Ken Follett: Fall of Giants

Then Maud opened her eyes, caught a glimpse of Ethel, and broke the embrace.

Gelert whined suddenly and walked around in a circle with his tail between his legs. What was the matter with him?

A moment later Ethel felt a tremor in the ground, as if an express train were passing, even though the railway line ended a mile away.

Maud frowned and opened her mouth to speak, then there was a crack like a clap of thunder.

“What on earth was that?” said Maud.

Ethel knew.

She screamed, and began to run.

Billy Williams and Tommy Griffiths were having a break.

They were working a seam called the Four-Foot Coal, only six hundred yards deep, not as far down as the Main Level. The seam was divided into five districts, all named after British racecourses, and they were in Ascot, the one nearest to the upcast shaft. Both boys were working as butties, assistants to older miners. The collier used his mandrel, a straight-bladed pick, to hew the coal away from the coal face, and his butty shoveled it into a wheeled dram. They had started work at six o’clock in the morning, as always, and now after a couple of hours they were taking a rest, sitting on the damp ground with their backs to the side of the tunnel, letting the soft breath of the ventilation system cool their skin, drinking long drafts of lukewarm sweet tea from their flasks.

They had been born on the same day in 1898, and were six months away from their sixteenth birthday. The difference in their physical development, so embarrassing to Billy when he was thirteen, had vanished. Now they were both young men, broad-shouldered and strong-armed, and they shaved once a week though they did not really need to. They were dressed only in their shorts and boots, and their bodies were black with a mixture of perspiration and coal dust. In the dim lamplight they gleamed like ebony statues of pagan gods. The effect was spoiled only by their caps.

The work was hard, but they were used to it. They did not complain of aching backs and stiff joints, as older men did. They had energy to spare, and on days off they found equally strenuous things to do, playing rugby or digging flower beds or even bare-knuckle boxing in the barn behind the Two Crowns pub.

Billy had not forgotten his initiation three years ago-indeed, he still burned with indignation when he thought of it. He had vowed then that he would never mistreat new boys. Only today he had warned little Bert Morgan: “Don’t be surprised if the men play a trick on you. They may leave you in the dark for an hour or something stupid like that. Little things please little minds.” The older men in the cage had glared at him, but he met their eyes: he knew he was in the right, and so did they.

Mam had been even angrier than Billy. “Tell me,” she had said to Da, standing in the middle of the living room with her hands on her hips and her dark eyes flashing righteousness, “how is the Lord’s purpose served by torturing little boys?”

“You wouldn’t understand, you’re a woman,” Da had replied, an uncharacteristically weak response from him.

Billy believed that the world in general, and the Aberowen pit in particular, would be better places if all men led God-fearing lives. Tommy, whose father was an atheist and a disciple of Karl Marx, believed that the capitalist system would soon destroy itself, with a little help from a revolutionary working class. The two boys argued fiercely but continued best friends.

“It’s not like you to work on a Sunday,” Tommy said.

That was true. The mine was doing extra shifts to cope with the demand for coal but, in deference to religion, Celtic Minerals made the Sunday shifts optional. However, Billy was working despite his devotion to the Sabbath. “I think the Lord wants me to have a bicycle,” he said.

Tommy laughed, but Billy was not joking. The Bethesda Chapel had opened a sister church in a small village ten miles away, and Billy was one of the Aberowen congregation who had volunteered to go across the mountain every other Sunday to encourage the new chapel. If he had a bicycle he could go there on weeknights as well, and help start a Bible class or a prayer meeting. He had discussed this plan with the elders, and they had agreed that the Lord would bless Billy’s working on the Sabbath day for a few weeks.

Billy was about to explain this when the ground beneath him shook, there was a bang like the crack of doom, and his flask was blown out of his hand by a terrific wind.

His heart seemed to stop. Suddenly he remembered that he was half a mile underground, with millions of tons of earth and rock over his head, held up only by a few timber props.

“What the bloody hell was that?” said Tommy in a scared voice.

Billy jumped to his feet, shaking with fright. He lifted his lamp and looked both ways along the tunnel. He saw no flames, no fall of rock, and no more dust than was normal. When the reverberations died away, there was no noise.

“It was an explosion,” he said, his voice unsteady. This was what every miner dreaded every day. A sudden release of firedamp could be produced by a fall of rock, or just by a collier hacking through to a fault in the seam. If no one noticed the warning signs-or if the concentration simply built up too quickly-the inflammable gas could be ignited by a spark from a pony’s hoof, or from the electric bell of a cage, or by a stupid miner lighting his pipe against all regulations.

Tommy said: “But where?”

“It must be down on the Main Level-that’s why we escaped.”

“Jesus Christ help us.”

“He will,” said Billy, and his terror began to ebb. “Especially if we help ourselves.” There was no sign of the two colliers for whom the boys had been working-they had gone to spend their break in the Goodwood district. Billy and Tommy had to make their own decisions. “We’d better go to the shaft.”

They pulled on their clothes, hooked their lamps to their belts, and ran to the upcast shaft, called Pyramus. The landing onsetter, in charge of the elevator, was Dai Chops. “The cage isn’t coming!” he said with panic in his voice. “I’ve been ringing and ringing!”

The man’s fear was infectious, and Billy had to fight down his own panic. After a moment he said: “What about the telephone?” The onsetter communicated with his counterpart on the surface by signals on an electric bell, but recently phones had been installed on both levels, connected with the office of the colliery manager, Maldwyn Morgan.

“No answer,” said Dai.

“I’ll try again.” The phone was fixed to the wall beside the cage. Billy picked it up and turned the handle. “Come on, come on!”

A quavery voice answered. “Yes?” It was Arthur Llewellyn, the manager’s clerk.

“Spotty, this is Billy Williams,” Billy shouted into the mouthpiece. “Where’s Mr. Morgan?”

“Not here. What was that bang?”

“It was an explosion underground, you clot! Where’s the boss?”

“He have gone to Merthyr,” Spotty said plaintively.

“Why’s he gone-never mind, forget that. Here’s what you got to do. Spotty, are you listening to me?”

“Aye.” The voice seemed stronger.

“First of all, send someone to the Methodist chapel and tell Dai Crybaby to assemble his rescue team.”

“Right.”

“Then phone the hospital and get them to send the ambulance to the pithead.”

“Is someone injured?”

“Bound to be, after a bang like that! Third, get all the men in the coal-cleaning shed to run out fire hoses.”

“Fire?”

“The dust will be burning. Fourth, call the police station and tell Geraint there have been an explosion. He’ll phone Cardiff.” Billy could not think of anything else. “All right?”