‘Join us in another toast, Lieutenant Schaffer,’ Mr Llewellyn-Jones interrupted his wife as he handed Kurt a glass half-filled with champagne. ‘To our daughter, her husband and her new life in America as a lawyer’s wife.’
‘To her new life.’ Kurt gulped the champagne and almost choked. This time, he noticed, Richard had the grace to look away.
Chapter Eight
‘Look at that prop.’ Alexander left the cage and crouched beside the steel roof support, shining his lamp on to a section that had buckled beneath the pressure of the thousands of tons of rock weighing down on the shaft. ‘Since the government took over the mines last June, management no longer even pays lip service to safety. All they care about is trying to meet impossible production targets, and if half-a-dozen of us get killed in their attempt to put an upward curve on the Ministry of Labour’s productivity graph, so what?’
‘Steady, Forbes, that’s dangerously close to treasonous talk. You don’t want to be taken for a Fascist now, do you?’ Viv Richards, Evan Powell’s next-door neighbour, taunted. His support of the British Blackshirts before the war was well-known, and had earned him the contempt of most of his fellow workers.
‘I’d call it common sense rather than treason.’ Evan Powell stooped and ran his hands over the steel brace. ‘The base is warping just like the centre.’
‘Look how many accidents there’ve been since June,’ Alexander contended. ‘Four dead, three injured and every incident avoidable.’
‘What’s the hold-up there, Powell?’ Mogg, the shift foreman, shouted down from the cage.
‘Ropey prop.’
‘And it takes eight of you to stand around and look at it on a Monday morning when there’s five rows of empty trucks waiting to be filled?’ Mogg strode towards them. ‘Don’t you know there’s a war on? Our boys are risking their lives in Africa this very minute while you lot sit back on your arses and contemplate a bloody prop as though it’s a bleeding work of art.’
‘Now that’s an idea,’ Alexander pronounced caustically. ‘Donate it to a museum. It’ll do more good as an exhibit entitled “A Fatal Accident Waiting to Happen” than it will as a roof support.’
‘Who the hell do you think you are, Forbes?’
‘A bloody conchie who wants to live to see the end of this war.’ Alexander lifted his head, streaking the roof of the tunnel with dirty yellow pools of light from his lamp.
‘Think you know it all just because you’re an educated bastard, don’t you? Well, I’m telling you now, the last thing this pit needs is a bloody smart Alec like you. We’ve got you taped, Forbes. We all know you were too much of a coward to join in the fighting. I’m sorry, we don’t have any gentlemen’s clubs or rest rooms down here for you to take your ease, just coal to be dug out. And I suggest you start now before I have to dock your wages.’
‘He speaks for all of us, Mogg,’ Evan interposed quietly.
‘Since when?’
‘Since management slacked off on safety.’
‘There’s a war on. Our boys -’
‘Our boys, Mr Jones, are risking their lives because they’ve no choice in the matter. They’ve been herded to the front like cattle.’
‘And you were too bloody yellow to go with them, Forbes.’
‘I don’t see many German guns pointed at you, Mr Jones.’ Couched in Alexander’s English accent, ‘Mr’ sounded more insulting than ‘bastard’ to Mogg.
‘I’m a reserved occupation, not a bloody conchie.’
‘When you’ve finished shouting what you are, do you mind telling us what you intend to do about this prop, Mogg?’ Evan interrupted.
‘There’s a bloody war on.’
‘Which I’ve cause to know better than most.’
Everyone fell silent. They all knew that Evan had lost a son at Dunkirk, a daughter in Italy and that his son-in-law was a prisoner of the Germans. ‘But the war’s no reason for management to make it as dangerous down here as it is at the front. What good would a cave-in do, other than to the Germans? If that prop collapsed it would bring production to a standstill. And if this one is like that, out here in the main walkway, what’s the state of the others nearer the face?’
‘He’s right, Mogg,’ Viv Richards concurred, dropping his pick to the ground.
‘So you’re abandoning the Fascists for the Communists now then, Viv?’ Mogg crossed his arms over his ample chest.
