Give Us This Day (34 page)

  There were two imponderables: Morris, once of the prosperous Southern Pickings territory around Worcester, and Dockett, a wayward character who had made a great success in Tom Tiddler's Land, otherwise the Isle of Wight. Morris was elderly now, and long retired, but he had the keenest financial brain in the network and was very active on the board, where he kept a sharp eye on cash reserves and could bear down heavily on anyone he suspected of relegating the profit motive to any notch below number one on Swann's list of priorities. Dockett was the reverse, a gambler who had no patience with men who played safe. It was Dockett, who, as far back as 1863, had proposed specialisation in his own most profitable line, that of house removals, and had later initiated the saucy slogan painted on all Swann's house removal waggons, "From Drawer to Drawer." He seemed a likely supporter for a scheme as grandiose as George's.

  He pondered them all separately, trying to assess their reactions to the fat brochure, illustrated with maps and a diagram of the Swann-Maxie prototype sent to all directors a fortnight in advance of the summer meeting, and his conclusions were guardedly optimistic. Edward and Jack-o'-Lantern were, so to speak, safely in his pocket. He was almost equally sure of Markby, in the north, and of Dockett, who now played a leading role in Swann's coastal and Continental trade. That, with his own vote, meant a nucleus of five, but he needed support elsewhere unless he was to face the long-term prospect of ramming the venture down managerial throats. Between them men like Rookwood and Godsall could rally a great deal of support among the relatively inexperienced men around the table, youngsters like Luke Wickstead, known to be cast in a cautious mould, so that it was with some misgivings that he sensed restraint on the part of both Rookwood and Godsall when they greeted him and he took his seat at the head of the table.

  In the old days the board meetings had always been held in the original warehouse. Now, the warehouse having gone up in smoke, they gathered in comfort in the board room, south of the tower where the atmosphere, although more comfortable, did not encourage the breezy give-and-take of the old, privateering days. It was a pity, George thought, that the Gov'nor had declined to chair the meeting, even in a neutral capacity. The most independent among them still had affection for him, besides deep respect for his judgments. He was also a terse but effective speaker, a talent George had not inherited. He lacked his father's sense of irony that had always helped to cool tempers and heal feuds. Accustomed to working alone, he lacked the patience to reason with the querulous and suffer the windbag gladly. In his view a man who had not studied his subject matter down to the last detail had best remain silent, and he was uneasily aware that no one around that table knew much about the vagaries or the potential of mechanical transport. Alone among them Godsall owned a motor, but it was chauffeur-driven and as a first-class horseman he had a contempt for anything that went on under the bonnet. Indeed, George suspected that Godsall's car was maintained for reasons of social prestige rather than personal prestige.

  He tried to compensate for this deficiency in his opening speech. After the usual preamble, he developed a theme based on the dramatic headstart a fleet of petroldriven waggons would give Swann-on-Wheels over its competitors. Mechanically propelled transport was not unique in the trade. Several rival hauliers ran steam waggons, double-crank Fodens mostly of the traction type, used for short, heavy haulage. A few were experimenting with the new ten hundredweight Albion "dogcart" on suburban routes. But a fleet of sixty heavy vehicles, working from provincial depots placed at strategically sited points across the country, was something entirely new in the concept of road haulage. He was aware, of course, that the staking of almost the entire reserve fund on a single gigantic project entailed risk, but he argued that it was a carefully calculated risk. That was why he suggested a slow phasing out of the horse over a period that might extend into ten or twelve years. The limitation of power-driven vehicles to comparatively short runs in the initial years was, he said, designed to accumulate experience without the risk of slowing down deliveries and increasing insurance rates.

  He sat down unconvinced that he had made the best of his case, and telling himself, rather petulantly, that a speech of that kind should not have been necessary. It was all there in the brochure for anyone but a fool to see, and if any one of them had failed to understand the tremendous implications of the report that man had no right to be sitting here.

