The Strong City

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  Nevertheless, concealing his anger and hatred, Dietrich said quietly: “The telegram shall go at once.” He turned, frowning, to Franz. “Go, Stoessel. Why are you waiting?”

  Franz bowed deeply, not to Dietrich, but to Schmidt, and left the office. Dietrich then said, biting down on the hatred within himself: “Herr Schmidt: this is all bewildering. Do you not think we should have questioned Stoessel more carefully? Have found out more?”

  Hans grinned his mirthless and ferocious grin. “Dietrich, you are an excellent man. But you would strangle us in yards of tape and questioning. I know when to move fast, and when to move slowly.” He prodded Dietrich with his stubby finger, right in the other’s lean and shrinking belly. “That is why I am Schmidt, and you are only Dietrich.”

  He went back into his office. Though the thought of the strike roiled about his head like a black storm, he was still smiling. This Stoessel! One could trust the boar. Of course, only so far as his own interests were concerned. But when his interests were involved, one could depend completely on his loyalty and devotion. There was no hypocrisy in this. There was only realism. Schmidt smiled again, chuckled, rubbed his hands.

  The blooming mill had not yet gone into operation. A few workmen were preparing the machinery. But this was all. It would take some hours yet.

  Tom Harrow was waiting impatiently, pacing back and forth, his long gorilla arms behind him, his hands clasped together. When he saw Franz, he said with garnishings of obscene profanity: “Where’ve you been? Think I got all day to be waitin’ for a bloke like you?”

  Franz smiled easily. But he did not meet those hard and honest eyes. He led the way to a row of empty casks and sat down upon them. Tom sat near him. A curious thing happened to Franz: an inexplicable cold thrill ran over his skin at the proximity of Tom Harrow, and a strange wavering sickness made his stomach feel empty and cramped. Something said to him: If it were not he! Then he had a plan, swift-born, which dissipated the sickness in a quite sentimental surge of hope.

  “I have been thinking,” he said, still not meeting his friend’s probing eyes. “Is this strike not premature? Why not present demands, new demands, on the Company? Modified ones, of course. Something they can meet, and consider.” He turned a candid smile upon Tom Harrow.

  Tom’s face had become quiet and ominous. He slowly brought out his pipe, stuffed it, lit it. Then he said, not looking at Franz: “You know we have made demands before. The barstards didn’t even sniff at them. They’ll do the same, now.”

  Franz spoke quickly, with an eagerness not usual with him: “Look here, Tom, give me the demands. I’ll take them to Dietrich, personally—”

  Tom looked at him so oddly, that Franz was abruptly silent.

  “Dietrich,” murmured Tom, reflectively. “Wot’ve you got to do with Dietrich, the swine?”

  Franz fixed his eyes on the near distance. “We are both Germans. We understand each other,” he said.

  Tom said nothing. Out of the corner of his eye, Franz saw the slow curling of Tom’s smoke against the gray and empty gloom of the blooming mill. He said, trying to keep his voice normal and reasonable: “The Company has just gotten the first real contract in months, Tom. We—the men, need the work.”

  Tom said, in a peculiar still voice: “Every week, we’ve given ’em demands. The last demand was just Friday. They’d gotten the contract, then. They never answered.” He suddenly beat his fist on his knees. “It’s no use. I call the strike, tonight. If they’ve got sense, they’ll settle with us now.”

  “Why not wait a week longer?” urged Franz. “A week until things get started well?”

  “It will be too late,” said Tom, loudly, harshly. “The chaps’ll be workin’ then gettin’ a little money. They’ll be satisfied. You can’t teach chaps like this anythin’, I tell you. A little money, a little bread, keeps ’em satisfied. And then when the contract’s done, wot’ve they got? Nothin’. They couldn’t save a penny. They’ll starve again.” He paused. “You know this, Fritzie.”

  Franz did not speak. The lines about his mouth were white and grim.

  Tom touched him on the arm. “You know this,” he repeated, softly. “Don’t you?” Then in a louder voice, “Aye, you know this.”

  Franz turned to him with a last eagerness, but when he saw Tom’s eyes, his expression, he was silent.

  Tom nodded. He smiled. His smile was black and bitter. “I might’ve known it,” he said, as though to himself.

  “Tom.” Franz made a last effort. “Listen to me. Don’t be a fool. I’ll tell you something: don’t ask me how I know, but it is the truth. Don’t call this strike. And I can tell you that you won’t suffer for it.”

