Helen backed away and stared at the ground, her lips trembling. “She was helping me with my garden. I went into the house to get something…and…when I came out…she…I….”
“Stop your blubberin’ and tell me how long she’s bin down there.”
“Half hour, maybe.” Tears and snot ran down her face. “I came to get you as fast as I could.”
Larry tied up the horses, watered them, and joined us. We stood there, straining to see over the well wall, trying to figure out what to do. Wondering if Maggie was okay. Helen sobbed and whimpered beside us.
Uncle Jim gritted his teeth. “How many times have I told you fellas about this here well?” He was talking to the lot of us, but his eyes were fixed on Helen. He thought for a moment. “Pius James, you go to the shed and fetch a length o’ rope; it’s hanging on a hook to the right o’ the door. Larry, you go with ’im. There’s a pile of lumber in back. See if you can find a good, solid plank, about three-and-a-half feet long. We need somethin’ for Maggie to stand on. By the looks of it, she’s huddled over to the side, clingin’ to them rocks. If we’re gonna get ’er out safely, we need ’er standin’ in the middle.”
Larry and I raced to the shed and found the rope and a plank. Uncle Jim looped the rope around the plank and secured it with a bowline. He edged toward the well, suspended the plank over the shaft, and eased it down. His knee brushed a rock, loosening it. It rolled off the mortar and splashed into the well. Helen shrieked.
“You get to the house, Helen. Now!” Uncle Jim hollered. He inched away from the stone wall and leaned his long, thin frame over it. “You okay down there?”
“Okay.” She sounded a little shaky.
“Atta girl,” Uncle Jim said. “I’m lowerin’ down this here plank. You take a hold of it and put it acrosst the well, secure it firm onto them rocks. Then see if you can stand on it ’til we figure somethin’ out.”
We heard shuffling as Maggie grabbed the plank and positioned either end on two rocks that protruded from the well wall. “You got it in place?” Uncle Jim asked. “You up on that plank?”
“I’m on it.” She sounded more optimistic than she had since we arrived.
Maggie untied the rope and Uncle Jim pulled it up. He stood back and took a deep breath. “I gotta block ’n’ tackle in the barn, but I got nothin’ to set it up with out here.” When he put a hand to his chin, I knew he was thinking out loud. “If we could lower a hammock straight down the middle without touching this here wall…but…” He stepped back and examined it. “Likely it’ll swing ‘n’ send down another rock or two. Could be dangerous.” The remaining mortar was cracked. He noticed a stone along the edge of the hole that leaned toward the shaft, threatening to tumble in. He eased a hand toward it, plucked it up and dropped it to the ground. “We’ll have to see which side is safest to work from.” Then he leaned over and told Maggie his plans.
We each picked a spot around the well and carefully pulled rocks and mortar away with both hands. The mortar crumbled and scattered to the ground in clumps of sand, pebbles, and cement. A chunk escaped my hand and tumbled in, taking a large, round, granite stone with it. Then we heard a second splash and Maggie let out a terrified scream.
“Sorry—I didn’t mean to.” I backed off, expecting a reprimand. But Uncle Jim just called down the shaft.
“You all right? We’re just clearing away this here wall.”
“Um…yeah.” This time she didn’t sound so sure.
“It won’t happen again.” Then he turned to us. “She’s a good ten feet down, fellas. One of them rocks hits ’er…Anyhow, we gotta be careful.”
He circled the well again, his eyes running over the mess of rocks and mortar that looked ready to cave right in. “I got no way to get ’er safely up that shaft. It’s too dangerous, she’ll likely get hit.” He called down again. “Change o’ plans, Missy. Set tight.”
“What’re we going to do, Uncle Jim?” I saw her pretty face and long blond hair as she stood on that single plank, shivering, soaking wet. Maggie had been below ground, standing over a pool of cool water, for over an hour. A panicky feeling set in. “How’re we going to get her out?”
“We’ll likely have to dig our way to ’er,” he replied. “We’re gonna need help.”
“You mean, we’re going to dig another well?” Larry asked, his mouth hanging open.
“More like a tunnel,” Uncle Jim replied. “We won’t have to dig right down, just far enough to grab ahold of ’er and pull ’er out.”
