The sun brushed light and shade over the twin mountains of Townhill and Kilvey, revealing on the eastern slope the stricken scars where nothing would grow on land devastated by copper blight. And on the western side of the river were the gaping-tooth wounds of Townhill where the bright new housing estate was meant to be, the project halted by the war.
The sea ran high, in full flood, eroding the dunes of Brynmill and – further along the five mile stretch, towards the docks – punishing the arms of the piers with thunderous blows.
And Mr Walter Long had introduced the National Registration Bill into the House of Commons…
Katie Murphy sat in the untidy kitchen of her father’s fresh fish shop in Market Street, staring at the registration form in despair. ‘’Tis a barrack-room lawyer you have to be to fill in this damn paper!’ Her young brothers looked up at her briefly and then returned to the more important task of playing soldiers with wooden pegs painted with moustaches and red cheeks, each one of them a general in Kitchener’s Army.
‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Will you listen to the girl!’ Mrs Murphy poured a full measure of gin into her glass. ‘You, with all your brains, finding a little piece of paper difficult! That’s not like you, Katie. Come on, what really ails you?’
Katie brushed back her red-gold hair and leaned forward on her elbow. ‘I’ll have to leave Mary’s shop, mammy, can’t stay there any longer – it appears that being a shop girl is not doing my duty.’
Mrs Murphy’s eyes became sharp. ‘What is it you’re gabbling on about now, child? Leave Mary’s shop, indeed – and where else would you get paid such good money?’
‘Sure and don’t I know all that?’ Katie stared down at her fingertips. ‘But mammy, serving in a shop isn’t helping the war any and I’m going to have to work in the munitions factory. They need all the young, strong women they can get, for the work is…’ she paused, ‘well, it’s very hard.’
‘I’ve had one of them forms too, so has your daddy – anyone between fifteen and sixty-five has one, it don’t really mean nothing.’
Katie sighed. ‘You won’t have to work, Mammy, you’ve got the boys to look after – and Daddy’s too old. I’m the only one in this house who will be affected by the Registration Act.’
‘I don’t see that it means you have to change your job at all. Where does it say that?’
Katie held out the form. ‘See, mammy, it asks: “Are you willing to serve your country in national service for the Army or in the manufacture of munitions?”’
‘’Tis a foine thing when folks are told what they can and can’t do.’ Mrs Murphy drank deeply from her glass. ‘I’m only glad that me boys are still too young for any such nonsense.’
‘So am I,’ Katie said softly. ‘Before they grow up it will all be over, please God.’
She rose and moved restlessly to the window. A pale sun was breaking through the clouds and the harsh winds that came in off the sea were easing. She was tired of being cooped up indoors; she would take a walk down to the front and watch the ships, ignoring the fact that they carried more sinister cargo now, and try to forget the war and its ramifications.
‘I shan’t be long, mammy. Going to get a bit of peace away from these noisy brothers of mine.’
‘Aren’t you going out with Mark today?’ Mrs Murphy asked quickly and Katie smiled.
‘No, didn’t I tell you he has to work an extra shift? There are so many men gone away that he’s short-handed. See you later, mammy.’
Outside, Katie took a deep breath and looked up towards the sky. There was little to be seen except for the smoke that gushed and spat from the chimneys of the works on the river bank.
She walked through Green Hill and smiled warmly at Honey O’Connor who was just emerging from her house.
‘Well, Honey, I haven’t seen you at mass for a long time. Where have you been keeping, then?’
Honey’s friendly smile lit up her face. She was a sweet, beautiful girl, Katie thought with a trace of envy, untouched as yet by the harsh side of life.
‘I’m in service now up at the Richardson house.’ She fell into step beside Katie, a wry expression on her face.
‘Nothing wrong in that – is there?’ Katie asked and Honey glanced quickly away.
