Poppy’s Dilemma

When he’d finished, he said, ‘I want you to take this home and learn your letters. Practise writing them yourself, copying what I’ve written. When you’ve learnt them by heart, I’ll show you how to write capital letters and then we’ll go on to when to use them.’

‘I will,’ Poppy promised. ‘Thank you, Robert, for taking the trouble to teach me. I shall owe you so much.’

‘Tell me, Poppy,’ Robert said, still somewhat preoccupied by the disturbing revelations about her personal activities. ‘This Jericho … Did you give him any inkling at all that you might agree to be his … his woman?’

‘I told him I’d think about it if he gave me time,’ she said frankly.

‘So you like him then?’

‘He’s all right. He makes me laugh. I don’t know whether I really fancy him that much though … Still, what’s fancying got to do with it? Minnie says that in the dark you can always make-believe it’s somebody you do fancy.’

‘I think this Minnie’s a parlously bad influence on you, Poppy. Promise me you won’t agree to becoming Jericho’s woman.’

‘But what’s it to you, Robert?’ she asked, for the first time really convinced of his interest in her.

‘Well …’ He shrugged. ‘It’s just that … I think you’re worthy of so much better. Save yourself for somebody more fitting …’

‘Some duke or earl, you mean?’ she said mischievously.

‘Who knows? Stranger things have happened.’

‘Not to me, Robert. Never to me.’

‘All the same, promise me …’

She was surprised at the intensity in his eyes. Well, maybe she could use a little guile here. ‘I’ll tell you the same as I told Jericho. I’ll make nobody no promises yet.’

The Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway received Royal Assent on 4 August 1845, backed by the Great Western Railway who wished to promote another broad-gauge line. By 1846, work on tunnelling had begun at Dudley, Worcester and Mickleton, near Chipping Campden. By 1849, the Dudley tunnel, for which the contractors were Buxton & Clark of Sheffield, had been finished. The actual railway track had not yet been laid, for there was some political argument about whether broad gauge or narrow gauge was to prosper. The contract for the southern section beyond the Dudley tunnel had been awarded to Treadwell’s. Work at the Mickleton tunnel, however, operated by an unfortunate succession of inept contractors, had been beset by problems and was far from complete.

At Mickleton, where Lightning Jack and Buttercup were working, the exact line of the tunnel had been set out and pegged over the surface, as had the rest of the route. Sinkers then dropped trial shafts along the path of the proposed tunnel to investigate the strata and water content of the rock. Standard practice was to sink a shaft at every furlong, but more if considered necessary by the engineer. Having reached the proper depth, some of those vertical shafts would be widened and lined so that men, horses, tools and materials could be lowered into and raised from the workings on platforms or in huge tubs, hauled by stationary steam engines or horse gins. Headings went out on the correct alignment from the bottom of each shaft in opposite directions until the tunnel was driven through the hill.

At the end of June, Lightning Jack arose from his bunk in the shack he shared with the other men, dressed and went outside into the early morning sunshine. He breathed in the fresh morning air of the Cotswolds and looked across at the gently rolling hills around him, the patchwork of fields like a far-flung quilt of yellow and green and gold. This was a far cry from the squalid landscape of the Black Country … except for the brown spoil from the tunnel which was turning the top of the hill where they lived and worked into a slag heap of monumental proportions. Soil and rock was ripped from the bowels of the earth beneath his feet and tipped randomly over the hill in separate mounds. One day, perhaps nature would clothe it in trees, in grass and fern, and it would surreptitiously blend into the countryside and leave no clue as to its man-made origin. But now it was an angry boil marring a beautiful face.

Lightning Jack stood, his hands on his hips, morose despite nature’s unsullied beauty stretched out beyond the dingy heaps of spoil. He likened himself to that spoil; dirty, unkempt, unwashed, undisciplined. He was unshaven too, except for those nights he had been out carrying on with Jenny Sparrow. How he wished he’d never set eyes on the woman. Oh, they’d had their fun. She had lived up to her sensual promise. She could take her share of drink as well, and seem unmarked by it. Sometimes she would even pay her turn. But she was no good for Lightning, and he had discovered it too late.

