Black-eyed Devils (2 page)

‘Hope you have more luck today than you did yesterday, Mark. As I probably won't see you again, Mr Kelly, good luck in America.' Jim couldn't resist smiling at the look of disappointment on Tom's face.

CHAPTER THREE

‘I walked Miss Watkins to the picket line because Father Kelly thought there might be trouble there. But it looked peaceful enough,' Tom said to Mark as they headed into town. Given Amy's father's attitude and her brother's presence, Tom hadn't offered Amy his arm.

‘Fighting only breaks out when management try to smuggle blacklegs in to take our jobs. Would you believe it, Amy, they hid them in an empty coal cart this morning. Dad and some of the others stopped it from going through the gates. They climbed up and lifted the tarpaulin to find six of the bastards … '

‘Language,' Tom rebuked.

‘They are bastards,' Mark repeated. ‘And, Amy knows they are bastards. Hanging's too good for a blackleg prepared to steal a striker's job by working for less than a living wage. And, as Dad said, most of them are Irish.'

‘You can't blame all the Irish for the actions of a few.' Amy drew her basket beneath her cloak in an effort to warm her hands. ‘Father Kelly is Irish. He's the kindest most unselfish man I know.'

‘The problem with us Irish is, we've been starved and beaten by the English for so long, we'll do anything to survive.' Tom spoke quietly but his comment angered Mark.

‘Do you think that being treated badly by the English gives you Irish the right to come here and take our jobs?'

‘Not at all. I was only trying to explain why we Irish are so desperate. I've seen the soldiers and police here. It's just like home. No Irish man, woman or child has been able to move freely around their own country for years without officers watching them. The English have only just started on you here, in Wales. Think what you'd feel like if they'd been doing it for hundreds of years.

‘That's why we're fighting them now. Because we don't want the upper classes to starve and beat us for hundreds of years.'

‘Mark, look, Huw is waving to you from the mountain,' Amy said.

‘He's got Nero and Brutus. He must have fetched them from our garden.'

‘Our dogs,' Amy explained to Tom. ‘Go on, Mark. Don't keep Huw waiting.'

‘Dad said I was to walk you to the kitchen,'

‘It's more important you try your luck at rabbiting. It's two weeks since you caught one.'

‘You know as well as I do, why Dad wanted me to take you home.' Mark glared at Tom.

‘I've never known such suspicious people,' Tom complained. ‘But, as there's no one else here to speak for me, I'll do it myself. My uncle and brother are priests. I'm a good, God fearing, clean living man, who's always treated ladies with respect. Now tell me, what could I do to your sister in the middle of town other than talk to her and walk her home?'

‘I don't know?' Mark challenged. ‘What could you do to her?'

‘Huw's still waving to you, Mark,' Amy said before Tom could answer him. When Mark made no attempt to move, she added, ‘If you go now, I won't tell Dad and Mam I saw you kissing Susie James behind the church hall last week.'

‘You wouldn't dare,' Mark retorted.

‘Try me,' Amy replied.

‘Some sisters are sneaks.'

‘And some brothers do what they told. Go on, Brutus is barking. If you keep Huw waiting much longer the police will turn up. You know how they hate our dogs.'

‘Only the ones we've trained to attack constables. See you back at the house, sis. Goodbye, Tom. Good luck in America.'

‘I know I'm on my way to America but your family seem to be keen to get me there as quickly as possible.' Tom offered Amy his arm as soon as Mark ran off.

‘It's the strike. It's made us suspicious of everyone.'

‘Not me surely?'

‘Even sweet talking Irishmen,' she smiled. ‘And I have to go home before I go to the soup kitchen to fetch our jug.'

‘Don't they have enough jugs in the kitchen?'

‘Yes. But I want to get ours filled. Anyone can have a free meal in the kitchen, if they can find a chair and place at a table. But our family, like most of the others, prefer to pay a shilling to get their jug filled in the kitchen and eat together as a family at home.'

