Litany of Winter

By half past six, Severin Hale had stopped feeling his fingers.

The gloves were somebody else’s, too large in the palms and split across two knuckles. They had been in the hiring shed with the rest of the yard gear, damp from the man who wore them before him. Severin had taken them because wet gloves were still gloves. Losing a pair would cost him money he didn’t have.

A crate came down the ramp crooked.

”Lift your bloody end.”

”I am lifting it. Stop walking faster.”

The crate tipped toward Eddie’s boot.

”Not my fault you’ve got shorter arms.”

Severin shifted his grip and caught more of the weight. The boy swore at him anyway. Together they dragged the crate across two boards slick with coal grit to the waiting trolley.

Eddie Moss was seventeen and narrow enough to disappear behind most freight. He wiped his nose on his sleeve and stared at the crate as if it had offended him personally.

”This one weighs more than Spud.”

”Nah. Nothing weighs more than Spud after he’s had supper.”

Eddie shoved the trolley toward the warehouse doors.

”Does his mum still feed him?”

”Think so. Poor woman thinks he’s dying.” 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

”Bloody hell. The bloke’s twenty four.”

”Been dying for years.”

Eddie snorted.

The foreman shouted for the next pair before Severin had straightened his back.

The evening train from the north sat under the iron roof with steam leaking around its wheels. Men moved along both sides of it, unloading sacks, timber cases, barrels of lamp oil, and cheap furniture wrapped in sacking. Every few minutes the locomotive coughed smoke into the roof and turned the lamps dirty yellow.

Severin had been there since noon and was meant to finish at five. When the yard office offered another four hours at one and a half pay, he stayed. He never asked why. There was nowhere warm waiting for him.

”Hale!”

The foreman stood beside the next wagon with a clipboard tucked under one arm. Mr. Pike was a square man with a coat too clean for the yard and a moustache that looked trimmed with measuring tools.

”You deaf now?”

”Only when you’re talking.”

A few men close enough to hear laughed. Pike did not.

”Get over here. Rooney, you too.”

Arthur Rooney came around the wagon carrying a hook over one shoulder. Everyone except his mother called him Spud. He was broad through the chest and red haired. Something stupid had already caught his attention. Severin could tell he was deciding whether to join it.

He looked at Severin’s gloves.

”What are those? Steal them off a corpse?”

”Cut me some slack. They’re only temporary.”

”I’ve heard that before.”

Pike slapped the clipboard against his thigh. ”You two planning to work tonight?”

Spud looked past him at the line of freight. ”Depends. Anyone else vanish, or are we fully staffed now?”

The men nearest them went quieter.

Pike checked the sheet on his clipboard. ”Hobbs walked off.”

”What? He left his bloody coat here.”

Pike shrugged. ”Said his stomach was bad.”

”And Miller?”

”Ask him yourself.”

”Would if anyone could find him.”

Pike pointed the clipboard at the wagon. ”Listen. You want to gossip, do it after shift. We’ve still got plenty to unload.”

Spud jerked his chin toward the temporary crew. ”Wasn’t gossip when you needed six new hands this morning.”

Severin caught Spud by the sleeve before the next sentence arrived. ”Come on. I’ve got plans for my money.”

”What plans? Losing it at dice?”

Severin shook his head. ”You got me.”

Pike made a disgusted noise and moved away.

Spud waited until he was out of easy hearing. ”Three in a fortnight.”

”Four,” Eddie said, returning with the empty trolley.

Spud looked at him. ”Who?”

”Danny Wells. Night shunter.”

”Danny gets drunk every payday.”

”Didn’t get paid Friday. His sister came asking.”

Severin bent for the next case. ”Maybe he got religious.”

”Church sure doesn’t owe him eight copper,” Eddie said.

Spud did not laugh this time. Severin wished he hadn’t noticed.

People went missing in Blackhaven all the time. Men disappeared owing money, and boys ran before somebody could throw them out. Some came back. Others turned up beside canal gates or in police cells under another name. Plenty were never looked for. Four men from one freight yard were worth noticing.

Severin took the extra shift anyway.

The next two hours reduced the matter to work. His shoulders burned, and the split in his right glove widened until the crate edges rubbed skin raw. A barrel slipped from another man’s grip and crushed his toe against the stones. Pike sent him toward the gate with orders to come back tomorrow if he could fit the foot into a boot. Nobody mentioned paying him for the evening.

At seven, a permanent loader refused a wagon. Pike had a temporary man in his place before the argument ended.

Spud left at eight, after twenty minutes of complaining that Severin was staying.

