Site Works

by Robert Davidson

  He meant his own caravan. The others shared, hot bedding.

  Not in bed and not wishing himself there, not wishing he was anywhere other than at the Face, Gerry put his knuckles to the ground and hoisted himself onto his hunkers to turn himself sideways. His head pressed against the roof and was turned down by it. His rear end leaned against a wall. All about him was that special odour of ground opened for the first time. This time with a metallic smell something like the smell of the acetylene before it took light. He loved the sheer hardness in breaking out the tunnel, loved the effort and how his mind could go where it willed, to the East End of Glasgow in pursuit of his heart.

  Ireland, he thought, Celtic Park, but he was troubled because his love for Celtic was the love of an exile. Ireland had his heart but when he went there he felt as if he was a man apart. His village in the lowlands of Scotland had a statue to the famine victims but it was folk tradition to him, not family. His people had come from Dublin and shameful family memory held that they had laughed at such things. Of this they did not speak aloud for Irishness was their essence and the famine a national grievance.

  As a boy he had wanted nothing more than to play football for Glasgow Celtic and go home a hero to the village or, better still, all the way home. His talent had not been great enough but the anthems were never far from his mind and below his breath he would sing as he dug, The Fields of Athenrigh and Soldiers are We. He sung them now in the constrained, confining narrows of the tunnel which he extended, his back bent and his shoulders round under the weight he was carrying, an exile not completely Scottish, Irish or British.

  The breaker was biting deeper now, so heavily did he put his weight behind it. His head would be going round when he came out. His arms would be tingling and his back would ache with the good ache that hard work gave it. Inside the tunnel the temperature rose and the sweat stood on his skin like glass beads. Drops ran down the length of his nose and fell to the floor as again and again he plunged the bit into the Face.

  He took the flat of the bit across the walls, smoothing them for the wedged boards to come, took the clay spade to the roof and chipped away at the boulders that might be loose. He made it all as perfect as he could and called to Brian to be ready with the sleepers for the next frame. It would be up for Patsy and Deek and that would show them who the best workers were. Good that would feel because Deek was hostile to all that Gerry longed for, a puritan of a different stamp.

  The thing was the beauty of movement in green and white. How do you tell those who can’t see it, or see beauty at all, of the great thing behind it. Those who could not be told what it was to be made larger by the skills of a footballer who stood, whether he knew it or not, for what Gerry stood, a nation where he would always be an honoured guest.

  He hit the Face again, feet back against the previous frame and his whole weight thrust against the Face even though he was doubled at the neck and the base of the spine and couldn’t straighten, but he was strong as well as young. He loved to use his body and if it wasn’t to run free in the green hoops of Glasgow Celtic, well, he would wear the colours where and when he could and otherwise exchange his sweat and his time for money in this way.

  They shared their shift in such a manner that Gerry did two hours at the Face and Brian one. It had nothing to do with fairness or relative power only what worked and what they wanted between them. It was the way they had done it for the whole two years they had been together. They rarely talked because of the noise but when he was on the shovel, not the breaker, Gerry would sing his sentimental songs and his patriotic songs and they would arise out of the cofferdam to address the sky.

  What few words they spoke were to the point.

  ‘That’s enough, Gerry. Isn’t that far enough? Don’t go too far in without support. If the roof comes down and you get crushed Eamon will give me a terrible telling off.’

  ‘Well that won’t do.’

  ‘I’d have to do the rest of these shifts myself.’

  ‘Okay, okay. We’ll get the frame up. What time is it?’

  ‘It’s 9:00am and it’s getting lighter up there. We’ll get the frame up and let them put the boards in place but here’s Eamon on the scaffolding. By God Gerry, we’re shifting ground. We’re moving this Face.’

  Paul came down behind Eamon and spoke in his ear although Brian could not hear what was said and, indeed, only guessed he was the setting-out engineer.

  ‘Swannie called me in. He wants me on twelve hour night shifts starting tonight.’

  ‘8:00 till 8:00?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘What if I want something through the day?’

