A Forgotten Place

by Charles Todd

  Horrified, I stared at her. “It was an accident?” I found that hard to believe.

  The woman shrugged. “There were witnesses. He’d come to wait for his father, and he got too close to the mouth.”

  I was almost afraid to go on. “Owen Lloyd?”

  “He’s in Cardiff hospital. Pneumonia. I’ve not heard since they took him away. Josh Williams is at home with his wife and mother. If you’re interested.” She studied me. “You must be the Sister they spoke of. At the clinic.”

  “Yes, they were my patients. All of them. I’m so sorry. I’d hoped for better news.”

  “What did you expect to hear?” she asked harshly. “They marched away on their own two feet, and you send them back half men.”

  “Blame the war, if you like. The doctors and Sisters did what they could.”

  “You saved them,” she said bitterly. “Aye, but for what sort of life? It would have been better if they had died there and then. With dignity. As heroes, giving their lives for King and Country.”

  “You can’t mean that!”

  “Can’t I? Owen is my cousin. Doctor said he’s lost the will to fight the pneumonia. I remember Owen as a big man, the best face man there was. He’s lost three stone, and I watched him cry when he thought no one was looking. Not happy tears, mind you, for God bringing him home safe. Tears of despair. There’s none left now but the Captain, Josh, and Owen. And we’ll be burying Owen soon enough.”

  She handed me my purchases and turned away, as if I’d been personally responsible for the valley’s lost men.

  “Why is Josh Williams different?” I asked. “Why is he safe at home with his wife and mother? Did they help him more than you and the others helped his comrades?”

  She didn’t turn around. “You haven’t met his mother. She will hold on to him and fight the Devil for him if she has to. Whether he likes it or not.”

  I carried my purchases back to the motorcar, and hoped there was enough tea in my thermos from lunch to finish my meal.

  Sitting there in my seat, I tried to come to terms with the fact that those wonderful voices were stilled. That men who had lived through the hell of battle and amputation had been lost to peace. I debated calling on Private Williams, to find out more about each of the men. But I wasn’t sure I’d be welcomed there, any more than Owen’s cousin had welcomed me. I felt like crying for the lost Welsh soldiers. And I understood now the Captain’s despair at saving any of his men, once they were home. Too late, too late . . . The words seemed to chase themselves through my head and my heart.

  “I can’t drive all night,” my driver was saying, setting his own small sack at his feet.

  “We can stop whenever you find a place suitable to spend the night,” I told him firmly. “I don’t relish sleeping on the road any more than you do.”

  My last words were lost in a dreadful roar, seeming to come from everywhere at once as the echoes picked it up and tossed it back and forth across the valley. I flinched from habit, accustomed to shells coming far too close. But this wasn’t artillery.

  People were coming to their doors, out of the mine office down the road, all of them looking up.

  I followed their gaze, in time to see a dark shadow moving fast down the face of the mountain just above me.

  Part of the tip, weighted with the recent snow, had broken free and was sliding down the mountain. There were three cottages directly in its path, their windows a bright patch in the darkness. Someone had the presence of mind to race to the heavy iron bell on a tall post by the mine office and ring it wildly.

  Still watching those three cottages, I saw their occupants flinging their doors open and starting to flee. But they couldn’t outrun what was coming. It seemed to be moving with massive slowness, but I could tell that was deceptive. People along the street where I was standing were already starting to run, some of them with shovels, toward the disaster unfolding.

  I turned to the driver. “Quickly. We can help bring the injured down.”

  He stammered, “But my motorcar—” And then he was behind the wheel, and we were reversing in the midst of that throng of people, turning to climb toward the oncoming monster.

  My face pressed to the glass of my window, I watched helplessly as first one and then another of the cottages were crushed by the onslaught, praying that this wouldn’t shake the rest of the tip loose and send it cascading down the mountain as well.

  “Why do they pile the tip there? Surely it’s just a disaster waiting to happen. I don’t understand,” I said as we drove toward the slope. I could see the rest of it high above, lying there like a sleeping giant, just waiting.

  “Where else can it go?” he asked, threading his way through the rescuers racing up the mountain.

  The third cottage was caving in now, the roof buckling and swaying before collapsing. I saw two older people swept away, then a child.

  “Hurry,” I urged my driver, even though I knew there was very little I could do.

  He slowed as several men with shovels flagged us down. We hastily lowered our windows, and they clung to the running boards as we picked up speed again. Two more flung themselves onto the wings.

  The slide was slowing, having spent itself finally, but I thought again how awful it would have been if that slide were wider, heavier, loosened by rain or melting snow, and not stopping until it reached the river’s edge, sweeping away everything—and everybody—in its path. A swath of death and destruction.

  We reached the edge of the slide, although it was still creeping a little, as if refusing to give up.

  The men who had jumped on board our motorcar were already off and running toward where they had seen the child vanish, digging frantically in the heavy sludge. One cried out as he found an arm, and his companions came to help him, dragging a little girl of about eight out into the frigid air. A woman, panting for breath, rushed past me, blankets in her arms, and went to wrap the child. I was already out of the motorcar too, following her.

