Dawn

by S. Fowler Wright

  “It’s not reasonable enough for me. There’s forty men in Cowley Thorn, and as many more between here and the coast, and more in Larkshill, and not twenty women that are worth sixpence among us.

  “There’s half a dozen here that keep to their own men, more or less, and two sluts, and Nance Weston. That’s the lot in Cowley Thorn.

  “Now you’d better think it over, and make a fair bid, or you’ll have someone besides Bellamy to deal with.”

  “It’s not our fault if there were more women in our camp than yours. They mostly came on the train. If others have come since I suppose it’s because they think it’s the safest place. I’ve told you that we don’t force them to stay.”

  “I’ll go further than that. I’ll tell them just what you say. They can come here if they like. Even if they leave their own men, there’s no law now to stop them. There never was much of that. But we shan’t turn them out if they want to stay.”

  Cooper had made up his mind as the conversation proceeded. He had been considering the matter for some days. He was too good a business man to take any avoidable risk, but he knew that there are times when such a risk must be taken.

  He thought he saw in this question of the women (about which, in itself, he did not care very greatly, one way or the other), a means of seizing the ascendancy at which he aimed. He knew that it was through the dissensions of others that the shrewd man triumphs.

  A demand for a more nearly equal distribution of the female population could hardly fail to win him a general support and popularity.

  He rapidly calculated the forces at his disposal. He added the followers of Rattray and Bellamy—he could dispose of them afterward, when they had served their purpose. Perhaps Butcher also? He was less sure of him, but he could probably be bought.

  Anyway, he wouldn’t be likely to help Tom Aldworth.

  These thoughts passed rapidly through his mind while Tom was speaking. He was used to quick thought and quick decisions when business called for these qualities.

  He said, “Tell them to make their minds up quickly, or they’ll get it done for them. I’ll give them three days.”

  He rose from the fallen trunk on which he was sitting. He turned his back on Tom without ceremony.

  Tom stood looking at him for a moment. He recognized an opponent of a different quality from the brutal Bellamy. The man was clean, at a time when cleanliness was an almost obsolete virtue. He was suitably dressed for his occupation, at a time when clothing was apt to be neglected or fantastic.

  Tom did not know the intended use of the horses, but he recognized that the man was working hard, and with purpose.

  He walked back slowly, thinking rather sombrely of the future of those whom the floods had spared.

  He went back by the main road, and almost ran into Bellamy, talking to a group of his fellows around a horse-drawn trolley, on which there was a barrel of beer that they had broached and were sharing freely.

  Tom recognized the folly of having left his rifle behind that morning. He had been shy of going out as though fearful of danger. Now he had an impulse to run, which he restrained with difficulty. He walked on past the group with an outward coolness.

  The giant only looked at him, as he passed, with the geniality which he reserved for his victims.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It was still possible that serious conflict might have been avoided had not the following day brought another incident very similar to that in which Bellamy had been involved, and with a corresponding sequel.

  Tom was anxious to avoid a conflict with Jerry Cooper. He saw that the direction in which they were heading might resolve the problem in the simplest terms by reducing the male population till the difficulty of numbers would no longer trouble them. He considered that, even for the women, this might be something less than an ideal solution, as it was unlikely that the survivors would always be those of their own selection.

  He tried, also, to see the matter from Cooper’s standpoint, and he may even have overdone this mental exercise, and credited him with a better case than would have been allowed by an impartial judgment.

  He evolved a plan, at last, which was less perfect than he supposed it to be, but which supplied a possible solution of existing difficulties, and which was actually adopted at a later date.

  He formed a sincere intention of inviting his opponents to a conference for its discussion.

  But it happened on the following day that Jim Rattray, returning with some congenial companions from an expedition in the favourite Linkworth direction, and being in a half-sober condition, as they came along the southern limit of Spiller’s Wood, where many of the trees were still standing, or showing a spread of green branches from shortened trunks (for the storm, which uprooted the northern trees of the larger woods, piled them against those that were farther inward till a solid barrier of resistance had been banked up against its power of further destruction, so that the southern edges might show little sign of damage after a month of leafage had covered their minor injuries), walking silently enough along the edge of a mossy bank, came upon a man and woman, who do not otherwise concern us, in some degree of affectionate intimacy, which aroused an amatory jealousy in the mind of the half-drunken observer.

  It is an arithmetical fact that there were a somewhat large number of women of dissolute character in the England of pre-deluge days. It is happily true that it was possible to go through life without any first-hand acquaintance with this element of the population. But it is also true that, to such as Rattray, they were the only sort to be intimately known, and that it was possible to believe that all women were of a kindred quality.

  Rattray, jumping down from the bank with the instant resolve to share her favours, was unrestrained by any element in his own character, and had the happy knowledge that there were no longer any laws to embarrass him. But it is fair to observe that he would not easily have understood the extremity of resentment which he occasioned.

  The woman, being no worse than kissed, struck him fiercely. The man picked up a cudgel, and Rattray went down with a bruised head. Had he been alone that would have ended the incident. But his companions came tumbling down to his rescue. The man hit out boldly enough, but he was out-numbered, and belaboured with various weapons, till he fell unconscious, his skull fractured by a blow from an iron rod.

