The Killing Snows

by Charles Egan

  ‘Have it your own way,’ Danny said. He went out and closed the door.

  Luke lay back again watching the flickering light of the fire on the ceiling. Yes, it was odd about the letter, but he reckoned if the family was really hungry Michael would have said it. Or would he? With his father it was impossible to tell. Still, he was sending enough money home. Even if the price of corn had gone up, there would be enough to feed them all. But if they were depending on his wages, what would happen when he went home?

  Go home? Six years he had been waiting to go home. Waiting to see family and old friends. Waiting to farm again in Mayo. Now at last he was going home, but he no longer wanted it. Why not? Why should he think like this? He did not know.

  A few nights later, Farrelly called the gang together. They gathered in the bunk room, sitting on bunks or leaning against the wall. Danny was lying on his bunk in the corner.

  ‘I wanted to tell ye,’ Farrelly said, ‘I met one of Brassey’s fellows today. They’re looking for men up in Yorkshire – the Leeds & Thirsk Railway. Brassey’s got the contract.’

  There was silence around the room.

  The men had not worked under Thomas Brassey since 1844. They all knew that Brassey was the largest railway contractor in Britain, but far more important was that he never permitted subcontractors to exploit the gangs. When they were working for Brassey, Farrelly negotiated directly with his managers, bypassing the subcontractors and agreeing a rate for each job based on cubic yards of muck shifted or yards of rail laid.

  No subcontractors meant they were free to work as they pleased. There was no base wage, but Farrelly expected long hours of hard labour, and then the men in the gang earned wages that were among the highest on the railways. It was tough work, but the gang were well used to that and even took a certain pride in it. But Brassey was not the contractor for the South Eastern, and for two years they had been working under a subcontractor they despised, at wages that were hardly half of what they had earned before.

  At last Bernie Lavan spoke. ‘Brassey?’

  ‘None other.’

  ‘He has the contract?’

  ‘He has. Or sure as hell the most of it.’

  ‘Well, that could sort a lot of things out.’

  Danny had pulled himself up on the bunk. ‘It’ll sort things out, right enough. God knows, there’s little enough work left around here, and to be working for Brassey again, what more could we ask?’

  ‘That’d be up to Martin,’ Lavan said. ‘But one thing’s for certain, Brassey’s the best, and if we don’t get the best deal out of his fellows, we’re no good at all.’

  As the other men walked to their bunks, Danny and Luke stepped outside. It was a clear evening, not yet cold.

  ‘By God,’ Danny said, ‘wasn’t that a surprise. Back up north, and working with the best contractor in England.’

  ‘It’ll be great for you all, no doubt,’ Luke said.

  ‘For us all?’

  ‘I’m not going.’

  ‘You’re not what?’

  ‘I’m going home.’

  ‘Going home. You’re going…’

  ‘Home,’ Luke said. ‘Mayo. Carrigard.’

  ‘But what…? When?’

  ‘Soon. I’ll have to wait until Martin gets a few new fellows. After that.’

  ‘You’re not coming to Leeds?’

  ‘No. I’ve had enough.’

  ‘Enough!’ Danny said. ‘Like hell you have. All these years we’ve been waiting for another contract with Brassey. Now we can get it, now we can make real money, do it all our own way, and you’re going home. What class of eejit are you?’

  ‘No eejit. It’s what I want.’

  Danny stared at him. ‘You’re crazy.’

  ‘No, I’m not. Carrigard is our home. You know that as well as I do.’

  ‘It might be your home, but it sure as hell isn’t mine. Mayo’s finished, it’s got no future.’

  ‘It’s got my future. Father won’t last forever, and I’m to inherit the lease. It’s Pat that’ll have to work in England. It’ll be tougher on him.’

  ‘Then let Pat inherit the bloody lease. It’s no damned use to you. Just look at them all. The hunger’s back. It’s 1840 all over again. They’re starving, I tell you.’

  ‘If they were starving, Father would have said so.’

  Danny said nothing for a moment. Then he shook his head. ‘Look, would you have a little bit of sense. Sure, your family mightn’t be starving. And why not? Because you’re here, that’s the why. Every month you’re sending them back money to buy corn. And now you’re going home and cutting them off from the very money they need to live. Are you mad?’

