Until Our Blood Is Dry

by Kit Habianic

  ‘Orright, boss. Nippy morning, eh?’

  The greeting rang false. Bloody Italian boy, making an all-too-obvious effort to be civil. He must think him soft in the head, Scrapper Jones. That boy was to blame for the whispering. For the dirty laughter echoing around the pit baths and the lads’ off-colour comments about the girl. If it was some other fellow’s daughter the boy was chasing, he might have warmed to him. He worked hard and deferred to his elders, Scrapper Jones. Fact was, the boy was trouble. The red star pinned to his collar confirmed it.

  He spotted the boy’s father Iwan Jones up ahead. He strode over, clapped him on the shoulder.

  ‘How’s it hanging, butt?’

  Iwan nodded a reply. Manner cool, but not hostile. That was odd. There was no question the lodge had spoken. Sheffield had ordered emergency talks. Not a flicker in those ice-grey eyes. A demon at poker, this one. Unless—

  Had Smith-Tudor called it right? Had the lodge told Scargill where to stick his strike? Pride stopped Gwyn asking Iwan outright. He looked instead for Dai Dumbells. He had his heart pinned to his sleeve, that one. His heart and the rest of his innards. Dai would show him how things lay. But Dai wasn’t around. Iwan it would have to be.

  Gwyn braced himself. ‘You heard the news? About the pit closures.’

  Iwan shrugged, walked faster. Gwyn trailed after him down the High Street, past the shops, funeral parlour and miners’ institute. They turned right, followed the road down the hill, under the railway that carried coal and waste material out of the pit, and emerged below the fog, near the miner’s chapel, stone built and surrounded by yew hedges. At the edge of the graveyard above the road, fresh-dug earth showed dark against the frosted grass.

  Dai and ferret-faced Matthew Price were up ahead.

  ‘Poor old Gabe,’ Dai’s words carried on the wind. ‘They might as well be burying the rest of us up by there soon enough. We’re done for now, us and our pits.’

  ‘Put a sock in it, will you,’ Matt said. ‘My butty’s been a jitter o’ nerves since the accident.’

  ‘I have not,’ Scrapper raised his voice.

  ‘Lay off, lads,’ Iwan said.

  They turned into the road that led up to the pit. Gwyn stopped so fast, his feet skidded on the gravel. A dozen men lined up outside the gates, dressed in hard hats, boots and donkey jackets. They were miners, but none that he recognised, a canopy of red banners and placards flapping over their heads. A shabby entourage of men and women milled around them, flogging newspapers. As he drew closer, he spotted the usual bandwagon chasers from Welsh Worker, Voice of the Proletariat and The Morning Star.

  An engine roared behind him. He jumped out of the way as a truck chugged past, growled up to the gates. The driver wound down his window, lobbed words at the men at the gates, who lobbed a bunch of words right back. The driver nodded, gunned his engine, swerved a neat three-point turn. A wave, a blast on the horn and the truck vanished into the tunnel.

  ‘What was that?’ Scrapper said.

  ‘Flying pickets,’ Iwan said.

  ‘Flying what?’

  ‘South Yorkshire men, son. Come to Blackthorn to picket. Asking us to hold the line.’

  ‘Hold the line?’ Gwyn cut in. ‘Yorkshire’s troubles are none of our damn business. They got no right to drag us into it. Hold the line? Flying pickets be buggered.’

  A short, bristle-haired figure was waving them over. Dewi Power had a reporter and a camera crew in tow. Gwyn recognised the young journalist, thin vulture shoulders spoiling the line of his smart dark suit and spotless shirt. James Hackett, always hanging around like a bad smell, looking to use the South Wales coalfield to make a name for himself. A sorry state of affairs to get filmed at a picket. Gwyn ducked behind Dai Dumbells, quick-sharp. Hackett poked his microphone at Dewi, turned so that the pit gates rose behind him and addressed the camera all lah-di-dah English.

  ‘Thanks, Nigel. Yes. As you can see, we’re live today at Blackthorn Colliery, where pickets from Yorkshire are trying to block—’

  At last Hackett ended his piece to camera. He clapped Dewi on the back. ‘Ta, butty – bloody brilliant.’

  Vanished, now, the BBC voice. Gwyn gave the reporter a hard stare. Talk down to them, would he? But he’d spotted a familiar figure, an old boy in a wheelchair, parcelled up in cardigan, coat and blankets, newsprint piled on his lap. The banner headline read Thatcher Declares War On Britain’s Miners.

