JAXON: Yes, sir.
NUTTAL: Did you drill any holes that day?
JAXON: No, sir. When Mr. Battie issued a caution against shots, no one drilled any holes.
HOPTON: But you were not at the coal face when the explosion erupted.
JAXON: No, sir. I was helping Albert Smallbone to the cage because his pick hit a rock that shot out and hit his leg. We were in the road when it gave a shake like a rope. Smoke blew us along until we rolled into a refuge hole. We couldn’t see, couldn’t hear because of coal dust and because we were concussed, like. We worked our way through side tunnels and that’s when we met Battie and the others.
MEEK: And decided to return to the coal face with them rather than seek your own safety.
JAXON: You could put it that way.
CORONER: Your name is?
SMALLBONE: Albert Smallbone.
LIPTROT: And you are the only fireman for that district of the coal face where the explosion took place?
SMALLBONE: Yes, sir.
LIPTROT: Smallbone, were you given a caution about gas from Battie?
SMALLBONE: Yes, sir.
NUTTAL: You must feel fortunate to be alive.
SMALLBONE: I would feel more fortunate if my friends were alive.
MEEK: Was your leg badly injured when the rock hit it? When you chose to return with Jaxon and Battie?
SMALLBONE: I disregarded it, sir, in the heat of the moment.
In spite of aspirin, Blair’s head still throbbed. Good stitching only went so far. He felt like Macarthy of the Gold Coast after his head was severed, boiled and stacked with the other honored skulls.
MOLONY: My name is Ivan Molony. I am manager of Mab’s Pit, one mile distant from the Hannay pit. On the afternoon of January 18, I saw smoke rise from the Hannay headgear and knew that an underground explosion of some sort had taken place. I gathered a party of volunteers and rushed to the Hannay yard.
NUTTAL: It is a tradition among Lancashire mines to lend assistance at the first sign of a fire?
MOLONY: Yes, it is a form of mutual aid.
NUTTAL: And at the yard you proceeded down the shaft into the pit?
MOLONY: With other volunteers.
HOPTON: You were the first expert to arrive at the coal face where the explosion is believed to have originated. Describe the scene as you found it.
MOLONY: A smooth wall on one end and a tangle of burned bodies and wagons at the other. Terrible carnage, like soldiers mown down by grapeshot. In the midst of it, Battie and two of his men had erected brattices for ventilation and were just setting the last brick in the wall to stop a secondary leak of gas.
LIPTROT: You are aware from previous witnesses that there was a caution in effect at the Hannay mine before the explosion. In your expert opinion, what besides a shot of gunpowder might have set off such a disaster?
MOLONY: At Mab’s Pit we search miners to prevent them from taking pipes and matches underground. We lock the lamps and keep the keys. It doesn’t matter. They bring pipes anyway, and if a miner doesn’t detect gas and unlocks his lamp to light up—which they do, in spite of every warning—he could certainly kill himself and all his mates.
HOPTON: I would like to ask you, as an expert, how miners regard cautions against the discharge of gunpowder underground?
MOLONY: They’re not happy about it.
LIPTROT: Why not?
MOLONY: A shot of gunpowder will loose more coal face than a day’s worth of swinging a pick. It’s a matter of economics. Miners are paid by how much coal they send up, not how much time or labor they put into it.
NUTTAL: Are there other ways in which a miner can undo the best efforts of a mineowner?
MOLONY: Any number. The first impulse of an improperly trained man, if he finds himself in a gas-saturated tunnel, is to run. If he runs fast enough, the flame will bend through the safety mesh of his lamp and ignite the very gas he is trying to escape.
NUTTAL: Considering the force of the explosion at the Hannay pit, was the tunnel necessarily saturated with gas?
MOLONY: No. A small initial explosion would do, considering that miners recklessly stuff every coal face in Lancashire with canisters of gunpowder waiting to be used in charges. Once initiated, the canisters can set themselves off in a series of explosions the length of the tunnel.
