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Synopsis
Josh and Miriam Retallick and their grandson Ben seem almost part of the wild and rugged Cornish landscape of 1913. Yet a revolutionary spirit of change is sweeping across the country - and the whole of Europe - with terrifying haste. Even before the outbreak of the Great War, with strike action compromising his position in the community and threatening the future of the China clay industry, Ben is unsettled by the presence of his cousin Emma Cotton. Inspired by the blossoming suffragette movement, it is a cause which takes her to London and a meeting with ardent campaigner Tessa Wren. As Emma and Tessa are plunged into the turmoil of driving ambulances to the front line in France, Ben's wife, Lily, resigned to dying in a Swiss clinic, pushes her husband towards this courageous new woman . . .
Release date: February 20, 2014
Publisher: Sphere
Print pages: 528
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Fires Of Evening
E.V. Thompson
‘Jacob Pengelly! Do you mind explaining to me why you’ve brought me along this path? Don’t tell me again that it’s the quickest way to Josh Retallick’s house, I just don’t believe you!’
Emma Cotton grabbed the coat of the young man walking an arm’s length ahead of her and pulled him around to face her. Hot cheeked and hands on hips, she straddled the narrow path and demanded an explanation.
To the left of them, dangerously close, the ground dropped away to the floor of a white-walled clay pit, hidden far below at the foot of a sheer, man-made cliff.
Ahead and behind the young couple, the path wound through a waist-high forest of tall, spindly ferns, interspersed here and there by islands of darker green needle-leafed gorse bushes.
‘It’s as quick a way as any.’
Jacob spoke without looking directly at her and Emma knew instinctively he was not telling the truth.
‘…Anyway, how would you know whether or not it’s the right way? You don’t even know the way to the Gover valley. Without me you’d be hopelessly lost.’
‘I may not know my way around here, but I’m not stupid,’ retorted Emma. ‘When we set off the sun was on our left. Now it’s on our right. You’re walking me around in a circle. Why?’
Jacob had the grace to look embarrassed, but he was not yet ready to explain his motives to this positive and precocious young woman.
Emma Cotton must have been about nineteen years of age and he was twenty, but she carried an air of being much more worldly than he, or any of the other girls he knew.
Actually, he knew very little about her apart from what she had told him on the way from the clay works office. She had arrived in the St Austell area only that day from a small and remote community on the edge of Cornwall’s Bodmin Moor.
Her home was less than thirty miles from St Austell, yet for those who lived in either place they might have been on different planets.
‘You fancy me, don’t you? That’s why you’ve brought me this way.’ Emma’s blunt assertion tore into his thoughts, but she had more to say. ‘You’ve brought me this way because there’s no one around and you hoped I’d let you do it to me. That is why we’ve come this way, isn’t it?’
Jacob’s mouth suddenly felt dry and he fought to control the panic he felt rising within him.
What she had just said was partly true. It had been no more than a very vague idea, put into his head by fellow clay workers. Jacob and his workmates had seen Emma arrive at the Ruddlemoor works office. They presumed, by the way she was dressed, she had come to apply for work as a bal maiden, trimming the blocks of dried clay to make them ready for shipping. It was a task that gave employment to many local girls. They greeted her with whistles and catcalls.
When the captain of the clay works detailed Jacob to guide Emma to the home of Josh Retallick, his workmates had been forthcoming with advice about what he should do with her once they were out of sight among the clay waste tips.
Josh Retallick had once owned Ruddlemoor, but had passed it on to his grandson, Ben, about nine years before. An old man now, Josh lived with his wife Miriam in a house in the Gover valley.
Belatedly aware she was not to be employed as a bal maiden, they assumed she was going to the Gover valley to take up employment in the Retallick household. Probably as a house servant.
Suddenly, and startlingly, Emma spoke once again. ‘All right then. Where shall we go to do it?’
Her words filled Jacob with dismay. Basically shy, he had little experience with girls. Finding himself in this unanticipated situation, he was forced to face the fact that this particular girl terrified him.
He wished Captain Bray had chosen someone else to guide her to the Gover valley – or that he had not allowed himself to be influenced by his workmates.
While Jacob had been changing out of the thick, double-soled boots worn by the workers in the hot-floored clay ‘dry’, they had made much of the wonderful ‘opportunity’ that had so unexpectedly come his way.
Captain Bray had mentioned that the girl was from Bodmin Moor. As soon as the captain had left the clay dry, one of the men enviously declared that Jacob was being given ‘the opportunity of a lifetime’.
Moorland girls, he informed Jacob knowingly, were totally devoid of morals. They would romp in the fern with anyone. He did not explain that the sole basis for such an observation was one of his distant cousins. A resident of Bodmin Moor, she had given birth to an illegitimate child some fifteen years before.
‘What’s the matter, Jacob? Has the climb up here sapped all your energy? What would your mates say if you went back and told them nothing had happened between us, after you’d brought me all the way up here? Or would you go back and lie to them? Tell them you had done it to me?’
Stung by her mockery, Jacob came close to panic. His plans had not extended beyond taking her to the Gover valley via a route where many of the young men and women from the clay works did their courting.
The route had been suggested by one of his workmates and had received enthusiastic and noisy endorsement from the others.
Jacob had thought that once it was established he had brought her along this particular path, he would not need to divulge what had – or had not – taken place. Indeed, it was possible his silence on the matter might actually add to his prestige.
He had not reckoned on finding himself in the company of a girl who was willing to take the lead in such a situation.
‘Well, come on then. Do you want to or don’t you?’ Emma taunted him. She seemed to be enjoying his embarrassment. He could not make up his mind whether or not she was merely teasing him.
‘I … I’d better take you to where you’ve got to go and get back to work.’
‘You should have thought of how much of a hurry you were in before bringing me all the way up here. My legs ache. I’m going to sit down here for a while.’ She promptly matched her words with the deed and sat down on the grass between the pit edge and the path.
Before Jacob could protest further, the air was rent by the strident sound of a klaxon. It came from somewhere deep in the pit alongside them.
The noise continued for perhaps twenty seconds. When it ended, Emma asked, ‘What on earth was that?’
‘It was the blasting warning!’ There was urgency in Jacob’s voice. ‘It means they’re going to set off explosives in the pit, down there.’
He pointed in the direction of the deep pit, the edge of which was only a few paces from where Emma was seated. ‘We’d better get away – and quickly!’
