Children of Fire

by Paul CW Beatty

‘Those things affront God and refute the fact that we are all made in God’s image. They divide us from God and from our neighbours. Worst of all they divide us from the divine likeness within ourselves.’

  He started to walk up and down on the edge of the rock looking directly at the congregation, first to left and then to the right. Wherever his gaze fell, Josiah saw that those caught by it became uneasy. When Josiah himself fell under that gaze, it was as if Elijah could see exactly the sort of sinner he was. Josiah had never heard any preacher with Elijah Bradshawe’s charisma.

  ‘If you have come today in the hope of hearing me say that God does not count against you what you are ashamed of, then you have come in vain. For already you know in your hearts what you have done against the image of God within you.’

  Elijah’s hand clutched at the clothes over his heart. ‘You cannot escape responsibility for those choices.’

  He stooped down with his right hand held over the edge of the rock as if he were reaching down into water to pull out a drowning man.

  ‘If you will be honest with yourselves, you already know what true sin is and so there is only one answer to your dilemma. That answer is the one John the Baptist offered to the vipers of his generation, repentance.

  ‘With God’s help repent! Prove to yourself that your repentance is true, by making choices you know are just, righteous and Godly. And do it each and every day for the rest of your lives. As for the past, ask God’s forgiveness for that too and prove your sincerity to him and your neighbours by endeavouring to put right what you have done wrong.’

  Elijah’s head now bent forward as if in prayer. From somewhere to Josiah’s right a male voice cried out, ‘Alleluia! Alleluia!’ The cry was taken up by many others so that the word rolled round the space below the rock as if made by waves on a seashore. Slowly, Elijah looked up.

  ‘But that verse from Genesis does not finish there, it continues. Do you remember how it continues? I will tell you. “Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth”.

  ‘So much of our sin comes about when we mistake what this part of the verse really means, for it is not about a God-given right for us to plunder and lord it over His creation. It is not about putting our selfish purposes first.’

  He raised his hand and wagged his forefinger at the congregation. ‘No, children, it is about our responsibility to love and care for that creation.

  ‘Too many in our day have taken this verse as a justification for doing whatever they wanted, both to their fellow human beings and to God’s precious, natural world.

  ‘Children, many of you will have heard me cry out against the few who oppress the many in the hellish cotton mills of Manchester.’ He pointed across the vale in the direction of the great city. ‘They deny to those they persecute their Godly birth-right of life in all its abundance. They defile the image of God within those folk for the sake of selfish profit.

  ‘Of all the aspects of the slavery of the mills, the sin that God finds most offensive, is the denial of happy lives to children. I have named one guilty of this sin here in this valley, Arlon by name. I name him in the hope that he may change his ways and repent. I challenge him to run his mill in a more just and Christian manner.

  ‘But there is a lesser serpent near at hand and his name is Hailsworth. Abram Hailsworth is polluting the river Goyt with filth from his powder mill. Only last week there was a whole host of dead fish found just downstream.’

  ‘Shame!’ shouted the woman on Josiah’s left.

  ‘Some may see the hand of God in the explosion that stopped the production at the mill three months ago.’

  ‘That’s true enough,’ she shouted. Elijah looked at her.

  ‘You think so, Sister? You really think so? I do not like to think that. The God I know is not a vengeful God but one who is gentle and forgiving. Only when all hope of redemption is at an end does God bring down His judgement in fire and anger.

  ‘But such wickedness may so affront others here on earth, that they may anger and take violent action in defence of God’s gift of his creation. I hear the mill will be in operation again soon. I greatly fear there may be another outbreak of human anger against it.’

  Elijah turned to face the cross, in a final prayer, his arms stretch out wide. As a result Josiah could see the scene embroidered on the back of the cloak. It illustrated the passage from the end of the book of Revelation; God’s eternal city, the New Jerusalem, coming down from heaven, illuminated by golden rays of hope and mercy from an eternal sun.