‘It’s Mr Rickie, he’s too familiar, I mean, I don’t like the way he puts his hands on my shoulders and such.’ She sighed. ‘But then perhaps that’s the way with the gentry.’
Katie stopped in her tracks. ‘Now don’t you be takin’ any nonsense from that man,’ she said firmly. ‘They all try it on a bit, specially with a new young maid like you, but don’t be havin’ any of it, do you understand.’
Honey’s eyes were troubled. ‘I don’t know what to say to him, he’s not doing anything wrong… well, not really.’
‘Tell your mammy if he does then and get yourself out of his way. There’s more than one girl been ruined by her master – don’t think of us as people at all, some of them.’
They walked a short way in silence and Honey brushed back the trailing tendrils of hair that escaped from under her bonnet. ‘Anyway, now I’m sixteen it looks as if I’ll end up working the munitions,’ she said. ‘I’ve just been filling in that form they sent us – did you get one, Katie?’
‘Sure enough, everyone is getting one except the very young or very old,’ she smiled. ‘We might find ourselves working together, then.’
Honey smiled ruefully. ‘It can’t come quick enough for me, anything to get out of Mr Rickie’s way.’
‘Well, it’s not going to be any picnic in the munitions, I don’t suppose,’ Katie said doubtfully. ‘Don’t really know what we’d be doing, but I’m sure it will be dangerous.’
Honey paused. ‘Enjoyed my day off, so I did, but I’m not looking forward to going up to the big house. A good job it is, so my mammy says, but she doesn’t have to do it.’
Katie watched the slight figure of the young Irish girl as she turned to climb the hill towards the west, where the fine houses stood facing the Channel. Poor Honey, she was such an innocent and it didn’t seem right for her to be in the charge of a man the like of Rickie Richardson. Rich he might be, but he was no gentleman, for Katie well remembered the gossip that swept Sweyn’s Eye when as a young boy he had got a maid into trouble and then had her packed off somewhere, never to be seen again.
She moved on towards the docks, where fussy tugs hooted protests at the larger ships, dipping and bowing in the swell, chivying them into place like sheep. There she sat on the drystone wall and stared out at the ocean which lashed the shore as though to smash all before it.
It was difficult to believe that the country was at war, for merchant ships still berthed at Sweyn’s Eye. Indians rubbed shoulders with Chinese, walking the docklands under the heavy skies as though without a care in the world.
And yet Katie had seen evidence of the war, for wounded and maimed soldiers were becoming a more frequent sight in the old town. They wore the blue of the hospital uniform so that others would know they had been injured fighting and were not cowards; men could be so childlike at times, Katie thought.
A warm feeling swept over her as she allowed her mind to dwell on the hours she had spent with Mark the previous night. He was a fine strong man, fit for a soldier but held in Sweyn’s Eye by the necessity to produce steel and tinplate. He at least was safe from the battles which were being fought on foreign soil.
Sometimes she sensed a restlessness in him, a feeling that he wanted to be where the action was taking place, yet common sense told him that some had to remain in the town and work the metals that were the lifeblood of the nation.
At last she turned her back on the sea which always brought her a sense of calm. It was time that she spoke to Mary and told her that she would be leaving the store. Katie couldn’t help feeling sad – she and Mary had been friends for a long time – but the shop didn’t really need her and it seemed that the munitions factory did.
The emporium was busy in spite of the inclemency of the day and as Katie moved through the crowds of shoppers, she wondered that the rich still had money to spend. The goods Mary sold were of a high quality and reasonably priced, but what she had originally intended to be a store for the poor of the town had become a fashionable place where the gentry sat for afternoon tea in the new lounge with its potted palms and oak panelling.
‘Katie, there’s nice to see you! I thought when you didn’t come into work this morning that you were sick.’ Mary smiled over the top of her polished desk and Katie, shaking her head, stood near the window watching the people below hurrying through the narrow streets like ants.
