The Killing Snows

by Charles Egan

  When Gallagher came back that evening, Luke was still hunched over his papers.

  ‘Still working?’ Gallagher asked.

  ‘No,’ Luke said. ‘I’m just trying to think it all through. This business of the weakest being run off the gangs – that worries me.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s going to be as bad as we thought. Father Nugent sorted them out this afternoon.’

  ‘He did?’

  ‘Well and truly. He came along at the end of work, collected everyone together, and gave fire and brimstone to the fellows on that gang. He told everyone that running the weakest off the Works was murder, pure and simple.’

  ‘So what happened?’ Luke asked. ‘How did they take it?’

  ‘They gave in, what else could they do. All the others turned against them. They began to call them murderers too. In the end, Father Nugent agreed to give them absolution, but only if they took back the fellows who’d left.’

  ‘So there’s decent people in the world yet.’

  ‘There are,’ Gallagher said, ‘and if there’s them that forget it, we have a priest who won’t stop reminding them.’

  One morning, he rode towards Lisnadee. An early mist had lifted, the sun was shining. The cold was less than before. The pain in his knee had eased, and he knew that while he would hobble for a few weeks, there was no permanent damage. He almost began to feel happy.

  The shebeen might still be a problem, but he now thought this was unlikely. Refusing to retain men and women who used the shebeen had been a tough and dangerous course, but it had worked. Many would have resented his actions as unnecessary interference, but he felt certain that some at least would understand it as the only way in a time of fever and famine. He knew that Clarke had orchestrated the assault on him, but he reckoned that this was the high tide mark of the violence, and it would not be repeated.

  Gallagher’s comments had cheered him too. If the weakest were run off the Works, the whole exercise would have been pointless. He realised that he had let the single episode dominate his thinking, but what Father Nugent had done, and the reaction of the men and women in the other gangs, confirmed what he had known all along. Even now, people supported one another.

  He could see Lisnadee in the distance – the listless lines of men and women working with their picks and shovels. He thought of the Great Western Railway and the South Eastern, it all seemed so long ago. Enormous Works, thousands of men. Compared to the rails, Lisnadee was nothing, but the way of working was the same. Under Farrelly’s system the strong supported the weak, though men earning three, four or five shillings a day could not be described as weak.

  But there were weak people here. Feverish men, gaunt starving women, children unable to lift a pick. If the rest of their gang abandoned them, they would die.

  As soon as he arrived, he could see that everything was running well. He dismounted. Close by, a man stopped working, and turned to face him, saying nothing. Luke could see the lice in the dirty blanket wrapped around him. He could see too the look of contempt in his eyes. After a few moments, the man shook his head, and turned back to his work.

  Durcan came up to him. ‘I’m surprised to see you. Shouldn’t you be in bed a few days yet.’

  ‘Too many things to be doing,’ Luke said. ‘Though from all I can see here, I don’t know that you’ll be needing me at all.’

  ‘Oh, we’ll need you alright. Father Nugent helped out a lot, but he’s too much to do as it is.’

  ‘Maybe you’d give me a quick look down the Works. I don’t want to get off.’

  Durcan took the bridle, and led the donkey along, explaining how far each operation was advanced.

  ‘Do you have all the papers there?’ Luke asked.

  ‘Of course. All filled out, just as you’d want.’

  He took the work sheets, and started to check through them, doing rough estimates on the piecework as he did.

  ‘Have you had any trouble with piecework here?’ he asked.

  ‘Not in carrying it out. I heard from Father Nugent that you had some trouble with it in Ardnagrena. Running fellows off the gangs.’

  ‘He told you about that, did he?’

  ‘He did, but he told me to keep it to myself. No point in causing trouble.’

  ‘So why do you think you’ve had no trouble?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that too. Two reasons. First, we had piecework here from the beginning; they never knew any other way of doing things. And second, no one got the idea of forcing the weaker off the gangs.’

  ‘It only takes one man to start trouble with that.’

  ‘That’s true. Maybe it’s because people here are more used to helping each other, they wouldn’t force people out and let them die. They even share out the little corn they have. But it’s not that that worries me.’

  ‘What then?’ Luke asked.

  ‘The fever is going to be the real killer here. At times I wonder about bringing people together so as fever can spread among them.’

  ‘Yes,’ Luke said. ‘I think you’re right.’

  He looked at the scene around him. The sun was sparkling off the lake, birds singing. Only people were suffering.

  ‘And we’re going to have another problem too,’ he said. ‘The piecework payments are going to be very little. Damned little.’

  ‘Yes,’ Durcan agreed, ‘Father Nugent had noticed that. These figures aren’t great.’

  Luke rode back between the lines of workers. Whenever he caught people’s eyes, he nodded at them. Some just stared at him, most looked away. Their bodies were skeletal now, eyes and cheeks sunken so deep that their faces seemed like skulls. When he got to the end of the line, a young boy turned around and spat in front of him. Luke rode on.

