The Man in the Twilight by Ridgwell Cullum

R >> Ridgwell Cullum >> The Man in the Twilight

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26

The late winter day was fiercely threatening, fit setting for the
disaster that had befallen. The cold was bitterly intense, but no more
bitter than the lumberman's present mood. There down below were the
deserted quays with their mountains of baled wood-pulp buried deep under
white drifts of snow. And the voiceless mills were similarly half
buried. Look where he would the scene was dead and deserted. There was
not one single stirring human figure to break up the desolation of it
all.

It was a sad, white, desolate world, which for over fifteen years he had
known only as a busy hive. Roadways should have been clear. Traffic
should have been speeding, every service, even in the depth of winter,
should have been in full running. The mills--those wonderful
mills--should have been droning out their chorus of human achievement in
a world set out for Nature's fiercest battle ground.

From the moment of that first encounter in the recreation hall Bat had
known the strike to be inevitable. Bull's swift action at the outset had
had its effect. For the moment it had checked the movement, and reduced
it to a simmer. Heat and power had been restored, and work had been
resumed, and outwardly there had been peace. But it was artificial, and
the lumberman and the engineer had been aware that this was so.

Brief as was the respite it was valuable time to the men in control, and
they used it to the uttermost. The leaders of the strike had been robbed
of the advantage they had sought from a lightning strike. But they were
by no means defeated. It was only that they had lost a move in the game
they had prepared.

At the end of a week Bat awoke one morning to find the mills and all
traffic at a standstill, and the workers skulking within the shelter of
their own homes.

Then it was that the benefit of a week's respite was made plain. Every
plan that had been prepared was forthwith put into operation. Power and
heat were again cut off. The loyalists, which included a large number of
the engineering staff, and the staff of the executive offices, were
equipped with such weapons as would serve, and set guard over the food
and liquor stores, and the essentials of the mills. And the power house
was fortified for siege.

But the strikers gave no sign. There was no attempt at violence. There
was no picketing, and no apparent attempt at coercion of the loyalists.
It almost seemed as if the objects of the leaders had been achieved by
the simple cessation of work.

This silent condition of the strike had gone on for days with
exasperating effect upon the defenders. Bat endeavoured by every means
in his power to bring the leaders of the movement into the open to
discuss the situation. But every effort ended negatively. The men would
not contemplate the conference table, and finally, in headlong mood, the
lumberman had committed the grave mistake of provocation. He threatened
to cut off food supplies if the leaders continued in their refusal to
confer.

Two weeks elapsed before his threat reacted. Two weeks of continued
silence and apparent inaction by the strike leaders. The men's first
terror at the loss of heat and power seemed to have passed. As Bull had
suggested they had resorted to the methods of the trail, and day and
night mighty beacon fires burned along the fore-shores of the cove upon
which their homes were built. The men and women came and went peaceably
but silently between the food stores and their homes, purchasing such
provisions as they needed. And the manner of it all, the cold silence,
should have served a warning of the iron hand in exercise behind the
strike.

The bombshell came at the end of the third week. It came in the form of
a message crouched in the flamboyant phraseology beloved of the
Communist fraternity. It was conveyed by a small youth some ten years of
age, as though its authors were fearful lest a full grown bearer should
be made to suffer for the temerity.

Bat had received it at the office, and his manner had been
characteristic.

"Fer me, laddie?" he had said, as he took possession of the
official-looking envelope. Then he gently patted the boy's shoulder.
"All right, sonny," he added. "You get right back to your folks. Pore
little bit."

With the boy's departure he had lost no time in reading the ultimatum
the message contained.