”See you at the pub when you’re done.”

”Who’s paying today?”

”You are.”

”Fuck off. I’ve earned at least half a drink.”

”Fine. I’ll drink the other half.”

At the gate, Spud turned back. ”Don’t take the night work if Pike offers it.”

”What night work?”

”Exactly. I’m serious, Saint.”

Only the roadmen called him that. Blazer had started it years ago after Severin stopped him going too far.

”You being serious is making me nervous.”

”Good. Means there’s hope for you.”

Eddie stayed another half hour to fix a jammed trolley wheel for a few copper, then left with the bent cotter pin in his pocket. After that the yard emptied quickly, the permanent men clocking out while the temporaries hurried to the hiring window before someone invented another task.

Pike came down the platform calling names.

”Hale. Crowe. You two at the end. Stay on this wagon until it’s clear.”

Crowe immediately asked, ”How late?”

”You deaf too? Until it’s clear.”

Crowe looked down the length of the wagon.

”Calm down. I just asked.”

”If you don’t want the pay, go home.”

Crowe swore and stayed.

Severin stayed too. The extra pay he had already taken meant breakfast and two hot meals if he was careful. There might even be enough left that Evelyn would stop looking at his boots as if she meant to throw them in the stove. He might fix the sole before rain got through it completely.

That was probably worth a bad evening.

The wagon Pike had kept for last looked ordinary from outside, with weathered black paint and chalk numbers like the others. The first difference was the lock.

Two yard men Severin did not know came with Pike. One carried a ring of keys. The other had a short club at his belt and stood close while the wagon door was opened.

Crowe nodded at the lock. ”We’re unloading gold now?”

Pike ignored him. Inside were twelve crates, smaller than most of the freight Severin had handled that day.

They were built from thick dark wood with iron bands at every corner. Four had chains passed twice around them and sealed with lead at the links. The rest had metal clasps fitted over the lids. No company names had been burned into the timber, only marks.

Severin stopped at the first one.

Someone had painted several shapes beside the freight number in a brownish red that looked almost black under the lamps, the clearest 🜕, a circle split by a vertical line. He noticed 🜔 and 🜍 as well, but the rest were cramped strokes and hooked lines he could not make sense of.

He had seen enough markings on freight and enough thieves’ scratches on doors to know when a sign meant something to the person who made it, though he had no idea what these meant.

”Hale.”

Pike was watching him.

Severin put both hands under the crate. ”Just admiring the artwork.”

”Don’t.”

”Wasn’t planning to buy it. Don’t even know what we’re unloading.”

The man with the club stepped closer. ”Just move the box.”

Severin looked at him once, then lifted.

The crate was heavier than it looked. Something inside shifted with a soft clink, glass against glass perhaps, followed by a duller scrape.

Crowe looked down at the crate.

”Careful,” Pike snapped.

That made all four loaders look at him.

Pike had watched a man lose a toenail under a barrel without leaving his clipboard. Now he watched the crate with the clipboard hanging at his side.

Severin and Crowe carried it down together.

”Warehouse three,” Pike said.

One of the other loaders, already rolling another crate toward warehouse two, stopped. ”What? Manifest says two.”

Pike crossed the distance fast enough to snatch the paper from his hand. ”Three.”

The loader sighed. ”Whatever.”

The guard opened warehouse three himself.

The guard made them wait outside while he checked the building. He disappeared among the stacked freight for a minute, then came back from the rear and waved them through.

Severin set the first marked crate on the floor where instructed.

”Not there,” Pike said.

He pointed to a chalk rectangle near the back wall.

”Inside the lines. Leave space between them.”

Crowe stared at him. ”They’re crates, Pike. What does it matter?”

”Enough questions. Do what you’re paid for.”

They did. By the fourth trip, Severin had stopped pretending not to notice.

Ordinary freight from the wagon went to warehouse two. The marked crates went alone into warehouse three, and Pike checked each number at the door. The man with the club stayed beside them and stopped anyone from rolling the crates or using hooks on the iron bands.

When one of the loaders reached for a chain to drag a crate the last few inches, the guard knocked his hand away.

”Lift it.”

The loader stared at him. ”It’s fucking heavy. You try to lift it.”

For a moment Severin thought they might fight.

Pike cut in before either man moved. ”Lift it and finish the wagon.”

The loader swore under his breath and bent for the crate.

Severin looked down at the dark red mark as his crate crossed the chalk line. He still could not read it.

Pike watched until the crate sat inside the chalk lines before turning back toward the wagon. Whatever was inside those crates, he was treating it like more than freight.