Cold Is the Dawn

by Charles Egan

  ‘And needed too,’ Sarah said. ‘They’re reckoning on a hundred dead a week. That’s what I’d heard.’

  ‘A hundred a week! Oh God, Sarah, you can’t stay here. It’ll kill you.’

  ‘Sure it’s nothing as bad as Ballinrobe, is it? And you’ve been down there.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Pat answered. ‘What I saw there was bad, but I didn’t go to the trouble of seeing their graveyard. But why is it so awful here?’

  ‘In one word Pat – numbers. Do you know how many we have right here? Five thousand inmates, and that’s just what we have in the workhouse. We’ve rented other houses around too. We’ve got them pushed together, every way you can imagine. The sheds are bad enough, but all the wards have two in a bed, and the beds pushed up against each other. The same in the dormitories. One in fever, and they all have it. And now the cholera too.’

  ‘Oh God, this is horrible.’

  ‘It is. They got a right shock a few days ago, right here. Found a baby in the grave when it started crying. They took it out of course, but I doubt it lived long. There’s many babies thrown in since.’

  The inmates threw a body into the grave. No coffins now, and always, the squeaking of the rats. He saw Sarah glance across to where her mother’s grave was. Abruptly, she turned away. Pat said nothing.

  At last it was finished. They followed the cart towards the barracks, and halted as a squadron of cavalry came out, and moved towards the centre of Westport.

  ‘What are those fellows doing here, do you think?’ Pat asked.

  ‘I haven’t the slightest idea,’ Sarah answered. ‘I doubt there’s anyone fit to fight them anymore.’

  *

  They followed the cart back, and stood at the edge of the Stonebreakers’ Yard. Another cartload of cadavers was being filled.

  ‘So what are you, Sarah, an inmate now?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘and isn’t that a terrible way to end up?’

  ‘I’d heard something about the workhouse not being able to afford your board and lodgings with the Administration.’

  ‘That’s what they said, though I doubt that’s the real reason.’

  ‘Yes,’ Pat said, ‘you mentioned something before about the last Master being had up for short measures on weights.’

  ‘He was prosecuted too. Lord Sligo had him convicted and jailed. I haven’t a clue what happened to him since then. Nor do I much care.’

  ‘But what’s that got to do with the present Master?’

  ‘He knows I’m too close to the books. Like I said, they’re fiddling things somehow, whether on weights or otherwise I don’t know.’

  ‘But the clerk?’

  ‘He’s being bribed; I know that for certain.’

  ‘But where do you eat, or sleep?’

  ‘In the workhouse, I’m afraid. No special privileges anymore. Not that there’s much to eat.’

  ‘But – the dormitories?’

  ‘Not so bad as most. I managed to wangle my way into the geriatric infirmary. They’re all dying, right enough, but of old age, not of fever.’

  ‘I’d never have thought of that.’

  ‘Neither would I, but when they put me in working in the fever sheds, I worked it out soon enough.’

  ‘And what about your uniform?’

  ‘Oh, there’s no shame in wearing stripes. In fact, in some ways it’s a privilege too. When you become an inmate, they take away your own clothes, wash and press them and put them away for the time you leave. Now, I prefer this uniform. No one from outside knows me, and it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘But they still have you working?’

  ‘They wouldn’t feed me otherwise. You know what a workhouse is, Pat?’

  ‘Of course. But the fever wards…’

  ‘I know, and rough and all, I’d prefer the Stonebreakers’ Yard, but they won’t let me. I’m at the end of my tether, Pat. I know the risks I’m running. I know if I stay in the fever sheds, I’ll die soon, but I can’t see any way out. Even if I got out of the workhouse, I’d only starve, and there’s still all the risk of fever and cholera.’

  ‘But Sarah, you can’t go on like this.’

  ‘Don’t I know it, Pat?’

  He was puzzled. What now?

  ‘And this Australia business,’ he asked. ‘Are they still intending you should go on it?’

  ‘I’m not sure of that. Maybe. Anyhow, it won’t be happening until the end of summer. I don’t know if I’ll be alive by then.’

  ‘You always told me not to worry about you working in the sheds.’

