The Sweeping Saga Collection: Poppy’s Dilemma, The Dressmaker’s Daughter, The Factory Girl. Nancy Carson

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.