The Blacksmith's Girl

by Rosemary Aitken

  It was scarcely that. There was hardly room for the single bed, small chest of drawers and washstand it contained, but Amy had never had a bed all to herself, let alone a bedroom, and was happy as a puppy unpacking her few things and arranging them around.

  Effie had instructed her to do that first, thinking it would permit her a moment to draw breath, but it didn’t take five minutes – the girl owned hardly anything – and then she was downstairs again unpacking ‘madam’s clothes’, and finding homes on surfaces and shelves for Effie’s wedding gifts. Even Peter Kellow’s wooden bowl was taken out and filled with rosehips from the straggling bushes near the gate. Amy was keen to prove her cooking skills: ‘no need to bring in a woman specially’, and was promising to turn this bounty into a pudding by-and-by – a sugarless wartime one made with potato starch – but they looked so pretty that Effie told her to leave them where they were, on the middle-room table, as an ornament, meanwhile.

  It had taken hours to crate up everything to move, and it was clearly going to take as long to take it out again, even with two people doing it. So Effie decided they should concentrate on making just a few rooms habitable first – the kitchen, middle room and a bedroom each – and leave the rest for later, and that is what they did. Even so, by the time they’d finished, the night was drawing in and they had to find a box of candles, matches and a lamp to get the last few necessary items unpacked and put away.

  But the place looked much less gloomy with her own few bits around, especially the ‘parlour’ with a bright rug on the floor and her knitted blanket on the easy chair. And once a cheerful fire was lit and Effie could sit down to a nice hot cup of tea and a reheated portion of the swede-and-onion stew that Jillian had sent round yesterday, An Dyji was already beginning to feel as if it might one day be home.

  Effie finished eating, pushed the plate away, and moved the few inches from the table to the armchair by the fire. It was an ugly, old-fashioned piece of furniture, but surprisingly comfy when you got into it and let yourself lean back against the cushions.

  She didn’t close her eyes; they did it by themselves. It troubled her vaguely that Amy was in the scullery, still busy washing up – it made her feel like Alex’s mama, spoiled, rich and indolent! But the girl seemed happy, she was singing as she worked, and tonight her mistress was too weary to protest. Once or twice, in fact, she almost drifted off.

  She really had not slept much since that telegram arrived – except for that evening of the funeral, when she’d been exhausted in body and in mind. This was a different kind of tiredness. Of course she had been working hard today, in unaccustomed ways, but there was something more – a feeling of arrival, of something like content. Even in this semi-dream she knew exactly why. This place was not full of painful memories of Alex, he’d not sat on these chairs or walked down the path outside – so it was not full of his absence as Rosvene had always been. Even in White Cottage she could not escape the past – he’d visited it with her several times before he went away. But here she was alone and he was simply in her mind, and there was only sweetness in the thought and not sharp regret. Perhaps people were right when they urged you to ‘move on’.

  And with that thought she fell properly asleep – so soundly that Amy had to come and shake her arm. ‘Mrs Dawes, ma’am, it’s a shame to wake you up, but it’s nigh on ten thirty and you ought to be in bed. I’ve put a hot pan in there, warmed up the sheets for you, and taken some hot water up for you to wash yourself.’ She paused. ‘Want for me to come and help you get undressed? Lots of maids do that for their mistresses, I know – I might not be much help at first, but I’d be glad to learn.’

  Effie shook her head. ‘Only when the mistress keeps other staff as well – it’s generally a lady’s maid that does that sort of thing. I’ll manage nicely, thank you Amy, I’m quite used to it.’

  Amy was not so easily dismissed. ‘I wish you’d let me come and help you all the same. Never know. Might come in handy for me one day, knowing what to do, when you move along and I am looking for another post somewhere.’

  ‘I’m not planning to move on anywhere.’ Effie was amused. ‘And there is nothing much to learn – I used to have to do it for my own mistress once – just brush her hair and put her nightclothes out on the bed. Oh, and hang her dayclothes up and brush the hems. The rest of it – fetching washing water and heating up the room – you seem to have already done in any case. But there really is no need to bother, I can see to things myself.’

