The Killing Snows

by Charles Egan

  Clarke followed him. ‘You damned bastard,’ he said to Luke, lisping. ‘You’ll hear more of this.’

  When the two men had left, Mrs. Gallagher sent the younger children back to sleep. Winnie reheated some meal and cabbage for Luke, and the four sat down again.

  ‘You needn’t worry about Father Nugent,’ Gallagher told him. ‘I spoke with him after Clarke’s first visit. He doesn’t remember seeing you last night at all.’

  Afterwards Mrs. Gallagher made up four cups of poitín punch. She raised her cup to Luke.

  ‘To our own apostle of temperance,’ she said. Luke sipped the poitín, saying nothing.

  On Sunday, he accompanied the Gallagher family to early Mass. He sat with Gallagher, Young John and the younger boys on the right hand side of the church, while Winnie and Una sat with the women on the left. Before the Mass began a man and woman came in, carrying another woman. Luke was horrified to see that she was in the last stages of fever. Her face was black. Even from where he sat, he could smell the gangrene.

  The couple stopped at the top of the aisle, and one of the men whispered to another man, who walked back into the rough shed adjoining the church which served as a sacristy. Already people were edging back. The priest came out. He administered the Last Rites to the sick woman, and she was carried out again.

  During the mass, the priest read out the prayers for the dead, listing those deceased during the week. The list seemed endless. Then he faced the congregation. ‘I want you all to know that bringing people with fever into a crowded church is dangerous. You must send a message to me, and I will come as soon as I can. If I cannot come in time, do not worry. God knows when we are doing our best, He will not blame us for being late.’

  At the end of the Mass, he read out the names of more families who had been selected for tickets for the Works, and told them to report to the Works direct the next morning. Again he looked at the congregation.

  ‘Two men – John Luby and Michael Hanrahan – have been dismissed from the Works. God bless you all.’

  Luke went back to the priest-house after Mass to discuss the new workers with the priest. When they were finished, the priest shook his head in despair.

  ‘That business with the old woman in the church shows you what I’m up against,’ he said. ‘Even riding around the mountains, I won’t be able get to everyone. I know I said that God will wait – but how do I know that? And with all that’s going on now, He’ll be waiting for ever. I just can’t go to everyone who is dying or dead, it’s not possible for any man.’

  ‘I know,’ Luke said. ‘But bringing her to the church, that could have been deadly.’

  ‘Deadly is right. I gave her the shortest and fastest Last Rites anyone ever got. I just had to get her out fast.’

  When Luke came out, the church was empty, but Winnie was still at the door.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he exclaimed.

  ‘I only thought I’d wait on you. And what’s wrong with that?’

  ‘What’s wrong indeed. I’ll be in trouble with your father if he finds out. He’s already warned me off you once.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Yes, the time we went to Castlebar, he reckoned there was too much ‘making eyes’ between us. He told me he was watching us. If he sees us talking together, there’ll be all hell to pay.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know what he’s watching for,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing between us, and there’s no harm in talking together surely?’

  ‘I don’t know that he thinks that way. And I’m sure of one thing, he doesn’t like me. He’ll put up with me, but that’s only because he has to.’

  She thought about that. ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ she said, ‘but I don’t think it’s so much that he dislikes you. You’ve got to understand it’s hard for him working under a younger man. All the time he was working in England, he had fellows working under him. He’s used to having things all his own way. He doesn’t like taking orders from anyone.’

  ‘And sure as hell not from me.’

  They walked the long way around to the Gallagher house. Luke wondered at how many eyes were observing them, though the street was quiet.

  ‘You’re a tough man, Luke!’

  ‘Not half tough enough.’

  ‘What about that business with Clarke the other night?’

  ‘He only got what he deserved.’

  ‘And I thought you were a gentle fellow.’

  ‘I am, and that’s the worst of it. Did your father tell you why I did it? Did he tell you what was going on up there?’

  ‘He did,’ she said. ‘I never knew things like that happened.’

