Black-eyed Devils

by Catrin Collier

  ‘His mother died a month ago. He came to say goodbye. There’s nothing left to keep him in the old country so he’s decided to try and make his fortune in America.’

  ‘So, he won’t be staying with you long?’

  ‘Give the boy chance to catch his breath, Sergeant. He only arrived in town on the midnight train last night.’

  ‘I’ll give him a chance to catch his breath and say goodbye to you, Father. But I won’t give him time to meet with any of the other Irishmen who have suddenly appeared in Tonypandy. Do you need me to explain why?’

  ‘I’m ashamed to admit that some of my countrymen have decided to turn blackleg and help Arnold Craggs and the colliery management to try and break the strike.’

  Sergeant Martin softened his voice. ‘There are Welsh as well as Irish blacklegs, Father.’

  ‘Desperate men, all of them whose only concern in to feed their families. I must be off, Sergeant.’ The priest lifted his hat. ‘My compliments to your wife.’

  ‘I’ll pass them on, Father. And I’ll try to control the officers under my command. But some of the men they’ve brought up from London like Constable Shipton are more hot-headed than we locals.’

  ‘I’ve noticed. Good day to you, Sergeant.’

  ‘Were you born in Tonypandy?’ Tom couldn’t stop looking at Amy. His uncle had been joking when he’d told Constable Shipton that Tom had never seen anyone like Amy before. But it was the truth. Tom had to stop himself from reaching out and touching the strands of silver hair that fell over Amy’s shoulders from beneath her hooded cape. Her eyes were the brightest, clearest blue he had ever seen. And when she spoke, the Welsh lilt in her voice sounded like music.

  ‘My parents’ moved here from Pontypridd just before I was born. My father was offered a better job with more pay in the Glamorgan Colliery than he’d been earning in the Maritime. He’s a repairer.’ Amy wanted Tom to understand that her father was no ordinary collier. ‘It’s his responsibility to maintain the airways in the pit, check they are kept clear and the air below ground is of good quality.’

  ‘An important job.’

  ‘It is. My eldest brother, Jack is his assistant.’

  ‘How old is Jack?’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘The constable said you’ve three brothers. I’d like to know how many grown men I have to fight off when I come to get you.’

  ‘Why would you want to “get me”?’ she asked warily.

  ‘To carry you off to my castle. Isn’t that what all knights in shining armour do when they find the damsel they want to marry?’

  ‘Marry?’ she repeated. ‘That’s very funny considering we only met ten minutes ago.’

  ‘You knew we were meant for one another the moment you saw me. So, why try to fight your feelings?’

  ‘The only thing I felt when your uncle introduced us was a cold wind blowing down from the mountain.’

  ‘No you didn’t. You felt the scorching warmth of my love.’

  ‘I’m used to Father Kelly’s funny Irish way of talking but you take it too far.’

  He dropped his bantering tone. ‘I’m serious, Amy. I will marry you, you’ll see. And you haven’t answered my question. How old are your brothers?’

  ‘Jack’s twenty-two, Mathew twenty-one and Mark twenty. Mathew and Mark work as carpenters doing joinery work underground. I’ve two younger brothers as well. They’re twins. Sam and Luke are six years old.’

  ‘I’m guessing you’re eighteen.’

  ‘You’d guess wrong. I’m nineteen.’

  ‘The perfect age for marriage to a man of twenty-three.’

  She ignored his last remark. ‘Have you any brothers and sisters?’

  ‘One brother and nine sisters, all older than me. All the girls are married, except for Bridget. She drew the short straw and went into a convent.’

  ‘As a nun?’

  ‘It’s better than going in as a maid of all work. The girls knew one of them would have to join the church. Every generation of my family has its priests and nuns. My brother Peter’s a priest like my uncle. In America. It was his letters about the opportunities there for a hardworking man that gave me the idea of emigrating.’

  ‘What are you going to do when you get there?’

  ‘Work.’

  ‘At what?’

  ‘I’ll be able to answer that question when I see what I’m offered.’

  ‘You’d like to write to me?’

  ‘No, take you with me. You will come?’

  ‘There’s Dad.’ Amy was glad she had an excuse not to answer his question.

