The Killing Snows

by Charles Egan

  ‘We just had to continue, I couldn’t stop it. But every day, there were less and less of them. I knew what was happening, I knew right well. You never see it though. The people, they keep to themselves. But I knew what it was like. The fever is a terrible thing. I saw my sister die of it in Carrigard. They stink when they’re dying, Winnie, the fever eats them alive. It isn’t a death that’s fit for man nor child.’

  ‘I know. I’ve seen it too.’ He looked at her in surprise, but she waited for him to continue.

  ‘But we went on,’ he said. ‘I reckoned as long as I could see some of them, they were still alive, and that was something. But it was nothing. They started to die on me, right there on the Works. Men and women and worst of all, the children, I couldn’t take that. You know the ones with the hairy faces, they’d just look at you with their dead eyes. They used to hate me, but when they were like that they wouldn’t know me, there’d be nothing in their eyes at all. So when they died, we just brought them down to Knocklenagh, Durcan and me, he’d get someone to bury them, and we’d go back up to Lisnadee to watch more of them die, and bring more of them back down.’

  ‘Oh God, Luke, it must have been awful for you.’

  ‘Never mind me,’ he said, ‘wasn’t it worse to be dying.’

  She said nothing, and waited.

  ‘And even then,’ he said, ‘would you believe it, even then when it was still snowing, we were trying to get workers back up on the Works to make money for themselves, but I was wrong to do that, I shouldn’t have done it, and in the end it was useless anyhow. We had to close them, the Works. I’ll never forget the look in their eyes when I told them that. I had no choice, the snow was too deep, and they were still dying on me. And we couldn’t get the last of the bodies down, we had to leave five of them there. It was bad enough that, but I was worried about the foxes coming too. With all the snow and the cold they’re desperate enough, they’re starving too.’

  ‘You mean to eat…?’

  ‘Oh, never mind,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have told you that.’

  ‘But did they? Do you know?’

  ‘I don’t know. The bodies, they were still up there, at least when I left. They were getting a gang of fellows to go up and bring them down, but God knows whether they’ll get up there with the snow in the mountains as it is. When I saw them last, the foxes hadn’t been at them. Not that it’d make much difference. I reckon the snow’s killed hundreds more by now, and most of them won’t have been buried either. But when we got down to Knocklenagh after closing the Works, Father Nugent was there, he wanted to go up to Lisnadee again, give Extreme Unction to the dead bodies there. Wouldn’t hear of staying back in the warmth. So I had to go with him, no horses, just walking. I was frozen already, but what could I do, I couldn’t let him go on his own. Oh God, it was cold, and then he told me about Father having fever, it was a hell of a shock I can tell you, and all I could think about was Father and fever. But then something happened. I don’t know what it was. I was looking at the mountain as we walked back, and I felt frightened. Terrified. There was something awful powerful behind the mountain, but there was nothing there.’

  ‘But what was it?’ she asked.

  ‘It was nothing, I’m telling you. Or like someone who knew everything there was to know about me. So after that, I thought I was mad, then I thought I was raving with fever, but I wasn’t.

  ‘It was the cold, that’s what it was. It does that to people.’

  ‘Maybe. It was very strange though. What happened next, that was strange too.’

  ‘Strange?’ she asked. ‘What was so strange?

  ‘I started talking to Father Nugent. He’s quite a fellow you know, I never knew a man like that before. I think what happened to me on the mountain, it shook him too, more than seeing the dead bodies even. I couldn’t explain it to him either, but it made him talk. Told me what decided him to be a priest. He comes from a big farm in Meath, you know, came here to Brockagh because he wanted to. Could have been preaching in big churches in Dublin, but he prefers it here. Reckons he’s close to God here, they don’t know what God means up in Dublin, that’s what he told me.’

  ‘He prefers to be in Brockagh!’

  ‘That’s what he said.’

  ‘What else did he say?’

