The Land Of The Leal

James Barke

• Publisher: Canongate Classics
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780862411428
• eBook ISBN: 9781847675194
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Classics
• Index: Literature

This huge novel, closer in scope to a Russian epic than to any English counterpart, opens at the turn of the century in the extreme poverty of the Rhinns of Galloway, an agricultural backwater of the southern-most part of Scotland.

With a loving regard for the land and its people, Barke traces the lives of David and Jean Ramsay who, full of hope, painstakingly uproot themselves and their family in the search for prosperity. Their efforts to retain respect and a decent way of life are thwarted by unemployment in increasingly hostile circumstances, and a harsh environment inevitably leaves its mark.

But a new generation emerges to question the authority of an uncaring society and, even as Fascism rages through Europe, a new hope is born.

BOOK FIVE

Within the City Walls

SHIPYARD SYMPHONY

The pneumatic drills beat shattering drum-like rolls on the steel plates; the rivet hammers beat like crazed woodpeckers; a plate slammed on the deck with a roar of protest: the gaunt holds reverberating in sympathy.

A rivet boy, whose rags were permeated with iron rust and powdered with steel dust, toasted a rivet in his coke heater. Cornering a sound pocket behind the growing poop deck, he sang softly:

‘I fear no foe where’er I go,

On the good ship Yakahickadoola.’

On the river, on her way to Princes Dock, The City of Bengal gave a throaty growl. A perky little tug yapped back.

From the sawmill at the head of number five berth, the saws shrieked and whined and moaned – accelerando – rallentando. But when was old Bob Wylie going to blow the whistle?

Opposite, in the platers’ shed, a wagon of steel plates was being unloaded. A hole-punching machine beat time. Perhaps the iron clerk was deaf. He lit a Woodbine and smiled sickly, ticking off a receive note. Music when soft voices die …

The iron thunder was split with a shriek. The iron clerk dropped his cigarette and ran.

Christ! his leg was right through the rollers – above the knee. Reverse the bastard. Mary, Mother of God – that human blood could spurt like that!

‘The horn’ll blaw ony minute. Get the ambulance man afore he beats it.’

Fred Porter: storeman and first-aid man. He lived in Govan, across the river. You had to move some to be first in the queue for the ferry. He had washed his hands in naphtha and locked up everything except the main door. The iron clerk crashed it open.

‘What the hell— An accident? Jesus Christ – miss the bloody ferry another night.’

But his forefinger was rattling the receiver hook.

‘Ambulance!’

Bob Wylie raised his arm, pulled the hooter chain and nipped back into his box for safety. The flood gates were open: the stampede was on. Get in the way and be trampled to death.

Two plate-workers, carrying their dying mate to the store, were caught in the stream of liberated toilers.

‘Gangway there!’

‘Watch where the hell you’re going!’

‘Out o’ the bloody road there!’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Oh, Christ …’

David Ramsay turned to look. He was knocked to the side, pummelled, pushed, shoved against the brick wall of the time office. In their blind desperate rush they didn’t see him – didn’t know.

The first wave of escaping workers had passed. The stream was becoming a trickle. David, overcoming the first spasm of nausea, staggered on. At the head of Dock Street he met the ambulance nosing its way determinedly forward. Workers stepped smartly aside to clear a passage. They turned anxious faces to each other. Has there been an accident? Must have been! Never heard! Not in our squad …

Red tramcars jangled and clattered their way up and down Dumbarton Road. Drivers heeled their bells impatiently. Conductors struggled to prevent overloading: conductresses wisely didn’t bother.

Newsboys shouted: Final Times, News, Citizen. Four o’clock results.

The tea-time pell-mell and rush of workers.

David Ramsay was glad he hadn’t to take a tramcar or fight his way home on the subway. He turned into Vale Street, dragging his legs. The street was full of children yelling and screaming – harsh as seagulls.

As he turned into the close-mouth of number thirty-five he put up his hand and gripped his temples. His head was bursting. His nerves were beginning to shatter under the continual noise and clamour. If only there could be a moment of stillness and peace …

He dragged himself up the first flight of stairs fumbling for his key. He must take a grip of himself. Jean must not see.

ABENDLIED

Jean was frying kippers on the gas.

‘Weel … you’ve got hame again? How did you get on this afternoon?’

‘Oh, fine …’

‘You’re looking gey white: is there ocht wrong?’

‘No: there’s nothing wrong. What would be wrong?’

He went to the sink and turned on the hot water.

While he was washing, the letter-box rattled and Jean opened the door to admit Andrew.

‘You’re just in time. How did you get on this afternoon?’

‘Fine.’

He sat down on a kitchen chair and waited till his father was finished at the sink.