  ‘Yes,’ Sarah said, ‘but you always knew what they were like. Murder sheds, that’s all they are.’

  ‘But we can’t leave you here,’ Pat said. ‘Marriage, but that would take weeks to organise, what with the banns and all. There’s only one other answer.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Bring you home to Carrigard.’

  ‘Yes, I was hoping you’d say that. I’m sick and tired of workhouses.’

  ‘I know. And mother would be delighted to have you.’

  That night, Sarah slept in the geriatric ward, while Pat stayed with the horse inside the gates of the workhouse. He threw his greatcoat on the ground and slept soundly.

  The next day, Sarah Cronin and Pat Ryan left Westport Workhouse. They had to recover her possessions first. Sarah returned to the women’s dormitory and changed into her own clothes.

  ‘You look much better like that,’ Pat told her.

  ‘I know,’ Sarah said, ‘and I’ll tell you this, come hell or high water, I’ll never wear workhouse clothes again.’

  He embraced her. She clenched him closely. He realised she was crying.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘It’ll soon be over. There’s a new life coming for us.’

  This time, the workhouse gates were opened for them. The crowd had grown, and three Infantry men were guarding it. They pushed their way through and walked back towards Westport. A battalion of soldiers came towards them. They stood to the side.

  Their first stop was the Post Office in Westport, where Pat scratched a quick note to Carrigard, telling them of his plans, and his intent to marry Sarah. Then Sarah mounted the horse, as he posted the letter.

  He came back, and took the bridle, leading the horse out of Westport.

  ‘They’ll have the letter soon enough,’ he said.

  ‘And talking of letters, what of Luke?’ she asked. ‘Any news from America lately?’

  ‘They’re leaving New York. All’s fine with them. He says there’s better chances in mining coal. They’re travelling to some other town; Lackan they call it. We’ve no fixed address yet, but I’m sure we’ll hear from them very soon.’

  *

  The scenes on the road to Castlebar had changed again. Along by Islandeady, all the cabins and houses had been fully demolished, nothing remaining except floors or rough foundations. There were stones in neat heaps, along large fields, where walls were still being demolished. Men with carts trundled across the fields, carrying rock to where new walls were being built in perfect straight lines.

  ‘Lord Lucan,’ Pat explained.

  ‘As if I didn’t know.’

  ‘That’s what he calls ‘improvement’. I’ve seen it all over.’

  When they arrived in Castlebar, they were admitted to the Union without difficulty. They went straight to the door of Gaffney’s office.

  ‘Sit here,’ he told Sarah ‘and wait for me.’

  He knocked on the door and entered.

  ‘Pat! We were worried about you.’

  ‘What on earth for, Mr. Gaffney?’

  ‘You were a long time.’

  ‘No longer than was needed. Going around the Lucan villages, that all took time. Going with Father Ward in the mountains, you don’t think he’d let me off easy, do you?’

  ‘Not Father Ward, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Under Mweelrea has tough, no roads at all. And riding the coast from Mweelrea to Westport, the
re’s all kinds of boreens along there. It all takes time.’

  ‘Well. Is it as bad as they say?’

  ‘Worse.’

  For the first time, Pat thought Gaffney was showing his age. Or was he just imagining it? He remembered when they first met on the Famine Relief Works at Carrigard. How long had that been? Three years! Impossible. Yes, it was three years, and Gaffney had certainly aged in that time. His hair was greyer; sparser too. He had been through much, they all had, but still, his eyes showed the strength and determination of a man who only expected hard work and integrity from anyone who worked for him. He had always been like that.

  ‘We’ve a meeting of the Grand Jury next week,’ he said to Pat. ‘We’ll need your reports, and we’ll need them fast.’

  ‘I’d better get writing so,’ Pat said. ‘There is one other thing though, you might be able to help me on.’

  ‘If I can, Pat.’

  ‘My intended bride is travelling with me.’

  ‘Travelling with you!’

  ‘I’m taking her back to Carrigard. She will stay there for some weeks. But I don’t want her travelling alone.’

  ‘I’m sure we’ll be able to put her up here.’