  ‘We saw it all the time on the railways, but men had money there. I didn’t think I’d see it here. Clarke was a right bastard.’

  ‘But you did what you had to do. Isn’t that all?’

  ‘Perhaps it is,’ he said. ‘But I don’t have it in me for this. We had tough men managing us on the railways in England, but they were our own fellows. Older too, well used to it. I never knew I’d end up like this.’

  ‘I think you’re well able for it.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure I can last this out.’

  They walked on. Beside a mud cabin, a man was scrabbling at a clamp of potatoes, a woman standing beside him. Both were thin and gaunt. The woman was holding out her apron to hold the potatoes that the man was passing to her. Luke could see that every one was rotten. Yet she was hoarding them in to herself. She backed away from them as they approached, as if fearing they would steal them.

  ‘They’re going to eat those,’ Winnie said.

  ‘They are.’

  They stopped at a small bridge in the village. They both leant against it, staring at the water.

  ‘What will you do when this is all over?’ she asked him.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’ve been thinking of America.’

  He thought about that. It was not true. It was the first time he had said it to anyone. Even himself. Yes, Kitty had said it, but he had almost forgotten that. He had told Kitty it was impossible. But was it?

  It might be one way out, and not just because of the hunger. When he had started working on Relief, he had felt he had to do it. It wasn’t a matter of money either, he could earn more in England. People were starving, and he had to help. But it had all come back in his face. Selection – he had never even thought of that. Refusing desperate men in Carrigard, refusing family and friends. And the shebeen. Already, after only a few weeks in Brockagh, there were men who would see him dead.

  It was cold. He shivered, and put his arm around her shoulders. She said nothing.

  ‘Come on, Winnie. Come on home.’

  He held his arm around her. She leaned her head into his shoulder as they walked. They might be seen, but he no longer cared. He was silent, thinking of her and thinking of other places.

  America?

  Later he called back to the priest-house, and he and the priest rode towards the hills above Ardnagrena. Luke was carrying his payrolls, the priest his viaticum for the last rites. They rode for half an hour, talking about many things. Higher up, the land was much rougher; long stretches of heather with the odd patch of rotten potatoes between. The roads grew smaller until they were following mere tracks in the ground. There were very few houses of stone now, most were mud cabins with rough roofs of sod and heather rather than thatch. They rode through the remote mud clocháns of Benstreeva and Croghancoe, high above Ardnagrena and Lisnadee. They stopped.

  ‘Patrick Lynagh,’ the priest said to him. They went in. There was only a single room. In one corner was a large bed. There was a man in it and two children. The man was shivering. The priest walked over and started to give him the Last Rites. There were four other children in the room and a woman sitting at a rough table. ‘Mrs. Lynagh?’ Luke a
sked. She did not reply. He counted out fourteen pennies.

  ‘I need your mark here.’ She made an X. Alongside he wrote – Wages for Patrick Lynagh, now in fever. The mark of his wife.

  He handed the pen to the priest as witness.

  Fr. Matthew Nugent, Parish Priest.

  In the next house, a small rough built mud cabin, the man was already dead and buried. Father Nugent had given him the last rites three days before. Luke counted out seven pence, and again he asked for the woman’s mark. He was surprised when she signed her full name, in elegant copperplate style, as Edwina Anastasia Hughes, but he said nothing. Alongside he wrote – Patrick Hughes, deceased. The signature of his widow. Again the priest witnessed it. Fr. Matthew Nugent, PP.

  As the afternoon progressed, Luke noticed many other things. Higher up the mountains, many of the people were not even living in mud cabins. Rough sceilps had been built instead, branches covered with heather and sods of turf, leaning against banks of turf with holes dug out for shelter. The living showed all the signs of hunger. He saw the thin women, suckling infants at breasts that had no milk. Again and again he saw the bald children with the light hair on their faces. No matter how often he saw them, it still sickened him. The fox-children.