  Tom did not move. He sat like a lump of dirty stone, his head bent, the strange smile on his broad thin mouth, his eyes fixed on the floor. Franz colored. For the first time, he felt shame, dark and overpowering self-contempt. All at once it seemed to him that he must do something to save his friend, to remove that look from his face. For in that look he saw not only understanding, but sad disillusion.

  “Let’s be reasonable,” he said again, too quickly. “Who is going to suffer the most from this, Tom? Dolly, Mary, the twins. Do you think you have the right—

  Tom turned on him then, with such a blaze of black fury on his face that Franz recoiled. The Englishman’s eyes were bits of burning coal.

  “My kids! Dolly! God, you fool, do you think even they matter, now? Wot abaht all the other wives and kids? All over America? All over the bloody world? A man’s got to start somewhere, even if it’s in his own home!” His voice choked. “God, but I’m talking to a stone wall! You’ll never understand.”

  “Do you have to be a damned Messiah, all by yourself?” said Franz, his strange and unaccustomed emotions sickening him still more. “Do you think these—these animals here would care what happened to your own family, or you? Why do you have to be such a fool?”

  Tom stood up abruptly. His fists were clenched at his sides. He did not look at Franz. He looked into the distance. He began to speak, as if reviewing a long stream of faces and events that marched before him:

  “When I talk to you like this, I know I’m spittin’ my guts into the wind. I know you’re a blasted Judas. But I’ve got to talk to you.

  “Wot you were in Dutchland, I don’t know. But I know what England’s like. I know what America’s like. I know what my old man and old woman were like.

  “My old man.” He laughed bleakly, but not with resentment, only with understanding. “He was a miner. Frightened of his shadow he was. There were six of us kids. Know wot he used to tell us: ‘Lads, when you go out to a job, remember this: keep your heads down. Always keep your heads down.’”

  Tom paused. Then he flung up his large curly head, and it was no longer grotesque and amusing. “‘Keep your heads down!’” he shouted. “Think of that, think wot it means? All the chaps everywhere, havin’ to keep their bloody heads down! All the young lads, being told by their dads to keep their heads down! There you’ve got ’em now, all over the world, keepin’ their heads down, the guts frightened out of ’em, like old nags with their ribs stickin’ out of their skins. Starvin’, afraid to open their mouths, workin’ like dumb beasts, afraid to look up!”

  He paused, breathing heavily. He ran his hands through his black curly poll with a distracted gesture. He stood over Franz.

  “There it was. In our ’ome. The old man comin’ in at night, all covered with coal dust, creepin’ in. There was my old woman, cookin’ some gruel in a pot. Three rooms we had, with a leakin’ thatched roof. We never got away from the toffs! They were there, all the time, tellin’ us to keep our heads down! The big owners. Eight of us in that house, keepin’ our heads down, and our old man, sittin’ there, eatin’ his gruel and bread, and seein’ that we did!

  “He was a man once. My old woman told me. A big strappin’ chap, with red cheeks. A country fellow, as was used to his two quarts of milk a day, and big hams, and butter. Then he got to wor
k in the mines. I used to look at him. I couldn’t believe my mother, lookin’ at that shamblin’ old nag, keepin’ his head down. Six kids, and not enough to feed ’em on. And lay-offs, whenever the toffs thought the market was goin’ down. Wot’d they care? We was only dogs, waitin’ for bones.”

  He paused, choking. “I know wot cold is, and goin’ without boots, and eatin’ gruel when my guts were yellin’ for meat and bread and potatoes.” He was silent a moment. “My old man came to London, seekin’ his fortune. He worked as a navvy, there. Married my old woman, takin’ her from service. Then—six of us kids. He had to do somethin’. So, he got into the mines. I know wot it is,” he said, inaudibly. “My three older brothers—nice lads. Went into the mills, after two years’ schoolin’. Not more than twelve and thirteen, they were. The three of ’em died in three years, of lung-fever, from the dust. Coughed their lungs out, there in the house, with the roof leakin’, and the old man mutterin’: ‘Keep your heads down.’” Tom laughed with a sudden wild bitterness. “They did! Six feet under!”

  He beat his fists together. He seemed unconscious of the silent man near him. A long booming went through the mill.

  “I used to see the toffs, sometimes. In their carriages. On their horses. Shiny boots and top hats, and white handkerchiefs held to their bloody noses, the barstards! I wanted to kill. Aye, I wanted to kill. I was ten then, and was in the mines.”

