by Alastair Sim
“Fraternal visitors from Lodge Polkemmet.”
“All right. Pass, brothers.”
The door opened into a large hall with a stage at one end. Miners in worn dark jackets and moleskin trousers, each with a dark bonnet and wearing heavy boots or clogs, stood murmuring and coughing, some of them spitting phlegm into brass spittoons on the floor. Allerdyce glanced behind him to the door, wondering whether, if any trouble broke out, he and the sergeant could get out and past the doorman before they got a kicking. The sergeant’s presence beside him was some reassurance, but the fact that McGillivray towered a good six inches over anyone else in the room could only increase their conspicuousness. The revolver felt more like a danger than a security, too, as they threaded their way through the crowd behind the informer, the pistol’s weight banging against people as he squeezed past.
They got towards the front of the crowd, looking up at the stage, which was bare except for a couple of wooden chairs at one side and, at the back, a great red banner with the words ‘Amalgamated Fraternity of Scottish Mineworkers: Lodge Winchburgh No. 23’ embroidered above a gold laurel wreath which enclosed the representation of a crossed pickaxe and shovel with a paraffin lamp radiating painted yellow light above them.
Allerdyce still couldn’t see how they could safely apprehend James Semple and get him out of the building. Presumably he would appear from the door at the back of the stage, beside the banner. But how could they see him privately?
The informer must have been reading his mind.
“I’m on the area committee, so it’s my job to tell Semple when to come out. I’ll tell him that you want to pass on fraternal greetings from your lodge after the meeting, and he’ll see you in the back room behind the stage.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll get on with it now.”
The informer climbed up the steps at the edge of the stage and went into the back room. The murmur from the crowd was growing louder. One voice, high and clear above the murmur, started chanting.
“Semple. Semple. Semple.”
Other voices, hoarser and deeper took up the call, and soon the whole was roaring, shaking with the pounding of boots and clogs.
“Semple! Semple! Semple!”
Allerdyce took up the chant to blend in, feeling its unfamiliar mesmeric power as he called out and stamped his heavy boots on the floorboards.
At length, the door at the back of the stage was opened by the informer. Semple entered and stood at the centre of the stage, the informer creeping behind him to take his seat at the side.
Semple, nearly six foot tall with tousled blond hair, jacketless and with his shirtsleeves rolled up to show his wiry forearms, stood still for a second and let the acclamation roll over him before raising his hands for silence. He scanned his audience for a moment before speaking.
“Brethren, I thank you. You do me great honour by inviting me here tonight, to assist in your courageous struggle against oppression.”
“Down with the mineowners!” shouted the man who’d started the chant. “Equal pay for all!”
Interesting, thought Allerdyce, he’s been planted to manipulate the audience.
Semple held his hands up again.
“Thank you brother, thank you. You’ve summarised my speech so well that perhaps I need not continue, but with your assent I will.
“Brothers, there is little I can tell you that you do not already know. You know, because you live it daily, the grinding oppression which is forced on you by the mineowners and the managers. You know the burden of toiling underground, in dampness and darkness, for ten hours a day, six days a week, for barely a pound a week. You know the dangers of death you face daily, whether from the explosion of firedamp or the collapse of a mineshaft roof, for a pittance which will barely feed your children until they, too, are old enough to be enslaved by capital and consigned to a living death in the mines. In this very mine, not a year ago, you lost four boys, none of them older than fifteen, when a roof collapsed on them.”
There was an angry murmur and a groan from the crowd. Semple continued.
“The mineowners steal from you even while they are killing you and your children. You feel a just anger at the theft of your wages when the managers extort, from each miserable pay packet, a deduction for the costs of the very tools you use to hew their wealth from the ground and for the costs of the miserable cottages they compel you to rent from them. That theft is compounded by the larceny of the bosses’ insistence that you buy the very essentials of life from the overpriced company shops run by their agents.”
Allerdyce glanced at the faces around him. They had a leanness, a hardness, which you seldom saw among the slum-dwellers of Edinburgh. Their hollow-cheeked pallor seemed to be animated by anger. Listening to Semple, he could feel a spark of their anger in himself. Steady, he thought, you’re here to do a job.
Semple’s voice rolled on, clear, poised and rational. His tensed arms and clenched fists showed a passion underlying his words, as if he was looking for a mineowner to come up and fight him on the stage.
“You know new oppressions daily. Where, in previous years, you were barely able to subsist on five shillings a day, you are now told by the Lothian Paraffin Company that ‘market circumstances’ mean that your wages are necessarily reduced to four shillings and sixpence and may have to fall further, to a bare four shillings. When in previous years you were expected to mine a ton of shale a day, and a ton was reckoned at an honest twenty hundredweight, you are now told that the Lothian Paraffin Company regards twenty-two hundredweight as the substance of a modern ton.
“In the name of all that is decent and honest, in the richest nation this world has ever known, amidst prosperity for the capitalist bosses that King Midas himself could never have imagined, how can this be?”
A voice from the back of the hall – a different one – shouted.
“Shame! It’s a bloody scandal!”
