Sowerbutt's Justice

Pushing his face close to the skinny youth’s, he said quietly: “What happened to the call-up, son. You’re old enough to serve King and Country?”

“Dicky ticker, mister. My mate too. We’ve got the papers to prove it.”
“Courtesy of the Scribe, no doubt. Biting the hand that feeds you, son?” Sowerbutt said. The Scribe, who operated out of a small garage in Peckham, was the best forger in the East End by far. Since the war started, he had cornered most of the profitable market in London for forged medical exemptions, petrol coupons, ration books and approvals for the myriad of wartime regulations.
He said: “I’ll sell the coupons back to the Scribe, should be worth a few quid. And I’ll give the elastic to some ladies who work for me. It’s scarce like everything else.
“You know the rules, son. I’m always ready to talk business. But no-one comes onto the Family’s patch without permission. If you are too young to know that, you shouldn’t be out alone on the street.”
He nodded to Nero and Tipper. In seconds, the youngsters’ cheap black shoes were off and tossed out onto the road, one landing in a pile left behind by a horse-drawn cart. Next came the suit trousers and the baggy underpants. Without a second glance, the young lads were racing westwards along East India Dock Road, suddenly swerving down a side street to avoid Poplar Police Station and the elderly reservist standing guard on the steps.
In the surrounding shops, the women onlookers were giggling and pointing, the men were looking embarrassed. “A bit small from what I could see, or couldn’t see, Betty,” said one woman to her fellow shopper in the greengrocer’s opposite. “Wouldn’t worry you, Irene, would it? What with your old man locked away in a PoW camp,” her friend giggled.
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