Those in the same truck and the one directly in front agreed at once, and a lusty chorus began, quickly taken up by those who wanted to sing, and shouted down by those who didn’t.
‘I’ll give ’ee a penny for a fishy from the sea –
I’ll give ’ee tuppence more for a kiss –
I’ll give ’ee a smile to charm an old salt’s heart –’
The singing came to an abrupt end as the shouting from the front of the train changed to terror.
The noise of the engine and the excitement of the crowds on and off the train had disguised the sudden ominous rumbling beneath the overloaded trucks. Those at the front realised it first, and even as Sam and the rest of them were still gathering their wits, they saw what seemed like a sudden kaleidoscope of colour as the passengers began throwing themselves off the train in their haste to get away from this steaming monster.
‘Keep calm!’ Sam shouted. ‘’Tis nothing. There’s nothing to fear. The tracks have been pronounced safe–’
‘You try telling that to Ben Killigrew when your babbies be crying wi’ fear, Sam Tremayne!’ a woman screamed back at him, snatching her child in her arms and running from the train.
All around him, the panic spread. Despite it, the train still chugged forward at its normal pace, reaching the brow of the hill before it began its winding descent. As if the driver was desperate to get the train away from any hint of danger, the engine gave an extra spurt once the brow was reached.
At the same instant it seemed to Sam as though the whole hillside began to cave in. He felt as though he was watching it in slow motion, and yet the truth was spinning through his head; the awful knowledge that the subsidence was there all the time; that the new chief engineer had been careless in his assessment; that although the front of the train was hauling on over the brow, at the rear the ground began to split beneath the tracks as if in the throes of an earthquake…
‘God help us, Sam Tremayne!’ someone screeched in his ear, clutching at him as if he was personally responsible.
Children screamed; women sobbed loudly; people scrambled over each other, uncaring who they trampled in the process, trying to get out, trying to survive…
‘’Tis worse if ’ee panic! Get out in a sensible fashion!’ he roared, but his voice went unheard.
And then there was a metallic snapping sound. The last three trucks snapped from the rest of the train as the ground opened up fully, and the last truck of all plunged deep into the earth, the other two piling on top of it.
* * *
The watchers at the top of the hill couldn’t really believe what they were seeing. One minute they were waving and cheering, and saying what a fine boss Ben Killigrew was, to make all this possible. The next, they were seeing a nightmare happen in front of their eyes, as the last three trucks of the train seemed to leap up in the air for a second, then buckle and disappear into a great gaping hole.
They rushed forward in a great mass. The ground that had been so sodden with rain until this fair day, clogged their boots or their bare feet, hampering their movements. When they reached the scene, they were met by deranged, bewildered folk, rushing back from the front trucks of the train, thankful to be alive, and desperate to get the others out.
If the earth was heavy above ground, there was a great cloud of dust rising from the huge hole, where the tangled wreckage of the last and second trucks lay far below. The truck that had been the most forward of the broken ones, stuck up into the air at an incongruous angle, but those on board it were able to scramble out with no more than cuts and bruises.
A short way down could be detected the crude tunnellings of an old disused tin mine, its walls intact enough to hold together until the added constant weight of the clay trucks had weakened them. Today they had finally disintegrated.
‘’Tis a rogue shaft, just as were suspected—’
‘Never mind what ’tis! Get ’em out! Get down there and pull ’em out! Get the babbies first—’
The cries went up, and hands clawed at the truck above ground, using it as a means of climbing down to reach the trapped and injured. Each truck had held about twenty people, far more than its capacity, and strewn over the ground was pathetic evidence of what the helpers might find. A child’s soft shoe; a broken picnic basket, apples and bread scattered everywhere; a woman’s shawl caught on the twisted metal.
‘Somebody had best go to the town an’ tell Ben Killigrew what’s happened. An’ go for Hal Tremayne at Clay One—’
‘What of Sam’s wife? She should be told—’
Gil Dark, pit captain of Clay Two, took charge as no-one seemed fit to do anything but issue instructions that weren’t being carried out. Since neither Hal nor Sam Tremayne were available, he spoke sharply.
