There was a rousing cheer and Leeming was released. Everyone close patted him on the back. Kilfoyle came forward to pump his hand. Leeming was relieved. He had survived one test but a far worse one might lie ahead. In beating one Irishman in a fight, all that he had done was to earn the right to attack the French as part of a mob. It was frightening. Once battle had been joined, there would be many casualties. No quarter would be given. In the uninhibited violence, Leeming could well be injured. He thought about his wife and children back in England. At that moment, he missed them more than ever. The railway was to blame. He realised that. It had not only brought him to a foreign country he disliked, it was now putting his life at risk. Leeming wished that he were hundreds of miles away.
‘Come on, Victor,’ said Shannon, putting a companionable arm around his shoulders. ‘Let’s go and kill a few Frenchies.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘Navvies are a race apart,’ said Thomas Brassey. ‘I’ve never met anyone like them for sheer hard work. I respect them for their virtues but I also condemn them for their vices.’
‘They’ve caused so much trouble in England,’ observed Robert Colbeck. ‘When they’ve set up camps there, they’ve terrorised whole communities.’
‘You can see why, Inspector. Ordinary, decent, law-abiding people are horrified when they have huge gangs of hooligans on their doorstep. In their place, I’d be scared stiff.’
‘Yet you seem to have less problems with your navvies, sir.’
‘That’s because I won’t employ known troublemakers. If I find someone trying to stir up mischief, I get rid of him at once. I also try to reduce friction by keeping different nationalities apart,’ he went on. ‘The Irish and the Welsh don’t always see eye to eye, so I make sure they are never together. It’s the same with the French. I never put them shoulder to shoulder with British navvies.’
‘Yet you’ve now got a potential riot on your hands.’
‘Only because we’re in an unusual position.’
‘Have you never faced this situation before, Mr Brassey?’
‘No – thank heaven!’
They were travelling through the French countryside in a trap. The horse was moving at a steady trot across the uneven ground and they were shaken up as the wheels mounted the frequent bumps and explored the deep potholes. It was a clear night with a half-moon looking down dolefully from the sky. Behind them were two other traps and a couple of men on horseback. Most of them carried a firearm of some sort.
‘What’s the worst that could happen?’ asked Colbeck.
‘That we get there too late.’
‘We’d have heard the noise of battle before now.’
‘True,’ said the other. ‘I suppose that the very worst thing that could happen is that news of any violence would get out, and that would surely happen if the French are involved. Activities on this railway would then be reported in the newspapers.’
‘You’ve had bad publicity before.’
‘And plenty of it, Inspector, especially in this country.’
‘But I understood that you were on good terms with the French government. Mr Filton told me that you’d had dealings with Louis Napoleon himself.’
‘A businessman should always cultivate his employers. That’s sound commonsense. Not that I ever expected to be accountable to a man called Napoleon,’ he added with a rueful smile. ‘It’s a name that conjures up too many ghosts for any Englishman. But I’ve had to put all that aside. As it happens, on the few occasions when I’ve met him, I’ve found him an amenable gentleman.’
‘How amenable would he be if French navvies were badly wounded in a fight with the Irish?’
‘I hope that I never find out, Inspector Colbeck. That’s why I was grateful for your advice. The plan might just work.’
‘I’ve dealt with angry crowds before.’
‘I’m sure.’
‘Facing a Chartist march was a sobering experience,’ admitted Colbeck. ‘There were thousands of them and, if truth be told, I had a lot of sympathy with their cause. But I was there to police them so my personal views were irrelevant. Fortunately, no real violence erupted.’
‘I pray that we have the same outcome tonight.’
‘So do I, Mr Brassey.’
‘It’s not just the future of this railway that’s at stake,’ said the contractor, ‘the next one would also be imperilled.’
‘The next one?’
‘Linking Mantes to Caen is only the first half of the project. The next stage is to build a railway from Caen to Cherbourg. We would be bidding for the contract to extend the track for that extra ninety miles or so. If we blot our copybook on this venture,’ he said with a frown, ‘then our chances of securing that contract will be slim.’
