The Killing Snows

by Charles Egan

  The two men went on working, not even stopping when the next Mass started. More bald, bearded children appeared in the line. Luke felt horrified, but forced himself to concentrate on his task. As for the children, many were the only ones in the family who could work. He had to take them.

  When they finished, they had eighty names. There were twenty tickets left. The priest joined them. They went through the names again, and the priest undertook to find those who would receive the remaining tickets.

  They returned to Gallaghers. Dinner was a silent affair. Luke was torn. Winnie excited him. The Selection had horrified and sickened him. Fox-children. He felt his mind was dividing in two.

  They went to bed early. Then the foxes came. The vixen, huge and terrifying. Dry dugs. The cubs, red-eyed and starving. Ribs showing through. He was running. The cubs were at his heels, grabbing at them. The vixen leaped on him.

  He woke with a cry. He was trembling. The quiet breathing of the three sleeping boys brought him back. No one had heard.

  He thought of Winnie. Grey eyes, laughing at him. The nightmare died. The trembling stopped. He slept.

  Pat put his pen down and stared out the window of the small office in the administration building. He could see across the lawns to the front gate of the Union. They were still there, as they had been for weeks, hundreds of people waiting in silence. He was feeling low and lonesome, homesick for Carrigard in a way he had never felt in Castle Bromwich. Home was six miles away – two hours walking only.

  The administration block was in front of the Workhouse and faced onto one of the streets of Knockanure. It was where the crowd was densest. Pat knew that there were more at the back gate, but he preferred not to go there unless there was a reason to do so. He only went out when he had to; it was hard enough to get in and out through the crowds. His first morning had taught him that lesson. As he had let McKinnon and his horse out, three men had broken in past him, and had to be rounded up by the inmates and ejected. Pat was agile enough to get in and out by climbing over the gate. There were two inmates on guard at either end to prevent anyone else from following him.

  His work left him in a strange position. He was supposed to be working for the Poor Law Union, not the Workhouse. The Union covered the barony, and while it included the Workhouse, it was also responsible for the Relief Works outside. But in the deepening crisis his official position no longer mattered, and Pat found himself pressed into working on the accounts and administration of the Workhouse as well as the Union.

  He had been given an assistant, an inmate of the Workhouse. He was an elderly man who had spent many years in Liverpool. He spoke little, but from what Pat could determine he had been an inmate of the Liverpool Workhouse too. The old man had a morbid fear of death and an obsessive wish to die in his own county rather than an English city. The Workhouse in Liverpool had obliged him by putting him on a ship to Dublin with dozens of other Irish who had been expelled from England because the local Unions saw no need to support Irish beggars. He had walked across Ireland, and had been in a famished state when he reached Knockanure. He had arrived ahead of the rush to the Workhouse and had been admitted. When they discovered that he could add and subtract, he had been taken off stone-breaking and put working on accounts.

  At first he resented Pat. At sixty he was over three times Pat’s age, and it rankled him to be working under him. For the first few weeks he was sour and quiet, but then he opened up, and if he didn’t like the situation, he at least tolerated it.

  Voisey came through once a week for the meeting of the Guardians, together with Sir Albert Clanowen, whose estate stretched from the Mountain to the other side of Knockanure. Voisey would scrutinise every detail of Pat’s work, and Pat expected to be called in front of the meeting, but he never was.

  Every few weeks, McKinnon called by. This was Pat’s only real source of information on Carrigard and Kilduff. He had no use for his wages in the Union, and he would give them to McKinnon, together with a brief letter to take back to Michael. At first he looked forward to McKinnon’s visits, but as time went on the reports on what was happening around Carrigard became more and more terrible. He questioned McKinnon too on what he saw in other parts of the county, and this depressed him more. He began to realise that the Workhouses were only taking in a fraction of the people who were hungry.

