A Crimson Dawn

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

Emmie went cold at his words. Osborne was a government informer. Not only was she in trouble but all her friends were at risk. She tried to think how much he had learned about their work. Names and addresses of resisters, anti-conscription meetings and leaflets, the Quakers’ underground network of men on the run? But perhaps they had stopped using the Settlement as a hideaway by the time he came? In her panic, Emmie could not remember. But either way, she had put her friends in danger by introducing him to the Settlement. What would happen to the Runcies and Dr Flora?

  Osborne left, glancing at her with a glint of satisfaction. The magistrates began to question Emmie about her work at the No Conscription Fellowship. Emmie rallied her thoughts.

  ‘There’s nothing illegal in that,’ she defended. ‘The men have a right to appeal on religious or moral grounds - we make sure they have their fair say.’

  ‘But you go further,’ one of them accused. ‘You actively seek to persuade men not to enlist.’

  Emmie looked at him in silence. Let them prove it.

  ‘You befriended Osborne,’ he went on. ‘You even offered to get him out of the country.’

  ‘I did no such thing,’ she retorted.

  ‘So you admit to knowing the man?’ the magistrate said quickly.

  Emmie’s stomach clenched. ‘He’s a local man, used to be in the Clarion Club.’

  ‘You are well known around Crawdene and Blackton for your extreme views,’ he said with a hard look. ‘You have been cautioned for handing out unpatriotic leaflets before - and yesterday you caused a near riot in your village.’

  ‘They were not my neighbours,’ Emmie replied hotly, ‘they were folk from Blackton, no doubt stirred up by your spy Osborne. There are plenty in Crawdene think the way I do - that the war should be stopped.’

  ‘The old bruises on your face and neck suggest otherwise, Mrs Curran,’ he said waspishly.

  Emmie reddened.

  ‘Is it not true that your own family believe you are a traitor, that you and your degenerate friends wish to bring about the ruin of this country?’ he accused.

  Emmie was defiant. ‘The betterment of this country.’

  The youngest of the magistrates intervened. ‘Let us stick to the facts. We have not been presented with hard evidence of secret networks and conspiracies - that is mere hearsay. But the posters - are you willing to admit to defacing government property?’

  After a moment’s hesitation, Emmie nodded.

  They found her guilty of unpatriotic behaviour and therefore in breach of the Government’s emergency powers. She was sentenced to six weeks’ imprisonment with hard labour in Durham Prison.

  ‘Think yourself lucky you are not charged with anything graver,’ the chairman said curtly.

  Stunned, Emmie was led away. How could she warn her friends about Osborne? How could she let the MacRaes know what had happened to her? How would she survive six weeks away from her beloved son?

  Locked into a tiny cell within the prison van, in which she hardly had room to sit, she was taken to Durham. She had passed the bleak, smoke-blackened prison walls at every Miners’ Gala day, pitying the incarcerated so close to the beauty of the riverbanks and gaiety of the gala.

  There was no glimpse of Durham as she was bundled from the prison yard through heavy metal gates. As they clanged behind her, she heard the cathedral bells tolling across the river, as if mourning the taking of her freedom.

  Emmie was stripped, plunged in a tepid bath and given prison clothes and a yellow disc with a cell number. She was to be kept separate from the other women and given a restricted A diet for a week for the gravity of her crime. Along spidery gangways and up metal staircases, her escort led her to a cell at the end of the high corridor. The silent warder pushed her in and slammed the door shut. Emmie listened to the rattle of keys and the sound of the spy hole cover being lifted then dropped. A sinister eye was painted on her side of the door, a Cyclops that watched her wherever she stood.

  She looked around the spartan cell; three paces one way, two the other. It smelled of urine, contained no bed, just a wooden board with a blanket, a stool and a chamber pot. The window was too high up to look through even when she stood on the stool. But she could hear the cathedral bells striking the quarter-hour and that gave her comfort, as if a friend kept watch through the dark hours.

  Emmie awoke, cold and stiff, to the sound of keys scraping in the lock. The warder brought in a breakfast of bread and cold weak tea.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Emmie asked.