  The men hurried on to where the older couple had been, leaving the woman and me to minister to the child. She was limp and barely breathing, and I was suddenly afraid that we’d lose her, for she was frail. Her family had come up behind us, her mother crying her name in such a terrified voice that the child stirred a little, and her mother pushed us aside, pulling the little girl into her arms, rocking her back and forth. I realized she was singing to her, a lullaby or possibly even a hymn. I was trying to discover whether she was hurt badly or just shocked and bruised, but the mother refused to let her go. And then the child began to cry, and I realized how tense I myself was, waiting for sure signs of life.

  The men shouted something, and I saw that they had found the older couple.

  I rose, on my way to them, when a graying man with a black bag, who looked like a doctor, came running up and, with a glance at the little girl, hurried on to the next victims.

  I turned back to the child, gently touching the mother on the shoulder. “She may be hurt. Please let me see.”

  There were two older children beside us now, shock in their faces, tears leaving dirty runnels on their cheeks. The boy brushed his away fiercely, as if trying to be brave.

  The mother finally let me examine the little girl. I thought she might have broken an arm, but when I ran my hands over it, I saw that it was scraped and bruised, and mercifully not broken. There were other scrapes and bruises on her face and legs, but somehow she had been spared. She stared up at me with large dark eyes as I worked, and I spoke to her in a soft voice, telling her she was a fine, brave girl, and her mother would take her home soon.

  But there was no home.

  Other women were there now, speaking to the children and the mother as I wrapped the blanket more closely about the little girl and let her mother hold her again. Several of them began collecting the little family, nodding to me before carrying them off to a house on one of the streets below. For a moment I watched them go, the mother clutching the child, as if fearful she still m
ight lose her.

  I was glad to see they would be safe, and turned my attention to the older couple. They had been pulled out of the slide and carried a little distance away. Someone had covered them with blankets. But I saw the doctor look up at the men who had dug them out, shaking his head.

  Stopping halfway there, I felt like crying myself.

  I saw the doctor gesture to the slide and the men shake their heads, and I realized he must have asked if there were any other victims.

  From somewhere came a mewing sound, and I turned to look for it. And there was a gray kitten, half buried in the slag where the child had been.

  I hurried back to it, hardly able to see it as darkness came down, but following the sound, I pulled it free.

  The little girl must have gone back for it, and have been carrying it, her body protecting it. Now it was shaking with fright, staring up at me with wide green eyes. Its claws, like little needles, were digging into my coat, and I held it tight.

  Someone came up to me and said, “That’s the child’s kitten. She’ll be glad it’s safe.” I turned to the man who was holding out his hands to take it, and I disengaged its claws before gently passing it to him. He put it inside his coat, and with a nod, turned to walk down the hill.

  I hadn’t realized that a great many more people had come up the hill. They were quiet, for there was nothing to be done, simply staring at the place where three families had lived. The cottages and everything in them had vanished, but I thought they had slowed the slide just enough that it had stopped much sooner than it might have done. Turning, I saw a young couple standing by the bodies, the woman shaking with sobs and the man offering what comfort he could. The motorcar’s headlamps lit the pitiful scene with a bright and garish light now, and I turned back toward it.

  Men had appeared, to carry the dead back down to the village, stretchers in their hands, and those who had come to help, standing in clusters, were talking among themselves.

  One of the men who had clung to the motorcar going up nodded to me as he passed, and I smiled in acknowledgment. And then the doctor was coming up to me. “Sister?”

  “Yes. Sister Crawford.”

  “I saw you were with the child. How is she? I’m just going down there now.”

  I told him what I had seen. “I think she needs warm milk and her mother. And her kitten,” I added, remembering. “Then the scrapes need to be cleaned. That left arm will be badly bruised. I thought at first it might be broken.”

  “I’ll have a look. With children it’s often difficult to be sure there’s a break until the swelling begins. Thank you for attending to her.”

  “I was glad I could help.”

  He was about to turn away, then paused. “You wouldn’t be the Sister those men from the clinic spoke of, by any chance?”

  “Yes, I’ve come to see how they were getting on. Captain Williams had been worried.”

  “He had good reason to be.” He drew in a breath. “I just heard that Owen Jones succumbed to his pneumonia. I was afraid we might lose him.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, and meant it.

  “I’m concerned about Williams as well. He’s gone to stay with his sister-in-law. His sister simply wasn’t able to cope, not with young children and an ill cousin. And the position Hugh had held at the mine was given to someone else while he was away fighting. Did you know? That was surely a blow.”

  “I didn’t know.” I looked around, but no one was close enough to overhear, the villagers politely giving the doctor and the nurse space to confer privately. “The man who fell down the shaft. Was that an accident?”

  “Everyone swore it was, but I have my doubts. I kept them to myself. Are you staying in the village tonight, Sister?”

  “I wanted to find a way to help those men,” I said, uncertain what he was asking me. “Only it’s too late.”

  “Sadly. I hope you’ll look in on the Captain. But I expect that’s well out of your way. Where he’s gone to live with his sister-in-law. The circumstances might be even worse there. I have no way of knowing. She’s a widow herself.” He shook his head. “I did what I could for those men. It wasn’t enough.”