‘I must give in my notice, Mary,’ she said gently. ‘Got to work on munitions, there’s no choice – can’t exactly call shopkeeping a reserved occupation, can I?’
Mary looked down at the nib of her pen thoughtfully. ‘Had your registrations form, have you?’ she asked, her face troubled. ‘Katie, if you leave me I won’t have anyone I can trust to carry on when I’m not here.’
‘It’s not up to me, though; there’ll be a lot of changes now, Mary,’ Katie said ruefully. ‘Looks like you’ll be taking on older women to do the work, for us younger ones must serve our country. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, where is it all going to end!’ Katie felt anger run through her veins, for she loved her work in the store – loved the smell of the bolts of cloth, the scent of lavender polish on the furniture, the gracious elegance of the emporium and the nice clothes she wore to work. It would be a vastly different proposition when she was in the factory.
‘You’re right. It’s going to affect us all,’ Mary said in a low voice. ‘This war has a lot to answer for, mind. There’s Mali crying her eyes out last night because she hasn’t heard from her husband for over a week – breaking her heart she was, half angry with Sterling Richardson for enlisting and yet proud to the point of bursting at the same time. And don’t I just know how she feels?’
Katie sank into a chair. ‘The war is something we can’t see and don’t know anything about, yet it reaches out with greedy hands to take what we love best.’
Mary bit her lip. ‘My brother Heath was set upon by thugs, beat him sore they did, gave him the white feather… and that hurt Heath more than the bruises. Wanted to enlist ages ago and they turned him down because of his bad chest. They’re not so fussy now, snapped him up like a dog with a bone the second time he tried.’ She sighed. ‘Well, let’s forget about the war and I’ll treat you to a cup of tea and a Welsh cake in my new restaurant, is it?’
Katie forced herself to smile. ‘Right then, Mary, it’s about time you put your hand in your pocket, for sure ’tis mean you’re getting in your old age!’
The train stood in the station puffing and blowing, the steam issuing forth in frightening intensity with sparks falling like stars to burn out before they touched the platform. Katie tucked her grub-pack more firmly under her arm. She felt almost as though she had been taken backwards in time, for she was wearing thick boots on her feet instead of light pumps and her flannel skirt was covered by a coarse apron.
‘Duw, Katie Murphy, what are you doin’ here?’ The voice was a familiar one and she turned to see Doris standing beside her.
‘Same as you, sure enough,’ Katie smiled warmly. ‘Doris, I hardly recognised you without coal on your face. Had good times when we both worked in the Canal Street Laundry, didn’t we? But that’s a long time ago now. So you’re working the munitions too? Thanks be to the saints that there’s one familiar face here this morning!’
‘I am that,’ Doris said gleefully. ‘Be like the old days, won’t it, and I wonder how many of the crowd will be working in the factory with us?’
‘Well, I know two who won’t be,’ Katie said, ‘that’s Mary Sutton and Mali Richardson.’
‘Aye, I suppose Mali has to look after her babbas, and her husband away doing his bit an’ all. And there’s Mary in her shop – can’t leave that to anybody else. But me, glad I am to have a job, mind – starving I’d be if it wasn’t for the munitions factory.’
The train swallowed up the crowds of women, sucking them into dusty carriages. Slowly it began to move out of the station and Doris sat beside Katie, clutching her arm in fear.
‘Duw, don’t fancy doing this every day. I never did like trains, last one I went on was going to Carreg Fach to visit my sister. Is it supposed to make that awful row, do you think?’
‘Trains have been running in Sweyn’s Eye for more than sixty years, Doris, so don’t worry about it, you’ll be quite safe.’ Katie settled herself back in her seat and looked around her. The carriage was occupied mostly by working girls like herself, but two well-dressed women were sitting near the window, faces turned away as though unwilling to recognise the lower orders with whom they were forced to travel.
‘I bet them two won’t be packing shells like us,’ Doris whispered, following Katie’s glance. ‘Office toffs they’ll be, I bet a pound to a penny.’
