The Stars Look Down

by A. J. Cronin

  “To hell, lads,” he said, nodding his satisfaction, “that’s all reet.” He went back up the Scupper ropeway to his kist.

  But ten minutes later Tom Reedy, the putter, came after him. Tom said, in a great hurry:

  “Ogle says will you come inbye. There’s water comin’ through the shot holes, he says.”

  Dinning appeared to reflect.

  “To hell, he says.”

  Tom Reedy and Dinning went back to the heading. Dinning took a look at the face, a real good look. He found a thin trickle of water coming through the middle of it between the two shots he had fired. There appeared to be no pressure behind it. He smelled the water. The water had a bad smell, a smell of styfe which meant black damp about, he knew it was not virgin coal water. He did not like the look of it at all.

  “To hell, lads,” Dinning said, dismayed. “Ye’ve holed. Ye better try and get rid of some o’t.”

  Ogle, Brown and Tom Reedy began to tub the water, to try and get rid of it by letting it through the pack walls on the low side of the drawing road At that moment Geordie Dinning, who was Dinning’s son and a hand putter with Tom Reedy in Scupper Flats, came by.

  “Here, Geordie, lad,” Dinning cried. Though Dinning said to hell without offence and without knowing he said it, strangely enough he never said it before his son.

  Dinning took his son Geordie back to the kist with him. While he was hurrying to his kist he thought about the branch telephone but the telephone was some way off and it was still so early he was afraid Hudspeth might not yet have come to bank. Besides, Dinning was not very good at thinking. At the kist he got out his stub of copying-ink pencil and wrote two notes. He wrote laboriously, wetting the pencil occasionally on his tongue. In the first note this is what Dinning wrote:

  Mr. Wm. Hudspeth, Under-Viewer, Dear Sir,

  The water has holed into Scupper No. 6 Branch and is over the boots in the slope and more is coming and there is more going to the haulage than the pumps can manage. You might come inbye and see it and I will be at the kist in Paradise ropeway if not there in Mixen number two Bench. P.S. There is very great danger of flooding out. Yours H. Dinning.

  In the second note this is what Dinning wrote:

  The water has broken through Scupper No. 6 Branch. Frank will you warn the other men in the Paradise in case. Yrs. H. Dinning.

  Dinning turned to his son. He was a slow man, a slow thinker and speaker. But now he spoke quicker than usual. He said:

  “Run, Geordie, to Frank Logan, the fireman, and gie him this note. Then go outbye and up to the under-viewer’s house with this. Run now, Geordie, man, run.”

  Geordie went off with the two notes. He went quickly. When he came to the junction he looked for the onsetter but the onsetter was not there. Then Geordie heard a faint thump and the air commenced to reverse. Geordie knew that meant trouble in the Scupper Flats. He knew he wanted to get outbye but he knew also what his father had told him to do and between the two he lost his head and began to walk up the middle of the Paradise roadway.

  As young Geordie Dinning walked up the middle of the Paradise roadway suddenly out of the darkness came a train of four loaded tubs running loose. The tubs had broken amain from further up. Geordie shouted. Geordie jumped half a second too late. The train of tubs smashed down on him, took him twenty yards with a rush, flung him, went over him, and left his mangled body on the roadway. The train of tubs roared on.

  After his son had gone Dinning stood for some moments satisfied that he had done what he ought to do. Then he heard a loud bang, it was the thump his son had heard, only being nearer he heard it as a bang. Suddenly petrified, Dinning stood with his mouth open. He had expected trouble but nothing so sudden or terrible as this. He knew it was an inrush. Instinctively he turned into the Flats, but after going ten yards he saw the water rushing towards him. The water came roof high in a great swell of sound. In the water were the bodies of Ogle, Brown and ten other men. The gas in front of the rushing water extinguished his lamp. For two seconds while he stood in the sounding darkness waiting for the water Dinning thought: To hell, I’m awful glad I sent Geordie out of the pit! But Geordie was already dead. Then the water took Dinning too. He fought, struggled, tried to swim. No use. Dinning’s drowned body made fourteen drowned bodies in the flooded Scupper ropeway.