‘Caen to Cherbourg?’ asked Colbeck.
‘Yes, Inspector.’
‘That would provide a direct link between Paris and the dockyard at Cherbourg.’
‘More than the dockyard – they have an arsenal there.’
‘That’s exactly what I was thinking.’
‘Of course, it will take time to build,’ said Brassey. ‘At a rough guess, we’d not even be starting for another three years. The engineer I’d most liked to have had on the project was Gaston Chabal.’
‘Why?’
‘His surveys were brilliant and, being French, he got on well with local people while he was there. Gaston’s preparatory work on the current railway helped us to land the contract and – because of its accuracy – saved us a lot of money in the process.’ Colbeck seemed to have gone off into a reverie. ‘Did you hear what I said, Inspector?’
‘Every word, Mr Brassey, every single word. I was also reminded of a remark you made a little earlier.’
‘Oh – and what was that?’
‘You told me that you never expected to be accountable to a man called Napoleon.’
‘Well, we fought for so many years against his namesake.’
‘Precisely,’ said Colbeck. ‘Imagine how much more danger we would have been in if Napoleon Bonaparte had had a rail link between Paris and a huge arsenal on the tip of the Normandy peninsular. In that event,’ he went on, stroking his chin reflectively, ‘you and I might well have been having this conversation in French.’
Victor Leeming was afraid. He was so accustomed to physical violence that, as a rule, it held no fear for him. Most criminals resisted arrest and it was necessary to overpower them. It was an aspect of his work that he enjoyed. But he was now locked into a very different kind of struggle, one in which he had no place to be. Along with over two hundred wild Irishmen, he was trudging across the fields toward the farm where the French navvies had set up their camp. Leeming had sent warning of the attack to Thomas Brassey but he could not see how the contractor could possibly stop it. Carried along by its own momentum, the drunken mob was bent on what it saw as justified revenge. Leeming felt as if he were trapped on a runaway train that was heading at top speed towards a fatal collision.
‘Isn’t this wonderful?’ said Kilfoyle alongside him.
‘Yes, Liam.’
‘We’ll teach them a lesson they’ll not bloody well forget.’
‘Whose idea was it?’ asked Leeming.
‘Eh?’
‘Launching this attack on the French. Who first thought of it?’
‘What does it matter?’
‘I was interested, that’s all. Was it Shannon?’
‘Pierce is one of the leaders,’ said Kilfoyle, ‘but I fancy it was someone else who made the decision. Pierce just went along with it like the rest of us.’ He let out a cackle. ‘Oh, we need this so much, sure we do. We’ve not had a proper fight for months.’
‘What will Mr Brassey do?’
‘He can’t do anything, Victor.’
‘I don’t want to lose my job over this,’ said Leeming, worriedly. ‘I’ve got a family to feed back in England.’
‘Your job is safe – and so is mine. That’s the reason we stick together. Mr Bra
ssey knows which bloody side his bread is buttered. He can’t sack all of us, or the rest of the Irish would walk out.’
‘Safety in numbers, eh?’
‘Only for us, Victor – not for the French.’
‘How many of them are there?’
‘Who cares? One Irishman is worth four of the buggers.’
‘What about me?’
‘You’re the fella who knocked Pierce to the ground,’ said Kilfoyle, admiringly, ‘and I’ve never seen anyone do that before. You’ll have to be in the front line. Pierce wants his best men at his side. Get yourself a weapon, man.’
‘Why?’
‘Because the French won’t be fighting with bare hands, that’s why.’ He thrust the pick handle into Leeming’s palm. ‘Here – have this. I’ll use my knife instead and poke out a few eyes with it.’
There was no turning back now. Victor Leeming was part of a ravening pack of Irish wolves that was closing in on their prey. They could smell blood. Shannon pushed through the crowd.
‘Come on, Victor,’ he urged. ‘We need you for the first charge.’
‘I’m here,’ said Leeming, holding up his pick handle.
‘Let’s see who can open the most French skulls.’
‘Where’s the camp?’
‘Just over the brow of the hill. In a few more minutes, we’ll be haring down on them to massacre the bastards.’ He punched Leeming on the shoulder. ‘Are you ready for a fight?’
