Bloodie Bones

by Lucienne Boyce

  “And how,” asked Buller, pouring out Witt’s beer, “is poor Ford? That’s a bad business, a very bad business.”

  Witt did not answer until he had slaked his first thirst with a long pull at his drink. “He’s well enough.”

  He turned and surveyed the company.

  “I’ll join you, Singleton.”

  He strode over, dragged a stool from under the next table, and straddled his thick legs over it. He was younger than Dan had realised, only in his late twenties. His face was ruddy, the skin coarse and crinkled around the eyes. He had a large, bulbous nose, a wide mouth, and pale eyes set beneath a bony brow.

  “Damp night,” he remarked.

  They all agreed on this. He looked at Dan. “I don’t think I know you.”

  “Dan Fielding,” said Singleton. “My new forge assistant.”

  “Ah, the boxing cove.” Witt rubbed his jaw where Dan’s knuckles had left a purple stain.

  “Nought but a milling cove,” said Dan.

  Witt nodded slowly and switched his attention to the shopkeeper. “Well, Travell, how’s business? Prospering?”

  “Times are hard, Mr Witt, for us poor tradesmen,” Travell answered, his voice a nervous whine. “Two bad harvests in a row. Money’s tight.”

  “Yes, I dare say the best goods are those that cost you nothing to get but bring a high profit when you sell ’em,” Witt replied. “Makes you wonder how poor labouring folk manage to put their dinners on the table, eh, Abe?”

  “I’m lucky I’m in regular employment,” the lad answered, smart but not too jaunty. Witt was a tough man. It would not do to annoy him.

  “I hear he’s a good master, Farmer Dunnage. Good dog trainer too.” Witt drained his glass. “Well then, I’d best be off. Me and Potter will be at the west warren all night.”

  Leaving them to digest the information that the west warren was precisely where the keepers would not be that night, he rose, wrapped his many-collared coat about him, and made for the door. It was an old game, Dan realised, this bantering between keeper and poacher, where much more was said than was spoken. But it was a grim game when the stakes were so high on both sides. There was no more singing, and the gathering broke up soon after.

  *

  On Saturday afternoon, Singleton and Dan had planned to drive to Stonyton to fetch some coal, but an urgent job came in – one of the farmers needed some tines on his plough replaced – so the blacksmith had to heat up his forge and stay behind.

  “Do you think you can manage the cart without overturning yourself?” he asked Dan, fastening the horse into the traces.

  Dan was getting used to the big, gentle workhorses, and as long as he was not expected to ride one he could manage a horse well enough. He did not let on that he was glad he was going on his own. There was someone he wanted to talk to: Walter Halling.

  Stonyton was a large village strung along the Stony River valley between the Old and New Pits. The pits were connected above ground by the High Street, and below by tunnels. A black canal, crowded with vessels carrying coals to Bath and beyond, flowed sluggishly along an embankment behind the street.

  The dwellings around the New Pit, known as Upper Stonyton, were modern terraced cottages, purpose-built for the miners and mean in size, material and workmanship. The older properties in Lower Stonyton were no better. They were run down and uncared for by landlord or tenant, most of whom were content to live surrounded by their rubbish heaps and middens. Half-naked, barefoot children hung around squalid homes where pale, dirty housewives had admitted defeat in the battle with the coal dust.

  What chiefly struck the senses, though, was the noise. Steam rose in roaring clouds from the winding engine above the offices and stables of the original working, to which Dan was heading. Chains rattled and squealed as the bulging coal baskets were winched up to the surface, where the ore was tipped thunderously into trucks, trundled across a short track to the quay, and loaded into barges. Bogies clanked down the rails from the New Pit to add their loads to the cargoes. Saws whined in the carpentry workshops where they made the pit props. The men had to shout to be heard above the din, and shout they did, every other word a curse or blasphemy.

