by Maggie Joel
‘Aye, sir.’
‘Very well. Would you now please relate in your own words, and in as much detail as you are able, the events of that day from the point at which you boarded the train at Dawley.’
At this the man faltered but he took a breath and once he had begun he did not waver in his account and his account was all the more terrible for that:
‘On that Sunday—the fifth day of December—I were travelling t’fair in Wolverhampton with my daughter, Alice, who was nine years old. Her ma did not come as she were unwell that day. We took the afternoon train from Dawley to Wolverhampton. We boarded a third-class carriage at the front of the train and I sat on a bench and my little girl sat on my lap. The train started out and it were late, maybe fifteen or twenty minutes late, I cannot say for sure and I do not know why the train was late. The carriage were full. A lot of folk were attending the fair and a great number of folk were crowded into the carriage. Any road, we went along and travelled quite fast, perhaps to make up time. Then we came alongside a canal at a place, I was told later, that folk call Lea’s Crossing. This were about a quarter of an hour since we had left Dawley. There were nowt wrong then far as I could tell. The train jolted and some folk fell over and cried out but it did not seem to be anything worse than a slowing of the train, sudden-like. Then there was a second jolt straight after the first. This was more like a loud bang and we were all thrown about. There was a fearful alarm and panic and folk screaming and the like, and I were thrown out of my seat clear across the carriage. I had hold of my little girl, I think, though I cannot say for sure. We knew at once we had crashed. The train had stopped but folk were trapped and making a dreadful clamour. I was stunned at first and unable to get up but I soon did and went to look for my little girl. Folk were hurt, I could see, and I was very afraid. I found her, my little Alice, lying at some distance from me, and she had been thrown across the carriage and had hit something. I learnt later that a metal rod had pierced her straight through though at first I did not know this. I called to her but she did not answer. I went to her and thought at first she must be dead but she was breathing though she stopped soon after and she was dead.’
His words ended and in the silence that followed Kemp lit a cigar and took his first puff.
Naturally, Kemp was only too pleased to be called upon to address the inquiry but Lucas forestalled him, insisting that he himself take the stand and answer the committee’s questions and present the company’s case. Kemp’s attitude towards the accident was hard enough to stomach as a fellow director. If the inquiry or the public or the banks of waiting newspapermen got wind of it, it could be explosive. So on the third day of the inquiry it was Lucas who faced Llewellyn across the chamber of the packed Town Hall.
‘Could you please state for the purposes of this inquiry your name and position?’
‘Certainly. I am Mr Lucas Jarmyn and I am a director of the North West Midlands Railway Company.’
‘Thank you, Mr Jarmyn. Your father, I believe, built the railway?’
‘That is correct.’
‘Bet he never travelled on it!’ quipped a male voice from the gallery and a number of people laughed.
‘I would respectfully request that members of the public refrain from commenting,’ said Llewellyn, fixing the gallery with a look over his spectacles, and the gallery fell silent. ‘Mr Jarmyn, can you please outline for this inquiry your company’s policy on safety?’
‘Certainly. But with the inquiry’s permission, I wish to express, on behalf of the company, our terrible grief and regret at this dreadful accident, to assure the committee that every request made by this inquiry will be met; and to reassure the public that every effort has been made to contact the relatives of the deceased and injured so that everything within our power could be done for them to ease their suffering.’
It was not the first time Lucas had delivered this speech. He had done so at the Wombourne inquiry. He trusted he would not have to do so again. But it was important that the committee and, most particularly, the public, understood the company’s desire to help, to do all that it reasonably could.
‘Words! Empty words!’
Lucas tried to identify the person who had called out but saw only a mass of faces, row upon row of them, and any one of them could have said it.
‘Your words mean nothing!’ A different voice this time.
‘Shame!’
‘Boo!’
