Get along, Baralong. Just get along now. I’ll begin. It had been an order but one that he had to give and Baralong had looked at him and though he had not spoken there was comfort in the hand that gripped his shoulder.
In the dark Harry had torn at the rocks, ripping his skin, his nails, and talking all the time. It’s all right, boys, he had said again and again, we’re coming, we’re coming. And still he made no sparks but choked and coughed, and soon men who had been knocked off their feet by the rushing wind came to join him and Baralong brought more help, fresh miners, and Harry ordered that every man was to be brought out, dead or alive. No one was to be left in that stinking hole and they were to work quickly but carefully; oh so carefully.
Baralong took him to the surface and the light blinded him as it had at Penhallon but this time there was no Hannah to take his hand and kiss it, though there was the black arm of his friend to steady him and support his weight, his familiar voice urging him onwards. Frank had been waiting at the top and he had brushed Baralong aside and taken Harry’s weight himself.
Get along, he had said to Baralong. Back to the barracks. But Harry had called to his friend, You saved my life, and Baralong had turned. I do nothing, Boss, and there was a warning in his look and Harry nodded. His leg hurt now and his hands were throbbing and blood dripped from them on to the parched ground. Blood was on Baralong’s torn jacket too. Harry had just nodded to his mate. He would not show that he cared, for he knew that Baralong was right to fear the rules which governed this small world of theirs.
Frank had taken him back to the office. There was no need for all that fuss, you know, he had said. So a few boys die? There are plenty more. We’ve lost time, a lot of time, Harry. I’ve sent down an order that the bodies are to be left beneath the rock. They are just to clear enough of the fall to be able to carry on working up the stopes.
Harry remembered the anger which had pushed back his tiredness and the feel of the wood beneath his shaking hands as he had pushed himself up from the old corner chair where Frank had placed him. Without a word he had pushed past Frank and out of that dark airless office, straight back to the head of the shaft though the pain had shot through his leg and blood flooded the torn jacket which was his bandage. He had told the white overseer that all the fallen ore was to be moved so that the equipment could be brought out, and while they were doing that they might as well bring out the bodies, they’d stink if they were left. He had raised his voice and said that if necessary he would stay here until they were finished. His voice had been strong and he had not coughed or choked but stared at the man until he sent a runner with the message, looking first over Harry’s shoulder to Frank who had followed.
Frank’s face had been hard but he had not rescinded Harry’s instructions. Harry had gambled on that, knowing that Frank would not want it to be seen that managers were quarrelling.
Harry had smiled. Makes sense, old man, he had said. There’s good equipment down there, it would be a shame to waste it. We’ve lost time, let’s not lose the drills.
Had Frank seen through him? Harry had not known then, and did not know now, but had watched as the man he lived and drank with turned and walked away, and Harry had wanted to shout after him that the drills were nothing but the men were different, and yes, they were men, who even when dead deserved some dignity. They were not beasts.
But he could not for what would this do to his mate whom he somehow hoped to drag out of this mess? So instead he said the words to himself and to Hannah whose hand he could feel kissing his own, holding it to her mouth and the wind of the moor was cool for one moment on his face.
And so he lifted his head and told her how Baralong was not a beast but a man whose forebears had lived in stone buildings as good as the one in which he and Frank lived. How he was a Sotho from the interior whose tribe had worked copper into fine wire, had smelted iron, had mined and worked gold. He told how Baralong was a man, not an animal, and how this man was his friend, and he shut his eyes to the mine and to Frank and to the injustices which comprised this world in which he lived. By now the beating heat of the sun had chased the moor and the wind away and the pain behind his eyes and in his leg surged as he turned back to the head of the shaft. He would wait until they all came out.
The house was in sight now and this evening was the last time he would approach from these God-forsaken mines. The sounds of the compound could no longer be heard. Harry’s leg was still stiff but the cut had healed well. Frank had not spoken to him directly but Harry had received praise from their superiors for saving so much equipment. Harry was also informed that H. Watson Esq. was to be transferred to Kimberley and the diamond mines; to get rid of him, Harry suspected and was glad, but he had insisted that his mate went too, giving as his reason that he did not want the tedium of breaking in another kaffir.
He hoped that Kimberley would be better for them both, though he feared it would not, but it was a means to an end for during the long nights he had realised that somehow Baralong must go where there would be some peace, some dignity, but was that possible in South Africa? He doubted it and so Baralong must have money, a great deal of money to leave the country, and it was only in the region of the diamond pipes that this could happen. They had to build up enough money for a stake and then find their own diamonds as some others had recently done. It was imperative for Baralong’s sake, for Esther’s and for his own.
16
Months ago the Conciliation Bill dealing with female franchise reform had passed the second reading with a large majority and Hannah and Frances had cooked special cakes for Sunday morning, but now, in 1911, before it could reach the committee stage, there was talk of the Government introducing an alternative Franchise Bill which was to deal with universal male suffrage and perhaps a limited amendment concerning women, but in no way would the Government consider equal rights. All female suffrage societies were incensed. Hannah’s suffragette leader assigned to her the task of reminding the politician who was to speak in her area that week that suffragettes would not be diverted from their task.
