John Dickinson’s family now had two members on the payroll, and tonight David would be getting his first salary. He was fairly dancing as they entered the pit yard with the slow-moving crowd and started for the company office. When he was handed his first pay voucher at the end of the shift it showed he was owed five shillings. Remembering how it had felt when his father had given him six pence for his birthday, five shillings—or sixty pence—almost made him dizzy.
“How much money will you be getting today, Dahd?”
That startled John, and he looked quickly at his wife. Anne smiled and leaned over to her son. “Usually, we don’t talk about that, David.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “But your father earns five shillings a day. That be thirty shillings per week, or sixty shillings in all. Since there be twenty shillings to the pound, he’s owed three pounds.”
That staggered him.
“It be what Ah’m owed,” his father growled, “but it be naw what Ah am paid.”
“Why?” David cried in dismay.
“Because we be in debt ta the cump’ny store, an’ we be owin’ rent on the cump’ny flat, an’ we be in debt ta the cump’ny infirmary fur yur mum’s med’cine. So the paymaster keeps back ’alf of me pay each payday. It be joost the way life be.”
“That’s not life, John,” David’s mother said bitterly, “that is robbery, pure and simple. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“That’s what Ah said,” he agreed with a wry smile. “That be life fur a miner.”
Note
^h. These are two popular dishes in England. “Bangers and mash” are sausages (of various varieties) served with mashed potatoes. “Bubbles and squeak” are cold meat fried with cabbage and potatoes.
Chapter 6
Wednesday, December 17, 1862
By the end of David’s sixth month as a trapper, he had come to dread the boredom more than the dark or the rats. His father was right. After two months in the narrow monkey head, he had been moved to one of the larger chutes, or side tunnels. Here things were not quite so stifling. The chute was wide and high enough for a man to stand up and for mules to pull the coal cars along the tracks. This also meant lamps were hung along the walls at about hundred-foot intervals. It was hardly light enough to see between those intervals, but it beat the utter blackness, and since they always put a lamp near the door, he no longer needed his own candles. There was more traffic in the chute and therefore less boredom. However, the monotony never quite went away.
The outside world didn’t help with that much. It was midwinter now, which meant that when he came to work with his father, dawn was still nearly two hours away. When they finished, it had been dark for another three hours. Sundays didn’t change that much. Low-hanging clouds and a grey, dismal drizzle were typical. Occasionally snow would blanket the ground and bring a temporary change of scenery.
He was running out of ideas to help pass the time. He had quit practicing his “London accent” weeks ago. He hadn’t told his mother, but she never asked anymore, probably because he found himself speaking that way without thinking about it now. He still read three or four hours a day, and his mother was increasing the difficulty of the books she checked out. But in the dim light and thick air, he found himself getting a headache if he read too long. And what was three hours in a twelve- to fourteen-hour shift?
David heard the sound of rock crunching on rock. A moment later, a dark shape momentarily blotted out the light from the next lamp down the tunnel.
“Davee!”
“I’m here. That be you, Bertie?”
There was an eerie moan. “Noooo. Ah be the ghost of John McCleery lookin’ fur me ’ead.”
Even as he laughed at this silliness, David felt a little chill dance up his spine. According to legend, John McCleery had been decapitated by a runaway coal car some twenty years before when the car jumped the tracks, hit one of the pillars, and caused a major cave-in. They found McCleery’s head, but not his body. Along with other superstitions, miners believed a man who was lost in the mines haunted the chambers and tunnels looking for his body until it was found.
Albert Beames strolled up, cap perched jauntily on his head, both hands thrust into the pockets of his filthy coveralls. “’Owdy.”
“Hullo, Bertie.” Albert’s post, the next one down from David’s, was three or four hundred paces away. They had become friends shortly after David had received this new post.
“Ah be bored. Wanna play sumthin’?”
“But . . . what if a car comes?”
“They awl be tekkin’ lunch aboot noow. Cum on. Won’t be nuthin’ cumin’ fur near an hour.”