  Amy shook her head, defiantly. ‘I aren’t here to be an ornament,’ she said. ‘I’m supposed to be a maid. It’s awkward for me, if you won’t let me do the things a maid should do. And what do you think that Mr Dawes would say? It was him that wanted you to have me, wasn’t it?’

  That was quite true of course. ‘I’m too tired to talk about it,’ Effie said, sounding a little ungracious, even to herself. ‘Though I suppose that you can come and help me, just this once – I own that I’d be grateful for a bit of help tonight.’

  ‘There you are then,’ Amy said, delightedly. ‘Now, I’ve lit a candle for you, should I take it up? And I tried to light a fire in the fireplace up there, but I couldn’t make it draw. Something up the chimney, I shouldn’t be surprised. Have to get a man to see to it.’

  Effie nodded. ‘We’ll get the sweep around. Supposed to be good luck.’ Ridiculous to feel a sense of pride, that she – a woman – was taking charge of things, and planning to get workmen in to sort a problem out. She’d have to ask Pa, though, how much it ought to cost. It would be very easy for the man to overcharge. She gave a rueful smile. ‘Though I hope there aren’t going to be too many more unlooked-for costs.’

  Amy had picked up the candlestick and was already blowing out the lamp. ‘Well, there is just one thing, madam. I hardly like to say, but could you arrange for me to have a uniform? Don’t feel right, somehow, me wearing normal clothes – and if you had callers, I don’t know what they’d think! It’s different from me coming in an hour or two a day. I’d like to feel I was a proper maid.’

  Effie remembered – all too clearly – how proud she had felt herself the first time she’d been given a servant’s uniform ‘like a grown-up person rather than a child’. She was not aware that she’d said the words aloud.

  But she must have done, for Amy said at once, ‘Exactly, madam. My ma said not to ask you, but I knew you’d understand.’

  ‘We’ll see to it as soon as possible.’ Effie was deliberately brisk. ‘We’ll go to town and buy material – I know just the place – always supposing that they’ve got any in stock. If not, and it would make a stopgap anyhow, I believe I’ve still got the uniform I used to have myself – in one of those boxes that we haven’t yet unpacked. We could alter that to fit you: it was done before, when it was passed to me – or rather I did it. I was good at things like that.’

  ‘No “was” about it, madam, excuse me saying so. I saw that black bombazine you made over for yourself,’ Amy said referring to an outfit that Jillian had looked out and handed on, from when she was mourning her first husband years ago. ‘Beautiful it is. I wish I had the skill. I’m a fair hand in the kitchen and with a scrubbing brush, but I’m all thumbs instead of fingers if I try to sew. But if you really mean it, I’ll hunt out that uniform. That would do me lovely – if you’ll help to alter it.’

  Effie nodded, but before she managed to say another word, Amy was leading the way out to the hall, holding the candle to light their way upstairs.

  She held it high so Effie could see to climb the narrow stair. ‘I’ll look for it, first thing,’ she murmured, almost to herself. ‘There aren’t so many boxes left unpacked, where it could be. Though I’ll have to do something with all the empty ones. One or two of them would do again, I suppose, but a lot of them have spoiled where the nails have split the wood.’ They had reached the landing by this time, and she stepped ahead to show her mistress to the bedroom door. ‘I thought we might be able to put them on the fire – if I can f
ind anywhere to store them where they’ll still be dry. They’re all right where they are for now, just overnight – but do you know if there’s a coal-hole or a woodpile anywhere?’

  Effie shook her head. ‘Haven’t seen one.’

  ‘Pity. Though there’s that old pig’s-crow shed outside. Perhaps we could put them there. I’ll have to get them moved before we do the room. That will be the front room and you’ll want it looking something like before it’s Sunday and your family arrive. Now, if you’re ready madam …?’ She pushed the door ajar.

