CHAPTER XXX WINTER
"Do you mind the nights we laboured, boys, together,
Spreadeagled at our travail on the joists,
With the pulley-wheels a-turning and the naphtha lamps a-burning,
And the mortar crawling upwards on the hoists,
When our hammers clanked like blazes on the facing,
When the trestles shook and staggered as we struck,
When the derricks on their pivots strained and broke the crank-wheel rivets
As the shattered jib sank heavy in the muck?"
—From Songs of the Dead End.
The winter was at hand. When the night drew near, a great weariness came over the face of the sun as it sank down behind the hills which had seen a million sunsets. The autumn had been mild and gentle, its breezes soft, its showers light and cool. But now, slowly and surely, the great change was taking place; a strange stillness settled softly on the lonely places. Nature waited breathless on the threshold of some great event, holding her hundred winds suspended in a fragile leash. The heather bells hung motionless on their stems, the torrents dropped silently as smoke from the scarred edges of the desolate ravines, but in this silence there lay a menace; in its supreme poise was the threat of coming danger. The crash of our hammers was an outrage, and the exploding dynamite a sacrilege against tired nature.
A great weariness settled over us; our life lacked colour, we were afraid of the silence, the dulness of the surrounding mountains weighed heavily on our souls. The sound of labour was a comfort, the thunder of our hammers went up as a threat against the vague implacable portent of the wild.
Life to me had now become dull, expressionless, stupid. Only in drink was there contentment, only in a fight was there excitement. I hated the brown earth, the slushy muck and gritty rock, but in the end hatred died out and I was almost left without passion or longing. My life now had no happiness and no great sadness. My soul was proof against sorrow as it was against joy. Happiness and woe were of no account; life was a spread of brown muck, without any relieving splash of lighter or darker colours. For all that, I had no great desire (desire was almost dead even) to go down to the Lowlands and look for a newer job. So I stayed amidst the brown muck and existed.
When I had come up my thoughts for a long while were eternally straying to Norah Ryan, but in the end she became to me little more than a memory, a frail and delightful phantom of a fleeting dream.
The coming of winter was welcome. The first nipping frost was a call to battle, and, though half afraid, most of the men were willing to accept the challenge. A few, it is true, went off to Glasgow, men old and feeble who were afraid of the coming winter.
In the fight to come the chances were against us. Rugged cabins with unplanked floors, leaking roofs, flimsy walls, through the chinks of which the winds cut like knives, meagre blankets, mouldy food, well-worn clothes, and battered bluchers were all that we possessed to aid us in the struggle. On the other hand, the winter marshalled all her forces, the wind, the hail, frost, snow, and rain, and it was against these that we had to fight, and for the coming of the opposing legions we waited tensely and almost eagerly.
But the north played a wearing game, and strove to harry us out with suspense before thundering down upon us with her cold and her storm. The change took place slowly. In a day we could hardly feel it, in a week something intangible and subtle, something which could not be defined, had crept into our lives. We felt the change, but could not localise it. Our spirits sank under the uncertainty of the waiting days, but still the wild held her hand. The bells of the heather hung from their stems languidly and motionless, stripped of all their summer charm, but lacking little of the hue of summer. Even yet the foam-flecked waters dropped over the cliffs silently as figures that move in a dream. When we gathered together and ate our midday meal, we wrapped our coats around our shoulders, whereas before we had sat down without them. When night came on we drew nearer to the hot-plate, and when we turned naked into bed we found that the blankets were colder than usual. Only thus did the change affect us for a while. Then the cold snap came suddenly and wildly.
The plaintive sunset waned into a sickly haze one evening, and when the night slipped upwards to the mountain peaks never a star came out into the vastness of the high heavens. Next morning we had to thaw the door of our shack out of the muck into which it was frozen during the night. Outside the snow had fallen heavily on the ground, and the virgin granaries of winter had been emptied on the face of the world.
Unkempt, ragged, and dispirited, we slunk to our toil, the snow falling on our shoulders and forcing its way insistently through our worn and battered bluchers. The cuttings were full of slush to the brim, and we had to grope through them with our hands until we found the jumpers and hammers at the bottom. These we held under our coats until the heat of our bodies warmed them, then we went on with our toil.
At intervals during the day the winds of the mountain put their heads together and swept a whirlstorm of snow down upon us, wetting each man to the pelt. Our tools froze until the hands that gripped them were scarred as if by red-hot spits. We shook uncertain over our toil, our sodden clothes scalding and itching the skin with every movement of the swinging hammers. Near at hand the lean derrick jibs whirled on their pivots like spectres of some ghoulish carnival, and the muck-barrows crunched backwards and forwards, all their dirt and rust hidden in woolly mantles of snow. Hither and thither the little black figures of the workers moved across the waste of whiteness like shadows on a lime-washed wall. Their breath steamed out on the air and disappeared in space like the evanescent and fragile vapour of frying mushrooms.