  There was worse. Everywhere he saw lice and fleas, but he thought nothing of this. In the cabins and sceilps, he saw the unmistakeable signs of black fever, or as he knew it from Doctor Stone – typhus. It brought him back to 1839 and the horror of Alicia’s death. Again he saw the dark faces. He saw the ‘rice water’ diarrhoea on the floor, which many families no longer cared to clear. He saw the convulsing limbs of people in delirium. Many times he knew the black fever was present before they entered a cabin – the screams and the unmistakeable rotting stench of gangrene.

  Later they came back from the mountains and rode around some of the nearer areas. They had not covered all the houses, but the priest suggested they continue during the week. Luke agreed. He was feeling shaken and depressed, though through it all the thought of Winnie still cheered him.

  America?

  Would she come?

  *

  With advice from Gallagher and Durcan, he appointed two new gangers at the Brockagh Works.

  The planning for Lisnadee was finalised. A message had been sent to Knocklenagh, and Timothy Durcan joined them in the priest’s house.

  This time, with Durcan’s assistance, they were able to mark down the families to be relieved from their own direct experience, and also from what Durcan knew from asking around Knocklenagh and Lisnadee.

  Because of the greater distance, it was decided that the list would not be read out from the church in Brockagh. Instead Timothy Durcan was delegated to return to the mountains, and either visit or send messages to those who had been selected. Later that week, Luke arrived at Durcan’s. They filled in the worksheets in Durcan’s house, a long line forming in the cold outside.

  Two days later, they opened the new Works at Lisnadee.

  One day in November, he saw two horsemen riding towards them. He recognised one as Ian McKinnon. They dismounted, and all three sat down away from the workers. Luke explained his expenditure to date, showing what he had paid and what he still owed to the various merchants. McKinnon paid out the amount still owing, and gave him five pounds as an advance.

  It was only then he introduced the other man as Henry Morton, a senior surveyor sent over from London. He wanted to examine the site. Over the next half hour the three men moved around measuring the work done.

  ‘How many days work does this represent?’ Morton asked.

  ‘Four, though we’ve not had all the workers for every day.’

  ‘Can you tell me the attendance rate?’ Luke showed him the payrolls. Morton went through them, examining them and checking calculations at random.

  ‘You make an excellent accounts clerk, Mr. Ryan, but we need better management here. With these days worked, we should be twice as far advanced. There is no excuse for this.’

  ‘There’s little else I can do, Mr. Morton. You know it yourself. Many of these people have fever. I’ve watched them. They can’t work faster.’

  ‘There are ways of making them work faster,’ Morton replied. ‘And we will succeed. We’re going to introduce piecework.’

  ‘Piecework?’

  ‘Yes. Piecework. A basic wage of tuppence three-farthings per day for the men, tuppence ha’penny for the women and tuppence farthing for the children under twelve. The rest by work measured.’

  ‘Work measured?’

  ‘Yes, Mr. Ryan. We’re offering them an excellent rate – tuppence per cubic yard of earth shifted and thruppence per cubic yard of gravel.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Hear me out. We’re also offering them a further ha’penny per perch for lock-spitting and a penny per perch for digging drains.’

  ‘But that’s nothing.’

  ‘On the contrary, Mr. Ryan. For people who are willing to work, it is an excellent system. These people are lazy beyond belief. They will not work unless they are forced to it.’

  ‘They’re not able for it,’ Luke said. ‘You know that. You’ll kill them or starve them.’

  ‘I won’t argue with you, Mr. Ryan. Those are the instructions from Castlebar. They are to be applied this week, as from yesterday morning. And if you do not wish to carry out your orders, you will be replaced.’

  Behind Morton, McKinnon shook his head, but said nothing.

  ‘Now Mr. McKinnon will explain the system to you,’ Morton continued, ‘while I observe these damned beggars.’

  As Morton rode along the line, McKinnon and Luke sat on a flagstone, going through the new system and the way that piecework would be calculated.