‘Tom in?’

‘Aye – he’s ben the room at his lessons.’

Andrew was washing at the sink when Nancy rattled the letter-box.

David opened the door.

‘Ta,’ said Nancy. ‘Warm, isn’t it?’

‘Aye … it’s warm.’

‘Hullo, mother: kippers the night again?’

‘What’s wrong wi’ kippers? How did you get on this afternoon? Give Tom a shout.’

Tom came in and they all sat down to the evening meal. The kippers were rich and succulent. Tom and Andrew made a good meal. Jean’s appetite never seemed to fail. Nancy picked at her food: she complained that the smell of the subway destroyed her appetite. David saw the bloody pulp of rags that had once been a leg and struggled to get the food over his throat. To distract attention from himself he said to Tom:

‘And how are you getting on wi’ your lessons?’

‘Fine,’ said Tom.

‘Is it the Latin that bothers you?’

‘Aye … the Latin’s hard: I like French better. I wish Finlay Robb had given us languages.’

‘You’ll have a struggle for a while, I suppose?’

‘Oh, I’m better at everything else. They’re very far back with their history, geography and arithmetic. But then I didn’t get science at Alvington.’

‘What science are you getting?’ asked Andrew – dubiously.

‘We find out the co-efficients of the linear expansion of metals.’

Andrew gave a growl of contempt.

‘You’ve got to be an engineer to know anything about the science of metals.’

‘I’ll know more about metals by the time I’ve finished my three years than you’ll ever know.’

‘That’ll dae,’ said Jean. ‘I dinna know what they want to bother about metals for when you’re going to be a minister.’

‘It’s education, mother.’

Tom was very serious and very careful of his pronunciation. He had been almost a year now at Dowanhill Higher Grade School and he had quickly adopted the mannerisms of the scholars there. Sometimes his apparent snobbery got on Andrew’s nerves.

Andrew was studying engineering drawing and mathematics and English at the night school. The scholars there had come from supplementary schools and did not give themselves high schoolboys airs. And yet it seemed at times that Tom was right. Many of the apprentice engineers spoke with refined accents and were stiff and formal in their department: such lads usually got a year or two’s training in the drawing office: they had come from higher grade schools.

Jean lifted the remains of the first kipper and slung it into the back of the fire.

‘You’re no’ eating, Dave. What’s the matter? Have you got a sore head again?’

‘A bit – it’ll pass.’

‘You’ll need to see the doctor about they headaches you’re having. What d’you think’s the cause o’ them?’

‘It’s just the noise in the yard.’

‘Noise? Glasgow’s a’ noise thegither.’

‘It’s worse in the yard.’

‘It must be gey bad if it’s worse than the Dumbarton Road.’

‘The Dumbarton Road’s a king to it.’

‘Your place is no’ so noisy, Andy?’

‘Is it no’? But I’m used to it now.’

David said nothing. He had complained about his headaches before: but only when Jean had forced the complaint out of him. Jean did not understand. He did not want to worry her. He did not want to let himself down before the boys. Sometimes the work was heavy: but never as heavy as he had known it in the country. And yet, after his eight and three-quarter hours in the yard, he was exhausted, mentally and physically, to a degree he had never known. Not only was the assault on his senses continual and devasting: he had unceasingly to adjust himself to an alien environment – a harsh unsympathetic environment that neither gave nor expected sympathy. He was more fortunate than he might have been in that the foreman rigger, Fred MacHaffie, was an elderly man who had, as a boy, ran about the pier at Stranraer. MacHaffie had a son in the police force and he knew John MacMorran: thus the circle of influence was squared. Later he was to learn that the yard manager, John Douglas, was the eldest son of Captain Douglas of Cairn Ryan, on the opposite shore from Kirkcolm, a man who had once sailed under Richard Ramsay long years ago.

David was not quite so fortunate – or so it seemed at first – in his two labouring mates, Jimmy Blair and Alec White. They were hard-bitten, Glasgow types. They resented David’s presence in the squad. Not only did he not belong: he had some pull with the gaffer. At first they were unwilling to assist David: they put many obstacles and difficulties in his way. But gradually and unwillingly they came to respect him. He never complained. He never indicated that he recognised their meannesses, their opposition. He was unfailingly civil and polite. And the fact that he didn’t swear weighed with them. At least they reckoned David’s swearing was innocent enough. If he had not yet won their respect he had at least won their neutrality.

The first year in the shipbuilding yard of John Anderson and Company, Limited, was a trial from which David did not emerge unscathed. He aged rapidly: white hairs began to predominate: wrinkles hardened and deepened.

