Strawberry Fields (6 page)
Brogan sighed and felt the baby’s warm weight in his lap with satisfaction. He had missed the kids, working with men all day and lodging with an old couple who cared nothing for the men in their home save to see that they didn’t come indoors the worse for drink. So it was nice to have a baby in his arms again.
And presently, tired and satisfyingly full, with a mug of unaccustomed porter inside him, Brogan, too, slept.
He woke because the baby was wriggling against him, patting his face with one warm, starfished hand. He struggled into a sitting position – he had fallen over whilst he slept, to sag against the wall – and looked around him. The men had all gone, back to their work he supposed. The railway gangs did all sorts; some of them walked a stretch of line, they loaded and unloaded coal or great sides of meat for the cold storage depots, they cleared landslides and created cuttings. Sometimes they manhandled trucks on to whichever stretch of line needed extra freight, or replaced damaged sleepers with new ones . . . oh, they had a thousand and one jobs. But today being Christmas Day they could take it easy – or easier, at any rate. They had volunteered to come in today because they were far from home and could do with the money. And because of the dreadful weather and the sudden snowstorms, they could well find themselves desperately needed. Repairs had to be carried out at once when something went wrong in order that the engines could be ready and in the right place when they were needed next day.
So now, Brogan sat up and looked around him. The coke stove still burned brightly and there were signs that the men had left hurriedly – the tin mugs they drank from were laid on their sides, the newspaper-wrapped bread, cheese and cold mutton had been abandoned, but other than that he was alone with the sleeping girl and the baby.
The snow must have caused a problem, Brogan thought, getting to his feet, the baby still tucked in his arm. I’d best get out there now, or there’ll be trouble – why did Peader leave me to sleep, I wonder? He sat the baby on the ground near the girl, who was slumbering still, well away.
‘Stay there, Moll,’ Brogan whispered to her. It would be a cryin’ shame to wake the girl Jess so it would and her such a poor, skinny young thing! ‘Wait wit’ your sister until she wakes.’
The baby looked up at him, beaming, showing a tooth in her bottom jaw. Then she began to crawl towards the source of the warmth and light – the coke burner. Hastily Brogan turned her with his boot, edging her in the opposite direction, but it didn’t last. The baby gurgled and set off once more for the stove, chuckling. Brogan, already turning towards the doorway, paused, uncertain. He could wake the girl, but it seemed awful hard – why should he not simply tuck the baby inside his donkey jacket and take her with him? It wasn’t as though he would be outside for long, he would only go and find Peader, see if he was needed. If he was, he’d run back, wake the girl, leave the baby in her care, but if he wasn’t, he would go back to the cabin and play with the baby himself, keep her occupied, until the girl woke naturally.
The thin blanket lay under the girl’s head, but his coat was warm. He tucked the baby under his coat, buttoned it up, and set off into the early winter dusk. The baby was so light it made him want to cry all of a sudden, but he scolded himself. You’re a man, Brogan O’Brady, he reminded himself, you work as a navvy, you can’t shed tears because a baby’s half-starved. And anyway, I’ll tell the girl to bring her down again in our dinner-break. There’s always something from me carryout which she could have and welcome. We won’t desert her, now we’ve found her.
When Jess awoke it was full dark and for several moments she had no idea where she was. She lay on a hard floor – well, there was nothing strange in
that
– but instead of darkness, with a lighter patch where the window should have been, there was a comforting red glow – and she was warm.
that
– but instead of darkness, with a lighter patch where the window should have been, there was a comforting red glow – and she was warm.
Luxuriating in this unusual awakening, she simply lay there for a moment, gazing round her. Warmth in winter! It so seldom happened to her, but it was true that right now she was warm and cosy from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. So Mollie must be warm too, and . . .
Mollie! In a flash, she remembered everything, the girl called Sara in the beautiful red coat and hat who had given her money and a pair of white woolly gloves, the baker’s shop where they had let her have three fine loaves of bread and two currant buns, the dairy where she’d bought the cheese and they had poured a generous measure of milk into the old bully beef tin. Then there was the long walk through the freezing snow and wind . . . and the discovery of the cabin and the friendly Irish navvies.