  Effie allowed herself to be led into her room – it did look welcoming with the clean sheets turned back, the patchwork quilt she’d made herself (and never had a chance to use before today) and her warm flannel nightie laid out on the top. She did not even protest as Amy helped her to undress and wash – and as for having someone brush her hair, it almost made her weep. No one had done that since her mother died, when Effie was a child. Not even Alex – though he’d offered to. She wished now that she’d let him, but it was too late for regrets. Better to be grateful for the blessings that she had.

  ‘Thank you, Amy,’ she murmured as she snuggled into bed – the bedclothes were still slightly warm from where the pan had been. She meant to tell the girl how comforting that felt, but she was asleep before the words had reached her lips.

  Peter was in the tunnel under no-man’s-land. It turned your blood to ice sometimes to realize where you were – moving ever closer to the enemy, like moles beneath the earth, while the ground above you trembled with the shock of shells and distant thuds sent showers of small stones down from the roof.

  Those listening tubes had been installed for weeks, with excellent results. The enemy’s position had been identified and now the company was involved in what Judd called ‘proper war’. Peter’s team had spent the last few weeks between the ‘geo-phone’ – he had proved to be rather good at listening – and occasional short bursts of working at the face, scooping out the narrow passage down which, this very day, a huge charge was to be set – as close to Fritz’s front-line trench as possible.

  Short bursts, because it was exhausting work; they’d now run into rock and getting through that silently was difficult and slow. You could not use a back-swing, because that made a noise, and noise was a killer this close to the Bosch. Plus there was the constant dust – sometimes you could hardly see the others on your team – though that was a change from a little further back, when they had been working in wet clay above their boots.

  Between these duties, you joined the bucket-gang that shifted the spoil back from the tunnel-face. Wooden buckets here, because they made less noise. These were passed – as silently as possible – from man to man towards the entranceway, where members of the poor old infantry were awaiting it. It was their job to move it outside – under constant fire – so that no trace was visible even from the air. Enemy observers flew over constantly and heaps of newly evacuated rock would have alerted them at once to what was happening.

  Because today – though nobody knew it but themselves, and headquarters of course – was blasting day. The company was making one last forward drive, the explosives were to hand and the plan was to set them before the hour was out, seal off the cavity (to direct the force upwards as much as possible) then withdraw the miners and set off the fuse. So all hands were on the buckets, no respite today. Peter was working in the second team – which meant the miners in the blast chamber were out of sight ahead, and the tunnel entrance was out of sight behind. Visibility was sometimes poor in any case, not merely from the rock-dust in the air; the narrow hewn-out passages were only lit by candles on ledges on the walls.

  He took another pail of spoil and, in total silence, passed it back – though every load seemed heavier than the last. He was also slightly hampered by a loop of rope he wore around one arm, though that was his own fault, he acknowledged ruefully.

  It was a system of his own invention, born of something that they used to do as boys, gathering seagulls eggs down on Penvarris cliff. The person climbing down would tie a line around his waist and tug it to warn the others when he needed them – one tug to haul the basket up when it was full of eggs, and two to signal that he wanted pulling up himself.

  Peter had suggested such a thing to Judd, as a means of communicating in emergencies, and Judd – who had no doubt collected eggs himself – had surprisingly agreed. He not only ordered that the team should try it out, but added an adaptation of his own. So each man had a slender line clipped on his right to the belt round his waist. He carried a loop of slack around one arm, and the other end was fastened to the man ahead, but on the left-hand side, so that a tug from either direction would be felt at once and the recipient could swiftly pass it on. There was even a code for how many tugs meant what.

  It had taken some practise to perfect the use of this – there were grumbles that it limited free movement underground, and there were false alarms when it was trodden on or caught on some projecting lump of rock – but it had already proved its worth. Only a day or two into the trial, Tremean, who was working as the lead man, boring-in, had hit a natural pocket filled with unseen gas and been overcome by swift unconsciousness. Gas like that could kill in minutes, and it often did, but the weight of his falling was communicated back and he was rescued quickly and brought out alive – for which he was embarrassingly grateful afterwards. The system was soon adopted by everybody else – even by those who muttered about ‘bloody bits of rope’.