"On a day like this a man could hardly keep warm on the red-hot hearth of hell!" Moleskin remarked at one time, when the snow whirled around the cutting, causing us to gasp with every fiercely-taken breath.
"Ye'll have a heat on the same hearthstone some day," answered Red Billy, who held a broken lath in one mittened hand, while he whittled away with his eternal clasp-knife.
When night came on we crouched around the hot-plate and told stories of bygone winters, when men dropped frozen stiff in the trenches where they laboured. A few tried to gamble near the door, but the wind that cut through the chinks of the walls chased them to the fire. Moleskin told the story of his first meeting with me on the Paisley toll-road, and suddenly I realised that I was growing old. It was now some years since that meeting took place, and even then I was a man, unaided and alone, fighting the great struggle of existence. I capped Moleskin's story with the account of Mick Deehan's death on the six-foot way. Afterwards the men talked loudly of many adventures. Long lonely shifts were spoken of, nights and days when the sweat turned to ice on the eyelashes, when the cold nipped to the bone and chilled the workers at their labours. One man slipped off the snow-covered gang-plank and fell like a rock forty feet through space.
"Flattened out like a jelly-fish on the groun' he was," said Clancy, who told the story.
Red Billy, who worked on the railway line in his younger days, gave an account of Mick Cassidy's death. Mick was sent out to free the ice-locked facing points, and when they were closed by the signalman, Cassidy's hand got wedged between the blades and the rail.
"Held like a louse was Cassidy, until the train threw him clear," concluded Billy, adding reflectively that "he might have been saved if he had had somethin' in one hand to hack the other hand off with."
Joe told how one Ned Farley got his legs wedged between the planks of a mason's scaffold and hung there head downwards for three hours. When Farley got relieved he was a raving madman, and died two hours afterwards. We all agreed that death was the only way out in a case like that.
Gahey told of a night's doss at the bottom of a coal slip in a railway siding. He slept there with three other people, two men and a woman. As the woman was a bad one it did not matter very much to anyone where she slept. During the night a waggon of coal was suddenly shot down the slip. Gahey got clear, leaving his thumb with the three corpses which remained behind.
"It was a bad endin', even for a woman like that," someone said.
Outside the winds of the night scampered madly, whistling through every crevice of the shack and threatening to smash all its timbers to pieces. We bent closer over the hot-plate, and the many who could not draw near to the heat scrambled into bed and sought warmth under the meagre blankets. Suddenly the lamp went out, and a darkness crept into the corners of the dwelling, causing the figures of my mates to assume fantastic shapes in the gloom. The circle around the hot-plate drew closer, and long lean arms were stretched out towards the flames and the redness. Seldom may a man have the chance to look on hands like those of my mates. Fingers were missing from many, scraggy scars seaming along the wrists or across the palms of others told of accidents which had taken place on many precarious shifts. The faces near me were those of ghouls worn out in some unholy midnight revel. Sunken eyes glared balefully in the dim unearthly light of the fire, and as I looked at them a moment's terror settled on my soul. For a second I lived in an early age, and my mates were the cave-dwellers of an older world than mine. In the darkness, near the door, a pipe glowed brightly for a moment, then the light went suddenly out and the gloom settled again. The reaction came when Two-shift Mullholland's song, The Bold Navvy Man, was sung by Clancy of the Cross. We joined lustily in the chorus, and the roof shook with the thunder of our voices.
"THE BOLD NAVVY MAN.
"I've navvied here in Scotland, I've navvied in the south,
Without a drink to cheer me or a crust to cross me mouth,
I fed when I was workin' and starved when out on tramp,
And the stone has been me pillow and the moon above me lamp.
I have drunk me share and over when I was flush with tin,
For the drouth without was nothin' to the drouth that burned within!
And where'er I've filled me billy and where'er I've drained me can,
I've done it like a navvy, a bold navvy man.
A bold navvy man,
An old navvy man,
And I've done me graft and stuck it like a bold navvy man.
"I've met a lot of women and I liked them all a spell—
They drive some men to drinkin' and also some to hell,
But I have never met her yet, the woman cute who can
Learn a trick to Old Nick or the bold navvy man.
Oh! the sly navvy man,
And the fly navvy man,
Sure a woman's always runnin' to the bold navvy man.
"I do not care for ladies grand who are of high degree,
A winsome wench and willin', she is just the one for me,
Drink and love are classed as sins, as mortal sins by some,
I'll drink and drink whene'er I can, the drouth is sure to come—
And I will love till lusty life runs out its mortal span,
The end of which is in the ditch for many a navvy man.
The bold navvy man,
The old navvy man,
Safe in a ditch with heels cocked up, so dies the navvy man.
