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“Tied down?” Hester asked quickly. “Aren’t they dug in?”
“Staked,” he answered. “But they shake loose if yer don’t do ’em real ’ard an’ careful, miss. Them machines is stronger than all the ’orses yer ever seen. Stakes look tight ter begin wi’, but arter an hour or two they in’t. Yer need ter move the ’ole engine a dozen yards or so ter fresh ground an’ start over. But that takes time. Means that—”
“I understand,” she said quickly. “They’re losing loads going up and down when they take up the bolts and move the machine, then stake it and start it up again. And the more firmly they bolt it, the longer it takes to move it.”
“Yeah, that’s right.” Collard looked slightly taken aback that she had grasped the point so quickly.
“Don’t all companies work the same way?” she said.
“Most,” he agreed. “Some’s more careful, some’s less. Couldn’t all get engines the same. But more’n that, the earth in’t the same from one place ter ’nother. If yer ever dug it yerself, you know Chelsea in’t the same as Lambeth, an’ Rother’ide in’t the same as the Isle o’ Dogs.” He was looking at her now, his eyes narrow and tired with pain. “There’s all sorts: clay, rock, shale, sand. An’ o’ course there’s rivers an’ springs, but Sutton knows that. More’n ’em, there’s old workings o’ all sorts: drains, gutters, cellars, tunnels, an’ plague pits. Goes back ter Roman times, some of ’em. Yer can’t do it quick.” He stared into the middle distance. Hester could only imagine what it was like for him sitting helpless in a chair while the world narrowed and closed in on him. He saw disaster ahead and was unable to do anything to prevent it. He was telling her because she asked, and she had come with Sutton, but he did not believe she cared, or could help, either.
His wife lost patience. “Why don’t yer tell ’em straight?” she demanded, ignoring the boiling kettle except for a swift movement to remove it from the heat. If she had intended to make tea, it was forgotten now. “Were a cave-in wot took my ’usband’s leg,” she said to Hester. “One o’ them big beams fell on ’im. Only way ter get ’im out before the ’ole lot caved in were ter take ’is leg orff. If they go on usin’ them great machines shakin’ everythin’ ter bits up on top like that, sooner or later the sides is gonna cave in on top o’ the men wot’s diggin’ an’ ’aulin’ down the bottom. Or when we get rains like we ’ave in Feb’uary, one o’ ’em sewers bursts, an’ ’oos gonna get the men out before it floods, eh?” she demanded, her voice high and harsh. “I know a score o’ women like me, ’oose husbands a’ lorst arms an’ legs ter them bleedin’ tunnels. An’ widders as well. Too many o’ them damn railways is built on blood an’ bones!”
“There’ve always been accidents,” Hester said reluctantly. “Is any contractor especially bad?”
Collard shook his head angrily, his face dark. “Not as I know. Course there’s accidents, no one’s gurnin’ about that! Yer do ’ard work, yer take ’ard chances. The wife’s just bellyachin’ ’cos it in’t easy fer ’er. Is it, Lu? In’t no better bein’ a coal miner or seaman, or lots o’ other things.” He smiled mirthlessly. “Don’t s’pose it’s always rum an’ cakes bein’ a soldier, is it?” He waited for her answer.
“No,” she agreed. “What is it, then, that you are concerned about?”
The smile vanished.
“I’m more’n concerned, miss, I’m downright scared. They got ’ole lengths o’ new sewer built, an’ o’ course there’s still most o’ the old bein’ used. Get a couple o’ slides, mud, cave-ins, an’ yer got men cut off down there. If yer don’t get drownded, it could be worse—burned.”
“Burned?”
“Gas. There’s ’ouse’old gas pipes in ’em sewers as well. Get a shift in the clay an’ one o’ them cracks, an’ first spark you’ll ’ave not only the gas from the sewage, but back up inter every ’ouse as ’as gaslight. See wot I mean?”
“Yes.” Hester saw only too well. It could be a second Great Fire of London if he was right. “Surely they’ve thought of that, too?” They had to have. No one was irresponsible enough not to foresee such a catastrophe. A few navvies drowned or suffocated, she could believe. There had been a cave-in when the crown of the arch of the Fleet sewer had broken. The scaffolding beams had been flung like matchwood into the air, falling, crashing as the whole structure subsided and the bottom of the excavation moved like a river, rolling and crushing and burying.
Sutton was watching her too. “Yer ’memberin’ the Fleet?” he asked.
She was startled. Of course he had told her about the Fleet River running under London in the tales his father had told him. Now she knew why. He had described the whole network of shifting, sliding, seeping, running waters.
“Doesn’t everybody know this?” she said incredulously.
It was Lu Collard who answered. “Course they do, Miss. But ’oo’s gonna say it, eh? Lose yer job? Then ’oo feeds yer kids?”
Collard shifted uncomfortably in his imprisoning chair. His face was more wasted with pain than Hester had appreciated before. He was probably in his mid-thirties. He had been a good-looking man when he was whole.
“Aw, Andy, she can see it!” his wife said wearily. “In’t no use pretendin’! That’s wot them bastards count on! Everyone so buttoned up wi’ pride, nob’dy’s gonna say they’re scared o’ bein’ the next one ’urt.”
“Be quiet, woman!” Collard snapped. “Yer don’t know nothin’. Their men in’t—”
“Course they is!” She turned on him. “They in’t stupid! They know it’s gonna ’appen one day, an’ Gawd knows ’ow many’ll get killed. They don’t say nothin’ ’cos they’d sooner get crushed or drownded termorrer than starve terday, an’ let their kids starve! Shut yer eyes, an’ wot yer don’t see don’t ’urt yer!”
“Yer gotta live!” he said, looking away from her.
Sutton was watching Hester, his thin face anxious.
“Of course you have,” Hester answered. “And the new sewers have got to be built. We can’t allow the Great Stink to happen again, or have typhoid and cholera in the streets as we had before. But no one wants another disaster like the Fleet sewer, only worse. There’s too much money involved for anyone to do it willingly. There needs to be a law involved, one that can be enforced.”
“They won’t never do that,” Collard said bitterly. “Only men wot’s got money can vote, and Parliament makes the laws.”
Hester looked at him gently. “Sewers run under the houses of men with money more than they do under yours or mine. I think we might find a way of reminding them of that. At least we can try.”
Collard sat perfectly still for a moment. Then very slowly he turned to look at Sutton, to try to read in his face if Hester could possibly mean what she said.
“Exactly,” Sutton said very clearly, then turned to Mrs. Collard. “ ’Ow about a cup o’ tea, then, Lu? It’s colder’n a witch’s—” He stopped, suddenly remembering Hester’s presence. “ ’Eart,” he finished.