Hannah was waiting for the moment when the Cabinet Minister paused in his speech and drank from the glass which stood on the table before him. It was a good point at which to interrupt the speech, the leader of her group of suffragettes had told her.
She had not done this before, though she had marched and protested once the Pensions Act came into force in 1908, three years ago, and votes had not then been forthcoming. She had attended meetings where live rats were thrown through windows by furious men and had felt their quick lithe bodies clawing up her skirt but had not screamed and neither had the other women. She had been jeered and beaten often as she left meetings with other suffragettes; chased down alley-ways by men with sticks; stoned as they spoke on street corners.
She had earned the Holloway badge and been imprisoned for obstruction as she stood with others blocking the Ministers’ cars but had only been sentenced to the first division so far. It was a holiday in comparison with the third, she had been told, for she wore her own clothes, bought her own food, read her own books and slept in good sheets, but she had hated the confinement, hated high-walled cells and the way that she could scarcely breathe when the door closed behind her; she felt suffocated as though it was her father’s darkness that surrounded her, his power.
She hated the way she always felt tired now; a tiredness which Frances said was born of stress and fear but which Hannah would not discuss, would not think of, because if she did, she might not go on and too many years of waiting had preceded the work she was now doing. The fear she lived with must go on being conquered.
She looked around her, at the large man sitting next to her; at the slimmer younger man in a smart suit and waistcoat on her right; at all the men and a few women who sat listening in this high-domed hall. It had not been easy to obtain tickets for tonight since the speakers were careful now and closed their meetings to the general public to avoid just the sort of action she was about to
take, but somehow her leader had managed it. And she must go on doing so if their voices were to be heard questioning the Government’s representatives about their attitudes to female suffrage. What would the large man do when she stood up? But no, she must not think of him pulling her down, of his hands clasped across her mouth.
She still could not see Esther who was to take up the heckling when Hannah was removed by the stewards as would inevitably happen. She should be in the middle of a row nearer the front. It had to be the middle, she had told her cousin, so that it takes longer for them to eject you. Remember that now – do not speak until I am taken. She had wanted Esther to obey her because it was the first speaker who received the harsher treatment as a rule and there was Harry to think of.
Hannah had not wanted her cousin as the second voice at all, since she must be kept safe for Harry, but Esther wanted one of the badges that suffragette prisoners were awarded by the movement, she had explained to Hannah, who sighed. Esther could see no further than the badge, of course, but perhaps just once would do her no harm. Uncle Thomas would make quite sure she received only the first division; after all Esther would be a first offender. She would not think of her own sentence.
She looked back at the stage which was hung with Liberal slogans. The Minister was still talking about the eight Dreadnoughts they were building to combat the menace of the rising German sea power, and Hannah tried to listen to his words, hoping that it would quell the fear which she was worried would weaken her voice. It was easier to be bold when friends stood with you; she was not sure if she could do this. She wanted to leave, to rise quietly and slip past the people sitting in her row and walk out of the exit and home to Frances, to cocoa and her homework-marking, her St John’s teaching. She wanted to walk into the sitting-room and say, I’m back, and see the worry drop from the older woman’s eyes, feel the fear ebb from her own body, for she knew that she would be hurt, that the sentence this time would be severe.
She wanted to say to Frances, don’t worry, we need not arrange for another teacher to take my pay, do my job, work with you on Sundays, arrange holidays for the families at Penbrin where she had not yet visited for there had been no time. She looked back up to the stage. Still the man was on his feet, speaking, gesticulating; the audience laughed at an aside and a ripple of applause ran round the Free Trade Hall. Surely he would drink now? But he did not.
Hannah looked again for Esther’s hat but she could not see it. She fingered the brooch which was in the pocket of her jacket, picturing the portcullis emblazoned with a broad arrow in suffragette colours with silver chains hanging either side. She should have given Esther this one and then she would not have come tonight. It was wrong of her to have allowed it; Harry would never forgive her if his love was hurt, but at the same time it was good to feel that she was not in the hall alone.
She would not think of anything beyond the next words of the Minister, she would not think of the men who would grab her, pull and push and hit her. And then she saw the Minister lift his glass and she took her hand from her pocket and gripped the flag which she had carried in under her jacket. All she could hear was her heart beating in her throat. It was too loud, it would stop her voice. She could not do it. She must not stand and find she had no voice. She could not stand, her legs were too weak. She watched as the Minister took another sip, smiling at the men who sat beside him on the stage, and then his glass was going down towards the table. It would be too late if she did not rise now. She was going to fail her friends; there were so many people and she was so afraid.
And then she was up and holding the flag, waving its green and white and purple colours and her voice was strong as she called on the Minister to support votes for women.
Again and again she called. ‘Will you pledge your support for women’s suffrage?’ But there was no answer to her question. He just stood and continued with his speech while the audience turned on her and shouted her down. The hatred was all around her, in the fists that waved and the mouths that opened and shut with curses and the fear was too great to be borne, but once more she shouted across the hostile rows.