"A Soviet has been formed. The Workers will not submit to
inteference with the food supplies of the people such as has
been threatened by men who have no right over the life and death
of their fellows. In view of this threat, the Soviet of the
Workers has determined to possess itself of the mills and all
properties pertaining thereto. The whole territories and
properties hither controlled under a capitalist organisation
will in future be administered by the Soviet or the Workers. You
are required, therefore, to hand over forthwith all accountings,
administration, and all funds, all legal documentary titles such
as are held by you of freeholds and forestry rights relating to
Sachigo. Furthermore, it is required of you to restore intact
the machinery of the new power station, and to hand over the
whole premises in full running order. One week's grace will be
permitted for the execution of this order. Failing absolute
compliance, the ruling Soviet of the Workers reserves to itself
the right of adopting such measures to enforce the Will of the
Workers as it may deem necessary.

"On behalf of the Soviet of the Workers,

"LEO MURKO,

"Chief Commissionary."

At the finish of his reading Bat had looked up into the dark face of
Pete Loale who was standing by.

"Leo Murko?" he said, in an ominously restrained tone. "Ther' ain't no
guy o' that name on our pay-roll. Guess he'll be that feller Bull
dropped out into the snow." Then with a sudden explosive force: "In
God's name why in hell didn't he break that skunk's neck?"

The week's grace had expired. It had been a week of further hasty
preparations. Every day had been used to the uttermost, and even far
into the night the work had gone on. The office on the hill, as well as
the executive offices down at the mill, had been cleared out. Documents,
cash, books, safe. Everything of real importance had been removed to the
citadel power house. The mining of the penstocks had been completed, and
left ready to be blown sky high at a moment's notice. Whatever befell,
the men who had given their lives to the building of the mills were
determined that only a useless husk should fall into the hands of the
strikers.

Now had come the Communists' final declaration of war. The message had
been brought less than an hour ago by the same youth, who had again
departed with Bat's smiling expression of pity. The letter was ominously
brief.

"The Order of the Soviet of the Workers will be enforced
forthwith. No mercy will be shown in the event of resistance."

Bat's fury had blazed as he read the message. Again it was signed "Leo
Murko." How he hated that name. He had been alone in the office when the
letter came, and had seized the 'phone and called up the engineer at the
power house, and read the message to him. Skert Lawton's reply was as
instant as it was characteristic.

"That's all right," he said. "We're fixed for the scrap. 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 foreshore 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 chores. 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 passed 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
prone 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 damn 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 entitled to. Just those," he said. "If
a man wants more it's up to him. He must earn it in competition with the
rest of his fellows. If he can't earn it he must do without, or quit the
honesty that entitles 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 hell 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 scrap. A hell
of a scrap. 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 scrap 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 attitude 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 passed 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 space 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 buttoned.

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 snatch to themselves, in addition to pay for their
fell work, such loot as the wreckage afforded them.

The hum of talk snuffed right out as the leader rose to address the
meeting. It was Leo Murko, the same man, a hard-faced, foreign-looking
Hebrew whom a month before Bull's great arms flung through the broken
window into the snowdrift beyond. His position now, however, was far
different from that which it had been when his endeavours had been
concentrated upon enrolling a Communist following. All that had been
achieved or sufficiently so. Now he was the dictator whose orders could
be backed by an irresistible force. His whole manner had changed. The
velvet glove of persuasion had been discarded, and he hurled his
commands with deep-throated authority, and the smile of encouragement
and persuasion was completely abandoned.

His preliminary was brief. A phrase or two of flattery and
acknowledgment to those on the platform supporting him dismissed that.
Then he passed on to the objects in view. In five minutes he had
dismissed also the ultimate destiny of the mills, and the manner in
which the Workers were to benefit by its administration. Then he flung
himself into a fiery denunciation of all capitalists, and particularly
those who had dared to employ his audience on good wages for something
like fifteen years. That completed he passed on to the plans for taking
over the mills forthwith.

During the earlier part of his address the audience listened with grave
attention. Here and there little outbursts of applause punctuated his
sentences. But when he came to the task which had been set for that
night a deathly silence prevailed everywhere. The intensity was added to
rather than broken by the harsh clearing of throats that came from
almost every part of the hall.

