“All right if I explore?” he said.
“Good idea,” said Martin. “See if you can find a dry bit. Yes, see if you can find somewhere which might be safe from a blast this end.”
“No! Mart! You can’t!”
“I’m not going to. Leave you two walled in? Don’t worry, Jake. All right if he goes, Granpa?”
Granpa sighed, as though it was a nuisance to have to concentrate.
“I suppose so,” he said. “If you think there’s anything wrong with the air, Jake, have any trouble breathing, then back straight out. And put the empty cans under drips—you never know—we could be here more than three days.”
Twenty yards up the tunnel Jake paused. He wished he had his stick. The floor was mostly smooth clay, slippery on the surface and slightly rubbery below, but here and there chunk of rock—or was it coal?—had fallen from the roof and was half embedded in the clay. He listened to the drips around him, tuning out the metallic tock of the can he’d placed under a more rapid drip a few yards back. He clicked his tongue against his palate to set up more echoes—yes, there was what Granpa had called a monks-working cell on his left, the third he’d passed, but the other two had been as drippy as the main tunnel. He moved to the entrance and clapped his hands. The echo came straight back at him, a curt denial, as though to say “Not this way, buster.” A couple of claps more and he knew that the chamber broadened from the entrance till it was about five feet wide and three or four times as long. It was empty, and felt no drier than anywhere else.
As he moved on up the tunnel he began to worry about Granpa’s last words. If you have any trouble breathing. What had old Mr Smith said about Annerton Pit? Never any trouble with gas. Never any explosions … But this wasn’t Annerton Pit. Jake had done the Industrial Revolution in last year’s history. He had never somehow got hold of it, and finished with poor marks, but he remembered strongly a description of the man dressed in layer on layer of damp rags who crawled round the mine with a flame on the end of a long stick, setting off little explosions in the pockets of gas that had built up near the roof, so they couldn’t grow big enough to cause a real bang. There was choke-damp and fire-damp. You had to keep the air moving. But the air in here was as still as the grave.
Close at hand the hill hooted. Now, that was moving air. And moving water too, rippling beneath the hoot. Jake moved more carefully forward, concentrating on the sound, tuning out the surrounding drips and echoes. Now more than ever it seemed to come out of the rocks all round him, until he was actually standing at what seemed to be its centre, but still without being able to feel the slightest movement in the dead air of the mine.
He shrugged and was moving on when he realised that the nature of the floor had changed. It was as slimy as ever on the surface, but underneath was unyielding. A pace on and a pace back he found the familiar squidge of clay, but in the middle was this hard level patch. He stamped his foot on it, producing a thud that was barely a sound, more a resonance that travelled up the bones of his other leg. But yes, here the floor was hollow, and through the hollow place water was chuckling and air hooting. At the acid touch of reason the ghost melted into nothing.
Granpa and Martin were arguing as he came back, arguing about the ghost in Annerton Pit. It should have been reassuring to hear them, bringing back memories of similar arguments at home, but it wasn’t. Granpa’s voice was wrong, not the proper, dry, thoughtful, patient and vaguely amused tone which Jake was used to, but rapid, weak and fretful, a voice full of fever. Jake could hear that Martin wanted to stop, but Granpa wouldn’t let him.
“ … looked up the records,” Granpa was saying, “before I left Newcastle. It was a very wet spring and summer, just right for a rock-slip, with the water table rising and lubricating strata that are normally dry. Both shafts blocked, cutting off ventilation. And, you see, the rock-slip might release a big pocket of gas. Candles everywhere …”
“Hey,” said Martin. “Davy had invented the safety-lamp by then. That you, Jake?”
“Yes. Listen …”
“Hang on. Granpa’s not going to rest till he’s got this off his chest. Why no safety-lamps, then?”
“Miners didn’t like them,” muttered Granpa. “Less light than candles. Even in fiery pits they’d try to get away with candles. So there was an explosion.”