  He paused for a long time, as though his thoughts were too terrible for speech. Then he resumed in a muffled voice: “My old man died in the mines, with a hundred others. Wot happened to their women and kids? We got an order to leave, and six shillings. That’s all. Three of us kids left. My old woman took us to London again, got jobs charrin’. I was twelve then, and there was a little sister, eight, and a baby, two. I took care of ’em, in a ratty garret. When it wasn’t rainin’, we ran the streets, barefoot, hungry, pickin’ up crusts and bones in the alleys. Sometimes we slept in doorways, in the rain, and the bobbies would come along and belt us. The old woman ’ud be so tired she’d fall on the floor. She wasn’t no older than Dolly, but her hair was white, like strings. I got odd jobs, washin’ windows and puttin’ up shutters and cleanin’ privies. Sometimes. I’d make a shillin’ a week!” He laughed again, and the sound was terrible.

  “Sometimes, on Sundays, the old woman’d take us for ‘fresh air.’ Three scrawny kids, famished, in broken boots, but washed clean. The old woman was good at washin’ us, when she had time. She’d carry the babby in her arms, and we’d walk. In the Parks? In Kensington, where the kids of the toffs could look at the flowers? Christ, no! That wasn’t for us. We was just cattle, from the slums. Hundreds, thousands, of us, walkin’, in the precious damned sunshine even they couldn’t take from us. We used to pass a house. It had high walls, and iron gates.”

  He stopped. He saw the ivy-covered wall, the mighty gates, the soft green lawns and flowers beyond, and the great house, brown and sun-softened in the distance.

  “One Sunday, the rats was bad in the garret, and the sun was shinin’, and the poor old woman took us out. We passed that house. It was summer. There was a lawn party. You could hear ’em laughin’, and there was music, and fine ladies walkin’ around with flounced silk dresses and little bonnets and lace parasols. Dainty as you please. And the toffs, with their top hats, and gold canes and silk weskits and big-skirted fawn coats. We could see it all through the gates. Nearby, there was a table, and a bloody bishop, or vicar, was sittin’ there, with ladies, drinkin’ tea and eatin’, and the servants scurryin’ around like sparrers. Oh, it was capital! All so nice and peaceful, and the fat bishop in his black, stuffin’ his belly, and oglin’ the pretty ladies! And the grass so green, and the music so nice!

  “The old woman dragged along, her ragged skirts on the flags, holdin’ my little sister, and my other sister trailin’ along with me. We stopped at the gates. The old woman looked in. She held onto the iron railings, and she said: ‘Oh, dear God, oh, dear God!’ And there we stood, with the water runnin’ out of our mouths.”

  He stopped again, breathing in a disordered fashion. Franz looked at the brick floor of the mill. His expression was inscrutable. But he thought: You fool, can you not see that you stood on one side, and they on the other, because they were superior to you? Born superior?

  “We stood there,” said Tom. “And then the servants saw us. One of ’em, a big chap in a flowered weskit, came up to the gates, and said: ‘Be off with you. Be off!’ And my old woman looked at him, and whimpered: ‘My babbies are hungry. Just a few scraps, mister, for the love of God.”

  Tom began to pace again, as though he could not bear his memories. “She clung to that gate, and the tears runnin’ down her cheeks, and us kids began to yell and scream. And the big chap, the navvy in the weskit, shoutin’ at us to be off, us bloody beggars and scum. The blasted bishop heard us, and he put his hankie to his nose and looked at us as if we hurt his cursed eyes. Then he got up and led the pretty bitches away, and told the big chap as was shoutin’ at us to call the bobbies.”

  Tom was breathing heavily. His little black eyes were red with rage and hatred, and filmed over with bitter memory. He looked at Franz, but did not see him. He saw his mother’s face, and her gaunt torn hands clinging to the railings, pleading for food for her children. He saw her dirty skirts, and the whitened hair under her battered bonnet. He heard the cries of his little sisters. He beat his fists together, and his breath was hoarse with frightful emotion.

  “Two bobbies came runnin’, wavin’ their sticks. They dragged Ma from the gates. They knocked the babby from her arms. She fought with them. I can see her yet. Us littls uns stood and screamed, and watched the old woman bein’ clouted all over the blasted road. Then they threw her in the gutter, and went away, sayin’ it was a warnin’ to her, not to harass her betters. She didn’t hear ’em; she lay in the gutter, with the blood arunnin’ out of her mouth, and her eyes closed. God! God curse ’em!”