Now he yearned for Sheba. He longed to see his children; to ruffle Poppy’s restless yellow curls, to hug his younger daughters Lottie and Rose, to put his arms around his son Little Lightning, to see his youngest child Nathaniel at Sheba’s breast. How were they faring without him, without his protection? Had Sheba managed somehow to engineer a continued sojourn at the encampment at Blowers Green? If not, where might they be now? Well, there was no point in worrying about it. It did not matter any more. It did not matter where they were or how they were faring.

Lightning Jack heard Buttercup calling him and turned round to look. Buttercup and a score of other tunnellers filed out of the hut, swearing and muttering as navvies did, and headed for the shaft nearby, which was their entrance to the workings. Lightning joined them and fell into step beside Buttercup, behind the others. They reached the head of the shaft, where a steam engine, a great heap of coal penned beside it, chugged and rasped, primed and ready to lower the men into the earth’s cool heart. One by one, they stepped onto the platform and Lightning was the last. As they descended, the familiar sulphurous smell made him cough. The platform began to spin and Lightning began to feel giddy. He braced himself against the twisting motion and focused his eyes on Buttercup.

‘Bist thee all right?’ Buttercup asked his chum, grabbing hold of him. He had noticed a decline in Lightning’s demeanour lately.

‘Aye, fit as a fiddle, me.’

‘Mind as you don’t get giddy.’

‘I’m all right.’

The temperature inside the shaft became cooler the further they descended, and the air felt damp on Lightning’s skin. The light from the open shaft above diminished and the encircling wall grew eerily dark. The rate of descent decreased and the platform halted with a hard bump, which made Lightning’s knees buckle. They had touched the level.

In the workings of the tunnel the atmosphere was oppressive, for want of free circulation of clean air. The smell and smoke of gunpowder from the night shift’s blasts lingered. Lightning and Buttercup made their way in a single file with the others towards their base. There, each lit a candle. The feeble light exaggerated the dimness of the vault and the thick, foggy atmosphere. They took such tools as they needed and, unspeaking, picked their way through pools of inky black water that plopped with incessant dripping from above. They tramped over the temporary rails laid for the tip trucks, which would collect the spoil and be hoisted up the shaft to be emptied over the once picturesque hill above. In the uncertain light they picked their way past huge blocks of stone, planks of wood, scaffolding, and piles of bricks which were manufactured and employed by the million to line the tunnel. Tiny points of flickering light showed where the navvies were working. The sounds of picks, shovels and sledgehammers echoed, mingling with the shouts, hacking coughs and guffaws of the men, and became louder the closer they got to the work face. An army of bricklayers toiled behind them, working like ants to install the vital brick encasement. The tunnel, which up until that point had been cut and lined to its full dimensions, suddenly narrowed. The level floor began to rise steeply and the gang, with Lightning Jack and Buttercup, were at the face and relieving the other workers who had been there all night.

‘Let’s get off our steam packets and get stuck in then,’ Buttercup declared in their recognised slang, ‘else the bloody ganger will be docking us our sugar and honey.’

They took off their jackets and got stuck in, working at a pace that an ordinary mortal would have found back-breaking, by the light of the candles fixed to their hats. Buttercup tightly gripped a six-foot bar of steel, holding it firm against the rock face while Lightning Jack swung a sledgehammer in a great arc with the rhythm of a machine. He aimed it at the end of the steel rod, a drill, and his accuracy was such that he never missed, drunk or sober. Had he missed, he could easily have killed his mate. Slowly, surely, he drove the drill into the rock face. When the hole was deep enough, about five feet, he would pack it with explosive.

Come one o’clock, the ganger blew his whistle and shouted, ‘Yo-ho, yo-ho!’ It was the signal to stop work and take a break. The men tramped back to where the tunnel was level, set a few planks across small stacks of bricks and sat down. One of the navvies, Frying Pan, called one of the nippers to drum up the tea. The nipper, a lad of about ten or eleven, had already set light to a gob of tallow that had been collected in a round tin box, at once doubling the amount of light in the vicinity. He had then placed an iron bucket containing water on an iron tripod astride the flame. Now he added the mashings of tea and sugar which he took from each of the men, and emptied them into the bucket. While it came to the boil, the men wiped the sweat from their brows, ate their tommy and talked.

It began as a noisy meal, liberally laced with ferocious swearing, bravado and laughter, which echoed and re-echoed around the cavern of the tunnel.

‘Still poking that Jenny Sparrow, Lightning?’ Frying Pan asked when talk had reverted to women, as it generally did.