  ‘They’ll be fine after the harvest. We all will.’

  ‘The harvest? That’s what they always say. The harvest, the harvest. Every year, they’re there with their empty bellies waiting for the harvest. It’ll never change. Never.’

  ‘It’s my farm,’ Luke said, angry now. ‘I’m the one that’ll be feeding the family when Father is no longer able for it.’

  ‘Yes, and in another ten years’ time you’ll have a dozen more mouths to feed and the rent to pay, year in, year out. And when your sons are twelve years old, you’ll be sending them off every summer as spailpíns working the English harvest. And why? Because the farm can’t pay for itself.’

  ‘But it’s our land.’

  ‘Our land, bedamned,’ Danny said. ‘They’ve all got their heads turned towards the past. Brian Ború, Owen Roe, Wolfe Tone, our glorious history, we’ve heard it all. Don’t make me sick.’

  ‘Yes,’ Luke said. ‘But Murty…’

  ‘Damn it to hell, don’t remind me. My own father, buried in the past. You and me know it, and we know it well. The new schools are coming to Mayo, and they sure as hell won’t approve of him. He’s no teacher. He’s not trained their way – you’ve said it yourself. They’ll close his little school. What’ll he do when it’s all over? He’s too old for work on the rails. He won’t be able to feed his family. And he doesn’t even know what’s going to hit him.’

  ‘Maybe he does.’

  ‘He’s a fool if he does,’ Danny said, ‘and an even worse fool if he doesn’t. And you’ll be a fool if you go back to Carrigard.’

  For a few more moments, Luke said nothing. There were many thoughts racing through his head, but he could not put them in order. ‘So I’ll be a fool,’ he said at length, ‘but I’ll be worse than a fool if I stay here. If I don’t go home, Father will be evicted. They’re saying he’s too old, and they won’t sign another lease unless I sign it too.’

  ‘They’re saying what?’

  ‘They’ll evict him. I have to sign it with him.’

  ‘But that was signed years ago.’

  ‘No,’ Luke said, ‘we thought it was signed years ago. It was only that he let on it was signed. They’ve been running two years without the lease, and Father never told me.’

  ‘Two years? They could have been evicted.’

  ‘Isn’t that what I’m telling you?’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Look, he’s sixty three. They won’t sign another 21-year lease with a man that old, and I can see why. They know damned well that he won’t be able to work the farm and the quarry that long. They reckon they need a younger man…’

  ‘But what about Pat?’ Danny asked.

  ‘They say he’s too young.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘There’s no way around it. They won’t take Father on his own, and they won’t take Pat. They’ll only sign again if I sign it with Father. Otherwise they’ll bring in another fellow for the lease, and the three of them will be out on the road – Father, Mother and Pat.’

  ‘So why don’t you just go back home, sign the lease, and then come back over to Leeds. There’s no reason for you to sta
y. All Burke wants is for the legal fellows to see you signing it.’

  ‘No,’ Luke said, ‘they want more than that. They want me back working the quarry too. They reckon Father can’t work it. If they hear I’m gone, they’ll have another fellow in for the farm – quarry and all.’

  For a few moments Danny said nothing, pacing up and down. Luke had never seen him lost for words before. He turned back to Luke. ‘Damn it,’ he said, ‘that’s blackmail.’

  ‘No it’s not. He’s no choice, and neither have I. Can’t you see that?’

  ‘But you do have a choice.’

  ‘The hell, I do,’ Luke said.

  ‘Yes, you do. You can come to Leeds with us and bring them all over.’

  ‘Bring them over! To Leeds?’

  ‘Where else? You’re going to have to pay for them all anyhow, and the farm won’t earn enough money for that, good years or bad. You’ll earn far more money in Leeds, and even your father will get some class of job around, and your mother can work in the mills.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid. That would never work.’

  ‘Yes, it would. It’s just that you can’t see it.’

  ‘Look,’ Luke said, ‘I have to go home. You go to Leeds if you like.’