For a trapper to leave his post anytime during the day, even during lunch break, was strictly forbidden by the fire bosses and the mine foreman. But that made little difference. In a big mine like this, you might not see the foreman for several days, and the miners themselves winked at the practice. They had been trappers. They well understood the tedium. And, boys were boys.
“Did you leave your door open?”
“Be ya daft?” Bertie said, giving him a scornful look. “Ah be fired fur that. But if’n we play ’alfway b’tween yur door an’ mine, we both be able ta ’ear if thare be anythin’ cumin’ frum either way, even wit the doors shut.”
David considered that, focusing on the stillness. Bertie was right. And besides, you could always feel the cars coming, even before you heard them. He looked around, checking again to see if anyone was around. It surely was tempting.
“Yur cars be cumin’ uphill, an’ movin’ slower. My cars will be loaded, but we can feel and hear ’em farther away. We be awl reet.”
David still hesitated. He liked Albert Beames, or Bertie, as most of the trappers called him. He was a bit odd looking, with freckles hidden beneath the layers of coal dust, and teeth that were prominent enough that some of the older boys called him Beaver Beames. Bertie was a year older than David and about a stone heavier.i He was totally devoid of ambition and was baffled by David’s continual talk of becoming a hurrier. “It be nuthin’ but ’ard grunt work,” he said dismissively when David told him of his ambitions. But he was affable and had a way of making David laugh even when he tried hard not to. And he was bored.
“Okay,” David said. “But we can’t be too noisy, or we won’t hear them. So, let’s play the cowboys and Indians. I get to be the Indian.”
Ten minutes later, they changed roles and David became a lanky cowboy with a piece of twisted stick for his six-shooter. He gave Bertie thirty seconds to hide, then began stalking him in a crouch. David was inching his way along the tracks, searching the near darkness, when suddenly his blood froze. In the dim light, he saw little puffs of dust exploding from the gravel in front of his eyes and he realized the ground was trembling beneath him.
He leaped to his feet. “Bertie! Bertie!” he screamed. “A train’s coming!”
Bertie jumped out from behind one of the supporting pillars. “What!” His head was turning wildly, but his feet seemed frozen in place.
“The door! Open your door, Bertie!” Then, knowing what would happen if he didn’t do the same, he turned and raced back toward his own post. “Go, Bertie! Go!” he shouted.
Halfway back to his post, David slid to a halt and spun around. He was too far away now to make out much, but he thought he could see Bertie’s shadow pumping down the tunnel. What had started as an almost imperceptible tremor was now a low rumble, and, even this far up, the ground was vibrating. It was a heavily loaded train—three to five cars, most likely.
He couldn’t tell how close Bertie was to his door, but when the door was open, David would be able to see the pinpoints of light from the line of lamps farther down the chute. None of those were visible yet. He cupped his hands to his mouth. “Open the door!” he screamed.
His answer was a blast of sound louder than anything he had heard in his life. In the faint light, he saw a dark shape hurtle backwards, impelled by roiling clouds of dust. Another crash was followed b
y the screech of steel grinding on steel. The blasts came like rifle shots now as one car telescoped into another, leaping the tracks and smashing into solid rock. Then it was no longer individual sounds, but one thunderous roar.
For a second, he could not move, could not believe what he had just seen. Then he turned and ran, ran as he had never done before. The concussion caught him a second or two later and blew him off his feet. He screamed with pain as he hit rough gravel and slid forward.1
It took two full hours to clear the tunnel enough to let men crawl through the rubble. David sat on his stool, his head in his hands. Please, God. If You are there. Please. Don’t let Bertie be dead. He said it over and over, trying not to think about his mother’s words.
The first man through the wreckage broke into a run toward David. “Davee! Davee!”
David slowly got to his feet. “I’m here, Dahd,” he called. “I’m all right.”
His father swept him up with a great sob and gripped him so tightly that it crushed the breath out of him. When he heard David cry out in pain, he set him down and stepped back.
David held out his hands, raw and starting to scab. “The explosion threw me down,” he said.
