The Black Country

by Alex Grecian

  He could hear movement outside the next room, Hammersmith’s room. There was the faint sound of metal scraping against metal, then soft footsteps approached Day’s door. The inspector pulled back and looked around the room for his revolver. The doorknob jiggled and the lock turned over. Day stepped closer and put his ear back against the door and listened as muffled footsteps retreated down the stairs. He tried the doorknob. It turned a quarter of an inch each way, but wouldn’t budge farther. He had been locked in his room.

  Day crossed to his bed and rummaged inside his open suitcase. He produced a flat black leather pouch and flipped it open to reveal an array of heavy-looking brass keys. He chose one and returned to the locked door, where he crouched and went to work. It took him less than a minute to draw back the lock and open the door.

  He stepped into the hall and pulled the door shut behind him, then crept quietly to the stairs and down.

  21

  Day paused in the shadows of the inn’s common room. The twin fires were still blazing, but the lamps had been extinguished and no one was in sight. Bruised early sunlight filtered through the high windows, turning the room purple. From his vantage point on the stairs, Day would have seen anyone leaving the inn by the big front door, which meant that whoever had locked them in their rooms had gone out through the door behind the bar. Day crossed the room silently and poked his head through the door.

  He saw a narrow dining room with an oak table and six chairs. A muddy brown tapestry with an embroidered family crest was hung behind the table, which was already set for breakfast. Day crossed to another door on the far side of the room and pushed it open with the tips of his fingers.

  The kitchen was small and tidy. A medium-size range dominated most of the far wall, framed by a pair of wooden chairs with straw seats. A faded blue rug had been rolled out on the floor. The oven door was open, and Day could see a roasting pan inside, today’s breakfast slowly cooking. Turning his head, Day could see through a narrow doorway into the larder, which was hung with raw meats: rabbits, a suckling pig, and one quarter of a deer. There were no dishes in evidence, and Day assumed that, if the kitchen was here on the ground floor, the scullery must be in the basement. He moved quietly through the room and past the swinging animal carcasses to another open door. A cold breeze wafted through the larder, cooling the meat and leaving a thin coat of snow on the stone floor. He halted again, his back against the outside wall next to the door, and crouched down before looking out.

  Outside, a low fence, designed to protect the larder from hungry animals, shielded the inn from the landscape. Day edged forward and gripped the top of the fence, then raised his head to look over it. Calvin Campbell was three feet away from him, looking in the opposite direction. He was squatting by the town well, hidden from the other side of the road by the big stone structure. Day ducked his head back down behind the fence. He was sure it was no coincidence that Campbell was out and about. It was the bird-watcher who had locked the other guests’ rooms before going out into the night.

  A moment later, he heard footsteps and risked another peek over the fence. A loose formation of village men marched past, bleary-eyed and stooped, miners on their way to the new seam. There seemed to be fewer of them than Day had seen from the carriage the previous evening. Their clothing had been laundered and patched many times, but would never come close to being clean, and some of them wore soft caps pulled down low on their brows. One of them coughed and stumbled and fell to his knees beside the road. Two of the others hurried to him, lifted him under his armpits and, supporting their spasming friend between them, returned to the group. The men walked past the well and the inn’s short fence without noticing the inspector or the bird-watcher, both poorly hidden scant feet away from them. They followed the road around a high slag pile and an abandoned pit and then out of sight around the corner of a far building.

  As soon as the miners were gone, Calvin Campbell jumped up from his spot behind the old well and hurried down the road in the direction the miners had come from. Day stood and followed from a discreet distance, trusting the light snowfall to keep him partially hidden.