  The long, uneasy silence that followed his invitation for comments gave him his second clue to the overall mood of the gathering. It was clearly one of extreme uncertainty and nervousness, based less on the general proposal than on the amount of capital demanded. It was difficult, he supposed, for ex-gamins like Higson and Rookwood to think in terms of a hundred thousand pounds, when they probably recalled the earning of sixpence as the hallmark of a profitable day on the Thames foreshore. He waited, glumly, for what seemed a long minute and then, at a nod from Rookwood, Godsall stood up to address the chair.

  George had always enjoyed a good, working relationship with Godsall, seeing him as the most go-ahead of the viceroys, and he looked for a sign of this accord now. Godsall, however, avoided his eye, addressing himself to the wings rather than the head of the conference, and his first words were a storm signal.

  "For a long time now, gentlemen, it has been an open secret that the Chairman and I have seen eye to eye in most matters…" and George took this as an expiatory remark, designed to soften the impact of what followed. He was right, for Godsall went on, "However, at this early stage of the proceedings, I am obliged to confess that I find myself implacably opposed to the project so lucidly set out in the Chairman's brochure. Not, I hasten to add, in principle, but certainly in particular, but if I had to say why, in a few words, it would be difficult. It seems to me—as I gather it does to others present—that we are being asked to swallow at one gulp a meal that might in the long run be very nutritious but, in the manner of taking, could so damage the digestion as to put Swann-on-Wheels on bicarbonate of soda for years!"

  George, looking down at the table, did not see the titter that ran down both sides of the table for what it was, a release of nervous tension. To him, momentarily stunned by Godsall's polite perfidy, it was a barb signifying unanimity, or near unanimity, of their rejection and ridicule of the plan. In a flash he was a boy again, standing in a classroom holding a blotched exercise exposed to the usher's irony, and he thought bitterly:
God damn him! He could have given me a hint… One of them could have hinted… written… questioned the practicality of the project before we assembled here and before I took it for granted any objections would be based on technicalities…!
But then, with a tremendous effort, he got his resentment in hand in order to give his entire attention to Godsall's devastating analysis of the brochure and form some kind of judgment as to the essence and validity of his dissent. He realised then that Godsall's opening admission had been honest. The man was not opposed in principle to the switch. He was merely rejecting its breadth and totality.

  He had to concentrate hard to follow the drift of the speech. Odd phrases and deductions evaded him, slipping away and drowning in a sea of bile… "The Chairman is aware, as must be everyone sitting round this table, that I have never set my face against the prospect of an eventual phasing out of the horse in favour of power-driven vehicles… seen it as inevitable in the long run… will admit, unreservedly, that the introduction of, say, a few power-driven vans, as a very useful experiment offering guidelines to the policy of the years ahead… but what is proposed here is certainly not that! It is total committal that could put the entire enterprise in jeopardy at a prohibitive cost in order to prove—what? That power-driven transport is on the way in? That it is possible (as our Chairman himself has proved) to make a two-day haul over two hundred miles with a load of over a ton aboard? That a well-designed waggon, powered by petrol or steam, can move over chosen territory faster than a man-o'-war? Or even a frigate, pulled by the best team in our regional stables? But surely, gentlemen, these things don't need proving, certainly not at the cost of a reserve fund it has taken us years to accumulate against an emergency or series of emergencies…!"

  Every face was turned away from him now. Rookwood, Markby, Higson, and even Bertieboy Bickford and young Edward were straining their ears in order not to miss a syllable of Godsall's merciless rhetoric.

  "…No one here can point a finger at me as a man who sets his face against anything new
because
it is new, but to invest in power to this extent is to walk a tightrope from one end of the country to the other, and for a very simple reason. What is that reason? I believe the Chairman is more keenly alive to it than any of us. His experience with power-driven commercial haulage goes back years, to the time of the earliest prototypes. He is one of the pioneers, and we respect him for it. But he will tell you, if you ask him, that the performance of one of these vehicles can be very impressive for two days running. He would not guarantee that performance for ten such vehicles over a month or a year. Or twenty. Or sixty within the foreseeable future. To do that, while running a day-to-day business hauling goods over every kind of terrain, and under every kind of condition, is not so much to put one's head in a noose as to trust one's weight to a single rope, insecurely fastened. I am all for progress, gentlemen, and the widest possible range of experimentation, but I am not prepared to face that terrible risk. Not yet. Not until we have actual proof that the power-propelled vehicle hauling over, say, ten hundredweights, is not only faster but more dependable than a horse bred for haulage."