  Frank Logan, the Paradise fireman, did not get Dinning’s note. The note lay in the darkness covered with some blood, clenched in the completely severed hand of Geordie Dinning. But Frank heard the slight thump too and in a minute he felt the water coming knee-deep down the incline. He knew now without receiving the note that the water had holed. Fifteen men were working near him. Two of these men he ordered to go quick by the return airway to tell other men in the lower workings of the Paradise. The other thirteen he encouraged to push on to the pit-shaft one mile outbye. He himself remained. He knew that the Scupper workings were the deepest in the Paradise. He knew they would be flooded first. In the face of that he went back and down to warn the eighteen men in these workings. These men were drowned before he set out. And Frank Logan was never again seen alive.

  The thirteen men pushing outbye, the men Frank Logan, the fireman, had sent outbye, reached the Atlas Drift. Here they hesitated and held a rapid conference. The Atlas connected the Paradise with the Globe Coal, which was the seam above. They decided the higher seam was less likely to hold water, that it would be safer to reach the pitshaft along Globe Coal. They went up the Drift into Globe Coal. Here they came upon some bricklayers who had been working in the main haulage road and knew nothing at all about the holing until the air reversed. The bricklayers were talking together, talking for a minute then listening for a minute, worried, not knowing whether to go outbye or remain. But now they decided to go outbye; they joined the thirteen men who had come up the Atlas Drift and proceeded all together along the main haulage road of Globe Coal towards the pit-shaft.

  Three minutes later the inrush of water came down the main Paradise haulage, swept up the Atlas Drift and along the main road of Globe Coal. The men heard the water and started to run. The road was good with plenty of headroom and a hard-beaten floor and the men, all of whom were young, were able to run very fast. Some had never run faster in their lives.

  But the water ran faster still. The speed of the water was terrific, it chased them with animal ferocity, surged upon them with the velocity, the inevitability of a tidal wave. One minute there was no water in Globe Coal and the next it had wiped them out.

  The water swept on, reached the pit-shaft and began to spout down the shaft in tremendous volume. The meeting of the waters now took place. The water cascading from Globe Coal joined the water in Paradise pit-bottom. There was a backlash of water which swirled upon all the men who had managed to make pit-bottom and drowned them swiftly. The water then foamed round the stables and inundated the stalls.

  The only four ponies still alive were in the stalls—Nigger, Kitty, Warrior and Ginger—all whinnying with terror. Warrior lashed out with heels at the water and went amuck in his stall; he almost broke his neck before he was drowned, but the others just stood whinnying, whinnying until the water rose above them. By this time the water had risen in the two main shafts, sealing both Globe and Paradise and preventing all access to the workings from the surface.

  The suddenness of the calamity was unbelievable and deadly. Not more than fifteen minutes had elapsed from the instant of inrush and already eighty-nine were dead from drowning, violence or black damp suffocation.

  But Robert and his mates were still alive. They were far inbye at the top of the slant and the inrush went away from them.

  Robert heard the thump when it happened and fifty seconds later he felt the reversal of the air. He knew. Into himself he said: My God, that’s it. Beside him in the heading Slogger Leeming got up slowly from his knees.

  “Did ye hear that, Robert, mon?” Slogger said, dazedly. Instinctively he turned to Robert for his opinion.

  Robert said rapidly: />
  “Keep everybody here till I come back. Everybody.” He ducked out of the heading and made his way down the slant and into the Scupper ropeway. He ran along the Scupper ropeway, his ears deafened by the sound of water pouring into the ropeway. He splashed on, getting deeper and deeper over his boots, his knees, his waist. He knew he must be near the Swelly, the depression that ran north and south across the Scupper ropeway. Suddenly he lost his footing and went right out of his depth into the Swelly. The water lifted him until his head hit the whinstone roof. He clawed the roof with his hands, kicked out his legs in the water, worked himself out the way he had come. He got into his depth, waded back, stood in the shallow water, shivering with cold. He knew exactly what had happened. The inrush had roofed in the Swelly: for fifty yards a barrier of water blocked the ropeway. All the escape roads were filled to the roof where they crossed the Swelly.