‘It’s a free country.’
‘Not in wartime.’
‘Mogg,’ Evan began patiently, ‘we’re not doing this to be difficult, we’re all experienced miners …’
‘What in hell do you think I am?’
‘Experienced, before you became management.’ Evan looked him in the eye, blinding him with lamplight. ‘And neither of us have survived working down here for near as dammit thirty years by taking unnecessary risks. All we’re asking is that you check out all the props.’
‘We’re twelve short on this shift as it is, Evan. Where do you expect me to find men to do extra?’
‘I’m not management, so I don’t know, Mogg, but what I do know is that if they aren’t all checked and the damaged and weak ones replaced, we’ll be forced to send an official deputation to the office.’
‘Are you threatening to go over my head?’
‘Just asking for a bit of common sense.’
‘There’s no point in going to management. You know what they’ll tell you? There’s a war on.’
‘And that makes us expendable?’ Alexander asked.
‘Do you know what I hate most about this war, Forbes? It’s brought the likes of you down here, pushing your noses in where they’re not wanted, telling us how to live our lives.’
‘It’s his life now too, Mogg,’ Evan reminded him.
‘You wanted to be a boss, Mogg, so bloody well act like one. Go and tell management about the state of these props or I’ll …’
‘You’ll what, Viv? Strike?’
‘Walk out. And you try and stop me.’
‘That’s not just suspension talk, Richards. They jail men and women who won’t pull their weight for the war effort. Five in last week’s Pontypridd Observer.’
‘Viv doesn’t want to walk out, Mogg. None of us do,’ Evan maintained calmly. ‘All we want are the props checked. Will you see to it, or do we go to management?’
‘I’ll see to it,’ Mogg conceded irritably. ‘But not today. There’s -’
‘Today,’ Alexander insisted. ‘Or we go to management at the end of this shift.’
‘I’ll put Robinson on to it. Will that do you?’
‘When?’
‘This afternoon.’
‘If something isn’t sorted for definite by knock-off time, we’ll go to the office. Luke?’ Evan nodded to his junior butty and set off up the tunnel to the coal face.
Viv glared at Mogg for a moment before following the others. Their footsteps echoed eerily in the narrow chambers. Evan wondered why the sound still had the power to set the hairs pricking on the back of his neck. Thirty years of working in filth, damp and gloom, and he still wasn’t used to the conditions.
Rats scurried across his path, melting into the shadows that lapped at the borders of his lamp beam, their feet continuing to patter long after he could make out the shape of their long, thin bodies and stringy tails. The roof sloped abruptly, forcing him to stoop, but the closer he drew to the coal face, the easier he breathed. The new steel props were in short supply and despite Ministry directives, management had been forced to utilise the old wooden supports near the cutting edges. Evan wasn’t alone in preferring them. They cracked before they collapsed, a warning sound that gave a man a fighting chance to run from a cave-in, unlike the steel props that bent and twisted slowly, and silently, until the actual moment when the roof fell… crushing … suffocating …
Forcing the images he’d conjured from his mind, Evan fell to his knees and looked at Luke. ‘Let’s start, boy.’ He lay on the ground, crawling sideways beneat
h the seam he had opened up two days before. Luke wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, rubbing in more coal dust than he removed. He waited until Evan emerged from his check before swinging his pick. Evan glanced at the boy as they worked side by side. Luke was nineteen going on twenty but he looked younger. Like Alexander he had been a consciousness objector conscript, and also like Alexander, he was a careful and good worker. Closing his mouth against the dust, Evan decided that it wouldn’t be fair to keep the boy much longer. Luke should be a miner in his own right. He’d have a word with Mogg, although he dreaded the change. It was never easy to break in a new boy to the ways of the pit.