“Nobody heard one,” said Martin, unable to prevent himself scoring the point, even though he must have known that Granpa had to get through the argument before he could rest.
“It could have been blanketed by the sound of the rock-slip,’ said Granpa. “Or they didn’t hear it at the surface through the blocked shafts. Or they did hear it and the owners suppressed the fact, because they hadn’t been using safety lamps … after a big explosion you get a rush of choke-damp—carbon dioxide mixed with coal dust. They could all have been gathered at the bottom of the shaft and suffocated there without a mark on them.”
“They let it out of the rock,” said Jake. He had dissolved his own ghost, but was still glad to help Granpa do the same to Mr Smith’s. “He meant the gas,” he added.
“Yeah, what about him?” said Martin. “Mr Smith’s Granny’s uncle? What sent him off his chump then?”
“There are horrors enough in the real world,” said Granpa, more calmly. “If you’ve been through a mine disaster you don’t need ghosts. And one account I found called him a half-wit, which suggests that he may have been feeble-minded before the accident. The explosion could have knocked him into a drainage shaft—miners call it an adit—and he’d have been washed out on to the beach more dead than alive. Did I say it had been a very wet year? There’d have been a good head of water—too much for the rescuers to work back against.”
Now, suddenly, he was sounding much more like his proper self, only rather tired and shaky. Martin laughed.
“Well, you got that off your chest, Granpa,” he said. “Find anything, Jake?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t go right to the end. Everywhere’s just as damp as everywhere else. There’s one place where the floor’s hollow. You can hear the wind hooting through, and water running.”
“Wind?” said Martin. “That’s got to come from somewhere. Are you sure?”
“Yes. I can hear it now. I don’t expect you can. It was bothering me, so I went to look … What’s the matter?”
“Banged my head getting up,” said Martin. “Where are you? Come on—let’s go and see. Hey, where are you? Come and fetch me. Got you. You be all right, Granpa? Hey, this makes a change, doesn’t it, Jake?”
Jake only grunted. He knew how Martin’s sudden bursts of high spirits could flare up for a few minutes in the middle of trouble or depression and die away as fast as they’d come. Sometimes, when Jake had been much smaller, they’d played the game of turning out all the lights and letting Jake guide Martin round the house, but he didn’t want to be reminded of that now. He led the way very carefully up the tunnel, concentrating on drips and echoes.
A can, bashed into a rough trowel-shape with a lump of rock, makes a feeble tool but it’s better than nothing. At first Martin had wanted to make them a trowel each, but after five minutes’ trial had agreed that it was better to work turn and turn about. The digging was easier for Jake—no different really from digging a hole in the garden at home. In fact the can was about as useful as the kind of tool a small child invents for itself. Only the floor of the tunnel wasn’t good garden earth but packed clay which came away in small, greasy flakes. Every few minutes they had to work the can back into a better shape for digging.
Jake had felt the hard area above the hooting place with his fingertips and found that it was made of two large flagstones and a smaller one. They were now digging a trench three inches wide along the edge of this smaller one, hoping to be able to get their fingers under it and haul it up. Jake was hacking slivers of clay from the trench floor while Martin rested.
“Granpa’s not too good,” said Martin suddenly. “I got him a drink while you were up the tunnel and I felt his forehead. He’s running a real temperature.”
“He sounded a bit better when we left,” said Jake.
“Right. I think he goes up and down. When you were asleep he had almost a sort of fit, threshing about and sighing. He was quite compos—wouldn’t let me do anything because he didn’t want to wake you—then he eased off.”
“Suppose this leads anywhere, what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. If you’re right about water in there . You remember that bridge between the hotel and the sheds? That’s over a little stream. I didn’t actually look to see where it came from, but I’ve a sort of vague idea it came out of the cliff, about ten feet up. Judging by these flagstones it must be quite a big hole underneath—I mean they’d have just laid drainpipes otherwise—so with a bit of luck I might be able to get down there, crawl out, wait till it’s dark and climb the cliff.”