  News from the outside world filtered through in other ways too, becoming more horrifying as time progressed. Other surveyors from Castlebar stopped at the Union; pay clerks too. It was far too dangerous for them to stay outside when they were travelling from Castlebar with large sums of money. Regardless of which barony they were travelling to, the Union put them all up, giving them dinner and a bed for the night. By preference they slept in the administration block rather than the Workhouse. Many nights Pat had to share his bed with strangers. It struck him that some of these men might be in the early stages of fever without knowing it and could pass it on to him, but there was nowhere else to sleep in the Union buildings. One night, one of the men tried to grope him in the crotch. After that, he slept in his office sitting in his chair, slumped over the desk. At first he found it impossible to sleep this way, but he got used to it and slept as well as he would have in his own bed.

  His work for the Union was paid, his work for the Workhouse was not. He knew he could refuse, but he also knew that he was lucky to have good dinners in the administration block, and he felt in conscience he had to do what he was asked. Then the old man disappeared into the fever sheds, and Pat never saw him again. With all the extra work now, he was working seven days a week, adding long columns of figures and writing out requisitions in the guttering candlelight, his eyes red and raw by the evening.

  Conditions in the Workhouse shocked him. It was overcrowded, with twice the number of inmates it was designed for. The latrine shed stank, but a pit was being dug for a new one. At the side wall on the other side of the Workhouse, another pit was dug as a mass grave. Every night corpses were thrown into it, every morning more was dug, and the grave grew longer.

  Inside the Workhouse building families had been split into male and female, each separate. In the dormitories, the inmates were sleeping sometimes two or three to a bed, sometimes on straw on the floor with rough blankets thrown over them. The refectory was just as bad. The old system of using tables and benches could no longer cope, and the Master had instituted a new system to run alongside it. Only children were fed at the tables. For the men and women a sort of shelf had been installed along three walls of the refectory. Their food was ladled into their bowls, and a mug of buttermilk given to them. As they ate and drank, they shuffled along the shelves, and when they got to the end, the bowls and mugs were returned, washed in a greasy barrel, and transferred to the start of the shelf again.

  Worst of all though were the fever sheds. Pat tried to avoid these as much as possible. The inmates were not being treated, they were only brought to the sheds to separate them from the rest of the Workhouse. Here too, beds were occupied by two or three patients. Pat always associated the sheds with the smell of urine, gangrene and decaying flesh. He wondered how the inmates cleaning the sheds survived. He was surprised though when the Workhouse doctor died, since he had spent little time in the sheds. Checking patients for illness seemed to be dangerous enough in itself.

  Most of the patients had black fever, but some had other diseases, and some were showing the advanced signs of hunger, including diarrhoea. Thinking of his own fears of fever, he wondered whether it was wise to have more than one in a bed. Black fever was contagious. But then it struck him that those who did not have it were dying from other causes anyhow, and picking up black fever too might not matter much. The thought shocked him. He felt that he himself was becoming uncaring. But he knew there was no other way. If he worried about the horror he was seeing, he would not be able to do his job. Which was worse?

  Once he thought he recognised Sorcha in a thin old wom
an outside the fever sheds, but he could not be certain, and he never saw her again. Her face kept coming back to him in his dreams, and over time he became more certain that it had been her.

  The only aspect of the Workhouse that cheered him was dinner on Sundays. This was for his unpaid work at the Workhouse, and while it was not as appetising as he had been used to, even in Castle Bromwich, it was a welcome change from the weekday fare. It was the only time of the week that he would taste meat.

  Sunday dinner was another source of information since it was attended, not only by the Master and Matron, but also any guardians, surveyors or pay clerks who happened to be in the area. Doctor Connolly had been there until he died. Doctor Short had replaced him two weeks later. Pat liked these discussions. He enjoyed listening to educated men, even if most of the discussion was about the administration of Relief and the working of Workhouses and fever sheds. Most of all, though, he enjoyed the company of the Cronins’ daughter.

  She was attractive, there was no doubt of that. But she was older than him and of a different class. At nights, he found himself thinking about her and seeing her face. He dreamed of what it might be like to have a woman like that. But he was only dreaming dreams, and every morning brought him back to the harsh reality of the Workhouse.