  The cobblestones of the town’s main road gleamed in the gaslight from streetlamps set every few yards, ice sparkling in the mud between the stones. The buildings along the main road through the center of town were tall and proud and architecturally similar, unlike everything that radiated out from them. Someone had once put thought and effort into planning and building this village, before haphazard growth had laid waste to their good intentions. Beyond the first few yards along the main street, there seemed to be no rhyme or reason remaining. Tudor-style dwellings nestled alongside split-rail cabins and ancient mud-daubed huts. It looked to him as though the place had come together in fits and starts, with no plan, and nothing had ever been torn down to make way for anything better. Next to the blacksmith was the telegraph office, closed and silent at this early hour. Day watched his shadow flow and change and grow as he crossed the road. He was alone and in a strange place and he missed his wife. He missed her terrible cooking. He missed the smell of her hair and the sound of her bare feet in the hall as she approached his bedroom door in the middle of the night. He wondered what she might make of the strange village, like some island far from London, populated by natives who refused to abandon their sinking homes. Or, perhaps, couldn’t leave if they wanted to.

  But for all that it was doomed, he could still see the appeal of Blackhampton. It was small, but open, the houses and shops and community buildings spread out in a way that London was not. Day had come from Devon, where there was room to move about, and had lived the better part of the past year in London, where there was not. Blackhampton had a bit of the feel of Devon for him. He liked being able to walk without checking for horseshit at every step.

  But the air here wasn’t filled with the river scent of Devon or the body odors of London. It was burnt and, even filtered through the heavy white snowflakes swirling around his face, it stung his nostrils. The great furnaces filled the sky with smoke, and there was nothing else to breathe. One would, he presumed, eventually become used to it, but after a single night in Blackhampton his throat was as raw as if he’d smoked a pipe the wrong way round. He felt he was choking on ashes. He cleared his throat quietly, aware that any noise would echo through the empty street and alert Calvin Campbell to his presence.

  The road curved to the west ahead of them, and Campbell took a furtive look back before following the bend and disappearing from sight. Day stood calmly in the dark doorway of an apothecary and made sure Campbell wasn’t doubling back. A spider emerged from a crack in the stones beside Day and he marveled that it was awake and moving about in the bitter cold. Surely it should be hibernating, or whatever it was that spiders did in the winter. The early spring had clearly played havoc with the natural way of things. Day moved away from the wall, reluctant to frighten such a brave soul. From nowhere, a dunnock, grey and brown, flew at the wall and gobbled up the spider, then flew off, past Day, and disappeared against the late winter sky.

  Day stepped out of the shadows of the apothecary. He approached the road’s curve carefully, in no particular rush. As far as he could tell, there was nowhere for Campbell to go. The village was small and, if he remembered correctly, the road ended just out of town. Even if the bird-watcher broke for the distant trees, Day would be able to see him for quite a distance as he crossed the open fields.

  But when he peered around the bend, Campbell was nowhere in sight. Day moved out into the middle of the road and looked in every direction. There was a smattering of smaller stone buildings, a butcher shop, a fish and chips, a farrier, and a handful of cottages and outbuildings. Ahead was the parish church, towering over the homes and businesses nearby. It sat directly on the path, a destination point, whether one intended that or not. Beyond the church, the road ended. There was no dirt path or trail through the tall grasses; it simply stopped. There was nowhere for Campbe
ll to hide except in one of the buildings, and there was no way to tell which one he might be in.

  Day stood there for a long time, turning in small circles, surveying the road in both directions. It was possible that Campbell was watching him from a window, but Day didn’t care. There was nothing to do but draw Campbell out and question him, or give up and go back to the inn. Day waited for a quarter of an hour, hoping that the giant would leave his hiding place, but nothing happened. The sun began to edge over the tops of the distant trees, and shadows changed, reached and clawed up the sides of the tiny cottages and over the thatched roof of the butcher shop. Birds began to sing.

  Day gazed at the church. Mrs Brothwood’s note had hinted at mysteries being kept there, and he was tempted to approach, knock on the huge oaken doors and confront whomever he might find. But he wasn’t prepared for that. Better to wait until he was better rested and the village, outside of the early-rising miners, had begun to stir.

  But he wasn’t ready to give up on the disappearing Campbell just yet.

  Day backtracked and stopped outside the telegraph office. He pounded on the door until a grumpy old man answered, still rubbing sleep from his eyes with a gnarled fist. Day introduced himself and the man beckoned the inspector inside. The door closed behind him, and silence cloaked Blackhampton once more.