HOPTON: From your long experience, what do you feel was the more likely cause of the Hannay explosion, inadequate supervision on the part of the owners of the pit or a breach of safety regulations on the part of a miner?
MOLONY: As there was no deficiency in the regulations or their supervision, nothing is left but error on the part of a miner, is there?
According to the report, at this moment a disturbance broke out among the families attending. The uproar continued until a representative of the miners was given permission to speak. The name was familiar to Blair although he had met the man only once, clumsily chasing peas around a dinner plate at Hannay Hall.
WALTER FELLOWES: I am agent of the miners’ union and Widows’ Mutual Fund. Acting in those capacities, I went down the Hannay pit the day after the explosion, and while I agree with Mr. Molony that it was a heartrending scene of hellish destruction, I am outraged by his attempt, familiar to us from past inquests of this nature, to lay the blame for a mining disaster on the very victims who suffered its fatal consequences. I would like to remind Mr. Molony that it is not mineowners who are brought up lifeless and disfigured to the grief of their widows and children, but the miners sent down by those owners. As to whether there is culpability on the part of the owners and compensation due the victims’ families, this is a matter for Civil Court and I would appreciate it if Mr. Molony kept his opinion, expert or otherwise, to himself. I would also like to remind Mr. Molony that a man who does not bring a certain amount of coal from a pit will soon be unemployed, so it is hardly the miners’ greed that leads to the extensive use of gunpowder. I would like to ask Mr. Molony a question.
HOPTON: I object.
MEEK: Fellowes has no standing with the court.
CORONER: Nevertheless, would Mr. Molony entertain a question from Mr. Fellowes?
MOLONY: If Fellowes wants to. Go ahead.
FELLOWES: Mr. Molony, at all the numerous inquests you have graced with your opinions, have you ever found a wealthy pit owner, rather than a poor miner, responsible for an explosion?
MOLONY: No, for the simple reason that you do not find wealthy gentlemen swinging a pick or lighting a tube of gunpowder. I would, however, consider them very dangerous if they did.
The report said that “general laughter relieved the tension in the room,” preparing the way for the most expert and indisputable witness in the realm.
CORONER: The inquest welcomes the comments of Benjamin Thicknesse, Her Majesty’s Inspector of Mines.
THICKNESSE: I have listened to the testimony delivered today. I have studied the ventilation map and cross-section details of the Hannay pit. I have some thoughts and conclusions that duty and conscience urge me to share.
First, I offer the sympathy of the Queen and the royal family. A disaster on a scale of the Hannay explosion touches the entire nation. Her Majesty mourns with you.
Second, that the mining of deep coal is the most hazardous occupation short of war, has been and likely always will be.
Third, that the prompt and intelligent actions of the underlooker George Battie and the rescuers he led were the salvation of numerous miners overcome by afterdamp. The swift bricking up of a second gas leak by Battie, Smallbone and Jaxon possibly stanched a second disaster.
Fourth, I cannot take issue with the opinions of any of the expert witnesses. They may all be right, they may all be wrong. A miner might have rashly opened his lamp to light his pipe, but we will never know. A spark, a flame, a gunpowder tin may have contributed singly or collectively to the force of the explosion. The answer is buried at the coal face. Was ventilation sufficient to clear the gas? After all, fresh air had to travel down a full mile f
rom the surface, and then circulate through eight miles of tunnels and cross tunnels. Based on safety standards as we currently know them, our calculations say that the ventilation was sufficient, yet a boy and his pony could have knocked one piece of canvas down and disrupted the whole carefully planned flow of air. It is a fact that the Lancashire coalfield is a “fiery” coalfield—that is, particularly given to the accumulation of explosive gases. This fact is exacerbated by another one. The deeper the coal, the more fiery the coal. Yet the deeper the coal, the harder the coal, making gunpowder more necessary.
Finally, there is one more element: coal itself. Coal dust that lingers in a tunnel atmosphere and reddens the miner’s eye and blackens his lung is, in proper ratio to oxygen, almost as explosive as gunpowder. This is, of course, a controversial point. No matter; one might ask how any man would chance work in subterranean chambers so fraught with known and unknown perils? How could any father kiss his children good-bye in the morning with the knowledge that by the afternoon they might be orphans?