  ‘Not in the dormitories, I hope.’

  ‘Of course, not.’

  ‘I’d be willing to pay for her board and lodging.’

  Gaffney waved his hand.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Pat.’

  Gaffney was true to his word. An inmate took Sarah to her room. That evening, they both had dinner with Gaffney, together with the Master, the Matron, and other staff of Castlebar Union.

  *

  When he started work, Thady was not there. He asked Gaffney about it.

  ‘Oh, they’re fostering him out,’ Gaffney replied. ‘A couple out the Claremorris road. Farmers.’

  ‘They’ll work him hard,’ Pat said. ‘Not at accounts either.’

  ‘You’re right Pat,’ Gaffney said. ‘What can I say though? The Union can’t afford to feed him, and the Grand Jury are always pushing the numbers down. At least he’ll get fed for his hard work. Young as he is, the farmer will see him as valuable and will want to keep his strength up. It’s hard, I know, but it’s the best thing for him.’

  ‘It is,’ Pat said.

  He spent the next few days in a frenzy of writing. Again and again, he checked maps, place names and always his own rough notes. As he finished each page, Sarah began to copy them.

  At the end of the first day, Gaffney came to where Pat was still working by candlelight. Silently, he took the first pages and read through them.

  ‘Lucan is the devil incarnate,’ he said.

  ‘He is,’ Pat said.

  ‘All he tells us is that he’s improving his estates. Improving! Another word for murder. And don’t repeat that. Either of you.’

  ‘On our word, Mr. Gaffney,’ Sarah said.

  He flicked through more of the report.

  ‘Tell me, Pat. what of Father Ward? How do you rate his reports? Is he reliable?’

  ‘Having seen it, Mr. Gaffney, yes, he’s reliable.’

  Next morning, they were joined by two younger men.

  ‘Transcribers,’ one of them explained.

  Pat passed over what he had already written. By the end of the week, there were twelve copies of his report.

  ‘I appreciate it more than I can tell, Pat,’ Gaffney said. ‘We’ll see what the Grand Jury think of these. I’d like you to be here for the meeting. That won’t be for another week though, so if you wish to take your bride-to-be back to Carrigard, now would be the time to do it. On your life, though, be back here by Wednesday.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘I can’t offer you a horse this time, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I wasn’t expecting one, Mr. Gaffney.

  ‘No, but you will need something for young Sarah and her baggage. I’ve requisitioned a donkey for you. Just make sure it doesn’t get eaten.’

  *

  Next day, Pat helped Sarah into the saddle of the donkey. He led it out of the workhouse. A few streets away, a group of ragged men and boys were throwing stones at a building on the side of the street. Glass lay on the road, most of the windows having been smashed.

  ‘Better go around some other way,’ Sarah said.

  An old woman was at the corner, watching the scene.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘That’s the cholera hospital,’ the old woman answered. ‘They’re murdering people in there. Cut their throats, they do. None ever come out.’

  They went on.

  ‘No point in disputing what she says,’ Sarah said. ‘They’ll believe what they want to believe.’

  ‘They will,’ Pat said, ‘and while they might be wrong about the throat cutting, the result is the same. I saw it in Ballinrobe. Cholera kills, and it kills damned fast. All they’re doing is quarantining the people, trying to stop it spreading. Very few come out though. I wouldn’t blame them for thinking they were being murdered.’

  The walk from Castlebar to Kilduff nauseated him. There was no doubt about it, the starvation was getting worse. But his travels around the County had toughened him in a way he had never expected. Much like Luke in the mountains in the winter of ’46 and ’47. But from all he heard of Luke on his visits down from the mountains to Knockanure Union, he knew that Luke was very close to breaking then.

  But Luke was in America now and Winnie gone too. He himself was determined he would not break. To hell with all that. He had done his work for now. Time to recover his senses.

  Closer to Kilduff, there were all the signs of another big eviction. They saw a woman with three children in the wreckage of a house.

  ‘What happened here?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘Lord Lucan. His men came with the police. Destroyed the villages all across the foot of the mountain.’

  They moved on.

  ‘That’s terrible,’ Sarah said.