  ‘Don’t ask, that’s between him and me. But anyhow, after that he started fasting, what else should a priest do he said when there’s people starving. So that’s when I stopped feeding too, that’s why. That and because the Durcans had little enough for themselves. They’ll last a few weeks yet, but I thought it was like taking the food from the little children, and I’ve seen enough of dead children for one lifetime. Oh God, I thought I was going mad, I really did, I could hardly stay standing. There was only one thing that held me back, only one thing I could think of that would bring me back again.’

  ‘And what was that?’ she asked.

  He did not answer directly.

  ‘Jesus Christ, Winnie,’ he said at length, ‘I need you. I knew someone once, I thought I knew what it was to need someone, but I didn’t. It was only what I thought she was, but she wasn’t that at all. But you’re different, you’re every bit the woman I know you are. It’d kill me to be without you.’

  ‘You’ll never be without me,’ she said.

  In the afternoon, Gallagher arrived back, and Luke worked on the Ardnagrena time sheets, calculating the piecework. Then he summarised it, detailing the payments for each gang there and at Lisnadee. He handed the sheets to Gallagher.

  ‘I’ll have to ask you to arrange the wages at Ardnagrena, John, and Lisnadee as well. I’ve paid a few already. You’ll see all the amounts owing here.’

  ‘What about you?’ Gallagher asked.

  ‘Morton wants to see me down in Knockanure. It was supposed to be last Thursday, but I’ll go tomorrow. He should be there with the Guardians, they meet on Thursdays. He’ll scream at me for missing last week, but I can’t worry about that. Will you be alright here though?’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ Gallagher said. ‘Don’t you worry about it.’

  ‘There’s one other problem though. I haven’t enough money. I’ll leave what I have, but for the rest, you’ll have to wait until Davitt arrives. If he arrives.’

  ‘Don’t be like that. He’ll arrive, you know it. Just you go on down to Knockanure, and leave things to us for a few days.’

  He rose very early, borrowed Gallagher’s horse, and rode through the dawn towards Knockanure. He passed gaunt figures walking through slush. It was afternoon before he saw Knockanure; the Workhouse and the Church of Ireland steeple standing clear over the houses and cabins.

  He rode to the Workhouse and then to the back entrance. There was a small crowd, but he managed to struggle through the gates as they were unlocked for him, and he led the horse in after him. He went to the administration building.

  He handed the reins of the horse to one of the inmates to bring to the stables. Voisey answered his knock. He looked puzzled as he greeted him.

  ‘You’ve noticed the horse,’ Luke said.

  ‘A carthorse. Where did he come from?’

  ‘I was attacked. They thrashed the hell out of me, and stole the horse. I had to borrow this one from the people I was staying with.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Luke. You’re not the only one though, we’re hearing stories like that every day. It’s a dangerous business working for the Union now.’

  ‘It is.’

  They walked into the building.

  ‘How are things in the mountains?’ Voisey asked.

  ‘Desperate. The numbers are down at both of the Works, but I don’t think I’ll have difficulty getting them back now the snow is melting.’

  ‘We’re talking of two more Works. If you can manage them.’

  ‘I don’t know…’

  ‘You did it once before Luke.
I’m sure you can do it again.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘As you say, in the mountains. Wherever you think it is needed most, the Guardians will go with it. You can have a word with McKinnon when you see him next. It might be some weeks yet though.’

  Voisey went into the meeting room, while Luke waited outside. There were two clerks ahead of him. He asked what had happened the previous Thursday. He was relieved to hear that the meeting of the Guardians had not proceeded because of the snow all across the county. He knew well that Morton would not accept excuses from him for not carrying out his instructions, even if they had been impossible.

  When the main meeting ended, and most of the other Guardians had left, he entered the meeting room. Morton was waiting for him impatiently, wanting to return to Castlebar as soon as possible. Once again he went through Luke’s time sheets and calculations, and declared himself impressed by the results. Most impressed.

