The Stars Look Down (90 page)

Led by Ramage, cheers were raised and raised again. The cheers intoxicated Joe; he felt himself a born orator, elevated by the approval of his own conscience and of his fellow men. He beamed and shook hands with everyone near him, then he marched down the steps.

As he reached the pavement, a little boy got entangled with his legs and fell. Stooping in an excess of kindliness, Joe picked him up and set him on his bare feet.

“There,” he laughed paternally. “There!”

Joe’s laugh seemed to startle the boy, who was a very ragged little boy of about six, with a pallid underfed face and uncut hair falling over big frightened eyes, and all at once he began to cry. His mother, holding a baby to her with one arm, came forward to pluck him out of Joe’s way with the other.

“He’s a fine little lad, missus,” Joe beamed. “A regular champion. What’s his name?”

The young woman flushed nervously at finding herself the object of the great man’s attention. She tightened the skimpy shawl which bound the baby to her and ventured timidly:

“His name’s Joey Townley, Mr. Gowlan. His father’s brother, that’s to say his uncle, Tom Townley, worked in the heading next yours in the Paradise, when you used to work inbye yourself. Before you became… like you are now… like.”

“Well, well,” Joe rejoined, beaming. “Would you believe
it! And does your husband work in the Neptune an’ all, Mrs. Townley?”

Mrs. Townley blushed more deeply, confused, ashamed, terrified at her own boldness.

“No, Mr. Gowlan, sir, he’s on the dole. But, oh sir, if he could just get back in work…”

Joe nodded his head with sudden gravity.

“You leave it to me, missus. That’s why I’m fightin’ this election,” he announced fervently. “Yes, by God, I’m goin’ to change things for the better here.” He patted little Joe Townley’s head and smiled again, facing the crowd with magnificent modesty. “A fine little lad. And Joe too! Well, well, who knows, he might turn out to be another Joe Gowlan hisself!”

Still beaming, he moved away towards his waiting car. The effect was superb. News spread up and down the Terraces that Joe Gowlan was going to take back Sarah Townley’s man and give him a first-class job inbye, the best heading in the pit. There were a few like Sarah Townley in Sleescale. It all did Joe a vast amount of good.

Joe’s power as a speaker developed. He had good lungs, absolute assurance and a throat of brass. He blared at them. He was virile. He developed slogans. Huge posters appeared and spread across every hoarding in the town.

He was a bulwark of morality; but, of course, intensely human, a man’s man, a regular sport. At his first meeting in New Bethel Street School, after exhorting his listeners to support the Flag, he beamed upon them slyly:

“And put your shirt on
Radio
at the next Gosforth Park Races.”
Radio
was his own horse. The tip sent his stock booming.

Often, too, his dignity as a man of substance and position
would yield, dissolve, melt down to the bones of god-fearing humility.

“I’m one of yourselves, lads,” he cried. “I wassent born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I was brought up hard and proper. I fought my way up. It’s my policy to give every one of you the chance to do the same!”

But his trump card, never thrown down openly, but skilfully displayed up his sleeve, was his power to afford them employment. Though he was human, one of themselves, a man who had been ground through the mill, he was nevertheless the Boss. Behind all his brag and bluster he exhibited himself as their benefactor, who had taken over the derelict Neptune, who now proposed to find honest work for every man jack of them. That would come, naturally, after the Election.

His campaign grew in flamboyance and power. Ramage, who had once kicked the youthful Joe’s backside for stealing a pig’s bladder, was now his most devoted toady. At Ramage’s behest, the Rev. Low preached a fervid sermon from New Bethel Street pulpit, extolling the virtues of law and order and Mr. Joseph Gowlan, and condemning to the everlasting outer darkness those who dared to vote for Fenwick. Connolly, at the gas-works, had declared openly that any employee who did not support Gowlan was a b—Red and would be sacked on the spot. The Tynecastle Press was solid for Joe. Jim Mawson, enigmatically in the background, pulled several strings in the high cause of humanity. Every day two aeroplanes flew over from the Rusford works and gambolled in advertisement above Sleescale. On fine afternoons there was even some accidental sky writing. Money talked in many devious ways. Strange men were seen in Sleescale, mingling with the workers, making groups at the street corners, standing treat in the Salutation. As for promises—Joe promised everything.

