‘You’re as stubborn as a mule, Gunnet. There’s no use talking to you.’
‘I may be stubborn but I’m not a fool. In fact, Campbell, it’s been perfectly obvious to me from the beginning that I’ve a better business head on my shoulders than you. Not only that, I know the practicalities of the job. I’ve worked on railroads before. You haven’t.’
‘I blame the engineer,’ Campbell’s voice turned bitter. ‘There’s far more rock on this stretch than I was led to believe. And look at this cutting we’re on now. It’s having to be much deeper than was reckoned, and that’s meant more men and more working hours.’
‘Blaming the engineer or anybody else won’t save your skin or pay the men’s wages.’
‘Oh, to hell with the men, Gunnet,’ he said rising in a flurry of harassment. ‘You can suit yourself what you do. I’m getting out with what money I’ve left.’
‘No, you’re not, Campbell.’
‘Are you threatening me?’
‘Yes.’
‘How . . . how dare you, sir!’
Luther riveted him with an unblinking stare. ‘I could hammer you into the ground. Or I could throw you to the men. Either way you could get killed.’
The other man sat down again, a nervous twitch fluttering across his face like a persistent fly.
‘How much is it you need to become solvent?’ Luther asked.
‘Two thousand pounds.’
‘I could get that.’
For a minute Campbell’s face went blank with surprise. Eventually he repeated: ‘Two thousand!’
‘Two thousand.’
Relief melted over Campbell. ‘You mean you’d be willing to give me a loan?’
‘Not a loan.’
‘What do you mean then?’
‘An investment. I would want a controlling interest in the business. I would want to make all the decisions.’
‘You’re a cool one. You sit there and talk about controlling my business . . . .’
‘If you don’t agree, you’re out of business.’
‘But if you loaned me the money I could soon . . . .’
‘Fritter it away.’ Luther cut in. ‘You’re no use, Campbell. If my money goes in, I control it. If any mistakes are made I’ll take full responsibility.’
Campbell still looked poised on the verge of flight. But only his nervous twitch moved.
‘You’re not giving me much choice.’
‘No.’
‘I suppose it might work.’
‘It’ll work very well, Campbell, you have my word for it. From now on we’ll make money.’
Campbell gave a short laugh. ‘One thing I’ll say for you, Gunnet, you do inspire confidence.’ He nodded as if convincing himself. ‘Yes, yes, why not? Here’s my hand on it.’
‘Right. We’ll meet at the solicitor’s in Glasgow on Monday, fix up the details and make it legal.’ Suddenly Luther spread out the time sheets on the desk. ‘But before we arrange that, we’ve this job to see to. I should have enough in the store to cover my own men. The highlanders will have to wait until we go to the bank on Monday.’
Campbell laughed again. ‘You never give up, do you?’
‘No.’
‘You’ve quite a reputation for it.’
‘As good a recipe for success as any, I’d say.’
‘Yes, maybe you’re right, Gunnet. You certainly have the look of a man who’s going to push his way on.’
Ignoring this, Luther studied the time sheets. But his mind was also pleasantly savouring what his conversation with the contractor meant. This was his chance to push on, although it had come sooner than he had expected. Still, he had not let it pass him by. That was the important thing. He was well aware, of course, that the first hazardous result would explode like a barrel of black gunpowder as soon as the highlanders heard that they were not to get paid. But surely Ganger McAulay would be able to control his men, especially when he could assure them they would get their money on Monday. And they could always get as much drink as they liked on credit from the bar-room. Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, Luther arranged for the Irishmen to be paid early and put the hint around that it would be wise for them to get the hell out of the camp and away to Glasgow. This they did without even waiting to ask questions. Later Ganger McAulay and his men learned of the delay in their wages, but they did not discover about the Irishmen having been paid until after Mr Campbell was safely away to Glasgow. It was Old Wylie who unintentionally let slip the fact, and Luther heartily cursed him for it.
