“What width is it, Mr Banford?”
Josie answered, pointing to a scale on the bottom of the drawing.
“About five feet across, four wheels to the cart on two axles, six feet between them. The wheels are three feet tall, so the bed of the cart is about eighteen inches above the ground. I used the measure from my sewing case, so as to be sure.”
Sam realised that being a girl, the local men had had no suspicion of her – she could not be spying out their business, for young misses of gentle birth would have no idea of what to look for.
“Why five feet, Miss Josie?”
“Because carts normally are, as far as I could tell. No reason, except that they always have been. I suspect that if they are made much wider then the strain on the wooden axle tree might lead to them breaking very often – but that is little more than a guess.”
Sam was not surprised and saw no great reason to change the habit – five feet was big enough.
“They ride on ordinary cartwheels, Mr Heythorne, so they can use the carts underground, pulling them up their tunnels and then directly on the tracks. They have drags, like one sees on the stagecoach, to slow them down on the slope.”
Drags were a simple form of brake, no more than a baulk of timber attached to wagon or coach by a chain and thrown out behind on steep hills.
“Each wagon has a step at the back for a small boy to stand on. He throws the drag out, and pulls it in at the bottom. The side of the wagon opens like a gate, and the boy opens and closes it at the staithe. They hook donkeys on the empties at the bottom and they help the boys pull the wagons up the hill again. One of the trackways we saw was more than two miles long.”
She showed them the third sort, the difference here being that the track stood up like an ‘I’ and the wheel had a flange so that it ran on the upright.
“This sort can turn bends, while the L shape must be almost straight. The wagons cannot leave the tracks, because of the shape of the wheels. One of the pits we saw had the track actually going into the tunnel underground. There was a windlass at the entry, and two boys turned it so that a rope could be hooked to a loaded wagon to pull it out.”
“Only small boys for this work, Miss Josephine?”
“Oh, yes! They cost less than men.”
That seemed sensible to all of them.
“What is the controversy about iron, Mr Banford?”
“The wheels, Mr Heythorne, and to a lesser extent the axles.”
Sam waited to be told more.
“Cast iron wheels are stronger, less likely to break, and are made the more easily, poured into their sand mould. A wooden wheel must be made by a skilled man; the spokes turned, each identical to the others, felloes and hub balanced exactly. A costly process and demanding a master wheelwright in employment. Where a mine owner uses as many as one hundred wagons, wooden wheels will break every day, and have to be replaced, slowly and expensively. A cast iron wheel can be knocked off its axle and another picked up from the pile of spares and hammered into place in minutes, and by a labouring man, which are plentiful while skilled men are few and hard to find. The arguments for the iron axle-tree are the same.”
Sam understood – iron wheels made far more sense, or so it seemed.
“Why is there controversy, sir?”
“The rails of the trackway, Mr Heythorne! Made of softwood, as they are, the iron wears them down and quickly causes them to fracture.”
“Hardwood is too costly, of course?”
“Far too much so, Mr Heythorne, and difficult to come by. The navy demands oak in quantities that hardly exist in England now, and the charcoallers will take every tree they can lay their hands on. Good oak timbers are simply not to be found.”
“Cast iron tracks, Mr Banford?”
“Practical in a foundry, for its own trackways, perhaps, but otherwise heavy and difficult to transport. Replacing them when they break might take weeks, particularly in winter.”
Sam considered the problem for a few minutes, admitted himself defeated.
“Soft wood it must be, Mr Banford. At least, sir, that is obtainable locally. There are trees in plenty along the lower valleys and dales. The local yards can supply our needs, and build the little wagons themselves. I presume each is a chaldron in size?”
Josie nodded – she had checked that as well.
“Should we go ahead then, Mr Banford? And with iron wheels, do you think? We may have a busy time of it, for a few weeks, working out exactly what we need and finding carpenters and a foundry to work for us. The line of the trackway is simply worked out, I think, and will come out at the bottom of your lands, close to the White Horse here. A pity we could not sensibly construct another to run up to my distillery on Mr Parson’s land. I do not suppose he has a coal seam on his acres, do you know?”