David saw the forces marshalled against him, and he fought back with a desperate courage. But how pitiful his weapons were against Joe’s armoury! Everywhere he turned he felt an insidious grip upon him, limiting his activities, crushing him. Unsparingly, he redoubled his efforts, using all his physical resources, all the training and experience of his political career. The more he battled, the more Joe countered. The heckling, which from the outset had interrupted David’s meetings, now became unmerciful. Ordinary interruptions
he could deal with and often turn to his own advantage. But this heckling was not legitimate. It came from a gang of Tynecastle rowdies who turned up at every meeting organised under Pete Bannon, ex-middle weight and bartender from the Malmo Wharf, ready and willing for trouble. Free fights regularly took place; it became the rule for all David’s outdoor meetings to be broken up in wild disorder. Wilson, the agent, protested furiously to the police and demanded adequate protection. His protest was apathetically received.

“It’s none of our business,” Roddam told him impudently. “This Bannon has nothing to do with us. You can find your own b—stewards.”

The clean campaign continued, developing along subtler lines. On the morning of the following Tuesday, on the way to his committee rooms, David was met by a notice, roughly splashed in white paint on the wall at the end of Lamb Lane:
Ask Fenwick about his wife
. His face paled, he took a step forward as if to wipe out the indignity. Useless, quite useless. The notice shrieked all over the town, every prominent wall and house-end, even the railway sidings, bore the brutal and unanswerable words. In a mist of pain and horror, David went along Lamb Street and entered his rooms. Wilson and Harry Ogle were waiting on him. Both had seen the notice. Ogle’s face worked with indignation.

“It’s too bad, David,” he groaned. “It’s too damnable. We’ve got to go to him… lodge a protest.”

“He’ll only deny it,” David answered in a steely voice. “Nothing would please him better than for us to go whining to him.”

“Then by God we’ll get our own back somehow,” Harry answered passionately. “I’ll have something to say about him when I speak for you at the Snook to-night.”

“No, Harry.” David shook his head with sudden determination. “I’ll have no retaliation.”

Lately in the face of this organised persecution he had felt neither anger nor hatred, but an extraordinary intensification of his inward life. He saw this inward life as the real explanation of man’s existence, independent of the forms of religion, inseparably detached from the material plane. Purity of motive was the only standard, the real expression of the soul. Nothing else mattered. And the fullness of this
spiritual interpretation of his own purpose left no room for malice or hatred.

But Harry Ogle felt otherwise. Harry was on fire with indignation, his simple soul demanded fair play, or at least the plain justice of measure for measure. At the Snook that night, where, at eight o’clock, he was holding a supporters’ open-air meeting on his own, Harry was carried away and so far forgot himself as to criticise Joe’s tactics. David had been up at Hedley Road End, the new miners’ rows, and he did not reach home until late. It was a darkish, windy night. Several times a sound outside caused him to look up in anticipation, for he expected Harry to look in to let him know how the Snook meeting had gone. At ten o’clock he rose to lock the front door. It was then Harry stumbled in upon him, his face white and bloodied, half-fainting, bleeding profusely from a gash above his eye.

Lying flat on the couch with a cold compress laid on the gaping wound, while David sent Jack Kinch tearing for Dr. Scott, Harry gasped shakily:

“Coming back over the Snook they set about us, Davey—Bannon and his hooligans. I’d happened to say about Gowlan sweatin’ his employees like, an’ about him makin’ fightin’ aeroplanes an’ munitions. I’d have held my own, lad, but one o’ them had a bit o’ lead pipe…” Harry smiled weakly and fainted altogether.

Harry took ten stitches in his forehead, then Harry was carried to his bed. Naturally, Joe flamed with righteous wrath. Could such a thing happen on British soil! From the platform of the Town Hall he denounced the Red Fiends, the Bolshies, who could turn, even, and assault their own leaders. He sent Harry Ogle messages of sympathy. Great prominence was given to Joe’s solicitude; his most magnanimous trumpetings were printed verbatim in the newspapers. Altogether, the incident redounded highly to his credit.

