Easterleigh Hall at War

by Margaret Graham

  Their boots rang on the wooden floors as they entered a dormitory with narrow beds. ‘Real beds,’ sighed Charlie. ‘Aye, and a roof,’ Dave added, guarding their corner from incomers. ‘Nah, get your own space,’ he muttered to some Welsh pitmen. Danny, Jim and Frank joined them in the corner, with Simon dithering on the edge. There were no mattresses, just bare boards, and gaps in between those. There was one grey blanket per man, but who needed more? They were off the ground, the dirt, the mud. It was bloody heaven.

  Guards approached. ‘Schnell.’ They were led to the ablutions, basins and toilet stalls, then to a kitchen with the luxury of a cooking range and huge pans. They were told that they would collect their own wood for cooking, under guard, tomorrow after work. For tonight they were given black bread, two slices, and potato-peel soup.

  They marched to the mine the next day, and entered a world in which the air was clean. It was remarkable. There was none of the smell of a coalmine. They took their tokens, and a lamp, and then plunged down in the darkness of the shaft. Simon and Charlie stood between Dave and Jack. Jack yelled above the rattling and crashing of the cage, ‘Think of those larks, lads, and that blue sky. Think of the forest because that’s where we’ll be picking up the wood when we’re out of here. Mart used to hum. Have a go yourselves, and remember the larks, or whatever, or whoever, takes your fancy.’ All the while his chest was constricted, his heart beating too fast, because they were bloody falling. That was the nub of it.

  They reached the bottom of the shaft. There was no white salt, glistening and ready to be shovelled. Instead there was salt deposited in old seabeds, which looked like granite. They worked in a huge cavern. ‘It is your task to drill, blast, cut it out. Once your work is done, it will be removed and crushed,’ they were told in halting English. They were to work with an equal number of civilians, to prevent sabotage. We’ll see about that, thought Jack. Si gripped his arm. ‘Listen to him, Jack. We can’t do anything here and it’ll be short rations for the rest of us again, if you try.’

  They worked for ten hours without stopping, or eating, though they were allowed to drink. Jack and Dave bore the brunt of the work in their group, hewing whilst Simon and Charlie collected the broken-up rocks into carts. ‘They say the air is good for you,’ a skeletal figure muttered as he brought water to them. He was from the Nottingham coalfields. ‘They say salt heals, and I reckon it does, but so does food. Trouble is, they don’t have much themselves, our blockade is too good, poor buggers.’ He took the leather water flagon on to the next group.

  Within three days Simon and Charlie had abscesses on the palms of their hands from the non-stop shovelling of the rock salt, though the pitmen fared much better, so hard were their hands. On the fourth day Jack received the first of his beatings, for derailing a cart. The beating took place in the cavern, the pick handles and rifle butts slamming into his curled-up body. The other pitmen stopped work. Charlie was held back by Dave. ‘He knows the score, lad, let it be.’

  ‘Schnell,’ the guards called, threatening them with their rifles, and they began work again as Jack was dragged to the cell carved out of the rock, with an oak door. Normally it would hold picks. Now it held recalcitrant prisoners. He was locked in solitary for twenty-four hours, in pitch dark. Dave banged on the door as he passed at the end of the shift. ‘Keep strong,’ he said quietly. Charlie, Jim, Frank and Danny echoed him.

  The guard banged on the door with his rifle butt. ‘No food for your men. This your fault.’

  Jack crawled to the wall and dragged himself into a sitting position, his arms resting on his knees. His bruises would heal, and his back, where it had bled, would scab, but the others would go hungry. How long could he carry on the fight while his men also paid the price? Perhaps Simon was right? The seconds, the minutes and the hours passed, and as the darkness pressed in on him he cursed Auberon, who had promised he would get them out. And then he cursed him again for leaving them, because he was part of the group, wasn’t he? And he cursed the bloody war, and the endless movement of his group. They had still had no letters, because no one knew where they were.

  He cursed the bloody dark, and bosses, and the crashing and blasting and hewing that continued day and night and was making his head split, or was that because of the rifle that had crashed into the back of his skull, or the thirst that was driving him mad? He cursed the civilians that stumbled past his door, free, with a water bottle on their belts, and bait in their tins, and he cursed himself for hurting his own marras. Charlie’s stomach would be aching, his hands throbbing, his abscesses bursting. He buried his head in his hands. The salt on them stung his eyes. He should never have brought the lad. He should never have derailed the cart. Shit, shit.