‘I’m sorry, Ganger. I could have bit my tongue out the minute I said it. I was a bit harassed at the time, you see. The bar was packed and . . . .’
‘Never mind the bloody excuses. Where the hell are they now?’
‘They’ve rampaged off like madmen after the barneys.’
‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me all this earlier?’ Luther demanded.
‘I couldn’t find you, Ganger.’
‘Don’t lie to me. You knew I was down at the workings.’
‘They were thirsting for blood, Ganger. I didn’t want it to be yours.’
‘The stupid bastards! They were told they’d get their money on Monday. And they didn’t need to be short of anything until then.’
‘But it’s the fair, you see. That’s what done it.’
Luther gave the man a puzzled look, then understanding dawned. ‘Oh, Christ, I forgot about the Glasgow fair.’
‘It’s the one thing they look forward to all year, Ganger.’
Luther suddenly strode away. Once inside the store he went straight to his hut and took his pistol from the dresser drawer.
Seeing him, Augusta cried out in alarm. ‘Luther, what’s wrong? What are you going to do?’
‘There’s going to be a massacre in Glasgow tonight if I don’t get there and try to stop it.’
‘Oh, no, please, Luther. Your duty is here with us. If the men are foolish enough to fight, let them fight. It is not your responsibility.’
‘I’ve got a stake in this business now and the men are my responsibility.’
She ran after him, calling his name with a sharpness that failed to disguise her fear. Paying no attention to her, he mounted his horse and galloped away towards the town.
Chapter Twenty-five
‘Hear, hear! What a discordant din
With trumpets, cymbals, drums!
The warning cry of “Just begins”
From every showman comes,
Haste, tumble in—no time to lose—
Fun riding upon fun—
See and believe, without excuse—
Such feats were never done
Before this day . . . .’
The man with the drum hanging round his neck stumped around the streets, head flung back, words bellowing out, drum banging. Everywhere men advertised to the world that the fair was in town. Some dressed as clowns did somersaults along the road, narrowly missing death under horses’ hooves or carriage wheels. Others held up placards on which a coloured drawing of a lion or tiger or a grotesquely fat lady was embossed. Others again clashed cymbals and simply bawled:
‘The fair! The fair!’
Luther pushed through the lively bustle of the streets. He had stabled his horse so that he would be free to search in closes and houses if need be to find the highlanders. It might make them think twice about causing any trouble if he told them it could cost them their jobs. Pinning down any man in Glasgow was no easy task, however. In Edinburgh the whole pace of the city was slower; there, people walked the streets with dignity. In Glasgow busy crowds of men moved compulsively and continuously at a half-run.
He found the spectacle of such an immense town lying before his view, enveloped in thick clouds of smoke from so many factories, and the energetic movement of it exhilarating and exciting. Here was wealth, opportunity and success for the man forceful enough to grasp it.
The fair was held in the stretch of street alongside the river from the foot of Stockw
ell to the area in front of Glasgow Green and the jail. It was at this spot, facing the entrance to the Green, that public hangings now took place. As Luther made his way down Stockwell Street bitter memories hacked through him, especially when he passed the Briggait. Despite his efforts to harden his mind away from the past he could still see the ghost of himself on his way to school with Tibs. He could see his father arm in arm with his mother as they returned from church with the children skipping around them. He could see his mother’s straight back, and hear her prim, proud voice: ‘Behave yourself now. Remember who you are!’
The crowd became so dense he could hardly move. The whole stretch of East Clyde Street was packed with huge caravans from London with their wild beasts, and other caravans and circuses with attractions like the man of the wild beasts, the freaks of the Punch and Judy, a giant and giantess, a dwarf, a fat woman, living skeletons, swings and roundabouts.
The stench from the dung depot which occupied the bank of the river filled the nostrils, clung to the clothes, tainted meat pies, soured lollipops, pungently flavoured milk. But the weight of the dung smell did nothing to repress the enjoyment of the revellers in being free from drudgery and to sample instead the excitement and novelties of the fair.
