A Killing Too Far

by Andrew Wareham

  Nick was forced to agree. It was objectionable, but the men did so love their little spree of a Saturday night that it was unlikely that they would turn to sobriety.

  “When one considers it, Mr Sam, sir, drunkenness is a state of nature for the great bulk of the common labouring men, and no few women as well. They work for no purpose other than to make themselves conveniently drunk and bring their children up to the same ways. It is, can only be, God’s disposition that men are the way they are. Such being the case, think how impious it must be to interfere with the ways of the Almighty! The jollities of a Saturday evening are perhaps not friendly to us, they are not the way you and I might choose to disport ourselves in our precious times of leisure – yet who are we to condemn those who follow their natural inclinations in such a fashion?”

  “You make a compelling argument, Nick. I cannot gainsay it. You are right – we must ensure that the bacchanals do not spread beyond their natural limits, but it is not for us to end them. An extra dozen or so of watchmen to keep the drunks out of the respectable parts of town, and that will be all we can do.”

  Sam returned to business, not bothering to inform Abe or Josie that there had been a slight misunderstanding at the meeting in Stone. A few days later Captain Sir Charles Wakerley paid him a visit.

  “Thought I ought to see you, Heythorne, on your own ground, as it were. I happened to be passing through this part of the county, so it seemed as well to drop in. I hear you have a son and heir now, Heythorne. My congratulations, of course.”

  Sam smiled his best and welcomed his old captain into his offices at the distillery. Captain Wakerley had not chosen to call at his house, had relied on finding him at his normal place of work – it was not, therefore, a social call.

  “I was speaking to the Lord Lieutenant just yesterday, Heythorne. He reminded me to offer his thanks for your very welcome little present last Christmastide.”

  The Lord Lieutenant was acknowledging his debt – he had been properly bought, it seemed.

  “I don’t know if word has come to you of a rather unpleasant business in Stone, Heythorne. Six men shot to death, or with their throats cut. I believe they included a pair of brothers coming from this very village, now that I think of it.”

  “I did hear that two fine young men of Leek had disappeared, Sir Charles. A great loss to us all. They were an exemplar of all that was best in brotherly affection, sir.”

  Captain Wakerley showed no sign of amusement; he had been informed of the exact nature of the brothers and of how they made their living.

  “Exactly. The Lord Lieutenant would hope not to hear of further such losses, Heythorne. He would not like to think that word might reach his masters in London of such affairs here. He has placed the Militia on the streets of Stone, to maintain public order in the future, and much hopes that all local men of affairs will join him in deploring such outbreaks of wanton violence.”

  “I am sure that we all very much hope that the like will not occur again, sir.”

  “Just so; one might wish for more than ‘hopes’, Heythorne. There seems to be some disorder in the town of Stafford, Heythorne, for lack of leaders among the local people. Will you have any interest in expanding your activities there?”

  “Not at all, sir. Stafford is far from being a stamping ground of mine. I believe very firmly in each to his own, sir. I shall not be seen in Stafford, and I most definitely expect the denizens of that town to stay there, not to be discovered in Stoke.”

  Captain Wakerley was satisfied; he could take back the message that there would be no further disorder in the short instance. He made his farewells, the unpleasant business done and glad to be gone from the environs of a gin distillery.

  Sam was left to wonder whether he might not have disappointed his old captain. Might it be thought that he had been somewhat captious, over-hasty even, in his dealings with Bottomley?

  He thought for some few minutes and concluded that he might have been a fraction quick in resorting to the pistol; it was possible that Bottomley had been genuine in his desire for a peaceful solution to their falling-out. Perhaps it had been the case that they could have come to an honest agreement, advantageous to both. Equally, there could be no further conflict between them, not now. The problem had been solved, it seemed,

  He came away slightly dissatisfied with himself. He had upset Captain Wakerley, who was his sole contact with the authorities, such as they were, in the county, and that could create difficulties in the future. He made a resolution to be more measured in his future dealings with difficult outsiders. He made his way to the White Horse, to discuss the business with Abe.