  ‘Trevor will be down a couple times. He’s doubling on his own job and mine. You can always speak to the RE, Swannie says.’

  ‘The RE?’

  ‘The RE.’

  ‘Pf.’

  Trevor had called Paul into the office as he came out of his car. There was a steady intensity about the site now. Numbers were spread more thinly in the absence of Mac and John Kelly but Swannie would not go backwards. This intensity was of his making and was how he wanted the place to feel. Trevor could handle the setting-out through the day, he said, and keep the records up evenings. What did he do in the evenings anyway? Watch television? Half the time, he told Paul, you’re standing around anyway.

  ‘I didn’t know what to say,’ said Paul. ‘He was sneering at me.’

  ‘Pf! It’s your place to be standing around, but better be silent with Mr Swann,’ said Eamon, ‘although you’ll find the words if you have to, Paul. I can tell. If you have the words; they’ll carry you through life. You’d better go now. Before you do you can tell Trevor to get the traffic onto the northbound carriageway. We’ll be under the embankment later today. Check everything with the Police and the Roads.’

  ‘I’ll get it done before I go.’ He didn’t tell Eamon about the way Swannie had looked at him from the desk with a look that spoke from another world, the world Paul would have to own eventually.

  He didn’t repeat what Swannie had said. That Eamon was a thick Mick.

  ‘Okay,’ Eamon told him. ‘Don’t sleep too long. You’re breaking your rhythm. Just put maybe three hours in if you can manage. It’ll take a couple of shifts to get used to it. Here’s Patsy and Deek.’

  Patsy and Deek materialised at the foot of the scaffolding, Patsy the tallest of the gang at nearly six feet, Deek being Paul’s own height and wearing a red working shirt and a cloth around his neck that might have been red before it was stained and rinsed out by sweat, washing and weather. Deek was the oldest of the diggers at nearly forty.

  ‘Yo ho,’ said Patsy for them both.

  ‘Yo ho,’ said Eamon.

  ‘I’m going,’ said Paul, and climbed topsides and got away.

  Gerry came out of the tunnel and straightened up, hands against the small of his back.

  ‘You’re grinning like monkeys, you two,’ said Patsy. ‘What have you done?’

  ‘Second metre’s dug, frame’s up.’

  ‘Second metre’s not complete until the boards are up too,’ Eamon said. ‘There’s a lot of work in that.’

  ‘Is this a competition?’ Deek asked. ‘We’re in this together. We should be doing the same every shift, the same distance.’

  ‘As fast as the slowest?’ Brian asked.

  ‘That’s fast enough.’

  ‘Brian and Gerry, you two get into the caravan and get some sleep.’ Eamon interrupted, always impatient of argument. ‘Paul will be on same time as you for night shifts now and right through. Gerry, get that shirt on. You’ll freeze.’ He looked at Patsy and Deek. ‘Who’s going in first?’

  Deek took a deep breath and crouched onto his hunkers and crabbed inside the tunnel, his eyes slowly adjusting.

  ‘Tunnel needs lit now. What are they two thinking about working in the dark?’

  ‘They were just used to it and wanting to get on,’ Eamon called in. ‘Here Patsy, bring them lights over.’ He poi
nted to the corner where they were coiled. ‘Take the end topsides and plug it into the genny.’

  Patsy dragged the rubberised cable topsides and in a moment the bulbs lit up, barely visible in the strong white light that came down from the two floods. Eamon grabbed the end and handed it in to Deek.

  ‘Hammer,’ said Deek. ‘Nails.’

  Eamon passed them inside and Deek put a nail in close to the top of each of the left side verticals, stringing the lights across the first two. When they had the boards in, top and sides, he put a third nail in and extended the line and there it hung like a colourless Christmas decoration, the line of 40 watt bulbs and their black cable. Deek looked along the tunnel, along the lines of the boards, the frames, out into the cofferdam at the other men’s legs. Already he had pain in his back. Already he was wondering how long he could keep going at this kind of work, but knowing that when he was in his shift and properly digging he would forget the pain until he had to straighten again.