‘Ready and willing, Pierce.’
Leeming spoke with more confidence than he felt. He was not merely facing the prospect of injury, he was taking part in a criminal act. If the superintendent ever discovered that he had been party to an affray, he would chew Leeming’s ears off. The sergeant was glad that he was well out of Edward Tallis’s jurisdiction.
Shannon took him by the arm and dragged him to the front of the marchers. As they went up the hill, Leeming began to have more and more misgivings. He rarely criticised Colbeck’s methods but this time, he believed, the inspector had been mistaken. In making his sergeant work as a navvy, he had exposed him to dire hazards. Yet Leeming could not break ranks now. The brow of the hill was only thirty yards away. Once they were over it, there would be carnage.
Then, out of the dark, three figures appeared on the top of the hill. Silhouetted against the sky, they were an imposing trio. Even in the half-dark, Leeming recognised Colbeck, standing in the middle, with Thomas Brassey beside him. He could not identify the third man. Colbeck took out a pistol and fired it into the air. The Irishmen stopped in their tracks.
‘That’s as far as you go tonight, gentlemen,’ said Brassey.
‘Why?’ demanded Shannon.
‘Because I say so – and so does Father Slattery.’
‘Yes,’ said the priest, stepping forward and raising his voice so that all could hear. ‘It’s a pity that some of you don’t come to a church service with the same kind of enthusiasm. When you want a fight, there’s no holding you. When I tell you to join me in fighting the Devil, then it’s only the bravest who show their faces.’
‘Out of our way, Father!’ shouted Kilfoyle.
‘I stand here as a representative of Roman Catholicism.’
‘I don’t care if you’re the bleeding Pope!’ cried someone.
‘The French are Catholics as well,’ returned Slattery. ‘Would you attack your own kind?’
‘Go back to your camp,’ ordered Brassey. ‘There’ll be no brawl tonight. The French are not even here,’ he lied. ‘They were forewarned to pull out of their tents and shacks.’
‘Who by?’ called Shannon.
‘Me. And I didn’t do it to save your skins. Some of you deserve to take a beating – it’s the only way you’ll see sense. I did it so that you could keep your jobs. This gentleman here,’ he went on, pointing at Colbeck, ‘is M. Robert, assistant to the Minister of Public Works.’ Colbeck raised his hat to the mob and produced a barrage of jeers. ‘Before you taunt M. Robert, let me tell that he’s empowered to revoke our contract if he decides that we are not able to fulfil it peaceably. I don’t think anyone could construe an invasion of the French camp as a peaceful act.’
‘Had you firebrands insisted on a fight,’ said Slattery, taking over, ‘you’d not only have been sacrificing your jobs and those of all the other navvies from across the Channel. In your wisdom, you’d also have been handing over the work to a French contractor who would refuse to employ a single one of you.’
‘Think on that,’ said Brassey. ‘You’d have been letting me, yourselves and your families down. You’d have had to sneak home in disgrace without any money in your pockets and no work awaiting you in England. Is that what you really want?’
‘No, sir,’ bleated Kilfoyle.
‘What about the rest of you?’
In response came a lot of shamefaced muttering. The fight had suddenly been taken out of the navvies. Several began to slink away at once. Alone in the crowd, Leeming was delighted. A calamity had just been averted by the intervention of Thomas Brassey and Father Eamonn Slattery. But it was the presence of M. Robert that had tipped the balance. Fear of losing their jobs, combined with the certainty that Brassey would never hire any of them again, brought them to heel. More of them turned round and left. The danger was over.
The contractor and the priest had prevented a bloodbath, but Leeming knew that they did not deserve all the credit. The ruse had worked well because Robert Colbeck had devised it. Not for the first time, Leeming had been rescued by the inspector’s guile.
As soon as they got back to his office, Thomas Brassey lit a few oil lamps then he unlocked a cupboard and took out a bottle of whisky and three glasses. He poured a generous amount into the glasses then gave one each to Robert Colbeck and Aubrey Filton. The contractor raised his own glass with a smile.