  “Jacky and Happy Henry, Sam? Both gone? I knew they were not at home but thought they might be off on your business.”

  “Killed at the door by Bottomley’s men, Uncle Abe. Nick was able to finish them but was too late for the brothers.”

  “Whatever is the world coming to, Sam? Bottomley and his man as well?”

  “He called me a mad dog and drew a pistol, Uncle Abe.”

  “Foolish of him, Sam. What happens in Stafford now?”

  Sam could not imagine.

  “I did tell Captain Wakerley that I would not have anything to do with Stafford, Uncle Abe. I do not think I should be seen there ever again.”

  “No more you should, Sam. We do need to know what is happening there, however. If Bottomley is to be succeeded by a son, for example, then there might be a desire for revenge. We must keep ourselves informed. What of your new man, Nick, is it? Could he go to Stafford to discover events there?”

  Sam did not think that to be a good idea, not at all.

  “Nick is not a man to be sent too far distant, Uncle Abe. I much prefer to know precisely what he might be doing at any given moment. He is not, perhaps, the most reliable of men, in certain aspects of his conduct.”

  Abe did not quite understand what Sam was implying.

  “He has a tendency to cut throats, Uncle Abe. Often for little other reason than personal amusement. He is not in every way a rational being, in fact, but can be very useful in so many ways.”

  “He cuts throats, for pleasure?”

  “Only sometimes, Uncle Abe. I am not to say that this is how he spends his leisure time, day in, day out.”

  Abe was not entirely reassured.

  “Should he not be cast into a madhouse, Sam?”

  “Well… there are those who might think that a proper place for him, Uncle Abe. But, he is such a useful chap on occasion, and there are an awful great many people in this country of ours, Uncle Abe; we can afford to lose one or two, off and on, to keep him entertained.”

  Abe did not agree.

  “Can we be sure that he will choose the right ones, however, Sam? It sounds that he is not the most discriminating of gentlemen.”

  “That is a worry, Uncle Abe. Still, we need a trustworthy henchman, Uncle Abe, one who is always there to perform various unpleasant little tasks such as sometimes arise.”

  “The word ‘trustworthy’ is of importance, Sam. Is he truly to be relied upon?”

  “Within reason, yes, I believe, Uncle Abe. I do not think he would cut my throat, or yours, except with the best of motives.”

  “What if he was offered twenty guineas, gold?”

  “I doubt he would even consider killing me for less than fifty, Uncle Abe.”

  Abe was mollified to an extent - fifty guineas was a lot of money. The most ordinary of men might well take to cutting throats for fifty guineas in hand. Very few killings cost more than five pounds in fact.

  “I shall find a man of my own to go to Stafford for us, Sam. We need to know what is happening.”

  It took a month, but Abe was informed of events in the neighbouring town in some detail then. He made a rare foray out of the White Horse to speak to Sam in his office at the distillery.

  “Who is the boy I saw outside, Sam? A new face?”

  “His father did me a service last month, Uncle Abe, and I am able
to place the boy, who has his letters, in return. Jonas Crabtree is a useful lad, in fact. He can keep a ledger and can write letters in a clear hand. I have it in mind to train him in the business so that he may run a distillery for me within a year or two. It requires little to order in the jars and bottles and malt and barley and potatoes and sugars we require, as well as keep up a supply of coals. He will be well capable of those tasks and will earn a handy little wage as well. Give him five years and he will move on, taking on a coal pit, perhaps. He will be loyal, for knowing no other employer, having no knowledge of how to make his living except at my heels. I shall pay him more than he could hope to pick up elsewhere.”

  “Very wise, Sam. We shall need reliable men over the years, working for us from love as well as for pay. Look after your Jonas and he will be a treasure for the whole of his existence. Where does he live, Sam?”

  “He has a room with one of the other clerks, Uncle Abe.”