  He spent that evening calculating the wages and the piecework payments. It was as he had feared. In each of the gangs, the workers were not earning much more than five pence a day. Again he thought back to the railways. There they had worked piecework on the South-Eastern with no basic wage at all. No one had ever bothered much when they did, they earned more that way. They had been young and strong, and earning money, more than they could ever have earned in Mayo. But piecework was different here. It didn’t reward the strong, it only punished the weak.

  The snow returned, blown on a powerful gale that scoured the fields, dumping drifts against the walls and across the roads. The people still came, tramping across fields and along the lee side of walls. Luke had the work continued where there were no drifts, but many of the worksites were buried, and he had to have the snow shovelled away before some of the gangs could start work.

  The next payday was busy. He had to supervise payments at both locations. When Martin Davitt arrived, he had already heard of the attack.

  ‘Dangerous men around here, Luke.’

  ‘Aye, there are.’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you to be careful about the Selection.’

  ‘Oh, it was nothing to do with that.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘The shebeen. The fellow who was running it, I don’t think he liked me.’

  Davitt laughed. ‘Damned sure he didn’t like you. Not after you burning his business premises, eh?’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘’Everyone knows.’

  ‘Yes,’ Luke said. ‘I suppose he had his reasons. Not that he’ll ever prove it, the bastard. And don’t say I said that.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  When they had finished the payments at Ardnagrena, he rode with Davitt towards Lisnadee.

  ‘I didn’t tell you about Morton,’ Davitt said. ‘He saw your wage sheets. Told us you were getting the best results in Mayo.’

  ‘Damned bastard!’

  ‘Yes, he kept lecturing us on how we should achieve the same results all over the county. He said you knew how to do it.’r />
  ‘I don’t know how to do it,’ Luke said. ‘I’m just doing what he told me I had to. I’ve no choice. Isn’t everyone else doing the same?’

  ‘Not yet. Seems Morton was using you as an experiment. They’ll be applying piecework alright, but only starting next week.’

  ‘He never told me that,’ Luke exclaimed.

  ‘He wouldn’t, would he?’ Davitt said. ‘But I’m afraid there’s more bad news to come. He wants the basic reduced.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Yes, from next week. Only by a farthing – tuppence ha’penny is the new rate for the men, tuppence farthing for the women and tuppence for the children.’

  ‘And is there an increase on the piece-work rate?’

  ‘Now what do you think?’

  They rode on through Knocklenagh.

  ‘The people won’t stand for this,’ Luke said.

  ‘They will,’ Davitt answered him. ‘They’ll have to. They’ve no choice.’

  ‘They’ll kill someone.’

  ‘Not here, they won’t. They haven’t got it in them anymore.’

  ‘What can they do, then? What the devil can we do?’

  ‘Wait it out. Wait until the fever and hunger are over, wait till they’ve got their strength back. Then we’ll see what we’ll do. And there’s many won’t like it.’

  ‘That sounds pretty rough,’ Luke said.

  ‘It’s meant to be rough,’ Davitt said.

  *

  As he rode one afternoon from Ardnagrena back to Brockagh, he saw a man in the distance carrying the body of a woman over his shoulder, her arms and long hair swinging as he staggered along, slipping and sliding over the compacted snow. Even from a quarter mile he could see that the body was so thin it could not have weighed much, but the old man had little strength left in him. Luke rode up to him and dismounted.

  ‘Are ye going to the graveyard,’ he asked. The old man looked at him in fright, and only nodded.

  ‘Here, I’ll take ye there,’ Luke said.

  The old man put the corpse down, and Luke helped him into the saddle. Then he took the corpse to place it on the donkey behind. As he lifted it, he dropped it in horror. It was already well decomposed. The face was black, the woman’s ribs and stomach showing through. Maggots crawled through the pus on her ulcerated legs.

  He was committed now. He would have to continue, but he was risking fever himself. He lifted the corpse again and hefted it onto the donkey behind the old man. Then he led the donkey along in silence. When they reached the graveyard, he helped the man down again and lifted the corpse, leaving it just inside the gate. The man nodded to him again, whether in gratitude or hate Luke could not tell, and started walking back towards Ardnagrena.

  Luke did not remount. He stood leaning against the donkey, feeling his throat retching. He vomited onto the road and stood staring at the pool of half-digested corn and turnip in the snow. Then he took the donkey by the bridle and walked back to Gallaghers. He asked Mrs. Gallagher to prepare a bowl of hot water. He washed the donkey down well, then the saddle and his own arms and chest. For days, the episode nauseated and frightened him, but his luck stayed with him, and the black fever did not claim him.

  For the next few weeks, both Works progressed at a slow pace, interrupted by blizzards day after day. He alternated between Ardnagrena and Lisnadee. Davitt’s prediction had been correct. When he announced the farthing reduction in the basic pay, there was no response at all. The roads were being built as the system dictated, and everything was within budget, just as Morton had demanded. But he could still see the human cost. In Ardnagrena and Lisnadee, he was despised, but there was no trouble, only a mood of sullen acceptance. Men and women could no longer support their families from their farms. Their pride had been broken.

  The silence unnerved him though. As he walked down the Works, no one spoke to him, no one looked at him. The horror of it all was affecting him more than ever. Many of the workers were earning only a little more than the basic wage, and he knew well that large families could not be fed on this kind of money. He knew too that the price of corn had increased; two, three and four times over.