  He sat down rather unexpectedly and there was a buzz of assent. At least George, glowering at the far end of the table, took it for assent, and when nobody seemed disposed to offer the first comment he said, quietly, "Do I take it you intend to move an amendment to the proposition printed on the last page of the brochure, Godsall?"

  "No, sir," Godsall said, promptly, "not at this stage. Not before a full and free discussion."

  "Very well, then let me put it this way. If Mr. Godsall's opposition to a fleet of sixty Swann-Maxies
was
couched in an amendment, is there anyone here who would second it?"

  Rookwood rose. "I would, Mr. Chairman."

  Somehow George had sensed Rookwood would endorse Godsall's sentiments. Unlike all the men around the table, with the exception of Jake Higson, his fellow waif, Rookwood had served Swann-on-Wheels in every conceivable capacity over the years, all the way up from urchin van-boy, swinging on a tailboard rope, to staid and highly respected manager of a huge slice of territory in the south. He was a humourless man, slow to make decisions, but when those decisions had been taken he was tireless, inflexible, and unshakeably loyal to the interests of the undertaking. He said, looking directly at the chair, "Everything Mr. Godsall said made sense to me. My observation in this field has left me with the impression that petrol-driven vans are superior for light work in congested areas but inferior to reliable teams hauling full loads over long distances. I have even gone so far as to make checks in this respect, on haulage undertaken by Wetherby and Sons in my area. They hauled a turbine down to Southampton docks by mechanical waggon last February. The journey, allowing for breakdowns, occupied forty-eight hours. According to my calculations"—he glanced at a sheet of paper he held in readiness—"one of our Goliaths could have accomplished it in thirty hours, allowing two hours lost in city hold-ups."

  "Wetherby uses steam-waggons." This from Markby, on Rookwood's immediate right.

  "That's so. He operates two on my beat. Traction-engines, that can average nine miles an hour on the flat, and the route he took on this occasion was flat in the main. Both breakdowns occurred on gradients. One of one in nine, the other a shade in excess of nine."

  You had to hand it to Rookwood. He was a man who very rarely generalised and whose homework could never be faulted. George thought, glumly:
I wish to God I had him on my side but that's asking too much of Rookwood. He's never taken a real risk in his life, and he'd probably tell you that was the secret of his success.
He looked carefully down both sides of the table. No one else seemed eager to commit themselves. He said, "We'd best give everyone a chance to speak. This thing is far too big for free and easy discussion. I rule we take it in turn. Down one side and up the other. What's your view, Bickford?"

  Bertieboy Bickford, operating in the west where, so far, nothing but agricultural traction had been seen, much less used, looked flustered. He was, Adam would have said, a very likely successor to his uncle, the rumbustious Hamlet Ratcliffe, who had always succeeded in surprising them despite mountainous prejudices, a bucolic appearance, and a buzzsaw West Country accent like Bickford's own. Ratcliffe, no doubt, would have set his face against an innovation on this scale, but he would have stated his objections in a way that brought a whiff of humour into the proceedings and Bertieboy was equal to his uncle's memory. He said now, in a brogue that vividly reminded the long-termers of the man who had died hauling a huge statue of Queen Victoria over rough Devon roads when he was in his eightieth year, "They things coulden tackle the roads in my beat, Maister, so that lets me out. I dessay the Chairman thowt o' that when he drew up this scheme. Some places you have to hitch four horses to a frigate to haul a load o' turnips over one of our humps, and then be bliddy smart wi' the shoes to stop 'er backsliding. I take it these yer trucks would be used on the flat mostly. Did you 'ave that in mind, Mr. Swann?"

  "Not entirely," George said, "as you'll see under the sub-heading dealing with branch depots. But you're right about your territory. I wouldn't risk them in the west as yet. That would be asking for trouble."