  The cold of the water made Robert cough. He stood coughing for a minute, then he swung round and retook his way up the slant, bumping into little Pat Reedy half-way up. Pat was very frightened.

  “What’s like the matter, mester?” he asked.

  “It’s nowt, Pat, mon,” Robert answered. “You come along wi’ me.”

  Robert and Pat reached the top of the slant where they found the remaining men collected round Slogger. There were ten altogether and amongst them were Hughie, Harry Brace, Tom Reedy, Ned Softley, Swee Messer and Jesus Wept. They were all waiting for Robert. Although they could not guess the fact, they were the sole survivors in the Neptune pit.

  “How, then, Robert?” Slogger called out as Robert came up. He looked intently at Robert.

  “How, again, Slogger?” Robert paused, making everything he said sound ordinary and perfectly all right. He wrung the water out of his jacket. “They’re holed down there and let a drop water in the Swelly. But we’re high enough here not to bother about that. We must find another road outbye.”

  Silence. They all knew enough to make them silent. But Tom Reedy asked:

  “Can we not get through the Swelly, then?”

  Slogger let out at him savagely.

  “Shut up yer gob, you silly runt, until yer asked to open it.”

  Robert went on as though nothing had happened.

  “So what we’ll do is this, lads. We’ll travel the return airways into Globe and win outbye through the Globe.”

  Keeping Pat Reedy next and very close to him Robert led the way into the return airways. All the party followed but Tom Reedy. Tom was a splendid swimmer. He knew he was a splendid swimmer both under water and above and he knew that he could swim the Swelly. Once through the Swelly it would be easy to get outbye, then he would bring help and show the Slogger whether he was a silly runt or not. Tom lagged behind till the others had gone. He ran down the slant, slipped off his boots, took a deep breath and slid into the Swelly. He swam the Swelly in one deep breath. But what Tom didn’t bargain for was the mile and a half of water beyond the Swelly. On the other side the main inrush caught him. Tom got outbye right enough. Five minutes later his body swirled gently into the sump at the bottom of the flooded shaft.

  Robert crawled on, leading his party through the airway. He knew they must be near the Globe by now. Suddenly his lamp went out as if extinguished by a soft breath and at the same moment Pat Reedy choked and lay quietly down beside him. Not water this time. Black damp.

  “Get back,” Robert said. “Get back, everybody.”

  The party went back, forty yards back, where they revived Pat Reedy. Robert, watching Pat Reedy come round, thought very hard. There must be men, he thought, in the dead end of the Globe. At length he said:

  “Who is coming to try into the Globe with me again?”

  Nobody answered; they all knew black damp, and this whiff of it had made them know it better. It was not so easy to think of penetrating Globe in these circumstances. Hughie said:

  “Don’t go, dad, there’s styfe in there.”

  Jesus Wept had said nothing up till now. But now Jesus Wept said:

  “I’ll go.” He understood that Robert wanted to bring out any men in the Globe who might be overcome with black damp and still alive. He was not brave, but it was his religion to go with Robert.

  Robert and Wept crawled back along the airway into the Globe. They took off their jackets and wrapped them round their heads, though this was simply a tradition against black damp and did little good. They also went flat on their stomachs. Wept was very frightened, from time to time gave little nervous convulsive jerks, but he kept on, praying into himself.

  The black damp or styfe was gas full of carbon monoxide driven from the old waste workings by the water and it seemed to lift and die. It had lifted slightly when Robert and Wept got into the Globe. Although they felt sick and sleepy they were able to go on. But it had been heavy before: they found four men overcome by the gas. The men were sitting in a little group as though gazing at each other, perfectly natural and at ease. They looked extremely well: the gas had given a nice pink colour to their faces and hands which were hardly dirty, since the shift had just come in. They looked healthy. They looked cheerful. They were all dead.

  Robert and Wept dragged out the men; that was why they had come into the Globe; they dragged them out, but nothing the party could do revived the four dead men. At the sight of these four dead men Pat Reedy, who had never looked upon death before, burst into tears.

  “Oh, help,” he blubbered. “Oh, help. What in the name ov wonder am I doin’ here? And where’s my brother Tom?”