  Franz examined his finger-nails. He said nothing. More and more men were coming into the mill, calling and clattering. Some were standing on platforms, shoveling coal and charcoal into the cold furnaces. But Tom was oblivious to everything except his aching, red-lit memories.

  “I was only a lad,” said Tom, in a low shaking voice. “But I made an oath, as was a man’s oath. I would do some’at abaht all this, when I was a man. Even if I died for’t, under the bobbies’ sticks and boots. I never forgot. I got a job soon as a navvy, and helped the old woman. I began to think. The old woman knew! She was no fool, that one! She had been in service, in the big houses. She used to say to me: ‘Lad, it’s the toffs, the leddies and the lords, as is ruinin’ England. There’ll have to come a reckonin’, mark my words.’ I began to go around in all the slums, listenin’ to the chaps. I used to listen to ’em, in Hyde Park, on Sunday. I read all the books I could borry or steal.

  “And I found out the old woman was right as rain. It was the toffs, the fine folk, as was killin’ England and the English people. I found out abaht the Napoleonic Wars, and how the royalty and the snobs was all for bowin’ to Napoleon, if he’d promise ’em to help ’em to put the English in chains again, and put whips over ’em. But the English folk came awake, just in the nick of time, and the toffs hid in their big mansions and country estates, and shut their mouths. The English are a patient lot, as wants no quarrels and no cloutin’s and no blood, but when they get the wind up, they kill better than others. It was the English people, the ones in the slums and the shops and the rented farms, as put Napoleon on St. Helena—not the toffs, who hate us. Then there was the Franco-Prussian war—”

  Franz looked up alertly, his eyes narrowed and intent for the first time.

  Tom nodded fiercely and bleakly. “There was the Frenchies, askin’ the British for help. They said: ‘Ye’ll help us now, against the swine, or ye’ll be fightin’ her alone some day, and she’ll tear your guts out.’ But the toffs, would they help? Not them! They was afraid France was gettin’ too stro
ng. Besides, they ’adn’t forgot that it was the Frenchies as had ’ad a Revolution puttin’ the fear of God in all the toffs, all over the world, and wakin’ the common people up. So—they let France be whipped by the Prussians.”

  “You mustn’t forget that the English and the Germans are really the same people,” said Franz, with a slight smile.

  Tom shook his head grimly. “Not them! They’s some’in in the English ain’t in the Fritzies. There’s a love o’ liberty in the English, which naught can stamp out. But the Fritzies hate liberty. They want some’un as is strong enough to clout ’em about the head. That’s what they love. But show an Englishman a whip and some chains, and he’ll rip the throat out of ye.

  “I read all I could abaht history, I tell you. I read as how the toffs wanted the Spanish to land and conquer the old country, and put them in Popery again. But there was the English, hatin’ chains and. slavery. And there was Good Queen Bess, as was a trollop after every Englishman’s heart, hatin’ the toffs who ’ad tried to kill her for puttin’ that whore, Mary, on the headsman’s block. So, it was Good Queen Bess, and the English yeomen, and the little shopkeepers, as kept Popery out of England, and kept liberty burnin’ for all the world to see.

  “And then there was America. Could the toffs get good Englishmen to fight good Englishmen in the Colonies? Be blasted if they could! No, they had to get their Fritzie King to hire the Hessians to come over here to fight Englishmen. Aye, it was the toffs, in their red officers’ uniforms, as led the Hessians against Englishmen in America, but the English folk knew a thing or two. It was the old fight again, betwixt the toffs and the people, as was bein’ fought all over the world. They knew it was the same old fight—they knew it would go on, forever.”

  His passion was rising. His long Punch-and-Judy face burned with a wild and exultant fire. He stopped before Franz, and shook his fist in his face.

  “And that’s wot this strike is abaht, don’t you see, you fool! It ain’t just a strike, standin’ out alone! It’s the same old fight! Who’s goin’ to rule this world, as God made for all men? A few toffs on the top, or the people? Government by. the people, or a State made up of lords and toffs and kings and military officers, enforcin’ law with fists and whips and guns? The people or their natural enemies? Liberty or the knout? That’s what the people ’ave got to decide every generation. And each time they win, they get stronger. Each time they lose, they put the chains on themselves. Each time they’ve got to decide to be men or to be slaves. It’s up to them!