  Dan had arrived at shift-change. A group of girls hung around the gates, exchanging obscenities with the loaders. The men who had finished below were walking and crawling back to the lift shaft, a journey of several miles for some of them. They would be thirsty after hours in the hot tunnels. The girls stood a chance of getting a drink as well as earning a few pennies for favours granted in alleyway or field.

  Dan turned into the yard, ignoring their shrill invitations. Coal dust glittered on the ground, and the ruts and potholes were filled with black sludge. The pit manager poked his head out of the office and directed Dan to the coal shed. The horse stood patiently while the pre-ordered sacks were loaded. Dan watched the men drift in for the next shift. They clustered around the lift shaft, where the overseer handed out candles.

  The cage trundled up from the pit. The men in it were so dirty they looked as if they had brought the darkness to the surface with them. They carried mattocks and the satchels they had taken their food and drink down in. Most were stripped to their shirtsleeves, many to their drawers.

  They handed their unused bits of candle to their foreman, exchanged greetings with their replacements, gathered up the girls, and set off down the road to the rough alehouse Dan had passed on the way. He climbed back into the cart and asked the coalmen for directions to the shoemaker’s.

  Chapter Eight

  The shoemaker’s at the end of the High Street was a poky place with bare, dusty floorboards. Dan had to stoop to avoid hitting the boots and shoes hanging by their laces from the rafters. Walter was just rising from the workbench behind the counter, which was set beneath a window to take advantage of the light. He held a new pair of miner’s boots with reinforced toecaps.

  Dan did not expect him to be pleased to see him, and was not offended by his “Oh, it’s you. What do you want?”

  “I need my shoes repaired. The soles are worn.”

  Walter glanced at the open door to the workroom at the back of the shop. There was someone moving about in there; someone who could hear every word and would know if he turned a customer away.

  “I’ll just be a minute,” he said, and carried the boots next door. “This pair’s done, Uncle.”

  The unseen uncle must have taken the boots and inspected them, for a moment later he said, “Good work. Why don’t you see what’s wanted in the shop and then get off home?”

  “We’ve still ten pairs to do.”

  “They can wait until Monday.”

  “I don’t mind stopping.”

  “No, lad, you’ve done enough today.”

  Walter came back to Dan and said grudgingly, “Let’s have a look, then.”

  Dan took off his shoes and handed them over. They were big, heavy things with nails around the soles and stiff uppers.

  Walter grunted. “The heels need replacing too.”

  In spite of his dislike of Dan, he was a craftsman. The work soon absorbed him, and the job he did was neat and strong.

  “This is your uncle’s place?” Dan asked as Walter cut and hammered.

  “Yes.”

  “How long have you been apprenticed?”

  “Five years.”

  “Will you stay here when your time is up?”

  “No. I’m going to set up my own shop in Barcombe.” Walter brightened. “It’s going to be in the house to start with, but once I get going I’ll be able to afford something better for me and Mother.” Then he remembered whom he was talking to and lapsed into sulky silence.

  “I wish you luck with it.”

  “These’re done.” He banged the boots on the counter. “A shilling and sixpence.”

  He dropped Dan’s payment i
n a box and took off his apron.

  “I can give you a lift if you like. I’ve got the cart.”

  “I’d rather walk.”

  “Look, Walter, I’m sorry about what happened. Can’t we talk about it?”

  He shot a nervous look into the workshop. “I’m off now, Uncle.”

  “Have you left the bench tidy?” Uncle Thomas called back. “Then see you Monday.”

  Dan held the door open. “Well?”

  Walter glowered then looked away. “All right.”

  *

  “Is it just you and your mother?” Dan asked when the noise and smoke of the village were behind them.

  “Yes.”

  “And she doesn’t know what you’re getting up to at nights?”

  “No.”

  “She wouldn’t like it?”

  Walter did not answer. Dan had hit a soft spot. He let the silence grow between them for a few moments to give the blow a chance to sink in. Then he said, “The reason I stopped you the other night is because there’s a big difference between killing a man and taking a deer.”

  “I don’t see it. Either could get us hanged.”

