Simon Tolkien - No Man’s Land

‘Where do we light it?’ he asked, pointing at his lamp.

‘We don’t – the overman does that down below. And if it goes out then we have to walk back to the lighting station to get it relit. You can’t have any fire inside the mine – it’s far too dangerous.’

‘Because of the gas?’ Adam asked, shuddering as he remembered Edgar’s account of the two boys trapped by fallen rock after an explosion.

‘Yes. You can’t smell it and you can’t see it, but it’ll explode if it gets near a flame. More miners have lost their lives from gas explosions than roof falls so we have to be careful all the time. Back when I was young miners used to take canaries down – once they stopped singing you knew it was time to go. But now they make the lamps so the light expands when there’s gas about. They’re ingenious these inventors – that’s something I’d like to have been if I’d had the brains,’ Daniel said wistfully.

Adam was grateful to his father for his flow of chatter. Daniel wasn’t talkative by nature and Adam knew that he was trying to keep him distracted from the ordeal ahead. But now there was no escaping it. Wreathed in jets of steam, they had joined a group of miners climbing up the wooden stairs leading to the cage platform; for Adam they were just like the steps going up to a monstrous gallows. He looked up as if expecting to find the noose, but instead saw the spokes of the great wheel flickering in the sunlight as it pulled the cage up to the top of the shaft.

The men inside walked out and the banksman beckoned them inside. Adam hesitated, looking wildly around. Away down below he could see bottles of tea left to warm beside the steam engine that was driving the mechanical screens. At that moment his life felt just as insignificant. He wanted to run back down the steps and up the hill away from the mine, putting it behind him forever, but he couldn’t. He’d come too far to turn back. With a last despairing glance back at the sunlight, he took a deep breath and followed his father inside the cage and closed his eyes.

All around him the men were talking, without a care in the world. He could hear an electric bell ringing somewhere down below and one nearby answering it and then the clang of the gate as it slammed shut, and they were falling, slowly at first and then faster, faster than he would have thought possible. He was going to die – he was sure of it. He felt his stomach lifting up into his mouth and his feet coming up off the floor and someone – it had to be his father – holding him by the back of his collar, and then the brake kicked in and they were down below.

Adam opened his eyes. There was a little light coming down the shaft and he could dimly see the faces of the miners queuing up at the lighting station. He was relieved to see that they paid him no attention – clearly no one except his father had noticed his distress in the cage on the way down. With their lamps lit, the miners walked away down one of the three sloping tunnels that radiated off the maingate, as the central area around the cage was called. Almost immediately they became no more than tiny points of light in the inky blackness before disappearing from view.

It was cold and Adam shivered, unprepared for the sudden change in temperature. The anxious sweat was now freezing on his skin. But he felt better – he’d overcome his fear, proved to himself that he was no coward. His overactive imagination had been the real enemy, he realized: the mine was never going to be as terrible as he’d built it up to be in his mind’s eye.

They went first to the stables, which were still in the main landing area, not far from the cage. Daniel had made friends with the ostler and he took them from stall to stall, describing the merits and demerits of each pony. Some were hard workers; some liked to go on strike, refusing to move if you harnessed them up to too many tubs. And some could give you trouble, britching and kicking if you didn’t get in there first and show them who was boss.

‘Like the one that hurt Rawdon?’ asked Adam.

‘Whalen’s boy? ’Twas ’is fault what ’appened to ’im,’ said the ostler, his face darkening. ‘Ridin’ on the back o’ the pony when ’e shouldna done. That’s how accidents ’appen. An’ then the pony ’ad to be put down when ’e didna need to be. Whalen made sure o’ that, damn him.’

The stables were clean and well kept and the ponies were clearly well looked after, but Adam still felt sorry for them, living their lives in the God-forsaken darkness, hauling coal up and down through the dusty black tunnels until their strength gave out and they were put to merciful sleep. It seemed wrong, not what they had been born for, but that was true of the miners too, although at least they got to leave the pit at the end of the day when their work was done.

‘Do they ever get out, have time up above?’ Adam asked.

‘Aye, they goes up once a year for respite. They ’ave races and the men bet on ’em. They’re good days, they are. But it’s hard to get ’em back down afterward. Needs all thy strength to push ’em into their boxes.’

‘Perhaps it would be better if they didn’t know,’ said Adam pensively.

‘Know what?’

‘About the sun and the wind and the rain. Then they wouldn’t miss them.’

‘O’ course they don’t miss ’em. They’re ponies, for Chrissake,’ said the ostler, sounding irritated. ‘He’s a contrary lad, thy boy, ain’t ’e?’ he added, turning to Daniel.

‘That he is, Joe. That he is,’ said Daniel, affecting a false jocularity that jarred on Adam. ‘But he doesn’t mean any harm, do you, Adam?’

‘No, I don’t,’ said Adam uneasily. He was sorry that he’d got on the wrong side of the ostler, who seemed a good man, genuinely concerned for the welfare of the animals in his care. It wasn’t the first time since he’d come to Scarsdale, Adam realized, that he’d put people’s backs up just by being himself. His different voice, his book learning as they called it, made people suspicious of him or even dislike him – like Rawdon, who’d wasted no time becoming his sworn enemy for no reason at all except the spurious one that their fathers had been rivals for the same job. Adam wondered where Rawdon was now – he’d be working somewhere in the mine and Adam hoped that their paths wouldn’t cross. He didn’t want Rawdon to see him when he felt at such a disadvantage.

‘Where’s Edgar working?’ Daniel asked the ostler, changing the subject.

‘In Oakwell,’ said the ostler. ‘Same as before. ’E doesna stop carpin’ about it, but ’e’s earnin’ good money. There’s good coal in there still even if you has to work hard to get it out.’

‘All right, Oakwell it is,’ said Daniel. ‘Thanks for showing my boy around, Joe.’

The ostler nodded, but without looking at Adam. He was clearly still disgruntled by Adam’s contrariness, but there was no time for Adam to attempt any further apology as Daniel had already set off along one of the wide tunnels that led down into the mine.

‘What’s Oakwell?’ Adam asked, catching him up.

‘One of the districts.’

‘Districts?’

‘Yes; they’re the different seams in the mine. There are three active ones in the Scarsdale pit as well as several more that have been exhausted, and they call them after football grounds. Oakwell’s where Barnsley play. I’m surprised you haven’t found that out yet. People round here are mad about football.’

‘I know, Dad. I’ve been playing it, remember?’

‘Yes, I do and I’m pleased you are,’ said Daniel warmly. ‘It’ll help you make friends, get accepted. I know it’s not easy—’ He broke off, but Adam knew what his father had been going to say and he was right – it wasn’t easy living in Scarsdale and not being a miner.