This would, however, be an emotional and shortsighted response. It would bring British industry to a halt. Mills would lie empty, locomotives would stand and rust in their yards, ships would idle at their docks.
It is also an insult to science. British technology is improving every day. As knowledge increases, safety assuredly follows.
Finally, a single human error, one breach of orders, may well have been to blame for this catastrophe.
Tragically, the answer is buried. We will simply never know.
The record indicated that the jury deliberated for fifteen minutes, then returned with their verdict.
We the jury find that seventy-six men came to their deaths by an explosion of firedamp at the Hannay pit on the 18th. of January; by what means or by whom the gas was ignited there is insufficient evidence to show.
The jury is also unanimous in stating that the mine in which the calamity has happened has been properly conducted, and that there is no blame to be attached to the proprietors of the said company.
Not that the jury had been asked about the company’s blame, but in a sentence they had effectively destroyed the chance of any victim’s family bringing a claim against the Hannay pit.
Blair raised a bitter toast of arsenic and brandy. What a surprise.
Appended to the report was a copy of the lampman’s ledger for anyone who had signed for a lamp the day of the explosion. The list included survivors and rescuers as well as victims.
Battie, George 308
Paddy 081
Pimblett, Albert 024
Pimblett, Robert 220
Twiss, Bernard 278
Jaxon, Bill 091
Smallbone, Albert 125
The names went on at numbing length, but the point was, as Battie had said, that there were seventy-six lamps for seventy-six bodies.
Blair wore blankets like a Turkish pasha to make himself decent when dinner was brought by a girl with popped eyes who set out grilled chops and claret.
“Everybody’s talkin’ about what tha said.”
“What did I say?”
“About t’Africans an’ t’macaroni. Ah laughed an’ laughed.”
“It’s not a bad story.”
“Art feelin’ well or pot?”
“A little sore, thanks. Definitely pot.”
“It’s terrible out, a night t’stay in.”
“I’m not stirring.”
“Oh, an’ there’s a letter, too.”
The girl produced it from her apron. Her hands lingered so long on the creamy envelope and raised monogram that she dropped it, but Blair caught it on its way to the floor. He tore the flap open and removed a single page that said, “Come to Theatre Royal tomorrow at noon. Prepare yourself for a cultural occasion. H.”
A typically imperious summons from Hannay, with no chance to beg off. A Wigan “cultural occasion”? What was that?
When Blair looked up, he saw that the girl’s eyes had popped even more, and realized that in saving the letter his blanket had slipped from the leeches that formed a row of dark, fat commas along his flank.
“Sorry. They’re not pretty. Of course at this point they’re practically family.”
“Nawh.”
“Yes. They even have names. Hopton, Liptrot, Nuttal and Meek.” He covered up. She was on tiptoe, as if he might next reveal a tail or a horn on his head.
She folded her thin arms and shivered. “Gives me goose pimples.”
“I hope so. It’s girls who don’t get goose pimples that come to a bad end.”
“True?”
“It’s the last form of decency.”
Give me leeches rather than lawyers, though, Blair thought. Despite what Hannay’s counsel claimed, miners did not make certain mistakes. Experienced miners did not open safety lamps or run recklessly through gas. If in those last seconds they had noticed their lamp flames start to float, they would have hastily organized brattices to clear the gas. Or, failing that, made an orderly retreat through the fresh air that was still blowing through the Main Road.
Which raised other questions. Before the explosion, why did Jaxon and the injured Smallbone choose to make their way from the coal face through the fouler air of the Back Road?
Something even more curious had emerged. George Battie told the inquest that his first act after the explosion was to send messengers up in the cage. Wedge, the manager, testified that after the messengers arrived on the surface, the volunteers there had to wait for the cage to come up again. Why had the cage gone down? Who took it? Was it possible, Blair thought, that he had finally caught sight of John Maypole?
