Conor picked up his binoculars and looked ahead. ‘I’ll stay on the bridge until Liverpool, so stop your fretting. You’ll all be buying me drinks in the Anchor soon. That telegram from Malcolm at the Seaman’s Stop told us things are tough at home and we’ve a duty to get back and dry dock there, not in Rotterdam – and it’s carnival time soon.’ He smiled and Blinks smiled back.

‘You have the luck of the Irish with you, Conor, but it’s a good job it’s May and not December. I have no doubt we will reach Liverpool safe and sound. We’ll do four on and four off until we berth.’

Conor lowered the binoculars. ‘Aye, well, I’ve cabled from Rotterdam and asked Malcolm to tell Mam I’ll be back soon and told him to give a wink to Jerry Deane.’

Blinks asked Conor why it was he never sent the message straight to his mam. ‘Surely she would welcome a telegram from every port? My missus would never forgive me if she didn’t get the telegram.’

Conor shook his head. He had never sent his mam a telegram in all the years he had been at sea. ‘Because it was the telegram boy who brought the news about my da, during the war. She would be a nervous wreck, just opening the door. And besides, my mam needs no excuse to be in the Anchor any more than she is. Set the course, Blinks, let’s head for home and, even with this list, keep those engines banked up and ramp up the knots.’

‘Aye, aye, Captain. Liverpool, here we come, even if we limp in with the Morry’s fecking arse scraping along on the bottom of the Mersey.’

*

By the time little Paddy reached the entry, the kids were clear of Nelson Street. He could hear them starting a game of football without him up on the wasteland and the stragglers were way too far ahead for him to catch up. His heart sank. Little Paddy was lonely and had been since the day Harry and the Doherty kids had left to live in Ireland. It didn’t seem to him as if anything was ever going to be the same again. As he watched the kids turn the corner, his steps were leaden and weighed down by his heavy heart. All of his life he had gone to the wasteland with Harry and the Doherty kids, always running and hiding from their grumpy sister, Angela.