"The whole thing needs cleaning up before daylight," he hurled at them.
"Our organisation is complete. Here," and he indicated the table nearby
littered with papers and surrounded by four or five men who were members
of the elected Soviet, "we have the lists of the names of every comrade,
and the numbers of men to be used in every detail of the work before us.
They have been carefully drawn up with a view to the task required to be
put through. Some tasks will be simple. Some will be less so." A grim
light that was almost a smile shone in his black eyes. "But we have
carefully discriminated in our personnel. That is as it should be. There
will be certain bloodshed. Knowing the temperament and preparations of
your late masters this seems to be inevitable. But again we have
provided. Our greatest and most important task is the possession of the
power station, and for the capture of that we have machine guns which
will quickly reduce the enemy to capitulation. The strength of the enemy
we know to the last fraction--"

"Do you?"

The challenge came from the back of the hall. It came in a quiet,
refined voice that swept through the hall with the cold cut of a knife.
Someone had risen from a sitting position on a table. He stood up. It
was the tall, dark figure of Father Adam clad in a garment which
enveloped him from head to foot like the black cassock of a priest.

"Do you?" he cried again, as the startled leader stared stupidly at the
interrupter.

Every eye turned to the back of the hall on the instant. The men on the
platform looked up from their work to witness the daring of one who
could interrupt the elected leader of the people. One man, slight,
foreign-looking, who had been seated at the back of the platform stood
up and leant against the wall.

"You know nothing of these people you are determined to destroy with
machine guns," Father Adam went on. "You know nothing of the men with
whom you are dealing, either the owners of the mill, or the men who have
found an ample livelihood under their organisation. How can you know
them? You are dastardly agents of an alien company, sent and paid to
wreck a wholly Canadian enterprise. This is your first object. Your
second is even more sinister, for you are the agents of that mad
Leninism which has destroyed a whole race of workers in a vast country
like Russia. You are a supreme pestilence seeking to destroy such human
nature as will listen to your vile doctrines. It is I, I, Father Adam,
tell you so. The men here to-night, whom you are inciting to theft and
brutal murder, know me. They know me as their servant, as their loyal
comrade and helper, ready to answer their call when trouble overtakes
them, ready to yield them of my best service in the day of prosperity or
the night of their woe. And as it is with them so it is with their women
and their babes. That's the reason I am here to-night, the black night
of their woe. And so I ask them to listen to me now as they have
listened many times before in the woods and the mills, which is the
world to which we all belong. If they do that, if only reason asserts
itself, they'll here and now turn on you, and rend you, you and your
wretched gang. They'll cast you out of their midst, and fling off a
foreign yoke, as they would cast out any other unclean pestilence for
the purification of their homes. They'll pack you out into the northern
night where no foul germs can exist. Are they to become thieves at your
bidding? Are they to become murderers because your foreign money has
bought them machine guns? Would they go back to their women, and their
innocent babes, wiping their blood-stained hands to ask them to rejoice
in the brutal crime committed in the name of brotherhood and fellowship?
No, sir. I know them. You don't--"

The Bolshevist flung out a denouncing hand and bellowed in his seething
wrath:

"Traitor! He is of the Cap--"

But immediate uproar drowned his denunciation and a great voice shouted
in the din.

"Let him speak."

A dozen other voices strove to make themselves heard, and a wild
pandemonium was rising when clear and sharp Father Adam's voice rang out
again above it.

"I tell you they'll have no more of you," he cried as the leader dropped
back to his seat, and the dark man at the back of the platform further
bestirred himself. "Order them now to man your machine guns and murder
the men in the power house! Give your orders here and now! Read out your
list of names and see--"

A shot rang out. The flame of a gun leapt somewhere at the back of the
platform, to be followed by complete, utter silence.

Then came a sound. It was a hardly-suppressed moan. Father Adam reeled
slowly. He half turned about. Then he crumpled and dropped to his knees
and fell forward into hands outstretched to catch him.

Paralysis seemed to grip that dense-packed human throng. But it was only
for a second. Then the avalanche leapt for the abyss.

"Father! Father Adam!"

The cry went up seemingly from a thousand throats. And with a roar the
crowd surged forward. It hurled itself at the platform.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26