‘They don't fill jugs for nothing?' he asked.

‘The charities and churches who run the soup kitchens can't afford to. They get some donations of food but not enough to feed everyone.'

‘I'm looking forward to meeting your mother. Is she likely to be as wary of me as your father and brothers?' Tom lifted his cap to an old lady who stopped and stared at them.

‘It's cold today, isn't it, Mrs Jones,' Amy said to the old lady. ‘I can't take you home to meet my mother,' she warned Tom when they moved on.

‘Are you afraid that your mother won't find me presentable?'

‘I'm afraid she'll think there's something going on between us. Especially if the gossips tell her that we've been walking together.'

‘The gossips won't get to your house before we do.'

‘Don't bet on it. You don't know the gossips in this town.'

‘You haven't taken many young men home?' He was asking her for information and she knew it.

‘Everyone knows everyone else in Tonypandy. So, the answer to your question is, I haven't taken any strange young men home. I'll show you where the soup kitchen is, so you can find your way there.'

He sighed. ‘That means I'll have to do without you for hours.'

She laughed. ‘Half an hour at the most. And I'm going to the kitchen to work.'

‘I'll follow you like a stray dog.'

‘In which case I'll throw stones at you to make you go away.'

‘I'll dodge them.'

Irritated, Amy said, ‘you are the most annoying man.'

‘Get used to me. I intend to keep on annoying you until you agree to marry me.'

Amy stopped halfway down Dunraven Street. ‘The quickest way to the soup kitchen is straight on. Take the third turning on your right, walk up the hill and you'll see the church, the hall and your uncle's house in front of you.'

‘I'll be lonely walking all that way by myself.'

‘The streets are full of people.'

‘Too full.' He pulled her back against a shop window as an angry crowd erupted from a side street.

Half a dozen men were pushing a painfully thin man forward ahead of the mob behind them. Dressed only in a thin white shirt open to his waist, his throat, skeletal legs and feet were bare. He was wet and shivering, his skin bluish-grey from the cold. When he reached the centre of the road, he tripped over a tram line, stumbled, fell and struggled to climb to his feet. The people around him kept him on his knees. They pulled his hair and hit him with their fists and sticks. Women jeered and children jostled to spit on him.

‘Don't.' Amy gripped Tom's arm tightly, holding him back when he stepped forward.

He closed his hand over hers. ‘Someone has to help him. The police and soldiers are just standing there, watching.'

‘Because they know the mob will turn on them if they interfere.'

‘A dog shouldn't be treated like that.'

‘A dog shouldn't. But a blackleg should. And, you're a stranger, you'll be treated the same as him.'

‘They'll kill him.'

‘And possibly you, if you try to help him. Think of your uncle if you won't think of yourself. That man knew what he was doing when he agreed to breach the picket and work for management.'

‘No man would risk being shamed the way he is.'

‘If his family are starving, he might?' Tears fell from Amy's eyes. She turned her back on Tom and the ugly scene.

The man finally dragged himself upright and Tom watched the mob continue to drive him up the street.

‘I have to go home.'

Tom reached for Amy's hand. ‘I'll take you and no arguments.'

Amy walked on and Tom quickened his step to keep up with her.

‘Where are they taking him?' he asked.

‘They'll drive him over the mountain and wait to make sure that he doesn't come back.'

‘Without shoes or trousers? He'll catch his death of cold in this weather.'

‘Blacklegs have ended up in hospital with broken bones but none have been killed.'

‘Yet,' Tom said thoughtfully. ‘I knew tempers were running high here. I didn't know how high.'

‘Can we talk about something else?' Amy pleaded.

‘Like our wedding?'

‘Sensible things,' she said seriously.

‘What's sensible? My mother taught me never to talk religion or politics to a lady. That doesn't leave anything else.'

‘It leaves everything important. Art, poetry, music, literature, opera, theatre.'