‘One more interjection of that nature and the perpetrators will be ejected from the chamber,’ boomed Llewellyn, slamming an enormous leather-bound ledger down on the tabletop with a loud thud that startled the gallery into silence. ‘Thank you. Mr Jarmyn, this inquiry notes your company’s words but is keen to hear its policy on safety?’
‘Naturally we are only too happy to supply whatever information is required of us. This company has long followed a policy of safety first, profit second—’
‘He must be a very poor man, then,’ someone called out.
‘He don’t look it!’ a second added.
‘This company’s safety record is second to none,’ declared Lucas, addressing the gallery.
This only evoked jeers.
‘He means no other railway company has a record SO BAD!’ a man called out, rising to his feet and pointing an accusing finger.
‘Hear, hear!’
‘You tell ’em, lad!’
‘I’ll wager he never travels on his own trains!’
‘Too scared!’
‘Marshals, eject this man,’ demanded Llewellyn, and the man who had stood up was man-handled out of the chamber to the derision of the crowd. ‘Please continue, Mr Jarmyn.’
‘Thank you. I—we—’ Lucas consulted the notes he had brought with him. ‘This company has, throughout its history, attempted to keep abreast of the latest developments in regard to passenger and employee safety. The company’s rules and regulations are most specific regarding the various precautionary measures that must be taken prior to every train’s departure. A copy of these rules and regulations has been made available to this inquiry. The committee will already be aware that as a result of an earlier investigation all our wheel fastenings were replaced with a sort recommended by the inquiry. Communication cords for the use of both crew and passengers have long been in use. A system of continuous brakes was adopted as early as 1868—’
‘Thank you, Mr Jarmyn. The committee notes these laudable measures introduced by your railway to secure the safety of its passengers. However, none of the measures listed were enough to prevent this particular accident?’
‘Surely that remains to be established?’ Lucas countered.
‘Indeed. We have heard at length from various employees of the company including the signalman on duty on that fateful day and, though the exact details of that day are still in dispute, it has been established that signals have a tendency to freeze and that, if frozen, they will default to the “clear” position, whether in fact the line ahead is clear or not, is that correct?’
‘I understand there may have been cases where this has occurred, yes.’
‘Indeed. And, this being so, what measures have your company taken to ensure against it?’
‘Nowt! They have taken nowt!’
‘It has not been proven that this was the case in this instance,’ Lucas countered, yet his words sounded defensive even to his own ears. He had not anticipated this level of hostility. ‘Nor has it been proven that any such incident has ever occurred on our lines—’
‘They care nowt about the folk who travel on their trains!’
‘Nothing has been proven. The cause of this accident could well have been driver error—’ Lucas felt the blood rush to this face.
‘Murderers!’
‘Only three people died!’ he countered, rising to his feet.
‘How many more have to die?’
‘The company can hardly be held responsible for a frost!’ he shouted above the fury of the crowd, and in the front row Kemp ca
lmly puffed at his cigar.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
London and the Transvaal: January 1881
FROM THE DECK OF THE steamer Orion Roger Brightside watched as the Cape coastline sailed smoothly and rapidly past the port side of the ship.
Loaded with twenty tons of ammunition, a battery of artillery and a hundred and fifty horses and men, they had departed from Portsmouth on the nine o’clock tide and it had been smooth sailing across the Channel, along the northern Spanish coast, wheeling around to strike southwards, docking briefly at Madeira, then due south again to the island of St Helena and finally southeast till they had hit the southern African coastline with its strange tropical sounds and smells, the air thick with a humidity foreign and unfamiliar to a Northern European man, where nameless and vividly hued birds circled and swooped overhead. They had rounded the Cape in thirty-foot seas and the ship had bucked and lurched for a day before finally forging a path through to calmer waters. Swinging north, they had continued to follow the coastline. Now, on this fine and tranquil first day of the New Year, and a mere eighteen days since their departure, their destination was in sight.
They had received no news of the war since leaving Madeira—had Colley marched on Kruger? Had Kruger already surrendered? Or was it all still to be decided?