  “Give him Jacky’s cottage, for his own, Sam. As soon as he is of an age to know what he has inside his breeches, set on a maidservant to look after his comforts – all of them. Nothing like it for securing the loyalty of a very young man, Sam.”

  Sam agreed, thinking that Uncle Abe was benefitting himself in a similar way – he knew what he was talking about.

  Abe returned to his first concern, the fall out of the events in Stone.

  “I sent my close acquaintance from Leek, Alfred Cocks, to stay in Stafford for a few days and keep his ear to the ground. Do you know Alfred?”

  Sam did, vaguely; he was best described as an odd-job man, able to turn his hand to several trades, doing none of them especially well, but useful to lay a drystone wall one week or trim a hedge on another or turn over a garden when the heavy digging grew too much for an old back. He made a living and spent much of it in the White Horse where he was valued as a player of cribbage or dominoes when a four needed be made up.

  “Not the brightest of sparks, is he, Uncle Abe?”

  “Sufficiently, Sam. He makes a living by doing as little as he can, which means he ain’t entirely stupid. He can talk to people. They like him.”

  “Useful to find out what’s happening then, Uncle Abe. What did he discover in Stafford?”

  “It’s a mess, Sam. First the man Pankhurst died in a fire, which is generally thought to be an accident, though we know better. As far as the ordinary people are concerned, he was a shopkeeper and locked up tight every night, so there is none to be surprised that he was trapped inside with his family. Then Bottomley was killed, and that was certainly a deliberate action, but there are none to be found who will name names in front of Sheriff or magistrates. Far too great a risk! His wife has packed her bags and taken the children away; three girls, the oldest of twelve years. The word is that Bottomley had a chest of golden guineas in his house – thousands, perhaps – and she fled with them in her trunk. Gone to a brother at far, so it is said. The big house is empty, and will probably escheat to the Crown, as the property of a felon. Bottomley was found by the constable in Leek in the company of other dead bodies and with a pistol in his hand – that makes him a criminal in the eyes of the authorities. They will sell his house and the little estate it sits in and tuck half of the proceeds into the Lord Lieutenant’s funds and the remainder into their own pockets and be very satisfied. As for the organisation of the town itself – the gangs have all set up on their own and there is no single leader to create order. It will be months, perhaps, before things settle down.”

  “And there will be no heir with a grievance to pursue, none who believes he should call feud with the killer of Bottomley and his men.”

  “Exactly so, Sam.”

  “Then all’s well that ends well, Uncle Abe. I had wondered if I might not have been somewhat precipitate in my actions, but it seems not. Now that this business is behind us, we must consider what we are to do next, I believe, sir.”

  “What has happened to your young man who was set on the discover coal pits for you, Sam?”

  “Very little, Uncle Abe. Mr Richard Rowlands has discovered a number of drifts, all of them too small to make any sense from a commercial point of view. Surface outcroppings, but with no depth behind them. He has changed his area of search and hopes to find more to the south of Stoke. He is working hard, and is increasingly upset, from all his father says, because he is earning no more than his wages, and they were deliberately set low. He will make a fortune if he finds half a dozen small pits for us, or one big, of course, but not otherwise. Mr Malone is busy with his working and is using our money already – profitable but will demand none of our time, Uncle Abe.”

  “Good that he should be working for us as well as himself, Sam. A pity that there seems to be no method of discovering coal other than by guess, Sam.”

  That reminded Sam that he had it in mind to discover whether the seam on Josh Banford’s lands extended to the other side of the valley. He outlined his theory to Abe and found him to agree that it was logical.

  “The seam is tilted downwards at a slight angle, you say, Sam. If the valley was cut down after the coal was created, however that may have been, then it is reasonable to assume that the seam will be discovered on the far side. All you have to do is to determine the angle at which it slopes, so as to estimate where it might be discovered again. What will you do, Sam?”

  “I shall go up to the working and take an angle by eye, and place where I hope to find the seam again. Then, a dozen labourers with shovels to cut a trench vertically up the valley side and, hopefully, we intersect the seam. Perhaps. At this time of year there will be men in plenty happy to earn a few shillings over three or four days.”

