In the doorway he paused for a while and looked about him. The room, like his life, was in complete upheaval, bedding lying on the floor, nothing in its place. It looked as if his mother had been in the midst of clearing the room of everything that would remind her of him when the disaster had occurred. His books were in a heap on the floor together with some old clothes. He went deliberately and picked from among the clothes the old suit he had worn in his going and coming from the pit, and swiftly now he changed into it, and although, being hung in a private locker kept apart for clean clothes, it had never come in contact with coal dust, it nevertheless carried the smell of the pit on it, and its odour cried to him, she was right, what can you do? You can’t untrap the dead. But you can trap yourself.
Swiftly, as if to escape the thought, he ran down the stairs, and at the foot stood Lottie. She had the child in her arms and it was crying, not loudly, yet in a strong monotonous way. The sight of it reminded him of Lena, and he realised he hadn’t seen her. She would be at the gates. A spark of pity for her assailed him, for with her temperament and saddled with a handicapped child she would take life hard.
‘Betty’s been whining all night. I’ve given her a bottle, haven’t I, Mrs Fowley?’
‘Yes, you’ve been good, Lottie,’ said the woman. ‘Now take it into the kitchen and keep it quiet; you don’t want to disturb Jinny, do you?’
‘No. All right. Oh, Larry.’ Her swollen eyes looked their joy at Larry, and for a moment she seemed on the point of laughing with her pleasure, but the darkness that lay on the house had the power to still her natural reaction.
Mrs Fowley pushed her gently away with one hand while with the other she restrained Larry’s departure. And when Lottie was out of hearing she closed the scullery door, and turning to him said, ‘You’d better know right away about Lena. She’s done a bunk. She told Mrs Patty she couldn’t stick it, not after she heard there was no hope. That was late on last night, and our George saw her get on the first bus this morning. She had two cases with her, that’s why he thought it was funny, and mentioned it. Mrs Patty didn’t half go for her last night. She said it had to come to all of us sooner or later, and she had that helpless bairn to think of. And then there was your mother. Well…’ Mrs Fowley paused, and her eyes rolled around in their sockets as if she were indulging in an eye exercise. Then she sighed and went on, ‘You should have heard her…Lena. She said Jinny was your lookout and you’d have to come back, seeing as the girls were on t’other side of the world. As for the bairn, it could be put in a home somewhere, she said. She didn’t feel it was hers anyway. She said it was like it was because of your grandfather or somebody. But none of us thought she’d go off, we thought it was the shock making her go on like that. Well, there it is, lad. I’m sorry.’
He made no comment but turned from her and went out. It seemed as if the tentacles of an octopus were winding about him.
In the warm morning sunshine he shivered. His mother, Lottie and the bairn, all helpless in one way or another, would depend now for their existence on him, and through him the pit. The prospect was more horrifying at this moment than the ordeal he was about to face, and he cried out within him, I can’t do it…tied for life, I just can’t do it. I’ll see them fixed in some way, but I can’t stay on forever. My God, no!
The crowd at the gate was thick and, in the main, was comprised of women. They stood crowded together, yet separated into small groups. The groups could be easily distinguished, as each seemed to converge round its own central figure. There was very little sound, no crying, no loud voice shouting against the owners as would have been the case twenty years ago. Policemen were keeping a path clear to the gate and as Larry, his eyes lowered, went up it a hand gripped at his arm and he was pulled to a halt, and he looked down into the agonised face of Mrs Macintyre.
‘Larry.’ Her voice was like a croak. ‘Larry.’
He patted her hand but could say no word of comfort; as with his own mother, he could only feel for her.
‘He was knocking in the night; he was still knocking.’
He moved swiftly away, his conscience crying loud in his ears now, ‘She’s blaming you, and she’s right. If you hadn’t gone when you did, it’s a thousand to one you’d be with him now.’ For a moment the weight of the whole disaster seemed to fall on his shoulders. He had quarrelled with his father, and left him in bitterness, when, up to a month ago, he had never had a cross word with him. He had died in the bitterness. And Jack, too, was dead, and thirty-five others. It was as if, in his scurrying to a new life, he had pulled the roof supports with him, and the result was this.