  “Yes, but in the first case there’s never a chance the court would show mercy. In the other there is. You’re young. Juries don’t like hanging boys for a first stealing offence.”

  “You know a lot about it.”

  “When I was younger than you I fell in with a bad lot and took to thieving. But I had no parent looking out for me. In the end, I was lucky, I got out in time. If I hadn’t I’d be dead by now, at the rope’s end or from gaol fever. Is that what you want, Walter? To swing at the end of a rope or die in a stinking hulk? Is it what your mother wants for you?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “It makes me angry to see someone like you throw it all away. You’ve got a home, an apprenticeship, you’ve got plans. You are decently dressed and you get enough to eat. Boys like you don’t know you’re born.”

  “And you had it really tough. Too bad.”

  “I don’t want your sympathy. I just want you to stop and think about what you’re risking, because when it’s gone, it’s gone.”

  “It’s my life.”

  “Well, I’ve said my piece.”

  “Thanks very much.”

  Walter folded his arms across his chest, pursed his lips, and glared at the horse’s ears.

  “Why do you think the keepers deserve it?” Dan said after a while.

  The youth started. “What?”

  “The other night you said they deserved to be shot. Is that just because they are keepers, or what?”

  “It’s because they are bastards.”

  “They’re just doing their job. What else do you expect from them? That they’ll welcome you into the woods with open arms? Say, ‘Go on, take the deer, we don’t mind’?”

  “The woods have always been ours. Now they won’t even let us walk through them.”

  “It’s unfair, but you can’t truly think the keepers are going to do anything other than obey their master.”

  “It’s because of Jack,” Walter mumbled.

  “Who’s Jack?”

  *

  Before the woods were fenced, Walter said, he used to walk through them on his way home from the shop. He always had Jack with him. His face lit up when he described the mongrel terrier with his lopsided run, stout drum belly and short, sturdy legs. He had found him as a pup, wandering in the lanes about Barcombe where he’d been abandoned by his owner.

  On this particular day it was hot. The woods looked cool and shady. Walter paused in the middle of the road by one of the new Keep Out signs. Jack flopped down beside him, his pink tongue hanging from the corner of his mouth.

  Walter knew that there were things called Game Laws under which the old Lord had allowed them to take rabbit and the occasional bird, had sometimes even ignored the loss of the odd deer. Now, under the same laws, young Lord Adam wouldn’t let anyone take anything. It didn’t make much sense to Walter. Surely, though, Lord Oldfield didn’t mean to stop them going on the paths. The tracks through the woods were ancient; the people of Barcombe had always used them to go about their daily business. Since he wasn’t here to hunt, there could be no harm in entering the wood. He jumped across the ditch and ducked under the fence. Jack bounded after him.

  He had been walking for a few minutes when he ran into Lord Adam Oldfield and Josh Castle. The gamekeeper had his gun over his arm as usual, though they had not been hunting for Lord Oldfield was unarmed. Walter raised his hand to his cap and tipped it respectfully.

  His Lordship’s father would have nodded gruffly and passed on, but Lord Adam stopped and demanded, “Can’t you read?”

  Walter had forgotten about the sign and the question confused him.

  “Answer His Lordship,” Castle snapped.

  “Yes, I can read,” Walter answered, and added helpfully, “Mr Travell taught me.”

  “I don’t care who bloody taught you,” said Lord Oldfield. “What the hell do you think you’re doing in here?”

  Walter looked nervously at Castle. “I’m on my way home.”

  “It’s His Lordship is talking to you, not me,” the gamekeeper said.

  Walter’s bowels seemed suddenly full of icy water. “I – I am on my way home, Your Lordship. I always come this way.”

  “Not any more, you don’t,” Lord Oldfield snapped. “The signs say ‘Keep out’ and that’s what you’ll do from now on.”

  “But – ”

  “But?” repeated Castle.

  “Everyone uses the path. It’s a shortcut.”

