Victorian London is known for its charities and progressive attempts to help the poor...but even when the charities were struggling to make ends meet the first problem was getting the people they were trying to reach...to come and accept this help. A "recruiter" had to be creative as well as careful, and the police were quite good at being silent allies in trying to make the world a better place.

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“Hold on! Hold on Here!”

It isn’t easy to shout with authority when each hand is full of a furiously squirming youngster’s collar, and hoping against hope that the worn-down cloth of the boys stays put.

The voice, however, does its job and the double-handful of small furies subsides.

The cause of the fight becomes clear at the edge of the lamp-light inside the gutter: broken crockery leaks a watery hot broth with the faint scent of salted bacon. A stray dog overlooks propriety—they can smell a copper—and slinks over to lick at the puddle before it drains its way to the Thames.

“I was taking it home to me mum,” the smallest boy begins blubbering. By looks of things, he hasn’t eaten a good meal in a fortnight. “It was my aunt’s pot. Now it’s broken!”

“I didn’t mean to knock him down!” The larger boy is still cherry red from fury. He knows there’s trouble, and lots of it. But he’s furious that someone would think he’d trip up another one of his fellows and make him spill his supper. “Tolly’s lying!”

“Tolly’s angry, young master Jones.” Lestrade gives Tolly a single shake to underscore his point. “Angry as you are if not more. He’s lost the bacon-water his aunt was sending him so his mum could at least flavour up the cabbage tonight and the pot is broken. He’ll get a boxing for that alone!”

And Jones, all nine years of him, crumples up and bursts into tears.

A PC wanders by each part of London every fifteen minutes. It is at this point that PC Murcher arrives.

“Would you be needing a hand, sir?” He asks politely.

Good old Murcher. “Would you know where these fellows live, Constable?”

Murcher pays each sniffing, leaky-eyed urchin a look that is loud in its silence. “On t’other side of the bridge, sir. Good little fellows for the most part.” As he speaks, the big man stretches his white-gloved fingers out in a subtle signal in the code the policemen keep to themselves: No man in the house. Another move of the fingers to look like the letter N: Newgate.

No man in the house can sometimes mean a good thing—they’ve both hauled in a messy drunkard or some other piece of spiritual scum for breaking the hundreds of laws, knowing his household will breathe a sigh of relief and sleep without fear a night or two while he sits warm in the gaol and eats a filling meal.

But that’s the short-term. Families need a man as much as they need a mother. Homes without a figurehead mean the children are mocked by their own, avoided, and silently blamed for their lacking. Word will get out about the broken pot and lost broth. It will be their fault and then some, poor boys, the pity will be on thick with the trowel, no father to teach them right from wrong or even how to carry a pot.

Jones and Tolly are sobbing for more than a broken pot now.

Lestrade weighs his options for a moment, and Murcher trades a knowing look with him. There’s no actual rank between them; Lestrade’s just one of the few who tested up and can do his own share without a uniform, while Murcher is one of the even fewer who is content to do his share within that uniform until he dies. The younger men call them “old soldiers” and never dream this is their own fate someday.

“I suppose we’ll have to hire them a day earlier, Constable.” He says.

“It looks like, sir.”

The boys stop their blubbering in stages. They aren’t sure what’s going on except people are making plans about them.

“What about it, gentlemen?” Lestrade thinks its safe enough to let them go; they’ve stopped trying to lunge for each other. “A bit of a job for you both. We can make part of the pay a new pot.” One without a crack in the lid, he thinks to himself.

Tolly recovers his voice first. “What sort of job, sir?” His suspicion is understandable; it’s the police who sent away his father to Newgate in the first place, even though they all know he’s there for a reason.

“Deliveries to invalided policemen.” Lestrade reaches into his pocket almost absently, and two sets of eyes sink into the cloth. “It’s a charity we have; we try to deliver on our own as much as we can but there’s only so many of us about, you know.”

“Even less now.” Murcher adds almost soundlessly.

Lestrade’s eyes flinch a bit upon him; someone told him the bad news while he was on his beat. They shouldn’t have; news that bad can take a man’s mind off his work, and that can lead to a fatal mistake.

“How about it, boys? A bob a week running short deliveries? There’s a chance you’ll get a tip for a good job if your customer can afford it, and there’s more chances to get jobs from there. The men are invalided; they can’t do a lot of things you can do simple—pick up the newspaper, set the table, load the coal up, basket-up the laundry, that sort of thing.”

A shilling a week is one-tenth of a pound…and one-twentieth of what their fathers could hope to make on honest work; it’s enough of a lure for a boy trying to be the man in the man’s absence.

Three out of four people in London have never even handled a pound coin—some wouldn’t even recognize it. Lestrade pulls out a florin almost absently; it’s the full value of two shillings, and he’s doing this deliberately. The boys got into this mess together; he wants to see if they can work together.

Their eyes sink into the florin for all they’re worth. He fancies they’ve even stopped breathing for a jot.

“I broke the pot.” Jones says in a small voice. “So he ought to get more than half.”

Good lad. Lestrade almost smiles at him. Murcher does; he can afford the loosening of emotions.

“We’ll work it out.” Lestrade promises. “Can either of you fellows read?”

“Some.”