  Talk about incitement to riot. He scooted over, confronted the fellow. ‘Gi’s a paper, Johnny Griffiths.’

  The man smiled a gummy smile. ‘It’s twenty pee, Gwyn Pritchard. Fifty, if you’re management.’

  It was a cheap shot, unworthy of the old boy. Unnerving, that broken body of his. Why the pit spat out Johnny Griffiths but took his old man, Gwyn would never know. He thrust a pound note at the fellow with a muttered keep-the-change. Took cover behind Dai Dumbells before opening Welsh Worker to read.

  ‘Britain’s pits will stop work today, as miners walk out in protest over swingeing government cuts—’

  Iwan and Dewi were huddled together, arguing in hushed voices. Gwyn edged closer, listened in.

  ‘An impossible position we’re in,’ Iwan was saying. ‘We’ve yet to put this to the vote and there’s a picket already in place.’

  ‘Aye, well,’ Dewi said. ‘They’ve driven all night down from Cortonwood, this lot. Desperate, they are.’

  ‘Like Lewis Merthyr was desperate?’

  ‘Fair point,’ Dewi said. ‘But there’s a fair chance the axe’ll fall on South Wales pits, and all. Not planning to cross, are you, butty?’

  Iwan’s eyes sparked flint. ‘I never crossed a picket line in my life.’

  Gwyn felt the compression in his chest ease a touch. So much the better, if the lodge was split. Maybe Smith-Tudor had called it right, after all. Maybe they had Scargill’s storm-troopers on the run in South Wales.

  Behind the rabble-rousing headline, Welsh Worker reckoned so too:

  ‘Last night, a spokesman for the National Coal Board said fifteen South Wales delegates had voted against going on a strike, six voting for—’

  Divide and rule, it would be then. Gwyn filled his lungs: there was every chance his boys would play nice, for once. See sense, keep the coal flowing, free him to save his pit from catastrophe. His lads had backed the overtime ban and for what? Every last one of them gone short over Christmas, thanks to the pig-headedness of the lodge. But now was not the time for knee-jerk games. Pits that made money would dodge the axe. Men who kept working would keep their jobs. There was every chance his lads would do the right thing, this time. Keep their noses clean and tell Sheffield to go to hell.

  Trouble was, they had a fair few rabble-rousers at Blackthorn; Dewi Power, for one.

  ‘We’ll put it to the vote,’ Dewi said. ‘Meet in the Stute after this.’

  He had the lads line up at the gates with the Cortonwood pickets. The camera crew positioned themselves as the little lodge secretary clambered onto an upturned oil drum, raised his megaphone and spoke straight to the cameras.

  ‘The National Coal Board is taking a hatchet to Britain’s mining industry,’ he said. ‘Twenty British pits are to close. Twenty-thousand working men will lose their jobs, starting with these lads from Cortonwood. Margaret Thatcher—’

  On hearing the prime minister’s name, the miners chorused pantomime boos.

  ‘Margaret Thatcher and Ian MacGregor have vowed to smash the miners’ union. Our message to Thatcher and MacGregor is, you cannot break us. We will fight to the death to defend our jobs and save our pits.’

  Scrapper Jones clapped an arm around Matt Price’s shoulders, olive skin glowing.

  ‘You tell ’em, Dewi,’ he yelled.

  Not so respectful, was he, when push came to shove, Gwyn noted. He’d been right about that boy all along. A communist like his dad, like his forebears. High time he taught the boy a lesson or two. The miners had been here before, in the Seventies. That time, they ca
ught the bosses and the government off guard. That time, he stood shoulder to shoulder with the lodge. But Maggie was armed and ready for a fight and he was older and wiser now. A wise man took care of his own. He knew that from bitter experience. Something Scrapper Jones would learn to his cost.

  — 2 —

  White placards, red banners, black donkey jackets and orange boilersuits; Scrapper had seen nothing like it. Blackthorn’s winding gear rose proud and tall above them all. The line held. Not one man went in. Not even Captain Hook. He looked round but the overman was nowhere to be seen. He turned back to the pickets, felt the blood humming in his veins. A beautiful thing, solidarity. It was in the boys’ power to help these Yorkshire lads to save their pit and every one of them had risen to the occasion. Pickets, miners and supporters lined up outside the gates. On a nod from Dewi, they started to march towards the village. He looked around for Iwan. He was with Johnny Griffiths, talking to some of the Yorkshire men, talking politics, no doubt, his palms slicing the air.