‘Please will you pledge your support?’
But her voice was weaker now and the flag was torn from her hands by the large man who no longer sat at her side but stood pushing her down. She struggled free.
‘Please pledge your support,’ she called once more across the hostility which shocked her, frightened her, and made her think of meal-times with her father and she called on the anger she had used then to subdue the fear.
She felt a man push her from behind but she shouted once more above the noise.
‘When will you consider votes for women?’ Her voice was strong with anger and she said it again as the audience shouted and cheered the stewards who pushed down the row and held her, one either side, and dragged her past the people who had smiled and made way for her earlier. Now one spat in her face and as they reached the aisle she went limp as she had been instructed and so the stewards had to drag her to the exit and another glob of spittle landed wet on her face and another down her black jacket. Her hat was ripped from her head, her hair was torn from its pins. She could not hear Esther. Why had she not begun? Did it mean that she was not here, that Hannah was completely alone? And fear took the place of anger again for now the fury would be directed at her alone. But where was Esther?
As the stewards backed through the swing-doors into the lobby they threw her to the floor and her head struck the black marble tiles, but she was not aware of pain, only of the white flecks in the tiles. She would not get up so they dragged her by her arms, face down, out into the street, bumping her limp body down the steps and her knees bled from the rasping of the concrete which tore her stockings and her skin.
The police had not come yet but men had, from the hall and from the alleys where they often waited, and they pushed the stewards to one side. They loomed over her, their mufflers at their throats to keep out the Easter chill. They shut out the light from the hall, with their great bodies. Their faces were smiling but their voices were low and vicious.
She had known it would be worse not being with all her friends, being just two against the men. She turned and looked back at the entrance. Where was Esther? There were too many for just one woman. She stood now, her hands gripping her skirt, looking around for the stewards, for the police, but there was no one but these men. The same sort of men who had let in the rats, beaten them with staves.
Then one slapped her face with his open palm and she thought her neck would snap with the blow. She tasted blood and knew it coated her teeth.
She bent her head and heard the large dark man say, ‘Bitch. You leave women as they be.’ She felt a hand in her hair winding round and round but she would not lift her head and so he pulled harder and she screamed as he tore the roots from her scalp.
Another swung her round, driving his fist into her ribs. ‘You behave like a slut, you get treated like one,’ he said, and his breath was foul and then he spat full in her face and it was this that made her scream again. ‘Esther, where are you?’
‘The coppers are coming,’ a man called and the one who held a clump of her hair in his hand laughed and threw it to the ground and Hannah turned to him and said, ‘That’s mine.’ But her lips were too swollen to move and she looked down at the long strands lying on the ground and she turned and slapped the face which grinned at her and so he knocked her to the ground and kicked her.
‘Get down on the ground with it then, you troublemaker,’ he snarled.
The pavement was cold; she was cold, but her hair was there, not too far away and she moved her fingers and then her hand and finally her arm and it was as though it was someone else that she watched as slowly her hand drew closer and then a boot came down. She felt no pain as she watched the studs press into her flesh and then her bones, but the police-van came and the boot was gone. Her hair was still there though, she had not reached it yet.
The stewards came out again the
n, just as the policeman lifted her from the ground, but he didn’t understand that she had left her hair on the pavement. She turned from him, from the arm which held her, and he would not let her go but stood there listening to the steward.
‘Let me go,’ she said, because she could not go with him until she had picked up her hair. Didn’t he understand that. ‘Let me go,’ she said again but perhaps it was because her lips were too swollen for him to hear and so she pushed away from him and he held her again and she fought his arms because part of her had been left there on that cold pavement.
He charged her then with assault but that did not matter because as he lifted her into the police-van and sat with her on the bench she could see nothing but that piece of herself which she had allowed that man to take.
She was offered bail, but she did not want it. Suffragettes did not accept bail and so this time she did not go to Frances to have her wounds bathed but sat in the police cell on the wooden bench which was the only furniture in the cold square room. A policeman opened the shutter and said that there was a gentleman offering to pay her bail, would she accept? She refused, banishing the thought of the warm sitting-room and Bess who panted by the hearth. Was it Arthur, she thought, but he was in Norway, salmon fishing, wasn’t he?
She was unhurt, the doctor said, but swabbed her knees, and her mouth and her bleeding scalp.
Frances was not in court the next day because she was teaching but three suffragettes were, Maureen, Ann and Sarah, and with them was Esther.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she mouthed to Hannah, ‘but my father wanted me to stay in for a dinner-party.’
Hannah nodded. She ached too much to think or to feel. She could not smile because her lips hurt too much and her eye was black and swollen. She turned from her cousin. Esther had not meant to let her down, she never did, and what did it matter now anyway? Hannah listened as the magistrate found her guilty and sentenced her to three months in the third division. She had to grip the rail of the dock although her hand was swollen and bruised where the studs had been because she must not show that she minded, that she wanted to crouch and cry and not leave here for that place again.
A Time for Courage Page 30