‘Not yet. There’s no sense worrying her yet, till we find what’s left of un. Pray God he ain’t too badly cut about – and somebody fetch a doctor. Go to St Austell and to Penwithick. Get whoever will come. You, Tom Storey, and you, Billy Chard—’
The train had been brought to a stop by now, and the driver had run to join the rest of them. He was white with terror, the stain in his breeches telling how the accident had affected him, and it was proof of his anguish that he didn’t even notice it.
He volunteered quickly to go to Killigrew House to tell the boss of the disaster. Anything to get away from the scene on the hill… the shock made him too useless to do anything more, and he was sent off at once.
Gil Dark tried to get some order into the feverish searching for the injured. Women wept openly at the sight of the poor little injured children being brought out one by one. Some had broken limbs. Some were badly gashed on the face or body. Some were so bruised and shocked they didn’t really understand what had happened.
What was gradually considered to be something of a miracle, was that none of them, nor the adults with them, had perished. They were still alive. However badly hurt, bones could mend, and cuts could heal.
They waited anxiously for the more intrepid of the helpers to climb down to the deepest truck, which had been badly crushed in the fall. Although those who had been rescued from it had survived, the injuries in the last truck were more serious than the rest.
The ground above resembled the aftermath of a battlefield, with groaning, blood-stained people sprawling about, being tended to as best the clayworkers could until doctors could be reached.
A voice came up from the depths of the hole.
‘We’ve found Sam Tremayne. He don’t look too good. We’m trying to get un out, but his legs be trapped, and he’s bleedin’ from his chest—’
The news spread rapidly among the crowd. It was as though a blanket had been thrown over them all as their own voices became muffled and subdued, waiting for news. Sam Tremayne was well liked. All the Tremaynes were. Sam Tremayne was the brother-in-law of the boss, and as such was to be respected, but that meant less than the fact that Sam was still one of them.
Long before they managed to get him out, Doctor Growse from Penwithick had arrived and was tending to the more superficially wounded, though more anxious every minute for the recovery of Sam Tremayne. The longer the weight of those trucks lay on his chest, the worse for him. Any fool could see that, and privately, the doctor thought that the way these simple clay folk were bolstering themselves up with hope was plain foolishness.
But he was wise enough not to say so, and wished to heaven that the older and more experienced Doctor Pender would arrive to give him some support.
* * *
The driver of the train had been gone for what seemed like hours. Doctor Pender still hadn’t come, and nor had Sam Tremayne been rescued from the wreckage when the anxious clay folk saw the lumbering figure of Hal Tremayne toiling painfully up over the hill.
Bess had used the trap to go into town, and Hal’s face was nearly puce with effort as he climbed the steep hill, finding the exertion far greater than even a few months ago. But his haste to be at Sam’s side overcame all other consid
erations – even the sawing pain around his heart that had occurred several times recently, and seemed vastly accentuated now.
‘I’ll bargain with ’ee, God,’ Hal mouthed to the wind. ‘Give me breath to see my son safely brought into the daylight, and I’ll go wi’ a good grace if need be.’
He heard the sound of thundering hoofbeats, and almost gagged with relief as the doctor’s trap stopped alongside him.
‘Get in, man,’ Doctor Pender said abruptly, ‘Or I shall have another patient on my hands before the day’s out.’
He had nearly said another corpse, but there was no use in anticipating the worst, especially when Hal Tremayne looked near to collapse already. God knew what that family would do if their eldest boy was dead…
* * *
They brought Sam out lovingly and reverently. By the time they did so, the sky had darkened again, almost as if it too was in mourning for what the majority of the watchers already knew in their hearts. There was only one fatality from the train disaster, and that one was the clayworkers’ staunchest supporter and friend, Sam Tremayne.
