The Girl From Seaforth Sands (33 page)

‘I never knew a strike of railway workers could lead to such complete chaos,’ Ella grumbled as the heat rose off the paving stones, making their feet feel like live coals. ‘There’s hardly any food in the shops and someone told me that last night the crowds pelted the police with fruit, which seemed a great shame. I could just do with a nice basket of raspberries right now and I wouldn’t throw them at anyone; I’d eat the lot. When you think of
all the fuss the authorities made over the suffragette rallies – and now look at this crew! There are scarcely any public service vehicles running, most of those who want to work have to walk into the city, the rioters have been giving the police as good as they get, looting shops, chucking bricks, and you can walk a mile and not find a loaf of bread or a pound of sausages for sale.’

‘Yes, I know what you mean. But better not say it too loud,’ Amy advised, tucking her arm into Ella’s. The two girls had always been good friends, but since Ella had got a job in the offices of the Adelphi Hotel and worked side by side with Amy, they had become almost inseparable. Not that they were doing the same work; Ella’s good education had won her an unusual sort of job, for as well as taking shorthand notes and typing them up on her machine, she was called for regularly when French or German guests arrived and had difficulty in making themselves understood, whereupon she would interpret for the management.

‘There’s a lot of folk about,’ Amy said rather uneasily, as they continued to make their way towards the hotel along crowded pavements. ‘Oh, look, that window’s been smashed, and there’s fellers all in among the display . . . they’re helping themselves . . . oh, Ella, look out!’

A group of men were charging along the pavement towards them, all dressed in working clothes, and behind them, in hot pursuit, came a number of policemen, batons in hand, clearly intent upon catching the miscreants, if miscreants they were. Amy and Ella ducked into the nearest shop doorway, their light shoes crunching on broken glass, but even the doorway was no refuge for long, for behind
the policemen came an excited crowd of men, many of whom brandished various objects with which they clearly intended to do violence. The shop doorway they had chosen – or rather had been forced to choose – belonged to an ironmonger and, as soon as he realised this, a large, disreputable-looking man from the crowd swung the brick he was carrying at the window. It shattered and long, wicked-looking shards of glass showered everywhere, some of them descending like daggers into the flooring where they stayed upright, quivering every time anyone moved.

Clinging together with their hands up to their faces to save them from flying splinters, the two girls crouched against the shop door. Amy put up a hand and tried the brass doorknob, but the door remained obstinately closed; clearly the owner had been too wary to open his premises while the unrest continued. Without taking her hands from her face, Amy thought she could tell very well what was happening by the sights and shouts alone. Booted feet trampled on broken glass, heavy objects fell with a thud and men’s voices exclaimed as they picked over the contents of the window. Amy guessed that for the most part they were looking for weapons rather than simply looting, for beyond the policemen she had seen the flash of military uniforms and the light reflecting off gun barrels. So they had called the army in. But during the many weeks that the strike had been in force she had begun to understand the desperation which drove the strikers. If need be, she thought now, they would fight the army as well as the police, using any weapon that came to hand.

As the footsteps began to leave the ironmonger’s window once more, she risked a peek from between
her hands and saw men armed with garden spades, forks, rakes and weighty-looking carpentry tools, brandishing them as they abandoned the premises. To Amy’s amusement, one of the strikers had protected himself by placing a coal scuttle on his head and another followed suit with a large white chamber pot, which fitted snugly round his outstanding ears. She could not help reflecting, however, that one good blow from a policeman’s baton would shatter the chamber pot, probably causing the wearer more trouble than it had saved him. She also noticed that most of the men streaming past looked as though they had not had a square meal for a week and her heart bled for them when she saw the stout, well-fed policemen who followed close on their heels.

Beside her, Ella dropped her hands from her face and gave vent to a long, whistling sigh. ‘Cripes!’ she said inelegantly. ‘What have we got ourselves into this time? This isn’t just a protest meeting, nor a gathering of strikers, this is a full-blown riot. Should we go home, do you think, or will it be safe to press on to the Adelphi?’

