got nothin’ on under your coat except your nightdress,’ he commented excitedly as he cupped her small bottom in his huge hands. ‘Come with me round the back o’ the hut.’
Poppy pulled herself away from him and wiped her mouth. ‘I will not,’ she said fervently. ‘Don’t think I’m like other navvy wenches, Jericho, ’cause I’m not. Who do you think you are anyway, coming here and thinking I’m going to fall at your feet?’
He looked at her for a few seconds, uncertain how to react, and Poppy was afraid he might strike her for her disaffection. At last he grinned at her. ‘Oh, playing hard to get, eh? Saving yourself for that Crawford, are you? Well, I don’t mind playing that game. You’ll be worth the wait and you’ll taste all the sweeter for it …’ He displayed himself lewdly, cupping himself in both hands … ‘And so will I …’
Poppy turned and ran back to the hut.
She found it difficult to sleep that night, tossing and turning on the feather mattress till it became lumpy. Images of Jericho, naked in the darkness, invaded her mind. Good thing it had been dark. She knew exactly what Minnie saw in him, with his raw good looks, his thick, dark curls and his muscular body that showed not one ounce of fat. But he was arrogant. He knew women fancied him. Women would be there for the taking, wherever he went. But not her. Not Poppy. Oh, he expected her to be like all the others – easy meat. But he had not met anybody like her before. She was not about to be beguiled by the likes of him. Besides, he was just another navvy. Imagine being his devoted woman, sharing his bed at night, bearing his children, yet never sure that he was not bedding some other woman he’d duped with diverting half promises and the prospect of unbounded pleasuring.
So she turned her thoughts to Robert Crawford … Robert Crawford, that gentle soul who was not so high and mighty that he would wilfully pass her by and fail to acknowledge her, even though she was only a navvy’s daughter. He’d called her ‘Miss Silk’. He’d shown her respect and she enjoyed his courtesy. He was so friendly, so easy to talk to. He had no side on him, and yet … His eyes were so bright and alert, and they had been warm on her. Maybe he liked her too, but it could never be as much as she liked him. She would be fooling herself if she allowed herself to believe otherwise. But she wished that he would kiss her. Not roughly, like Jericho, who had stolen a hard slobbering kiss, but warmly, lovingly, with a gentle, sensitive, understated passion that would make her toes curl.
Poppy eventually fell asleep with Robert Crawford in her thoughts. Her dream that night was different from any other dream she had ever experienced. It was not the dream of a child, nor even of a young girl, but of a woman – arousing, stimulating, startling and vividly erotic. It involved herself and two men, both naked, one of whom was riding a two-wheeled machine akin to a hobby horse. She was sitting on the crossbar of the machine in the arms of the naked Robert Crawford, her face against his neck as she nestled in his arms, the wind rippling through her hair, the street flashing past in a blur as they sped down it. And then they fell off the machine into soft long grass and tumbled head over heels. Her skirt was up over her bodice and he was crawling towards her, a look of concern on his beautiful face. ‘Are you all right, Miss Silk?’ he asked, just as Minnie had said he would, but so tenderly. She nodded, smiling as she realised she was naked from the waist down. He scrambled to get on top of her and kissed her lovingly, yet hungrily, and she felt him enter her, so sweetly, so gently, that she hoped the moment would last forever. But in her dream she was also aware of this other naked man, huge, rough and threatening. He came into view and lifted Robert bodily from her and took his place, hurting her, thrashing inside her like some frantic fish caught in a net. She awoke momentarily, tried to exorcise Jericho from her mind and return to Robert … But Robert had gone …
Lightning Jack and Bilston Buttercup had reached the sweeping curve of Chipping Campden’s High Street on the day they anticipated. They enquired as to the proximity of the railway line and the Mickleton tunnel but the locals, who seemed very respectable, did not seem kindly disposed towards them. Eventually, they were directed out of the village on a north-easterly path. They came to the railway track bed under construction and followed it until it came to a dead end. Lightning Jack speculated that the tunnel workings must be over the hill that lay before them. It was not long before they saw the mountains of spoil, the shaft with its steam engine, and a small shanty town of dilapidated huts. A navvy directed them to a ganger who set them on.
Both men had exhausted their money, mainly on beer, but they were amply fed and watered that evening by the resident navvies, with typical navvy hospitality. Their lodgings were in a hut similar to that which Lightning had left behind at the Blowers Green encampment. The same ganger who had employed them, called ‘Swillicking Mick’ because of the vast amounts of beer he was reputed to drink, operated it.
They ate that evening in the common living room of the hut with the others, enjoying cuts from a massive piece of beef and mounds of potatoes from a huge pot that hung over the fire. The only windows, each immediately either side of the solitary door, were stuck in the middle of the room’s longest wall. The kitchen was located opposite a stack of beer barrels. It was home from home.
Swillicking Mick kept them amply supplied with beer. ‘Pay me when you get paid, lads,’ he said. ‘I’ll not rob thee for it. I brew it meself so it works out cheaper than the stuff from the tommy shop.’
‘It’s decent stuff an’ all,’ Lightning commented. ‘Pour us another if it’s cheap.’
Swillicking Mick’s woman, wearing a leather belt from which hung the keys to the locked beer barrels, duly poured Lightning another and made a note of it in a little book that she withdrew from the pocket of her apron.
‘There’s no decent beer shop hereabouts, so a few on us have begun brewing our own,’ Mick informed them. ‘Course, you can always tramp into Campden. A good many do of a Saturday night. The beer houses want our trade, but the locals ain’t too fond o’ the rumpus we cause. Already they’ve put bars up at the windows o’ some o’ the properties, save ’em getting bost.’
‘The contractors don’t like you brewing your own beer, I’ll warrant,’ Buttercup ventured, nodding in the direction of the barrels. ‘’Specially if they ain’t taking a cut.’
‘Nor would the exciseman if he knew,’ Mick said with a wink. ‘The only problem is, I’m more inclined to sell me beer than work on the construction. So would all the others. It earns us a mint o’ money.’
Mick’s woman, Hannah, began clearing the things away and the men continued talking. There were nine or ten men in the room; it was getting noisier and the humour increasingly boisterous. Then there was a knock at the door; more customers for Swillicking Mick. A group of five or six ruffians entered, one of whom carried a fiddle and a bow. They bought beer, and the chap with the fiddle began playing a lively tune. Several of the men began dancing with each other, their boots hammering on the floorboards. Others were sitting on the floor playing cards, their poaching dogs alongside them, and they complained that the dancing would be understandable if there were women about. At that, the door opened again and half a dozen women and girls squeezed inside.
‘The women from the mill,’ Swillicking Mick remarked with a wink.
It was beginning to get crowded. The card-players cheered and got up from the dusty floor, to engage in a more interesting sport.
One of the women – she looked about thirty years old but was possibly younger – attached herself to Lightning.
‘I’ve not seen you before, have I, chuck?’ she said in her rural drawl.
‘Not unless you can see as far as Dudley,’ Lightning answered.
‘You