Every time a fight erupted among the crowd Luther struggled towards it but so far he had seen no sign of any of the navvies. It was to be expected of course that at least a few of the fights at the fair would involve some Irishmen—’hunting the Barneys’ as it was called was a common sport of a hooligan element. Indeed this was regarded by many as the pièce de résistance of the annual fair. No Irishman who came near it was safe. Suspects were seized by gangs and forced to pronounce words like ‘peas’ and ‘tea’. If the words came out as ‘paze’ and ‘tay’ the unfortunate man was belaboured with bludgeons. Sometimes the fair hooligans would hustle their victims into the quadrangle formed by the booths so that the kicking and clubbing of the ‘Barneys’ could prove an added diversion for everybody. When sport lagged for lack of victims the hooligan element rooted among the warrens of the Saltmarket and the Briggait, broke windows and doors, clubbed Irishmen out of their homes, and ducked them in the stream of the Molendiner which at that point flowed into the River Clyde.
Luther doubted however that this annual demonstration would be allowed free flow today because the number of Irishmen in and around Glasgow—including his own men—would have shortened the odds for their attackers.
Of course if a fight started between the highlanders and the Irish navvies there was a risk of the indigenous population joining in. Not that Glaswegians had any particular fondness for highlanders. They had helped massacre quite a few of them at Culloden. Against an Irish Catholic, however, there was always the danger that they would unite.
He reached the Glasgow Green end of the fair without having seen a single familiar face. The only conclusion he could come to was that the Irishmen were at the moment enjoying themselves in the taverns of the town and would not emerge to sample the pleasures of the fair until they had drunk their fill.
Luther bought a couple of pies from a pieman and while biting into them he squeezed his way from the crowd and into the comparative quietness and emptiness of the Green. He needed a few minutes to himself to mull over his own concerns. The men concerned him, of course. He wanted a full efficient work force at the diggings on Monday, not the crippled remains of a bloody battle. Yet the men and their problems could not consume his mind with the urgency and cordiality that his other thoughts afforded. They could not quench the keen sense of achievement he felt at having manoeuvred Campbell into a partnership. The money that the contractor still had would just be enough, along with his own capital, to see them through to the end of the job. He would make sure it did. He would organise the men into butty gangs and pay them by the lump. He had seen men united in this way, by qualities of strength and endurance and a desperation to earn as much as possible, attack a job with feverish activity and complete it in an amazingly short time. This was important because the contract was let on a time clause and as was usual in such cases there would be penalties for exceeding it, penalties that neither he nor Campbell could afford. On the other hand the company had let it be known that any contractor would be paid an extra sum multiplied by the number of weeks that the finished job fell short of the date set down in the contract.
He had reached a hilly part of the Green and had just finished off his pies with considerable relish when, on gazing back over the panorama of the fair, his eye was taken by the rapid silvery flashing of the sun over the heads of one part of the crowd. He watched this phenomenon for a minute or two while noise bounced and rolled in the distance like a giant ball. Then suddenly it dawned on him that he had seen the silvery glitter before. It was the sun reflecting on navvies’ pickaxes and shovels.
He ran swiftly along the grassy banks and through the gate, but once outside the Green he was slowed to snail’s pace by a solid wall of hilarious humanity. No amount of cursing, rough pushing or shouldering could extinguish the obstinate good humour or create a path between the tightly packed revellers. By the time he did manage to squeeze his way through and reach the other end, the navvies were milling up the Stockwell. Dodging in and out of closes and wynds he managed to get to Argyle Street before them. There, from the corner close, he saw strung across the street a line of policemen with batons drawn standing at the ready.