But the loss of Harry’s personal support was a serious blow for David. Harry, a respected figure, carried weight in Sleescale with the cautious element, and now the older men, mystified and slightly intimidated, began to think better of attending David’s meetings. At that moment, too, the wave of hysteria sweeping the country against Labour reached its climax. Terror was driven into the hearts of the people by wild predictions of financial ruin. Frenzied pictures were
drawn of the worker, paid in handfuls of worthless paper, desperately seeking to purchase food. And far from attributing the impending cataclysm to the end results of the existing economic system, everything was laid upon the shoulders of Labour. Don’t let them take your money, was the cry. The issue was Money. We must keep our Money, at all costs keep it, preserve it, this sacred thing. Money… Money!

With almost superhuman endurance, David threw himself into a final effort. On October 26th he toured the town in the old light lorry which had borne him to his original success. He was in the open all day, snatching a mouthful of food between times. He spoke till his voice was almost gone. At eleven o’clock, after a last naphtha-flare meeting outside the Institute, he returned to Lamb Lane, and flung himself upon his bed, exhausted. He fell asleep instantly. The next day was polling day.

Early reports indicated a heavy poll. David remained indoors all the forenoon. He had done his best, given of his utmost; for the present he could give no more. Consciously, he did not anticipate the result, nor preconsider the verdict to be delivered upon him by his own people. Yet beneath the surface, his mind struggled between hope and fear. Sleescale had always been a safe seat for Labour, a stronghold of the miners. The men knew he had worked and fought for them. If he had failed it was not his fault. Surely they would give him the chance to work and fight for them again. He did not underrate Gowlan, nor the strategic advantage of Gowlan’s position as owner of the Neptune. He was aware that Joe’s unscrupulous methods had undoubtedly split the solidarity of the men; cast doubts and suspicion on his own reputation. Remembering that hateful reference to Jenny, which had damaged him more than all Joe’s misrepresentation, David’s heart contracted. He had a quick vision of Jenny lying in the grave. And at that a surge of pity and aspiration came over him, the old familiar feeling, intensified and strengthened. He wanted with all his soul to win, to prove the good in humanity rather than the bad. They had accused him of preaching Revolution. But the only Revolution he demanded was in the heart of man, an escape from meanness, cruelty and self-interest towards that devotion and nobility of which the human heart was capable. Without that, all other change was futile.

Towards six o’clock David went out to visit Harry Ogle and while he walked slowly up Cowpen Street he observed a figure advancing along Freehold Street. It was Arthur Barras. As they approached each other David kept his eyes straight ahead, thinking that Arthur might not wish to recognise him. But Arthur stopped.

“I’ve been up to vote for you,” he said, quite abruptly. His voice was flat, almost harsh, his cheek sallow and inclined to twitch. The odour of spirits came from his breath.

“I’m obliged to you, Arthur,” David answered.

A silence.

“I’d been underground this afternoon. But when I came outbye, I suddenly remembered.”

David’s eyes were troubled and full of pity. He said awkwardly:

“I hardly expected your support.”

“Why not?” Arthur said. “I’m nothing now, neither red nor blue nor anything else.” Then with sudden bitterness:

“What does it matter, anyhow?”

Another silence, through which the words he had just spoken seemed to wrench at Arthur. He raised his heavy eyes to David’s helplessly.

“Funny, isn’t it?” he said. “Ending up like this.” With an expressionless nod he turned and made his way down the street.

David continued on his way to Ogle’s, touched and profoundly troubled by this encounter, where so little had been said and everything implied. It was like a warning: how terrible defeat could be. Arthur’s ideals were shattered, he had stepped away from life, shrinking, with every fibre crying: “I have suffered enough. I will suffer no more.” The battle was over, the flame had gone out. David sighed as he turned into Ogle’s house.

He spent the evening with Harry, who was considerably better and in bright spirits. Though both their minds were concentrated on the coming result, they talked little of the election. Harry, however, in his gentle, thoughtful manner, predicted victory—anything else was unthinkable. After supper they played cribbage, to which game Harry was an addict, until nearly eleven o’clock. But David’s eyes kept straying towards the clock. Now that he must know so soon, an intolerable sense of strain possessed him. Twice he suggested it was time for him to go, that the counting at the
Town Hall must be well upon the way. But Ogle, aware, perhaps, of David’s anxiety, insisted that he remain a little longer. The result could not be known before two o’clock. In the meantime here was a comfortable fire and a chair. So David acquiesced, curbing his restlessness, expectation and uneasiness. But finally, just after one o’clock, he rose. Before he left the room Harry shook him by the hand.