  She was used to young men asking her to go for a walk with them. She knew how to reject them without hurting their feelings. She’d also slapped three boys for trying to steal kisses from her. But Tom Kelly with his talk of marriage wasn’t like any man she’d ever met. He made her feel oddly uneasy.

  Most confusing of all, she couldn’t understand why she didn’t want to send him away from her just yet.

  She ran towards her father. He and the other striking miners had scavenged an old oil drum. They’d punched holes in the sides to turn it into a brazier and were burning scraps of wood and wooden pit railings to keep warm.

  ‘I’ve brought you tea. Uncle Gwilym’s too.’ Amy took the tins from her basket and handed them out.

  ‘Who’s the man?’ Jim Watkins eyed Tom suspiciously.

  Tom stepped forward and held out his hand. ‘Tom Kelly, sir.’

  ‘A Black Eyed Devil.’

  ‘A what?’ Tom asked in confusion.

  ‘It’s what the colliers call Irish blacklegs,’ Amy whispered.

  Jim’s face darkened in anger. ‘Look at Amy again and you’ll go back to Ireland in a box.’

  ‘Dad, Tom is Father Kelly’s nephew,’ Amy said swiftly.

  ‘Why are you here?’ Jim demanded of Tom.

  Tom wasn’t sure whether Amy’s father meant Tonypandy or the picket line so he gave both explanations. ‘To say goodbye to my uncle because I’m on my way to America. There was a spot of bother in town. I volunteered to escort Miss Watkins here as my uncle was busy on parish business.’

  ‘What kind of bother?’ Jim asked Amy.

  ‘One of the London policemen told me to warn Jack that he’s been seen digging in the drift mines.’

  ‘Damn him,’ Jack said angrily.

  ‘Language, boy. Ladies present,’ his father scolded.

  ‘What we supposed to do, Dad? Freeze and starve to death so Arnold Craggs and management can make us work for next to nothing again?’

  ‘Quiet, Jack. We’ll talk about this when we get home.’

  ‘Mr Kelly, you’ve met my father Jim Watkins. This is my eldest brother Jack and my brother Mark.’ Amy tried to divert Jack’s attention before he started an argument that would put their father in an even worse mood. ‘Where’s Mathew?’

  ‘Helping the farmer with his potatoes,’ Jack answered. It was the excuse the miners gave the police whenever they were looking for someone. It meant that Mathew was doing something he shouldn’t. Like scavenging for wood and coal on colliery property.

  Jim finally shook hands with Tom. ‘I’m sorry if I misjudged you, boy. But a lot of the blacklegs are Irish. However, saying that, there isn’t a man or woman in Tonypandy who doesn’t respect your uncle. He’s a good man.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. That’s good to know.’

  ‘Go home, Amy,’ Jim ordered. ‘It’s freezing and likely to get colder. Tell your mother we’ll be home around seven o’clock.’

  ‘I will, Dad.’

  ‘Thank Annie for the tea?’ Gwilym held up his tin can.’

  ‘I will, Uncle Gwilym.’

  ‘There’s no need to walk Amy home,’ Jim said to Tom. ‘She knows the way well enough.’

  ‘It’s me that doesn’t know the way, Mr Watkins. I told my uncle I’d meet him back at the soup kitchen. I’ll never find it from here without Miss Watkins’s help.’

  ‘I have
to go there anyway, Dad, to help out.’ Amy pulled the hood of her cloak down against the wind. The temperature seemed to have dropped since she had stopped walking.

  ‘Aren’t you meeting the boys to go rabbiting with the dogs today, Mark?’ Jim asked.

  ‘Yes, Dad.’

  ‘Then you can walk Amy and Tom Kelly to the hall.’

  Mark pushed his hands deep into the pockets of his old working jacket in an effort to keep warm. ‘If we’re going, Amy, let’s go.’

  ‘Hope you have more luck today than you did yesterday, Mark. As I probably won’t see you again, Mr Kelly, good luck in America.’ Jim couldn’t resist smiling at the look of disappointment on Tom’s face.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘I walked Miss Watkins to the picket line because Father Kelly thought there might be trouble there. But it looked peaceful enough,’ Tom said to Mark as they headed into town. Given Amy’s father’s attitude and her brother’s presence, Tom hadn’t offered Amy his arm.