Emma looked at him scornfully. ‘You’re making that up, Jacob. You just want to get me on my feet and moving again. Come on, admit it.’
Suddenly and unexpectedly, she smiled. ‘Why did you bring me up here, Jacob, if it wasn’t for what you thought you might be able to do to me? Did your mates put you up to it?’
‘We don’t have time to talk about that now. If they begin blasting in the pit some of the rocks could be thrown high enough to reach us here. It’s a dangerous place to be. Come on.’
‘I still don’t believe you – and you haven’t heard the last of this. What was said about me, Jacob? What made you think it would be worth your while bringing me so far out of our way?’
Leaning back, resting her hands on the ground behind her, she said, ‘And don’t tell me this is the quickest way to the Retallicks’ house. I really don’t believe you.’
She began climbing to her feet. Suddenly, there was the sound of a violent explosion. It was so close it hurt Jacob’s ear-drums and he felt the earth shudder beneath his feet.
A split second later the edge of the pit collapsed to within an arm’s length of his feet. It happened without any warning. The ground simply fell away.
And Emma Cotton fell with it.
Jacob stumbled into the works office of the Cargloss Clay Works fighting to recover his breath. His face contorting in frustrated agony, he tried desperately hard to speak.
‘The blast … Girl up top … Went over … edge.’
George Crow, captain of Cargloss, had been seated at a desk in the office. Making sense of Jacob’s disjointed message, he leaped to his feet causing his chair to crash backwards to the floor.
‘What do you mean, a girl’s gone over the edge? What was she doing there in the first place? The warning was sounded. Didn’t she hear it?’
‘Yes, but … that doesn’t matter. She went over the edge … she needs help.’
Jacob was still breathing heavily, but the words came more easily now. ‘On my way in I saw the place where you were blasting. It’s not sheer. It should be possible to scramble to the top…’
‘Try that and you’ll have the lot slip down and bury you and anyone who might be up there. The top of the face wasn’t meant to come down. It must have been loose. The only way we might rescue anyone would be to lower a man from the top – and that’ll be dangerous enough.’
A pasty-faced clerk seated at a desk had been listening to what was being said and Captain Crow turned to him now. ‘Gather half a dozen men and send them up top to where the girl disappeared. They’ll need to take a rope with them – but don’t take all the men from one place. I’m here to keep the Cargloss works in profit, not to waste time searching for some damn-fool young woman who was somewhere she shouldn’t have been.’
Rounding on Jacob once more, he asked, ‘How was it you saw what happened? Where were you?’
‘I’m from Ruddlemoor. I … I was sent to show the girl to Josh Retallick’s house in the Gover valley.’
‘You came round the edge of Cargloss to get there?’ Captain Crow’s eyebrows indicated his disbelief.
Much to Jacob’s relief, he did not immediately pursue the matter. ‘Go with my men. Show them exactly where the girl went over the edge. I’ll go out to the pit and make certain nobody disturbs the fall from this side. If we start a slide it’ll be a week before we find the girl’s body and the men will be more interested in finding it than in producing clay.’
Captain Crow’s callous words sent a chill of horror through Jacob. He had come to the clay works office to obtain help to rescue Emma. He had not considered the possibility that she might be dead.
He did so now with the knowledge that Captain Crow took it for granted they were seeking to recover Emma’s body. He was forced to acknowledge the Cargloss captain might be proved correct.
The six Cargloss men sent to the scene of the accident seemed at first to be more optimistic than their captain. As they toiled up the steep path beside the pit they gave breathless examples of miraculous escapes by men employed in the clay works and tin mines in the area.
‘Mind you, I’ve never heard of a woman surviving after such an accident,’ said one of the men gloomily.
Despite his desperate concern for the fate of Emma, Jacob thought the positive young girl would have had her own ideas on such a prejudiced attitude.
It was with a sense of shock that he realised he too was now thinking of her in the past tense. He fervently hoped she was still alive. It was unthinkable that her life should be taken in such a way.
The hope sprang from a genuine concern for Emma. He was not optimistic that his punishment would be any more lenient in the event of her survival.
Jacob had already accepted that he would be punished. The route from Ruddlemoor to the Gover valley should not have taken Emma and him anywhere near the Cargloss clay pit. He would be called upon to explain his reason for taking her along the pit-edge path. Finding a plausible explanation was not going to be easy.
A sudden and alarming thought came to him. What if it was believed he had taken her along the remote path in order to attack her?
It was something suspected by Emma herself and there were bound to be rumours. Many would emanate from his own workmates, in the Ruddlemoor dry.
It might even be suggested he had attacked her, then pushed her over the edge of the pit, taking advantage of the Cargloss blasting operation to cover up his crime!
‘Are we nearly there?’
The question from the Cargloss man broke in upon Jacob’s runaway thoughts. Looking about him, he replied, ‘It’s just beyond the next clump of gorse. You can see where the explosion took the ground away right up to the edge of the path.’
When they reached the spot, the youngest of the Cargloss men dropped to his stomach and eased his way to the broken rim of the pit.
He was almost close enough to look over the edge when a section of earth dropped away immediately ahead of him.
Wriggling back hastily, he exclaimed, ‘That’s dangerous! There seems to be an overhang just there. Anyone going over is likely to end up with a couple of tons of earth, rock and clay on top of him.’
‘Perhaps one of us should go back down below to have a look,’ another of the Cargloss men suggested.
Jacob looked from one speaker to the other in dismay. ‘There’s no time for that. If Emma’s lying down there injured every minute might make the difference between life and death.’
‘Half the pit face went down with her,’ one of the men said callously. ‘She’s probably dead already. There’s no sense in risking another life.’
‘Then lower me down,’ Jacob demanded. ‘I’m not leaving here until we’ve found her – dead or alive.’
The men exchanged uncertain glances among themselves. Then the worker who carried the coil of rope shrugged it from his shoulder. ‘If you want to risk your own neck we’ll not argue with you. After all, you’re the one who was with her when she fell.’
Something in the man’s voice told Jacob that these men were as sceptical of the circumstances surrounding the accident as Captain Crow had been.
He realised it was no more than a foretaste of what he could expect from others.
Passing one end of the rope to Jacob, the Cargloss worker said, ‘Here, tie the rope around you using your own knot. Once you’re over the edge your life will depend on how good it is.’
Edging slowly backwards, Jacob moved closer to the rim of the great man-made chasm, each step covering less ground than the last as he neared the edge.