‘Not any more,’ Lightning replied tersely, for it was a sore subject. ‘Not that it’s any o’ your business.’

‘Gone off it, have ye? Had your fill?’

‘Why are you so bloody interested? Fancy it yourself, do you?’

‘I might.’ Frying Pan took a huge bite out of his bread. ‘If every other bugger in the world hadn’t already been there afore me.’

‘Well, I can recommend her,’ Lightning said coldly. ‘Her knows how to draw out the best in a man … if you get me meaning.’

‘Her’s had plenty experience,’ another, Long Daddy, put in.

‘Piss off, the lot o’ yer,’ Lightning rasped, and touchily moved away from the ensemble.

He ambled over to the other side of the wide tunnel with his tommy box and settled himself on a remote pile of bricks. He had no wish to air his private problems with the rest of the encampment. If they wanted to discuss their amorous adventures that was up to them, but he didn’t want to share his.

Buttercup came over to him and sat beside him.

‘What’s up wi’ thee, Lightning?’ he asked quietly. ‘Thou hasn’t been theeself for a week or two. Bist thee upset about summat? That Jenny Sparrow, for instance? I never realised th’ was a-pining for her?’

‘The only one I’m a-pining for is my Sheba,’ Lightning confessed sullenly.

‘For Sheba? Then that’s easy remedied. Collect your money tonight and go off on tramp, back to Dudley and the – what? The Blowers Green workings, did’st thou say?’

‘Aye, Buttercup,’ Lightning said with scorn. ‘But that’s easier said than done.’

‘Why? What’s to stop thee?’

‘Listen, Buttercup,’ Lightning said, and his tone was morbid. ‘You’ve been a good mate to me in the weeks we’ve been together, and I’ve appreciated it – more’n you realise, very like. I want you to promise me summat …’

‘Anything, me old mucker. Just name it.’

‘Well … if anything was to happen to me, an accident like, would you be good enough to go and let my Sheba know? It’d mean going off on tramp for a few days, but it’d mean a lot to me if you’d undertake to do it.’

‘Don’t be so damned gloomy,’ Buttercup said. ‘Tell her theeself. Take theeself home and tell her how much you’ve missed her. All right, so yo’n had a little diversion with that Jenny Sparrow along the way. So what? Sheba ain’t to know that, is she? And any road, yo’ll have gone back to her. She’ll welcome thee with open arms … and open thighs, I’d venture to say.’

Lightning threw a piece of bread down on the ground in frustration. ‘That’s just it, Buttercup … I can’t go back. Not for anything. Not now.’

‘Why not, dammit?’ He looked at his friend, puzzled.

‘Well, Frying Pan’s right. Jenny Sparrow has had plenty experience. Too much of it. She’s gi’d me a dose o’ the rap-tap-tap, and Lord knows what else. I’m even afeared to have a piddle any more, ’cause it’s like pissing broken glass. I ’spect I got a dose o’ the Durham ox as well, just to round it off nice, like. How the hell can I go back to Sheba when I’m afflicted wi’ that? What sort of bloke would knowingly pass on the pox to his woman?’

‘Christ! Well, they reckon there’s plenty of it about.’

‘Aye, but you never think it’s gunna get you, do yer, eh, Buttercup?’

‘I thought you seemed miserable lately,’ Buttercup sympathised.

‘Miserable? I tell you, Buttercup, I’m at me wits’ end. I never felt so bloody wretched in me whole life. I’ve messed things up good and bloody proper. I’ve ruined a perfectly good life wi’ Sheba and me kids. I should be hanged for being so bloody stupid.’

‘So what yer gunna do, me old china plate?’

Lightning shrugged. ‘What the hell can I do?’

‘Come on.’ Buttercup stood up wearily and stretched. ‘Tea’ll be drummed up in a minute or two. I got a little tipple o’ whisky in me bottle. Me and thee can share it. Things won’t seem half so bad after a tipple o’ whisky.’

Lightning Jack and Buttercup shared the whisky, finished their dinners and their tots of tea, and then went back to work. It was time to pack explosive into the hole they had drilled and blow the face of the tunnel to bring down more rock for clearing, more clay for making the bricks. From a sturdy wooden box, Jack picked up a linen bag that had already been filled with gunpowder and packed it deep in the hole, with a length of fuse attached, carefully bunging up the hole with clay.