‘I think you’re right, Doris.’ Katie hid a smile.
Doris pushed at her arm. ‘It’s a wonder they’ll put themselves out to sit in the same train as the likes of us. Don’t like it though – you can tell by the tilt of their noses, can’t you?’ Her voice was loud.
‘Hush, Doris!’ Katie said, biting her lip to prevent herself from giggling. ‘They’re doing their bit sure enough and they can’t help the way they’re made, I don’t suppose.’
‘Well, they’d better not look down their noses at me,’ Doris continued. ‘Give ’em a swipe, I will – good as them any day, me.’
The factory was like nothing Katie could ever have imagined. The vast room was filled with tables upon which shell cases stood, stiff and military, innocent enough without the packing that would turn them into harbingers of death.
Down the centre of the room like sentinels stood the lathes, silent now but waiting to spring into raucous life. The women stood in little crowds, anxiously wondering what was expected of them, for the practice of filling shells was not like any other occupation they had ever known.
The noise of chatter ceased as slowly the groups of women became aware that someone else was present. Katie looked up and nudged Doris into silence as a man came forward into the body of the factory. He was tall and ruggedly handsome but more than that, he had a presence that was indefinable.
‘I think it’s God come down from his heaven,’ Doris whispered in awe and Katie frowned at her.
‘Hush, don’t blaspheme like that, you heathen!’
Doris was not in the least offended, she gazed in open-mouthed admiration as the man’s eyes roved over the women who were waiting for him to speak.
‘The work you are about to do is dangerous.’ His voice fell clearly into the silent factory, strong and masculine and with the hardness of the North country giving it zest. ‘None of us yet realise exactly what the dangers will be, but we will learn together.’ When he smiled not one woman in the factory was left unmoved by the raw animal quality of the man.
‘I’m Mansel Jack. I won’t ask for quarter or give any, but I will be fair. Any grievances must be brought to me. And I shall expect ideas for improving the work conditions from you. Now, I suggest you go to your tables and then I’ll come round and show you what is to be done. One last word: we are handling explosives here, so it is essential to have respect for your own safety and that of your workmates.’
‘Isn’t he the giddy limit!’ Doris giggled excitedly. ‘Duw, what would I give to have a man like that in my bed!’
Katie smiled and linked arms with her, leading her towards one of the tables. ‘’Tis mad you are girl – and what would the likes of him be looking at us for when he could have any fine lady in the land?’
‘Aye, you’re right, but a girl can have her dreams, can’t she?’
Katie led Doris to the nearest table, smiling at a young girl who stood alone and was embarrassed by her loneliness.
‘Going to be part of our gang?’ Katie asked easily and the girl smiled in relief.
‘Duw, I was beginning to feel there was something wrong with me.’ Her voice was light and breathless, tiny as was her physical stature. ‘I’m Janey Jenkins from Landore near the copper works – and there’s daft I feel, standing here not knowing what to expect.’
Doris put her head on one side. ‘Are you kin to Heath Jenkins and his sister Mary who is gone all posh now?’
The girl’s colour rose. ‘Yes, I am – and not posh at all is Mary, still one of the workers in her heart. Just good at making money she is, mind.’
‘No offence meant,’ Doris said a trifle huffily and Katie hastened to smooth over the awkward moment.
‘Mary is a real friend, sure enough, always fine to me and to you, Doris – didn’t she lose her job in the laundry rather than put you out of work?’
‘Aye, she did that, I’ll give credit where credit’s due.’
Mansel Jack moved easily towards the table, the force of his personality reaching out and silencing the women although he had not spoken. For a moment he studied them individually and Katie felt he was memorising their faces.