  Then one day, she came to his office.

  ‘You’re working too hard,’ she told him.

  He looked at her, not knowing what to say. ‘You think…you think I’m working too hard?’

  ‘I know you are. I’ve been watching you.’ She crossed the room. ‘Now push over and show me what you’re doing. I can add too, you know.’

  As to – Sir Robert PeelKnockanure Union

  Drayton ManorKnockanure

  Tamworth Co. Mayo

  Staffordshire

  September 19th 1846

  My Dear Robert

  I regret that I had not written to you earlier, but since I arrived in Mayo, I have been travelling and examining potatoes every day.

  Last week I visited the area around Kilduff, a small village in the eastern part of Mayo. I met with a Mr. Ryan, a schoolmaster from outside the town, and what he told me was shocking. The situation here is even worse than Kildare. It appears that the potato crop has failed, and failed totally. Already the death toll from fever and hunger is terrible and increasing daily. What now lies in store for Mayo, I truly cannot conceive.

  Today, I came to the Poor Law Union in Knockanure and met with a Mr. James Voisey, a man recommended to me by the Friends in Kildare. He tells me that the Workhouse in Knockanure is hugely over-crowded, and they are turning hundreds away every day. He brought me around the Workhouse, and it is in an appalling condition.

  I am now writing to the Friends in Staffordshire to request aid for this part of Mayo. I intend then to stay in Knockanure, so that I can organise our relief efforts from this end. You may of course write to me here, care of James Voisey at the Poor Law Union.

  I understand from Caroline that you and Julia visit her every week, and I appreciate this more than I can tell. In her last letter, she said she would join me here in Mayo. I have written asking her not to, and I know that you will do all in your power to dissuade her.

  She is too gentle for this place. Mayo would break her heart.

  I remain, your true friend,

  Edward Yardley

  Chapter Thirteen

  Tyrawly Herald, November 1846:

  On Friday morning last a woman named Melody died of starvation near Palmerstown. The unfortunate creature procured shelter during the previous night in the cabin of another poor woman, and, while there, drank a mixture of a very small quantity of meal she had with her and some water. She slept on some straw, and, in the morning, when she made an effort to get up, she fell from exhaustion, and died shortly afterwards.

  Luke spent the next afternoon and evening at the table with his papers, calculating how much money he would need for wages and for supplies. Later on he joined the Gallaghers at the fire, talking about the Selection and hunger around Brockagh.

  Through it all though, he still felt the attraction to Winnie. He wondered what it was about her, what was different. Face, legs, breasts? Her hair? Everything and nothing. She looked no different to many other women of her age. He could not stop glimpsing at her when he thought no-one was looking, but often she would catch his eye.

  Gallagher was suspicious, he was sure of it. Yet there was no need, nothing had passed between them. Gallagher could not know, he could not see into his thoughts. And her glances? What did they mean? Nothing, he was just imagining it. Gallagher had no need to be suspicious of either of them. And even if he was suspicious, why would he be worried? Luke thought back to Kilduff and Carrigard. All the women – and men – who would have seen him as an excellent match for their daughters. What possible reason could there be for Gallagher not to see things the same way? He thought about that. There were many.

  Gallagher knew nothing of him. Luke was a stranger who had come into Brockagh, and, even worse, a Government man. Perhaps Mrs. Gallagher had her fears too, afraid that he would take her daughter away from her and away from Brockagh. Perhaps they had other plans for their daughter. Perhaps they had another match in mind. Perhaps it was just the natural instinct of the father to protect his daughter, the thought of any man having her. Or perhaps it was the thought of the dowry. Who could afford a dowry now? He would be able to reassure Gallagher on that point, no dowry was necessary. If things ever got that far. If, if, if.

