The Badger Riot

by J. A. Ricketts

  Oh, here they come back down. The loggers surge forward. Now the police are viciously attacking the men! Oh my God, the loggers are no match for this! Those men are trained to use their night-sticks. Crack! Crack!

  We’re all crying now. Our minds can’t take it all in, such incredible violence. No one has seen anything to compare with this.

  I try to keep track of my brothers, but the crowd is too thick. The strikers are putting up a strong fight. Crack! Oh my God. Oh! A policeman is down. His fur cap is knocked aside. There’s blood on the snow. Everything stops. I forget to breathe.

  “Jennie.” One of the women grabs my arm. “Jennie, I’m scared.”

  I nod. “I’m scared too,” I tell her.

  The police march up the road. My God, the sight of them is enough to scare anyone, and I fear for Tom. They’re so menacing, so black, so tall and straight. Such perfect marching order. It’s like the war pictures of the German soldiers that they used to show in the town hall before the main feature of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans or Gene Autry. The sight of the Germans marching in such perfect order used to scare me. I remember thinking, back then, how lucky I was not to be living in Germany. And now, fourteen years after the war, I’m watching something so similar that I shiver with terror.

  The loggers watch silently as the police file past the church. A movement in the window catches my eye. It’s Pastor Genge. He sure has a bird’s-eye view, looking down like that on everyone, the same kind of view that God must have. Has God put the pastor up there as His representative? What a thought!

  The police have turned around up by the sawdust dump and are coming back. What are they trying to prove? I suppose by marching in formation they think they can intimidate us into letting the scabs through. But there are no scabs here now. Vern and his scabs have escaped. Surely they can see that.

  The men stir restlessly, as men do when in a crowd. They mumble among themselves. I catch Ralph’s eye. He nods ever so slightly. He is thinking that all hell is going to break loose. He and Tom stand side by side at the forefront of the men.

  After its turnabout, the menacing black line comes back and stops in front of the strikers, wheeling to face them. Someone, deep within the strikers’ group, throws a snowball, or something like it. It’s possibly just a saucy gesture. The thrower could never have foreseen the consequences of his act. Whatever has been thrown glances off the shoulder of one of the officers.

  The anger-charged atmosphere is affecting the police as well as it affects us. They’re tensed and waiting to strike out. Clunk! A nightstick connects with the shoulder of a striker. A striker’s birch billet connects with the shoulder of a policeman. Ralph, quick, wily Ralph, ducks under a nightstick held high. He grabs the arm and twists. The policeman drops his weapon. Ralph kicks it in under the milling feet of the men. Ralph releases the man and scoots away. The officer immediately looks around for someone to grab.

  I see the cop making for Tom, who is tussling with another one. The cop leaps onto Tom’s back. I can’t take any more. I leap off the snowbank and onto Tom’s attacker. We all go down, Tom, the policeman and me. Tom shakes free in an instant and is whirled off into the crowd of police and loggers. But I’m not. The policeman has me in a hammerlock, his strong arm around my throat. I can’t breathe. Stars dance in front of my eyes. My heels drum uselessly on the frozen ground. Tom, help me.

  Suddenly I am free. I roll over onto my knees and raise my head. The cop is on the ground and Ralph is standing over him with his stick. Tom is lost somewhere in the crowd.

  “Ralph! Thanks. Geez, I think he would’ve choked the life outta me.” I’m shaking like a leaf. I look at the policeman lying on the snow. Not a gig in him.

  All around us the place is gone mad. Ralph stares at me as if he’s in a trance. “Jennie. My God, Jennie, I dreamt this event ten years ago.”

  I don’t understand what Ralph is saying and I pay him no heed. I crawl over to the downed officer.

  “He’s not moving, Jennie. What have I done? Have I killed him?”

  “I don’t know. Let me look after this. Go, Ralph. Get away before someone sees you. Go. We’ve lost our chance and we can’t win this anyway. Go on, I say.”

  “Go? What about you? I can’t leave you.”