Another voice started
“Shame on the capitalist bastards!”
A chant started.
“Shame! Shame! Shame!”
The boots thundered against the floor again, and this time Allerdyce was quick to take up the chant. As he chanted he felt how easily the passion and rhetoric could sway a man.
Semple raised his hands and quieted the audience again.
“Comrades, often we feel powerless in the face of such oppression. Singly, we can be dismissed, blacklisted, turned out to starve. Sometimes even our victories can seem hollow – we rejoiced when one of the worst of the mineowners, our neighbour the Duke of Dornoch, met a fitting end, but without pause he was replaced by as black an oppressor.
“But, comrades, a new dawn is fast approaching.”
Semple reached into the back pocket of his trousers and pulled out a worn-looking red book.
“Comrades, every working man who can read should have this book. ‘The Communist Manifesto.’ In it, our international leader Karl Marx tells us that in the war between workers and capital, a war waged for so long with unequal weapons, victory can be ours, and inevitably will be ours as the capitalist system is engulfed in the flames it has fuelled with oppression and injustice.”
Not if Jarvis has anything to do with it, thought Allerdyce.
“The capitalists have known for decades that victory lies in unity. They have formed combinations to agree on the prices of goods, and on the wages they will pay to the workers, so that they can assure themselves of the maximum profit with the minimum cost and without the inconvenience of competition. When we come together to demand a living wage, we are denounced as an illegal combination and the forces of the state – from paid informers to mounted police and oppressive judges – are ranged against us.”
Allerdyce shifted uneasily at the mention of informers, looking towards the rat-like man on the stage, who seemed even paler than he had before. Semple continued.
“Comrades, patiently and carefully, meeting by meeting, we have built the unity among wor
king men which will be our unassailable weapon in the revolutionary struggle which is coming. Our work here is part of an enterprise which crosses all boundaries of nationality and belief, seeing common cause between workers everywhere in the overthrow of the capitalist system and the state apparatus which supports it.
“Fellow-workers, you are right to want to strike against the cutting of your wages by your bosses. You would be right to strike to demand double, nay triple, the wages which you are paid for the daily risk of your lives to build capitalist fortunes. Across Scotland, and beyond, your brothers in the mines and factories are also right to want to strike.
“So, comrades, strike! Strike when the union gives you the word, and I promise you will be supported.
“Brothers, what I am proposing is not simply that you strike alone against the Lothian Paraffin Company, but that every miner in Scotland, of coal, ironstone or shale, will rise in a co-ordinated general strike whose only outcome can be complete victory!
“I ask only for your shortest period of patience while the final arrangements are put in place.
“Comrades, arise! You have nothing to lose but your chains!”
The hall was rocked by a thunderous, stamping cheer. Through the chaos of applause a clear voice started singing:
Arise, ye workers from your slumbers,
Arise ye prisoners of want;
For reason in revolt now thunders
And at last ends the age of cant.
Away with all your superstitions,
Servile masses arise, arise.
We’ll change henceforth the old tradition
And spurn the dust to win the prize.
A few voices joined in the chorus:
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face.
The Internationale
Unites the human race.
As the chorus was repeated more workers joined in, until a mighty tide of sound was rolling from behind Allerdyce. He glanced sideways to see that the sergeant was singing lustily, his hand over his heart.
Finally, as the singing subsided, Semple disappeared backstage. The rousing chorus over, the hall rang to the loud and angry conversation of the miners. Occasional words drifted out of the general hubbub – ‘strike’, ‘unity’, ‘blacklegs’, ‘bastards’.
The informer came down from the stage and edged his way through the crowd towards the policemen.
“All right, you can present your greetings to Semple now. I’ll introduce you, then you’re on your own.”
He led them up the steps to the stage. As he mounted the steps, Allerdyce couldn’t help thinking that he was acting as an unwilling agent of the mineowners in apprehending Semple. His heart felt like lead. This is serving Jarvis, not justice, he thought. It’s oppression.
The informer opened the door at the back of the stage and showed the policemen in.
“Brothers from Lodge Polkemmet, Mr Semple. They want to pass on their fraternal greetings.”
“Fine.”
Semple was standing at the table the centre of room, splashing his face from a bowl of water beside which stood a pitcher. He picked a towel from the back of a chair. As he dried his face and hands Allerdyce noticed the door in the left hand wall and the window to the outdoors darkness, praying to his non-existent god that the door wouldn’t be locked.
Semple put the towel down.
“Polkemmet, eh? How stand things there?”
Allerdyce was relived that the sergeant responded, in his more authentically working-class accent.
“Tense, Mr Semple. The men are only waiting for your word to strike.”
“Is that so? I think we’re really going to do it this time. The whole country united.”
Semple looked the sergeant up and down.
“You’re like me. Too big to be down the mine. What do you do?”
“I did learn to mine, Mr Semple, in the Crimea. But I’m employed at the pithead as a banksman.”
“You poor sod. I don’t know how anyone can live on a banksman’s 3 shillings a day.”