  ‘Fighting only breaks out when management try to smuggle blacklegs in to take our jobs. Would you believe it, Amy, they hid them in an empty coal cart this morning. Dad and some of the others stopped it from going through the gates. They climbed up and lifted the tarpaulin to find six of the bastards … ’

  ‘Language,’ Tom rebuked.

  ‘They are bastards,’ Mark repeated. ‘And, Amy knows they are bastards. Hanging’s too good for a blackleg prepared to steal a striker’s job by working for less than a living wage. And, as Dad said, most of them are Irish.’

  ‘You can’t blame all the Irish for the actions of a few.’ Amy drew her basket beneath her cloak in an effort to warm her hands. ‘Father Kelly is Irish. He’s the kindest most unselfish man I know.’

  ‘The problem with us Irish is, we’ve been starved and beaten by the English for so long, we’ll do anything to survive.’ Tom spoke quietly but his comment angered Mark.

  ‘Do you think that being treated badly by the English gives you Irish the right to come here and take our jobs?’

  ‘Not at all. I was only trying to explain why we Irish are so desperate. I’ve seen the soldiers and police here. It’s just like home. No Irish man, woman or child has been able to move freely around their own country for years without officers watching them. The English have only just started on you here, in Wales. Think what you’d feel like if they’d been doing it for hundreds of years.

  ‘That’s why we’re fighting them now. Because we don’t want the upper classes to starve and beat us for hundreds of years.’

  ‘Mark, look, Huw is waving to you from the mountain,’ Amy said.

  ‘He’s got Nero and Brutus. He must have fetched them from our garden.’

  ‘Our dogs,’ Amy explained to Tom. ‘Go on, Mark. Don’t keep Huw waiting.’

  ‘Dad said I was to walk you to the kitchen,’

  ‘It’s more important you try your luck at rabbiting. It’s two weeks since you caught one.’

  ‘You know as well as I do, why Dad wanted me to take you home.’ Mark glared at Tom.

  ‘I’ve never known such suspicious people,’ Tom complained. ‘But, as there’s no one else here to speak for me, I’ll do it myself. My uncle and brother are priests. I’m a good, God fearing, clean living man, who’s always treated ladies with respect. Now tell me, what could I do to your sister in the middle of town other than talk to her and walk her home?’

  ‘I don’t know?’ Mark challenged. ‘What could you do to her?’

  ‘Huw’s still waving to you, Mark,’ Amy said before Tom could answer him. When Mark made no attempt to move, she added, ‘If you go now, I won’t tell Dad and Mam I saw you kissing Susie James behind the church hall last week.’

  ‘You wouldn’t dare,’ Mark retorted.

  ‘Try me,’ Amy replied.

  ‘Some sisters are sneaks.’

  ‘And some brothers do what they told. Go on, Brutus is barking. If you keep Huw waiting much longer the police will turn up. You know how they hate our dogs.’

  ‘Only the ones we’ve trained to attack constables. See you back at the house, sis. Goodbye, Tom. Good luck in America.’

  ‘I know I’m on my way to America but your family seem to be keen to get me there as quickly as possible.’ Tom offered Amy his arm as soon as Mark ran off.

  ‘It’s the strike. It’s made us suspicious of everyone.’

  ‘Not me surely?’

  ‘Even sweet talking Irishmen,’ she smiled. ‘And I have to go home before I go to the soup kitchen to fetch our jug.’

  ‘Don’t they have enough jugs in the kitchen?’

  ‘Yes. But I want to get ours filled. Anyone can have a free meal in the kitchen, if they can find a chair and place at a table. But our family, like most of the others, prefer to pay a shilling to get their jug filled in the kitchen and eat together as a family at home.’

  ‘They don’t fill jugs for nothing?’ he asked.

  ‘The charities and churches who run the soup kitchens can’t afford to. They get some donations of food but not enough to feed everyone.’

  ‘I’m looking forward to meeting your mother. Is she likely to be as wary of me as your father and brothers?’ Tom lifted his cap to an old lady who stopped and stared at them.

  ‘It’s cold today, isn’t it, Mrs Jones,’ Amy said to the old lady. ‘I can’t take you home to meet my mother,’ she warned Tom when they moved on.

  ‘Are you afraid that your mother won’t find me presentable?’