‘You have an opera house, here in Tonypandy?'

‘We do. And a theatre besides. Opera and theatre companies come up from London to play here sometimes. They put on shows three times a day so all the men can see them no matter what shift they're working.'

‘Travelling theatre companies used to the visit the village I grew up in. They were never from London. But we had one from Dublin once. What's your favourite book?'

‘There's so many it's impossible to choose.'

‘You read a lot?'

‘As much as I can, in between helping my mother run the house. We have a library in the Miner's Institute. I've read all of Dickens' novels. My favourite is a Tale of Two Cities.'

‘Mine too although I'm not sure any man would volunteer to be executed.'

‘He did it for love.'

‘Now that I've met you I can see that a man would give up his life for love.'

She moved the conversation on quickly. ‘I enjoyed reading Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre but I didn't like Shirley and Villette.'

‘What about Walter Scott? And the Irish writers. Have you read The Picture of Dorian Gray?'

Tom continued to watch Amy's face while she talked about the books she'd read. And while he looked and listened he built an imaginary mansion in America. He filled it with fine furniture he'd seen in the shop windows in Corke. He added books, pictures, electric lamps, velvet curtains, carpets and a marble bathroom. He pictured himself and Amy there, reading poetry to one another as they sat, side by side on a sofa in front of a roaring fire.

All he had to do was make his fortune. And the mansion and Amy would be his.

Anna had returned from the kitchen and was hard at work when Amy and Tom walked up the street. Anna had finished washing her doorstep and the pavement in front of her house and had begun to clean her windows. She dropped the rag she was using into her bucket when she saw Amy.

‘Who have we here, Amy?' she asked.

‘Tom Kelly, ma'am.' Tom removed his cap in spite of the rain. ‘I'm Father Kelly's nephew and I'm very pleased to meet you.'

‘I'm pleased to meet you too.' Anna looked at his worn tweed suit and crumpled flannel shirt. ‘You're not a priest.'

‘No Ma'am.' He offered her his hand and she shook it.

‘And you're not a collier either by the look of your hands.' She turned his palm over.

Tom's hands were rough and scarred. His nails were broken but they weren't blackened. And there were none of the blue scars that marked the colliers' skins.

‘No, Ma'am. I was a farmer but I'm on my way to America. I just dropped in here to say goodbye to my uncle on the way.'

‘You've picked a fine time for your visit.'

Not wanting to talk about what they'd seen in town. Amy interrupted. ‘Uncle Gwilym said to say thank you for the tea, Auntie Annie.'

‘You're not Amy's mother?' Tom asked in surprise.

‘No, I'm not.' Anna corrected Tom's mistake. ‘But Amy's as dear to me as if she was my own flesh and blood.'

‘Would you like me to pick up a jug of soup for you at the kitchen, Auntie?'

‘No, thank you, love. I'll be up there myself later on. We received a donation of fifty pounds of cooking apples this morning. The committee will need all the help they can get to peel and stew them.'

‘We'll see you there. Bye, Auntie Anna. Come on, Tom. I live across the road.'

Anna picked up her bucket. It was time to go in, get her cloak and walk to the soup kitchen. She was looking forward to the warmth of the Church Hall.

She watched Amy enter into her house and hang her cloak on the peg in the hall. Tom was taking his time wiping his feet on the rag rug in the porch.

Mary and Jim Watkins hadn't considered any of the local boys who'd tried to court Amy, good enough for their daughter. So, Anna doubted they'd look kindly on an Irishman. Even one who was Father Kelly's nephew.

Which was a pity given the love she'd seen in Tom Kelly's eyes when he'd looked at Amy. But more especially the love in Amy's bright blue eyes when she'd looked back at Tom.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘Why did you walk Amy home, Mr Kelly?' Mary Watkins asked bluntly after Amy introduced them.

‘I asked her to show me the way to the soup kitchen, Mrs Watkins. I told Father Kelly, he's my uncle, that I'd meet him there later. I'd have never found my own way back to the church hall from the picket.'