  ‘Now we’ll need the rails down. There’s no shovelling out at this distance.’

  Patsy pushed in the first of the narrow steel rails and the second and then the wooden spacer that gave them their distance apart and Deek used six-inch nails to fix them to the bottom sleepers. Patsy and Eamon extended the line a rail’s length back into the cofferdam and together lifted the bogie into position. They lifted the skip onto the bogie.

  ‘Half the bloody shift’s gone,’ Deek said as he came out of the hole. He straightened, hands on the small of his back but with a look, Eamon observed, that was far different from Gerry’s, the difference between the sharp pain that needled into the nervous system and the dull ache that preceded it by who knows how many years.

  Patsy picked up the small breaker and gunned it once before putting his plugs in and ducking and entering to do his hour. The roar of the breaker broke out of the tunnel like the roar of the Minotaur.

  ‘At least,’ said Eamon to Deek, ‘you two don’t sing.’

  ‘Not often.’

  ‘D’ye know, you’ll never walk alone? That’s Gerry’s favourite.’

  ‘No, but I’d mean it if I sang it.’

  ‘Pf.’

  When Patsy was near to finished Deek put his hands on the end of the bogie and placed his feet well back so that his head was low and pushed the bogie into the tunnel. Patsy put the breaker down and used the clay spade to shift the arisings into the skip. When they hauled it out between them Eamon was in Conn’s cabin and the lifting hooks were already down. They attached them and signalled for him to lift and Patsy went topsides to upturn it over the heap.

  Deek put his earplugs in and took the weight of the small breaker across his two forearms and into his belly. He bent his knees until his thighs were on his heels and crouched his upper body under the first frame to crab walk into the tunnel on six-inch steps. By now the floor was wet with the water the four who had preceded him had dragged in with their boots and with their condensed sweat and had begun to soften and puddle. He reached the Face and gunned the machine once and then put it down again. Reaching behind him he took the nearest light from its nail and dragged the line forward to hold it against the Face.

  ‘Wet,’ he said. ‘Eamon!’

  ‘Yo ho.’

  Eamon came in on his hands and knees to look. Side by side and doubled over they pressed against the walls with their sides and against the roof with their heads, lifting such of their weight as they could from their thighs and backs. Deek took the plugs from his ears.

  ‘Hold the light up,’ Eamon told him.

  The Face glistened. Eamon touched it lightly, then ran his fingers firmly round and across the broken ground, rubbed his fingers together.

  ‘Doesn’t feel like sand. It’s not all that gritty. Might be stuff you’ve loosened.’

  ‘Why is it wet?’

  ‘Might just be your breath.’

  ‘Think so?’

  ‘Keep going,’ Eamon instructed, ‘but not so fast. Take a look at the Face every time you pull the breaker away. Keep an eye open for sand. Watch especially if it runs. If it even starts to move get out. Don’t wait.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘I’ll keep the bogie well back from the entrance just in case.’

  ‘Do that.’

  ‘If the worst comes to the worst we’ll stop the job and get some air on it. A few pounds.’

  ‘Compressed air? Swannie won’t like it.’

  ‘Unexpected ground conditions? He’ll love it. It’s what he wants. The Engineer will hate it. And that sapsy RE will hate it even more because he’ll have to come down here and look from time to time and if you ask me he’s scared.’

  ‘He’s a worker like the rest of us. He’ll do his best.’

  ‘Pf.’

  Eamon backed out of the tunnel and Deek put the plugs back in his ears to address the Face. Tensing the muscles in his lower back and his buttocks, feeling them almost as if they were adhesions to his skeleton and not part of a whole body, he lifted the breaker, put the bit against the Face, leaned and gunned it into the till.

  Good to have Eamon between him and the bosses, he decided. He was better than the foremen at any factory he’d ever worked in.

  Who was the worst, the Bosses or the gaffers, the shepherds or their dogs? Come the day. Nowadays the revolution seemed very far away. His father had marched. His grandfather had fought. Both of them had struck and in times before that, before Deek’s time, there had been the opportunity to use a gun, to use it on a recognisable fascist. What would he give for another Spain, to wear the red bandanna?

