Constable By the Sea (2012)
“George Eliot, 1819–80 Night duty can be very lonely. After the pubs have closed, the restaurants have cleared their tables and the clubs have bolted their doors, the streets rapidly empty and there is little companionship for the patrolling constable. His solitary work, which in my case began at 10 p.m. and finished at 6 a.m., comprised the checking of lock-up premises and empty houses and a general watching brief on the sleeping town. I kept my ears open for those who prowled at night, for bur...glars and shop-breakers, for vagrants and other ne’er-do-wells whose illegal activities were conducted under the cover of darkness.
More often than not, nothing of this kind ever happened. There were few burglars and nocturnal villains to arrest or deter, and the resultant boredom was often relieved only by the appearance of the night duty sergeant or sometimes an inspector, with, very occasionally, the eminence of the superintendent himself. In the momentary absence of those supervisory officers, the constables would gather at some suitable place for a chat, flashing coded messages to one another by torch and making use of reflections from shop windows to pass our morse-like messages along streets and around corners.MoreLess
More often than not, nothing of this kind ever happened. There were few burglars and nocturnal villains to arrest or deter, and the resultant boredom was often relieved only by the appearance of the night duty sergeant or sometimes an inspector, with, very occasionally, the eminence of the superintendent himself. In the momentary absence of those supervisory officers, the constables would gather at some suitable place for a chat, flashing coded messages to one another by torch and making use of reflections from shop windows to pass our morse-like messages along streets and around corners.MoreLess
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