  “Don’t worry about me, b’y. Tom will see to me. You get yourself away from here as fast as you can. We don’t want to see you end up in jail. Go. Go now.” I lean over the policeman and roll him over. When I look up, Ralph is nowhere in sight.

  Tom finally gets clear and rushes to me. “Jennie. What happened? Are you hurt? What’s wrong with that feller? Is he dead or knocked out?”

  “He’s knocked out, Tom. See, he’s coming around now.” Sure enough, he’s conscious, with a cut on his forehead. He sits up, groaning.

  Another officer comes over. “Here, what happened to you?” He helps his fellow policeman to his feet. “Who hit you?” He turns to me angrily. “You?” I look at him. “Christ! You’re a woman.”

  Then we all hear it: a sharp, clear crack like someone broke a flowerpot. Time stops. The policeman turns from me toward the sound. Tom raises his head like a fox on the scent. Utter stillness falls over the scene. The people on the snow aren’t yelling, the men aren’t cursing and yelling. Nobody is scuffling with anyone else. We’re all just a bunch of human beings standing still in the silence.

  Time starts up again, and the sea of strikers and police parts to reveal someone down on the snow. There’s blood . . . oh my God! This one is hit seriously. I start to sob, great heaving sobs. Part of it is delayed reaction to being nearly choked; part of it is from what I am witnessing. It feels like my heart is crushing inside my chest and I can’t get the air into my lungs.

  Tom grabs my arm and turns me about. “Run, Jennie,” he whispers hoarsely. “Run. I don’t want you to get arrested. This is more serious now.”

  I don’t need any urging. I am out of there. I can’t control myself. I can’t stop crying. I don’t really know what has happened except I saw a policeman on the snow and a lot of blood. I just know that, for the second time in my life, I am out of control. As I run down the road, something deep inside me is welling over with terror, with grief, with regret. For certain, the loggers have lost.

  Around three o’clock, my wife, Mary, sends word to the office that our children have gone up to view the gathering near the Buchans Bridge. I know that most of Badger is up there too. Some think of it as a bit of excitement to liven up the dreary winter.

  Once again I close the telegraph office earlier than usual. Flurries of people have been blowing in and out of my office all day saying the strikers are planning something for the afternoon. Rumours are that the picket line will be up near the intersection of the Buchans Highway and Church Road to stop scab workers from getting through to Millertown. Mounties and the Constabulary patrol Badger’s tiny streets; loggers stand in groups on their picket lines; residents scurry back and forth, going about their private concerns with heads bent, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible.

  As I turn the key in the lock of the telegraph office, I’m thinking that if the loggers and police are going to clash, children shouldn’t be present. Who knows what might happen? I decide to go and look for Amanda and the boys.

  I cross the small side road that goes over the track. It’s then that I see Vern Crawford hurrying down the railway track toward me.

  “Hey, Alf. Wait! What’s happening up the road?”

  Vern is out of breath, his eyes darting around everywhere. He looks scared. As he comes close to me, I can faintly smell vomit. What’s he been up to? Vern has gained a bad reputation during this strike. He’s known to have taken scabs through the picket lines. I’ve heard some pretty weird stories about him. I’m surprised to see him without his old taxi.

  “Don’t know for sure, Vern b’y,” I answer. “But I think the strikers must have tangled with the police. We knew that had to come, sure. I wonder what brought it to a head.”

  �
��’Tis hard to say, b’y. It could’ve been anything,” Vern replies. “I just got back from Springdale meself. I stinks of vomit. Someone threw up in me taxi.”

  The side road takes us across to Church Road. As we get closer we can hear screams and shouts. Men are running, jumping over ditches and fences. Hot on their heels I can see police chasing after them. There are two police wagons and three or four police cars parked nearby.

  “Where’s your taxi now, Vern? How come you’re on foot? I never see you walking anywhere.”

  “Oh . . . well . . . er . . . she stinks too much from the little girl throwing up. I have to clean her out after I finds Melanie and her mother.”

  I look at him. His face is pale and his eyes are wild. He’s been up to something more than just driving back from Springdale.