  The hunger deepened, and the workers became more emaciated. They were little more than walking skeletons now. The bald heads of the children, wisps and strands of hair blowing from the side, horrified him more than ever.

  The cold went on. And the Killing Snows.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Mayo Constitution, December 1846:

  More starvation. On the 16th, Mr. Rutledge, coroner, held an inquest at Robeen on the body of Catherine Walsh, who died of absolute starvation. One of the witnesses deposed that the deceased was able to work on the roads until the inclement weather set in, when, from her age, she was unable to withstand the cold, and therefore she could not procure food. Dr. Little declared the cause of her death to be from the absolute want of the necessaries of life.

  The winds had died. The snow stopped too, and for a few days there were clear skies with heavy frost at night. It was still cold during the days, and the snow did not melt. The searing cold of the previous weeks had disappeared though, and the Works went on.

  One day at Ardnagrena, as the Works stopped for feeding, he sat alone on a flagstone and took out his pack. It was cold, but fine.

  ‘Mr. Ryan.’

  He looked around. There was no one there. A voice came from behind the wall. ‘Don’t say a word, it’s only me.’

  ‘Who’s me?’

  ‘John Gallagher. Young John.’

  He looked around again, fearful that he might be seen talking to himself. ‘What’s up, John?’

  ‘I’m to take you for a walk.’

  ‘A walk?’ He looked back towards the gangers and workers, then turned his face sideways. ‘I can’t walk,’ he said.

  ‘Well, ride.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Just go down to the crossroads and take the turn towards the hill.’

  Curious, he hobbled across the snow to the donkey, and rode down towards the crossroads. He could see a faint movement in the brown, withered gorse. When he got to the crossroads, he saw a figure climbing over the wall, fifty yards on. He rode up.

  ‘What’s this all about?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s a secret. I’m not to tell anyone. And I’m to stay near you all the time.’

  ‘Near me?’

  ‘Yes. But not too near.’

  He ran on ahead. Intrigued, Luke rode after him. Young John had stopped by another small road going off to the right. He scrambled up the wall across from it on the left and sat facing the other road. When Luke arrived, he heard a voice from behind a whin bush.

  ‘Good morning, Luke.’ It was Winnie.

  He stared at her, surprised. ‘God, after one ambush, you’d think I’d have more sense than to walk into another!’

  ‘That’s very careless of you. I told you, you don’t mind yourself well enough.’

  He dismounted and tied the reins to the whin. ‘What if we’re seen?’ he asked.

  ‘We won’t be seen. Young John, he’s got eyes in his head, hasn’t he? And who is there to see us, they’re all down on the Works.’

  She grasped his hands. He tried to move closer.

  ‘Shhh, be careful. Young John’s watching.’

  He laughed. ‘And whose idea was that, bringing him along?’

  ‘No one’s idea. Or mine maybe, but it’s the way it’s always done. He’s the eldest son, he has a duty to protect his sister.’

  ‘The eldest son, indeed,’ Luke said. ‘He’s ten years younger than you if he’s a day.’

  ‘And what’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Nothing at all,’ Luke replied. ‘Does your mother know he’s here?’

  ‘Of course not! There’s no need, he’s well able to take care.’

&nb
sp; ‘Is he?’

  ‘Of course he is. He’s eight years old.’

  ‘God, you’ve an answer for everything! And Young John, who better?’ Again he tried to draw her closer.

  ‘No. Not now.’

  ‘Sorry. I’m not supposed to hug you? What am I supposed to do?’

  ‘Just talk to me,’ she said. ‘Tell me about yourself. You never talk about yourself.’

  He stamped his feet on the snow and blew into his hands.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘you start.’

  ‘But there’s nothing to tell you. What you see is all there is of me. I’ve been brought up in Brockagh, never travelled. Well, Ballina once or twice. You know my family, we’re hungry, but not so much as we were. You know the house we live in. That’s all there is to us and to me. You’re the one who came riding in from nowhere and changed all our lives.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ he said. ‘That was only because of the Relief. I was sent here by the powers-that-be.’

  ‘Oh yes, they’re the reason you’re here, they sent you here. Because we were starving, that was why. But once you arrived, Brockagh could never stay the same, and not just because of the Relief. Look at the effect you’ve had on the family – Ma and Pa, Young John and everyone else. And me.’

  ‘You!’

  ‘Yes, me,’ she said.

  ‘I thought you said there was nothing between us.’

  ‘Stop teasing.’

  ‘But you said it. Only the other day.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. I only said that was what I told Pa.’

  ‘But when…’

  ‘Right from the moment you knocked on the door. And don’t pretend you didn’t notice.’

  Yes, he thought. The door opening. Grey eyes. It was all in the eyes – but what? Teasing? Laughing? Defiant? Something more?

  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ he said. ‘I never believed in that kind of thing though. I thought it was all old wives’ tales.’

  ‘You men, you never believe anything until it’s staring you in the face. You wouldn’t believe it, but I always did. I knew it would happen. Someday.’