“Ready?” said Millard.
Gilly shrugged. “Aye,” she said. She was looking with interest at Charlie. “Feelin better? Right. Good. We need your peepers. Can ye whistle?”
“Whistle?” he said.
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?”
“We lost one, sir,” said Gilly, soft.
He stopped. “Eh? I didn’t catch that?”
“I said we lost one, sir,” said Gilly, louder. “Fell in the drink.”
All at once the bull man strode over to the little girl, his legs long and thin like shears, his oilskin coat creaking. He pressed his hands to his knees and leaned very low at the waist, so that he was staring right into Gilly’s eyes. “You lost one,” he said. “Fell in the drink, it did.”
“Yes, Mr. Plumb, sir.”
“The job was for ten, like. Weren’t it ten, Mr. Thwaite?”
“It were ten, Mr. Plumb,” said the thick man at the door.
“It’s nearly all ten of em,” whispered Gilly. “It’s nearly all.”
“Nearly all,” said Mr. Plumb. He reached out and seized the little girl’s wrist and held up her arm. He started pointing to her fingers, one by one. “Let me count, like. One, two, three, four, five. Yes? And on your other hand, six, seven, eight, nine.” He took her littlest finger and bent it back, way back, so that she screamed and leaned sharply backward.
“It don’t matter, this one though,” he said. “You still got nearly all.”
Gilly looked so tiny, dangling in front of the bull man. No one else moved, no one breathed a word.
“You ain’t kept here on account of charity,” he was saying. “You got yer jobs to do, an you got to do em.”
But Charlie couldn’t watch any more. He stepped forward, his heart in his throat. “Leave her alone,” he called. “She’s just a kid.”
At once the thick man near the door, Mr. Thwaite, poured like a shadow forward and a club appeared out of the folds of his coat and it caught Charlie hard on the side of the head, sending him sprawling. Everything went sideways, then dark. He was gasping. Fumbling in the dirt, unbalanced, his ears ringing as he tried to get up.
“Who’s this now? A fresh un?” Mr. Plumb had dropped Gilly in the dirt and turned to look.
“Don’t never mind him, Mr. Plumb, sir,” Gilly begged, clutching her hand. “He ain’t but simple. Shut yer gob, you,” she snapped at Charlie.
He fell back, confused, hurt. His cheek was stinging, the blood seeping down.
“He don’t watch his yap, he’s like to lose his tongue,” said Mr. Plumb.
“I’ll cut it out me own self,” said Gilly.
Mr. Plumb laughed. “Aye you would, you damned sticker,” he said. “That’s the savage in ye.”
When the men had gone, Gilly hurried over. The club had caught Charlie on the side of his face, tearing the skin below his eye, bloodying his nose. He shook his head, feeling the thick weight of it, like a sack of water.
“Your finger—”
“Never mind that. Here now, hold er higher,” Gilly was muttering. She lifted his chin gently and he heard the quick intake of her breath and he understood suddenly. He pulled away, covering his cheek with one hand. But he was not fast enough. She was staring in horror.
“What you done?” she whispered. “Charlie?”
He looked at her, his eyes wet.
“Tain’t human,” she whispered. She took a step back. “Tain’t right.”
“Gilly—”