sharp fellow,” said Kovalev. “If you’re really interested in all this strike talk then I can introduce you to a few fellows in a club I’m a member of.”
    “Really? That would be very welcoming of you.”
    “What about your friend?” He indicated Mr. Clumps with apprehension. The mechanical was hanging around, waiting for Lazarus to rejoin the workers. “Has he got a mind of his own?”
    “Don’t be fooled by him,” Lazarus said. “He’s a simple fellow but has a good heart and more brains than he lets on. He’s kosher.”
    “Phossy jaw, wasn’t it? That’s what I heard at least. Thought that only happened to matchstick girls.”
    “He worked in the navy factories putting together distress flares.”
    “Another example of the government’s disregard for the welfare of