His legs were trembling so much it seemed they were entirely independent of the remainder of his body. Trying hard to control them, he took up the slack on the rope held tug-o’-war fashion by the six Cargloss workers.
He still had a short distance to travel when part of the ground gave way beneath him. One foot trod air and as the men holding the rope took the strain he fell to one knee.
Making a rapid decision, Jacob called, ‘I’m going over the edge now. Make sure you keep a tight grip on that rope – and listen for my shout when I need you to hold fast.’
The nearest man’s grunt could have meant anything. Gritting his teeth, Jacob leaned back until he was almost parallel with the ground. A moment later he was walking clumsily down the sheer, crumbling face of the clay pit.
‘Hold it!’ Jacob shouted the command a few moments later.
The rope tautened and his descent was brought to a halt. Now, for the first time, he looked down – and immediately wished he had not.
The floor of the clay pit appeared much farther away than he had imagined it would be. Diminished in size by distance, a group of Cargloss workers was gathered around the base of a great white pyramid of China clay and waste brought down by the explosion. The ragged peak of the pyramid, resting against the pit-face, was still some distance below him.
Jacob’s stomach contracted in a sudden bout of fear. He quickly shifted his gaze from the men below him to the great pile of clay and waste sloping down from the wall of the pit.
He could see nothing of Emma. With a feeling that was close to despair, he called on the men holding the rope to begin lowering him once more.
As he approached the jumble of rock and clay, his attention was drawn to a darker patch among the white mass. He had looked at it before but had dismissed it as no more than a pocket of earth brought down from the top of the pit face.
It was, but as he drew nearer he saw something else. Even now, it took some moments for him to realise he was looking at Emma! Half covered with earth and clay, she lay in the shadow of a huge piece of rock.
‘Lower me faster!’
Jacob needed to shout the command twice more before the speed of his descent increased to any extent.
‘Stop!’
This time the order was obeyed more speedily. Jacob landed gently in the soft China clay dust and immediately sank ankle-deep beside Emma.
His arrival precipitated a frightening slip of earth and clay that poured down the surface of the pyramid. Reaching down hurriedly, he took a grip on her dress, fearing the whole mass of tumbled clay was about to fall, and Emma with it.
Emma showed no sign of life. Jacob’s first thought was that his worst fears had been realised. Then, as he tried to pull her clear of the earth and clay that buried much of the lower half of her body, she groaned.
Frantically, still keeping a hold on her with one hand, he began scraping away the earth and clay. Another shifting of the loose ground on which he was standing brought him to a halt.
Jacob called for more rope from the men above him. When he had enough, he tied a loop about Emma’s body, beneath her armpits. Satisfied she was now secure, he resumed the task of clearing the clay and rubble covering her, this time using both hands.
He had been working for some minutes when he heard Emma groan again. Looking up from his task, he saw that her eyes were open.
‘My leg hurts.’ She spoke in a painful whisper.
‘I’ll be as quick as I can, Emma. Once I’ve cleared all this away we’ll have you out of here in no time at all. You’re going to be all right.’
‘What happened…?’
As she spoke, she tried to ease herself into a more comfortable position. It caused the clay beneath her to shift and she screamed in pain.
‘Don’t move!’ Jacob was alarmed that the whole loose pyramid on which they were standing would shift and bring more of the pit-face down upon them.
Emma’s face was contorted in an expression of agony, but she said, ‘I’ll try not to. It’s just … it hurts so much.’
Jacob discovered there was a large piece of rock resting on one of her legs. It proved difficult to move. He succeeded eventually, but the final movement caused Emma to yell out in agony.
The piece of rock dislodged by Jacob bounced down the slope of the pyramid, causing a minor landslide, which sent the men in the pit scattering hurriedly.
‘Right, now let’s get you up to safety.’
‘How will you do that?’ An alarmed expression replaced the pain on Emma’s face.
‘I’ll carry you. Don’t worry, I’ll be as gentle with you as if you were a baby.’
Jacob hoped he sounded more confident than he felt. When he had thrown off the piece of rock he had seen that the leg that had been trapped was very badly gashed just below the knee. He suspected the bone was broken, too. Getting to the top of the pit was likely to be excruciatingly painful for Emma.
His fears were quickly justified. Calling for the men above him to take up the slack on the rope, he reached down and lifted her in his arms. The action caused her such pain, she screamed once again and he felt her whole body shaking.
Calling for the men on the rope to begin pulling them up as quickly as they could, Jacob waited until the rope tautened, then, with Emma trying hard to bite back her torment, he leaned back at a frightening angle and began walking up the pit-face.
It was not an easy rescue. When they were less than halfway to the top a section of the cliff face crumbled beneath Jacob’s feet and dropped away into the pit.
For a few precarious moments, the young couple swung freely in mid-air, with Jacob being battered against the cliff. Emma turned her face in to his shoulder, her arms locked tightly about his neck.
‘I’m frightened, Jacob. I’m frightened…’
Before he could reply, there was a sudden roaring sound from below them. Glancing down, Jacob saw that the fall from the pit-face had dislodged the top section of the pyramid. Boulders and rubble were pouring helter-skelter down the slope, gathering pace and substance along the way.
The Cargloss men who had been watching the rescue from the floor of the pit were now fleeing in all directions once more.
Meanwhile, Jacob had his own problems. The men at the top of the pit had heard the sound of the landslide, and were now pulling harder than ever in a bid to bring Jacob and Emma to safety as quickly as possible.
Jacob found himself spinning dangerously at the end of the dangling rope, frequently crashing hard against the pit-face. Nevertheless, in spite of his own predicament, he did his best to protect Emma and prevent her injured leg from suffering more harm.
Not until his cries for the Cargloss men to cease hauling were heard was he able to use his feet to brace himself against the pit-face.
Shouting to the men to resume hauling them up, he walked clumsily up the jagged pit-face. A few minutes later, with Emma still in his arms, he was hoisted to safety. As he reached the rim of the pit, she was taken from him and laid gently down on the grass beside the path.
Only now did Jacob realise the strain that had been put on his legs by the rescue ordeal. Momentarily unable to stand, he sank down beside Emma.
As two of the older men comforted her, the others congratulated Jacob. Then one of them ran off to inform the Cargloss works manager of the success of the rescue.
Before he went, Jacob told the man to send a stretcher up for Emma and have arrangements made for her to be taken immediately to the hospital in nearby St Austell.