Allerdyce was conscious that he was procrastinating while the sergeant improvised. He gave the sergeant a nod and McGillivray came close to Semple, standing behind him. Allerdyce moved to stand as close as he could to Semple, conscious that the corner of the table was still between them. He spoke softly, in case anyone was listening through the door, though the babble of voices in the hall was still audible through it.
“Mr Semple, I am Inspector Allerdyce of the City of Edinburgh Police. I must ask you to accompany me to the Police Office for an interview.”
Semple rushed for the door back to the stage. The sergeant grabbed him hard in a full-Nelson grip and Semple, his spine arched, grimaced. He strained to speak.
“What’s this about?”
“The murder of the Duke of Dornoch.”
“That’s absurd!”
“Is it, Mr Semple?”
“I was in Ayrshire when he died.” Semple spluttered with pain. “I can prove it.”
“You can explain that at the Police Office. You have to come with us.”
“And then what will you do to me? Damn you to hell for this.”
Semple kicked out as the sergeant lifted him bodily from the floor, and a chair clattered to the bare floorboards. Allerdyce opened the back door and the sergeant thrust Semple into the chill outdoor darkness, still clasping him tightly by the arms.
Allerdyce was completely unprepared for what happened next.
The sergeant was barely through the door, Allerdyce right behind him, when a shot cracked out from the darkness.
Semple didn’t scream. He only gave a short ‘ugh’ before his body went limp in the sergeant’s grasp. McGillivray stumbled backwards before regaining his footing.
“I think it’s got me too, sir.”
Allerdyce pushed past him, drawing the revolver from his pocket. He could just make out a dark figure running into trees. He held his pistol out at arms length but the figure ducked and weaved between branches, making a clear shot impossible, disappearing into the utter darkness of the forest.
Before disappearing completely the figure stopped and seemed to turn. Allerdyce took aim, but before he pulled the trigger he saw a flash of light in the woods and reeled with a sharp pain in his left arm. He steadied himself and returned fire, but the man had started running again.
He dropped his revolver and put his right hand to his injured arm. He felt dampness through the serge of his jacket, then put his fingers to his mouth and tasted blood.
He turned round. By the light of the door he saw a warped pieta, the sergeant kneeling with the trade unionist in his arms, blood trickling from Semple’s mouth as his sightless eyes looked heavenward.
“He’s gone, sir.”
“And you?”
“I think it maybe just clipped me. Can you run, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Then head for the trees. The men are coming from the hall. They’ll kill us.”
Allerdyce knelt and felt on the ground for the revolver.
“For God’s sake sir, just run! I’ll follow!”
He gave up feeling for the gun and ran headlong for the trees, his arm pulsing fresh agony with every tortured pace. He heard a shout behind him.
“There they are! The bastards have shot Semple! After them, boys!”
The sergeant’s voice was closer.
“I’m right behind you, sir. Run faster. They’ve seen us.”
“Where’s Jarvis?”
“God alone knows. Run!”
Allerdyce ran as fast as he could, clasping his shattered arm and feeling the blood pump with each stride. Branches grazed his face and hands and he pushed past them. Don’t let me die, he thought, don’t let me die tonight. He thought about the photograph in his wallet, the family he should have been at home with instead of careering around in the woods between a mob and an assassin.
He stumbled over a root, falling heavily onto his left arm. Ev
erything before his eyes went red and he thought he would pass out with dizziness and nausea.
The sergeant stood above him in the darkness.
“Get up, sir.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“Get up, sir. You have to.”
He felt the sergeant pull him roughly to his feet.
“Run.”
The voices of the mob were only a few yards away.
“Run! I’ll distract them! We’ll take different directions. Run!”
He launched himself again into the wood, staggering without direction between the trees. He heard the sergeant shout to the mob.
“You’ll never catch us!”
The branches brushed and crackled over to his right as the mob followed the sergeant. After a few moments he heard an angry shout and what sounded like a hard punch and head being shoved against a tree before the running started again, becoming gradually more distant.
Allerdyce ran for as long as his strength could carry him. At last, when he thought he could go no further, the forest cleared and he found himself beside the canal. Beyond it the moonlight glinted on the silvered steel of the railway, but it was inconceivable that he could cross the canal. It might as well have been the Styx, for all his chance of reaching the other side alive. Men were still shouting in the forest and branches were cracking, some of them sounding as if they were getting nearer. But he couldn’t run. He couldn’t even stand. He lay down by the canalside hedge like an injured bird waiting for a predator. He knew he could resist unconsciousness no longer, whether he was going to live or die.
I’m sorry, Margaret, he thought. You don’t deserve to be left alone. Do your best for the children. I’d come home if I could.
Chapter 16
For an uncertain period nothing in his mind had given him a solid purchase on where he was or on the passing of time. He’d felt himself floating through different, varyingly bizarre situations. His wounds had been washed down by Margaret while Antonia massaged him to arousal. He’d been carried across country by a giant McGillivray and laid gently under a hedge. He’d been floating away to a warm sensual heaven, called by a flame-haired Rosetti angel whose shimmering face never quite resolved itself into Helen’s, until another angel had slapped him harshly on the cheek.