The Man in the Twilight Part 52

"That's all right," he said. "We're fixed for the sc.r.a.p. Just come right over."

It was this last act that Bat contemplated now. And he hated it. He knew well enough he must go. There was no sane alternative. The power station was the prepared fortress. It had everything in it that must be guarded and fought for. But his fierce regret was none the less for the knowledge.

Then, too, his regret was for something else. It was at the absence of Bull Sternford. This was no expression of weakness. It was simply he desired the man's companionship. They had worked together. They had planned and built together. And, now, in the moment of battle, it seemed to him they should still be together.

But he knew that was impossible. When Bull's call to the forest had come in the night there had been no opportunity for explanation. He, Bat, had been engaged down at the mill, and the other had been rushed in his preparations. Bull had made his farewell to him in a great hurry. He had outlined briefly the thing happening in the forests. That had been all.

That and a few words on the affairs of the mill.

How the news had reached Bull, and who the messenger, had never transpired between them. Perhaps Bull had forgotten to mention it.

Perhaps, in the hurry of it all, Bat had forgotten to ask. Perhaps, even, the messenger himself had impressed secrecy for his visit, which had been timed for the dead of night. At any rate Bat knew none of these things, and was in no way concerned for them. All he was concerned for was the absence of the man who was something more to him than a mere partner.

Thinking of him now Bat remembered the other's final words, and the memory stirred him deeply.

"Remember, old friend," he had said, "young Ray Birchall will be over from England at the break of winter. On his report to his people depends the whole thing we've built up. We've got to have these mills running full when that boy gets around. There's not a darn thing else matters."

It was the final spur. The mills running full. Bat spat out his chew, and turned and locked the door behind him. Then he moved away hurriedly, gazing straight in front of him as though he dared not even think of the place he was leaving.

On the foresh.o.r.e of the Cove, out towards the guarding headlands, half a hundred fires were burning. They were immense beacon fires of monstrous proportions. Belching columns of smoke clouded the whole region till the water-front looked to be in the grip of a forest fire.

Men, and women, and children were gathered about them. They were basking in a moderation of temperature such as their homes could no longer afford them. But it was a curious, silent gathering, indifferent to everything but the feeding of the fires on which they felt their very existence depended.

The forests which supplied the fuel came down to the edge of the now idle trolley track. Already acres and acres had been felled to feed the insatiable fires. The woodland decimated, and the devastation was going on in every direction.

About the houses there were others engaged in homely ch.o.r.es. There were men, and women, too, clad heavily in the thick sheepskin clothing which alone could defeat the fierce breath of winter. Here again was silence and gloom, and even the children refrained from their accustomed pastimes.

A tall, fur-clad figure was moving through the settlement. His feet were encased in moccasins, and thick felt leggings reached up just below his knees. For the rest his nether garments were loose fur trousers, and his body was covered by a tunic reaching just below his middle, with a capacious hood attached to it almost completely enveloping his head.

He moved slowly and without any seeming object. He pa.s.sed along, and paused when he encountered either man, woman, or child. With the men he spoke longest. But the women claimed him, too. And generally he left behind him a change of expression for the better in those with whom he talked.

He paused beside a small party of elderly men. They were at work upon a p.r.o.ne tree trunk of vast girth. They were cutting and splitting it, fresh feed for the fires which must never be permitted to die down.

The men had ceased work on his approach. But they went on almost immediately, all except one. He was a grizzled veteran, a man just past middle life. His face was deeply lined, and a scrub of whisker protected it from the cold. He had been seated on the log, but he stood up as the tall man addressed him by name.

"You'll be there, Michael," he said, brushing the frost from his darkly whiskered face, and breaking the icicles hanging from his fur hood where it almost closed over his mouth.

The man's grey eyes were smiling as they looked into the wide black eyes so mildly encouraging.

"Sure, Father," came his prompt reply. "We got to be ther' anyway. That don't matter. But we're for your lead, an' we'll stand by it, sure.

There's going to be no sort of d.a.m.n fool mistake this time."

The tall man nodded.

"There must be no mistake this time," he said keenly. "Say, how many years is it since I sent you along here with a promise of good work and better wages, and a square deal?"

"Nigh five years, Father."

"And you got all--those things?"

"Sure. More."

Father Adam nodded.

"And those are the things a man's ent.i.tled to. Just those," he said. "If a man wants more it's up to him. He must earn it in compet.i.tion with the rest of his fellows. If he can't earn it he must do without, or quit the honesty that ent.i.tles him to hold his head up in the world. There's no honesty in the things these men propose."