Despite Jacob’s protests that he should return to work at Ruddlemoor, he was persuaded to accompany Emma to the hospital. He had sustained a number of quite severe cuts and grazes to his knees, back and shoulders. There was also a cut on the back of his head.
As the young couple were on their way to St Austell hospital in a Cargloss cart, Ben Retallick, owner of the Ruddlemoor Clay Works, caught up with them. He was riding one of the fine horses from his stables.
Jacob was not overjoyed to have his employer appear on the scene. Much to his surprise, the works owner ignored him and spoke to Emma as though he knew her well.
‘How are you, Emma? Are you in much pain? The Cargloss captain tells me he fears you’ve probably broken a leg.’
‘It certainly feels like it,’ Emma agreed. ‘It really hurts.’
Turning his attention upon Jacob, the works owner snapped, ‘What were you doing up by the edge of the Cargloss pit in the first place? Captain Bray said your instructions were to take Miss Cotton to my grandparents’ home in the Gover valley. You shouldn’t have been anywhere near Cargloss.’
Before Jacob could reply, Emma said, ‘It was all my fault, Cousin Ben. It’s the first time I’ve ever been to clay country. I asked Jacob to take me up to where I might look out and see something of what was going on.’
Jacob’s surprise was not entirely due to her unexpected defence of him. She had called Ben Retallick ‘cousin’ – yet he and the other men in the Ruddlemoor dry had thought her to be a prospective servant…!
Ben was not entirely placated. Still frowning at Jacob, he said, ‘Why didn’t you heed the warning that Cargloss was about to begin blasting? Their captain assured me the klaxon was sounded.’
‘It was,’ Jacob agreed unhappily. ‘But there wasn’t very much time between the warning and the blasting. Far less than we give at Ruddlemoor. Besides, none of the overburden had been removed from the pit edge. There was nothing to make me think it was likely to be blasted away. I believe their explosives men made a bad mistake.’
The ‘overburden’ was the layer of earth and stones that covered the deposits of China clay. It was usual to remove it before an attempt was made to recover the clay, in order that there should be as little contamination as possible.
‘I’ve heard that the safety measures at Cargloss aren’t all they should be,’ Ben said somewhat less aggressively. ‘I’ll have words with their owner about it – but I’m still not entirely happy that you should have been so close to Cargloss when they were blasting. However, I’m prepared to accept it wasn’t entirely your fault. Besides, if what I was told at Cargloss is true, you probably saved Emma’s life – and at no small risk to your own. Well done. I’ll see you’re rewarded. I’ll ride on now and make certain a doctor is waiting for you both at the hospital.’
When Ben Retallick had ridden off, Jacob asked Emma, ‘Why did you take the blame and tell Mr Retallick that going up by Cargloss was your idea?’
‘Would you rather I’d said I didn’t know what we were doing up there and left you to find an explanation for him?’
Jacob shook his head. ‘I don’t think I could have come up with one. I wasn’t even sure myself why I took you there. Thanks, Emma. You’ve just saved my job. I … I’m sorry for what happened to you.’
‘Well, like Ben said, you probably saved my life. I owe you more than you owe me.’
After remaining silent for some minutes, Jacob asked, ‘Why didn’t you tell me when we set out that you’re Mr Retallick’s cousin? Me and the others in the dry all thought you were going to Gover valley as a servant girl or something.’
‘Is that why we went the long way round? Because you and the others believe that servant girls are easy? What did you do, toss a coin to see who’d be the one to go with me and prove what a big strong man he is?’
Emma lay on the floor of the wagon, dirty, dishevelled and with her injured left leg bound to a makeshift splint. Yet, in spite of being at such a disadvantage, she still possessed the ability to dominate Jacob with the power of her scorn.
‘It wasn’t like that at all,’ he protested feebly. ‘It was Cap’n Bray who said I was to be the one to take you to the Gover valley. Like I said, I had no idea you were Mr Retallick’s cousin.’
‘Don’t try to convince me that taking me up there was all your own idea, Jacob. I just don’t believe you. Anyway, I’m not a full cousin to Ben Retallick. His grandma and mine were sisters, so we’re distant cousins, really. We’ve only met a few times, when he’s come up to Bodmin Moor.’
‘Then why were you on your way to the Gover valley?’
‘I’m the youngest of six girls. Pa died some years ago and we’ve been finding things a bit hard lately. Ben helped us out from time to time. Last time he came visiting, he suggested I might like to come here to look after his grandparents.’
Giving Jacob an unexpected but weak smile, she added, ‘So you weren’t really so far wrong about me. I wouldn’t be much more than a servant, working for Great Uncle Josh, and Great Aunt Miriam.’
‘I could hardly have been more wrong about you,’ Jacob replied, ruefully. ‘I’m sorry, Emma. I really am. If I’d used a bit more common sense you wouldn’t be lying here in pain, with a broken leg.’
‘True,’ Emma agreed with cruel honesty, ‘but it wasn’t entirely your fault. If I hadn’t played the fool and led you on, we’d have been well past the Cargloss pit when they carried out their blasting.’
Jacob looked at her uncertainly. ‘You mean … you wouldn’t have let me do anything, anyway?’
‘No, I certainly wouldn’t!’ Emma spoke vehemently. ‘Not you, your mates, nor anyone else. Not until I’ve found the man I want to marry – if I ever do decide to marry. There are lots more important things in life than marriage.’ She continued to glare at him.
Highly embarrassed, Jacob sought to get away from the subject of what she might or might not have done had the explosion not occurred. ‘What will you do until your leg’s better? You won’t be able to look after Mr Retallick’s grandparents now. You’ll need someone to look after you.’
‘I don’t know.’ Emma frowned. ‘I haven’t had time to think about it yet. Perhaps that’s just as well. Anyway, we’ll see what they have to say at the hospital about my leg, first of all. In the meantime, tell me something about yourself.’
Jacob thought there was very little about his life that was worth relating, and he said so. Nevertheless, by the time they entered the small Cornish town Emma knew that he was an only child and lived in Carthew, close to the Ruddlemoor Clay Works. He had worked for Ben Retallick for seven years, since he was thirteen years old. His father also worked at Ruddlemoor, as an engine man. His mother, before her marriage, had worked in an adjoining clay works, as a bal maiden.
In addition, Emma learned that none of his family had ever travelled outside Cornwall. Indeed, Jacob had never ventured farther than Bodmin, just a few miles distant from his home and work.