They did not know, suspected that he had none, for there was no reason to believe he burned coals over the cold winters.
Chapter Eleven
The Killing Man
Using softwood was all very well, in theory; in practice, the local timber yards did not have stocks of large seasoned baulks of timber such as they needed for the trackway. Straight timbers at twelve feet long and six inches width and four in depth were hardly to be found on the racks. They had to be ordered in advance, the pits set to sawing them, slowly by hand, there being no machinery of any sort to do the job. Larger baulks to set crossways in the ground, to hold the tracks, spiked down with long iron nails, were more simply made, the trunks of smaller trees roughly adzed square and cut to a little more than five feet, soaked in tar hopefully to retard the inevitable rot.
Even the nails had to be ordered as special runs from the furnace, being on the large size.
The cost was appalling.
“Two miles, master, be ten thousand five ‘undred feet, at twice, your trackway ‘aving two rails. That be, workin’ rough like, in me ‘ead, the better part of nineteen ‘undred of pieces, which ain’t no small number, whatever way you looks at it. Big pieces, too. I got four sawpits, master, and eight strong lads what works ‘em, and skilled in their trade. Maybe, perhaps, they can knock out three an hour, provided I pays ‘em. Six days a week and twelve hours to the day, says each pit can work… say two ‘undred, when allowance be made for sharpin’ and settin’ the old cross-cut saws. Two of my pits doin’ nowt else, says five weeks, master, but not cheap. Can’t do it quicker acos of I got other jobs to be done as well; there’s three houses a-buildin’ what needs their roofs and got their contracts. The sideways baulks, they can be axed and adzed out in the woods, no need for them to come to the yard, that’s just a matter of hirin’ on another dozen men, what is easy and not so expensive.”
Five weeks did not sound too bad, Sam thought.
“Besides that, mister, comes they uprights what you must be ‘avin’. They comes in at twelve foot long be eight inches be two inches, you says. They takes as long to cut as the flats. So that says another five weeks, one pit to cut the flats, one to do the uprights, so that you got both coming at the same time. Then, as well like, you got to ‘ ave some way of puttin’ them together, which be three sided chocks, as you might say, to nail to the outsides on the cross beams.”
“No need for them – I shall have them run at the foundry. Iron.”
The master sawyer was inclined to be offended at the very concept of iron, but he was also aware that he did not have the time or the easy facilities to cut the chocks. He contented himself with a grunt of dismissal, and a few pennies added to the bill.
“Then comes the matter of cost, master. The lads got to ‘ave piece-work rates on top of their wages, if so be they are to work long and ‘ard on such oversize cuts. I pays they thruppence an hour flat, as their contracted wages – and that be good money round these parts. Eighteen shillings a week, they sees, and they lives in the cottages at the yard, rent-free. For a job like this, they got to ‘ave a penny apiece between ‘em on top for each cut. So that’s ten weeks for four men, what is t
hirty-six quid, and add to that the better part of another eighteen quid in bonus, so labour is goin’ to cost you twenty-seven quid for each pit, master. On top of that, the cost of the wood itself, what ain’t cheap these days, for there being so many cottages goin’ up in town. And then there’s cartage, and I needs to pay for the yard and me own livin’. Time we’ve put in the baulks for layin’ crosswise, master, you ain’t goin’ to see much change out of three ‘undred quid, what ain’t no small sum of money, you might say…”
The message was obvious – it was far too large a sum to be paid out after the work was done. The master sawyer wanted a sizeable lump of it cash down, as guarantee of Sam’s financial probity.
Sam was not prepared to pay any great part of his bill in advance of seeing good numbers of properly sawn timbers. He dug into his pocket, pulled out his purse.
“I don’t carry large sums around with me every day, sir. That is not the most sensible of actions, as you will appreciate. Twenty guineas gold, here and now. Thirty guineas each Friday for the next nine weeks and tidy up the odd pennies on completion, together with an extra bonus for the lads if they complete to time?”