With a bit of luck, thought Jake. It was all flimsy guesses, but already they were a solid structure in Martin’s mind. Jake was digging hard—his hands were getting sore already from trying to grip and lever with the fragile, endlessly buckling tool—but he was doing so without much hope, simply because it was better than doing nothing.
“Then,” said Martin, adding another storey to his card-house, “I don’t know. It was tough enough telling you and Granpa, but going to the cops and grassing on the whole G.R. movement …”
“Granpa’s going to die,” said Jake as flatly as he could.
“I know that! Oh, Jake, you get into something and you never guess how you’re going to be forced to choose . Suppose I got out and went to the hotel. Suppose I managed to listen around for a bit and find out which of them were the soft ones, the ones Jack says don’t recognise necessities. Suppose I could tell one or two of them about Granpa, and what Jack said about killing …
Jake didn’t say anything. He could tell from the tone that Martin knew this part of his building at least was fantasy. He concentrated on working the can along the edge of the flag, easing out a long slice of clay. When it came free it was like a small victory. With fingers part tender and part numb he felt into the trench to plan his next attack. An icy needle of air met his knuckles.
“We’re getting somewhere,” he said.
He had to duck to avoid a clash of skulls as Martin bent to feel.
“There,” he said. “Got it?”
“Only just. Wait. Yes. Let’s have that can. Damn. It isn’t resting on earth. There’s another stone or something underneath. I’ve bent the rotten can, too.”
Jake hunkered round so that he could run his fingertips along the edge of the flagstone. It was rough-cut, greasy with water like everything else, but with the texture of fine sand-paper beneath the grease. At its bottom edge he found a thin layer of crumbly stuff, and then, just above the new floor the trench, another hard, straight-edged surface, but pock and grainy.
“It’s a brick, I think,” he said. “The mortar’s soft as soft.”
“Let’s feel. You’re right. Ouch! What’s a fingernail between friends? Anyway, we might be able to bash that brick in. I’ll dig for a bit, Jake. You see if you can find a decent bashing stone.”
As Jake rose he found that his neck and shoulders were a knotted network of aching tension, and the muscles of his forearms were taut with inner pressure. He put his hands his pockets to try to draw a little warmth out of his thighs and prodded around the tunnel floor with his feet while Martin grunted and swore behind him.
Shifting the brick took an unmeasurable time. They had to widen the trench in order to deepen it, and then scrape away at the damp mortar with little metal tabs from the drip cans. Most of the “stones” Jake found to bash with turn out to be soft coal, and the ones that were hard enough not to splinter at the first blow were shapes that made them even less useful as hammers than the can was as a trowel. The brick would move a sixteenth of an inch at one end. Bashing the other end would pivot the first end back to where it had been before. Then it would jam completely, and the boys would scrape feebly at the mortar that held it until the can-tabs developed metal fatigue. By “lunch” time they’d moved it half an inch. Granpa was very quiet while they ate. Jake felt his forehead and found it damp and chill, but Granpa twisted irritably away, muttering, “I’m all right, I tell you.” Jake would have preferred to stay with him, but he had to guide Martin up the tunnel and once there he fell into the rhythm of bashing and scraping. Martin said very little, but worked with surprising persistence, as though the exhausting and painful task were a way of easing his anger and frustration. After a long while Jake went to see how Granpa was and found him in a restless doze. He was coming back up the tunnel, wondering how to persuade Martin that the digging wasn’t worth the effort, when he heard the erratic thudding of stone on stone produce a different note.
“Done it!” muttered Martin.
“What?”
“You there, Jake? I think I’ve broken that vile brick.”
“Hang on. Let me feel.”
Martin was right. The surface of the brick was now a pitted mess of chippings and clay and coal dust, but it ran in two distinct planes, one of which rocked when Jake pushed it. He picked up a stone and tapped carefully, nudging the half-brick steadily further in. After a dozen taps it went with a rush. There was a rattle and a splash. The booming hoot below them, which by now Jake no longer noticed unless he listened for it, strengthened and changed. He felt the blast of wind and smelt the sea.