Amy, picking pieces of glass out of her cotton skirt, looked at the crowd pressing close against the doorway as they passed. ‘I don’t think we’re going to have much choice,’ she said doubtfully. ‘I think the moment we poke our noses out on to the pavement we’ll simply get carried along with the crowd. It isn’t that they won’t let us go in the opposite direction, it’s a bit like throwing yourself into the Mersey when the tide’s coming in. You don’t get any choice and nor does the river; it’ll carry you inland, willy-nilly, until the tide starts to ebb again.’

‘Oh, very poetic,’ Ella said, shaking her own skirt free of splinters. ‘Well, we can’t stand here for ever, we’ll have to make a move sooner or later, so how about now?’ And without giving herself time to think, she grabbed Amy’s hand and the two of them plunged into the maelstrom of people who they could now see filled the roadway as well as the pavement.

‘Put your arm round my waist, Ella!’ Amy screamed at the top of her voice. The one thing suffragette rallies had taught her was to hold on physically to anyone from whom you did not wish to be parted. ‘The first chance either of us gets, we’ll turn aside, pulling the other one with her.’ She turned to a burly, cloth-capped man in the coat and gaiters of a carter, who was being borne alongside her. ‘Where’s the crowd heading?’ she shouted. ‘And when did the troops arrive?’

The carter shrugged massive shoulders, or at least Amy guessed that he had, for it was difficult to see small movements when being urged forward by people behind. ‘I don’t know as we’re goin’ anywhere,’ he bawled back. ‘I guess we’re running away from the scuffers and the soldiers. There ain’t much unarmed chaps like us can do against a bleedin’ brigade wi’ fixed bayonets and loaded rifles.’ He glanced curiously down at them from his great height. ‘Whot’s a couple of young ladies like yerselves doin’ in this ’ere scrum, anyway?’ he enquired. ‘This is no place for the likes of you. Come to that, I ain’t seen a female all mornin’, ‘cept for you two.’

‘We were on our way to work at the Adelphi Hotel when we got caught up and carried along with the crowd,’ Amy shouted back. ‘Where are we, do you know? I can’t see anything, save for people all crushed together and moving like a river.’

‘Dunno,’ the man roared back. He opened his mouth to say something else but in the strange way which happens in a crowd he suddenly dropped behind them, while Amy and Ella, quite without their own volition, surged forward. The last Amy saw of her friend the carter was his hand reaching for his cloth cap as it was knocked from his head by an advertisement sign.

Half an hour later, still trapped by the many people around them, Amy at last managed to recognise their whereabouts. Towering to the right of her were the well-known cream-coloured stones of the free library, where she and Ella spent a good deal of time searching for the books they needed. And on the other side of William Brown Street, as she well knew, were the shaded lawns and pleasant pathways of St John’s Gardens. If they could only push their way through the crowd and reach that haven, surely they would be safe?

She shrieked the information into Ella’s ear and the two of them began, for the first time, actively to attempt to push their way through the crowd, though they both realised that this was a dangerous move, for one stumble would mean you could be thrown to the ground and trampled to death beneath heedless feet, the owners of which were not even aware of your presence.

Nevertheless, Ella must have thought it was worth a try for she nodded, indicating that she understood and the two girls began to try to make their way through the close-packed crowd.

They had actually succeeded, though not in time
to enter the gardens, for the forward movement of the crowd had not stopped, so it was close against the St George’s Plateau that they finally got more or less free. Amy was just drawing in her first unhampered breath of relief, when she saw, on her left, a number of men in military uniform. They appeared to be kneeling and pointing something across the heads of the crowd, but before she had taken in what was happening there was a shout of command and a ragged volley of shots rang out. Amy gave a violent start and turned to her friend, as Ella, with a face as white as a sheet, dropped like a stone to the ground.

Philip and Dick Maynard had decided the previous day not to open their offices since, with the riots becoming worse with every hour that passed, there would be little or no business transacted in the city. But it was a hot and sunny day, not at all the sort of weather to remain within doors, so Philip had suggested that the two of them might make their way down to the Pier Head to see whether the ferries were running. There were no trams or buses, of course, but surely there would be someone willing to take passengers across the great width of the Mersey? If not, Philip thought they might hire a fishing boat, so at least they could gain the further shore and spend a few hours away from the city, which had become more like a battlefield than a busy commercial centre.