  They let him out after twenty-four hours. His bruised hips and ribs had stiffened and he could barely stand. He was handed his pick by the overseer, his sleeves rolled up, muscles rippling. ‘You work.’

  He was led to his men, and his shame for their suffering meant he could not meet their eyes. But they met his and came to him, heedless of the guards, and the civilians who busied themselves elsewhere, calling the guards to them. After all, they were miners too, and they spent minutes pointing out faults on the wagons and the carts while Charlie handed him a flask of water, which he gulped down, then bread. ‘The Welsh miners shared theirs with us. Here.’ Dave had barley coffee in a bottle. Cold, but coffee. Jack shook his head. ‘No, it’s yours,’ he croaked. Dave grinned. ‘What’s ours is yours, except for the beatings. You can have those all to yourself, bonny lad.’

  ‘Aye, he can an’ all,’ Simon said, handing him a crust off his bread.

  They worked for the next ten hours, each with their civilian minders, who never spoke. The skeletal Nottingham miner brought water at regular intervals. They worked while the civilians broke for lunch, eating black bread and some spicy sausage. With each hour Jack blessed his years as a pitman because he could do it, blindfold, and like a machine. He could do it, and he kept telling himself this until the shift was over.

  As he stumbled back to the cage the civilian miners handed them each some of the sausage they had saved, and one gave Jack three cigarettes. ‘You brave man. You need these.’ The man’s hands were scarred, his forehead too. ‘My son in war. War bad.’

  Jack nodded, unable to speak for a moment. ‘Yes, war bad. Danke.’

  They travelled up in the cage, Jack slumped against the side, drifting, hearing the larks, seeing the blue sky, then the cedar tree at Easterleigh. So strong, so solid, and the memory of it made him stand up straight. At the school he broke the cigarettes in half and shared them with his group, ate mangel-wurzel soup, grieved for the prisoners who had died that day in a roof fall, or from illness, as so many did throughout the camps apparently, and slept as though dead.

  Every day they worked, then slept. They grew thin. At the end of September, Charlie, Dave, Simon and Jack were marched back to the station, shoulders hunched against the icy wind. They were shepherded on to a train which was already getting up a head of steam. They were locked into the last carriage, a proper carriage, with slatted wooden seats. There were only two guards. Was there a chance of escape? Jack stared out of the window, and at the door, but the guard reached across and waved his hand. ‘Nein,’ he warned.

  They travelled all day with bets being taken on their destination, passing ploughed fields, haystacks and stooks, and slowing to go through towns. They suspected they were going to a mine, but which sort? They arrived at a railyard as the sun was lowering. Close by they could see winding gear, and coal was heaped high in the yard. Dave took his IOUs and stuffed them into his back pocket. He had bet on a coalmine. They were escorted into a camp with wire and posts, and barracks with the smell of sulphur overlaying everything, and coal sleck on the roofs. ‘Home from bloody home,’ Jack murmured. Dave laughed. ‘At least Mart’s out of it now.’

  There were vegetable patches between the barracks. Si said, ‘It’s a proper camp, we’ll get mail, we can write too.
Must have been an army barracks.’ They felt they had reached heaven. The light was dying. They were taken through into a white-tiled room and told to strip. They did, and were given a black uniform with KG in red, for Kriegsgefanger, a prisoner of war, on the back of the tunic, and their POW number on the front in red, with a yellow patch on the sleeve and a wide yellow strip inserted down the outside of each leg. Their cap was black with a vivid yellow band. They kept their boots. ‘This is who you are now,’ the Feldwebel said, pointing to the POW number. They didn’t mind. They were within an established culture, there would be order, there would be mail. Yes, letters. They grinned at one another, and Charlie poked Jack. ‘See, I told you I was right to come, man.’

  ‘Aye, lad,’ Jack said, ‘but you’ve not been blooded in a pit yet.’

  Dave smoothed his uniform. ‘Neither’s Simon, but we’ll take care of you, aye, that we will. Do we wear this fancy dress while we’re hewing, d’you reckon, Jack?’

  Jack was saved from answering, as they were given singlets and shorts. ‘That answer your question, bonny lad?’