“Daylight!” whispered Martin.
And that was only a beginning. They had “tea” and told Granpa what they’d achieved, but though he understood he didn’t seem very interested; instead, in a weak voice he insisted on repeating all his arguments about the Annerton Pit ghost. It was worrying and painful to listen to and Jake wished he’d stop, but Martin suddenly seized on a point.
“That might be it!” he said. “The drainage shaft Mr Smith’s Granny’s uncle got washed out through—we’ve found it.”
“It’s called an adit,” insisted Granpa.
“All right, an adit. If he could get out that way, then I can! Come on, Jake!”
But they got barely further all that evening. The flagstone was immensely heavy, and jammed just as tight as the brick had been. Wearily Jake dug another trench along its opposite edge, while Martin scraped away at the clay that clogged the cracks between it and the neighbouring stones. Martin levered out another brick without much trouble. He talked rather more between bouts of work, arguing to and fro over the question of what he ought to do when he got out. Instinctively they kept their voices down, as if their tenuous contact with the outside world might betray them to their enemies, though Jake was fairly sure that the noise of the sea and the wind would muffle any sounds they made.
Suddenly Martin said, “Either my eyes are failing or it’s getting dark. Let’s give it one more heave and pack in.”
Wearily Jake straightened. He’d been longing to stop for hours, but he wasn’t used to giving in before Martin, and this time Martin seemed prepared to struggle on for ever. They took their places on either side of the stone. Jake had to force himself to grip the harsh surface, his hand was so blistered; and it was slippery too with a mixture of clay and sweat and his own blood.
“We’ve been doing this wrong,” said Martin. “We’ve got to break the suction. It’s no use just heaving, we’ll have to do it with a jerk. You heave as hard as you can and I’ll do the jerking. Ready?”
Jake grunted and took the strain. It was like trying to lift the solid earth. He heard Martin hold his breath and then snort with sudden effort. A tremor ran through the stone.
“It’s coming!” he whispered, and found somewhere a few pounds of extra strength. Martin snorted again, and this time the jar of his applied weight made more than a tremor.
“Hold it!” he gasped.
There was a brief, scrabbling noise.
“One, two, three, now!”
The slow build-up of fury and suppressed despair found its relief in an explosion of effort. The flag lifted an inch, coming with such suddenness that Jake lost his grip and tumbled backwards, gasping.
“You all right?” said Martin, panting. “Don’t worry. I’ve wedged it with a stone. It’ll come easy now, but I’m whacked. Let’s give it a rest.”
“I’m dead,” said Jake.
They staggered back down the tunnel, found food and ate it without noticing what it was. It was difficult even to pay attention to Granpa, who had woken confused and rambling, and when Martin explained what they’d done simply said, “I leave it to you,” in a vague old mumble. Jake didn’t think he’d understood.
“OK,” said Martin suddenly. “Back to work.”
“No, Mart.”
“Why not?”
“What are you going to do?”
“Finish getting that flag up. Crawl out. Climb the cliff.”
“No, Mart. Listen. You’re too tired. You won’t make it. You’ve done enough climbing—you know that. What are your hands like?”
“Sore as hell.”
“You won’t be able to hold on. Listen, Mart—let’s have bit of a rest. Granpa, tell him he’s got to rest!”
Granpa answered in a language Jake didn’t understand Martin tried to laugh but it came out as a snort.
“All right,” he said. “Supposing I can get out, it’s too early to go anyway. I’ll put a fresh can under that drip and we’ll go when it’s full. You have a bit of a kip. I don’t feel sleepy.”
Jake stretched himself out on the groundsheet. No drip had fallen on it, but it was damp as if with the dew of the cave. Still it was drier than the floor and he was too tired to notice its unyielding bumps and hollows. He heard Martin groping with the cans and began to count the metallic tock of the drops falling into the empty one. Before he was in double figures he was asleep.
Annerton Pit Page 11