"I've splashed a thousand models red and raised up fiery Cain
From Glasgow down to Dover Pier and back that road again;
I've fought me man for hours on end, stark naked to the buff
And me and him, we never knew when we had got enough.
'Twas skin and hair all flyin' round and red blood up and out,
And me or him could hardly tell what brought the fight about.—
'Tis wenches, work and fight and fun and drink whene'er I can
That makes the life of stress and strife as suits the navvy man!
"Let her go, boys; let her go now!" roared Clancy, rising to his feet, kicking a stray frying-pan and causing it to clatter across the shack. "All together, boys; damn you, all together!
"Then hurrah! ev'ry one
For the bold navvy man,
For fun and fight are damned all right for any navvy man!"
Even old Sandy MacDonald joined in the chorus with his weak and querulous voice. The winter was touching him sharply, and he was worse off than any of us. Along with the cold he had his wasting disease to battle against, and God alone knew how he managed to work along with his strong and lusty mates on the hammer squad at Kinlochleven. Sandy was not an old man, but what with the dry cough that was in his throat and the shivers of cold that came over him after a long sweaty shift, it was easily seen that he had not many months to live in this world. He looked like a parcel of bones covered with brown withered parchment and set in the form of a man. How life could remain fretting within such a frame as his was a mystery which I could not solve. Almost beyond the effects of heat or cold, the cold sweat came out of his skin on the sweltering warm days, and when the winter came along, the chilly weather hardly made him colder than he was by nature. His cough never kept silent; sometimes it was like the bark of a dog, at other times it seemed as if it would carry the very entrails out of the man. In the summer he spat blood with it, but usually it was drier than the east wind.
At one period of his life Sandy had had a home and a wife away down in Greenock; but in those days he was a strong lusty fellow, fit to pull through a ten-hour shift without turning a hair. One winter's morning he came out from the sugar refinery, in which he worked, steaming hot from the long night's labour, and then the cold settled on him. Being a sober, steady-going man, he tried to work as long as he could lift his arms, but in the end he had to give up the job which meant life and home to him. One by one his little bits of things went to the pawnshop; but all the time he struggled along bravely, trying to keep the roof-tree over his head and his door shut against the lean spectre of hunger. Between the four bare walls of the house Sandy's wife died one day; and this caused the man to break up his home.
He came to Kinlochleven at the heel of the summer, and because he mastered his cough for a moment when asking for a job, Red Billy Davis started him on the jumper squad. The old ganger, despite his swearing habits and bluntness of discourse, was at heart a very good-natured fellow. Sandy stopped with us for a long while and it was pitiful to see him labouring there, his old bones creaking with every move of his emaciated body, and the cold sweat running off him all day. He ate very little; the tame robin which flitted round our shack nearly picked as much from off the floor. He had a bunk to himself at the corner of the shack, and there he coughed out the long sleepless hours of the night, bereft of all hope, lacking sympathy from any soul sib to himself, and praying for the grave which would end all his troubles. For days at a stretch he lay supine in his bed, unable to move hand or foot, then, when a moment's relief came to him, he rose and started on his shift again, crawling out with his mates like a wounded animal.
Winter came along and Sandy got no better; he could hardly grow worse and remain alive. Life burned in him like a dying candle in a ruined house, and he waited for the end of the great martyrdom patiently. Still, when he could, he kept working day in and day out, through cold and wet and storm. Heaven knows that it was not work which he needed, but care, rest, and sympathy. All of us expressed pity for the man, and helped him in little ways, trying to make life easier for him. Moleskin usually made gruel for him, while I read the Oban Times to the old fellow whenever that paper came into the shack. One evening as I read something concerning the Isle of Skye Sandy burst into tears, like a homesick child.
"Man! I would like tae dee there awa' in the Isle of Skye," he said to me in a yearning voice.
"Die, you damned old fool, you?" exclaimed Joe, who happened to come around with a pot of gruel just at that moment and overheard Sandy's remark. "You'll not die for years yet. I never saw you lookin' so well in all your life."
"It's all over with me, Moleskin," said poor Sandy. "It's a great wonder that I've stood it so long, but just now the thocht came to me that I'd like tae dee awa' back in my own place in the Isle of Skye. If I could just save as muckle siller as would take me there, I'd be content enough."
"Some people are content with hellish little!" said Joe angrily. "You've got to buck up, man, for there's a good time comin', though you'll never—I mean that ev'rything will come right in the end. We'll see that you get home all right, you fool, you!"
Joe was ashamed to find himself guilty of any kind impulse, and he endeavoured to hide his good intentions behind rough words. When he called Sandy an old fool Sandy's eyes sparkled, and he got into such good humour that he joined in the chorus of the Bold Navvy Man when Clancy, who is now known as Clancy of the Cross, gave bellow to Mullholland's magnum opus.