  They were given black bread and barley coffee and put into a small room, with beds with no mattresses but a base of chicken wire, and a blanket. The wire was more comfortable than the bare boards in the school had been, and they slept like logs. The next day they were roused before dawn and quick-marched out on to a lorry with several French and Belgian prisoners, who told Jack they had been there almost a year. They said there was a routine, there was mail, there were food parcels and some had put on weight, just a little but enough to make a difference.

  Dave nudged Jack. ‘You’re the one speaking French, so ask if there are dancing girls?’ Jack did and everyone laughed and no one bothered to answer. Charlie and Simon examined their abscesses. They were almost healed.

  As they approached the mine and the seething slag heaps, the smell of sulphur grew stronger. At the shaft head they queued ten by ten to take a lamp from the cabin, and a token from the board to be returned after the twelve-hour shift. Charlie moved confidently, Simon less so, towards the cage. Jack stood close to them. Coal was a different beast to salt and an outsider would need to be supported, or he’d not make it. After the banksman had rapped three times, they squeezed in with the smell of the coal all around. The last time he’d been in a coalpit was with Mart, and his gut twisted, and he could almost see the silly bugger, almost hear him.

  Jammed like sardines in the cage, Jack felt his chest constrict, as it always did. At two raps they were almost ready to fall through the air. They waited, he swallowed. To his left, crammed against him Charlie was humming, remembering Jack had said it might help. To the right, Si closed his eyes and said, ‘I’m thinking of the larks. It’s not helping, I’m still scared shitless.’ Dave agreed. ‘As are we all, bonny lad.’

  One day, Jack thought, he might not mind. One day his breath might not catch in his throat, but he wouldn’t place a bet on it. Charlie was still humming; it was getting louder and louder. ‘Shut your noise,’ someone yelled from the back. Charlie muted it, but didn’t stop. Jack grinned at his balls. Bauer was right, the lad had inner strength. He glanced at Simon, and waited for the last single rap. It came. He braced, and down they went, rattling and heaving. Dave eased his water bottle, and the packet containing two pieces of bread, which he’d attached with wire to his shorts waistband. He knocked against Jack. ‘Sorry, lad,’ he said, but his words were almost drowned by the creaking and clashing.

  With a jolt they were down, in the dust and the heat. It smelled of Jack’s world. He snatched a look at Si, and then Charlie. It was as well they’d been in the salt mine as some sort of preparation, though here there’d be no huge caverns, just seams, just noise, just heat and dust. Soon he’d be able to read it as he’d done Auld Maud: the creaking of the pine uprights, and the coal, the roof, the movement of the air. Soon he’d be able to almost taste her moods.

  They waited for the lower banksman to come and release the barrier. The lamp hung from Jack’s hand. A few of the others talked, some cleared the coal dust from their throats. Some were silent, like Charlie and Simon. Guards waited with rifles over their shoulder. In the following cage would come the civilian miners, for yet again the prisoners were forbidden to work without a German beside them to forestall sabotage. Jack stared around, wondering how he’d blow up a seam, for that was what he’d decided, and how would he get the workforce clear, for he’d not take any lives with it, and where were the explosives? But that was not for today, or next week. It was for when an opportunity arose, and before that he might have managed an escape. It was a bloody long way back to France, so he’d have to head for neutral Holland. Bugger Auberon. His captain’s German was coming along grand, and if they could have escaped together . . . Well, he’d just have to work on the language and do the best he could.

  Jack could see that their picks were in a pile near the cage. Their guards were strolling about. An elderly banksman with a limp unlatched the civilians’ barrier. Dave nudged Jack. ‘Howay, man, takes you back a bloody lifetime, doesn’t it.’

  The barrier went back.

  Simon elbowed past them, sweating, his face pale. He leaned down, his hands on his knees. ‘You all right, Si?’ Jack held his shoulder. Simon coughed, straightened, and grimaced. ‘Just loving it, Jack, bloody loving it. Me and my mouth. It’s not bloody fair.’ Jack sighed. Dave shook his head.

  The civilian cage was down. They were motioned towards their picks, and the foreman pointed ahead. They started their single-file trudge to the coalface, one behind the other with a German in between. Charlie was kicking up the coal dust, and Simon too, and they were shouted at by the German miners just behind them. ‘Heben sie ihre füsse.’