God, let it be so! thought Roger, for would he not look rather foolish taking such solemn leave of everyone at home and sailing all this way only to find it had all been decided before he had even struck land!
The ship wheeled a degree or two to port and it seemed that they were making towards the shore.
‘Durban,’ said Lieutenant Graves, who had come to the rail to stand near him. Graves held a tiny brass spyglass to his eye, and he now held it out to Roger. Roger put it to his eye and could instantly make out a long bluff of rolling green hills thrusting out of the coastline and forming a natural harbour beyond which was a cluster of single-storey buildings on the distant shoreline. A port was now visible, with a series of wooden pontoons thrusting into the harbour and a great number of merchant and naval vessels of all sizes lined up side by side.
He removed the spyglass and the port vanished.
‘How far would you say, Graves?’
‘An hour’s sailing, no more.’
Roger nodded and lifted the glass once more to his eye. It was too far away for him to make out any figures but the vessels, moored side by side, their sails lowered, appeared tranquil. At peace.
And oddly, he felt a flicker of fear.
‘Here,’ and he handed the glass back, anxious to smother the feeling, concerned lest Graves might sense it. He thought of the dinner with his cousins in Cadogan Mews. The boy who had sat at their table in his new uniform (could it really be only three weeks ago?) and spoken boastfully of his role in the coming war now seemed like another person. He thought of Dinah, who had sat silently throughout the meal barely listening to him talk about army life when the boys—Jack, in particular—had been eager for every detail and he had been eager to give it. She had got up and left the table and she had done so with relief it now seemed. Had he been such a bore, then? Had he been so boastful? She must have known he had only come that evening to see her.
He leant out over the ship’s railings and a fine mist of sea spray covered his face. He tasted salt water on his lips and tongue.
He had waited for a word from her, a letter, but none had come. He had imagined a token being offered—a flower placed in his buttonhole that someone would later press and that he would henceforth carry in his pocket-book. Or a lock of her hair placed in the palm of his hand, no words spoken, just a look exchanged and her fingers closing urgently over his. But no token had been offered: no flower plucked, no lock of hair cut. No look exchanged.
Had it all been a dream then? Did she, in fact, not love him? The thought, once realised, would not be dislodged and he felt his face grow cold.
A seagull wheeled overhead, diving and squawking, and one of the other officers took a pot shot at it and missed.
It was News Year’s Day. At midnight, the bells had rung out across London to herald the New Year. This morning’s Times reported that the Queen, Princess Louise and Princess Beatrice had taken a drive in the Royal coach through Cowes and Newport and there was a lengthy and patriotic article detailing the steamships that were being hastily fitted out at Woolwich and loaded with troops, horses and supplies in preparation for their imminent departure for the war in the Transvaal.
And, though The Times did not see fit to report it, Mr (formerly the Reverend) Travers Brightside, following the disavowal of his only son, Roger, had written a tract and embarked on an anti-war lecture tour of the North. He was, according to Aunt Meredith’s latest communication, currently at Oldham, where he had been met with jeering and a pelting of rotten fruit: the war was proving a tricky adversary. There had been no word from Cousin Roger since his departure and, with the Brightside men absent under such difficult circumstances Dinah and Bill had arranged to dine in Great Portland Street with their aunt and cousin to lend moral support.
Brother and sister had not said a great deal to each other since that first evening of Bill’s return and they sat now in silence as the hansom cab made its way northwards along Gower Street, each lost in their own thoughts.
It seemed that, though you could have the same parents, live for almost the same number of years in the same house with the same people, it was no guarantee you would grow into the same type of person—or this was Bill’s observation, at any rate. It was not simply that Dinah was a girl: he very much doubted he had much in common with his younger brothers either. And he seemed to be constantly at odds with his father. Bill was annoyed and, yes, perhaps a little hurt though he could not have said why. He was impatient to return to Oxford. He smoked and frowned out of the window.