It was a life style repeated in many thousands of homes in and around clay country in the summer of 1913.
Jacob would have liked to learn more about Emma. However, by now they were in sight of the small St Austell hospital and Ben Retallick was hurrying to meet them. He had alerted the hospital and a doctor was waiting to receive them when they arrived.
The hospital doctor swiftly established that Emma had fractured a bone in her leg, halfway between ankle and knee. It would need to be placed in a plaster cast.
While she was being prepared
Emma Cotton grabbed the coat of the young man walking an arm’s length ahead of her and pulled him around to face her. Hot cheeked and hands on hips, she straddled the narrow path and demanded an explanation.
To the left of them, dangerously close, the ground dropped away to the floor of a white-walled clay pit, hidden far below at the foot of a sheer, man-made cliff.
Ahead and behind the young couple, the path wound through a waist-high forest of tall, spindly ferns, interspersed here and there by islands of darker green needle-leafed gorse bushes.
‘It’s as quick a way as any.’
Jacob spoke without looking directly at her and Emma knew instinctively he was not telling the truth.
‘…Anyway, how would you know whether or not it’s the right way? You don’t even know the way to the Gover valley. Without me you’d be hopelessly lost.’
‘I may not know my way around here, but I’m not stupid,’ retorted Emma. ‘When we set off the sun was on our left. Now it’s on our right. You’re walking me around in a circle. Why?’
Jacob had the grace to look embarrassed, but he was not yet ready to explain his motives to this positive and precocious young woman.
Emma Cotton must have been about nineteen years of age and he was twenty, but she carried an air of being much more worldly than he, or any of the other girls he knew.
Actually, he knew very little about her apart from what she had told him on the way from the clay works office. She had arrived in the St Austell area only that day from a small and remote community on the edge of Cornwall’s Bodmin Moor.
Her home was less than thirty miles from St Austell, yet for those who lived in either place they might have been on different planets.
‘You fancy me, don’t you? That’s why you’ve brought me this way.’ Emma’s blunt assertion tore into his thoughts, but she had more to say. ‘You’ve brought me this way because there’s no one around and you hoped I’d let you do it to me. That is why we’ve come this way, isn’t it?’
Jacob’s mouth suddenly felt dry and he fought to control the panic he felt rising within him.
What she had just said was partly true. It had been no more than a very vague idea, put into his head by fellow clay workers. Jacob and his workmates had seen Emma arrive at the Ruddlemoor works office. They presumed, by the way she was dressed, she had come to apply for work as a bal maiden, trimming the blocks of dried clay to make them ready for shipping. It was a task that gave employment to many local girls. They greeted her with whistles and catcalls.
When the captain of the clay works detailed Jacob to guide Emma to the home of Josh Retallick, his workmates had been forthcoming with advice about what he should do with her once they were out of sight among the clay waste tips.
Josh Retallick had once owned Ruddlemoor, but had passed it on to his grandson, Ben, about nine years before. An old man now, Josh lived with his wife Miriam in a house in the Gover valley.
Belatedly aware she was not to be employed as a bal maiden, they assumed she was going to the Gover valley to take up employment in the Retallick household. Probably as a house servant.
Suddenly, and startlingly, Emma spoke once again. ‘All right then. Where shall we go to do it?’
Her words filled Jacob with dismay. Basically shy, he had little experience with girls. Finding himself in this unanticipated situation, he was forced to face the fact that this particular girl terrified him.
He wished Captain Bray had chosen someone else to guide her to the Gover valley – or that he had not allowed himself to be influenced by his workmates.
While Jacob had been changing out of the thick, double-soled boots worn by the workers in the hot-floored clay ‘dry’, they had made much of the wonderful ‘opportunity’ that had so unexpectedly come his way.
Captain Bray had mentioned that the girl was from Bodmin Moor. As soon as the captain had left the clay dry, one of the men enviously declared that Jacob was being given ‘the opportunity of a lifetime’.
Moorland girls, he informed Jacob knowingly, were totally devoid of morals. They would romp in the fern with anyone. He did not explain that the sole basis for such an observation was one of his distant cousins. A resident of Bodmin Moor, she had given birth to an illegitimate child some fifteen years before.
‘What’s the matter, Jacob? Has the climb up here sapped all your energy? What would your mates say if you went back and told them nothing had happened between us, after you’d brought me all the way up here? Or would you go back and lie to them? Tell them you had done it to me?’
Stung by her mockery, Jacob came close to panic. His plans had not extended beyond taking her to the Gover valley via a route where many of the young men and women from the clay works did their courting.
The route had been suggested by one of his workmates and had received enthusiastic and noisy endorsement from the others.
Jacob had thought that once it was established he had brought her along this particular path, he would not need to divulge what had – or had not – taken place. Indeed, it was possible his silence on the matter might actually add to his prestige.
He had not reckoned on finding himself in the company of a girl who was willing to take the lead in such a situation.
‘Well, come on then. Do you want to or don’t you?’ Emma taunted him. She seemed to be enjoying his embarrassment. He could not make up his mind whether or not she was merely teasing him.
‘I … I’d better take you to where you’ve got to go and get back to work.’
‘You should have thought of how much of a hurry you were in before bringing me all the way up here. My legs ache. I’m going to sit down here for a while.’ She promptly matched her words with the deed and sat down on the grass between the pit edge and the path.
Before Jacob could protest further, the air was rent by the strident sound of a klaxon. It came from somewhere deep in the pit alongside them.
The noise continued for perhaps twenty seconds. When it ended, Emma asked, ‘What on earth was that?’
‘It was the blasting warning!’ There was urgency in Jacob’s voice. ‘It means they’re going to set off explosives in the pit, down there.’
He pointed in the direction of the deep pit, the edge of which was only a few paces from where Emma was seated. ‘We’d better get away – and quickly!’
Emma looked at him scornfully. ‘You’re making that up, Jacob. You just want to get me on my feet and moving again. Come on, admit it.’
Suddenly and unexpectedly, she smiled. ‘Why did you bring me up here, Jacob, if it wasn’t for what you thought you might be able to do to me? Did your mates put you up to it?’
‘We don’t have time to talk about that now. If they begin blasting in the pit some of the rocks could be thrown high enough to reach us here. It’s a dangerous place to be. Come on.’