‘Hello there, Larry.’ As he pressed through the guarded gate into the press of the yard a back overman, the captain of a rescue party, spoke to him. ‘Late, aren’t you?’
He looked hard and spoke tersely, and Larry said with a sheepishness he loathed himself for, ‘I took a couple of days off. I was away when I heard.’
It was obvious to him that Bill Catley knew nothing of his private affairs, and it caused him a certain amount of wonder that when he had not been on call for the squad some fellow had not provided the answer for his absence.
Bill Catley was one of the older men of the pit and knew what strikes and tight belts meant, and he said reprovingly, ‘You can’t wonder about them going on about absenteeism, you young ’uns ’ll never larn. Aye well, I suppose you weren’t to know.’ And in the same tone he went on, ‘I’m sorry about your father, lad. He was a good man was Frank, none better; steady and reliable. There’ll soon be none of them left…Look, they’ve divided the squads up now. Report to Stanley Blake.’
‘Is there any news at all?’ asked Larry.
‘Nowt that’s good, I’m afraid, lad. We’ve established a fresh-air base in the return drift, and trying to get to the Duckbill district that way; but it’s a hell of a job. We found the separation doors at the foot of the intake gone west. The air was putrid. The canaries nearly had it. They’re sealing off sections now to try and get the ventilators going.’
‘What about the mother gate?’
‘Hopeless. The second explosion brought God knows how much of the roof down.’
‘And the fall in the main road? Willie…Willie Macintyre?’
The overman shook his head. ‘They’re not through that yet. Once they are, and the roof’s held, then…well…’
He left the sentence unfinished, and Larry moved away to the dressing rooms. Once inside, it was evident that his affairs were known here. It was also evident that at some time he had been under discussion, for there was a quick movement of eyes, and the greetings that were sent to him were slow and tentative.
‘Hello, there…got back?’
‘Hello there, Larry.’
‘Wotcher.’
Under normal circumstances there would have been no greetings—you don’t greet a member of the family with stilted politeness if you see him morn, noon and night; a nod of the head or the immediate delving into some topic would more likely be the normal procedure. Yet in the half-glances and the greetings there was a quality that Larry felt but would not put a name to. He could not think that it was relief, that they were relieved to a man that although he had, to their way of thinking, done a dirty bit of business, he had, nevertheless, when put to the test, and the test at rock bottom was the pull of the pit, turned up trumps.
Larry gave no greeting except the curt lift of his head, and after pushing towards his locker and changing into his things he turned to a man and said, ‘Who we under?’
‘Ralph Telham. They’ve split up. There’s squads from all over the place here. We’re on report now.’ The man put his head down and spoke into his own locker more than to Larry. ‘I’m sorry about your dad and Jack, Larry. And Willie. But still, he could be all right, there’s still a chance.’
‘Who was he with?’
‘The dep.’
‘Just the two of them?’
‘Aye. They were knocking till just a while ago, which
makes them think they’re in a pocket. They surmise there must have been another fall further along, and they’re getting some air from the old workings near the seven quarter seam. They would have tried to get in that way, but it would have taken longer.’
The man waited while Larry changed, and together they went out into the crowded yard and towards the first-aid post. The familiar scene was no longer familiar. All about him were strange men. Here and there he recognised a ‘big pot’; an area surveyor, an agent, a pit manager, and three men he knew to be local doctors. There were parsons and priests, and standing talking to two men covered with grime was a Member of Parliament.
As he made to go into the first-aid post the whirring of the shaft wheel ceased and his, with every other head in the top end of the yard, moved upwards. The cage had come up; it could mean news. Almost instantly, like wind over grass, a message would sweep across the cage landing, down the steel steps, and into the yard.
