The navvies were paid an hourly rate and a bonus for yards gained that was calculated to triple their wage; they were the best-off of all manual workers, but only because they earned their extra. The rule was that all of the men had to pull out of the cutting when a face was to be blown, but they rapidly developed the habit of shifting the men top to bottom or in reverse, depending on where they were planting the powder. They were always at least two hundred feet from the blow and thirty or forty feet higher or lower; it had to be safe, they told themselves, and they could gain a good six feet a day. The foremen turned a blind eye as they would be able to complete the cutting in three months rather than four, greatly to their benefit.
Two months into work, digging across the almost flat crest of the ridge they came to an area that was faulted to a greater extent that anything before. They cut through with sledgehammer and pickaxe as far as they could then dug out their shot holes to be filled with black powder. Because of faulting it was easy to make the holes larger and deeper than previously, another opportunity to gain time.
The blaster came with his little kegs of red-labelled powder and they retreated to the bottom of the cutting, loading the carts waiting there and leading them away a mile or so to a wet patch of lower land.
The red flag was waved and the foremen shouted and the fuze was lit. The explosion travelled along the existing cracks in the rock, hidden underground, and the front, working face of the cutting bulged and bowed forward and then fell in a mass of hundreds of tons of bouncing rocks. Men, horses and carts were crushed in a screaming chaos of dust and clattering boulders.
Navvies from the other gang came running and began to dig into the landslide, starting the slow process, first of rescue of the few survivors and then of recovery of the bodies.
A horseman brought the message of disaster and Joseph’s mind inevitably cast back to the flooded pit of a few years before. He rode reluctantly to the scene, watched what was happening and saw that the navvies had the job in hand, knew better than him how to go about the work. He turned to the foremen, three of them, all well clear where they could watch the laying of the charge and be seen to wave their flags; they had not been within a hundred yards of the actual disaster.
“What happened?”
Two stayed silent. The oldest, a man of forty who had been navvying since becoming a tea boy at ten years of age, stepped forward.
“We bin lettin’ them work down the bottom level while they was blowin’ the top two, master. She just blew twicet as ‘ard this time.”
The blaster showed his face, nervously.
“Rock were cracked, master, and they ‘oles was bigger. I filled they, like what I was told to. It ain’t my place to argufy, master. They tells I to blow ‘er, and blow ‘er I bloody does. Thass what I does.”
“Saves two hours a day, so it do, lettin’ they work the bottom when they’s blowin’, master.”
Joseph was in charge; he had not employed a contractor to supervise the workings for him. It was his fault. He sat on a rock and watched as the bodies were pulled out, one by one, bloody and broken.
They lit fires to work by as the light faded and continued until every man was accounted for.
Joseph remained, silent, shivering occasionally as the night grew colder.
“How many?”
The senior foreman licked his lips.
“They was eighty-three blokes in the gang, sir. Sixteen was off with the carts – you needs two men at the other end to shovel them empty. Sixty seven left, sir. Nineteen been carted off to the Infirmary in St Helens, sir, and there’s no more than four goin’ to live and work again. The rest got legs and arms off, or back broken or whatever and will as like die as not. Eight and forty, sir, is laid out under sacking, sir.”
Not fewer than sixty dead or dying.
“Who is here?”
“Sheriff’s officer, sir – came out an hour since, as soon as they got the word, sir.”
Joseph found the Sheriff’s officer and confirmed from him that there must be an inquest; the disaster was too great, the casualties had been carted through the town to the Infirmary, the whole business had been too public.
That would be bad for the firm’s reputation, and would anger George Stephenson, he being closer to the working men than to the bosses in the normal way of things. It would have little longer term effect, would be forgotten with a few months, but it would cause a degree of irritation among the great of the country. At a time when the ordinary folk were restless this sort of mishap, one that could be seen as money being put before men’s lives, would add another provocation, another example of the callousness of the wealthy.
From Joseph’s purely personal point of view, it would smear his name, make it less likely that he would be recognised within the next few years. He would be rich before too many years had gone by and would hope to establish his own branch of the family, his children to be prominent in the nation’s affairs; that would be easier with a title. There was an increasing number of well-off, sometimes actually rich, industrialists, most of whom were outsiders, men who would never play a role in the greater running of the country; now that he had an heir he wished to be more than them.
He rode home to the unenviable task of writing letters; he must inform Mr Fraser, Sir Matthew, Lord Star and his brothers. Brother Joseph had failed them and the family would suffer.
# # #
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Book Twelve’s projected release date is expected to be early - mid, 2016. In the meantime, please take look at my other novels listed on the following pages.
Thanks once again, Andrew.
By the Same Author
The Duty and Destiny Series: First published in 2014, these superbly-crafted novel length sea/land stories are set in the period of the French Revolutionary War (1793 – 1802). The series follows the naval career and love-life of Frederick Harris, the second son of a middling Hampshire landowner, a brave but somewhat reluctant mariner.
Kindle links to the whole series:
US/worldwide:
http://tinyurl.com/Duty-and-Destiny-Series
UK only:
http://tinyurl.com/Duty-and-Destiny-Series-UK
A Poor Man at the Gate Series
Kindle links to the whole series:
US/worldwide
http://tinyurl.com/A-Poor-Man
UK only
http://tinyurl.com/A-Poor-Man-UK
A Victorian Gent: Naïve Dick Burke is hoodwinked into marrying a man-hungry aristocrat’s daughter who just seven months later produces a son! It’s the start of a long humiliation that sees Dick flee to America as the Civil War looms. Siding with the Union, the bloody conflict could be the making or the breaking of him, as could his alliance with Elizabeth, an attractive and feisty American businesswoman.
Universal Kindle Link: http://getbook.at/Victorian
The Soldier Brat Youngest son of a wealthy English merchant, Septimus Pearce is an utterly spoiled brat whose disgraceful conduct threatens his family’s good name. His father forces him to join the army in an attempt to reform him, but even the disciplines of army life where he sees bloody action in three countries fail to exorcise his nastier character traits.
Universal Kindle Link http://getBook.at/Conflict-1
In the early 1900s gutter rat, Ned Hawkins aims to rise from the grinding poverty of an English slum, but is forced to flee the country and ends up in Papua. It is a dangerous place where cannibalism and cannibals are never far away. Despite this menacing backdrop, he prospers and almost by accident, finds love. However, there are ominous stirrings in the land that bode ill for the future
Universal Kindle Link: http://getbook.at/Cannibal-One
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Virtue’s Reward (A Poor Man at the Gate Series, Book 11) Page 24