‘I still don’t believe you – and you haven’t heard the last of this. What was said about me, Jacob? What made you think it would be worth your while bringing me so far out of our way?’
Leaning back, resting her hands on the ground behind her, she said, ‘And don’t tell me this is the quickest way to the Retallicks’ house. I really don’t believe you.’
She began climbing to her feet. Suddenly, there was the sound of a violent explosion. It was so close it hurt Jacob’s ear-drums and he felt the earth shudder beneath his feet.
A split second later the edge of the pit collapsed to within an arm’s length of his feet. It happened without any warning. The ground simply fell away.
And Emma Cotton fell with it.
Jacob stumbled into the works office of the Cargloss Clay Works fighting to recover his breath. His face contorting in frustrated agony, he tried desperately hard to speak.
‘The blast … Girl up top … Went over … edge.’
George Crow, captain of Cargloss, had been seated at a desk in the office. Making sense of Jacob’s disjointed message, he leaped to his feet causing his chair to crash backwards to the floor.
‘What do you mean, a girl’s gone over the edge? What was she doing there in the first place? The warning was sounded. Didn’t she hear it?’
‘Yes, but … that doesn’t matter. She went over the edge … she needs help.’
Jacob was still breathing heavily, but the words came more easily now. ‘On my way in I saw the place where you were blasting. It’s not sheer. It should be possible to scramble to the top…’
‘Try that and you’ll have the lot slip down and bury you and anyone who might be up there. The top of the face wasn’t meant to come down. It must have been loose. The only way we might rescue anyone would be to lower a man from the top – and that’ll be dangerous enough.’
A pasty-faced clerk seated at a desk had been listening to what was being said and Captain Crow turned to him now. ‘Gather half a dozen men and send them up top to where the girl disappeared. They’ll need to take a rope with them – but don’t take all the men from one place. I’m here to keep the Cargloss works in profit, not to waste time searching for some damn-fool young woman who was somewhere she shouldn’t have been.’
Rounding on Jacob once more, he asked, ‘How was it you saw what happened? Where were you?’
‘I’m from Ruddlemoor. I … I was sent to show the girl to Josh Retallick’s house in the Gover valley.’
‘You came round the edge of Cargloss to get there?’ Captain Crow’s eyebrows indicated his disbelief.
Much to Jacob’s relief, he did not immediately pursue the matter. ‘Go with my men. Show them exactly where the girl went over the edge. I’ll go out to the pit and make certain nobody disturbs the fall from this side. If we start a slide it’ll be a week before we find the girl’s body and the men will be more interested in finding it than in producing clay.’
Captain Crow’s callous words sent a chill of horror through Jacob. He had come to the clay works office to obtain help to rescue Emma. He had not considered the possibility that she might be dead.
He did so now with the knowledge that Captain Crow took it for granted they were seeking to recover Emma’s body. He was forced to acknowledge the Cargloss captain might be proved correct.
The six Cargloss men sent to the scene of the accident seemed at first to be more optimistic than their captain. As they toiled up the steep path beside the pit they gave breathless examples of miraculous escapes by men employed in the clay works and tin mines in the area.
‘Mind you, I’ve never heard of a woman surviving after such an accident,’ said one of the men gloomily.
Despite his desperate concern for the fate of Emma, Jacob thought the positive young girl would have had her own ideas on such a prejudiced attitude.
It was with a sense of shock that he realised he too was now thinking of her in the past tense. He fervently hoped she was still alive. It was unthinkable that her life should be taken in such a way.
The hope sprang from a genuine concern for Emma. He was not optimistic that his punishment would be any more lenient in the event of her survival.
Jacob had already accepted that he would be punished. The route from Ruddlemoor to the Gover valley should not have taken Emma and him anywhere near the Cargloss clay pit. He would be called upon to explain his reason for taking her along the pit-edge path. Finding a plausible explanation was not going to be easy.
A sudden and alarming thought came to him. What if it was believed he had taken her along the remote path in order to attack her?
It was something suspected by Emma herself and there were bound to be rumours. Many would emanate from his own workmates, in the Ruddlemoor dry.
It might even be suggested he had attacked her, then pushed her over the edge of the pit, taking advantage of the Cargloss blasting operation to cover up his crime!
‘Are we nearly there?’
The question from the Cargloss man broke in upon Jacob’s runaway thoughts. Looking about him, he replied, ‘It’s just beyond the next clump of gorse. You can see where the explosion took the ground away right up to the edge of the path.’
When they reached the spot, the youngest of the Cargloss men dropped to his stomach and eased his way to the broken rim of the pit.
He was almost close enough to look over the edge when a section of earth dropped away immediately ahead of him.
Wriggling back hastily, he exclaimed, ‘That’s dangerous! There seems to be an overhang just there. Anyone going over is likely to end up with a couple of tons of earth, rock and clay on top of him.’
‘Perhaps one of us should go back down below to have a look,’ another of the Cargloss men suggested.
Jacob looked from one speaker to the other in dismay. ‘There’s no time for that. If Emma’s lying down there injured every minute might make the difference between life and death.’
‘Half the pit face went down with her,’ one of the men said callously. ‘She’s probably dead already. There’s no sense in risking another life.’
‘Then lower me down,’ Jacob demanded. ‘I’m not leaving here until we’ve found her – dead or alive.’
The men exchanged uncertain glances among themselves. Then the worker who carried the coil of rope shrugged it from his shoulder. ‘If you want to risk your own neck we’ll not argue with you. After all, you’re the one who was with her when she fell.’
Something in the man’s voice told Jacob that these men were as sceptical of the circumstances surrounding the accident as Captain Crow had been.
He realised it was no more than a foretaste of what he could expect from others.
Passing one end of the rope to Jacob, the Cargloss worker said, ‘Here, tie the rope around you using your own knot. Once you’re over the edge your life will depend on how good it is.’
Edging slowly backwards, Jacob moved closer to the rim of the great man-made chasm, each step covering less ground than the last as he neared the edge.
His legs were trembling so much it seemed they were entirely independent of the remainder of his body. Trying hard to control them, he took up the slack on the rope held tug-o’-war fashion by the six Cargloss workers.
He still had a short distance to travel when part of the ground gave way beneath him. One foot trod air and as the men holding the rope took the strain he fell to one knee.
Making a rapid decision, Jacob called, ‘I’m going over the edge now. Make sure you keep a tight grip on that rope – and listen for my shout when I need you to hold fast.’