  Or perhaps it was not the girl at all. Gallagher was a tough man, a proud one too. He thought of other tough men he had known – his father, Farrelly, Gaffney and more. Such men would find it hard to work under a younger man. They would be ashamed too of their families going hungry, ashamed of being on Relief and the need for it. He thought again of his father six years ago, the humiliation, the shattered pride. Yes, perhaps that was it. Gallagher resented him. And that gave him even more reason to protect his daughter against a man like him.

  Luke and Gallagher took the other gangers into Castlebar to buy hardware and other supplies. They took Gallagher’s horse and wagon, together with three carts with donkeys. Gallagher had found another horse to make a pair for the wagon, but the second one was weaker, and kept dragging the wagon to the side.

  Luke walked alongside it, holding it close to the bit and leading it along. Gallagher walked alongside, explaining about the road, the hardware stores in Castlebar, and the carrying capacity of the carts and wagon. Luke was only half conscious of what he was saying. He was thinking of other things. Grey eyes! He glanced at Gallagher, he wanted to ask him about her, but every time he thought of her, his resolve died. He tried a different approach.

  ‘Young John seems a sharp lad.’

  ‘He is,’ Gallagher replied. ‘Another year or two, he’ll be able to help me with this carting business. We’ll build it back up again to what it was last year. Maybe we’ll start sending wagons to Castlebar again. Westport even. Who knows?’

  Yes, he thought, the wagon. And not just one.

  ‘Wagons to Westport,’ he exclaimed, pretending surprise.

  ‘Yes,’ Gallagher answered. ‘Westport, Galway even. And why not? There’s a need for transport around here. Or at least there will be as soon as this damned hunger is over.’

  Transport? He was right. That wagon hadn’t just appeared. Gallagher had ambitions, or at least he once had. He decided to change the subject.

  ‘And Bernie and Frankie. What will they do?’

  ‘Damned if I know. A year or two ago I thought they’d work with me here. But things are different now. I suppose they’ll go to England when the time comes. They’ll be working on the rails. Just like you did, and I did. Nothing changes.’

  They had come to a deeply rutted part of the road. They tried to lead the horse and donkeys along the edge of the road, the wheels crunching
on one side and along the raised centre. The road was getting steep, and the men led the animals forward at speed. But the horse went too close to the edge, and the wagon wheels slipped into the ditch. Gallagher urged it forward and out as the other men pushed hard at the rear. After much cursing and swearing, they brought it clear and reached the brow of the hill.

  They walked along in silence for a few moments. Then Gallagher spoke. ‘I’ve seen the way you look at my daughter, and I know what you’re thinking.’

  ‘I’m not thinking anything,’ Luke replied. ‘She’s a good looking girl, your daughter, and any man might look at her for that. But there’s nothing more than that to it.’

  ‘There had better not be.’

  Luke said nothing. The wagon and carts rattled along the road. The horse’s hooves were striking the stones and crunching the gravel. He could see the potato patches interspersed between the corn, leaves blackened and withered. He could smell the stink of blight. They passed a mud cabin. There was a ragged woman with four children standing outside it. They watched the wagon and carts in silence.

  The day after, they measured out the road. This was easier than it had been at Carrigard. It involved road improvement, with only a few hundred yards of new road. Some corners were to be straightened, potholes and ruts filled in, and in some places the undulating road was to be levelled by excavation and infilling. The main work was digging new drains on either side. The surveying did not take very long, and Luke was able to explain their duties to each of the gangers. It had been agreed that Gallagher would take responsibility for this site, while Luke and Durcan would establish the new Works at Lisnadee two weeks later.

  Next day, the Works commenced. As they were allocating the workmen, including the women and children, he noticed a number of marked differences from Carrigard. There were more women on the Works. There were children too. Should he have allowed it. But the people here were much weaker anyhow. Hunger was carved into their faces, disease too. He had not thought of that before. Was it wise to have feverish people working alongside others, where infection could be spread? He did not know the answer to that. Nor did he know why the children had the growth on their faces, but he was starting to link it with the extreme stages of hunger rather than fever.