  Seeing the man fall, they regarded him no longer, but as the woman had lacked the sense to run, and had endeavoured to obstruct his assailants, they now turned their attention to her, and, at Rattray’s instigation—he having now recovered from the blow that felled him, and being in a somewhat more sober but very savage mood in consequence—they carried her off, a kicking, biting, protesting fury, to make such sport with her as their natures led them.

  During the night she escaped, or they let her go, and she returned to the man she loved, to find him badly, if not mortally, injured, and, in this extremity, she made her way to the railroad camp, where she told the tale to a dozen indignant listeners.

  She was a stranger to them, she and her husband being of those who had hidden from the earliest days, preferring solitude to the lawless risks of human association, but they could not refuse their aid for this reason. They brought in a dying man, and gave what comfort they could to a distracted woman.

  Tom Aldworth’s mind was of no exceptional ability either to construct or to penetrate, but he had a good share of that faculty of judgment which is known as common sense, and it assured him now that there was no probability of founding any settled order of living upon the condonation of such acts, or with the co-operation of those who had been guilty of them.

  He did not alter his purpose of meeting Jerry Cooper, and any others he might bring, to discuss the position, but he took active steps to induce the better sort of the scattered population to come in to the protection of his camp and to assist its defence. He sent Jack Tolley in search of the women that he believed he had seen some weeks earlier in Sterrington Church, and placed an order wit
h Butcher for a quantity of barbed wire, which was very promptly delivered, against his undertaking to supply four horses of a specified quality within one month of that date.

  The horses which Tom had thus pledged himself to capture were required toward a larger order which Cooper had already placed, from which it will be seen that Butcher conducted his business with a large impartiality, and from which it may be deduced that he did not think that Tom’s party would be wiped out very easily, or the credit given must have shown less than his usual caution.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Bill Horton delivered his message well enough, but was vague and self-contradictory in his estimates of the contents of Muriel’s storehouse.

  Tom Aldworth was annoyed. He wanted Jack’s help for a dozen things. He doubted the wisdom of sending for the woman’s belongings. Why hadn’t he brought her back, and ended the incident?

  They had three days to prepare for a conflict which seemed inevitable, and he had no wish to risk anything which might precipitate it earlier.

  If he should send a cart along a road which ran through a part of the country where he had good reason to suppose that Rattray and his companions were camping, it would invite attack if it were weakly guarded. If he sent a strong force he would weaken his defences for many hours, and what might happen in consequence?

  As to that, reflection encouraged him to conclude that the risk was not great. The movement would be unexpected. It was unlikely, if not impossible, that the scattered forces of his opponents would unite for a common purpose in time to take advantage of it.

  Then, as to an attack upon the cart, he concluded that a possible combination of Rattray’s and Bellamy’s gangs was the worst that he need anticipate. He did not suppose that Cooper would be too scrupulous for such an adventure, but he recognized that it was not his way. He was a politician. He would instinctively manœuvre for popularity. To whatever purpose he worked, he would consider it essential to put a good face upon it. He knew the importance of window-dressing.

  Then the flour, the quantity of which Bill had not underestimated, was badly needed. He decided to send, and he recognized that, if he were to do it at all, it could not be done too early.

  He explained the matter to Ellis Roberts, a grizzled Welshman, who had once been a foreman in a Welsh slate-quarry, and had lost an eye in the blasting operations incidental to that occupation.

  Ellis was not quick, but he was sure. He saw more with his remaining eye than did most men who were better equipped in that particular.

  He agreed, after some thought, that it was worth doing, and that a daylight start would be best.

  They discussed who should be asked to go, and how many.

  Ellis thought four of the rifles would be enough. Tom grudged them. He had thought of two only. But he agreed. He knew that there were some firearms among the two gangs, though it was doubtful whether they had ammunition. He recognized that a show of such weapons might avert a conflict more surely than an increase in the mere numbers of the escort.

  But he had only eleven rifles in all, and the position of his camp obliged him to defend a rather large area. He depended upon these rifles to check a possible rush from any side, and did not wish them to be too widely separated.

  Still, he reminded himself again that there was no likelihood of any strong attack during Ellis’s absence. It was probably the best way.

  They decided not to send Steve Fortune’s cart. Steve would want to make his own terms, which were not always moderate. The float would hold more, and with less packing. That was important.

  The one thing which men had learnt thoroughly during the previous month was the art of transport.

  “Probably be half the day loading up, even then,” said Ellis. (I am aware that, being Welsh, he should have said “whatefer,” but the fact is that he didn’t. There are some Welshmen who don’t.) “Can we get the float up to the door?”

  Bill was uncertain about that, but not hopeful.

  There was a pack-horse available, and Ellis decided to take that also. He collected half a dozen men eight with himself and Bill—and arranged to start with the dawn. There would be Jack Tolley also on their return, and he not only had a rifle but he could shoot straight, which was not a universal accomplishment.

  They never knew whether all these precautions were needed, or whether they were observed at all, but they returned late in the afternoon without incident, having found the pack-horse a very necessary assistance.