The nearest man’s grunt could have meant anything. Gritting his teeth, Jacob leaned back until he was almost parallel with the ground. A moment later he was walking clumsily down the sheer, crumbling face of the clay pit.
‘Hold it!’ Jacob shouted the command a few moments later.
The rope tautened and his descent was brought to a halt. Now, for the first time, he looked down – and immediately wished he had not.
The floor of the clay pit appeared much farther away than he had imagined it would be. Diminished in size by distance, a group of Cargloss workers was gathered around the base of a great white pyramid of China clay and waste brought down by the explosion. The ragged peak of the pyramid, resting against the pit-face, was still some distance below him.
Jacob’s stomach contracted in a sudden bout of fear. He quickly shifted his gaze from the men below him to the great pile of clay and waste sloping down from the wall of the pit.
He could see nothing of Emma. With a feeling that was close to despair, he called on the men holding the rope to begin lowering him once more.
As he approached the jumble of rock and clay, his attention was drawn to a darker patch among the white mass. He had looked at it before but had dismissed it as no more than a pocket of earth brought down from the top of the pit face.
It was, but as he drew nearer he saw something else. Even now, it took some moments for him to realise he was looking at Emma! Half covered with earth and clay, she lay in the shadow of a huge piece of rock.
‘Lower me faster!’
Jacob needed to shout the command twice more before the speed of his descent increased to any extent.
‘Stop!’
This time the order was obeyed more speedily. Jacob landed gently in the soft China clay dust and immediately sank ankle-deep beside Emma.
His arrival precipitated a frightening slip of earth and clay that poured down the surface of the pyramid. Reaching down hurriedly, he took a grip on her dress, fearing the whole mass of tumbled clay was about to fall, and Emma with it.
Emma showed no sign of life. Jacob’s first thought was that his worst fears had been realised. Then, as he tried to pull her clear of the earth and clay that buried much of the lower half of her body, she groaned.
Frantically, still keeping a hold on her with one hand, he began scraping away the earth and clay. Another shifting of the loose ground on which he was standing brought him to a halt.
Jacob called for more rope from the men above him. When he had enough, he tied a loop about Emma’s body, beneath her armpits. Satisfied she was now secure, he resumed the task of clearing the clay and rubble covering her, this time using both hands.
He had been working for some minutes when he heard Emma groan again. Looking up from his task, he saw that her eyes were open.
‘My leg hurts.’ She spoke in a painful whisper.
‘I’ll be as quick as I can, Emma. Once I’ve cleared all this away we’ll have you out of here in no time at all. You’re going to be all right.’
‘What happened…?’
As she spoke, she tried to ease herself into a more comfortable position. It caused the clay beneath her to shift and she screamed in pain.
‘Don’t move!’ Jacob was alarmed that the whole loose pyramid on which they were standing would shift and bring more of the pit-face down upon them.
Emma’s face was contorted in an expression of agony, but she said, ‘I’ll try not to. It’s just … it hurts so much.’
Jacob discovered there was a large piece of rock resting on one of her legs. It proved difficult to move. He succeeded eventually, but the final movement caused Emma to yell out in agony.
The piece of rock dislodged by Jacob bounced down the slope of the pyramid, causing a minor landslide, which sent the men in the pit scattering hurriedly.
‘Right, now let’s get you up to safety.’
‘How will you do that?’ An alarmed expression replaced the pain on Emma’s face.
‘I’ll carry you. Don’t worry, I’ll be as gentle with you as if you were a baby.’
Jacob hoped he sounded more confident than he felt. When he had thrown off the piece of rock he had seen that the leg that had been trapped was very badly gashed just below the knee. He suspected the bone was broken, too. Getting to the top of the pit was likely to be excruciatingly painful for Emma.
His fears were quickly justified. Calling for the men above him to take up the slack on the rope, he reached down and lifted her in his arms. The action caused her such pain, she screamed once again and he felt her whole body shaking.
Calling for the men on the rope to begin pulling them up as quickly as they could, Jacob waited until the rope tautened, then, with Emma trying hard to bite back her torment, he leaned back at a frightening angle and began walking up the pit-face.
It was not an easy rescue. When they were less than halfway to the top a section of the cliff face crumbled beneath Jacob’s feet and dropped away into the pit.
For a few precarious moments, the young couple swung freely in mid-air, with Jacob being battered against the cliff. Emma turned her face in to his shoulder, her arms locked tightly about his neck.
‘I’m frightened, Jacob. I’m frightened…’
Before he could reply, there was a sudden roaring sound from below them. Glancing down, Jacob saw that the fall from the pit-face had dislodged the top section of the pyramid. Boulders and rubble were pouring helter-skelter down the slope, gathering pace and substance along the way.
The Cargloss men who had been watching the rescue from the floor of the pit were now fleeing in all directions once more.
Meanwhile, Jacob had his own problems. The men at the top of the pit had heard the sound of the landslide, and were now pulling harder than ever in a bid to bring Jacob and Emma to safety as quickly as possible.
Jacob found himself spinning dangerously at the end of the dangling rope, frequently crashing hard against the pit-face. Nevertheless, in spite of his own predicament, he did his best to protect Emma and prevent her injured leg from suffering more harm.
Not until his cries for the Cargloss men to cease hauling were heard was he able to use his feet to brace himself against the pit-face.
Shouting to the men to resume hauling them up, he walked clumsily up the jagged pit-face. A few minutes later, with Emma still in his arms, he was hoisted to safety. As he reached the rim of the pit, she was taken from him and laid gently down on the grass beside the path.
Only now did Jacob realise the strain that had been put on his legs by the rescue ordeal. Momentarily unable to stand, he sank down beside Emma.
As two of the older men comforted her, the others congratulated Jacob. Then one of them ran off to inform the Cargloss works manager of the success of the rescue.
Before he went, Jacob told the man to send a stretcher up for Emma and have arrangements made for her to be taken immediately to the hospital in nearby St Austell.
Despite Jacob’s protests that he should return to work at Ruddlemoor, he was persuaded to accompany Emma to the hospital. He had sustained a number of quite severe cuts and grazes to his knees, back and shoulders. There was also a cut on the back of his head.
As the young couple were on their way to St Austell hospital in a Cargloss cart, Ben Retallick, owner of the Ruddlemoor Clay Works, caught up with them. He was riding one of the fine horses from his stables.