Chapter Eighteen
Hal cradled the crushed body of his eldest son in his arms. It was funny. Not rib-tickling funny, but queer funny. His son Matt had gone away to America, and the odds were that they would never see him again. Jack had left the clay works and was establishing himself as a boat-builder, and that hadn’t hurt as he had once thought it might.
Even the thought of his youngest, Freddie, going away to some posh London school and putting on airs, had been a minor hurdle, compared with this. But then Sam was his first-born, the one who had always followed so doggedly in Hal’s footsteps, the echo of himself. Sam was the one he knew in his heart he would always weep for the most…
‘Mr Tremayne, there’s nothing you can do for him,’ he heard the quiet voice of Doctor Pender in his ear. ‘Come away, I beg you, and others will see to him. He’ll be taken to a decent place until – arrangements can be made, since I know there’s no room for him at his cottage.’
Hal felt a brief anger. ‘No room for him at his own cottage? Are you mad? Where else would a man go to be cared for and loved?’
‘Mr Tremayne, Sam’s dead.’ The doctor spoke slowly, as though Hal were simple-minded, and needed time to understand. ‘I only mean what’s best. His poor young wife will need your help, and the children will be frightened—’
They couldn’t be frightened of their Daddy…
Hal looked down at Sam, the dearest of all his sons, and felt himself become an old man. This should not be! God had betrayed him. It should be his place to go first, not this virile young man with all of life ahead of him. With a pretty young wife, and the three children…
He choked back the stinging tears, feeling less of a man than he had ever felt at that moment, because death made him so helpless. But he knew the doctor was right. Sam’s family would need all the support now. Dora… how would Dora take this terrible news? And who would tell her?
As though Sam, himself, was providing the answer, Hal knew that he must be the one. He couldn’t leave it to his womenfolk, and a doctor was too distant. Dora had no family now but the Tremaynes. This was Hal’s duty. His shoulders squared.
‘You’ll see that he’s – taken care of, then?’ His voice dragged with pain. ‘His wife will want to see him.’
Doctor Pender nodded. ‘There’s a special room set aside for such purposes near Penwithick church. Mrs Tremayne will be at liberty to attend at any time, and there is a watchman always on duty. I know your family will all want to pay their respects.’
He spoke delicately, knowing how grief could put a knife-edge on anyone’s nerves, and this one looked as though he was due for some attention himself before very long. He made a mental note to get Hal Tremayne to his consulting-room for an examination soon. Right now, the man would almost certainly reject any such suggestion. All his thoughts were with his son.
Hal bowed his head, knowing he must comply. He couldn’t seem to think properly. The rest of the family must be told, but Dora must learn of it from him, and no-one else. At the doctor’s persuasion, he allowed other hands to take Sam from him, and watched as they put him gently on to a cart and covered him.
‘I’ll go to my daughter-in-law,’ he said heavily.
‘You’ll ride with me, man, and Doctor Growse will see to things here for the present. Those too sick to be tended in their own homes must be sent to hospital—’
‘I’ll walk,’ Hal said sharply. He didn’t want to be cosseted. Nor did he want to hear about folk who would get well. His own misery was too acute. He needed to share it with Dora. She had a right to it. More right than even he did.
They all watched him leave without a second glance at the dark shape on the cart. To him, it wasn’t Sam any more. Sam was the son who always spoke simply of his beloved clay country, and never dressed it up with fancy words like porcelain earth or white hills. Sam was a plain, honest man, like Hal himself.
He walked across the moors as though in a dream, not heeding the fact that behind him Ben had just arrived at the disaster scene, sliding off his lathering horse to hear in horror that Sam Tremayne was dead.