  INTERLUDE 1

  ANDERSONVILLE PRISON,

  CONFEDERATE GEORGIA, 1865

  Cal? Calvin Campbell. That you, boy?”

  Cal didn’t look up. He stood still, staring at the louse wriggling between his fingers. He frowned. The voice had interrupted his count. He cursed and poked the louse into his mouth, crunching it between his teeth. He felt a hand on his shoulder and he jerked away, his body tensed for a fight.

  “Cal, it’s me. It’s Joe Poole.”

  The name stirred shadows in his memory. Joe Poole? Cal still didn’t look up, but he struggled to remember. There had been a kid in his regiment, a cheerful lad of no more than eighteen or nineteen, with curly red hair and an infectious grin and a habit of winking when he talked, letting you in on some private joke, even when the subject was dead serious. Cal shook his head and his long matted hair brushed against his face.

  “Joe Poole died at Gettysburg,” he said.

  “Well, that’s news to me, friend. I’m here, same as you, and I ain’t dead yet.”

  Cal finally looked up. Far away, in every direction, were the high wooden walls of the prison. Thousands of men squatted between the walls in the thick mud. Cal could count the ribs of every one of those men. Their faces were sucked tight against their skulls, dead eyes under heavy ridges.

  Cal was younger than most of the others, but larger, too, tall and broad-shouldered. Like the rest of them, his beard had grown out. He was one of nearly fourteen thousand British citizens who had enlisted to fight in the American Civil War. He had joined the Union army for the same reason most of his American friends had joined, and he had fought bravely alongside them until he was captured by Confederate soldiers and eventually taken to Andersonville Prison. Everyone here was a soldier, but there was no order.

  The remains of Cal’s torn and dirty uniform hung loosely on his body, but he counted himself lucky to have clothes at all. Smaller, weaker men routinely had their shirts and trousers stolen and then had to make do with scraps. Joe Poole was still wearing his blue Union jacket. It was soiled and the cuffs were frayed, but it was valuable and Cal knew it would be taken from him. He glared at Joe.

  “You made me lose my tally,” he said.

  “You don’t look so good,” Joe said. But he winked when he said it, showing that he meant well, that there were no hard feelings.

  “Go away.”

  “Good Lord, Cal, how long you been in here?”

  “Sixty thousand. Almost sixty thousand. I lost count just now.”

  “Sixty thousand what, Cal?”

  “Lice. I get them and I count them. Five hundred every day. I stop counting when I get five hundred.”

  “You pick five hundred lice offa yerself every day?”

  “Not today. Lost count today.”

  “You pick five hundred lice offa yerself every day and you got fifty thousand.”

  “Sixty. Sixty thousand.”

  “How many days that make?”

  “It hardly matters.”

  “That’s too tough for me to figure. I don’t do math.”

  “It’s a lot of days.”

  “Everybody here have lice?”

  “Haven’t talked to everyone here yet, so I don’t know.”

  “Cal, ain’t you happy to see me?”

  “Not especially.”

  “I thought we was friendly.”

  “We were. That’s why I’m not happy to see you here.”

  Joe Poole stopped talking. Cal saw something white glistening in his arm hair and grabbed it between his long fingernails. He brought it up and looked at it more closely. It was a maggot, not a louse. It had rained the night before, and all the waste holes the prisoners had made, the holes they’d scraped dirt over, had burst open and boiled over with maggots. Cal didn’t count maggots. He only counted lice. He popped it into his mouth and returned to searching himself for lice.

  “It don’t look so good here, Cal. This place? Seems real bad.”

  Cal ignored him.

  “You got one of those?”

  Cal looked up again and saw that Joe was pointing at a shebang. There were hundreds of shebangs spread out between the prison walls, makeshift shelters scrabbled together from pieces of old tents, tattered clothing too far gone to wear, sticks, mud, dried feces, and blankets. For a second he saw the place anew through Joe’s eyes and he was horrified. He shook his head and sniffed and plucked another maggot from his arm.