  Here he comes, climbing the path towards your hiding place, his lantern swinging as he strides forward. You laugh inside yourself as you consider how appropriate darkness is for treachery and how easily this trap has been sprung. All it took was a simply worded note:

  Information about Powder Mill.

  Come to Pulpit Rock two hours after sunset.

  You step out in front of him and level your pistol at his head. He sees your face in the lamplight and gasps before he is struck down from behind.

  You drag him to the base of the cross. There is a large wooden beam waiting on the ground. You lay him on it and bind his wrists so that he is stretched, open armed, along its length.

  Slowly, he wakes up as you are finishing. You step back and watch as he becomes conscious. He looks around in a daze and tries to get up but the weight of the beam pins him to the earth. He wrenches at the ropes on his arms, twisting and struggling. He sees you and stops.

  ‘Do you remember me?’ you ask.

  ‘It cannot be you. You are dead.’

  ‘It is simply by chance that I bear a likeness of a face of someone you destroyed. Oh, I’m sorry, not chance, you don’t believe in that? Do you? Providence would, in any case, be a more appropriate term.’

  ‘Perhaps you are right,’ he says. ‘Either way I know who you must be.’

  ‘And by your own creed you are duty bound to do what you can to confess and prove that confession by trying to put right, the wrong you have done.’

  ‘And I do confess. I did your family a terrible wrong but I cannot amend it. All I can do is ask your forgiveness.’

  ‘Oh I think you can do something more practical than that and it will be a significant confirmation of the depth of your repentance, for it will take you the rest of your life. It’s just that the rest of your life is going to be much shorter than you might have thought.’

  You cut off his shirt so that he is naked to the waist. You pick up a hammer and a nail and, stooping next to his left hand, you push the nail into the soft flesh of the upturned palm and the hammer it into the wood behind. It takes several blows. One goes astray and breaks two of his fingers but he does not give you the satisfaction of crying out in what must be excruciating pain. Blood wells up round the shaft of the nail and pools in the palm.

  You move round to the right hand. You twist the nail repeatedly into the palm until it goes through to the back. Then you take up the hammer. Still he is silent before you.

  You stand up and put your foot across his throat. Then gradually you throw your weight forward so that he starts to choke. After a few seconds he is not simply gasping for breath but uttering strange guttural sounds. Only then do you release the pressure; he is wracked by coughing.

  Eyebolts have been fixed through the beam and rigged to block and tackle attached to the cross. He is heaved up so that his arms take much of his weight but his feet are still just touching the ground. There is a terrible involuntary groan of exhaled air as his lungs are forced forward and downwards. More fierce, deep coughing.

  You take the crown you have prepared from green twigs of sloe gathered in the wood. Its thorns are long and when you ram it down on his head, trickles of blood flow start down his face like red water tracks on a wet window pa
ne, as they merge with beads of sweat on his skin.

  His shoes are pulled off and the stockings cut away. You bind his ankles and come up close to him, so your mouth is by his ear. You say something only you and he can hear and when he reacts and convulses his body in rejection, you laugh. You slip a blade in between his ribs and guide it towards his heart. You are careful not to kill him outright.

  Around his neck you place a placard on a cord. You dip a finger in blood from his face and write across it. Then he is lifted clear of the ground until the extra crossbeam is at the same height as the original.

  There are only two things left to be done. His legs are pulled back and two nails are driven between his tendons and the ankle bones, to pull the feet onto the upright. In a final touch, you take a sledgehammer and break his thighs.

  He will die sometime before dawn, drowned slowly in his own blood from the chest wound. When is unimportant.

  7

  The Devil’s Work

  Josiah was sitting in the courtyard writing notes on what he had found about the Children of Fire and wondering what he would say when he got back to Stockport and reported to Mr Prestbury. His main conclusion had not changed since the conversation with Sister Rachael: the community as a whole was not a threat either to the powder mill or the person of Abram Hailsworth. But, reluctantly, he had conceded he could not rule out that Elijah Bradshawe might pose an individual threat.

