A Crimson Dawn (33 page)

‘See!' he declared. ‘International socialism is not dead and buried. Our comrades are still out there and bearing the same burdens as we are.'

Then, one day at work, Jonas dropped the forge bellows and keeled over. He was taken by horse-drawn ambulance into Gateshead. Emmie walked to the hospital to glean news, leaving Barny with an anxious Helen. Jonas had suffered a stroke. He could not move his right arm and his speech was slurred.

‘He may well recover,' said the distracted doctor. He was elderly, called out of retirement to help in the overcrowded hospital. ‘Best to nurse him at home.'

Emmie decided to stay the night at the Settlement before returning with Jonas. She thought it strange the Oliphants had sent no message of condolence to the family; then it occurred to her in horror that they may not have heard of Rab's death. There were so many restrictions and delays, news may not have filtered through to her friends. There had still been no official word on Rab's execution or burial.

As she made her way to the Oliphants' flat, she found the once tranquil quad had been dug up and planted with vegetables.

‘Emmie!' Charles cried, looking up from his desk. ‘Dear girl. What a coincidence. Flora set off this afternoon for Crawdene with the news. But perhaps you've already heard.' He stopped, taking in her black armband. ‘Emmie, what's happened? Who's died?'

She stared at him in confusion, touching the armband. ‘Rab,' she whispered.

He frowned. Stepping towards her, he took her gently by the arm and steered her into a chair. ‘Rab? You've been told he's dead?'

Emmie nodded, her eyes stinging with tears. ‘We had letters from him - written on his last night before they - before he was - shot…'

‘Oh, Emmie,' Charles said, his corn-blue eyes full of compassion, ‘no one was shot. The Prime Minister intervened at the eleventh hour. We've been trying to find out for a fortnight where the COs have been taken. Yesterday, we heard that some of the men returned from France are in prison near York.' He squeezed her hand. ‘One of them is Rab.'

Emmie was stunned. She could not take it in. ‘He - he's in prison?' she gasped. ‘Not dead?'

‘No, not dead,' Charles insisted. ‘That's what Flora was coming to tell you - tell his parents that we finally had news of him. We had no idea you thought him dead. My poor girl. And Rab's parents - how appalling!'

‘But they sent his letters,' Emmie said in confusion. ‘Rab said he had written to you too.'

Charles shook his head. ‘We never received it.'

Emmie gulped. ‘He thought he was going to die.'

Charles nodded. ‘Right up till the last minute Haig was determined to make an example of some of them. They must have gone through hell.'

Emmie began to shake with shock and relief. ‘He's alive? Thank God, he's alive!'

Charles smiled and held out his arms. Emmie hugged him tightly, her spirits soaring at the sudden reversal of fortune. By some miracle Rab was still alive. He may be imprisoned, but he was living, breathing, existing somewhere in this world, not lost to them for ever. She burst into tears of joy.

Charles fetched her a handkerchief and a glass of water. When she could speak again, she told him of Jonas's stroke.

‘Aunt Helen blames the shock of hearing about Rab,' Emmie said bitterly. ‘He's always been such a strong man. And to think all that agony was for nothing

‘I'll get Flora to go and see him as soon as she's back,' Charles promised. But Emmie could not wait to tell him. She went straight back to the hospital and insisted on being let in to see Jonas. Half laughing, half crying, she gave him the news of Rab's reprieve. His face twisted in a crooked smile, tears welling in his eyes. She gripped his hand as he tried to speak, but the words would not come.

‘I know what you're trying to say,' Emmie assured him. ‘It's grand news, isn't it? You get yourself better and don't worry about us - we'll manage fine. Take care, Uncle Jonas.' She kissed him tenderly.

Emmie stayed the night and was reunited with the Runcies and Dr Flora. They talked of the huge workload of the Fellowship and plans for future resistance. Their pleasure in having Emmie with them once more was tempered by worry over Jonas.

‘He must have a proper convalescence,' Flora was adamant, ‘with exercise and a good diet. Perhaps he could go to the miners' hospital at Chester-le-Street. He'll have insurance through the Union, won't he?'