  Sam passed the word that he wanted the services of at least ten men from seven o’clock of the morning two days hence. He went out next morning, riding up the moor side until he reached the drift. The collier, Bragg, welcomed him and listened to his intentions with intelligent interest.

  “On t’other side, Mr Sam? I reckon it makes sense, meself. You stand up on the high bit of the loading bay, or such I do call it, Mr Sam, and take a look across the dale, and what do you see, just down and across, look?”

  Sam followed the pointing arm and saw a hillside.

  “Colour, Mr Sam, sir. Do thee see, now? There be sloes and brambles downhill, and uphill, but a line of no more than thin grass in betwixt, brown and sere like, as if it was growing on thin soil over rock. If so be there was coal just underneath, Mr Sam, then the soil would be poorer than normal, what you might say. Might be no more than a line of different rock, sir, a slate, mebbe, such as is often found around coal seams. But, from where it is, on a line, as you said, it might as like as not be coal.”

  “So it might, now. Five guineas in your pocket if it is, man!”

  Bragg tugged his forelock mightily in response.

  A full score of men carrying shovels and pickaxes were lined up next morning, waiting patiently and hardly nudging each other at all to be at the head of the line. Sam thought about sending half home again, then he realised that they wanted the money, badly. It was the weeks after harvest and before hard winter when there was no work to be found and little to do usefully in their poor fields. He increased the wage he had been going to offer.

  “Half a crown for the day’s labours. Come with me.”

  They were all of them holders on the Banford lands, men who scraped a living from the north-facing fields and who relied on the income from their labour at spring ploughing and harvest. To them a few extra shillings was a windfall that might buy a warm blanket for the children that winter or warm and almost waterproof top coats. Mostly, Sam thought – for a few the half crown was thirty nips of gin, a fortnight of drunkenness.

  They walked the nearly two miles up the dale until the drift was visible high up on the north slope. Sam stopped and looked carefully about until he located the strip of less fertile land.

  “Up here. I want a trench dug from top to bottom across this patch, go down a yard or so.”
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  Ten minutes passed, mostly in setting men in position; they were barely a spit deep when the shout went up.

  “Bloody ‘ell, Master Sam! There be coal ‘ere!”

  “Good! Cut back on top of it, see where it runs, how wide the seam is.”

  Two hours had uncovered a seam stretching some fifty yards around a bend in the valley. The seam was as thick as seven feet in places, nowhere less than three. The hands gathered round Sam as he dished out the half-crowns, one bold young fellow who Sam did not recognise asking the question that was in all their minds.

  “Begging thy pardon, Master Sam, but ‘ow did thee know there was coal just in the place you told us to dig?”

  “Me? I did not, man. I spoke to Bragg the collier, up on the drift up the hillside there. It was his guess that there would be coal beneath the barren grasses.”

  They were amazed; the collier was an incomer, a new man who had walked up from the south country with his family not two years previously. He had taken the job for lack of better, they all thought, and had never gone to the effort of making the steep walk up to greet him and his family.

  “Bright bugger ‘e must be, Mr Sam. Us uns ‘ave lived ‘ere these twenty years and more and never worked that out. What now, Mr Sam?”

  “A coal mine, that’s what comes next. That will need men – you and yours to get first dibs on the jobs, if you want them.”

  A son, or two, working in the mine and bringing in two shillings a day apiece, would make a big difference to life in the dale. From spending each winter cold and on the verge of starvation, they would have warm cottages and bread in the house, with a probability of porridge every day and bacon and cheese two or three times a week.

  “Thou art a good man to look after us, Mr Sam. When?”

  “We must build a trackway, to join with the one already set up. Then we sell coals in town and to the potteries, and perhaps to ironworks as well, one day. If I can get things moving, then you may be working by the beginning of next week, shovelling the land flat for a loading bay and along the line the track will take.”