They shook hands on the deal, gold being very persuasive.
Sam made his farewells and rode off to the wagon maker, and then to the smithy, arriving at the White Horse late in the day, hungry and tired.
“Stuck in the mud and never heard of anything, new Uncle Abe. ‘Us don’t never ‘ave made a wagon what looks like this, Master Heythorne, sir’. And that is reason enough for them never to do so in the future! ‘It do be different, Master, and that do mean it ain’t the same what we always does’. And that is all the reason that is required for it to be impossible – they have never seen the like before. An hour I spent with pen and paper, explaining the measurements, and that I wanted six identical wagons, the same to the nearest part of an inch, each to carry an exact chaldron and to have wheels at precisely the same width apart. I shall need to visit the workshop two and three times a week, Uncle Abe, for they will not understand just how important it is that each be exactly the same. ‘Ah, well, Master, it be no more than a matter of six inches, and that be almost nothing, one way or t’other’ – the fact that it will make the wagon too great or too small to fit the rails will not occur to them, for they have never seen a rail before and suspect it might be foreign and not the sort of thing they wish to deal with.”
Abe tried, unsuccessfully, to keep a straight face. It was only a small town, he suggested, and the people not used to innovation.
“How do they cope with the new kilns and the great bulk of pottery being made nowadays, Uncle Abe?”
“They don’t, Sam. They pretend it don’t exist; they turn their backs on the extra wagons on the roads and the great plumes of smoke rising into the air. They don’t see it, and so they don’t know it, and all is well in their little worlds, until something happens to disturb them. How did you get the sawmill to take the contract?”
Sam shook his head, sadly.
“I noticed the master-sawyer’s eyes light up when I set two stacks of ten golden guineas on the table in front of him. When I promised thirty more each week he almost wet himself in his glee. Most of his sales are small and made for silver; sometimes even in kind, I suspect, for he had a barn to the side with sacks of flour and such stacked up. Shiny gold does not often come his way. When I spoke to the wagon maker, he could not see his way clear to making my new tubs, until I stacked ten guineas, one on top of another, and then started to build a second, and made it very clear there was still more tucked away in my little leather bag. Johnny Higby at the foundry at least was willing to cast the holding chocks for the outside of the rails, and the nails – spikes they called them – that are needed. He is willing to make iron wheels as well and will look at the possibility of axle trees, though they might be difficult to make for fixing the wheels to them, but he will think about it. New, they may have been, but old gold spoke in a loud voice, and there was a lot of it in my purse. The word will spread, and I shall carry my pocket pistols from now on, Uncle Abe. I suspect I may be at risk, otherwise.”
Abe agreed, it was dangerous to be known to carry gold; there was any number of desperate men who might be tempted by guinea pieces.
Sam nodded thoughtfully, thinking that he had seen some few of those men at the White Horse in recent times. He kept a careful eye out over the next few days and spotted four unknowns in the space of a week, wandering into the bar and catching Abe’s eye and then disappearing with him into the back room. Each of the strangers was within reason young, lean and hungry-looking, and with suspicious lumps in their greatcoat pockets, very much like the ones in Sam’s that were made by his pair of pistols.
‘Not highwaymen, for they had no horses, and the gentlemen of the road walk nowhere, as part of their romance. Far more likely hard men from town, moving some part of the proceeds of burglary or street robbery.’
A few days later he became suspicious when a wagon and four drew up outside the White Horse and was very quickly led round into the yard. Sam was inside, sat by a window taking a break in the middle of the day. He looked up from his mutton pie and watched Abe look under the canvas tilt and then lead the wagoner and his mate into the stables. They appeared ten minutes later, on the back of a pair of riding cobs and smiling happily, setting off down the road into town. The wagon was taken under cover in the big barn and the four horses were led into stalls, all neat and tidy.
Abe came in, saw Sam at the window, finishing his meal, guessed that he would have heard and then seen the activity in the yard.