Uncle Jim made it sound easy, but it seemed like a job that would take days. And Maggie was down there, balancing on that one flimsy plank. Cold, tired, and hungry. We had to get to her before she fell in and drowned.
My uncle thought for a moment. “Larry, you telephone down to the Glebe; find Father Mullaly—explain the situation. Ask ’im to round up help. I’ll take the buckboard down to the church and provide transportation. You boys gather up every pail and shovel you can find and set them close to the well. Look in the shed and the barn. Then I want you both to stay with Maggie. Talk to ’er. Keep ’er alert. Don’t either of you take your eyes of ’er ’til I get back. And if anyone comes, you keep ’em clear o’ that wall.”
News travels fast on Northbridge Road. Within half an hour of Larry’s telephone call, Percy and William Giddings pulled up in Percy’s truck. They brought a pickaxe, a shovel, a sledgehammer, a pry bar, and Jaynie. Father Mullaly followed close behind in his big black Buick, Mrs. Daley seated beside him. Uncle Jim returned with Ma, Granny, Aunt Gert, Gen MacCormack, and Alfred. The Daleys’ standardbreds pulled their buckboard across the yard behind Uncle Jim, Patrick Daley at the reins. Michael and Nora were sitting cross-legged on the planks behind him.
When somebody mentioned Mrs. MacIntyre, Patrick Daley waited for Michael and Nora to climb off the wagon, then he reined his standardbreds around and set off to collect her. When everybody was gathered by the well, Helen returned from the house. She stood there, clinging to Ma, dabbing a crumpled hanky to red, swollen eyes. Father Mullaly moved toward her, his long, black rosary draped over a hand. He put an arm around Helen’s shoulders, whispered a reassurance, and then called down the well.
“We’re all here, Maggie.” He sounded calm and sure. “God’s here too, just so you know.”
Maggie’s brave giggle echoed off the rocks and broke at the surface.
The women unloaded food from Percy’s truck and carried it into the kitchen; Uncle Jim and Uncle Ed organized operations at the dig. They selected a spot six feet from the well, so as not to disturb the rocks and cause a cave-in. When William Giddings questioned the need to start the dig so far out, makin’ for all that extra work, Percy piped in.
“I went down into a mine to do a rescue once.” He glanced over toward Aunt Gert. “It was the Princess Colliery, in Cape Breton. Eight of us were goin’ on shift when the mine blew. Coal dust shot straight up the shaft, near suffocatin’ us. We scrambled ’n’ waited for it to settle, then we put on masks ’n’ went straight down into it. Nary a thought to the danger; there were men down there, trapped, and we had to get them out. The tunnel where we figured they were was blocked right off—rocks, coal, hard-packed dirt—the whole mess jammed in tight. Blockin’ off the air supply, likely. We had to move fast. We had to think about our own safety too, so we shored up the roof as we dug.” Then he looked straight at William. “If we weren’t careful, the whole works coulda caved right in…”
“I get your point, Percy,” William said. “Now, let’s just get to ’er. You’re spewing off your mouth ’n’ that little girl’s waitin’ down there.”
At precisely two o’clock, Father Mullaly blessed the men, the boys, the equipment, and the four-foot circumference Uncle Jim had traced into the dirt, for the dig, with the heel of his boot. The priest stood back, his fingers worrying his rosary, as Uncle Jim heaved a pickaxe to the firmly packed ground.
Uncle Ed followed with a shovel.
Patrick returned with Mrs. MacIntyre, who looked even paler and more frantic than Helen. Father Mullaly rushed to meet her.
“Your daughter’s going to be fine, Mrs. MacIntyre.” He helped her down from the wagon. “We’ll have her out of there in no time, don’t you worry.” He put an arm around her and escorted her to the wellhead, directing her to a spot where the rocks had been removed.
The priest steadied her as she leaned over it. “Maggie, dear; it’s Mom—I’m here.” Her voice was weak and raspy. When she asked why nobody had thought to throw down a rope, Father Mullaly explained the rationale behind the process, while operations moved at a steady pace, several feet away. He sent Michael Daley into the house to fetch Mrs. MacIntyre a chair. Michael returned several minutes later, lugging Grandfather William’s rocker. Aunt Gert followed, carrying a wire mesh basket that contained a bottle of apple juice, a peanut butter sandwich, and a hand-knit afghan. Percy stepped forward, slipped it from her hands, tied a rope to its handle, and eased it down the well.