  ‘With respect, Mr. Morton,’ Luke said, ‘I’m not impressed with my results at all. We’re killing people with this system. I’ve seen them working until they die. I’ve seen the cold killing them in the mountains. This isn’t Christian, it isn’t Relief, it’s a mockery of everything we’re trying to do.’

  Morton raised one eyebrow, staring at him. ‘I’ll have to ask you to calm yourself, Mr. Ryan. We won’t achieve anything by talking this sort of nonsense. I was sent here to build roads, and roads I will build. Mr. Gaffney told me that you had worked on the railways, and you understand how it is done. That is the reason we have given you such responsibility.’

  ‘Yes, Mr. Morton, but that was England. This is Mayo, and people are dying.’

  ‘I am well aware where I am, Mr. Ryan, and I have no desire to spend any longer in this dreadful county than I have to. Now if you wish to resign, your resignation will be accepted. But if you wish to help these people of yours, I would advise you to treat your superiors with more respect. There are already questions regarding the theft of a horse, the property of this Union.’

  ‘What? You’re not suggesting…’

  ‘Yes, Mr. Ryan. You were given a Union horse, and you bring back a carthorse. That is theft. For some reason, Mr. Voisey does not wish to prefer charges. But we are not all fools.’

  Luke looked across to Voisey, who shook his head. He turned back to Morton.

  ‘I was assaulted, Mr. Morton. The horse was stolen.’

  ‘That’s your story, Mr. Ryan. Just remember – we are watching you.’

  Luke said nothing.

  ‘Now there’s one other matter,’ Morton said. ‘We need more Works opened in the mountains. I understand Mr. Voisey has told you about that.’

  ‘He has. But when do we open them?’

  ‘As soon as we inform you.’ He handed him back his worksheets. ‘Now kindly return to Brockagh, and continue your work.’

  As he limped out of the room, there was a shout from the other office. ‘Luke!’

  ‘Pat! I was just going to try and find you.’

  ‘Well, now you have.’

  Luke walked across the room. He noticed the Master’s daughter at a desk in the corner. She took the papers she had been working on, and left the room.

  ‘Who was that?’ Luke asked.

  ‘Oh, Sarah. She was just giving me a hand with the accounts. Last fellow I had got the fever and died.’

  ‘She seems a shy sort.’

  ‘The devil, she is.’

  ‘Good at sums, is she?’

  ‘Yes, by God. Cronin has her well trained. She’s worked with him for years, unpaid too. I don’t know what I’d have done without her. They’ve me working night and day, adding and subtracting. I can’t even sleep at night with all the numbers chasing through my head.’

  ‘Yes,’ Luke said. ‘I know just what it’s like. But tell me, what about Father? I’d heard he had fever.’

  ‘I didn’t think you knew about that. He had fever alright. Gave Mother quite a fright. But you know Father, he’s had it before, and if it didn’t kill him then, it wasn’t going to kill him now. No, he’s fine, he’s even out working the quarry.’

  ‘You were over?’

  ‘Just for a day. Like you, I was half expecting to be going to a funeral.’

  ‘Lucky I met you. I was just about to ride over to Carrigard.’

  ‘Go on so, why don’t you?’

  ‘I can’t. I would have, if I thought he was dying, but I’ve other things to be doing. I’ll have to leave it a few weeks yet.’

  ‘But why?’ Pat asked him.

  ‘Too much to do. I don’t want to do it, believe me, I’d far prefer to go back home. But things are terrible, and I can’t just run away. I’ve just come from a place called Lisnadee. We were running Works there until a week ago. I saw people frozen to death. It terrified me. I don’t want to ever see anything like that again. But I have to do it, stop it happening again. If I can.’

  ‘I’d heard things were bad in the mountains.’

  ‘Worse than I could even tell you. Now I find I can’t even talk about it. I tried to explain it all to Morton, but he doesn’t want to know.’

  ‘He doesn’t want to know much, our Mr. Morton. There’s nothing in his head except sums and accounts. God knows where they bred him, he’s no mother’s son.’

  ‘So how do you manage working with him?’ Luke asked.