  “Cal, don’t eat that. Quit eatin’ them. It’s a bug.”

  “Bugs are food, too.” Cal tried to laugh and choked. He coughed and heaved, his empty stomach cramping. After another moment, his body settled. It took too much energy to vomit.

  When he had stopped gagging, he held the maggot up in a mock salute. He stuck out his tongue and placed the maggot on it and drew his tongue slowly back in. He could feel the maggot blindly writhing across his tongue. He closed his lips and crunched down on it, releasing the tiny bit of precious liquid at its center. There was a spark of salt and it was gone.

  “Oh, God, Cal, stop doin’ that.”

  “How long have you been here, Joe?”

  “I just now got here. Got captured at Chickamauga and moved around a bit, here and there. Thought I was lucky to see a familiar soul here, but it don’t seem like it so much now.”

  Cal noticed that Joe didn’t wink at him this time. Cal’s stomach turned again, and he knew the sensation didn’t come from eating the maggot. He had eaten too many of those now. It didn’t bother him the way it had a couple of months ago.

  “I’m sorry, Joe.”

  “Gosh, no, Cal. I’m glad to see a friend.”

  “I don’t think I can be your friend, Joe. Friends are a bad idea here.”

  “Seems to me like this is the place you need a friend more than anything, Cal. More than anything.”

  Cal barely heard what Joe said. He turned his head and waved his arm: Go away. It was too hard here. There was no room for friends. Cal had made a friend his first day in Andersonville, and the man had died in his arms two weeks later, foaming at the mouth and bleeding from his ears. Cal had carried him to the wagon they brought through to collect the dead, and the man had weighed no more than a child. He had taken the man’s blanket before giving him over to be taken to one of the mass graves outside the wall. The blanket was infested, and that was the night that Cal had begun counting lice.

  Having a friend could only hurt a man in Andersonville.

  “Cal, I don’t know what to do.” Joe’s voice
had become small and sad, like an echo. “I’m lookin’ at this place and I don’t see what there is for me here.”

  Cal walked away from Joe Poole. There was nothing Joe could do for him except make him care, and caring was a dangerous thing to do in Andersonville. Here it was every man for himself until death.

  As far as Cal was concerned, the sooner death came, the better.

  —

  “Cal! We got a problem!”

  Cal looked up from the work he was doing on their shelter. A sudden squall the night before had ripped a hole in the side of the shebang he shared with Joe Poole. It had been three weeks since Joe had come to Andersonville, and Cal’s life had improved immeasurably. He still spent much of his day picking lice off his body and clothing, but he no longer counted them. He had other things to occupy his mind. He and Joe had built the shebang over a shallow hole they dug with their hands near the western perimeter of the stockade. They’d used bits of canvas tent material that they’d bartered for, sewn them over a framework of branches, and spackled it all over with mud. It wasn’t waterproof, but it was warmer than sleeping in the open the way Cal had been before Joe came along.

  He stepped outside and shielded his eyes. The rain had come and gone, and now the sky was bright and pale, almost white. Joe was running toward him. He estimated that Joe had lost at least twenty pounds in the last three weeks. But without Joe and his eternal optimism, Cal was sure he would have died already.

  “What’s the problem?” Cal said.

  “It’s Duane.”

  “Shite.”

  Joe made a come on motion and Cal followed him at a trot. Running used energy they couldn’t afford to waste, but Cal could no longer see the point in being alive in Andersonville if he wasn’t there to help his friends.

  Duane was one of a handful of new kids they’d taken under their wing. He’d been puny to begin with, and came into the prison without shoes or a hat. He told them he’d been grateful to be captured. His regiment had run out of supplies and had taken to hunting in the woods for squirrels and rabbits. Of course, squirrel and rabbit sounded like gourmet dining after a week at the prison. The only meat they got here was generally already rotting. Cal figured the boy had weighed maybe a hundred and twenty pounds when he’d arrived, and Andersonville certainly hadn’t fattened him up. There was a time when Cal would have been able to pick Duane up and sling him over his shoulder like a newborn calf.