It did. They could see them…they would be through any minute now. Nothing more. There was no: The deputy had said this, or Willie had said that; there was no shout: They’re alive and kicking.
He turned into the first-aid post and made his way towards the overman Bill Catley, whom he had encountered in the yard, and stood before him, where he was surrounded with equipment. And without any to-do he was handed a helmet and breathing apparatus, and instructed, ‘You weren’t here when they were told. We’re to go to the fresh-air base in the main section and get our orders and be checked over from there. They’ve just gone up. Come on.’
Following him, Larry went through the yard and up the steps and onto the platform, and joined the men with whom he had practised time and again for just such a moment as this. But never during his training had he imagined going to the rescue, the hopeless rescue, of the three men closest to his life. Between a gap in the heads of the men and the space between two trucks he saw, away over the town in the far distance, a strip of yellow green…the fells. In the middle of the strip was a minute black dot. It could have been the barn. As the cage rattled to the surface the dot seemed to melt before his eyes, and his mind could not hold it, even had he wished it to.
Crushed on his hunkers in the cage, pressed knee to knee and with the acrid smell of clothes soaked in sweat and dust about him, and dropping with the usual sickening swiftness into the earth, he cried in protest against all the facets of his life. ‘God! God! God!’
They stood a short time later like strange beings from a dark and unknown planet, waiting for the word to move on. Their faces bulged with the breathing apparatus, but the nose clip, the mouthpiece, the bag, the liquid-air pack did not appear as appendages to their bodies but part of themselves, and one with the congested depth. All about them was movement, apparently chaotic, but in fact so organised that no man made an unnecessary step …
Inside Larry’s chest was a feeling comparable with nothing that he had felt in his life before. The torments of his love bore no resemblance to the anguish with him now. In his own eyes he was as dust—in the local idiom, he was a nowt—and he knew in this moment that as long as he might live he would never regain a full conceit of himself. All the kindness, all the devotion, yes and the love, that Willie Macintyre had openly bestowed on him was alive now and filling the narrow road which was a shambles of heaped stones, mangled rails, and props, and bowing before that love was the knowledge that in his heart he had scorned the simplicity of this friend and had looked down on him for it. And now he was unable to take his eyes from where he lay at the side of the track.
Willie did not look dead; through the grime on his face he looked asleep, and for a moment Larry questioned whether that could not be the case. He wanted to cry to the doctor who had just risen from his knees, ‘It could be shock. Why don’t you try artificial respiration or something?’ But he said nothing, only continued to stare down at the burnt body of his friend. Willie was dead, quite dead, and three days ago he had left him too without a word of farewell. He had left him without even a thought.
The doctor signalled to the stretcher bearers, and gently Willie was lifted from the blanket onto the stretcher and a sheet was placed over him, and for the last time he rode the main road.
Larry did not watch the departure, but stared ahead into the opening they had made through the fall, and when, at a signal from the captain, they began to move off in pairs he took his place in the short procession. Slowly and carefully, like men walking on the seabed, they went. For a distance of four hundred yards the road appeared normal, then abruptly they came to the reason why Willie had stopped knocking. There had been a fall almost at the beginning of the old working leading to the seven quarter seam, from which enough clean air had seeped into the pocket to keep a man alive.
Now they came to the obstruction that had formed the other wall of the pocket. There was no telling to what depth it went. After the captain had climbed some of the strewn boulders and examined those near the roof, he signalled two men up beside him, and carefully removing some top stones, passed them to the men, who in turn passed them to their mates. Then stopping, he signalled again, indicating that the fall was slight.