‘I think we’re entitled to toast a job well done,’ he said.
‘I never thought that you’d pull it off, sir,’ confessed Filton after taking his first sip. ‘I thought someone might call your bluff.’
‘That’s why I suggested that we involve Father Slattery,’ said Colbeck, impressed by the quality of the whisky. ‘I felt that he would give credence to the whole exercise. I’m still troubled by guilt at having had to deceive an ordained priest like that.’
‘He really thought that you were M. Robert.’
‘In a sense, of course, that’s what I am.’ He adopted a French accent. ‘M. Robert Colbeck.’
‘You spoke the language so well, Father Slattery was taken in.’
‘The main thing is that the mob was as well,’ said Brassey. ‘I shudder to think what chaos would have followed if they’d reached the French camp. They hadn’t withdrawn at all.’
‘I had a very good reason to make sure that the two parties didn’t meet,’ Colbeck explained. ‘Victor Leeming was in that crowd somewhere. I need him to remain in one piece.’
‘He deserves my congratulations for what he did, Inspector.’
‘Save them until he delivers the real culprits up to us.’
‘Are you sure they’re part of the Irish contingent?’
‘Yes, Mr Brassey. Their camp is almost adjacent to the railway, so it would be easy for someone to slip out at night to cause damage. The French are nearly a mile away and none of them would be aware of how you deployed your nightwatchmen. The same goes for the Welsh and the rest of your navvies,’ said Colbeck. ‘They’re too far away. No, I believe that the men we’re after might well have been in that mob tonight.’
‘Would they?’ said Filton.
‘What better way to take suspicion off themselves than by accusing someone else of the crimes? It’s an old trick, Mr Filton.’
‘Cunning devils!’
‘We played a trick on them tonight,’ recalled Brassey. ‘It was all your doing, Inspector. You’ll have to meet my wife. Her French is almost as fluent as yours. Have dinner with us some time.’
Colbeck smiled. ‘That’s very kind of you, Mr Brassey
.’
‘Sergeant Leeming can join us as well.’
‘Only when he’s finished the task he was set.’
‘He was very brave to take it on.’
‘Victor has already proved his worth. I just hope that he’s not the victim of his own success.’
‘In what way?’ said Filton.
‘Those men we turned back earlier on will know that they were betrayed by someone,’ said Colbeck. ‘They’ll want his name.’
‘Then I hope they never discover it.’
‘No,’ said Brassey with a shiver. ‘I wouldn’t like to be caught out in the middle of all those Irishmen. They have hot tempers and they don’t take prisoners.’
‘Sergeant Leeming will have to be careful.’
‘Extremely careful, Aubrey.’
‘He’s done this kind of work before,’ said Colbeck, ‘though he’s never dealt with navvies. As you told me earlier, Mr Brassey, they’re a race apart. My hope is that Victor doesn’t stick out too much. After tonight, some of those men will be desperate for revenge.’
‘It must have been you, Father Slattery,’ he said, glowing with rage.
‘It was not, Pierce – on my word of honour.’
‘You betrayed your own fucking countrymen.’
‘That’s something I’d never do,’ vowed the priest, ‘and I’m insulted that you should even suggest it.’
‘They knew we were coming.’
‘And I’m eternally grateful that they did. Otherwise, you and your drunken ruffians would have committed the most unholy crime.’
‘We were fighting on Mr Brassey’s behalf.’
‘Try telling him that.’
‘We were,’ said Shannon, vehemently. ‘The Frenchies are trying to wreck this railway so that we lose the contract. That way, they can take over. The bastards want us all out of their country.’
‘If you conduct yourselves as you did tonight, I’m not surprised. When drink is taken,’ said Slattery, ‘you turn into wild beasts. You don’t belong in civilised company. Truly, I was ashamed of you all.’
They were in the Irish camp, talking by the light of a lantern outside one of the shacks. Most of those who had marched with Pierce Shannon had either gone off to bed or started drinking again. Shannon himself had waited until Father Slattery had reappeared. It was all he could do to keep his hands off the priest.
The Railway Viaduct Page 10
