Jooj materialized beside her, clutching a lantern in both hands close to her chest, and she nodded up at him. She whistled a quiet little coo-coo-coo. “Like that,” she said helpfully, in her tiny voice.
“I can whistle,” he said.
“Aye. You just give er, you see them damn beaks comin up,” said Millard. “Three wee quick whistles, just like Jooj ere. Got that?”
“Wait,” he said. “Why me? Why do you need me?”
Gilly looked at him like he was simple. “Oh, Charlie. Because you’s not a littler, like us.”
“A littler?”
Jooj nodded up at him, eyes like saucers.
“Aye,” said Millard. “Likes of us standin round, doin nothin? Them beaks knows somethin’s up. But you, you’s just a hand lookin for work.”
“At night? In the dark?”
Gilly grinned. “You ain’t been in London long, have ye, Charlie?”
The night was thick, cold. The urchins poured out into the blackness, scattering like rats. Charlie followed Gilly, and Gilly followed Jooj’s narrow lantern shine as it cut its way through the dripping fog of Wapping. They saw no one. They slipped down narrow passages, along slippery wooden boards, over open trenches of sewage, clambered up a rickety staircase and crept along a stone wall between grim dirty yards. Then they were creeping through an abandoned building and turning left and hurrying down a set of wet steps and turning left again and scrambling over a wooden railing, which swayed under Charlie’s weight. They came out underneath a jetty, in the mud, and Gilly put a finger to her lips, and Jooj slid the eye of her lantern shut and in the darkness led them slowly upside. Some of the others were waiting at the end, watching the river, the lights burning in the barges beyond.
Gilly pulled on Charlie’s sleeve and he bent down to her.
“You go right along that way,” she whispered, pointing. “Stand at the corner of them warehouses. Keep out of the light. Give out a whistle you see the beaks.”
“What about you and Jooj?”
She shook her head, impatient. “Just go,” she hissed.
He started away. But then he heard a ripple of water and turned and saw a dark skiff, with four small ragged figures poling it, approaching the pier. As it came alongside, Gilly and two others leaped across, soundless as shadows. The skiff rocked once, twice, then started its slow poling out over the river toward the tied-up barge.
Charlie lurked in the reeking dark, as he’d been told to do. The minutes passed. Once he saw a lantern swaying far out across the docks, weaving between the buildings, but it did not come his way. When he peered out across the water he could see the little figures shifting wooden crates, seven, eight urchins at a time on a single crate. They worked swiftly, efficiently, in plain sight. Clearly someone, somewhere, had been paid off. Once, he heard a shout, then a distant splash, and he crouched and stared and saw the skiff, mid-river, rocking from side to side. The urchins were swarming all over it, like ants. But soon they were on their way again, tying up alongside the jetty, hoisting the crates in netting suspended by a large pulley set up by the kids left onshore. And then they were all carrying the crates, six kids at a time, under the jetty into the rough muck, and piling them there. It took almost two hours with all of them straining to carry the nine crates back to the warehouse, taking several trips to manage it, and Charlie wondered at first what they’d stolen that could be so heavy, but soon the weariness and drudgery of it pushed all curiosity from his mind.
It was nearing dawn when they had all returned from the docks. A short while later Charlie heard the squeak of ironshod wheels and the low nicker of a horse and then two grown men came in, big, grim, with long greasy hair sticking under their bowlers.
“Well, hullo, me littlers,” the taller, thinner one called out.
No one moved.
“That’s the bull man,” said Millard quietly in Charlie’s ear. He nodded at the taller, thinner one, who had stepped into the middle of the floor. The other hung back at the door. “Ye just keep yer gob shut,” Millard added. “It don’t do for him to notice ye.”
The bull man ran a hand over his whiskers. “Bring round the cart, Mr. Thwaite,” he called to his companion. “We got a delivery, looks like. My, my.”
Then he walked around the crates, very slowly, making an exaggerated count of the boxes. “One, two, three, four, ah, very good. Five, six, seven, eight, nine. Magnificent,” he said, beaming around at the frightened urchins. “Let me see, now. Nine … nine … nine…” He raised confused eyebrows, turned in place, lifting his bowler. “What’s this? Ain’t it ten? Does I count me numbers wrong?”