“Good. That’ll help you there.” He knows that ‘some’ probably means the boys are as illiterate as tree-stumps but they get by with the reading of cues and signals. They’re sharp readers of character, these street boys. Sharper than most grown men. It won’t be hard to get them to see the value of knowing what their own names look like if they don’t already; once they see there’s a card at the chapel with tally-marks on it for good jobs and the black squiggles on top mean them…well the letters ought to follow like raindrops.

“Constable,” Lestrade looks to old Murcher. “Would you happen to know if Sister Sarai is working at Brother Jerome’s chapel tonight?”

“That she is, sir.” Murcher says firmly. “And she’s been cooking all day over a pot of rutabagas and bacon.”

“It’s the first of the month…chances are they haven’t sold all the cooking pots just yet.” Lestrade pauses and gives the now-mesmerized children a stern look. “That’s another thing you might want to do for a few pence. The chapel sells tinware and cookware to make ends meet and pay for their soups. For every bit sold, the seller gets to keep a portion for himself. Pay on commission, not by the hour or day.” He waits for a moment. “You can start tonight by taking home a pot of broth each to your folks. If you agree to that, it commits you to work tomorrow. Can you do that?”

Yesses and head-bobs worthy of a Chinaman. Lestrade makes a point of passing the florin to Murcher. “He’ll hold that for you until this time next week. Now. Take this—“ He rips off two sheets from his notebook and writes in his shorthand on each. “To the chapel and make certain it’s Sister Sarai who gets this. She’ll set you both off with a pot and something in it for tonight. Constable Murcher will send word to your families so they know to expect you both home a bit later.”

They watch the boys scarper off, papers clutched in none-too clean fingers. Sister Sarai will see to it they get those hands washed—and faces and necks and ears—when they start delivering. Once they realize she gives her clean workers more food…the results will be utterly voluntary and willing.

“Finally.” Murcher says when they’re alone. “I’ve been trying to get them into wages even before their dads were put up for stealing. But their dads made ‘em so afraid of a Bobby…they run off as soon as they see something blue.”

“Well, we will just try our blue best, won’t we?” A quote from old Davids makes them smile even on a bad day. “What’s the situation, Murcher?”

“Still the same. Crime’s all over the place acros’t, but mostly among the older gents. Lord, sir, and forgive me if s’blasphemy, but half of them don’t even know anything outside day-labour. They don’t know the difference between a delivery in a warehouse and being told to go steal something.”

“Lead-babies.” Lestrade sighs. “Born afflicted from what their parents did in the pottery-fields…they can grow up and have children of their own but they’re still wrong in the head and nothing can cure them.”

“No, sir. Nothing can.”

“And that leaves the children to be the adults…” Lestrade rubs at his forehead a moment. The chapel is always in need of the sort of work these boys can do…always. Perhaps if these two start…their brothers will follow…and their sisters join the school…

How can anyone help someone who doesn’t exist? There wouldn’t be any paper to prove a birth, or a parent…and there were thousands of them, invisible against the census and reports and statistics…enough to people their own nation.

A nation of ghosts that walked and talked and acted and moved just like the rest of the living.

“If I had a week…just one damned week to concentrate on that side of the river…”

“We all’ve made that prayer, sir. And more than once.”

“What about their families?”

“They each have a mother, and there’s eight brothers and sisters between ‘em, plus the occasional aunt or granny on a visit between the relatives. They borrow a brazier to cook their food on, so they’re better off than most, and for the most part they try to do the right thing. Least they spend what they got on food more than gin…even if gin might keep them from getting the water sickness. It’s the menfolk who are weak in both families.”

“Men can do strange things if they think they should.” Lestrade sighs. “With or without getting brain-addled from lead.”

“Too right.” Murcher agrees, and it’s clear he’s thinking of the suicide.

“How about Robinson?” Lestrade puts his hands in his pockets. “Anyone to feed?”

“No, sir…at least, not any more. His parents both died within six months of each other.” Murcher fiddles about with his lantern a moment. “I suppose being alone got to him.”

“It can do that.” Lestrade agrees under his breath. “I’m sorry you heard on your beat.”

Murcher shrugs almost to himself. “He seemed just fine yesterday. Cheerful, like. I suppose he was…thinking ahead.”

“I suppose. Thank God Brother Jerome’s doing the services.” The man remembers too well his own days as a policeman; he won’t condemn a man to hellfire for taking his own life. His approach to the self-crime was that the person was not right in the head and thusly in need of prayers.

“I suppose I ought to get word to their folks.” Murcher pockets the coin. “And while I’m there…I’ll see what I can see.”

Lestrade nods. The poor and the half-witted are easy marks for criminals who want a gull to do their work and take their blame for them…and the pottery-workers across the river qualify as both.

“I’ll go with you.” Lestrade tightens his hard-crowned bowler in reflex. It can hold its shape if a man stomps on it; it ought to hold up against a flying brick or whatever some brain-damaged lout thinks will service.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Not at all. Two eyes ought to see as fast as one if there’s any contraband in those shacks.”

“What do we do if we see anything, sir?”

“Nothing for the moment. They’re just the gulls.” They fall into step together. The wind over the bridge is picking up; it smells of the ocean for a moment. “A few weeks of friendly chapel-instruction and those boys just might put two and two together on their own. They have a chance to do something for themselves…problem is, they don’t know it yet.”

“No and that’s the truth.” Murcher lifts his lantern to cast out the puddle of light before their steps. From behind his shadow under the street-lamps looms frightening and black: The ominous mixed with the encouraging.

Another night for a policeman.