  ‘I’m afraid she’ll think there’s something going on between us. Especially if the gossips tell her that we’ve been walking together.’

  ‘The gossips won’t get to your house before we do.’

  ‘Don’t bet on it. You don’t know the gossips in this town.’

  ‘You haven’t taken many young men home?’ He was asking her for information and she knew it.

  ‘Everyone knows everyone else in Tonypandy. So, the answer to your question is, I haven’t taken any strange young men home. I’ll show you where the soup kitchen is, so you can find your way there.’

  He sighed. ‘That means I’ll have to do without you for hours.’

  She laughed. ‘Half an hour at the most. And I’m going to the kitchen to work.’

  ‘I’ll follow you like a stray dog.’

  ‘In which case I’ll throw stones at you to make you go away.’

  ‘I’ll dodge them.’

  Irritated, Amy said, ‘you are the most annoying man.’

  ‘Get used to me. I intend to keep on annoying you until you agree to marry me.’

  Amy stopped halfway down Dunraven Street. ‘The quickest way to the soup kitchen is straight on. Take the third turning on your right, walk up the hill and you’ll see the church, the hall and your uncle’s house in front of you.’

  ‘I’ll be lonely walking all that way by myself.’

  ‘The streets are full of people.’

  ‘Too full.’ He pulled her back against a shop window as an angry crowd erupted from a side street.

  Half a dozen men were pushing a painfully thin man forward ahead of the mob behind them. Dressed only in a thin white shirt open to his waist, his throat, skeletal legs and feet were bare. He was wet and shivering, his skin bluish-grey from the cold. When he reached the centre of the road, he tripped over a tram line, stumbled, fell and struggled to climb to his feet. The people around him kept him on his knees. They pulled his hair and hit him with their fists and sticks. Women jeered and children jostled to spit on him.

  ‘Don’t.’ Amy gripped Tom’s arm tightly, holding him back when he stepped forward.

  He closed his hand over hers. ‘Someone has to help him. The police and soldiers are just standing there, watching.’

  ‘Because they know the mob will turn on them if they interfere.’

  ‘A dog shouldn’t be treated like that.’

  ‘A dog shouldn’t. But a blackleg should. And, you’re a stranger, you’ll be treated the same as him.’ />
  ‘They’ll kill him.’

  ‘And possibly you, if you try to help him. Think of your uncle if you won’t think of yourself. That man knew what he was doing when he agreed to breach the picket and work for management.’

  ‘No man would risk being shamed the way he is.’

  ‘If his family are starving, he might?’ Tears fell from Amy’s eyes. She turned her back on Tom and the ugly scene.

  The man finally dragged himself upright and Tom watched the mob continue to drive him up the street.

  ‘I have to go home.’

  Tom reached for Amy’s hand. ‘I’ll take you and no arguments.’

  Amy walked on and Tom quickened his step to keep up with her.

  ‘Where are they taking him?’ he asked.

  ‘They’ll drive him over the mountain and wait to make sure that he doesn’t come back.’

  ‘Without shoes or trousers? He’ll catch his death of cold in this weather.’

  ‘Blacklegs have ended up in hospital with broken bones but none have been killed.’

  ‘Yet,’ Tom said thoughtfully. ‘I knew tempers were running high here. I didn’t know how high.’

  ‘Can we talk about something else?’ Amy pleaded.

  ‘Like our wedding?’

  ‘Sensible things,’ she said seriously.

  ‘What’s sensible? My mother taught me never to talk religion or politics to a lady. That doesn’t leave anything else.’

  ‘It leaves everything important. Art, poetry, music, literature, opera, theatre.’

  ‘You have an opera house, here in Tonypandy?’

  ‘We do. And a theatre besides. Opera and theatre companies come up from London to play here sometimes. They put on shows three times a day so all the men can see them no matter what shift they’re working.’

  ‘Travelling theatre companies used to the visit the village I grew up in. They were never from London. But we had one from Dublin once. What’s your favourite book?’

  ‘There’s so many it’s impossible to choose.’

  ‘You read a lot?’

  ‘As much as I can, in between helping my mother run the house. We have a library in the Miner’s Institute. I’ve read all of Dickens’ novels. My favourite is a Tale of Two Cities.’