But . . . where were they? She was alone, the baby had gone . . . had Mollie crawled out into the darkness? Jess scrambled to her feet and ran to the doorway. To eyes which had been gazing dreamily at the coke burner, the early evening outside seemed black indeed, but no baby cried against the shrilling of the wind. She could see no small, crawling figure amidst the gleaming rails.
But she could not see the men, either. Quickly, because she could not bear to lose her few possessions, Jess returned to the cabin and picked up what was left of the loaves, the little white gloves which must have fallen from the baby’s feet, and the thin blanket. All the milk had gone, gobbled up as sops by herself and the child. It did not cross her mind that the men might have taken Mollie for her own protection, she simply knew that she must find her little sister. Mollie was an innocent child, Jess her only protector. She simply must find her!
Alone, with the blanket around her shoulders giving her what little protection it could, Jess set out into the storm.
Brogan slogged across the rails to where, dimly, he could see a lantern’s light, and speedily found himself reunited with his father and the other men. They were standing by the side of the track, looking anxiously towards the engine sheds. Peader greeted him with relief.
‘Ah, there you are, me boy! I was wonderin’ whether I ought to run and get you, though you were sleepin’ so sound, you and the little girls . . .’
‘What’s happened, Daddy?’ Brogan asked. ‘I woke and found you all gone so I guessed you’d been called away.’
‘Landslide,’ his father said briefly. ‘Further up the line. They’re sendin’ us up on an engine to see if we can clear it. We could do wi’ your muscle, Brog.’
‘Right; but I’d best run back to the cabin . . .’ Brogan was beginning, when he heard the thump and rattle of an approaching train.
‘Too late, boyo,’ Declan said. ‘She’s comin’, and she won’t wait for no man, let alone a bit of a boy.’
The engine drew up beside them. The driver, a Liverpudlian, leaned out, blinking against the falling flakes.
‘Let’s be ’avin’ you, fellers,’ he said cheerfully. ‘No need to watch for signals today, we’re the only train on this line. Gerrin the guard’s van, then we can gerrup steam. It’s ten mile out, by whar’ I’ve been told; a tree’s acrost the line an’ the snow’s caused a landslip. But you’re big fellers, it won’t take you a month of Sundays to clear it.’
‘True,’ Peader said. They waited until the guard’s van was level with them, then they clambered aboard. Peader turned to heave his son up by one elbow, then stared at him. ‘What’s that you’ve got under your jacket, son?’ he began to say, when the train started to move . . . with the men and the hidden child firmly ensconced in the guard’s van.
Panic hit Jess as soon as she was out in the middle of the rails, trying to get across them to a light she could see burning, vaguely, through the fast-falling snow. Her bare feet, in their holey, battered boots, were constantly stubbed against a rail or a sleeper she could no longer see for the blanket of snow, and the lantern light seemed to move as she ran, and always further away.
But she knew she must keep going, must find Mollie. Her little sister was only a tender baby, and would not last long alone and blanketless under such conditions.
She heard a noise coming from the direction of the engine sheds but ignored it. She had lived near the railway long enough to know the sound of an engine being coaled up, getting up steam, but she knew it took a long time, too. Probably someone was preparing the engines for work the following day. So she simply hurried on, climbing on to a sleeper, then hurrying between the lines, sure that if she did not move fast when she did find Mollie, the child would be a tiny, frozen corpse.
She was actually standing on a rail when she felt it begin to vibrate. That’s odd, Jess thought vaguely, and jumped down on to the hardcore between the rails, wincing as it penetrated the cardboard soles of her boots. There aren’t any trains today, the fellers said so – wonder what that is, then?
She glanced to her right as she stepped on to the next rail, which was vibrating worse than ever . . . and opened her mouth to scream.
But she never made a sound. The train struck her, carried her along, dropped her . . . devoured her into its great, clanking steel maw.