‘Your job will be to fit the gaines,’ he said at last, holding up a tube. ‘This is a gaine and it is to be pushed into the TNT. Its purpose is to ensure that the fuse in the nose cap effectively detonates the contents of the shell.’ He stared around the small group, waiting to see if they understood what he had said, his glance resting on Katie for no more than a moment but filling her with a tingling sensation that she could not explain. All she knew was that this Mansel Jack was a man of power and the like of him she had never seen before.
His face relaxed into a smile. ‘You, Katie Murphy, will be in charge of this table. You may all come to me at the end of the week and collect the uniforms you will be wearing.’ As he moved away the girls stared at each other in silence for a long moment.
‘Isn’t he a lovely-looking man – and how did he know your name, Katie?’ Doris asked.
Katie shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea, but it’s my guess that there’s not much that one doesn’t know about any of us. Come on then, we’d better start work or we’ll be put out of a job before we’ve begun.’
At first Katie – along with the other women – handled the explosives with timidity as though packing eggs. But soon familiarity with the job took over and she found herself singing along with Doris, wondering if perhaps Mansel Jack had been overcautious in his warnings.
By the end of the day, Katie was so tired that she could hardly stand. The shift had lasted twelve hours with short breaks for dinner and tea, and her arms felt as though they were no longer part of her.
‘I’ll have just enough strength left to fall into bed,’ she said, her voice cracking with weariness.
Doris turned, a wry expression on her face. ‘Duw, you’re lucky. I got to go home and feed my kids; me mother will have had a guts-full of them and that’s for certain. Still, got to do your bit in this life, haven’t you - and when I think of my man gone to fight the Huns I’d do anything to help the war effort.’ Tears trembled on Doris’s lashes and she brushed them aside impatiently. ‘There I goes, blubbering like a babba myself, don’t take no notice of me.’
On the train journey back into Sweyn’s Eye, Katie leaned back in her seat too weary to talk. Her wrists ached with the effort of holding and filling the gaines and her skin tingled. She examined her hands – they seemed to be tinged with yellow but it must be a trick of the light she told herself.
‘There’s a strange day it’s been,’ Doris said in a low voice. ‘What do you think of the boss then, Katie? Isn’t he the finest, handsomest man you ever saw?’
‘Duw, I could lay down and die for him.’ The small voice of Janey Jenkins broke the silence and Doris turned to look at her disapprovingly.
‘I wasn’t speakin’ to you, merchi, so don’t stick your nose in where it’s not wanted, right?’
Katie sighed and roused herself. ‘Hush now, Doris,’ she said wearily. ‘We’ve got to work together for the saints know how long, so don’t let’s quarrel among ourselves. Come on, give Janey a chance – she’s done a good day’s work today, you must admit that.’
‘Aye, all right,’ Doris said reluctantly. ‘A good worker she is an’ all, can’t say no different.’
‘Then that’s settled,’ Katie sighed with relief. ‘Perhaps now I can have a bit of peace.’
She closed her eyes, realising she had not answered Doris’s question. What did she think of Mansel Jack? she asked herself. Well, one thing was sure: if she had not already been so much in love with Mark, she might have fallen head over heels for her new boss!
The grey of the night greeted her when she stepped off the train, the platform suddenly filled with women who walked wearily towards the entrance, a silent stream of humanity thankful to return home.
‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I don’t know how I’m going to make my way up that hill,’ Katie said, sighing as she leaned on the fence that bordered the railway line. ‘I must get some new boots, the floor of the factory is as hard as flint and cold with it.’
‘Come on,’ Doris took her arm. ‘Lean on me – I’m like an ox, my man always says so.’
Katie brushed back her red-gold hair and forced herself to move forward. ‘I’m going to get my mammy to bring in the tin bath and fill it to the brim with hot water, and then I’m going to soak for hours and hours.’ She smiled, though every part of her seemed to ache. ‘Working in the shop was like playing a game compared with the munitions factory,’ she said wryly.
