Free These Dark Wings by John Owen Theobald Page A

What’s that like to you?’
    I inhale deeply, playing along. The air is pungent, heavy.
    ‘Nutmeg,’ I say. ‘Like Christmas.’
    Timothy Squire nods. ‘Spice docks.’
    Other smells too. Sulphur and char. He then proceeds to tell me all about the warehouses, the wharves, the nearby rail lines and power stations. Further east, the Woolwich Arsenal, the Ford Motor Works, the Beckton Gas Works. Not a word about where the passenger ships are docked.
    I have been here before, even visited the Tower. I was very young, and hardly remember anything about it. One thing I do remember, though, is the river, up close. It was not like this, thick with ships and smoke.
    In my mind, the water is quiet and calm, leading out to the North Sea. It seemed impossible that it could have harmed Father. Impossible that it could have killed him. Then why are you so afraid?
    ‘When Dunkirk was on, you should have seen it,’ comes Timothy Squire’s voice. ‘Everything that could float. Destroyers, paddle steamers, sloops. More ladders than you ever saw, hanging over the sides of each ship. Everyone down here was making ladders.
    ‘Then the barges came, and the small boats, red, blue, yellow – fishermen and crabbers, some of them never been off the river. Headed to France to pick up the army. Mad, isn’t it? At second tide they all left – it was about as dark as it gets in summer, but you could see them clear, just a block of boats, filling the river. Still, no lights or any noise, hoping the Germans wouldn’t know they were coming.
    ‘It was like the Spanish Armada,’ he says, breathless. ‘They brought back thousands – tens of thousands – of soldiers. The Germans kept on bombing them as they headed home. Everywhere ships burning and sinking. Imagine it.’

    Clumps of people fill the alleys. Refugees maybe, or poor children who had been evacuated and drifted back to London. Yeoman Brodie said there are more refugees every day: French, Czech, Polish, Dutch. Everyone looks lost, strange.
    Everywhere ships burning and sinking.
    The flats are small, poorly made. The abandoned ones look the same as those with people in the windows. We pass a large black man, and some people not speaking English. A new, unnameable smell hangs heavy in the cold air.
    ‘We’re near the coloured quarter, Jews and Indians too.’
    I nod. I know that once the war started, aliens had to move away from the coast – had they all come here? I remember too what Mum said about ‘class feeling’. During war, we’re all the same. We still don’t look the same, though. Mum always said not to be narrow-minded.
    Lonely fires burn themselves out. It is amazing how slowly all the clearing up is done.
    ‘It’s nice to be out,’ I say instead.
    Timothy Squire gives me an odd look, perhaps guessing my lie, and I immediately ask, ‘So you spent your whole life here?’
    ‘’Course.’
    ‘Do you like it?’
    ‘Like it? Sure.’ He frowns. ‘Not Frederick. Or Malcolm – or anyone from class. Or any of the Warders, the old bores. It’s brilliant, though. And with Elsie and the NAAFI girls here now...’
    ‘Elsie?’
    But he is already walking down the wharf.
    ‘Come on,’ he says.
    We get free of the docks, and once again I recognize things: the post office, newspaper and cigarette shops. I can smell something delicious – the smell of frying.
    ‘Look at this,’ he says in awe, standing over a clump of silver. He gestures for me to pick it up.
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘You’re a bright spark, have a guess. Go on. Give it a go. It’s why we’ve come.’
    Not certain he isn’t teasing me, I reach down and grab the clump of metal. Cold, and only jagged on one edge, it’s some piece of shrapnel; I’m not listening to the lengthy explanation. The silver reminds of something else, something I am foolish enough to have forgotten until now. Even if I could sneak off to the docks and find a ship bound for Montreal, how would I pay