‘So, you walked Amy down the picket as well, Mr Kelly.' Mary didn't hide her annoyance. ‘Where did you meet?'

‘In the main street. My uncle promised to show me the town but he received a message asking him to call on one of his parishioners just after we set off. He saw Miss Watkins, introduced us and I asked her if she'd be kind enough to show me the town.'

‘By the look of her, she was delighted.' Mary frowned at her daughter.

‘Mr Kelly would have walked straight to the soup kitchen from town if I hadn't been upset, Mam. The strikers were white shirting a blackleg again. It was horrible. He fell and they were hitting him.'

‘What's horrible is the way some men are prepared to work for less than a living wage in order to steal another man's job,' Mary declared. ‘What you have to remember, my girl, is that if Arnold Craggs and the blacklegs win this strike, there'll soon be no food on this table at all.'

‘I forgot to ask, Miss Watkins,' Tom interrupted. ‘Why did they put a white shirt on the man?'

‘So they'll be able to see him in the dark if he tries to creep back into town at night. The miners want to make sure that the blacklegs stay away once they've taken the trouble to drive them out of Tonypandy,' Mary informed him. ‘Did you recognise the blackleg, Amy?'

‘No, Mam.'

‘Then he'll be one of the foreigners management brought in to steal your father's and the other miners' jobs. I'm happier knowing he's not a neighbour.'

‘Auntie Anna told me someone's donated a load of cooking apples. I need to go to the kitchen early to help peel them.' Amy opened the dresser and took out the family's largest enamelled jug.

‘I hope you don't mind me walking to the soup kitchen with Miss Watkins, Mrs Watkins.' Tom smiled at Amy's mother. But she refused to be swayed by his charm.

‘Looks like I have little choice in the matter. But I'll send one of your brothers up to walk you back, Amy. Wait for him.'

‘Yes, Mam.' Amy walked down the passage and lifted the cloak from the peg.

‘It was nice meeting you, Mrs Watkins.' Tom pulled his cap from his pocket.

Mary Watkins gave him the goodbye he'd been expecting. ‘Good luck in America, Mr Kelly.'

‘I've had warmer welcomes when there's been frost in the air and ice on the ground.' Tom put his cap on when he and Amy were in the street.

‘As I told you, everyone in town is on edge.'

‘And ready to take their tempers out on me.' Tom shrugged. ‘That's all right. My back is broad enough.'

‘I won't take your arm while we can be seen in the street,' she said, when he offered it to her.

‘I thought Irish mas and pas were strict with their daughters. Your Welsh mams and dads are ten times worse.' They left the street and took a mountain path. Tom could just make out the Catholic Church in the distance.

‘You can't blame parents for looking after their children.'

‘No, but I'd look after you just as well if not better.' He drew closer to her.

‘Please don't start that again.' She changed the subject. ‘How are you at peeling apples?'

‘I'm better at chopping wood.'

‘Then Father Kelly will put you on fuel duty.'

‘He had me on cleaning duties first thing. Before I'd even had breakfast I had to sweep out the hall for him.'

‘And he watched you?' Amy knew that Father Kelly never asked anyone to do something he wouldn't do himself.

‘He went out with the rag and bone man on his cart to look for scrap wood to feed the range. They came back with a load of logs.'

‘I wonder where he found them.'

‘I asked him. He told me not to ask.'

‘The miners working the drifts have offered to supply the kitchen with coal, but he won't take it in case the police come in and see it. No one in Tonypandy has any stocks. The only way of getting coal is by breaking the law. Although I can't understand why it's illegal to dig up and take what's sitting there.'

‘That's the gentry for you. They use crooked laws to lay claim to everything, even things they don't want, just to keep the ordinary working man down.'

‘You talk like my father. Are you a Marxist?'