  “I don’t know where Captain Williams is. His sister wasn’t forthcoming.”

  “I expect she wasn’t.” He drew a crumpled sheet of paper from his pocket and in the glow of my driver’s headlamps, he scribbled something on it. “It would be a kindness if you could see your way to going there. Now I must look in on that child. Good night, Sister. Thank you.”

  And he walked on to his carriage, putting out a hand to touch the horse’s neck as he reached it.

  My driver was standing there, shifting from one foot to the other. “Sister?”

  I hadn’t noticed how cold it was. Now, with the shock and the worry fading, I was aware of cold feet, cold hands, and a cold nose.

  “There’s nothing more we can do here,” I said with a sigh as he opened the door for me to climb into my seat. I’d debated searching for the churchyard, but in the dark I’d stand little enough chance of finding the graves I wanted to see. “Let’s be on our way.”

  “Surely you’re not going on? Late as it is?”

  “But of course I am. And I have a new address here.” I handed it to him, and he peered at it in the glow of the headlamps, then shook his head.

  “My firm doesn’t do business in Swansea,” he said. “You’ll have to find another firm to take you to this village.”

  But something in his voice belied what he was telling me. As if he himself didn’t want to go there. I was too tired to pursue it. Once back in Cardiff, I could take a train to Swansea and find the best way of going on from there.

  It was cold in the motorcar, and the tiny heater didn’t offer much in the way of warmth in the rear seat as we climbed the hill and set out on our way. I tucked the blanket I’d brought from Mrs. Hennessey’s more closely about my skirts, to keep my feet and legs warm, and wished for another to drape over my shoulders. Yes, I’d known it was winter, I’d known there would be mountains. But I hadn’t expected to have to face a night on the road. Coming out of Cardiff, where I’d taken the train from London, this journey had seemed to be imminently possible.

  It had turned out very differently from expectations.

  Resigned to being uncomfortable, I sat back and munched on cheese and bread as we climbed back to the heights and set off back toward the city. And tried to hold the ghosts at bay.

  We stopped for the night in a village inn where the rooms were pleasant and breakfast was lovely. Reaching Cardiff in time to take the noon train to Swansea, I found another firm that could provide a driver to carry me the rest of the way, as there was no rail service to the address on the scrap of paper the doctor had given me.

  The owner assured me there would be no difficulty in reaching my destination.

  We were soon out of the city and into the wild windswept open spaces of a peninsula jutting out into the sea. I looked at a sign that read—in English—the mumbles.

  “And what is The Mumbles?” I asked, watching the sign pass us.

  In his heavily Welsh-accented English, the driver explained that it was an area on the north coast of this peninsula. “We’re turning to the south instead. Still, there’s Loughor Estuary on the same coast. It’s where the people of Penclawdd drive their horse carts out into the sea at dawn to collect cockles. My sister married a Penclawdd man.”

  I knew what cockles were. Shellfish. I’d heard Welsh patients talk about eating them.

  The Mumbles was the only name on the signpost that I could make out. I had an ear for languages—according to my governess—which must have helped me learn several Indian dialects quite easily. Or perhaps it was the fact that I had been a child and heard them all around me, soaking them up like a little sponge. Urdu from the grooms and the man who kept our gate. Hindi from the women of the household, including my ayah. I’d also learned French without too much trouble, even picked up a smattering of German. But Welsh d
efeated me, as did the pronunciation of those clusters of consonants and vowels.

  I said something to that effect to the driver.

  “Not to fear, Miss,” he told me. “South Gower area is English.” And then he settled to his driving, trying to make his way around the worst of the ruts that we were bumping over, ignoring me.

  It was already afternoon. I’d managed a cup of tea at the railway station before hiring the motorcar, but as I watched civilization thin out behind us and the road become more wild and desolate ahead of us, I was beginning to wonder if I should have waited until tomorrow before setting out into the peninsula. The first village we encountered had a tiny stone church in the Norman style, but was hardly more than a hamlet. No tea shop, no inn, just a scattering of farm cottages.

  And then the road branched again, this time into a track that looked as if it had seen more cattle or sheep than vehicles.

  As we bounced into the turn, shaking madly and slowing considerably, I had to be practical. I could find accommodations in Swansea. What would I find at the end of this road?

  “The firm’s owner told me it wasn’t far to where I’m going. How much longer?”

  “Another hour?” As he fought the wheel, Mr. Morgan added, “Two? The rains have been bad out here.”

  “There’s no better road?”

  “It’s the only one.”

  Resigned, I settled back as best I could, bracing myself against the jolting and sending up a silent prayer that the tires held.

  Still, after the blackened hills and valleys of the pits, then the railway lines and industry and cluttered ports in Swansea, I could see the beauty out here. Windswept, what trees there were telling me its direction, only farms and pasturage for cattle, it reminded me of South Devon, only not as soft and manicured and friendly. South Devon in the days of the Normans? I wondered. A far cry from the usual chapel architecture.

  The sun was just going down over the sea as we came at last in sight of a long, blunt headland that appeared to be another mile farther down from where the motorcar was now pulling up.