  Peter grinned grimly and turned to grab another pail. It was worth the unremitting effort, Old Judd often said. ‘Underground charges put the fear of God up Fritz like nothing else.’ He was very likely right – the Tommies on detachment here all said they felt the same; even in the trenches the most frightening idea was to be blown up silently from underneath – worse than cannon, which at least you knew were there.

  Another pail of rubble to pass back. No tubs on tracks to help you here – they were too far forward, the rumble might be heard. It was very tiring. He paused to rub his hand across his brow. As he did so he leaned back against the wall – and felt his blood run cold.

  Against the silence there was suddenly a noise. Not from the tunnel, but from overhead. Not the thump of an exploding shell, you got quite used to those. This was different – a soft, insistent tap. Muffled – you could only hear it if you strained – and intermittent.

  For a moment Peter wondered if he was hearing his own heart – however many times you did this job it still thumped painfully – but no, there was no doubt, there it was again. He recognized it from his recent listening stint. A tapping that caused a fearful pricking of the skin and the sudden, never-to-be forgotten taste of mortal fear.

  Jerry! It had to be. Underground himself, and not too far away. Had our boys been heard, in spite of everything? Was that sound the enemy laying booby traps? Or trying to get through to where the British trenches were? Either way the Bosch was clearly mining on his own account. Mining, in the soldier’s sense of setting mines – explosive charges that would blow the earth apart and blast all human life around to smithereens. And Peter and his team were directly underneath.

  The first temptation was to shout aloud – scream a warning, call his comrades back – but Old Judd had done his training well. Instead of shouting, Peter tugged the cord. He gave the ‘imminent danger’ signal – three sharp tugs, a pause, and then three more, and got the reassurance of an answering two, each way.

  The system now demanded that the team evacuate, using the line to guide them if the candles failed. You were supposed to undo your right-hand rope at once, so the man behind could reel it in, then wait for fifteen seconds, for the man ahead to do the same. If the cord went taut and nobody appeared, after that time you’d drop the line and make your own escape. This would be a signal for a general alarm – the likelihood being either that there’d been a fall of rock, and men were trapped, or that Jerry had broken through into the shaft and people were in there fighting hand to ha
nd: both things had happened several times elsewhere.

  That was the theory. Reality, however, was rather different. Fifteen seconds is an eternity when there’s an enemy, probably with dynamite, just through the ceiling overhead. Peter had forced himself to get to ten – he was attempting to count the seconds down – but he never reached eleven. Ahead of him the line went slack all right, but before he could begin to coil it in, down the tunnel came a clatter and a roar of running men. Pails and buckets scattered, men came bursting past – the rush of their passage blew the candles out.

  ‘Run! Run!’ one shouted. ‘You’ve got two minutes. Run, for pity’s sake!’

  After the tiptoeing silence of the last two weeks, the sudden commotion was a shock, so violent it was almost physical. Peter was so startled that he stepped back against the wall and the trailing line got caught around his legs and almost brought him down. He had just the wit to shake it free – if he had fallen at that moment he might well have died, trampled underfoot as still more men came crashing past.

  Tremean was one of them. He took one look at Peter and grabbed him by the arm. ‘Come on, man! Judd’s set the charge. Get out before it blows!’

  And Peter joined him, groping in the gloom towards the entranceway. Feet, muffled in rags to save the clang of boots, bounced against pails and scuffed on scattered spoil. But the men around him had been miners all their lives – there were helping hands to push and pull, and soon there was a gleam of daylight up ahead and Peter and Tremean both stumbled into it.

  As they did so there was a massive roar. The ground behind them seemed to rise up like a wave and – somewhere out in no-man’s-land – a monstrous fountain made of rock and smoke burst through and scattered everything – dead men, guns, mud, legs, bits of twisted iron. Peter was thrown forward with the blast of it, and the last thing he remembered as he hit the ground was the taste of earth and the sensation of gravel in his mouth.