“A friend of a friend, Sam, put those two in my direction. Brothers, they are, and with no parents to go back to, and unmarried as well. Off to the ships in Glasgow, bound for the Americas with fifty pounds apiece in their pockets. They will sell the cobs and tack, probably in Lancaster, taking the coach the last of the journey, and that may put another five or more into their purses. Their master’s wagon is loaded with sugar and coffee, direct from the ship in Bristol and on its way to Derby and then Sheffield, where there are rich folks to purchase such goods. Now, Sam, it will stay hereabouts, and sell for a good two hundred, perhaps a mite more, some of it staying in my store cupboards as well. Not an adventure to be repeated, Sam, for it needs the right men and the right load, but very profitable, and not a man hurt in the process. Everything will simply disappear, and there will be nothing to lead the agents from the insurance to us here. I shall sell the wagon for a song, dirt cheap, to the carter in Stoke, who will be pleased to slap his name upon it for all to see. The horses can stay with us, for we shall need some to pull the coal wagons from the bottom here into town and to your stills. A very profitable little transaction, Sam. Putting all the profits together, there’s the better part of one hundred and fifty to go into my back pocket.”
“Insurance, Uncle Abe?”
“You know what that is, Sam. A man sending a cargo overseas pays what they call a premium to cover against loss.”
Sam knew that.
“Thing is, Sam, that if they lose a big amount, more than ordinary theft, the insurance people have their confidential men who go searching for the goods, and then for the fences handling them and finally the thieves themselves. If they know more or less where to look, it’s often not too hard to discover the goods, for there are only a few fences in any town and in the nature of things, they are known, or rumoured at least. But they cannot search every town from Bristol to Derby and twenty miles either side of the route. By the time they get here, in the unlikely event that they do, the scent will be cold, and one sack of coffee or cone of sugar looks much like any other.”
“Unless some big mouth gets to talk, there can be no worry, Uncle Abe. Specially like, if you don’t do the same thing twice.”
Abe nodded – he had worked that out when first the opportunity had been suggested to him.
“What of Rufus, Uncle Abe?”
“What he don’t know about ain’t going to
grieve him, Sam. He’s too busy these days to know all that’s going on.”
Sam nodded – true enough, but it smacked of deceit, and he was not at all sure it was wise to pull the wool over Rufus’ eyes. He had no choice, however. Family came first.
“Rufus ain’t quite on top of his business just now Sam, anyhow. There was three of the Tappers, and each of them busy for some substantial part of the day. Rufus is trying to do the work of all three and keep up with his own old people as well. Thing is, Sam, he’s always been a loner, never had men to work directly under him. I have always been a friend, and have worked with him, but never for him, you might say – and I have been the closest thing he had to a confederate. I am too busy at the White Horse to go into town every day, and as a result, he’s trying to work twenty-four hours to the day to keep up with all that must be done, and no man can do that. Some of the Tappers’ people are coming to me now, Sam, fencing their stuff and asking my advice on jobs.”
Sam said that he thought he had seen some unsavoury characters frequenting the inn just of late.
“So you have, Sam, and that ain’t no very good thing for the house. I have been thinking of setting Tom up in a shop in town, in Leek rather than in Stoke, so that they could go to him instead.”
Sam shook his head; he could not imagine Tom making a success of such an activity.
“My senior man, Amos, at the new distillery, has got a head on his shoulders, Uncle Abe. He’s no soft touch either. Any man who tried to give him the run around would soon find he had chosen the wrong target. Set him up in his own little place, with some sort of trade of his own to be seen to be busy with, and he could deal with any of the hard men who came to him. He’s a bright sort of bloke, would soon learn the prices and the ins and outs of the trade. Not a pawn shop, for that ain’t entirely respectable, and not a pub either, for that can attract too many eyes… A hardware store, maybe, with a few bits and bobs of iron goods for sale. He could maybe tuck the odd pistol or long gun away as well, selling at second-hand, or renting, more like.”
The Killing Man Page 22