  Wept said:

  “Don’t cry, lad, the Lord will look after us all.” There was something terribly impressive in the way Jesus Wept said those words.

  Silence. Robert stood thinking. His face was worried. If there’s gas in the Globe, he thought, there’s water too. The waste black damp could only have reached that upper seam with a full head of water behind it. The men were trapped by the water first, then overcome by the gas. Yes, he concluded, the Globe is sealed too, there’s no escape that way. Then Robert remembered the telephone in the far end of Scupper Flats.

  “We can’t get into the Globe, lads,” he said. “There’s gas and water there both. We’ll win back to the Scupper and telephone the surface.”

  At the mention of the telephone every face brightened.

  “By Christ, Robert,” said the Slogger admiringly.

  The very thought of telephoning took all the sting out of the return journey through the airway, they did not think of it as going back nor remember that they were trapped. They thought of the telephone.

  But when Robert came into Scupper Flats again he looked more worried than ever, he looked really worried. He saw that the water level in the Flats was up and rising fast. This meant only one thing: the inrush had washed away the timbering; the unsupported roof beyond the Swelly had fallen, thereby blocking the outlet of the water down the main roadway; and now the water was turning back upon them. With every escape road blocked they had perhaps fifteen minutes in which to get out of the dead end of Scupper Flats.

  “Wait here,” Robert said. He went on to the telephone himself, spun the little handle violently, then lifted the receiver. He was very pale. Now… he thought.

  “Hello, hello.” His voice, the voice of a man not yet dead rose out of the dark tomb, fled in despairing hope over waterlogged wires to the surface two miles away.

  The answer came instantly.

  “Hello, hello!”

  Robert nearly fainted. It was Barras, from his office, insistently repeating:

  “Hello, hello, hello, hello…”

  Robert answered, speaking feverishly:

  “Fenwick on Scupper Flats telephone. The water has holed beyond the Swelly and roofed. There’s been a fall beyond. A party of nine cut off here beside me. What are we to do?”

  The answer came immediately, very hard and clear.

  “Travel the airways to Globe Coal.”

  “We’ve tried the airways.”

  “What!”
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  “The Globe’s chock full of black damp and water.”

  Silence. Thirty seconds of agonised silence which seemed like thirty years. Then Robert heard the slam of a door as though, still sitting at his desk, Barras had kicked the door shut. It really was very odd hearing the slam of that office door from far away up there upon the surface.

  “Listen to me, Fenwick!” Barras spoke rapidly now, yet every word struck incisively and hard. “You must make for Old Scupperhole shaft. You can’t come this way, both shafts are water sealed. You must travel the old workings to Old Scupperhole shaft!”

  “Old Scupperhole shaft!” What in the name of God was he talking about…

  “Go right up the slant,” Barras went on with that same inflexible precision. “Break through the frame dam at the top east side, above the dyke. That takes you into the upper level of the Old Neptune waste. Don’t be afraid of water, that’s all in the bottom levels. Go along the road, it’s all main road, don’t take the branches nor the right dip, keep bearing due east for fifteen hundred yards until you strike the old Scupperhole shaft…”

  Christ! thought Robert, he knows these old workings, he knows them, he knows them. The sweat broke upon Robert’s brow. Oh, sweet Christ, he’s known them all along…

  “Do you hear me?” asked Barras faintly, distantly. “The rescue party will meet you there. Do you hear me?”

  “Yes,” shouted Robert. Then a water blast tore out the wires and left the instrument dead in his hand. He let it fall, it swung dangling… Christ! he thought again, weak with a terrible emotion.

  “Quick, dad,” Hughie cried, approaching, frantically. “Quick, quick, dad. The water’s coming up on us.”

  Robert turned, splashed over to the others. Christ! he thought again. He shouted:

  “We’re going into the waste, lads. We can’t do no more.”

  He led the way at the double up the slant, a dead end no one ever thought of trying. Yes, there was the old frame dam, not so much a dam as simple stopping, a row of three-inch planks set on edge eighteen inches apart with clay between. Slogger kicked a way through in two minutes. The party entered the waste of the Old Neptune workings.