It was strangely pleasant to engage in an intellectual puzzle. His mind had raced ahead so fast that he had not noticed that the serving girl was still standing at the door.
“Something else?” he asked.
“Just everyone’s talkin’ abowt how tha beat Bill Jaxon. That’s never happened before.”
“Is that so?”
“And how he’s looking for tha.”
The inquest vanished from Blair’s mind. “Now I’ve got goose pimples. Anything else?”
“That was all.” She backed out.
Blair waited a minute, pushed the tray away, peeled off the leeches one by one and dressed.
Rain gave Blair an excuse to pull his collar up. Curtains were drawn and the sidewalks empty except for urchins chasing through the water that rushed out the gutters. He pounded her door to be heard over the downpour.
When Rose finally opened, he hobbled through and leaned against the jamb, resting his weight on one leg. The kitchen was lit only by an angle of lamplight from the parlor. Why did she always keep the house so dark? Her hair was wild, spilling from a comb. Skin olive from coal dust, in a skirt and blouse of patched muslin, sleeves too short for her wrists, the same as she had worn the night before. There was no sign of her friend Flo.
“I told you not t’come back,” she said.
“I didn’t want to, but word is going around that I beat Bill Jaxon in a fight. I’d rather hear that Bill beat me, or that there was no fight at all.”
“I couldn’t care either way.”
“Someone is spreading this story.”
“Not me. I haven’t thought about you or Bill all day.”
From the open doorway, neither in nor out, he glanced around as if he might have missed Bill sitting on a kitchen chair in the dark. The house seemed as empty as ever, which again made no sense in the Calcutta conditions of Scholes.
“Tell Bill I’m not his rival. I have no interest in you.”
“Such pretty words. You’re no more a poet than a gentleman.”
“I just want to leave Wigan as soon as possible. I don’t want to get involved.”
“Involved in what?”
“Anything. I told Bill I was a coward.”
“Well, he should have listened.”
“Tell him—” Blair started when the sound of the rain on slate roofs accelerated to a drumm
ing that drowned out his words, and without thinking he moved away from the open door. Without conscious intent, he found his hand on her waist. By itself it drew her close. Rose could have hit him or driven her comb into his hand. Instead, she raised her mouth to his and gave him the taste of coal.
“Take off your hat,” she said.
He let it drop to the floor. She turned his head to the side to see the shaven patch, then turned it again to study his eyes. How he had gone from one point to another, Blair didn’t understand. Some sign had passed that he hadn’t caught, only acted on.
“That must hurt,” Rose said.
“It should.”
Through his hand he felt her heart, beating as hard as his. He couldn’t hear the clock over the rain, but he saw the pendulum stirring by the grate. If he could have stepped back in time a mere minute and undone his touch, he would have. He couldn’t. Besides, at a moment when her usual coquetry could have been expected and would have set him free, Rose seemed as astonished as he was. Or she was a better actor.
Upstairs, her room had an unlit lamp, the shadow of a chest of drawers, a bed with cotton sheets as worn as cambric. In his arms she was more slender than he had expected, and paler. He caught the flash of her back in a long mirror.
A year of deprivation made the slightest touch feverish, as in a reverie. Need was a form of insanity, he thought. He entered her with desperation, as a drowning man rises to the surface. She couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty, but she waited for him with patience. He felt like a satyr upon her younger body, until, when he was firmly set, her face colored and he felt her legs around his back.
What would the first drink of water in a year be like? What is water to the soul? What is astonishing about a primal act is the wholeness of two bodies, as he was astonished to find himself in a bed and made complete by a mere pit girl. He was aware of her sooty hands and face, and of his hands and face growing as dark, but mostly of her eyes, which watched him with a glow of triumph.
Sweat shone on her brow and welled around her eyes, making the lids darker, the whites brighter, avenues to a gaze that drew him in. Should an ignorant girl be shallow? There was a depth to Rose he was unprepared for, but now had fallen into. More than fallen: plunged.
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