Uncle Jim and Uncle Ed puffed and sweated under the relentless July heat, stopping every few minutes for water. Luckily, the soil was soft below the surface and, within an hour, they had dug a hole four feet deep and three feet in circumference. They stopped and passed the pickaxe and shovel to Percy and William Giddings. Percy put a ladder down the hole and descended. William perched on a rung and waited for Percy to start digging and filling up the pail. When Percy handed it to him, he passed it up to the surface. Larry emptied it and passed it back to Percy.
The plan was to dig a hole three feet in circumference and seven feet deep, and then carve out a five-foot tunnel. If Uncle Jim had it figured out right, the plank Maggie was standing on would put her about a foot above the water and a mere twenty-four inches down from the end of the proposed opening. So whoever crawled through it and removed the final rocks would only have to reach out a hand and help her scramble up. It sounded like a simple enough process, but all that digging and dirt moving would take hours. There were the heat and the flies and the almighty thirst. And the danger of the whole thing caving in on whomever crawled through it to reach Maggie. Through it all we kept vigil at the well, the women taking turns calling down to Maggie, reporting on the progress, telling her how brave she was. Urging her to hang on. The men taking turns digging and lugging and emptying the contents of the deepening hole.
When the dig was six feet deep, Percy suggested we support the walls and ceiling of the tunnel to keep them from caving in. Uncle Jim sent Larry and me to the shed to collect some timbers; Patrick Daley fetched the handsaw. So while Percy and William took turns deepening the hole, filling pails with dirt and passing them up to Uncle Ed, Patrick cut timbers into two-and-a-half-foot lengths for the walls and the roof of the tunnel. From the kitchen, Michael and Nora carried sandwiches, Alfred followed with a jug of ice tea, and Gen MacCormack lugged a washbasin filled with strips of cotton cloth soaking in cool water. We would use them to wipe the mud, sweat, and heat from burning foreheads and to cover our noses and mouths when we dug.
By four thirty, the men had finished the hole. It was time to start the tunnel. Patrick climbed down the ladder, grabbed the pickaxe, and chipped away at the dirt at a two-and-a-half-foot height. Michael waited on the ladder for the pail. When the tunnel was about a foot and a half deep, it was time to shore up the roof. Michael handed down the timbers one at a time. Percy explained the process from above.
“Take that there pickaxe and try to square off your crown, Patrick. You’re going to need to bang a plank into it for the roof, and one on either side to hold it in place. Put them in careful—they got to be straight or they’ll weaken and take the whole works down.”
Patrick placed a timber at the crown and knocked it in with a sledgehammer. Then he placed a timber on either side of it and banged those in too. When he was two feet in and certain the timbers were secure, he stopped. Sweat ran off him in a steady stream, his face was streaked with dirt, and his sleeveless, white linder, now covered in red Island mud, stuck to his back. He heaved himself up the ladder, brushed dirt from his hair, and handed his shovel to Larry. His hands were so blistered they bled. Nora passed him a tumbler of ice tea and a sandwich. He nodded a thanks to his sister, then he looked at me and pointed to the pail down the hole. “Three’d get it done a whole lot quicker: someone could dig; another fella could sit on the bottom rung and fill up the pail; someone could come midway down, grab it, and hand down an empty.” Then he ambled toward the barn, found a spot in the shade, and sank to the ground. It was six thirty, we had half a tunnel to dig yet, and some rocks to move. And Maggie had been down that cold well since noon.
While Patrick took his break by the barn, Father Mullaly turned to Helen and Mrs. MacIntyre. “Go on into the house for a bit. Get something to eat. I’ll be right here until you get back.”
“No thank you, Father.” Mrs. MacIntyre sounded polite but firm. “She’s my daughter; I’m staying right here.”
“I’m not leaving either,” Helen said. Under normal circumstances, Ma would have crowned her for disobeying a priest.
Even though the tunnel was short, it was a painstaking operation. Every shovel full of dirt, every pail loaded and lugged up that ladder, and every plank hammered into place, had to count for steady progress—no slanted timbers, no cave-ins that called for a restart. Larry and I worked steadily in tandem, he hacking the tunnel into shape and pushing dirt to the opening, me shovelling it into the pail and passing it to Percy or William or Uncle Ed, then grabbing a plank and returning with it and the empty pail. My hand went numb under the handle of that heavy pail. My fingers were stiff and sore.