"That's so, Father."

There was decision in the man's agreement. But even as he spoke his gaze wandered in the direction of two small children, like bundles of fur, playing in the snow.

"Poor little kids," he said. "Say, it's h.e.l.l for them with heat cut off."

Again the tall man nodded as he followed the other's gaze.

"That's so. But I don't blame the mill-bosses. This gang is trying to steal from the men who've always handed out a straight deal. Do you blame them for defending themselves?"

Michael shook his head.

"I don't see I can. After all--"

"No. Listen. You boys have it in your own hands. These crooks from the Skandinavia got a strangle holt on the youngsters of this outfit who've no kiddies like those. You older boys let 'em get it. You weren't awake.

Now you find yourselves caught in the tide. We've got to make a break for it. There'll be heat in plenty when you break free. Seven o'clock.

That's the time your masters ordered the meeting for. Seven o'clock.

That's the time they intend to commit their great crime--with you helping them."

Father Adam smiled as he drove his satire home.

"Not on your life!" The man's grey eyes were fierce. "Give us the lead, Father," he cried. "We--we just got to have that. Ther' ain't a real lumber-jack in these forests won't follow it. It'll be a sc.r.a.p. A h.e.l.l of a sc.r.a.p. Oh, I know. Maybe some of us'll never see the light of another day. But sure it's got to be. We ought to've gone over from the start, and stood by our jobs. But I guess none of us with wives and kiddies had the guts. They threatened our women and children, an' we weakened. But it's different now, sure. We've learned our lesson. It's themselves they're out for, an' we'll be their dogs to be kicked and bullied as they see fit. We'll follow your lead, Father, an' it don't matter a cuss when the sc.r.a.p comes."

Father Adam nodded. His dark eyes were alight with something more than the smile shining in them.

"Good," he said. "I shall be there."

He moved away and Michael rejoined his companions. They talked together for a moment or two while their eyes followed the receding figure. They saw it stop and speak to one of their wives. She had a small child with her. They saw it bend down into a squatting att.i.tude and draw the child towards it. Then they saw a lean hand draw out of its mit and proceed to touch a swelling on the little mite's neck. They understood. And when the figure finally pa.s.sed on out of sight, they returned to their work, each man absorbed in his own thought, each man with a surge of deep feeling for that lonely figure. For they were all men who knew, and understood the man who lived in the twilight of the forests.

The recreation room was packed to suffocation, packed from end to end with a human freight. The benches were crowded, and the tables groaned under the weight of as many rough-clad creatures as could crowd themselves thereon. Every inch of floor s.p.a.ce was occupied, and even the recesses in the log walls which contained the windows were utilised as sitting places for the audience which had gathered at the imperative order of the Soviet of the Workers.

Kerosene lamps had replaced the brilliant electric light to which the men were accustomed. A haze of tobacco smoke created a sort of fog throughout the length of the building, and contrived to soften the harsh lines of the sea of human faces turned towards the raised platform whereon sat the members of the ruling Soviet. The temperature of the room was cold for all the warming influence of the human gathering, and every man wore his fur-lined pea-jacket closely b.u.t.toned.

Once, in a light moment, Bull Sternford had declared that male human nature in the "bunch" was the ugliest thing in the world. Had he witnessed that sea of faces, so intently, so anxiously turned towards the leaders they had presumably elected, he must have been well satisfied with the truth of his conviction.

Such was the ascendancy and power the Bolshevist leaders had gained in the brief month since the first rumble of industrial war had been heard in Sachigo, that there were few who had failed to obey their summons.

Not only was the hall crowded but a gathering of many hundreds waited outside. It was the hour of Fate for all. They understood that. It was the hour of that Fate which had been decreed by men, who, under the guise of democratic selection had usurped a power over the rest of the community such as no elected parliament of the world had ever been entrusted with.

It was doubtful if the majority fully realised the significance of what was being done. It is certain that a feeling of deep regret stirred voicelessly in many hearts. But every man there was a simple wage earner whose horizon was bounded by that which his wage opened up. For the rest he was left guessing, but more often fearing. So, with his muscles of iron, his human desires, and his reluctance to apply such untrained reasoning as he possessed, he was ripe subject for fluent, unscrupulous, political agitators, and ready to sweep along with any tide that set in.

The leaders on the platform understood this well enough. It was their business to understand it. The others, the leaders' immediate supporters, were men of fiery youth, or those whose work it was to wreck at all costs, and s.n.a.t.c.h to themselves, in addition to pay for their fell work, such loot as the wreckage afforded them.