  The lean-faced woman gave no answer and locked her in once more. An hour later, a different warder came to fetch her.

  ‘You’re on mailbags. You’re to sit away from the others and not say a word. If we catch you talking, you’re in solitary for a week.’

  ‘What’s this then,’ Emmie quipped, ‘the Waldorf?’

  ‘I said no talking,’ the woman barked.

  Emmie was led down three floors and into a gaslit room where women sewed around a long table. They stopped to stare.

  ‘Carry on,’ the warder ordered, ‘and no one’s to talk to prisoner D359.’ She pointed Emmie to a stool in the corner and commanded one of the other prisoners to show her what to do.

  ‘Can I speak to her then?’ the young woman asked nervously.

  ‘Just about the sewing,’ the warder warned.

  Under her breath, between instructions, the prisoner asked, ‘What you done? Murder or some’at?’

  Emmie shook her head. ‘Ripped up a recruitment poster,’ she whispered.

  The woman looked at her in disbelief. She carried on showing her how to stitch with the huge skewer-sized needle.

  ‘If you do it like this, you can get three stitches to one pull,’ she murmured. ‘You one of them anarchists?’

  ‘No - pacifist,’ Emmie said, her head down. ‘And you?’

  ‘Thieving,’ the woman answered. ‘I’ve eight brothers and sisters to support.’

  Emmie wanted to ask her more, but feared getting her into trouble.

  By dinner time, her back was aching and fingers numb. As she went to put her things on the table, one of the prisoners stabbed her hand with a needle.

  ‘Bloody traitor,’ she hissed.

  Emmie gasped at the sharp pain.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ the warder asked suspiciously.

  Emmie clutched her hand. ‘Nothing. Just caught me hand on the needle.’ She looked at her attacker, who glanced away.

  She was taken back to her cell and locked in for the rest of the day. The mute warder came in with greasy suet pudding and treacle. Emmie forced down the indigestible food. She sat on the stool, her body aching from the old bruising, her hand throbbing from the rusty needle. She got up and walked to the window, back to the door, to all four corners, then repeated the exercise in reverse. It must be raining outside, for the odd droplet spat on to her cell floor from the narrow barred window.

  Emmie gave up pacing and sat down. She already felt tired and hungry again. The empty hours dragged on until a supper of Bovril and bread. She lay down on the wooden board. The gaslight hissed out, though it was still daylight outside at the high window. Emmie wrapped herself in the blanket and tried to sleep, but thoughts of Barny plagued her. Was Helen putting him to bed at that moment? Was Jonas telling him a story? She pictured him settling down on the truckle bed she had once used as a child, the firelight illuminating his pensive face, asking when she would be back. Emmie cried herself to sleep.

  The next day followed in the same monotonous pattern. On the third day, the anger that had been simmering inside boiled over.

  ‘When can I gan outside for exercise?’ she demanded. ‘I’m a political prisoner. I shouldn’t be shut away like a convict. I want me own clothes back. I want to see the governor. Are you listening to me?’

  The warder retreated as if she had not spoken. In frustration, Emmie picked up the tin of skilly and hurled it at the closing door.

  ‘And I’ll not eat any more of this filth,’ she c
ried. ‘I wouldn’t feed it to a pig!’

  The disc in the painted eye slid open as if blinking away the gruel that ran down the door.

  ‘I know you’re spying on me,’ Emmie raged. ‘I want to see the prison boss.’ She hammered on the door. ‘I’ll not stop till you fetch ’em.’

  She beat her fists on the door until she was exhausted. Emmie wedged herself into the corner adjacent to the door, so that the eye could not see her. She sat shaking, hugging her knees. The walls pressed in on her. She began to feel pangs of hunger and regretted her rashness.

  At tea time, she did not acknowledge the sullen warder who pushed in the tray of bread and cocoa. Emmie forced herself to ignore the food, though her mouth watered at the smell of the hot drink. She watched them take it away again. The lamp hissed out. Somewhere far down the corridor she heard wailing. It went on half the night, jarring her frayed nerves.