Emmie nodded.

‘Then that's what we must arrange.'

They talked about Rab and the possibility of getting messages to him.

‘From what we can gather,' Charles said, ‘the COs have been given a year's imprisonment with hard labour.'

Emmie was shocked. ‘Like a convict?'

Charles nodded. ‘He's in for a very grim time.'

Jonas was moved to the miners' hospital. It was too distant for his family to visit easily, but Emmie knew the knowledge that Rab still lived would be the best tonic his father could have. She returned to Crawdene with mixed emotions: delight that Rab was alive, embarrassment at the letter she treasured and confusion about what she should make of it now. He had written it believing they would never meet again. He was free to say whatever he wanted, however fantastical. It was not written with the knowledge that he might one day return. Emmie had not told anyone of its contents, not even Helen, who must have wondered at her son's writing especially to Emmie.

She decided not to say anything, hiding the letter away under her clothes in the deep bottom drawer of the wardrobe. She would wait to see if he wrote again before she expressed her own feelings.

The weeks that followed were filled with helping Helen cope without Jonas's wages and being resourceful amid mounting prices and shortages. British Summer Time was introduced towards the end of May and Emmie took advantage of the longer evenings to forage in the woods with Barny and work in Jonas's allotment. She took over the digging and planting, while Barny helped Peter look after the hens and collect the eggs.

There were moments of deep contentment, sitting in the evening sun, drinking elderflower cordial with Helen, listening to Peter playing his tin whistle to Barny as the boy laughed and ran around the small garden.

But such moments were fleeting. The net of conscription was being cast ever wider. That month, military service was extended to all men between eighteen and forty-one, including married ones. Helen shared her worry that Peter might yet be conscripted.

‘All those that didn't pass their medicals last time have to be re-examined,' she fretted.

‘But Peter's exempted 'cos of his job with Speed's,' Emmie pointed out. ‘Besides, he'd never pass his medical or any tests. It'd be like sending a bairn to fight. Any doctor will see that. So stop your worryin'.'

The following month, Emmie got word from Flora that Charles had received call-up papers. She hurried to the Settlement to support her friends, taking Barny with her. Charles applied for absolute exemption on moral grounds, based on his Christian beliefs. The tribunal, on which Reginald Hauxley sat, refused. Two days later, before an appeals tribunal, the JP granted partial exemption and told him to report for non-combatant duties.

A furious Flora applied on his behalf to the Central Tribunal in London and the Pelham Committee that oversaw work schemes. Meanwhile, Charles failed to turn up at the recruiting office and was arrested. The local newspapers were full of his case, relishing the notoriety of a wayward son of the staunchly pro-war coalowner.

All appeals for absolute exemption failed, but Charles agreed to non-combatant work that was not directly related to the war effort. He was sent to a prison camp in Wales and set to forestry work and quarrying. Flora was bereft at his going and threw herself relentlessly into her anti-conscription work and doctoring. The whole future of the Settlement was in doubt now that, without Charles, the mission had to close. The food kitchen struggled on, but they relied entirely on donations and the Runcies' dwindling pension. Seeing how Flora drove herself, Emmie spent two days a week at the Settlement, helping her deal with appeals and meetings, and keep in contact with the incarcerated men.

Wherever they could, they contacted local Fellowship members to visit COs in prison. If, as was usually the case, they were refused, bands of supporters would stand outside the prison walls and sing songs of encouragement.

Emmie organised one such group outside Newcastle Prison when she discovered two COs had been moved there. While they sang ‘The Red Flag' and assorted hymns, they flew a white kite over the prison walls, in the hopes that the men might see it or be told of it. Emmie imagined it was Rab inside and stood her ground when bystanders came to jostle and berate them.

But no word did come from Rab. Either it was too difficult for him to get a letter out, or he thought better of it. Perhaps he now regretted such a candid letter and was embarrassed to think of it. Finally she wrote to him, saying she was thankful he was alive and passing on news of the family. She alluded to Jonas's ‘bad spell', but did not mention his long weeks in hospital or uncertain future at the pit. It was a chatty, neutral letter. At the end, she made reference to his letter from France.

