SIXTY-SEVEN
Come hear the story of two sisters, sisters
good and true,
They worked the reels in Lancashire,
and only wanted their due.
They asked for men and women to be treated the same, to be
treated all alike,
And if that was not to be, they
promised a bitter strike.
Well, you won’t strike, you cannot strike, you will not strike, said the boss,
For the Lord will hear of it, and it’ll surely
be your loss.
Oh, we can strike, we will strike,
we are ready to fight
And you can tell the Lord Stanwood,
his mill will close tonight.
And if the looms stop turning, he said, stop for even for one day
If I know Lord Stanwood, you’ll be the ones to pay.
And a tattler standing by and hearing
what was said,
He swore Lord Stanwood he would know, before the sun was set.
And in his hurry to carry the news,
he bent his breast and ran,
And when he came to the broad millstream, he took off his shoes and he swam.
And the next day the engines were all quiet, the looms were very still
And be sure that no cotton was going to come out of that mill.
The same pay for the same work, the women marched and shouted,
But the men who knew the Lord, a good ending they doubted.
And the first message came that if they called off this strike, ended their charade,
Then the Lord would make sure that the sisters, they’d be richly paid.
But we cannot leave the other girls, we cannot leave them that way,
For we are honourable women, not ones to betray.
And after four more days, another note it came
Would the sisters meet with the bosses, before they all went lame?
But come alone, it said, and come to the woods at dusk
For the Lord himself will come along, for meet with you he must.
And so the two sisters went after sundown, they went down to the woods,
Only to find no Lord, but seven men in hoods.
And they grabbed the sisters hard and rough
And threw them to the ground.
We’ll teach you to strike, they said, and they began to pass them round.
Well, the older she pleaded and begged and made them a promise fair
If they spared her little sister, she would be their mare.
And so while little Bess watched the seven, gagged so she couldn’t shout,
They took their pleasures with the older girl, till no man was left out.
And by the time they had finished with her, there was madness in her eyes
And they left the sisters in the grove, deaf to their terrible cries.
And if we hear of any of this again, even hear your very name,
We’ll be back for little Bess, and she will get the same.
And to make sure they remembered, remembered what they had done,
They carved their number on Annie’s skin,
A stroke for each man who committed the sin.
And so the sisters left the mills, left with a terrible curse
And a promise to come back one day and do their very worst.
This is the true story of two sisters, sisters brave and true,
They worked the reels in Lancashire, and now they’ll give their due.
The captain finished singing and cleared his throat, trying to hide the emotion. It always made him choke up.
‘Do you know that song, Corporal Tugman?’ de Griffon asked his temporary batman, who was polishing the captain’s boots. Sunderland, his regular servant, had been taken ill. He had asked Tugman to stand in, for the usual fifteen shillings a week, until Sunderland returned. He was not, though, to be excused from other duties in the same way as a proper servant usually was. And no more mention of being promoted to sergeant.
‘Not in that version, sir,’ the man replied brusquely.
They were in one of the officers’ dugouts, an L-shaped sandbag and plank room – the ceiling supported by four impressive timber props – which successive occupants had tried to make homely, despite the instructions from high command that any creature comforts might erode the ‘offensive spirit’.
There was a gramophone, although only two records were left intact to play on it and most of the centre was taken up by a makeshift billiard table, created from a cut-down door. On the walls were some theatre posters, framed poems, a tester with ‘Home Sweet Home’ and an arrow pointing to the left stitched on it, some Old Bill cartoons and a selection of purloined street signs from local towns and villages. Pride of place was a meticulously painted crest of Uppingham School, executed by an old boy, probably dead by now. On a low, homemade table sat a stack of tatty magazines – mostly Bystander and Punch. There were books, too: well-thumbed and often mildewed copies of Homer and Horace, Henty and Kipling.
The dugout smelled of lamp and stove fumes, cigarette and pipe smoke, damp socks and chloride of lime from the latrines, but it was relatively dry and, apart from the occasional rat incursion, comfortable. It would be his home for a week, although by the next day he would be sharing it with several other officers – there were four bunks in the shorter section of the ‘L’ – as fresh units arrived. Still, most of his men were spending the night in rubber-lined funk holes or standing up to their ankles in water and mud in the forward trenches. And poor Metcalf was in a wooden box, awaiting the gravediggers’ attentions.
‘You don’t care for the song?’
‘I don’t, sir. No.’ His eyes remained fixed on the leather he was buffing. ‘Not that version. Begging your pardon.’
‘Which version do you know?’
‘It’s about a lady who sleeps with a commoner. And it’s Lord Darnell in the version I heard. Not Stanwood, sir.’ He shook his head in dismay. ‘I mean, that’s your brother.’
‘Yes, just a little personal joke there.’
‘Right, sir,’ he said, not amused.
‘They were real, you know.’
‘Who?’
‘The two sisters in the song. Pass me my cigarettes, will you? Thank you. Anne and Bess Truelove. She had a baby, Anne. But her mind was gone. They had marked her, you know? Cut a number in her skin, to show how many had taken her. Of course it sent her over the edge. Seeing that every day. The child was brought up by Bess. In Italy. Where nobody knew their story.’
‘There,’ said Tugman, not really listening, giving one last rub on the boots. ‘Bloomin’ shame to go out there and ruin them.’
‘Terrible shame to get killed in unpolished boots, Corporal. Just won’t do.’
‘Sir?’ It didn’t do to talk about such things.
‘Looking forward to tonight? Chance to do something other than a bit of spit and polish? Get one back for the lieutenant?’
‘I am,’ said Tugman, without conviction. He didn’t want to think on the death of Metcalf, the hideous randomness of it. ‘Good of you to choose me, sir.’
De Griffon looked at his wristwatch. An hour or so to go. ‘Well, that’s a fine job, Tugman. I think a drink is in order.’
Tugman looked doubtful. Rum rations were issued at stand-to, just after dawn or before going over the bags.
‘Come on, I know it’s not morning, but it’ll keep the cold out. Gets mighty chilly out there in dead man’s land.’
Tugman looked uneasy. He wasn’t sure what had got into the captain. It wasn’t like him to be maudlin. But it got them all in the end, the feeling that the end might be nigh. Some men even foresaw their own death, in gory detail. And it came to pass, just as they had described. Had the captain been cursed with a dream or a vision? Some premonition or a prediction, like poor old Shippy. ‘You mean no man’s, sir.’
‘Of course I do.’
De Griffon took out his hip flask, poured a shot for Tugman and handed it over.
‘You not having one, sir?’
‘In a while, Corporal,’ de Griffon said with a smile as Tugman threw it back. ‘In a while.’