Working with seeming lazy slowness, they shored up a hole big enough to afford the passage of one man at a time. Larry was the sixth man through, and as he entered the last stretch of the road which led to the tailgate a suffocating sickness assailed him, and for a moment he knew panic. His mouthpiece and nose clip were in place, and the air was flowing smoothly from the air pack into his breathing bag. The sickness was not that caused by carbon monoxide, but by fear, fear of what he would see once they reached the face. Men would be strewn about, and among them would be his father and Jack. But swiftly the fear of his own reactions was wiped away as the man in front of him, the Welshman who had chipped Willie on that fateful Saturday when Pam Turnbull had come back into his life, suddenly sank onto his knees and muttering only one word, ‘Sweating’, rolled over onto his side. The distress signal passed swiftly on to the captain, who, turning, made motions that the man should be taken back.
With the aid of another man Larry hoisted him up, and together they dragged him to the hole, and going one at a time through it, they moved slowly back towards the base. But long before they reached it, Larry knew that the weight he was carrying was a dead weight.
When once again Larry went up the road he knew no fear, but as a few hours previous when in the lorry he had been tempted to end it, so now the temptation was even stronger. All he had to do was to open his mouth and it would be over in a matter of seconds. He had always known this in theory, but Taffy had proved it in actuality. Taffy had felt little, there had been no time. Perhaps a tight pain in the chest, a feeling of sweating, and then…nothing…blessed nothing. The desire for escape from life filled his mind and took the place of the dread of what he would see at the face. It took away the dread of life lived without Pam, and the dread of life lived with his mother and Aunt Lot, and Jack’s grotesque child, and…the pit…the pit with its present nightmare always looming in the background.
There was a tap on his arm, and he followed the direction of the pointing finger through the zigzag of lights. There was a signal coming from the end of the tailgate. The way was blocked, they were returning. As if being granted an unwanted reprieve, he slowly turned round and went back to the station.
It was thirty-two hours later before they entered the actual face. Fresh-air bases had had to be gradually moved nearer to it to enable the rescue team to work from each end simultaneously and to allow them to be relieved at short intervals. Although the captain had offered to relieve Larry of the task that lay before him, he had curtly refused. It was now six o’clock on the Sunday evening, and but for two short rests he had been on hand all the time. This was his third trip to the face, and now they were moving in.
During his years in the pit he had experienced three mine disasters, and they had all been the result of roof falls and each in its own way had been gruesome enough. The memory of th
em had stayed vividly with him for months afterwards. But this was different. This hell, this shambles born of poisoned air and flames, this madman’s world of twisted rails and tubs hanging like baskets from crevices. The word horror was inadequate—burnt, twisted, grotesque creatures, sprawling at angles that weirdly suggested motion. The orders were to move each man out as they came to him. But when he bent over the first body, he could not touch it. It was the captain who gently turned it over. It was not his father; he knew it wouldn’t be Jack, for they would find him near the duckbill loader.
Crawling over the debris of twisted cables and roof chocks, he came across a box. It was locked and he did not touch it. He knew it held detonators, and everything that could be left was left for the investigators to check up on. The result of all enquiries usually revealed carelessness, and this one would likely be no exception. Detonators that should be taken up at the end of the shift were left in odd corners. It was illegal, but nobody reminded anyone else of the illegality; so it went on, as did the firing of tight roof chocks. Well, there were plenty of loose roof chocks now. They were strewn right and left.
The captain picked up a tattered book. It was the deputy’s report book, and near it lay a bait tin quite intact.
The seventh man they came to was Frank. Larry recognised him even before he was identified. It was the recognition of blood to blood, and his heart cried out with the simplicity of a child, ‘Oh, Dad, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I would never have left you like that. You know I wouldn’t. You understand? For God’s sake, say you understand!’
But there was no swift release to the pain of regret as slowly and painfully he eased his father along the coalface and, with each pull on Frank’s body, an agony of mind that he likened to being crucified filled him. And when, in the tailgate, Frank was laid on a stretcher he took one end; the ambulance member did not deter him. And when at the foot of the actual shaft, standing amid the ready helpers, he still gripped the stretcher, he knew he was doing it now not only because he did not want to be separated from his father but because, as long as he held the stretcher, he would be forced to stand. He knew that once released from it he too would drop.
The Menagerie Page 20