‘We’ve a cart here,’ the sergeant was bawling. ‘Either you leave your pickaxes and shovels on it and allow them to be taken back to the diggings, or you all get out of the town. We’re not allowing a mob to go stravaiging about the place brandishing dangerous weapons. And if you refuse to do either of these things then we’ll arrest as many as we’re able at the moment and seek out the rest later, at diggings if necessary. We’ll have the lot of you transported before we’re done.’
The men hesitated, shuffling about and muttering in the Gaelic between themselves. Eventually Ganger McAulay shouted out to them in the same tongue.
‘What are you telling them?’ the police sergeant wanted to know.
‘I am telling them to do as you say and put their pickaxes and shovels on the cart. They were taken in anger. We do not need them. We can match fist to fist with any Irishman.’
‘We want no trouble,’ said the sergeant. ‘No trouble at all.’
‘Och, aye. Aye. That is true. There you are now.’ Ganger McAulay’s polite lilting voice did not in the least match the compact earthy box of a man who clumped forward to where horse and cart stood waiting. There he gesticulated and shouted encouragement at his men, unenthusiastic to part with their pickaxes and shovels.
The policeman gave an order to the carter and the car trundled away. Then he turned to Ganger McAulay.
‘Now where are you off to?’
‘Och, I think we are just having a wee wander along to the High Street.’
‘Right, move along then and no trouble, remember.’
Luther decided for the moment it was best not to interfere. The police had handled the situation very well, and would not take kindly to him making what could be constructed as threatening remarks to the men, just when they had more or less calmed them down. At least now if there was a fight it would be a fair one. No weapons would be involved.
As the ponderous clatter of highlanders’ boots faded along Argyle Street towards the Cross and round in to High Street Luther strolled after them. Both thoroughfares were comparatively quiet, most of the populace thronging the streets by the river.
A few cabmen fronting the Tontine Hotel were sitting fast asleep on the doorsteps of their vehicles, their hands sunk deep in their pockets. Their equally tired-looking horses drooped their drowsy heads almost down to their knees, and even the chiming of the Tolbooth clock did nothing to rouse either man or beast.
Then suddenly a commotion erupted from the Havanah, one of the closes in the High Street, and Luther recognised two or three of his Irish navvies protesting in loud voices at the
same time as giving punch for punch with their highland attackers that to ‘the bist of their knulledge’ the highlanders had been paid as well, and that they were as blameless as the Virgin Mary herself. It was doubtful, judging by the abusive screeches in Gaelic, that the highlanders understood these protestations of innocence. This was confirmed by the fist that smashed into Luther’s face as he waded in to the centre of the mêlée. The sight of their ganger being given such summary treatment brought roars of indignation from the Irishmen and a host of their colleagues stampeding from, it seemed, every public house and tavern in the district.
The battle rolled backwards and forwards between thousands of cheering spectators who had deserted the fair to watch this new excitement. The police also arrived but were kept on the outside for most of the time. When they did struggle through, some Irish navvies paused in their battle with highland adversaries to thump the police over the head with their own batons. Other Irishmen, finding themselves temporarily squeezed out of reach of a highlander, gave vent to their exuberance by executing step-dances on the edge of the battlefield, until seeing an opening and plunging once more into the fray. Several times Luther tried to make himself heard, but every time he opened his mouth he got a highland fist in it.
This never failed to spur him into violent retaliation. Eventually however, he fired his pistol into the air and the surprise of this explosion was successful in halting the proceedings.
Like the rest of the men, his clothes were torn and bloodied and he could only make a lurching effort to stand, but the effort he made as he shouted at the highlanders:
‘You’ll be paid on Monday, damn you! You have my word on it. And the fair will still be here then. But I’ve enough in my saddle bags at the stables to give you half-a crown each just now. And there’s as much whisky as you can drink back at the store.’
One of the policemen who had been felled also lurched to his feet.
‘Send for the troops,’ he shouted. ‘Arrest the lot of them. Send for reinforcements!’
‘Come on,’ Luther urged. ‘Let’s get out of here!’
The Dark Side of Pleasure Page 18