  As we reach Church Road, we both see Jennie Hillier running toward us, wild-eyed, sobbing, her arms flailing. She cries, “’Tis all over! ’Tis all over! Someone is dead!” In passing, she spies Vern. She grabs him by the shoulders, shaking him and screaming, “This will all be on your conscience, Vern!” She lets him go and keeps running.Vern seems to have had such a fright that he turns tail and runs back toward the railway tracks.

  I sidle up the right-hand side of the road, keeping close to the alders. I almost bump into someone standing off to the side keeping out of the way. It’s Rod Anderson. I remember that he sent a telegram in to his son-in-law a few days ago, asking if Ruth could go and visit. Come to think of it, wasn’t the son-in-law, Richard, a city cop? Newfoundland Constabulary? The same ones as the police involved here?

  Four large Mounties block my path. “Sorry, sir. No farther.”

  Over the Mounties’ shoulders, I can see pandemonium. There are police everywhere, yelling to people to get off the snowbanks and go home. They move off slowly, as though the violence-infected atmosphere is affecting their bodies. The police are grabbing strikers, knocking them down into the snow, hitting them with nightsticks. Angry shouts and curses fill the air. Children and women are crying. I can see many children, of all ages, dodging among running strikers and police. Somewhere in this commotion are my own children. But where?

  I sense someone near my elbow. It’s Alf.

  “Hello, Rod,” he says. “What’s goin’ on up there, b’y?”

  “I dunno, Alf, but it wouldn’t surprise me if someone gets hurt out of this.”

  “I have to find my kids. You didn’t see them, did you?”

  I remember glimpsing them earlier. “Yes, I did see them about an hour ago. They were up there with the rest of the school kids. And it sure isn’t a place for children to be this evening.”

  “No, Rod b’y, ’tis no place for children or grown-ups,” Alf answers. He tries to move past the Mounties, but they block his way.

  Something has happened up there in the midst of the melee. The fighting has died back and men are running everywhere – through the gardens, over the field toward the River, through the alders behind me that lead out to the railway tracks. The police are giving chase. I watch as two of them run down a fleeing striker and club him to the ground right in front of me. They pull him to his feet and lug him toward one of the buses.

  I decide that it’s time to get out of here. I turn to go back down the road toward my house and see several RCMP officers. They seem to have joined forces with the Constabulary and are trying to break up the crowd.

  From behind me a big hand grabs my shoulder. “Hey you, where do you think you’re off to? Trying to get away, are you?”

  I’m caught totally unawares. “No, no, officer, I am not a striker. I’m an A.N.D. Company contractor.”

  “Right. And I’m the Premier! Come on, buddy, into the van. You’re under arrest.”

  He starts to push me toward the van. I try to pull away. “Let me go! I’m not one of them!”

  He tightens his hold. “I don’t care who the hell you are. Into the van!” He raises his free arm and brandishes his nightstick at me. I grab him by the wrist so he can’t swing it. He is strong, but I’m stronger.

  Realizing he needs some help, he yells out, “Hey, Dickie! Give me a hand with this troublemaker, will you?”

  Dickie?

  Suddenly, I am clouted from behind. A heavy nightstick cracks down between my shoulder blades and I buckle to the ground, crying out in pain. Rough hands haul me to my feet. A bright flash almost blinds me, the flash of Alf’s camera as he snaps our picture. In that split second I look up into the eyes of my son-in-law, Richard Fagan. We are face to face in the midst of the Badger Riot.

  Unable to get up through the Mounties to find my children, I move back into the alders on the side of the road. I slip my Hawkeye out of the case. It’s already rigged with a flashbulb.

  Rod has moved out of the bushes and is heading off down the road. A policeman grabs him. They wrestle a bit. Another cop moves in to help him. My God, they think Rod is a striker! The two of them beat him into the snow with their clubs. No one notices me. Click. I have the picture. I back away again so they won’t see who took it.

  A Mountie shouts, “Make way! Make way!”

  Four policemen come through the crowd. They are carrying a stretcher. On it is another black-coated officer. Around his head is a towel soaked with blood. His eyes are closed. His face is as white as the snow around him.