  He turned over what Elijah had said at the end of the sermon. There was a possibility that he was angry enough to take violent action over the pollution of the river.

  By Josiah’s side was his pack and walking stick. He was lingering so that he could take proper leave of Rachael. He heard the gate on the far side of the paddock slam. As he put down the notebook and looked up, Rachael came running round the corner of the barn. She had lost her cap and her golden hair had come undone. For a moment, the vision captivated Josiah. He thought that her hair looked like a shower of gold but the vision abruptly vanished when he saw her face. She was running in desperation, tears streaming down her cheeks. She nearly knocked him over as she threw her arms round him.

  ‘Rachael, what is it?’

  ‘Come… Come Josiah… It is terrible… Come with me, please,’ she kissed his hand and pulled at his arm imploring him like a child. ‘… Peter needs your help… Please come… It is the Devil’s work.’

  ‘Rachael, has there been an accident?’

  ‘This is no accident… it is the Devil’s work.’ She broke away and started to run back towards the paddock. Josiah ran after her.

  Out onto the road to Pulpit Rock she ran, at a pace that Josiah could only just match. Without slacking she turned onto the path up the cliff that led to the cross. Josiah’s longer stride helped him climb the path more quickly than her but he still could not catch up. When he emerged at the foot of the cross he saw a harrowing and obscene tableau before him.

  Around the foot was a group of the Children of Fire. Two were on their knees praying. Hanging on the cross was the crucified body of Elijah Bradshawe, covered in congealed rivulets of blood which had run down behind where the legs must have been fixed, pooled at the bottom of the upright and soaked into the earth making a reddened, sticky patch. Around Elijah’s neck was a blood-stained placard with some lettering Josiah could not see clearly because of the angle at which it hung.

  Peter and another of the brothers were behind the cross tugging at ropes. He ran round to them to help. Peter and James were trying to lower the body to the ground but Peter’s rope had snagged. Josiah realised that it was the weight of Elijah’s body that was making it difficult. He went back to the front of the cross and, grasping Elijah’s feet and calves, he pushed upwards to support the weight. Peter tugged again and the rope became free. Slowly they let Elijah down into the arms of Rachael, Sister Rose and Sister Margaret. Gently they laid the body on the ground and the women wept over it.

  ‘You did this!’ Peter seized Josiah round the throat. ‘You did this. Elijah knew you were a spy! You did this!’

  Josiah struggled to free himself but Peter was stronger than him. Josiah began to find it hard to breathe but in seizing him in rage Peter had not made his grip as firm as he could have done. Josiah managed to twist round and, bring his knee up smartly, winded him. Then he was able to break Peter’s grip. Before Peter could charge forward again, Rachael came between them.

  ‘For the sake of Christ, Peter, what are you doing? Josiah came at my bidding and has helped you. How can you quarrel with him when Elijah lies dead on the ground behind you?’ She started to cry again.

  ‘Ask him. He is one of Arlon’s spies. Even if he didn’t do this himself, then he knows who did it.’ Again Peter made a dive at Josiah but James had him by the arms.

  ‘Let me beat the truth from him, Rachael!’

  ‘No!’ Rachael screamed at Peter. ‘That is not the way of this community, Peter, and you know it!’ She strode towards him and pushed him with both hands in the chest so hard he would have fallen over if he hadn’t been held by James. ‘We will take Elijah’s body back to Long Clough.’ Another push. ‘We will put him in the chapel and then we will talk, in a peaceful and prayerful manner, about what you have charged Josiah with as Elijah would have wanted.’ Then she returned to weep again over the body.

  Peter was still enraged but it was clear that the other members of the community agreed with Rachael. He had the choice of refusing to help with taking Elijah’s body to be laid reverently at rest, or be seen to be so undisciplined he could not control his own anger. Gradually he relaxed.