  ‘Damned right, I will,’ Danny said. ‘There’ll be years of work in Leeds, and with Brassey too. A man would be mad to do anything else.’

  ‘And when that finishes, what then?’

  ‘The next contract,’ Danny said. ‘If Brassey doesn’t have contracts in England, he’ll have them in France, and if it isn’t France it’ll be Spain. You’ll see.’

  ‘France or Spain? You’d go…?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘But you can’t keep working like this,’ Luke said. ‘It’ll kill you. You’ll be fine till you’re forty, then it’ll be too much. You’ll be back on the roads with not a penny in your pocket.’

  ‘Not me, I won’t. That’s for the fellows who drink everything they get. We’re different, you and me. We’re going to save our money.’

  ‘And buy a farm?’

  ‘That isn’t the future.’

  ‘So what is the bloody future then?’

  ‘Railways,’ Danny replied. ‘Railways, but not as a navvy. Look at Brassey. He started off with nothing. What is he now? – one of the richest men in England.’

  ‘So you want to be Tom Brassey!’

  ‘No, I’m not that foolish. But look at all the other contractors around us. Muck-shifters, that’s all they are. They can’t read, they can’t write, they can hardly add or subtract. All they can do is get men to work.’

  ‘Muck-shifting? Is that what you want so? Muck-shifting.’

  ‘Yes,’ Danny said, ‘muck-shifting. Rock, shale or mud, who cares? But I can do it better than those fools, and so can you. There’s a future in contracting on the railways. Deep down you know that, even if you want to deny it. You might never be as rich as Brassey, but by God it’s a hundred times better than starving in Carrigard.’

  Luke spoke with Corrigan and McGlinn. They had already decided to sign off at the next payday and return to Mayo. He agreed to travel with them. Over the following days, he still worked alongside Danny, but little of importance passed between them.

  Two weeks later, they started their journey, travelling by the open wagons of the South Eastern Railway from Ashford up to Reigate Junction and along the tracks of the London & Brighton Railway to the terminus at London Bridge.

  They walked across London in driving rain to the terminus of the London & Birmingham Railway at Euston. Corrigan led them to a boarding house he knew on Pentonville Road, where they dried out their clothes as the landlady served them a hot dinner.

  ‘Good food here,’ McGlinn said, as he cut into a thick pork chop.

  ‘Didn’t I tell you it’d be good?’ Corrigan said.

  McGlinn elbowed him. ‘Yer man’s awful quiet.’

  ‘Sure hasn’t a man a right to be quiet, if that’s what he wants?’ Corrigan said.

  Luke glanced up from his plate. ‘It’s nothing. I was only doing a bit of thinking…’

  ‘And sure there’s no harm in that, neither,’ Corrigan said. ‘A man has a right to think.’

  ‘And a right to share his thoughts,’ McGlinn said. ‘A man has that right too.’

  ‘A man might have rights,’ Luke replied ‘but that doesn’t mean he has to inflict them on his friends.’

  ‘We’ll have no more excuses,’ McGlinn said. ‘Let’s hear it.’

  ‘Arra, it’s nothing,’ Luke answered. ‘It’s just that when I first came over here, I was so frightened of it all.’

  ‘Of course, you were,’ Corrigan said. ‘Sure you were only a young gossoon. We were all frightened when we first came to England.’

  ‘It wasn’t just that, though,’ Luke said. ‘We had to pay the rent, and it couldn’t be paid without me going to England, and that was bad enough. But I’d heard so much of England, what a rough, tough place it was meant to be. And when I came over first, I was sick for home. Day and night, I’d be thinking of Mayo. I couldn’t wait to work out my time in England, make the money and get home. There were two things that kept me going – the fear that they couldn’t keep the farm without my money, and the knowing it’d be mine in the end. My own farm, that’s what I wanted, and working in England was the only way to do it. So I just had to put up with it all, and that was an end to it.’

  ‘Wasn’t it the same for all of us,’ Corrigan said. ‘Either we were working to pay the rent or saving to buy our own.’

  ‘Anyhow,’ McGlinn interrupted, ‘you had your friends over here too. Working with Farrelly, what more could a man have asked than that? If you were working for one of the other gangs, then you’d have cause to be crying at night.’