‘Well, I’m glad of the money I’ll be getting,’ Doris said eagerly. ‘The work’s hard, right enough, but no worse than humping coal scuttles in the Canal Street Laundry. Soft you’ve gone, Katie Murphy, you’ll soon toughen up and then you’ll enjoy yourself, see if I’m not right.’
At the foot of Green Hill Katie paused. ‘Well, it’s different roads for us now,’ she said. ‘I’m going to miss leaning on your strong arm, sure enough. See you tomorrow at the station… and Doris, don’t be too hard on Janey. She can’t be more than seventeen and she’s got a lot to learn yet.’
Doris nodded. ‘Aye, you’re right, and she’s not such a bad sort really. Just there’s some people you takes to and some you don’t, can’t be helped.’
As Katie trudged wearily up the hill towards Market Street she could hear the mournful notes of Dai-End-House’s accordion drifting on the silent air. She paused and bent down to rub at her ankles in turn, but her feet seemed to be swollen to twice their normal size. ‘Gone soft, just like Doris says,’ she told herself and with an effort covered the last few yards to her home.
It was almost midnight by the time Katie was ready for bed. She brushed back her hair with long sweeping strokes, almost too tired to lift her arms, then sat on her bed staring at the flickering light of the candle, her eyes misting with fatigue. She had spent only a short time with Mark and when he had laughingly complained about the acrid smell that clung to her, she had bitten his head off.
He had been wonderful, so kind and understanding; he had taken her in his arms and kissed her gently, cradling her as though she was a baby. How she loved him! Yet his visit had left her with a tinge of unease, for he had talked a little about the war and the urge he had to enlist. She had taken great pains to point out that he was needed at home working in the copper and he had readily agreed. But there had been a restlessness about him which had frightened Katie.
She snuffed out the candle and lay back against the pillows, her eyes burning as though covered in sand. She longed for sleep, yet it was as elusive as the shadows that stalked the room when the moon slid silently through the clouds.
With a sigh, she pushed back the bedclothes and got up to stand near the small window, staring down into the street. The town of Sweyn’s Eye slumbered like a beast beneath the skies marred by the ever-present copper smoke. What did the future hold, Katie wondered fearfully. The war had altered the even tenor of the town; shops sported posters of Lord Kitchener pointing an accusing finger at the young men, telling them their country needed them. Factories now produced the trappings of war: the shells, the copper bands, the weapons that would be used to bring death to ordinary soldiers.
Katie shuddered and took her rosary from the shelf, running the beads through her fingers and muttering prayers with an urgency that had not possessed her since she was a child. At last she climbed into bed and lay wide-eyed, staring up at the ceiling, giving up the unequal struggle to find release in sleep.
Mansel Jack stood in the window of the modest house he had rented on the seafront and stared at the smooth waters that flowed out into the Bristol Channel. Sweyn’s Eye was a beautiful place and he felt sure he had taken the right decision in coming here.
His second meeting with Alfred Phillpot had been fruitful. The man was so frightened at the thought of being exposed as a cheat that he would have paid any price for his silence. He smiled grimly; it was poetic justice that the profit Alfred Phillpot had made on the woollens should go towards leasing the munitions factory.
Mansel Jack had received a gratifying price for his mill in Yorkshire and though it was a wrench parting with the business, the excitement of the move he was making had been adequate compensation. Doreen had decided to remain at home, keeping the house like a shrine waiting for his return. He smiled – she would wait a long time, for he fully intended to buy Spinners’ Wharf and make a success of the little mill.
Restlessly, he thrust his hands into his pockets. He was having difficulty in tracing the owner of the mill, but then difficulties had always made him more determined. His face softened as he thought of Rhian Gray, struggling to keep the place going, slaving from morning till night for a business that was not hers.
He moved from the window and jerked the curtains together. What was wrong with him? he thought impatiently. The girl was becoming an obsession.
Turning out the gaslight, he stood for a moment in the darkness. Soon he would go to see her, but he would wait until the time was just right.