‘All I believe in is freedom and a man being paid a living wage. But freedom doesn't exist in Ireland and a living wage an impossible dream for most people.'

As they drew close to the church hall Amy saw a dozen boys playing football with a tin can. Behind them women and children had formed a queue, although the soup kitchen wasn't due to start serving meals for another two hours.

‘So many hungry people with nothing to do,' Tom murmured as if he knew what Amy was thinking.

‘Unlike them, we have plenty to do, if they are going to get their supper.' Amy opened the back door of the hall, pushed the hood of her cloak down and called out, ‘Good afternoon, everyone.'

Amy only noticed the silence after she'd hung her cloak on a peg and turned around. Two constables and Sergeant Martin were with Father Kelly. At a nod from Sergeant Martin the constables stepped forward and held Tom's arms.

‘What are you doing?' Amy asked.

‘Not that it's of your business, Miss Watkins, but this man is coming with us,' a constable replied.

‘You can't arrest him, he hasn't done anything,' she protested.

‘We're not arresting Mr Kelly, Miss Watkins.' Sergeant Martin informed her.

One of the constables holding Tom pushed his helmet back, away from his face and Amy recognized Constable Shipton.

‘We're here to remind Mr Kelly of his responsibilities, Miss Watkins.'

‘What responsibilities?' Amy looked to Tom, but he remained silent.

‘We'll continue this discussion in my study, in private.' Father Kelly led the way, the sergeant and constables followed with Tom.

Amy watched them leave before joining Anna and the ladies who had stopped work when she and Tom had arrived. ‘Why are the police taking Tom, Auntie Anna?'

‘I've no idea, love. The officers walked in ten minutes ago asking for Father Kelly's nephew. When he told them that he wasn't here, they said they'd wait. That's all I know. Come on, ladies,' Anna commanded briskly. ‘Start working we've a queue of hungry people waiting out in the rain.'

The women turned back to the tables and carried on preparing vegetables and scraping the last vestiges of mutton from bones.

‘What do you want to do, Amy? Peel apples, or clean vegetables.' Betty Morgan, a strike leader's wife, handed her a paring knife.

‘She'll do the apples with me, Betty.' Anna made room for Amy to join her.

Betty went to the cupboard and opened the door. ‘There's enough flour and sugar to make a couple of tarts. If we have apple left over we'll serve it stewed with the last of tins of condensed milk.'

‘Soup and afters,' Anna declared. ‘Our customers will think it's Christmas.'

The women laughed. Amy took her apron from her basket and tied it over her dress. She picked up an apple and started peeling, but she couldn't stop thinking about Tom Kelly. And wondering why the police had come to “fetch him.”

‘When I signed up to work in the Glamorgan Colliery in Ireland, no one said anything to me about a strike, Sergeant Martin.' Tom remained calm and polite for his uncle's sake.

‘Did you sign a legal document agreeing to work in the colliery for as long as your labour was needed?' Sergeant Martin asked.

‘Yes, but no one said anything about the workers in the colliery striking,' Tom repeated.

‘And, as payment for signing the document you were given a ship's ticket from Ireland to Wales?'

‘I was,' Tom agreed.

‘If you refuse to honour the contract, Mr Craggs has the right to demand immediate repayment of your passage money plus £50 inconvenience money to hire someone to take your place.'

‘So, instead of upholding the law, Sergeant Martin, you and the constables are working for Mr Craggs and colliery management now,' Father Kelly observed.

‘We're enforcing the law, Father.' Sergeant Martin replied. ‘Your nephew has admitted that he entered a legally binding contract, which it appears he wants to break.'

‘I can't pay anyone fifty farthings let alone pounds,' Tom's voice rose sharply. ‘No working man has that kind of money and you know it. My passage from Ireland was three pounds.'

‘And your train ticket to Tonypandy from Cardiff docks another pound,' Constable Shipton took a piece of paper from his pocket and read it. ‘Mr Craggs wants you and your labour, or fifty-four pounds in compensation. And he wants it now.'