  ‘You joining us, Dad?’ Scrapper called.

  ‘Too right,’ Iwan’s lips were a taut line of fury.

  ‘Need a hand, Uncle Johnny?’

  The man in the wheelchair grinned. ‘Nothing wrong with my hands, lovely boy. Could use a leg or two, if you can spare ’em.’

  ‘Right you are.’

  He steered the wheelchair through the banners to the front of the march. The body in the chair weighed little more than a bag of feathers. He looked at the blanket wrapped over the missing legs and shuddered. The pit had done its worst with Johnny Griffiths’ body, if not the old man’s hwyl.

  At last, they reached the Stute. Scrapper eased the wheelchair up the ramp and nudged it through the swing doors into the red-tiled hall. After the cold outside, the room was clammy. Steam billowed from the tea urns and noise bounced off the tall ceiling. He wheeled Johnny through the crush to a space at the front.

  ‘Ah, there’s my Susie,’ the old man said.

  Scrapper followed his gaze, saw a woman with a nut-brown face and a cloud of grey hair, Mary Power, commanding her troops at the tea urns. Next to her, a girl with chestnut curls was waving at him. She loaded a tray with mugs of tea and came over.

  ‘Orright, Scrap. Thanks for bringing Gramps.’

  ‘Sue Griffiths. Come home to slum it wi’ the proles, have you?’

  ‘Beats slumming it at college.’

  Johnny beamed a gummy smile. ‘Susie’s heading for a First, her tutor reckons.’

  ‘Give over, Gramps. Mary called me, Scrap. Reckons you’ll need the women’s help.’

  ‘You and us, against the Coal Board, eh, Susie? Bastards got no chance.’

  ‘Orright, gorgeous?’ A hand touched his shoulder and a face drew in close: anthracite hair and eyes, lips painted candy-floss pink.

  ‘Down, girl,’ Sue said. ‘You’re practically a married woman.’

  ‘Aye,’ Debbie Power stamped her lips to his cheek. ‘Respectable now, me.’

  Mary was waving at the girls to fetch the empty mugs. Sue jumped to attention, busied herself at the tea urns but Debbie waded through the crowd, a smile or a salty word for every man who looked at her. And what man wouldn’t look at her. Dai Dumbells was watching his fiancée, eyes like rivets. Scrapper gulped down the last of his tea, relieved that Debbie had moved on.

  The Stute doors swung open. A TV crew stood on the threshold, wrestling with rods and cables. Dai went barrelling over, blocked their entry, told them exactly where to stick their equipment.

  The reporter, a thin, long-necked man in his twenties, held out his microphone. ‘James Hackett, BBC Wales. The BBC would like to know; will Blackthorn vote on strike action today, or will you wait for a national ballot?’

  ‘Listen, mate, no union card, not welcome,’ Dai shoved reporter and crew out into the street.

  ‘What about the women,’ the reporter shouted. ‘Got union cards, have they?’

  ‘Got a point, Jimmy Mosquito. About the women,’ Matthew Price said.

  Sue overheard him. ‘You made no bloody complaint when we served your tea.’

  Scrapper had never seen the Stute so packed. Not when he was tiny, playing hide-and-seek between the lines of chairs and not in four years as a collier. They were all gathered together; his butties from the morning shift and the boys who clocked in at lunchtime. Even the boys from the night shift were there, sat under the tall windows, their skin so pale they looked transparent. He walked to the front, sat down next to Johnny.

  Dewi banged the podium for hush. ‘Right, lads. There’s a lot to talk about. First, we got the Coal Board’s offer on voluntary redundancy; a thousand quid for every year’s service to every miner aged twenty-one to fifty—’

  ‘Blood money,’ Dai shouted. ‘They’re laying off twenty thousand men in a recession. Throwing working men on the scrapheap, starting with Yorkshire. We got to stand up to them or we’ll be next. You wait and see.’

  Iwan lurched to his feet. ‘Yorkshire did bugger-all for us when Lewis Merthyr was facing the chop.’

  The crowd shivered agreement. The English and Scottish coalfields had closed their ears to South Wales’ call to arms when the Coal Board closed that pit. Twelve months on, the boys were still bitter about that.

  Scrapper sighed. ‘Move on, Dad,’ he said.

  Iwan’s butty Sion Jenkins stuck his hand up. His grey face was all lines and angles, but the tip of his nose had a strawberry’s shape and colour and texture.