Hal strode past the works that hummed with its own noise, avoiding the main sections before anyone began wondering why Hal Tremayne was going past instead of coming back to the day shift. None of those watchers on the moor had dared leave their posts until they knew the outcome of the accident, and the hillside had muffled the worst of the noise. None would have taken any message to the young widow until they knew for certain, in the peculiar respect the moorland folk had for each other. It was Hal Tremayne’s place…
He squared his shoulders when he reached the old cottage that had always held so much love, first with his own family, and now Sam’s. It was a continuity that had charmed him. And now it was over. He pushed open the door and met Dora’s pleased and surprised eyes, and wished painfully that he could have kept that moment for ever, and never had to tell her…
* * *
Bess and Morwen laughed happily together over the thought of Jack being head over heels in love with Annie Boskelly.
‘You didn’t expect our handsome Jack to stay unattached for ever, did ’ee, Mammie?’ Morwen teased. ‘There’s more than one bal maiden who’s given him the glad eye—’
‘I hardly expected it so soon!’ Bess exclaimed. ‘Barely a few months gone from home, and already he’s changed. He’s become a man, with that special look in his eyes that a young man has when he’s besotted with a pretty girl.’
Her own eyes softened. It was the way of things. Her children couldn’t remain children, but she felt a faint regret that the sweet years couldn’t last a little longer.
She felt the soft touch of Morwen’s hand covering hers. ‘Mammie? Don’t be sad about it!’
Bess gave a small sigh. ‘I’m not sad for un, lamb. I’m very happy. It’s just – I wish we all stopped to savour the young times more than we do. We rush through the days, and suddenly we turn around and our babbies have grown. We all do it. We never learn—’
One of the ladies at a nearby table complained loudly to her companion as a group of youths raced down the cobbled hill. Such a sudden commotion was going on outside, it almost drowned out Bess’s last words to her daughter, but Morwen thought with some relief that if it stopped her Mammie’s brief feeling of gloom, then it was all to the good.
To the lady customer’s annoyance, the door of the Tea Room suddenly burst open, and a passer-by shouted excitedly.
‘There’s been a cave-in o’ Killigrew’s rail tracks. There’s hundreds on ’em up there, dead or injured, an’ they’m saying that Ben Killigrew will be ruined after this!’
The lout ran off, while Bess and Morwen sat rock-still for a few frozen seconds. Morwen’s heart pounded so fast she feared she would collapse over the tea table, and thought incongruously that the lady alongside them would be even more outraged if she did. She felt her mother’s hand gripping
her arm.
‘Is it true, do ’ee think?’ Bess gasped. ‘Or is it some terrible hoax?’
Morwen was already on her feet. Folk didn’t invent such stories. Those such as the leering lout at the door of the Tea Room didn’t have the gumption. It was true. It had to be true…
Miss Fielding hovered near for the money for her tea and fruit buns.
‘I’ll pay you next time,’ Morwen snapped. ‘If the tale is true, my mother and me have more important matters to see to.’
Behind her she heard the muttering of the townsladies to the effect that Morwen Tremayne could sometimes act the real madam since she’d become the wife of Ben Killigrew.
Morwen didn’t care. Nothing mattered but finding out about the rail tracks for herself. It was the day of the children’s outing. None of her own family would have been on the train except her brother Sam. But they were all families that she knew. They were part of her childhood. She bundled Bess into the Killigrew trap, and screamed at the horse to move.
And if St Austell thought her as mad as old Zillah as they careered through the town and up over the moors, she cared nothing for that either.
Was this old Zillah’s earthquake? The crazy thought leapt into her mind. Was this, after all, the end to the mysterious warning the old crone had given to Morwen and Celia all that time ago? The earth collapsing beneath Ben’s rail tracks in which he took such a pride? The unwelcome thoughts swam and hammered through her brain.
‘Hold on, Mammie,’ Morwen said finally between gritted teeth. ‘We’re almost there.’
She didn’t need any more telling that the rumour was true. The scene reminded Morwen instantly of the disaster at poor old Nott’s bakery four years ago. And yet it was not the same. Nor was it due to the irresponsibility of drunken clayworkers. The great gaping hole in the ground with the last truck still crazily sticking out of it told her that this was on an even bigger scale.
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