… I understand it was written under great strain and you may now regret being so frank. Don't worry, I shan't repeat any of it, or mention it again. I know you wrote such things because you thought you were about to die. I was touched by your words, but as you say, I'm married to Tom. That's the choice I made, and for Barny's sake that's how it always must be.

Fond regards,

Emmie

With the summer came the grimmest of news from Flanders. The British had launched a huge offensive along the Somme in early July. At first, reports were vague. But as the month wore on, the toll of dead and wounded spoke of carnage on the Front. Within a few short days, tens of thousands of men had died, whole battalions reduced to handfuls of survivors. The lists in the newspapers were endless, a day hardly went by without someone in the town or surrounding pit villages receiving a telegram of regret. People grew to dread the knock on the door.

Emmie waited anxiously for news of Tom. Was he in the midst of it? Had he been spared? She felt pity for Louise, when her former friend plucked up the courage to come round and ask her for news.

‘Have you heard owt about our Tom?' she asked nervously. ‘You will tell us the minute you hear from him, won't you?'

Emmie promised she would. She had not been to the Currans' since refusing to go to chapel and they no longer invited her round. Finally, in early August, she received a postcard from her husband. There'd been an outbreak of summer fever. He'd been in hospital during the Somme offensive and returned to find his company wiped out. He was being sent to a new battalion, in which most of the lads came from the West Country. They could not understand him and thought he was Scottish.

Emmie went round to the Currans at once with the news. Even the humourless Barnabas smiled in relief at the joke about being Scottish. Tom's mother pressed her to stay to tea, delighted with the news and to see her grandson again. After that, Emmie resumed her weekly visits, so that her mother-in-law could see Barny.

Increasingly, her time was spent at the Settlement. The casualties at the Front mounted relentlessly, and the Settlement workers knew that the pressure would be all the greater to supply more men for the war machine. Restrictions on height and physical fitness were lowered, so desperate was the army for more recruits.

Whenever there were glimmers of hope in the press or from their friends, Flora and Emmie would share them with the Runcies at the end of the day. The
Herald
reported that peace meetings had been held in thirty-five German cities.

‘And President Wilson is calling for a “league of nations” to keep peace in the world,' Flora read out to them one evening.' “… to guarantee freedom of the seas, protect small nations and stop wars where there is violation of treaties”,' she continued. ‘At last, a politician with common sense and vision!'

‘Not like that Lloyd George,' Philip grimaced, ‘demanding Germany's complete downfall. And now he's Secretary for War.'

There was increasing unrest around the country, with strikes among engineers and in factories at working conditions. In late August, thousands of trade unionists converged on Hyde Park to protest against high food prices. By the early autumn, the price of bread had risen to tenpence a loaf.

Emmie and Helen were cheered by Jonas's return, but he was no longer strong enough to work in the pit forge. He was given a menial task on the bank, sorting stones from the coal among the boys and old men. His pay was reduced and his spirit seemed to wither with his fading physical strength. Helen and Emmie jollied him along as best they could, but it was only Barny who could bring a spark to his lacklustre eyes.

When Emmie had a spare moment, she would sit and read the newspaper to him while Barny sat at his feet, playing with the spinning top Jonas had once made him out of scraps from the forge.

By the end of the year, there was stalemate in the trenches. The country was battered by the loss of hundreds of thousands of men, and huge rises in the cost of living. To the dismay of Emmie and her friends, the bullish Lloyd George took over as Prime Minister, rejecting the peace overtures sent by President Wilson. There would be no stated peace terms, for Britain and her Allies were striving only for ‘the knock-out blow' and Germany's total defeat.

With rising despair, Emmie stood outside the chapel that Christmas and handed out leaflets to the congregation.

‘Join us in the demand for a negotiated peace,' she urged. ‘Ask the ministers of religion why they are doing nothing.'

She did the same outside the parish church in Blackton. Some heckled and jostled her out of the way, but one man approached her and took the leaflet with interest. Emmie recognised him as a one-time member of the Clarion Club.