  ‘You’re fools, you young ’uns, if you reckon the Tories’ll be a walkover,’ he said. ‘They’re out to smash the unions, strongest first. They’re good and ready for the NUM, fifty million tonnes of coal stashed away. They’re ruddy well daring us to walk.’

  There was uproar, then, every man on his feet. At the podium, Dewi was yelling at the men to sit, to let the matter rest on a show of hands. Scrapper was giving it plenty himself, when a new commotion cut through the noise. Johnny Griffiths slumped forward in his chair, face puce, body racked with tremors and fighting for breath.

  Scrapper bent over the old man. Then Debbie was there, pushing him out of the way, taking charge. Soon enough, Johnny breathed normally again.

  ‘He needs air,’ Debbie said.

  The crowd made way as Scrapper helped Sue to wheel Johnny outside. There was a sick, blue tinge to the old man’s lips and eyeballs. Sue fussed over him, tucking woollens and blankets over him, the old man protesting that he was fine.

  ‘But that’s your second attack this month,’ Debbie said.

  ‘The second?’ Sue gripped Johnny’s arm. ‘Gramps, you didn’t—’

  ‘Didn’t want to worry you, bach,’ Johnny barely had strength to raise his head.

  Debbie buttoned her jacket. ‘You’re seeing Dr O’Connell, and that’s the end of it.’

  Johnny gazed up at Scrapper with cloudy eyes. ‘Get back in there, lad. Make your vote count.’

  Scrapper went back inside but he was too late. The hall was silent, Dewi busy counting hands.

  ‘We got deadlock,’ Dewi said.

  There was a pause, then uproar, every man disagreeing with the man next to him, every man wanting the last word. It was deafening; Dewi waved his arms and yelled for quiet, to no avail until Mary scrambled on stage, slapped two teaspoons against her raised palm demanding hush.

  ‘One lad hasn’t voted,’ she said. ‘We were missing Scrapper Jones.’

  The yelling stopped, then. There was no more waving of hands or stamping of feet. The room breathed a deathly hush.

  ‘Well then, lad,’ Dewi said softly.

  Scrapper’s feet refused to carry him forward. He stood in the doorway, legs as near as damnit turned to stone. All the boys were looking at him; his butties, the men from the other shifts who knew him by sight. It was the silence that rattled him. It was the same loaded silence that came before a blast or before a wall of rock fell in on itself. Outside, a tree swayed in the breeze, bare branches tapping the windows. Steam hissed f
rom the tea urns. But from the men came only a faint jangle of loose change in pockets, the ragged breathing of the older boys. They were waiting for him to speak.

  Iwan’s eyes drilled into him. His mouth turned to sandpaper. It was obvious what his dad wanted his answer to be and the words would not come.

  ‘Come on, Scrapper Jones, are you for striking: yes or no?’

  They betrayed Lewis Merthyr, the English collieries that were now themselves facing the chop. But Dai and Dewi were bang on when they said Welsh pits might be thrown on the scrapheap too. Damned if they didn’t and maybe damned if they did. Loyalty was what it came down to. Loyalty made everything clear. He squared his shoulders; the Joneses came from rebel stock. Even so, it took all his strength to force the word out. All his strength and resolve and defiance.

  ‘Yes.’

  Iwan turned away, grey eyes dull like slate in sunlight.

  ‘Iwan?’ Dewi said.

  ‘I been a union man twenty-seven years,’ Iwan said at last. ‘I’ll abide by what the majority decides.’

  ‘Abide by?’ Dai said. ‘We’re expectin’ your support.’

  Iwan’s steel-capped boot traced a gouged mark on the parquet floor. He twisted the chain of his pocket watch between his fingers.

  ‘The lodge has voted to strike,’ he said at last. ‘So be it. I stand by that vote to the end.’

  — 3 —

  The hammering continued, insistent. Scrapper forced open an eyelid, touched the light on his watch. Quarter past five, and wasn’t he on strike? He squeezed his eyelids shut, jammed the pillow over his head, but the hammering gained force. He staggered out of bed. Iwan was waiting in the hall, dressed in work boots, cap and donkey jacket.

  ‘Shift your backside, son. We got twenty minutes to get down there.’

  ‘Where—?’

  But Iwan had stomped off to the bathroom. Scrapper heard him pee, flush, start brushing his teeth. He threw on trousers and a couple of sweaters and waited.

  ‘You voted to strike; fine,’ Iwan pushed past and lurched down the stairs. ‘But if you reckon that means sitting idle, you’re wrong, lad. Hard work, winning a strike.’