There were compensations. Andrew and Tom seemed to be getting on. Nancy seemed happy enough. Jean never complained.

THEN GENTLY SCAN

Sundays brought relief from the yard and the brutal indifference of Glasgow’s streets. Robert MacMorran and Agnes called on them every Sunday evening. They would sit round the fire and talk of Galloway and of life in the country. They never seemed to tire going over and over again the scenes of their youth. Sometimes Robert Gibson called – without Anne MacClumpha. Anne did not leave her own fireside: seldom did she venture from the Govan Road. She had no money for Sunday clothes – especially when she had to lay in a stock of Sunday drink. Anne drank a lot and sometimes she bet with the local bookie. She wore a tartan shawl to cover her gross unwashed bulging flesh; there was a foul smell about her of stale liquor, stale sweat and unwashed underclothing. She nagged and complained and could not speak without using foul and obscene language.

Robert had paid a ghastly price for his freedom from Craigdaroch. Yet he seemed to bear no bitterness towards Anne MacClumpha. But he nursed a terrible bitterness against his father. Sometimes he made Jean’s flesh creep. He blamed Tom Gibson for all his misfortunes. And he swore that if ever he met him in the flesh he would swing for him.

One Saturday when he called, David saw him down to the subway. Sympathetic, David invited him to have a drink.

Robert shook his head.

‘No’ for me, Dave. I’ve suffered enough through drink ever to let it near my lips. Anne would never be sober if she had the money. But I dinna blame her.’

‘That’s a sad state o’ affairs, Robert.’

‘It’s a’ that, Dave. But what’s the odds? It’ll kill her – and she’d be better away, poor bitch. You would ken that I bairned her at Craigdaroch? Well, that’s how it was, Dave. It was the only pleasure I ever got about Kirkmaiden – and I canna think hard on her now. I brought her to Glasgow. And God! there was nothing but poverty and hardship – for years. There she was cooped up in a stinking bloody pigstye o’ a single end. Not a living soul to speak tae. Sometimes I got work: oftener I didna. We used to crawl into bed for heat when there wasna a nip o’ coal in the house and only a cup o’ tea and a bit o’ hard loaf between us and starvation. And aey there was a bairn coming – she was kinda built that way. Then I got a steady job on the coal lorry. Bit by bit she went to the drink. She had women’s complaints and she wouldna gan tae the doctor – and guid-kens there was little money for doctors’ bills. Now she canna live without the drink. Aye … she’s gey ill to live wi’, Dave: but I havena it in my heart to blame her. But there’s a man about Kirkmaiden that was supposed to be a father to me – and if he doesna answer to me for it, he’ll answer to his Maker. If there is a Maker, Dave?’

‘You durstna doubt that, Robert?’

‘Maybe no, Dave. But there’s times when I do. And no’ without cause. There’s little meaning to life for poor folk that have to work by the sweat of their brow, as Rabbie said – him you were sae fond o’ yoursel’ once. And if there’s a God I ken na how He shares out the sorrow and the joy o’ life. For I’ve got bloody little o’ the joy.’

‘You’re on a deep subject now, Robert. It’s myself that kens in my own way what it is to be crossed by life. And if there’s nothing for us at the end o’ the journey then we’ve been sairly deceived. But whether or no’ – and like you I sometimes had my doubts – there’s yae thing that keeps us haudin’ on. I brought bairns into this world, Robert, like yourself. Whatever the price we maun stand by them and see them right.’

‘Maybe … just maybe, Dave. You may live to curse the day you ever fathered them. I didna ken just what the world was like or damn the one I’d hae fathered into it.’

‘That’s a hard thing to say, Robert.’

‘It’s a damned sight harder to thole. But you and Jean seem to have made a better job o’ your life than I have. There’s nae folk I admire mair. And I hope things turn out well for you and the family. Though God kens, Glasgow can be worse nor hell’s fit to be when things turn against you.’

David and Robert had much in common. And David felt Robert’s tragedy very deeply. They shared confidences they shared with no one else – or could have shared. But there were times when Robert Gibson’s bitterness and disillusionment depressed David and filled him with sinister and evil forebodings.

Jean, more practical and direct, blamed everything on Anne MacClumpha. When she learned of her drinking she was horrified.

‘A bitch like her should be horse-whipped. Bad enough a man drinking – but a woman, a mither o’ bairns …’

And when David hinted gently that after all it might not be Anne’s fault altogether; that in a sense she might be more sinned against than sinning – Jean grew savage in her indictment...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Note
• Introduction
• Book One: Ancient of Days
• Book Two: Bonnie Galloway
• Book Three: Border Ballad
• Book Four: The West Neuk of Fife
• Book Five: Within The City Walls