Early on the morning of the next day, which was pay-day, Moleskin was busy at work sounding the feelings of the party towards a great scheme which he had in mind; and while waiting at the pay-office when the day's work was completed, Joe made the following speech to Red Billy's gang, all of whom, with the exception of Sandy MacDonald, were present.
"Boys, Sandy MacDonald wants to go home and die in his own place," said Joe, weltering into his subject at once. "He'll kick the bucket soon, for he has the look of the grave in his eyes. He only wants as much tin as will take him home, and that is not much for any man to ask, is it? So what do you say, boys, to a collection for him, a shillin' a man, or whatever you can spare? Maybe some day, when you turn respectable, one of you can say to yourself, 'I once kept myself from gettin' drunk, by givin' some of my money to a man who needed it more than myself.' Now, just look at him comin' across there."
We looked in the direction of Joe's outstretched finger and saw Sandy coming towards us, his rags fluttering around him like the duds of a Michaelmas scarecrow.
"Isn't he a pitiful sight!" Moleskin went on. "He looks like the Angel of Death out on the prowl! It's a God's charity to help a man like Sandy and make him happy as we are ourselves. We are at home here; he is not. So it is up to us to help him out of the place. Boys, listen to me!" Moleskin's voice sank into an intense whisper. "If every damned man of you don't pay a shillin' into this collection I'll look for the man that doesn't, and I'll knuckle his ribs until he pays for booze for ev'ry man in Billy's shack, by God! I will."
Everyone paid up decently, and on behalf of the gang I was asked to present the sum of three pounds fifteen shillings to Sandy MacDonald. Sandy began to cry like a baby when he got the money into his hands, and every man in the job called out involuntarily: "Oh! you old fool, you!"
Pay-day was on Saturday. On Monday morning Sandy intended starting out on his journey home. All Saturday night he coughed out the long hours of the darkness, but in the morning he looked fit and well.
"You'll come through it, you fool!" said Moleskin. "I'll be dead myself afore you."
On the next night he went to bed early, and as we sat around the gaming table we did not hear the racking cough which had torn at the man's chest for months.
"He's getting better," we all said.
"Feeling all right, Sandy?" I asked, as I turned into bed.
"Mon! I'm feelin' fine now," he answered. "I'm goin' to sleep well to-night, and I'll be fit for the journey in the morn."
That night Sandy left us for good. When the morning came we found the poor wasted fellow lying dead in his bunk, his eyes wide open, his hands closed tightly, and the long finger-nails cutting into the flesh of the palm. The money which we gave to the man was bound up in a little leathern purse tied round his neck with a piece of string.
The man was very light and it was an easy job to carry him in the little black box and place him in his home below the red earth of Kinlochleven. The question as to what should be done with the money arose later. I suggested that it should be used in buying a little cross for Sandy's grave.
"If the dead man wants a cross he can have one," said Moleskin Joe. And because of what he said and because it was more to our liking, we put the money up as a stake on the gaming table. Clancy won the pile, because his luck was good on the night of the game.
That is our reason for calling him Clancy of the Cross ever since.
The winter rioted on its way. Snow, rain, and wind whirled around us in the cutting, and wet us to the bone. It was a difficult feat to close our hands tightly over the hammers with which we took uncertain aim at the drill heads and jumper ends. The drill holder cowered on his seat and feared for the moment when an erring hammer might fly clear and finish his labours for ever. Hourly our tempers grew worse, each movement of the body caused annoyance and discomfort, and we quarrelled over the most trivial matters. Red Billy cursed every man in turn and all in general, until big Jim Maloney lost his temper completely and struck the ganger on the jaw with his fist, knocking him senseless into a snowdrift.
That night Maloney was handed his lying time and told to slide. He padded from Kinlochleven in the darkness, and I have never seen him since then. He must have died on the journey. No man could cross those mountains in the darkness of mid-winter and in the teeth of a snowstorm.
Some time afterwards the copy of a Glasgow newspaper, either the Evening Times or News (I now forget which), came into our shack wrapped around some provisions, and in the paper I read a paragraph concerning the discovery of a dead body on the mountains of Argyllshire. While looking after sheep a shepherd came on the corpse of a man that lay rotting in a thawing snowdrift. Around the remains a large number of half-burnt matches were picked up, and it was supposed that the poor fellow had tried to keep himself warm by their feeble flames in the last dreadful hours. Nobody identified him, but the paper stated that he was presumably a navvy who lost his way on a journey to or from the big waterworks of Kinlochleven.
As for myself, I am quite certain that it was that of big Jim Maloney. No man could survive a blizzard on the houseless hills, and big Jim Maloney never appeared in model or shack afterwards.