“You’ll give me the letters!” she snapped. “Hah! Share wiv you? I’ll ‘ave them letters, if you please, y’little sod, you just ‘and ‘em over.” She held out one grasping hand, eyes narrowed and dangerous.
Morgan clenched his fists, hating her. At least he hadn’t told the bitch how many letters there were. He’d divided them into two packets, one in his trouser pocket, the other beneath his shirt. The ones in his shirt were the letters Eddy had penned to him in English. The ones in his trouser pocket were the other letters, the “special surprise” Eddy had sent to him during that last month of visits. The filthy tart wouldn’t be able to read a word of them. He pulled the packet from his trouser pocket and handed them over. “Here, curse you! And may you have joy reading them!” he added with a spiteful laugh, striding away before she could realize that Prince Albert Victor had penned those particular letters in Welsh.
Now, hours later, having managed to find himself a sailor on the docks who wanted a more masculine sort of sport, Morgan was drunk and bitter, a mightily scared and very lonely lad far away from his native Cardiff. He rubbed his wet cheek with the back of his hand. Morgan had been a fool, a jolly, bloody fool, ever to leave Cardiff, but it was too late, now, to cry about it. And he couldn’t sit here on his bum all night, some constable would pass and then he would be spending the night courtesy of the Metropolitan Police Department’s H Division.
Morgan peered about, trying to discern shapes through the fog, and thought he saw the dark form of a man nearby, but the fog closed round the shadow again and no one approached nearer, so he decided there was no one about to help him regain his feet, after all. Scraping himself slowly together, he elbowed his way back up the wall until he was more or less upright again, then coughed and shivered and wandered several yards further along the fog-shrouded street. At times, his ears played tricks with the echoing sounds that spilled out onto the dark streets from distant public houses. Snatches of laughter and song came interspersed faintly with the nearer click of footfalls on pavement, but each time he peered round, he found nothing but swirling, malevolent yellow drifts. So he continued his meandering way down the wet street, allowing his shoulder to bump against the sooty bricks to guide and steady him on his way, making for the hidey hole he used when there was no money for a doss-house bed.