  ‘I just keep my mouth shut. It’s poor old Voisey who takes it worse. Cronin too. They want to do more, feed the whole county, but Morton won’t have a farthing out of place.’

  Luke stared at the long columns of figures on the desk. For some time, neither spoke.

  ‘Tell me about Lisnadee,’ Pat whispered at length.

  ‘I told you – I can’t.’

  ‘Try.’

  He shook his head. ‘What is there to tell you?’

  ‘Where is it? How did you get there? What were you doing there?’

  ‘You know Knocklenagh?’

  ‘I think so. The little village up from Brockagh?’

  ‘That’s right. Well, Lisnadee is above Knocklenagh again. You couldn’t call it a village. Just dozens of mud cabins, all across the mountain.’

  ‘And why were you there?’

  ‘That’s where our second Works is. We had to start another once we got Ardnagrena running.’

  ‘You’re running two?’

  ‘I have to,’ Luke said. ‘And there’s some question it might even be four.’

  ‘But why you?’

  ‘Because there’s no one else to do it, and people are dying.’

  ‘It’s impossible, isn’t it?’

  ‘Damned near. But I’ve a few good fellows working for me. And the priest.’

  ‘But four Works. That puts you on a level with Gaffney.’

  ‘Oh, to hell with that. What the devil does that matter?’

  His brother said nothing. Pat glanced down the long list of columns, black and red ink. Then he looked back to Luke.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Yes, so we got the Works running at Lisnadee a few weeks ago. The priest, he found me a fellow in Knocklenagh – Tim Durcan is his name. Got it running in a few weeks, but God, it was slow. It was all piecework. They were earning near enough nothing.’

  ‘Piecework!’ Pat exclaimed. ‘What piecework?’

  ‘The new system Castlebar introduced. Morton insisted on it.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Just like the railways. Pay you for work done. And tuppence ha’pence basic.’

  ‘Tuppence ha’pence for what?’

  ‘Basic per day. Tuppence ha’pence for the men, tuppence farthing for the women, tuppence for children.’

  Pat shook his head. ‘Tuppence a day! I just can’t believe this.’

  ‘And then, when the snows came, the c
old was killing them. I never saw anything like it in my life. The last few days in Lisnadee, they were nothing more than murder. Murder, pure and simple. I couldn’t pay them a living wage, and they couldn’t stop coming for the few pennies they got. We were running three gangs at Lisnadee – supposed to be a hundred people with Tim. But every morning there were less and less. Maybe some of them just couldn’t get down through the snow, but I reckon with the hunger and the fever, most of them just couldn’t face the cold again. Every night we’d go around trying to find more workers, but in the end I gave up. Oh, God…’

  His hands were trembling. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘There’s no need to say sorry to me.’

  ‘No. Well…then they started dying on me. Right there on the Works. Two of them died there one day, two the next day. Then four. We tried to bring their bodies down to Knocklenagh, but in the end we just left them there to freeze. On the very last day, we’d only nineteen workers. Can you understand it? Nineteen out of a hundred. And one was already dead.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘What could I do? I just closed the Works. There’s no need killing people in the snow, they might as well die at home, and I reckon the most of them probably did. So I left the Works and stayed over in Knocklenagh until the snow stopped.’

  Pat said nothing. He thought of the horror he had been seeing in the Workhouse and the fever sheds over the past months, but he reckoned Luke was already on the edge, and there was no point in burdening him with further stories of hunger, disease and death.

  Luke was staring out the window at the crowd in front of the gates. He thought of saying more, but decided against it too. Pat would never understand Croghancoe – the power or the terror. At last he looked away, and turned back to his brother.

  ‘Let’s see what you’re doing there. Perhaps I can give you a hand?’

  For half an hour they worked in silence, Luke adding long columns as Pat transcribed new columns from wage sheets, payment slips, invoices, requisitions and other documents. When Luke had finished all the columns and checked them, he put his pen down.

  ‘How long are you intending to stay here?’ he asked.