  The next day, she refused to eat and refused to do hard labour. She was taken away to a dark basement cell and put on bread and water rations as punishment. Here, there was no daylight and she could not hear the bells chiming. The food was pushed in through a hatch in the bottom of the door, so she did not even see her gaoler. There was nothing in the cell but a Bible and a slops bucket. She curled up on the stone floor and used the Bible as a pillow.

  Emmie’s resolve collapsed. She ate the bread, making each crumb last as long as possible, holding it in her mouth until it melted. She drank the water. Her days and nights merged into each other, marked only by the arrival of the punishment rations, a wooden board at night time and the gaslamp being turned off for endless hours. Emmie would move only to eat, then lie down again. She put herself into a comotose state, like a hibernating animal, trying to preserve her dwindling strength.

  After a while she hardly knew where she was. One minute she was shivering with cold, the next burning like a fire. She had strange, vivid dreams of her home being burned down by an angry mob and not being able to save Barny. She awoke screaming in terror to find herself in a pit of darkness, her nostrils filled with the smell of her own fear.

  Six days later, she was half carried back to her original cell. A warder she had not seen before gave her a pitying look and slipped her an extra blanket.

  ‘It’s not right what they’re doing to you,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve a brother in the navy and every day I pray it’ll be the last of this terrible war.’

  Emmie was too weak to speak more than a whisper of thanks. But the woman’s kindness soothed her and kindled a small flame of hope. She was ordered to scrub out cells and put on a B diet, which allowed some meat and watery vegetables. Emmie gave up trying to win political status. She was halfway through her sentence and all she cared about was being freed and getting back to Barny.

  At night, she was kept awake by a wheezy cough she had developed in solitary. Not since her childhood sickness had she felt so weak. She lay for long hours, thinking about her son and how she would provide for him when she was out. She no longer wanted to take Tom’s army pay - it was blood money and she would not be kept by a man who could beat his wife so cruelly. She would stay with the MacRaes. But what if that should bring them strife from the wider community? It might be putting them and Jonas’s job in jeopardy. Goodness knows how far Osborne’s poisonous rumours had spread. She would have to leave Crawdene - go to the Settlement. But what if the Runcies and Dr Flora were no longer there?

  Exhausted though she was, Emmie could not sleep with such anxious thoughts racing through her head. It was then that she allowed herself to think of Rab. What date was it? Mid-May? He would be about to be released. If only she was there to see him, to have a few brief days together before the military rearrested him. She would tell him how much she loved him, had always loved him. She soothed herself to sleep imagining she was wrapped in Rab’s strong, loving arms.

  One day, towards the end of her sentence, while scrubbing a metal gantry, Emmie fainted. She was taken back to her cell and visited by the prison doctor.

  She lay weak and light-headed while he gave her a cursory investigation.

  ‘You have a chest infection,’ he said. ‘Nothing much you can do about that in here. I see you have an extra blanket already.’ He gave a disapproving glance. ‘I’ll recommend your rations are supplemented with cod liver oil.’

  That night she was feverish, crying out and babbling in her sleep, awaking to find her blankets soaked. She struggled to do her morning’s hard labour and collapsed again. The sympathetic warder helped her back to her cell, but no sooner had she lain down, than Emmie began to haemorrhage. The terrified woman ran for help.

  Semi-conscious, Emmie was stretchered to the hospital wing, which was full from an outbreak of summer fever. She was taken to the insane ward where there were bars instead of doors. Emmie was aware of screaming and high-pitched laughter. She thought she had been put in a cage. She lay bleeding on a bare mattress while a half-bald woman stared at her through the bars. They were coming for her, Osborne and the magistrate and Major Oliphant. They were preparing the gallows for her now; she could hear the hammering of the joiners, the chattering of the expectant crowd. Their faces loomed at her from the ceiling, laughed at her through the bars … Emmie passed out.