  Jack called, ‘Lift your feet. Just lift your feet the pair of you, or we’ll all choke to death before we reach the face.’ He repeated the German phrase in his head. Yes, he’d bloody learn to speak the bugger, then he’d have more of a chance.

  Miners were streaming towards them on the other side of the coal road, back towards the cage: prisoners, some like skeletons, and the better-fed Germans, their eyes visible, their faces black, their shoulders hunched. Jack and his file pressed themselves against the sides as the full coal wagons passed, shoved back to the cages by putter boys and prisoners. It was the end of one shift and the start of another. There would be trappers on the doors, controlling the flow of air. Timmie had been a trapper, then a putter, driving the wagons heaped with coal, as the men were doing. But Timmie and Tony had Galloway ponies to do that, except when they carted coal out from low seams to meet up with the wagon.

  Their lamps cast light only over the immediate area. Rats scurried, dust rose, the roof sighed, men shouted to each other above the clatter of the wagons. There was a lull. More prisoners were coming up behind them. Charlie was slowing the line down. A prisoner just behind him called, ‘Pick your feet up and get along, man.’

  Jack called back, ‘Leave him be, he’s young and only a gamekeeper. He’ll learn.’

  They plodded on, and in the continuing lull the man behind Charlie called again. ‘Is that him humming? Bloody hell, I’ve been here a month and I get the bloody hummers. There’s a bloke down in C seam who got here a day after me and then another couple from three weeks ago, who hum for bloody England. They should open their mouths and sing, then they’d choke to death. Geordie thing, is it? Thank Christ I’m from Nottingham. One of ’em says it made his memory come back, coming here. Didn’t have a bloody clue who he was but the Germans guessed he was a miner from his scars. They’re getting us all here, all the miners. It’s a pit they’ve just pumped out. The C seam chap’s on about losing something, some foot or other, but he’s got both of his, and never stops bloody humming.’

  Jack stopped dead. A German miner pushed Jack from behind. ‘Schnell, hurry, hurry, work to do.’ A guard came alongside and shoved at his shoulder. Jack dug in his heels, calling back to the German, ‘Stop your pushing. I know you speak English. Ask if I
can go to C seam, it’s me marra, friend. I think it’s him, but he’s dead.’ The guard was shoving him again. Jack repeated, ‘I think he’s my friend. I thought he was dead. Ask if I can go, I’ll give you my cigarettes.’

  The Nottingham miner called in German to the guard, who pulled at Jack’s singlet, and shouted something and shook his head, and just pushed him forward. Simon said, ‘It can’t be him. He’s dead, Bernie saw him, you know he did. The foot could be anything. Get a move on, Jack.’

  Jack and Dave hewed for six hours with their German minders while Simon, Charlie and the German putters shovelled the coal into the carts. Their hands became swollen, the abscesses flared up and made Charlie groan but he never stopped, not for a moment, not until they broke for a drink, and bread, black bread. ‘All of you, just chuck your picks,’ Charlie said, sitting down and chewing. ‘Use me bread, it’ll be harder.’

  They laughed. Simon threw a piece of coal at a rat scuttling along just outside the lamplight. ‘Hate the bastards.’ He muttered to Jack, ‘You feeling better now? Went a bit strange back there for a moment, didn’t you, lad?’ Coal dust trickled from the roof. Jack counted the uprights. There weren’t enough. He pointed at them, and then nudged the German miner, counting out the number needed on his fingers. The miner nodded, grimaced and shrugged. He said something, which Jack didn’t understand, but no doubt it was ‘Bloody bosses’.

  He leaned back, closing his eyes. It would have been too good to be true. Mart was gone and one day soon he’d have to really feel it, deep inside, where belief lay. He’d told Grace he couldn’t feel it, and that was the bloody trouble. He couldn’t, not even here. Many hummed, of course they did. He worked for the next six hours and by the end his legs were shaking. Guided by the civilian miners, they took this shift-end slowly or they’d have never made it, but at last it was over, and they shouldered their picks and almost crawled back down the seam, towards the cage. It seemed further than on the way out. The glow from their lamps bobbed along the walls, and as before they passed miners, incoming this time, and were joined by others heading for the cages, some staggering under the weight of their picks.