The Devil’s Acre. Matthew Plampin
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in concentration, knowing that she must make a convincing display for the Colonel’s sake, Caroline turned the drill-head to the left. It slid around easily, with a heavy, well-greased clunk. She leaned over to pull the lever that would connect her machine to the spinning cylinder ahead.
‘Mr Alvord,’ said a deep Yankee voice at her shoulder, ‘if I’m not mistaken, this girl is just about to sink a second bolt-cam hole through that there hammer.’
This voice, of course, belonged to Colt. Caroline cursed her luck. Alvord was at her side the very next instant, smelling of bad teeth and root ginger, disengaging the belt, rotating the drill-head, apologising profusely for her stupidity. She looked around, thinking to assume her best servant’s manner and assure the Colonel that it wouldn’t ever happen again.
A small, hard eye was scrutinising her from beneath the brim of a strange Yankee hat. ‘That hammer is the most vital part of a Colt pistol, young miss,’ the Colonel said, not entirely unkindly. ‘It’s what marks us out from our main rivals in this city. You be sure to learn how to drill it properly.’ He swivelled on his heel so that he faced the overseer. ‘And Mr Alvord, p’raps you might like to deliver your lesson again. Although it is true that even the most slow-witted of humans can be trained in the operation of my machines, the rate of success does depend a little on the quality of the goddamn instruction.’ With this, the gun-maker strode away in the direction of the jiggers and the lock-frames – the heavier devices that shaped the central parts of the revolver.
Alvord, enraged and humiliated, pointed to the drill-head. ‘Start at position one, turning anticlockwise.’ He indicated each bit in turn. ‘That’s the hammer spring; the bolt cam; the main spring roller. If you don’t have it by the end of the day we’ll be replacing you in the morning, understand?’
Caroline nodded, repeating the names of the drill-bits. Alvord had already left, though, starting after Colonel Colt. She became aware that one of the Colonel’s followers had become detached from the train, and was lingering by her machine. Hands on the drill-head, she aimed a sly sidelong look in his direction. There stood a young man in an English frock-coat and top hat, a junior office type of the sort you saw perched up on the roofs of omnibuses bound for the City, smoking their cigars and surveying the streets below as if they were the rightful owners of all London. She supposed that this particular fellow was part of Colonel Colt’s English establishment. He had a cool quality about him, though, a watchfulness, that held an undeniable appeal. He was studying her closely. Pausing in her work, she put a hand on her hip and met his gaze, thinking to embarrass any ignoble intention that might be lurking in his mind.
Caroline recognised him – the straight, short nose and smooth brow, the neat, coppery whiskers, the faint quizzical cast to his lips. It was the gentleman she’d seen in the yard on that first morning, a fortnight previously. He tipped his hat to her and went after Colt.
‘The Colonel’s starting to fret,’ whispered Nancy knowingly. ‘That’s what it’s all about. Word is that he’s looking to show the factory off as soon as he can, to the Army and some government toffs most likely. But now, just as he’s got the engine running nicely at last, his chief engineer goes and gets hisself knocked senseless.’
Caroline met this rather absently. ‘What are you on about, Nance?’
Keen to be the bearer of gossip, Nancy leaned in closer, poking her flat, snub-nosed face between the raised parts of her machine. ‘The beatings, Caro – ain’t you heard? Mr Quill the Yankee engineer and his paddy assistant. Got served out something proper last night in Pimlico, up on one of Mr Cubitt’s sites near Warwick Square.’
The smart young man left Caroline’s mind at once. ‘What?’
Nancy was well pleased by this response. Nothing gave this sturdy factory veteran more satisfaction than to adopt the guise of the wise old hand with privileged information to share. ‘They’ll be all right, best anyone can tell,’ she said casually. ‘In a week or so, anyway. The Colonel’s got ‘em laid up in the Yankees’ lodging house over on Tachbrook Street. Brought in a doctor and everything. No one knows who done it. There’s stories aplenty, o’ course.’
This was why Martin hadn’t been down in the yard with Slattery. He was lying all bashed up in a Pimlico lodging house. Amy would be going mad with worry. Would he have thought to get word to her? Would he have been able to? Helplessly, Caroline looked around the long, dingy machine room; at the Colonel’s greasy metal contraptions, their operators hunched over them as if they were being slowly devoured; at the complex cat’s-cradle of machine-belts, flapping and tensing with the shifting of the levers. It was only late morning. There was no chance of her being able to get away before seven. When she’d been taken on, the foreman had stressed that any unexplained absence from your machine during factory hours would see you slung straight out the gate.
Caroline tried to return her attention to the drill-head, but she couldn’t stop thinking of Martin – of what had befallen him and Mr Quill after she’d spoken with them in the Eagle. Why would anyone attack them like that?
She could only come up with one possible answer. It had to be something to do with Pat Slattery.
All fifty of Colt’s female operatives were employed in the same region of the works, on the lighter machines, and they took their dinner together. They sat by the water trough in the centre of the yard, chattering and laughing as they ate. Caroline stayed apart from them, having no wish to listen to their excited speculation about the beatings. She’d bought a white onion and a piece of cheese, but frustration and worry had taken away her appetite completely. Pacing the factory’s boundary, she peered out through the railings, along the wide river in the direction of Westminster.
The bell rang, summoning them inside. It occurred to Caroline that she could just walk into the forging shop right then, confront Slattery and demand that he reveal everything he knew, for the sake of Martin’s wife and children. This was a tempting notion indeed. Crossing the yard to the sliding factory door, preparing to file in behind the other women, she imagined herself simply doing it: turning away from the staircase, weaving between the drop-hammers, approaching the Irishman as he stoked his fire and saying her piece with righteous, unchallengeable anger.
But there was no time; and besides, one of the Yankees would be sure to see her, Mr Alvord would be informed, and she’d be dismissed before you could say ‘main spring roller’. Caroline went back up to her machine and drilled hammers all through the grey, everlasting afternoon, fidgeting with agonised boredom. When the final bell eventually sounded she was the first down the stairs and out into the deepening darkness. She left by the pedestrian gate at the rear of the works, intending to learn what she could of Martin’s condition and then go to Amy. This gate led onto Bessborough Place, the shadowy, featureless lane that lined the factory block’s north-eastern side. From here it was only a short walk to the Americans’ lodging house on Tachbrook Street. A large corner residence at the street’s southern end, it had the grand, fresh-made look common to all of Mr Cubitt’s Pimlico; the Colonel clearly believed in ensuring the comfort of his senior staff. She could see a couple of them through the windows, lounging in a gas-lit sitting room, laughing over something they’d read in a newspaper.
Caroline straightened her bonnet, screwed down her courage and knocked at the front door. It was opened by an elderly male servant who studied her with a knowing leer, no doubt assuming an unsavoury reason for her call. She was about to explain herself when she noticed two people sitting on a bench across the hall, directly opposite the doorway. One of them was Martin. He had a blanket over his shoulders and a wide, blood-spotted bandage wrapped around his brow. His ribs, too, were bound, as was his right wrist; in all, he looked more like a stricken soldier than an apprentice engineer.
Pushing past the servant, Caroline started towards him. The other person on the bench rose to meet her, and she realised that it was the fellow from the machine floor – the smart young man with the coppery whiskers. He was holding his top hat in his hands, as if about to go out; his hair was thick and straight, combed back from his brow in a neat, dark diagonal.
‘You