His father took David’s hands in his own and examined them in the candlelight. Then his head dropped onto his chest. “Thank God,” he whispered. “We thot ya be dead too.”
David took a breath, then made the choice that he had been considering with increasing anguish for the last two hours. “What happened, Dahd?”
John just stared at him.
“I heard the explosion. Was there a cave-in?”
“No. We ’ad a train of six loaded cars rollin’ doon the chute.” He wiped a hand across his eyes. “At the last minute, the spraggersj saw the door warn’t open. They tried ta stop the train, but it was too late. It hit the door at near full speed.”
“What about Bertie?” David whispered.
“Who?”
“Bertie Beames. He’s the trapper there. He’s my friend. Did he . . . ?” He couldn’t finish.
“I’m sorry, Son. He must have been right behind the door when it hit. One of the spraggers was killed too.” John shook him a little. “But ya be awl reet, Son? Yur hands will heal. Are ya awl reet other than that?”
David closed his eyes and lied again. “Yes, Dahdee. Ah be awl reet.”
Mother and father stood in the dark, looking to where their son lay on the straw mattress, curled up in a ball. They couldn’t tell if he was asleep or not, but Anne Dickinson doubted it.
“Did he cry when you told him about Bertie?” she whispered.
“No.”
“What about when he saw the bodies?”
“Naw then, either. In fact, ’e wudn’t even look at ’em.” His jaw tightened. “It be a terrible thing. Mr. Rhodes wud naw let us tek the boys oot until we ’ad the chute open agin. They were joost lyin’ there beside one of the shattered cars.”
“He needs to talk about it, John. He’s only six years old.”
“Ah know, Ah know, but ya canna force him, Annie. That be worse.”
She turned away, hugging herself tightly, fighting back the burning in her eyes. Oh, God! It was a cry of rage. Of hate. Of bitterness. If You be right about there being damnation, then damn them! Damn them all in the deepest bowels of hell!
Notes
^1. This incident is based on an actual case that happened in West Virginia in 1903, though in that case the young trapper fell asleep (see Bartoletti, Growing Up in Coal Country, 31).
^i. A “stone” is a measure of body mass equal to 14 pounds or 6.4 kilograms. The term is still in common use today in the British Isles and in some of the Commonwealth countries.
^j. A sprag was a short but stout length of wood used to block the wheels of a coal car and bring it to a stop. Spraggers were the boys who ran alongside and placed the sprags.
Chapter 7
Saturday, June 13, 1868
When David entered their flat after going out to the loo, to his surprise, his mother was just inside the door waiting for him. He was instantly contrite. “Oh, Mum. Did I waken you?”
She smiled brightly, but it looked strained. He could see the tiredness in her eyes, and the hollows in her cheeks were pronounced. “That’s all right. It’s time.” She came forward and kissed him on the cheek. “Happy birthday, Son.”
“Thank you, Mum.”
“Did you know that when you were born twelve years ago today it was a Friday? Friday the thirteenth?”
Then he understood. “No, Mum, I didn’t know that.”
His father came out from their sleeping room into the main room. “’Appy bur’day, Son.”
“Thank you, Dahd.”
“Do ya know why yur mum be talkin’ aboot Freeday the thirteenth?”
“Because all miners think Friday is an unlucky day. And the number thirteen is an unlucky number. So Friday the thirteenth is an especially bad day.”
“Which just goes to show how wrong miners can be,” his mother said, stepping back to slip an arm through her husband’s. “Friday the thirteenth was the second-best day of my life.”
“What was the first?” her husband asked solemnly.
She reached up and kissed him. “You know the answer to that. But look what Friday the thirteenth brought me. The handsomest boy in all of Yorkshire.”
“Aw, Mum. I thought I was the handsomest boy in all of England.”
She laughed merrily. “You were once upon a time, but now . . .” She peered at him and frowned. “If this keeps up, we may have to send you to the ugly house.”
He tried to look offended, but instead ended up laughing with the both of them.
“So,” his mother said, “what are we going to do to make your twelfth birthday a special one? I wish it weren’t a workday and we would go to Barnsley.”