‘Ready to blow,’ he said to the ganger who was at Lightning’s side inspecting the work.

‘Ready to blow, it is,’ the ganger replied. He cupped his hands like a megaphone around his mouth. ‘Clear the area!’ he called, then blew his whistle. ‘Clear the area!’ He looked around for flickering candles in the darkness, which would tell him where the nearest men were working. ‘I’ll just get that lot to move back,’ he said, turning to Lightning who was waiting to light the fuse. ‘Give me a minute afore you light it. I’ll make sure the way’s clear for you to get away.’

Lightning watched as the ganger’s shadow became more indistinct. He gave him his minute and duly lit the fuse.

‘About to blow!’ he yelled at the top of his voice. ‘Blowin’ up!’

Beneath the shaft, where the men had collected, Buttercup asked for silence.

‘What’s up?’ asked the ganger.

‘Listen … I can’t hear Lightning walking back.’

‘You ain’t about to with all the racket going on down here. Dripping bloody water, the clatter o’ bricks, the squeal o’ them there wheels on the damn trucks, blokes chuntering.’

‘Look. The fuse is lit. Thou canst see it flaring. But where the hell’s Lightning?’

‘Give him a chance. The fuse’ll be at least a minute fizzling afore it sets off the gunpowder. Get your hands over your ears ready.’

‘Nah. I’m going to fetch him. He ain’t come away. Look, I can see his candle. He’s still there, the damned fool, by the fuse.’

At that, Buttercup hurtled off, running towards the fuse that was still fizzing bright and crackling as it burned its way towards the compacted gunpowder. ‘Lightning!’ he yelled. ‘Move theeself! Get back here!’

‘Stay where you are, you bloody fool,’ came the reply echoing towards him through the gloom. ‘Get back and save yourself. You’ve got a bloody errand to run for me, remember?’

‘You arsehole!’ Buttercup bawled angrily as the final, awful realisation of what Lightning was up to struck him. ‘Thee bisn’t doing that. I’m coming to fetch thee. Stamp on the fuse or pull the bugger out. Quick!’

‘Get back, Buttercup,’ Lightning shouted urgently. ‘You’re too late. Save yourself.’

There was a blinding flash of light and Buttercup was thrown to the floor of the tunnel as the wave of the blast reached him. He had the distinct impression that his head had imploded. The deafening sound was palpable as it reverberated along the walls and roof of the tunnel section. The ground beneath him and above him shook and shuddered and he fancied he must be dead already and in the midst of a thundercloud with heaven’s artillery booming. He lay with his hands over his head, fearing a fall of bricks and debris from the roof, but none fell. He looked up but all was black. He could feel the stench of burnt gunpowder in his nostrils, the dense smoke billowing around him making his eyes run.

‘Lightning!’ he called out, knowing it to be hopeless. ‘Lightning! Where bist thee? Answer me!’

But there was no answer. The smoke deadened even the echo of his calls.

His candle had been blown out in the blast. All was darkness. Never in his whole life had he experienced such complete and utter blackness. The pressure of the darkness on his optic nerves was unbearable. He began choking on the smoke. He could taste it. He was swallowing it. He raised himself to his feet, felt in his pocket for his box of matches and tried to light one. As it flared pathetically, all he could see was the dense miasma of black smoke wheeling all around him. If it would stay alight long enough to light a candle, he could look for Lightning Jack.

It was some time before the smoke had billowed and eddied slowly towards the shaft and had been drawn up it. Had the tunnel been open at either end, or even connected to another vertical shaft further along, the natural draught would have drawn it out comparatively quickly, but it took an age with only one shaft open. The rest of the gang had made their way towards him, and the ganger, fearing he had lost two men, was relieved to see that at least Buttercup was still alive.

‘Come on,’ Buttercup said. ‘We’d best see if we can find what’s left o’ the daft old bugger.’

Chapter 8

‘I’d like us to concentrate on double vowel sounds tonight, Poppy,’ Robert Crawford said.

They were sitting in his office, on the first floor of an old house in Abberley Street, off Vicar Street, which the contractors had acquired because it was near the workings. It suited Robert’s purpose admirably. Poppy could learn undisturbed, and Robert would not be compromised by being seen in public with a low-class navvy girl. There was seldom anybody who used the offices after about six o’clock of an evening. And he was privy to a key.