  Muriel was half astonished and half ashamed to realize the quantity and variety of her accumulations. They returned slowly, as she had insisted on the bringing of Datchett’s cow; and a four-mile walk for such an animal, which is due to calve in a week’s time, is a matter of less haste than dignity.

  The Rector’s sow did not come. Tom pointed out that the feeding of confined pigs was very unpopular in the community which Muriel was about to join. He shared this prejudice. It was far simpler to let them run loose, and shoot one when it was needed. Muriel, who had experienced the difficulty of satisfying its daily appetite, and was aware that it had become rather bony under her administration, had already some doubts as to whether she had not been a fool to recapture it, and agreed without difficulty.

  Had it been fit for conversion into bacon, or immediate pork—but it was showing unmistakable signs of adding to the numerical ascendancy of its kind, and so the sty-door was opened, and a very happy pig went off down the field at a brisk trot, tail in air, and with no sentimental backward glance at the place of its confinement.

  Muriel consoled herself with the capture of some week-old chickens and a protesting hen.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Muriel looked with an observant curiosity upon the road they traversed.

  It rose clear of the Sterrington hollow, and ran for some distance upon the crest of a gentle ridge, where it had been bare of any height of trees along its edges, and the telegraph poles which had been planted on its southern side had fallen across the fields, so that the road itself was not encumbered by any serious impediments.

  The fields might not have shown any great difference from their usual midsummer fertility, but that the fallen gates and gapped hedges had given free access to such animals as the storm had left uninjured. There was no sign of cattle, for these animals had congregated in the fallen woods and in the richer pastures of the lower lands, but there were a few sheep feeding upon a field of growing oats, one of which lay as it nibbled, and then rose awkwardly to trail a broken leg to another patch.

  Apart from that there was an absence of the notes of the smaller birds, which had suffered most severely of all the creatures of the fields, and a flock of gulls rose as they passed, and took flight to a farther feeding-ground.

  But when they left the higher level, and had descended the hill to the colliery village of Larkshill, they came on different evidences.

  The cottages that had lined the road, and spread out into ‘courts,’ and along side-alleys, had not been of a stability to survive the elemental discord. They had been flattened by the tempest, and had burst into fifty fires from the hot ashes of their broken hearths, to smoulder, a rain-drenched bonfire, through that night of horror and the day that followed. And as they burnt they lay.

  There had been little effort to rebuild, or activity to search among such unlikely ruins.

  Only the first cottage on the left, at the hill’s foot, was already showing two rebuilt rooms, and Davy Barnes, helped by the two younger children, was working diligently at a further wall.

  Martha, his mother, a meagre, work-worn woman, with wisps of greying hair hanging untidily about a burn-scarred face, came out to give a shrill greeting to Ellis Roberts, and a mute, shrewd stare at the unknown woman who was walking beside him.

  “What yer doing with that beast?” she asked curiously, as Datchett’s cow turned a slow head to observe the origin of the disturbance. “Shouldn’t ’a’ thought yer’d got feed for a rabbit from Larkshill Road to the sea.”
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  “We’re not as bad off as that,” said Ellis—and then to Muriel’s natural query, “you’ll see when we get there.”

  Coming to where the south road entered the village, they encountered more obstructions upon the road, but they had been cleared sufficiently to enable them to make a tortuous progress. Shortly afterward they turned south by the ruins of the Plasterer’s Arms, continuing for a short distance down Sowter’s Lane, and then turning east again by twisting byways, because, as Ellis explained, the straighter road was blocked near Bycroft Lane by a tree which lay across it, and it had been found an easier course from day to day to follow the winding lanes than to remove the obstacle.

  They came out again upon the Larkshill Road, almost opposite to the ruins of the ironworks, and crossed it to take a cart-track which had been used to deliver goods that came by road, and had run on past the works to the canal-siding.

  A month ago waste ground, barren and blackened, rubbish-strewn and unfenced, had extended around the ironworks and the cottages that straggled toward the main road and along the nearer side of the canal.

  Now the smoke-pall had cleared, the sky was a blue dome of healthful air, or white with cloud, and the coarser weeds and grasses were already struggling to cover the polluted ground and the fallen ruins of street and foundry. But this effort of cleanliness had had little support from those who were left to observe it. Their time had been mainly spent in gathering the largesse of the sea, or plundering the ruined country to southward. Precarious spoils, often useless in kind or excessive in quality, had been exchanged, quarrelled over, wasted, and flung aside. The main camp was out of sight, being in the hollow of the railway cutting, though it was at no great distance on the farther side of the canal, which had run parallel with the railway, but its filth and refuse, flung lazily aside, were clearly observable among the abandoned débris.

  Perhaps such conditions were almost inevitable in such a community, without leadership or organization, which had lost two-thirds of its numbers in a few weeks from wounds and weakness; and had found the expulsion of some of those who remained alive to be a necessary condition of any tolerable existence. The fact that no infectious disease had broken out to complete their destruction may be attributed to the sea air and exposure to which they were compulsorily subjected—conditions which, commencing with the disadvantage of precarious and unsuitable food, had killed the old, the weak, the injured, and those who were unsound in any vital organ, but had hardened those who had survived their hardships.