‘If my nephew can't pay what he owes, Mr Craggs can send round the Bailiffs.' Father Kelly sat behind his desk. Like Tom, he was finding it difficult to control his temper.

‘If Mr Kelly has fifty-four pounds in goods, or you're prepared to pay his debt for him, Father, we'll collect now,' the sergeant offered.

‘You heard my nephew. He hasn't fifty farthings. And I own nothing except my clothes. Everything you see around you belongs to the church.'

‘Then there would be no point in Mr Craggs hiring bailiffs. And even if he did, by the time they arrived here, your nephew will have long gone,' Constable Shipton prophesied.

Tom didn't deny it. ‘I saw what's happening in Tonypandy this morning. And I'll not take another man's job.'

‘That's your last word on the subject?' Constable Shipton questioned.

‘I'll deal with this, Constable.' Sergeant Martin looked at Tom.

‘I've said all I'm going to.' Tom folded his arms across his chest.

‘Then you leave me no choice but to arrest you for fraud.'

‘Go ahead, arrest me,' Tom answered.

‘You slept in this house last night?' Sergeant Martin questioned.

‘I did,' Tom acknowledged.

‘In which case we will also have to arrest you, Father Kelly, for harbouring a criminal, and your housekeeper for feeding him.'

‘You can't do that,' Tom protested.

‘We can and we will,' Sergeant Martin threatened.

‘The colliers have been creating trouble in the valley for months. There's a backlog of cases waiting to go before the courts,' Constable Shipton warned. ‘You, your uncle and his housekeeper could be kept in prison on remand for months.'

‘My uncle and his housekeeper aren't responsible for my actions,' Tom protested.

‘They aided and abetted you.'

‘They're needed to run the soup kitchen,' Tom insisted.

‘We're needed to bring in donations and distribute what little food there is,' Father Kelly pleaded. ‘Without us, people will go hungry.'

‘The hungrier the better from our point of view,' Constable Shipton narrowed his eyes. ‘If the people around here were really starving, the men would return to work and the constables and soldiers from outside Wales could go home to their own families.'

‘That's enough Shipton.' Sergeant Martin looked at Tom. ‘It's your choice, boy, either you come with us, or we arrest your uncle and his housekeeper as well as you.'

‘I'll come with you.'

Tom saw Constable Shipton reach for the handcuffs clipped to his belt and held out his hands.

‘If you give us your word that you'll come quietly we won't handcuff you,' Sergeant Martin offered.

‘I'll come quietly.'

‘Put your handcuffs away, Shipton.'

‘Where are you taking Tom?' Father Kelly asked.

‘Eventually to the colliery. Mr Craggs has had beds made up for the workers in the lamp room.'

‘I'm sorry, uncle.' Tom apologised. ‘If I'd known what it was like here, I would have never shamed you.'

‘Why didn't you tell me that you'd signed a contract with management last night?'

‘Because I thought I was just taking a job that paid my passage here. It's a long way to America. I couldn't even afford the fare out of Ireland. I thought that if I worked here for a few months I could save the money I'd need for a ship's ticket.'

‘You must have heard of the strike here, even in Ireland.'

‘I'd heard of it, but I didn't realize how much the miners were suffering because of it. I only found out when Miss Watkins showed me around today. The last thing I'd do is knowingly hurt you. You have to believe me.'

‘I believe you, boy,' Father Kelly murmured.

‘Tell the strike leaders, the truth. That I didn't tell you about the contract I signed with colliery management. If it helps, disown me. And, please tell Miss Watkins, I would never steal another man's job. Not willingly.'

‘I'll tell her boy. And I'll tell the strike leaders that you didn't know what you were doing when you signed the agent's paper. Not that it will do any good. Tempers are running too high for anyone to want to listen to the truth.'

Father Kelly watched Constable Shipton grip Tom's arm and march him out of the door.