Alasdair McPherson

The Hobos' Union Alasdair McPherson

1917 In Europe, the few crops that have been planted remain unharvested. In the west, two huge armies stand ankle deep in mud facing each other. In the east, the Tsar has been deposed and the revolutionaries are fighting each other for control of the lawless country. Starvation hangs over the people like a thundercloud. The United States has the will and the resources to supply the wheat, but their society is riven by greed and mistrust. Half a million or more hobos are needed to bring in the harvest, but they are treated badly by the farmers who employ them. Gang masters control the labour market using threats against farmers and workers alike. Ewan Clooney, the second son of a Scottish subsistence farmer, can see things from both points of view. He joins the newly formed union of agricultural workers to negotiate a settlement that is fair to everyone. Before he can make progress, however, he must break the power of the anarchists who are trying to prevent the harvest of 1917 reaching beleaguered Europe. His adventures in the Pacific North-West bring him into an often uneasy alliance with an enigmatic prospector and a farmer brought from Germany by the railroad fifty years earlier. His nemesis is another Scot; Jan Lewis, who has thrown in his lot with the criminals intent on destroying the wheat crop.