  And here it is, I think to myself: the result of government intervention. Someone has struck down an officer of the law. A policeman whose unit should never have been sent out from St. John’s in the first place.

  My feelings about Joey Smallwood have come true. He’s stopped this strike by foul means. The loggers and the IWA can never get past this.

  I notice Rod staggering past me holding his shoulder. The last I saw of Rod he was being strong-armed toward the police van. Why did they let him go? Did he convince them that he wasn’t a striker?

  “Rod. The cops let you go. What happened? Need some help there?”

  “That fucking cop walloped me, Alf. Son of a bitch walloped me.”

  Rod is sobbing, crying as though his heart is breaking. Men don’t cry like this unless they have a tragedy in their family. There’s something going on here that I don’t understand. I can’t just leave him staggering about hurt and crying.

  “I’ll help you to your house, Rod. Come on.” I take his good arm and steady him along; he seems to be in a lot of pain.

  When we get into his kitchen, Rod sits down by the table, groaning and crying.

  “You need a doctor, Rod, my son.”

  “No, not now, Alf. Go on out and get your children.”

  I hesitate, but Rod is right. “Why don’t you lie down for a spell?”

  “Nope, not lyin’ down. Get me the rum bottle in the bottom of that cupboard, will you? Some goddamn family I got, I must say.”

  I get the rum bottle but I don’t understand Rod’s remark about family. I don’t know what to say to him.

  “Go, Alf. Get your youngsters before some fucking townie cop hauls them off to jail too.”

  I hurry out. Just as I’m about to close the kitchen door, Rod whispers hoarsely, “Alf.”

  I stop and look back.

  “You’ll never believe who hit me with his fucking nightstick . . . my own son-in-law.” He starts to sob again.

  His son-in-law? Richard Fagan? There is nothing I can say except, “I’m sorry, Rod.”

  I have to get back out there and find my children.

  The riot has broken. Loggers are fleeing in every direction with the police on their heels. The snowbank spectators are in shock. The crying of young children is particularly distressing.

  The Constabulary officer lies on the snow. I hurry forward. I am here, Lord. I am doing as You bid me to do. A policeman grabs the towels and wraps the officer’s bleeding head.

  Gladys Sharpe, who lives across from the church, rushes out with a blanket.

  “I seen who did it! I seen who did it!” she screams hysterically. She sees me and points her finger
. “There’s Pastor Genge. He was looking through the window of the church. He saw it too.”

  An officer leads her aside quickly, talking to her.

  The RCMP are shooing people off the snowbanks, telling them to go home.

  A way is cleared and officers lift the unconscious constable aboard a van. The doors close and they make their way back down Church Road.

  I stand there, amid the ruins of loggers’ dreams and Constabulary pride, and stare down at the pool of blood at my feet. I think about Jesus, my personal Saviour, and about the free will of mankind. I think about the evil that stalks among people, an evil ready to be let loose wherever man allows it.

  Someone touches my arm. It’s the policeman who took Mrs. Sharpe aside to talk with her.

  “Excuse me, Pastor. Mrs. Sharpe says she saw you at the church window. We’ll need a statement.”

  “Come on, Amanda, let’s go.” Madeline jumps down off the snowbank.

  She gives me her hand to help me climb down, but I am too upset to care anymore about being proper in my darn straight skirt. I sit on the snow and slide down on my backside, feeling my nylons tear and the snow cut the backs of my bare legs. Then I see them.

  “Oh, look, Madeline, the Mounties are on the way up now. We can’t get back down the road. Let’s cross the road and go in behind the church and get out on the railway track.” I grab my two brothers by the hoods of their parkas and Madeline keeps a tight hold on Melanie.

  We scurry across the road.

  A policeman sees us, but he only says, “Get on home now, kids. Go on with you, now.”

  We’re behind the church, heading for the railway tracks when an adult figure looms out of the darkness behind a shed. We scream, but it’s only Melanie’s father, Mr. Crawford. She launches herself into his arms, crying to break her little heart. Perhaps I am mistaken, but it sure sounds to me like Mr. Crawford is crying too.