Tomas D’Este stood at the window of the spartanly furnished cubicle that had been set aside for the doctors’ rest breaks. Pulling the surgical cap from his head, he surveyed the hospital grounds. A black streak of newly tarmacked drive cut through the swath of lawn that swept down to the gates. Uniformed nurses shivered beneath their capes as they pushed bandaged invalids in wheelchairs over the uneven ground. To his right, a row of patients sat on open verandas tucked up in crimson blankets. He could only wonder at the matron’s insistence on fresh air. The sky was leaden, heavy with unshed rain, the air damp and wintry. By rights, half the invalids should go down with pneumonia after exposure to these elements.
If they had been in his native Cuba he could have understood her obstinacy. At this time of year ·it would be wet, but warm enough for sea bathing, the bougainvillaeas would still be blooming in thick purple clouds, hanging over crumbling, white-painted walls …
An ancient charabanc edged through the gates, puffing and jerking sluggishly up the drive. Pushing his wire-rimmed glasses further up his nose Thomas studied the visitors as they streamed out. Frail old men, wearing medals that proclaimed them veterans of the last war; elderly women carrying baskets of home-made food and drink he doubted they could spare; and behind them the diminutive, waif-like figure he had been waiting for.
He took a deep breath to steady the pounding of his heart. He was lonely, that was all. A perfectly natural feeling for anyone who had left a large, close-knit family for life in a strange country. Working twelve- to fifteen- hour days didn’t help; neither did being annexed to a South Carolina regiment, when most of the officers were strongly prejudiced about socialising with people who didn’t have lily-white, Anglo-Saxon pedigrees.
Pushing his cap into his pocket, he checked his watch. He’d warned the theatre sister that he was taking an hour lunch break instead of his usual twenty minutes. There were fifty-five minutes left. Removing his glasses, he clipped them on to his coat, walked to the door, turned the corner and headed for the foyer.
Jane was alone, looking somewhat lost and forlorn as the other visitors filed off down the corridor behind the almoner. He noticed that her hat and coat were well cut, and of good-quality cloth. Both had undoubtedly been expensive, but they appeared to have been made for an older sister, making her look more like an orphan Annie than ever.
He smiled as she turned and saw him. ‘You came?’
‘I said I would in my letter.’ Her brown eyes shone dark, apprehensive, and he realised she was as nervous as he was.
‘I’m sorry I missed you on your earlier visits.’
‘They said you were operating.’
‘It’s been like a madhouse,’ he explained, thinking that ‘butcher’s yard’ might be more appropriate. ‘Would you like tea?’
‘I thought I was here to visit the patients, not the doctors.’
‘You are, but there’s one patient in particular I’d like you to meet today, and you need to be warned about his mental state as well as his wounds.’
‘The sister thought I managed fine with the others.’
‘It’s your past successes that have given us hope that you might make headway with this man. I’m on a meal break. There’s a canteen where we could talk. I need to eat, and I’m sure you could manage something.’ Anticipating, but hoping to brook further argument, he pushed open the door behind him. ‘Please?’
‘Just tea then, I’ve already eaten.’
‘This boy is only eighteen,’ Tomas said as he led the way down a corridor and up a staircase that led to the second floor. ‘He was badly burned when his plane went down. The pilot and navigator were killed. He may seem frightening and aggressive.’
‘I can imagine.’
‘I’m not sure you can. We’re used to bitterness, but his hostility even caught the ward sister unawares.’ He led her into a large, square room that smelt of boiled cabbage and fish. What seemed like acres of wooden tables and chairs stretched across sixty feet of woodblock flooring, but few were occupied. Pulling out two chairs from a table jammed into a corner next to the window, he smiled at the girl manning the counter.
‘I’ll bring your meal over, Captain D’Este.’
‘You are a mind-reader, Gaynor, thank you. And a tea for Mrs Powell too, please?’
‘You remember the name of the skivvies?’
‘Skivvy’s a horrible word.’
Jane turned her head. The girl smiled at her. ‘She’s a personal friend?’
‘Just being kind to an overworked doctor. I don’t let it go to my head, she’s the same with everyone.’ He sat down opposite her.
‘There’s one thing we should get straight before you say any more. I’ve been visiting here for weeks, and I don’t need protecting from the harsher realities of life.’