  ‘I know,’ Luke said. ‘Ye’re right, and there’s no doubting we had great times together. But still the one thing I wanted was getting home to Mayo and getting the farm. And then, all of a sudden, a letter comes from Father saying I’m to come home straight away. So in another few days, I’ll be seeing them all again, and in a few years the farm’ll be mine. And now I just don’t want it anymore.’

  ‘Would you listen to him,’ McGlinn said. ‘Give him what he wants, and he’s still miserable.’

  ‘Worse than miserable,’ Luke said. ‘Mayo frightens me. In fact, it terrifies me.’

  They travelled third class on the London & Birmingham line as far as Birmingham city. They saw dozens of navvies in the station, powerful men compared to the small group of haggard families standing at the end of the platform. As Luke walked past the huddled families, he noticed the children were speaking in Irish. He hesitated.

  ‘Come on,’ Corrigan said. ‘There’s nothing we can do.’

  In less than an hour, they were headed north again on the Grand Trunk Railway as far as its junction with the Liverpool & Manchester at Newton. This time, McGlinn led them across the tracks to a freight marshalling yard where they jumped a boxcar heading towards Liverpool.

  Corrigan was doubtful. ‘What if we’re caught?’

  ‘We won’t be caught.’

  As Luke’s eyes became accustomed to the darkness inside, he noticed that there were two men sitting in the corner.

  ‘Have you travelled from far?’ he asked.

  There was no answer. Luke repeated the question.

  ‘We cannot understand,’ one of the men replied, speaking in Irish.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Luke said, switching into Irish. ‘If I had known you were Irish speakers, I would not have annoyed you with English.’

  ‘That is not a thing to care about,’ the man replied.

  ‘I was asking how far you had come.’

  ‘We have come from Leeds where we have been trying to get work, but they would not take us. They say we are not strong enough to work on
the railways.’

  The train rattled as it went over a crossing.

  ‘You’re from the south, I would say,’ Corrigan said.

  ‘The west side of the county of Cork,’ the second man answered. ‘Between Schull and Skibbereen.’

  ‘Is that where you are travelling?’

  ‘That would be lunacy,’ the first man said. ‘They have little food there. It is to Liverpool we are travelling. Perhaps we will work there. Perhaps we will make enough money to get to America.’

  ‘Is it so bad in Cork?’ Corrigan asked.

  ‘Bad enough. The potatoes were good when we harvested them. But then the rot came to Schull, and we lost many of them. The people are hungry now. It is not as bad as 1840 yet, and we pray it will not be.’

  ‘It will never be as bad as that again,’ Luke said.

  It was dark when they arrived in Liverpool. They walked across the tracks towards a side entrance to the station. Suddenly McGlinn grabbed Luke’s collar. ‘Run, Luke, run.’

  Four policemen were rushing towards them. Luke ran. One caught him by his belt, but he broke free and kept running. He followed McGlinn and Corrigan, crossing tracks, platforms and access roads; weaving in and out between engines, wagons, carriages, carts and horses. One of their pursuers slipped on horse manure, the others hesitated and were cut off by a slow moving cart. They continued the chase, but Luke and McGlinn and Corrigan outran them. They raced up a stairway and stopped, leaning on a wall under a gas lamp, gasping for breath.

  ‘You’re a damned fool,’ Corrigan said to McGlinn. ‘I knew we shouldn’t have listened to you.’ But McGlinn only laughed.

  ‘Where are the other fellows gone?’ Luke asked.

  ‘Over there,’ McGlinn replied, pointing down between the tracks. The two men were lying face down on the ground. As Luke watched, they had their wrists trussed up behind them. Then they were stood up and dragged off.

  ‘I wonder where they’re taking them,’ he asked.

  ‘The Workhouse,’ McGlinn said. ‘If they’re lucky.’

  ‘And if they’re not?’

  ‘The boat back to Cork.’

  *

  They went to Buckley’s boarding house at the bottom of Scotland Road. During the night it turned wet, and Luke lay awake on his bunk listening to the drumming of the rain on the windows.