They had scarcely begun the walk to the Pier Head, however, when the crowd had come roaring along the roadway and simply engulfed them. They were both strong and determined young men, but wasted a good deal of time in searching for one another since, lacking the experience of suffragette
rallies, they had not held on to one another when they plunged into the crowd.

Philip was a tall young man but even so he had difficulty in spotting his friend in the sea of heads that surrounded him. There was a good deal of noise as members of the crowd shouted to one another, whistled and cat-called, and adjured their neighbours to ‘Get your bleedin’ elbow out of my mouth’, or, ‘Doncher know whose perishin’ feet you’re stampin’ on, sonny?’ But even so, Philip raised his voice in a shout: ‘Dick? Dick? Give us a wave, old fellow.’

To his relief, Philip heard a voice answering him almost immediately and saw a hand raised. Dick was no more than twelve feet away and by dint of shoving and pushing against the tide, he managed at last to reach him.

‘Link arms,’ Philip commanded as soon as they were together once more. ‘Where are we, do you know? We could be treading on acres of grass in some park for all I can tell. Hang on a mo’, though – that’s St George’s Hall – you can’t mistake that.’

As Philip spoke, Dick pointed to the line of figures above and ahead of them on the St George’s Hall steps. ‘Soldiers, with rifles at the ready,’ he said. ‘We’d better get out of this in case there’s real trouble.’ Almost before the words were out of his mouth, firing broke out and at the same moment Philip heard a scream and saw a slim, girlish figure, topped by a cluster of red-gold curls, fall from his sight. He knew her instantly and immediately began to fight his way towards her. ‘Did you see,’ he gasped, dragging Dick with him through the crowd, which was now fighting as desperately to get back as they had tried before to go forward. ‘It was Amy
Logan, the girl we met on the train on the day of the coronation. She’s been hit. I saw her fall. Come on!’

The two young men had been only yards away from where the girls stood and in a remarkably short space of time, for they were the only ones going towards the hall, they reached Amy’s side. She was kneeling on the ground, trying to lift her companion in her arms, but the other girl’s head flopped back, her face a deathly white, save for a scarlet furrow, sluggishly bleeding, across her left temple.

‘Amy! Good God, we thought you’d been hit – who’s your friend?’ Philip said breathlessly. ‘How come she’s . . . My God, it’s the little suffragette, the one who lectured me on women’s rights – Miss Morton, isn’t it? Let me take her from you and carry her out of this. The soldiers fired over the heads of the crowd but I suppose a bullet must have ricocheted and hit her. Here, Amy, have you got something to staunch the blood? I’ll make my handkerchief into a pad and hold it over the wound if you can find something to secure it.’

Amy, without a second’s hesitation, bent down and ripped the frill off her petticoat, offering it mutely to Philip who took it and bound it swiftly round the padded handkerchief he had placed over Ella’s wound, which was already soaked with blood. He hoisted the girl into his arms and Dick helped Amy to her feet. Then the three of them, with Philip carrying the unconscious girl, began to make their way across the road towards the North Western Hotel.

‘Is . . . is she dead?’ Amy asked fearfully as they entered the imposing portals. ‘I didn’t think she was because she stirred and moaned just before you arrived, but now she looks so white and lies so still . . .’

‘I don’t think she’s dead, because bleeding stops when the heart does and she’s still losing blood,’ Dick commented, giving Amy’s hand a reassuring squeeze. ‘I’d say the bullet ploughed along her skull, causing a very nasty wound, which needs attention urgently, but there’s bound to be a doctor, or a nurse perhaps, who can be summoned by the clerk on reception.’ He glanced around the empty foyer. ‘Why is it so dark in here? The place is usually ablaze with lights and full of people.’

Philip looked too. ‘For the same reason that the trams aren’t running – no electricity,’ he said briefly, then pointed to a sofa against a wall. ‘I’ll lay her on that couch, Dick. You go and get help, and make it snappy.’

While Philip and Amy made Ella as comfortable as they could on the shiny, gold, satin-covered chaise longue, making a pad of Philip’s jacket beneath her head in the hope of not staining the sofa with Ella’s blood, Dick went over to the desk and could be heard shouting for attention. Meanwhile Philip sent Amy scurrying to fetch a bowl and some water, so that they might bathe Ella’s face and wrists, for even in the cooler darkness of the hotel it was still very hot.