The evening rays of an early July sun streamed through the deep sash window, which was open an inch or two at the top, and fell obliquely onto his huge desk, that was covered in drawings and maps. Poppy sat next to Robert at the desk. They were so close that he was aware of Poppy’s soft warmth as his thigh gently nudged hers as if by accident in the desk’s kneehole.

Robert was hopelessly torn. For two weeks he had contrived to meet Poppy there to give her lessons in reading and writing and, in that respect, both were experiencing singular success. Poppy could already recognise scores of simple words, and write them down in an awkward scrawl. But he had not yet mustered the audacity to suggest anything more than being merely her teacher. He was certain that he had fallen in love with her. If it was not love, it was some other destructive yet utterly overwhelming attraction that he seemed powerless to resist. Whatever it was, he was painfully aware that it could do neither him, nor anybody else, one iota of good. Still, he could not help wanting to touch her, to feel her girlish softness and gentleness. He ached to run his fingers through that tangle of fair curls and feel her delicious-looking lips on his. He was forever trying to glean information as to her likely relationship with that savage they called Jericho, and whether any relationship was flourishing. Always, however, she dismissed it as something trivial. Well, he hoped with all his heart and soul that it was trivial and would remain so.

‘If we have two “o”s together,’ he began to explain, ‘they make the sound you get in the word look.’ He wrote the string of letters down.

‘Look,’ she repeated, forming the word deliberately, and with a delectable pursing of her lips, which gave Robert the renewed and urgent desire to kiss her.

‘And this word – book.’ He wrote that down quickly as well.

‘Book.’

‘Tooth …’

‘Tooth,’ she repeated seriously, oblivious to the effect she was having on him.

Next, he wrote down the word hook. ‘So what do you think this word says?’

She studied the word for no more than a second. ‘’Ook.’

He smiled, acknowledging her ability to work it out quickly. ‘Hook,’ he corrected. ‘You must sound the “h” …’

‘Hook,’ she said exaggeratedly.

‘That’s better. So do you understand the sound a double o makes?’

‘Yes,’ she said, with a certainty that was unassailable. ‘It’s easy.’

‘Good … Ah! You see there’s another … the word good … You’re doing well, Poppy. Extremely well. Now, let’s look at the vowels o and u together … as in house …’

‘’Ouse.’

‘Pronounce the h, Poppy.’

‘Sorry, Robert. House.’

‘Now … mouse.’

‘Mouse,’ she said, looking very serious.

‘Mouth …’ He looked at her lips again. He was fascinated by the way they moved so deliciously as she pronounced the words.

‘Your mouth, Poppy …’

She looked up at him and saw the flame of ardour in his eyes. ‘What about my mouth?’

‘You have such a lovely mouth. I’m sorry, but I want to kiss you. Would you be terribly offended?’

‘No, why should I be?’ she answered with neither hesitation nor inhibition, and felt her heart instantly beating faster at the unexpected enticement.

She leaned towards him and pursed her lips and he could have kicked himself for not having asked before. Her lips were cool and slightly moist, like petals unfurling from the bud. He was all at once aware of her chastity and her sexuality, existing together symbiotically.

‘That was nice,’ she said with wide-eyed sincerity. ‘Hey, you don’t half kiss nice.’

‘Then I’ll kiss you again … But why not close your eyes this time?’

‘I will, if you’ll close yours as well. You didn’t then, so it’s no good telling me to, if you don’t.’

‘I was merely looking to see if you had closed your eyes.’

‘I’ll close ’em then.’

Their lips met again. Poppy peeped to see whether he had closed his eyes and found him peeping at her once more.

‘See?’ she complained, breaking off with a girlish giggle. ‘You’re watching me.’

He laughed self-consciously. ‘I was just checking.’

‘No checking, Robert. If you want me to kiss you and keep my eyes closed, you have to trust me. Don’t keep peeping.’

‘I won’t peep again. On my honour.’

‘Right …’

They kissed once more, and neither dared to open their eyes any more to see if the other’s were shut. The kiss lingered, each savouring the sensation, and she felt his arm come around her and give her an attentive, affectionate hug, which she enjoyed a great deal.

‘I like it when you do that,’ she said.

‘Then why don’t you sit on my lap?’ he suggested. ‘I’ll be able to kiss you more easily and hold you properly, rather than us stretching over.’