  ‘Yes,’ Pat said, ‘and what’s even worse, Clanowen already smashed up all the villages from here up the side of the mountain some years back. God knows what’s left now.’

  In Kilduff two houses had white crosses on the doors. Cholera?

  They went into Sabina’s bar.

  ‘Sarah! Pat!’

  He put a penny on the counter. ‘I’ll have a Guinness and a gin.’

  She poured the drinks.

  ‘Where have ye been?’

  ‘Well, Sarah has been working in Westport Workhouse. She’s been having a rough time.’

  Sabina looked towards Sarah. ‘A rough time?’

  ‘Yes,’ Sarah said. ‘Once my mother died, everything changed.’

  ‘Yes,’ Sabina said, ‘I was sorry to hear of your mother.’

  ‘It’s good of you to say so. But up to then I’d been working in the office. Sometimes helping out in the fever sheds, but both of us knew the dangers. It killed her though. Fever.’

  ‘But you’ve lived anyhow.’

  ‘I have, but pretty dreadful it was. The Master and the new Matron didn’t like me. They were trying to send me off to the colonies. Wanted all the young women to go and marry convicts.’

  ‘I’d heard of that, but I thought it was only stories.’

  ‘Oh, it’s true right enough. Another few months and I might have gone, but they thought me better off as an inmate while I was waiting.’

  ‘An inmate!’

  ‘Not that it made much difference. At least we were being fed. Not much from last year when the Master was cheating on the weights. They jailed him, it didn’t improve much since.’

  ‘You’re thin enough,’ Sabina said.

  ‘I am,’ Sarah said, ‘but I’m living, aren’t I? And glad enough of it too. While they had us waiting for the colonies they put me back working in the fever sheds. With the cholera, too, I reckoned I was going to die before any chance of marrying a convict.’

  ‘God! It must have been rough on you.’

  ‘No rougher than on mo
ther. And the inmates who were helping in the sheds, sure they’re all doomed to die, whether they know it or not. Though I reckon they know it well enough.’

  Sabina had poured herself a gin. ‘The County is in a terrible way. Now tell me, what about you, Pat? What have you been doing?’

  ‘Travelling around Partry, and working the accounts for the County in Castlebar after that.’

  ‘Hard work?’

  ‘It is. But forget that, Sabina, I’ve seen the white crosses on the doors, and we coming into the town.’

  ‘Cholera,’ she said.

  ‘I thought so. Ballinrobe too, they have the crosses for cholera. It’s in a terrible way with it.’

  ‘It’s only come here today.’

  ‘Today. They were quick enough painting the crosses, so.’

  ‘Oh, that was the army fellows. They don’t want to be billeted where there’s cholera.’

  As they left, Sabina saw them to the door. Pat began to lead the donkey away.

  Sabina threw her arms around Sarah.

  ‘He doesn’t say much about Partry,’ she whispered.

  ‘No,’ Sarah said. ‘Nothing at all. Nor ever will.’

  *

  When they arrived in Carrigard, Eleanor embraced Sarah, brought her inside and sat her down.

  ‘We got your letter,’ she said to Pat, ‘and we’re delighted to see the pair of you.’

  ‘I was hoping you might,’ Pat said. ‘I know I’m putting someone else in on ye, but sure at least I’ll be paying for it.’

  ‘Arra, it’s not payment we were looking for,’ Eleanor said.

  ‘Perhaps not, but it’s payment ye’ll need.’

  She took a jug of buttermilk, and poured out three mugs. Ever since she had received Pat’s letter from Westport, she had been happier than before. Now she was certain that Sarah was to be her daughter-in-law. Sarah would find it hard to adapt to the life of a poor farmer’s wife, though. Still, it was going to happen, and Sarah had the strength to deal with it. She would help with rearing Brigid, and in time there would be more children in the house.

  ‘But how was it for you in Westport?’ she asked.

  ‘Terrible,’ Sarah said.

  When Sarah told her the story of Westport Workhouse, Eleanor was shocked to realise that she had ended up as an inmate.

  Michael entered. He greeted Sarah warmly, as he sat to unlace his boots.