‘I haven’t suggested that you do.’
‘I know I look younger than I am …’
‘How old are you?’
‘Twenty-one. And I’ve worked in a theatre and a pub besides the factory. I’ve seen a lot of things …’
‘And survived an explosion, which is one of the reasons I thought you’d be able to help this boy.’
‘Are you being funny?’
‘Funny?’ He frowned at her. ‘No, I’m not being funny, and as we’re doing some straight talking, I wouldn’t have asked you to be a visitor if I hadn’t thought you were up to the job.’
‘So,’ she leaned back as the waitress brought his food and her tea, ‘what is this boy like?’
‘Facially, badly scarred, and mentally at the stage where he doesn’t want to see or talk to anyone. His family lived in London. Both his parents were killed in an air raid. He has a brother, but he’s serving overseas, and as yet we haven’t managed to organise compassionate leave for him. There are a couple of aunts and uncles. The almoner offered to arrange travel warrants so they could visit him here, but he refuses to see anyone who knew him before the accident. He’s been here two weeks, has had one operation and is scheduled for another at the end of this week. We’re trying to rebuild his jaw with bone grafts taken from his hip. His nose and cheekbones are going to be more difficult, and once the bones have been restructured, which probably means another five or six operations spread over a year, there’s still the skin grafts. It’s going to be a long, slow job. On the plus side, one eye is undamaged, and he will recover a degree of sight in the other. His body and hands are unscathed, which is unusual. Flyers usually try to protect their faces with their hands when fire breaks out. I wish I had time to talk to him, but with my surgery schedule it’s impossible. Like all the doctors here, I barely have time to treat my patients’ physical wounds let alone address their psychological problems. The nurses have told me they can’t get through to him, and believe me if they can’t, the task is almost impossible.’ He poked at the mess of watery cabbage and minced meat that was mostly gravy on his plate. ‘His name is Peter Greaves. He was a gunner in the RAF, and that’s all I can tell you about him. If there’s more he hasn’t confided it to any of us.’
‘What makes you think I’ll succeed in getting through to him when the nurses have failed?’
He dropped his fork on to his plate. ‘You don’t know?’
‘No.’
‘The night we met …’
‘In the New Inn?’
‘I walked into that ballroom f
eeling as though I’d been exiled to the ends of the earth and wanting to be anywhere but where I was. Then you came up to the table and smiled and I felt as though I had arrived somewhere civilised after all.’
As the whistle blew, Alexander dropped his pick and pulled his snap box from his haversack. Crouching on hands and knees he made his way up the seam to where Evan was sitting with his back against the coal face. Sinking down alongside him, he opened his box and removed the metal flask of cold tea.
‘Do you think they’ll carry out the safety check?’
‘They’d be fools not to.’ Evan scrutinised the wooden prop in front of them with narrowed eyes.
‘And if they don’t?’
‘We’ll have to go to management.’
‘I keep thinking back to my first day underground.’
‘When you wanted to go up top to eat your snap,’ Evan laughed.
‘It seemed a normal thing to do at the time. I couldn’t understand how anyone could eat in these conditions. Come to think of it, I couldn’t even understand how anyone could work in this stinking hole, and here I am two years later accepting it as normal.’
‘You’ll be looking to eat your sandwiches in the coal hole when you go back to your museum,’ Luke suggested, with a rare flash of humour.
‘Hey, Luke?’ one of the other miners shouted across to him. ‘You going to the boxing tonight?’
‘Only if his missus lets him.’ Viv Richards’s quip raised a laugh. Luke had married Gina Ronconi when he was eighteen and she sixteen. Although they had been married for nearly two years, most of the men continued to rag him as though he was a newlywed.
‘What time does the first bout start?’ Luke rose to his feet, dusted off his trousers, and walked over to the others.
‘That boy’s shaping up nicely.’
‘That boy’s a man, Evan.’
‘Something the matter, other than the state of the props? It’s not like you to go off the deep end with Mogg.’
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