Jacob was not overjoyed to have his employer appear on the scene. Much to his surprise, the works owner ignored him and spoke to Emma as though he knew her well.
‘How are you, Emma? Are you in much pain? The Cargloss captain tells me he fears you’ve probably broken a leg.’
‘It certainly feels like it,’ Emma agreed. ‘It really hurts.’
Turning his attention upon Jacob, the works owner snapped, ‘What were you doing up by the edge of the Cargloss pit in the first place? Captain Bray said your instructions were to take Miss Cotton to my grandparents’ home in the Gover valley. You shouldn’t have been anywhere near Cargloss.’
Before Jacob could reply, Emma said, ‘It was all my fault, Cousin Ben. It’s the first time I’ve ever been to clay country. I asked Jacob to take me up to where I might look out and see something of what was going on.’
Jacob’s surprise was not entirely due to her unexpected defence of him. She had called Ben Retallick ‘cousin’ – yet he and the other men in the Ruddlemoor dry had thought her to be a prospective servant…!
Ben was not entirely placated. Still frowning at Jacob, he said, ‘Why didn’t you heed the warning that Cargloss was about to begin blasting? Their captain assured me the klaxon was sounded.’
‘It was,’ Jacob agreed unhappily. ‘But there wasn’t very much time between the warning and the blasting. Far less than we give at Ruddlemoor. Besides, none of the overburden had been removed from the pit edge. There was nothing to make me think it was likely to be blasted away. I believe their explosives men made a bad mistake.’
The ‘overburden’ was the layer of earth and stones that covered the deposits of China clay. It was usual to remove it before an attempt was made to recover the clay, in order that there should be as little contamination as possible.
‘I’ve heard that the safety measures at Cargloss aren’t all they should be,’ Ben said somewhat less aggressively. ‘I’ll have words with their owner about it – but I’m still not entirely happy that you should have been so close to Cargloss when they were blasting. However, I’m prepared to accept it wasn’t entirely your fault. Besides, if what I was told at Cargloss is true, you probably saved Emma’s life – and at no small risk to your own. Well done. I’ll see you’re rewarded. I’ll ride on now and make certain a doctor is waiting for you both at the hospital.’
When Ben Retallick had ridden off, Jacob asked Emma, ‘Why did you take the blame and tell Mr Retallick that going up by Cargloss was your idea?’
‘Would you rather I’d said I didn’t know what we were doing up there and left you to find an explanation for him?’
Jacob shook his head. ‘I don’t think I could have come up with one. I wasn’t even sure myself why I took you there. Thanks, Emma. You’ve just saved my job. I … I’m sorry for what happened to you.’
‘Well, like Ben said, you probably saved my life. I owe you more than you owe me.’
After remaining silent for some minutes, Jacob asked, ‘Why didn’t you tell me when we set out that you’re Mr Retallick’s cousin? Me and the others in the dry all thought you were going to Gover valley as a servant girl or something.’
‘Is that why we went the long way round? Because you and the others believe that servant girls are easy? What did you do, toss a coin to see who’d be the one to go with me and prove what a big strong man he is?’
Emma lay on the floor of the wagon, dirty, dishevelled and with her injured left leg bound to a makeshift splint. Yet, in spite of being at such a disadvantage, she still possessed the ability to dominate Jacob with the power of her scorn.
‘It wasn’t like that at all,’ he protested feebly. ‘It was Cap’n Bray who said I was to be the one to take you to the Gover valley. Like I said, I had no idea you were Mr Retallick’s cousin.’
‘Don’t try to convince me that taking me up there was all your own idea, Jacob. I just don’t believe you. Anyway, I’m not a full cousin to Ben Retallick. His grandma and mine were sisters, so we’re distant cousins, really. We’ve only met a few times, when he’s come up to Bodmin Moor.’
‘Then why were you on your way to the Gover valley?’
‘I’m the youngest of six girls. Pa died some years ago and we’ve been finding things a bit hard lately. Ben helped us out from time to time. Last time he came visiting, he suggested I might like to come here to look after his grandparents.’
Giving Jacob an unexpected but weak smile, she added, ‘So you weren’t really so far wrong about me. I wouldn’t be much more than a servant, working for Great Uncle Josh, and Great Aunt Miriam.’
‘I could hardly have been more wrong about you,’ Jacob replied, ruefully. ‘I’m sorry, Emma. I really am. If I’d used a bit more common sense you wouldn’t be lying here in pain, with a broken leg.’
‘True,’ Emma agreed with cruel honesty, ‘but it wasn’t entirely your fault. If I hadn’t played the fool and led you on, we’d have been well past the Cargloss pit when they carried out their blasting.’
Jacob looked at her uncertainly. ‘You mean … you wouldn’t have let me do anything, anyway?’
‘No, I certainly wouldn’t!’ Emma spoke vehemently. ‘Not you, your mates, nor anyone else. Not until I’ve found the man I want to marry – if I ever do decide to marry. There are lots more important things in life than marriage.’ She continued to glare at him.
Highly embarrassed, Jacob sought to get away from the subject of what she might or might not have done had the explosion not occurred. ‘What will you do until your leg’s better? You won’t be able to look after Mr Retallick’s grandparents now. You’ll need someone to look after you.’
‘I don’t know.’ Emma frowned. ‘I haven’t had time to think about it yet. Perhaps that’s just as well. Anyway, we’ll see what they have to say at the hospital about my leg, first of all. In the meantime, tell me something about yourself.’
Jacob thought there was very little about his life that was worth relating, and he said so. Nevertheless, by the time they entered the small Cornish town Emma knew that he was an only child and lived in Carthew, close to the Ruddlemoor Clay Works. He had worked for Ben Retallick for seven years, since he was thirteen years old. His father also worked at Ruddlemoor, as an engine man. His mother, before her marriage, had worked in an adjoining clay works, as a bal maiden.
In addition, Emma learned that none of his family had ever travelled outside Cornwall. Indeed, Jacob had never ventured farther than Bodmin, just a few miles distant from his home and work.
It was a life style repeated in many thousands of homes in and around clay country in the summer of 1913.
Jacob would have liked to learn more about Emma. However, by now they were in sight of the small St Austell hospital and Ben Retallick was hurrying to meet them. He had alerted the hospital and a doctor was waiting to receive them when they arrived.
The hospital doctor swiftly established that Emma had fractured a bone in her leg, halfway between ankle and knee. It would need to be placed in a plaster cast.
While she was being prepared
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