He caught Dinah’s reflection in the glass of the cab’s window, and that made him think of the lock of hair she had given him on the day of Sofia’s funeral, asking him to place it in the grave. He had put the lock of hair for safety in the handkerchief in his pocket and had not thought about it again until he had been sitting in the carriage on the way back from the funeral, when he had taken his handkerchief out of his pocket and seen it still in there. He had felt badly about it at the time, particularly when Dinah had asked him that evening if he had done as she had asked. He had lied to her and later had disposed of the lock and not thought of it since. Now he shifted uneasily in the cab and wished he had not remembered the incident, for what was to be gained by chafing? The deed was done—or not done—and Dinah could not discover his deception. It was best forgotten.
With a burst of something he could not quite comprehend, he found he needed to unburden himself of this lie. ‘Dinah—’ he began, turning to her. But the driver had pulled up his horse, jumped down and thrown the cab door open and the moment was gone.
‘I told Tilda we were having Dinah to dine with us,’ their cousin Rhoda explained. (Tilda was the Brightsides’ maid. She had been with them for only a month.) ‘Of course, I ought to have said, We are having Miss Jarmyn to dine with us, but it sounded so much more amusing to say, We are having Dinah to dine. And poor Tilda had no idea at all to what I was referring! She was completely baffled,’ and Rhoda laughed.
His cousin Rhoda, Bill observed, had not improved much. She dressed very well and had a very proper bearing and pretty manners which was all to the good, but really when she opened her mouth it was all undone and the truly breathtaking insipid stupidity that lay within was at once exposed. So it had always been; he ought not to be surprised.
‘Really, Rhoda, teasing the servants is in very poor taste,’ admonished Aunt Meredith and, regarding his aunt, Bill saw the woman that Rhoda would become in another twenty years: petty and a little querulous and certainly disappointed. He sat back in his chair and marvelled at how a few months away sharpened one’s instincts and allowed a clarity about one’s family that had previously been absent.
‘All the more
so in the circumstances,’ his aunt went on. The ‘circumstances’ of course were Roger’s feud with his father and his imminent part in a war on the other side of the world, and Uncle Travers’ apparently fruitless lecture tour of the North.
‘Have you heard from Roger?’ Bill inquired, though he was fairly certain they had not. Beside him Dinah stirred as though he had said something he should not, but, damn it all, that was the reason they were here, wasn’t it: Roger, the war, the feud? He decided to ignore his sister’s sensibilities.
‘We’ve heard nothing,’ confirmed Aunt Meredith. ‘They were to go via Madeira and St Helena and to arrive at Durban in three weeks—that is all we know. Indeed he may have arrived already, for all we know. He may be engaging the enemy this very minute.’
‘Not at night, Mama, surely?’ said Rhoda.
‘It is war, Rhoda, not a tennis party,’ her mother chided. ‘These Boers have little concern for the niceties of civilised society.’
‘And is there any more news of Uncle Travers?’ Bill asked, keen to forestall his aunt’s appraisal of the situation in the Transvaal.
‘Not since he arrived at Oldham, no,’ Aunt Meredith replied. ‘He was to speak at the Methodist church hall this evening, I understand, though the hostile reception he received earlier may have prevented this.’
‘The war is proving popular then?’ said Dinah, who had remained silent throughout this discussion.
‘Or Father is proving unpopular—it is difficult to say which,’ said Rhoda.
They fell silent as the baffled Tilda entered and proceeded to serve the fish course. Bill watched the maid and thought about his cousin Roger who was on the far side of the world fighting a war whose purpose was unclear at best, and about his uncle who was giving a lecture tour of the North in opposition of this same war. Did they cancel each other out, he wondered? Which of them, his cousin or his uncle, would prevail?
‘You have not thought of taking a commission and going to the Transvaal yourself, Bill?’ inquired Rhoda, startling Bill out of his reverie.