  When she woke, it was dark. Restless noise ebbed and flowed around her. Someone was singing and crying softly at the same time. She tried to move, but her body felt as heavy as iron. A damp cloth had been placed on her forehead. She slept again. In her fretful dreams, someone hovered over her, wiping her face and body. Sometimes it was like ice melting, at others like scalding water trickling down her body. She cried out and tried to push them away, but was never strong enough. Emmie knew she was trapped for ever in a world of ceaseless torture, pitiful noise and frightening faces. She would never be rescued because no one knew where she was. Or perhaps she was already dead and this was Hell…

  The next thing she was aware of was an orderly standing over her, shaking her awake.

  ‘Doctor’s here to see you,’ the woman said briskly.

  Emmie’s eyes hurt as she tried to focus. She was in a barred cell, but lying on a bed with a mattress, in between sheets. Her head rested on a pillow. It felt so good she did not want to lift it.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ the doctor asked awkwardly.

  Emmie puzzled. ‘Where am I?’

  ‘In the prison hospital. You’ve had a fever.’ He hesitated. ‘And you’ve suffered a miscarriage.’

  Emmie stared at him. What was he talking about?

  ‘You’ve lost a lot of blood,’ he went on, more matter-of-fact. ‘You won’t have to return to hard labour. I’ve recommended that you stay here until you’re well enough to be released.’

  He turned to go. Emmie struggled to raise her head.

  ‘Miscarriage?’ she whispered.

  He looked at her and nodded. ‘The early stages - but you were pregnant. Did you not know?’

  Emmie gulped and shook her head.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly, and left.

  Emmie could no longer take refuge in strange delusions. Her body felt as fragile as dead leaves, but her mind was clear. She was pregnant - had been pregnant. Tom’s terrible visit had borne one delicate flower - a second baby. Imprisonment and hard labour had crushed it. Tom, if he cared at all, would blame her. If not for her reckless actions, she would never have been sent to prison. Guilty thoughts whirled around her head. Did she mourn this baby’s loss? How could she when she did not even know of its existence? Yet she felt empty, desolate, cheated. A brother or sister for Barny, gone.

  How had she not guessed? Thinking back, she had not had a period for over two months, but she had vaguely put it down to bad diet and the strain of prison duties. In truth, she had not thought much about it at all. All her energy had been put into staying alive, lasting her sentence without losing her mind.

  Perhaps it was the one thing that might have brought her and Tom back together, bound them in an uneasy truce. A baby. The symbol
of a new start, a new life. Now the chance was gone. It would be best if Tom never knew.

  After two days, Emmie was able to stand and move around the cell. She stood at the open bars and tried to talk to the staring woman opposite with the bald patches. She had observed her pulling out clumps of hair and weaving the strands around her fingers. She talked to herself while she picked out the hairs on her arms, berating herself in a language Emmie did not recognise.

  ‘You have bonny hair,’ Emmie smiled. ‘Why do you pull it out?’

  The woman stared at her suspiciously, coming to her cell door and gripping the bars. She babbled in her own language.

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand.’ Emmie shrugged helplessly. ‘Why don’t you plait it? You’d suit that.’ Emmie took a coil of her own lank hair and demonstrated.

  The woman stopped her frantic pulling. For a fleeting moment, Emmie saw understanding flicker in her dark eyes as the woman half smiled. Then she was babbling and sobbing again. Emmie gave up.

  The next day, Emmie was transferred to the main hospital wing. It was three days till her release and she was permitted to write a letter home. She composed a brief note to the MacRaes, saying she would make her own way back to Crawdene to collect Barny. She had been allowed no correspondence during the six weeks and had no idea what had been happening in the outside world.

  As she sat on the edge of the bed, finishing the letter, one of the orderlies came in with her dinner. Emmie could see from the grey of her dress that she was an inmate. Emmie barely glanced up as the woman put down the tin of watery potato stew.

  ‘Ta,’ Emmie said. The woman did not hurry away as they usually did.

  ‘Want me to take that for you?’ she asked.

  Emmie looked closer. There was something familiar about the voice, the shape of the face under the voluminous cap. She looked into the woman’s bold dark eyes. It couldn’t be? The woman’s broad mouth pulled into a wry grin.

  ‘Nelly?’ Emmie gasped. ‘It’s never you?’

  Nell gave a snort. ‘And who would have thought the saintly Emmie would’ve ended up in the nick too?’