“That would be grahnd, Mum. Maybe another time.” He forced a cheerful smile and tried not to look at his father. They both knew that what she really meant was, “I wish I were feeling strong enough to go to Barnsley.”
In the last year, his mother had weakened noticeably. Her trips to Barnsley for books had stopped a year ago. Her complexion, once as clear as fine porcelain, had a touch of dullness to it, and from time to time David caught her wincing as she chewed her food—evidence of the advancing seriousness of her phossy-jaw. The doctor at the company infirmary agreed that it was the lingering effects of the white phosphorous in her body, but said she was doing remarkably well considering she had worked in that match factory for almost three years. When David’s father had pushed the doctor to explain exactly what he meant by “remarkably well,” he finally admitted that he thought she had maybe three or four years left. That had been eighteen months ago.
A stricken John Dickinson had finally shared that information with David so he could help discourage Anne from overdoing, but neither of them had said anything to her about this prognosis. David guessed that they didn’t have to. She didn’t need a doctor to tell her what was happening.
She was watching him over her husband’s shoulder, seeing the pain on his face. She stepped clear and motioned for him. “Come over here, David Dickinson.”
He walked toward her, but immediately she turned her back to him, then backed up against him. “Look at this, John. He’s taller than me now.”
“Aye,” his father said. “Ah think ’e be taller than me as well noow.” He took her place.
Sure enough, as they stood back to back, David was about an inch taller than his father. That made him grin. “And still growing, Dahd,” he said. “No more wrestlin’ me to the ground, or Ah be throwin’ ya doon and pinnin’ yur ears back fur ya.”
His father just hooted. “Anytime ya thinkin’ ya be up ta that, ya joost let me know, and Ah’ll knock a couple of inches off that cocky ’ead of yurs.”
It was all blather, but he loved it. David had been in the mines for six years now. His boast about being a hurrier by the time he was eight years old had prove
n to be just that, an empty boast. But after that setback, he had started exercising every day at his post as trapper when no one was coming, and he had proven himself strong enough to become a hurrier six months before he turned nine, which was the normal age. Now, with three and a half years of putting on the gurl belt, straining every muscle to its limit, pouring sweat, often falling to his hands and knees to keep the tubs rolling, his body was as lean as the rails he walked between and hard as the steel they were made of. He could pretty well hold his own now with all but the biggest boys.
Anne Dickinson moved in and put her arms around these two men she loved more than anything else in life. “So, David, what would you like for your birthday today?”
Hesitating only a moment, he said. “I don’t want you to be angry with me, Mum, but I already know what I want.”
“And why would I be angry with you?”
“Because I’m tryin’ out for spragger today.”
“No, David!”
David was watching his father, knowing the victory would be won only with his support. His father cocked his head to one side, giving him a quizzical look. “Ya be only twelve, Son, and barely that. Thare be no spraggers yunger than thirteen. Ya know that, dun’t ya?”
“Ah know,” he said with a cocky grin. “So Ah be the first.”
Anne stepped between them. “John, it is too dangerous.”
But his father was eyeing David up and down. “’E be real quick,” he mused. “An’ stronger than boys twice ’is age.” He punched David playfully on the shoulder. “An’ bein’ ugly, that be one of the requirements fur bein’ a spragger.”
David felt a warm glow inside him. His father was for it. In fact, he was proud that David wanted it. Then, strangely, David suddenly thought of Bertie Beames. He looked away quickly so his parents wouldn’t see the shadow that passed across his eyes. The week after that terrible day, his father had insisted that the foreman move David’s station to a completely different area of the mine. He had gone back to the site of the disaster only once. A week following Bertie’s funeral, he had slipped out of the house and purchased a small cluster of wildflowers from the greengrocer. The next morning, he had gone early enough to place them near the shattered door. He had stood there for a long time, cap off, head bowed. “I’m so sorry, Bertie,” he had finally whispered. From that time forward, he had never spoken of Bertie again, not even when his mother kept trying to encourage him to talk about what had happened.
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