  A cart was fetched from the farm. While it was coming, they removed the nails from Elijah’s hands and the bindings from his wrists. The thorns from his head and the placard from round his neck were also removed. At last Josiah was able to read the word written in blood: BLASPHEMER.

  With his arms folded across his chest, Elijah was laid on a board from the cart. Someone with presence of mind, had included a clean sheet with the board to cover the body. Before it was moved, Rachael took Josiah to one side. Her face was still tear-streaked and she was on the brink of more weeping but she had summoned up a reserve of calm that in the circumstances amazed Josiah.

  ‘I do not think it would be wise for you to come with Elijah’s body back to the farmhouse.’ She choked back a sob. ‘But if you do not follow the body now, I need your word that you will come to the chapel this evening to answer the charges Peter has laid against you. Do I have your word?’

  ‘You do, Sister Rachael. I would not be parted from you or the community on bad terms even if this was not the day of such a terrible murder.’ She winced at the word, a reaction with which he empathised.

  ‘Thank you, Josiah.’ She smiled bleakly at him. ‘I did not think that you would give me any other answer. We will meet again this evening. Pray for us as we take him home.’ She turned from Josiah and joined the others.

  Peter, James and two other brothers lifted Elijah onto their shoulders and took him down the path to the track. Josiah watched as they disappeared over the lip of the cliff. From the foot of the cross he saw them put Elijah in the cart. The small cortège started back to Long Clough.

  8

  Confession

  At seven o’clock that evening, Josiah, with a heavy heart, walked towards the chapel of the Children of Fire. He did not really have any concerns about telling the community the truth about who he was or what he was doing at Long Clough. He had resolved to be open with them the instant that Rachael had asked him to give his word that he would come to answer Peter’s accusation. What really concerned him was the effect it might have on how Rachael would feel about him. He was hopelessly morally compromised in his own eyes, unfit to woo anyone. Even so in the last few days a glimmer of hope of a future relationship with Rachael, impossible as it might be, had grown within him.

  He got to the chapel and waited at the door. The co
mmunity were praying. He could not hear the words, the heavy wood of the door muffled them, but he could hear their tone and pace. It was most likely they were praying for God’s guidance at the beginning of what must be an unprecedented meeting. He waited until they had finished, then he opened the iron latch as quietly as he could and went in.

  All the community were there, seated in the pews. They turned their heads as he entered. Elijah’s body was laid out in front of the small communion table, below the raised central pulpit. It was covered by a white sheet. Candles, in long brass sticks, burned at his head and feet.

  Josiah walked slowly forward. Rachael stood up and pointed him to a chair which faced the community. Josiah sat down. There was a pause. Rachael looked at Peter.

  ‘I believed you have something to say to Josiah,’ she prompted. Peter rose reluctantly to his feet.

  ‘Earlier today, when Josiah came to help us take down Elijah’s body from the cross I… attacked him. I should not have done it. I am ashamed of my actions now and I ask Josiah’s forgiveness.’

  ‘Granted, Brother Peter,’ replied Josiah.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Peter softly though his tone of voice stiffened as he went on; much happier in the role of accuser than apologist, thought Josiah.

  ‘But those who were at the cross this morning heard me accuse Josiah of being here to spy on us for Caleb Arlon. I restate that accusation now and say that if he was spying on us he must be considered the most likely perpetrator of Elijah’s murder.’

  ‘That is a very serious accusation, Brother Peter,’ said Rachael. ‘What evidence do you have that Josiah is even a spy, let alone involved in Elijah’s death?’

  ‘As to his being a spy, I pass on Elijah’s opinion. He was suspicious of the way Josiah turned up and of some of the questions he asked.’

  ‘If Elijah held such opinions why did he let Josiah stay?’ asked Brother James.

  ‘He was confident that any report Josiah might make to Arlon would not be detrimental to us.’