Larry held the planks in place and banged them in with the sledgehammer. Then he kept digging. Gen MacCormack sent down a damp, cool cloth. He reached for it, thanked her, and tied it over his nose and mouth. Then he crawled, head first, into the partially dug tunnel, his long legs sticking out. It was slow going. The further Larry crawled into the tunnel, the less room he had to manoeuvre. Red dirt coated his face and stuck to his hair. By its narrow opening, and the way it closed in around him, I couldn’t see how he had room to dig. All we thought about was opening that tunnel, moving that dirt, and reaching the rocks that would mark the tunnel’s end. About getting Maggie out of there and into the house and warm. I pictured her down that dark, damp shaft, huddled on the plank, shivering in the thin cotton dress that had got soaked from the fall. She’d no doubt be exhausted by now. And scared.
Except for Helen, Father Mullaly, and Mrs. MacIntyre, everyone circled around the dig, their tired, weary faces staring down. Uncle Jim moved to the head of the well and called down to Maggie, “I reckon they’re almost there. How ’bout you give a bang onto one of them rocks so Larry can get an idea of how much farther to go.”
She did. Larry wiggled a bit, edged himself out, and ripped off the cloth. “I heard her—we’re almost there. But it’s too tight; I can’t get a grip on the shovel.” Then he passed the damp cloth to where I waited on the ladder. “You try it, P.J.”
The opening of the tunnel measured two and a half feet in diameter. It was dark and I knew it narrowed as it progressed. I tested a plank that shored up the roof and looked up at Larry. He sucked in a lip and nodded in encouragement. Ma edged toward the open hole and shook her head.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It doesn’t look safe.”
Mrs. MacIntyre got up from her seat and stood next to Ma. “Someone needs to get my daughter out of there.” I could see the look of desperation on her face.
Someone said, “She’ll likely die down there.” I think it was William Giddings.
Shovel in hand, I pulled the cotton cloth over my face. Then I went down on hands and knees and disappeared inside. I inched along on my elbows, dragging the shovel. Four feet in, I reached the spot where Larry had stopped digging. My face brushed the dirt. I could taste it an
d smell it, even through the damp cotton cloth. And it didn’t feel safe. When I reached the end of the support timbers, I started digging. I picked away at an awkward angle at the ceiling and the walls. It was tough going. Loose dirt fell around me; it coated my face and clogged my eyes. When I managed to chip away a few inches of soil, I dragged it with my forearm to the opening. It took three, sometimes four, assaults on each side to get the right width and height. Then I grabbed a timber and slammed it into place with a hand.
By seven thirty, pine planks lined three sides of a five-foot-long tunnel. Maggie had been down there seven-and-a-half hours. I kept hacking with my shovel and scraping with my hands, thinking I was close to the stone wall at the well. But all I found was dirt. My arms ached. Sweat and damp earth soaked my clothes. Exhausted, discouraged, I heaved my shovel one last time and finally made a hit.
“Found it,” I shouted.
I scrambled to the mouth of the tunnel, tore off the cotton cloth, and announced it again. Percy appeared at the top of the ladder and called out the final orders.
“It’s a delicate operation when you get near the end, Pius James.” His eyes were bloodshot. Fatigue dragged down his face. “Them stones got to be taken out one by one, startin’ from the top. You don’t want no cave-in and you don’t want to jam up your hand. And you definitely don’t want nothin’ fallin’ on your trapped man…er…girl. Go slow—one stone at a time.”
Ma moved up behind him. “It doesn’t look safe. I’m not sure I want Pius James in there moving those rocks around.”
“Ma—it’s fine.”
Ma put her hands to her face. “I don’t know.”
“It’s good and solid, Ma, honest.”
Mrs. MacIntyre moved closer to Ma. “Please, Martha.” She looked terrified. “Pius James is the only one who can do it.”
“She’s right, Martha,” Percy said. “Pius James is the right size; he’s the only man who can get through. I can tell him what to do when he gets there. I can talk him through it from the opening. But he’s the one to do it. It’s too tight for the rest of us; you need room to pry out them rocks.”
Somewhere I Belong Page 23