She never heard the squeal of the train’s brakes nor the engine note change as the driver decided he had hit a slight obstruction on the line and speeded up once more. Like a rag doll she lay where she had been thrown, oblivious, at last, to rain, hail or snow, to wind and weather.
As soon as he could, Brogan showed Peader the child’s small face beneath his coat and told him what had happened, but what with the rocking of the train and the warmth, Mollie was fast asleep again and Peader shrugged, chuckled, and said not to worry.
‘The girl was sleepin’ when you left her. Likely she’ll sleep sound until we get back,’ he said comfortably. ‘She’d drunk porter, she was warm, she felt safe. Sure she’ll sleep until the job’s done.’
The other men grinned when they saw the baby, but agreed with Peader that no harm would be done by taking her with them.
‘I never seen a child sleep sounder than young Jess,’ Declan said. ‘She’ll not worry about the babe, not yet awhile.’
And then they arrived at the scene of the landslide and Brogan left the child wrapped warmly in his jacket in a corner of the guard’s van whilst he and the other men struggled to clear the line. The tree, a huge one, had crashed down, bringing what looked like a mountain of earth with it. The men looked at the great tree, measured it with their eyes, spat on their hands and waded in. They got the tree off the line by sheer brute force, three a side, with Brogan doing his best and the fireman and the driver, who were ‘big-wigs’ and shouldn’t have had to labour, willingly giving a hand. After all, it was Christmas Day!
Then the driver and the fireman climbed back into the cab and the labourers got out the huge, oddly shaped shovels which Brogan had found so hard to handle at first, and began to dig.
‘Sure and I never t’ought I’d be movin’ mountains almost on me own when I crossed the water,’ Paddy panted, but the big shovel swung rhythmically as he spoke and he never missed a load. ‘A good job they offered double pay today, for I’m sure as a man can be that this is double work.’
‘You want to do it wit’out your donkey jacket,’ Peader joked. ‘Look at me son, now, an’ him as skinny as a tinker’s ass, but he’s swingin’ wit’ the best of us, so he is.’
It took longer than they had guessed, however, and it was full dark before they climbed back into the guard’s van, dog-weary.
‘The girl’s bound to have woke be now,’ Brogan worried. ‘Sure an’ she’ll want me guts for garters so she will when she sees I’ve got the baby.’
‘She won’t wake yet; she’ll be deep in her first sleep,’ Paddy protested. ‘That wee girl hadn’t had a warm sleep or a dacent meal for months be the look of her. Just you sit down an’ rest, Brog. ’Twon’t harm.’
So Brogan sat down in the draughty guard’s van, and he was so tired, so muscle-weary, that soon he slept.
Brogan dreamed. He dreamed he was in a huge meadow, gay with flowers, and a soft breeze blew the scented air to him and the sun shone gold out of a clear blue sky overhead. The hedgerows were full of wild roses and honeysuckle, with the verge pink with foxgloves.
Brogan wandered in the meadow for a while, drowsily content, whilst the bees hummed and the birds sang and called and the sweet scents of summer charmed him. And then, coming across the grass, he saw a girl, and as she got closer, he saw that it was Jess, and he knew she had come for the baby
He looked round wildly; there was no railway line, no embankment, no engine or train or anything of that nature anywhere near. And the girl was smiling at him, holding out her hands to him.
He turned away; how could he tell her he had taken the baby, and now he had lost her? But he could not run from her, so he stood his ground and presently he turned reluctantly towards her and he saw that she was very clean, and that her tangled hair had been washed and brushed. She looked pretty, he thought wonderingly, she was a really pretty girl, no longer a forlorn and ragged waif.
She smiled sweetly at him, then she spoke. ‘Brogan? Where’s me baby sister?’
He began to say he’d lost the child, and then something made him remember putting her inside his donkey jacket. He shoved a hand into the breast of it and there was the baby, cuddled up against his chest, warm and softly sleeping. He grinned at Jess and drew back the coat to show her the child nestling within.
‘There she is, alanna,’ he said softly, relief washing over him in waves. ‘There she is, safe as houses and pretty as a picture. Will you be takin’ her now, then?’
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