  What was Swannie beyond being a Boss? A mason? Some loyalty other than the People that was for sure, driving around in his big car while the Workers were jumped through hoops, crawled through holes in the ground, broke their backs with shovels as he was doing now, hammered and sawed for him. The People will rise of this there is no doubt. The circumstances would reach such a pass the People would throw off the cult of the individual they had been taught to love, they would throw off the guilt and complicity of capitalism and rise out of their own spilled blood. All those still living would become as one being, the People, and advance from feudalism through this present phase, capitalism, to socialism. So strong was his emotion at this that he wanted to stand, but his closed environment prevented it.

  He put down the breaker.

  ‘Patsy!’

  ‘Yo!’

  ‘Wheel in the skip.’

  ‘What’s that Face like? Is it running?’

  He had forgotten about the water. Tugging the light bulb across, he again held it close to the Face.

  ‘Drier. It’s drier.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Sure I’m sure. Will you roll in the fucking bogie?’

  ‘No need for that language.’

  Patsy’s feet were moving at the opening, Eamon’s voice that he couldn’t quite make out. The opening darkened and the bogie and skip appeared, Patsy’s head showing behind it.

  ‘Eamon says you’ve to come out. Fill the skip and I’ll take over with the gun.’

  Deek dug the clay spade into the pile of arisings, levering his forearms across the bones of his thighs. When they were all on board he pushed the bogie along the rails at Patsy.

  ‘I’ve more time to do,’ he said. ‘I won’t shirk. The load has to be even.’

  Studded in the Face was a boulder larger than the rest, as big as Swannie’s head. He put the bit to where it was embedded in the Face and gunned it hard, prising and twisting until it fell away. Now he had access to a greater depth than he could have reached directly. There’s always a way, he thought. Even granite has a seam that if you hit right you get it away without breaking your back except there was no rest in a world run by the Bosses. Never would be. Always there was this struggle with the rate of pay while they rung the deepest penetration out of the cheapest labour. He had the bit in behind another boulder that was showing in the hole the other had left. With the right leverage he could get it a
ll out together. Why, he was almost at the depth now. A sucking ‘thock’ sounded even through his earplugs and a huge lump fell away from the Face and onto the floor almost striking his knee. He hit it with bit and breaker and turned it into spadeable lumps.

  ‘Now,’ he shouted, ‘the skip again!’

  ‘Already?’

  ‘Aye, now!’

  The bogie and skip appeared and he cleared the arisings with spade and hands.

  ‘Now, Patsy. I’m out of here. The breaker’s waiting for you.’

  ‘I’m ready,’ Patsy said, the two of them between them hauling and shoving the bogie out into the white light of the cofferdam.

  Once again the tunnel opening was clear. He looked along the nearly three metres, along the lines of the planks and bulbs to Patsy’s feet and Eamon’s and dropped forward on to hands and knees and crawled clear of the tunnel. Out in open space again he crawled across the cofferdam in the direction of the scaffolding until he could take hold of a steel tube with first one hand and then the other. The others knew not to look. It had been Eamon before and eventually it would be Patsy. This is what it was to be a digger.

  Slowly he climbed the tube with his hands, the stretch reaching deep into his back, into his spine between the prolapsed disks. He straightened in his pain, breathing heavily and with small moans drawn from deep in his inner being. When he came upright at last the hurting was so severe he cried aloud and staggered back and almost fell, his head swimming. This would be the last tunnel, he knew. He was slowing. He couldn’t take this for much longer.

  He felt Eamon’s hand on his shoulder, felt it squeeze but could not look around for the pride it would cost him to show his despair. He was losing. He had kept going while he waited for the People to rise and soon would not be able to keep going any longer. He had nothing because he had chosen to have nothing and soon the Bosses would discard him. He took the plugs from his ears and put them in the breast pocket of his sweat soaked shirt.