  “There are no shortcuts,” Castle said. “Don’t let me or His Lordship catch you in here again.”

  “No, sir – thank you, sir – I won’t do it again, sir. Come on, Jack.”

  Jack, who had been happily sniffing at trees, trotted to his heel.

  “Will you look at that smart little fellow?” Lord Oldfield said. “Your dog, is it?”

  Walter felt his knees go limp with relief. He’d had his warning and now His Lordship was smiling, showing there was really no harm done. “It’s Jack, sir. He comes with me, sir, to work.”

  “I’ll bet he does. Enjoys himself too, no doubt?”

  “Oh, yes, sir. He likes a run around.”

  “After rabbits?”

  Walter laughed. Things were going much better now they were chatting about dogs like any young men might. “No, he’s not a hunting dog, sir. He couldn’t catch a rabbit if it was in a pot.”

  Castle guffawed.

  “Josh, what’s the penalty for keeping a dog if you don’t have a licence to hunt?”

  An odd question coming from a magistrate. Even Castle looked puzzled.

  “Five pound or three months,” the keeper said.

  “Well then, what’s your name, I fine you five pounds.” Lord Oldfield held out his hand. “Come on, pay up.”

  “I haven’t got five pound,” Walter stammered. To his dismay, tears sprang into his eyes.

  “That’s a pity. Don’t cry. I’ll let you off. We’ll have to carry out the rest of the sentence though.”

  Walter blinked. “Sentence?”

  Lord Oldfield stared gravely at the little dog’s eager, upturned face. “I hereby find you – Jack, did you say? – find you, Jack, guilty of the charge as proved and sentence you to be hanged by the neck until dead.”

  “Hanged?” Walter shrieked.

  Castle laughed. The boy crashed onto his knees and swept the dog into his arms. “You won’t have him, no you won’t!”

  “Won’t have him?” repeated Lord Adam Oldfield. “Look’ee, Josh, at our merry little man! Won’t have him, he declares.”

  Castle, still chuckling, jerked his head at the boy. “Get out of it.”


  Comprehension dawned. It was a joke. A cruel one, but a joke nevertheless. Hugging the terrier, Walter scrambled to his feet.

  “Wait a minute.” Lord Adam grabbed Walter’s arm. “Aren’t you forgetting something, Josh?”

  “My Lord?”

  “The sentence.” Lord Adam wrenched Jack out of Walter’s arms, dandled him by the scruff of the neck. “I have some twine in my pocket.”

  “But this is no hunting dog,” said Castle. “He’s not even fit as a ratter.”

  “I said, the sentence, Josh.”

  The two men stared at one another. Then Castle lowered his eyes, took the twine, stepped aside from the path, and threw it over a low branch. Walter, petrified by disbelief, watched as the gamekeeper tested the knots, took the dog from Lord Adam, looped a noose around his neck, balanced him in the air, his legs flailing, and dropped him.

  Walter sprang forward, but Lord Oldfield held him back. The branch dipped, the rope creaked, the noose tightened. Jack’s pink tongue lolled sideways out of his mouth.

  *

  “Like I told you, bastards,” Walter said.

  “After that you joined the gang?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m truly sorry, Walter. But you can get another dog. You can’t get another life.”

  “I don’t want another dog. I want Jack. And I’d do anything to get back at them.”

  “And if Lord Oldfield heard you talking like this, how would he know it wasn’t you who killed Josh Castle?”

  “So that’s it. You’re going to pin it on me for the reward, are you?”

  “Could it be pinned on you? Were you out with the gang that night?”

  “Of course I was. Was a good haul too.”

  “Did you kill Castle?”

  “No. But I would have done if I’d had the chance. And smashed his bones.”

  Before Dan could make any answer to this, they were interrupted by an explosion.

  Chapter Nine

  Walter was already out of the cart and running up the hill towards the barrow. Dan pulled up and followed him into the smoke. On the other side of the choking tendrils, Mrs Taylor sat on the ground rocking her little girl on her lap.