  ‘I can’t believe this,’ Luke said. ‘Savage is the only word for it.’

  ‘What can I say?’ McKinnon said. ‘It’s what Castlebar demands, and there’s damned little we can do to stop it.’

  ‘And they’re doing this at home too?’

  ‘I don’t know about Carrigard. There was no question of piecework when I was last there, but I’ll tell you this, there’ll be trouble if they try it. Gaffney’s not the class of man to give in to that kind of thing too easy.’

  Luke thought about that. Gaffney? Yes, he had the strength to resist Castlebar. But what could Luke Ryan do? Nothing. Nothing at all.

  ‘You reckon Gaffney’s tough enough to face them down?’ he asked.

  ‘I know he is,’ McKinnon said. ‘He faced down Clanowen, and no one expected that.’

  ‘Clanowen? Was he going to evict…?’

  ‘Oh no, it wasn’t a question of evictions. He hasn’t got around to that yet. It was the Works. He was demanding that the people from the Mountain should all be dismissed for Coogan’s murder.’

  ‘But Gaffney wouldn’t have it?’

  ‘No way, would he have it. I was in the cottage when Clanowen came in, furious that his tenants were on the Works. Damned near screaming, he was, but Gaffney just sat there, shaking his head, wouldn’t be moved. In the end, Clanowen just stormed out again.’

  ‘That’s hard to believe,’ Luke said.

  ‘It is,’ McKinnon said, ‘and I wouldn’t believe it myself, excepting I saw it. But you know Clanowen, he’s not the man to give up easy. If he can’t get his revenge one way, he’ll get it another.’

  It had started to rain. As they stood sheltering under a tree, McKinnon handed him a letter.

  ‘Cronin asked me to give you this,’ he said. ‘It’s been in the office in the Workhouse for a few weeks. They didn’t know rightly where you were.’

  Luke looked at the Leeds postmark. It was dated September. ‘You’d think they’d have asked Pat where I was,’ he said. ‘Or even Voisey. Have they no sense?’

  ‘Oh, I’m not surprised,’ McKinnon said. ‘They’ve far too much to do as it
is. What with thousands of people trying to get into the Workhouse and hundreds of new Works to be started, I’m afraid Luke Ryan’s personal correspondence rates very low in the order of things.’

  After McKinnon and Morton had left, Luke called John Gallagher over, and both men walked down the road to each gang. When the gangers had called the men and women together, Luke tried, as best he could, to explain the new system of lower wages and piecework.

  He was greeted with silence. He could see the fear in their eyes, but also the contempt and hatred.

  That evening, he rode to the priest’s house to sign up more workers to replace the dead and dying. Again the news of the new system was received in silence.

  James Kilgallon, 2¾d.

  Anne Carr, child, 2¼d.

  Patrick McEllin, 2¾d.

  Alicia Byrne, 2½d.

  Robert Carroll, child, 2¼d.

  Bee Feely, 2½d.

  Catherine Mullany, child, 2¼d.

  Michael Morrisroe, 2¾d.

  Brigid Brannan, 2½d.

  Later that night, he read Danny’s letter as the women were preparing dinner. Long afterwards, when the family had gone to bed, he stayed up, sitting on a stool beside the embers of the fire. He was more torn than ever.

  He knew Danny was serious. He knew that for the first time – perhaps the only time – he was being offered the opportunity of making real money. He knew too that Danny had the ability to do it, the combination of experience with the native cunning of so many from Mayo. His sheer forcefulness and ruthlessness would ensure that he would succeed. He would go far, further than any of them, and he – Luke Ryan – was being offered a share in all this. ‘Specialising in Mayo men.’ Yes, and working them into the ground on starvation wages. He thought of the Works. Brockagh or Leeds? What was the difference? Profit, that was the only difference. But which of the two was worse?

  To hell with Danny. There was someone else too. Winnie. What might happen between them? If he left Brockagh, he would never know.

  He folded the letter. Then he put it in the pocket of his greatcoat and went to bed.