Simon Tolkien - No Man’s Land

‘Beautiful, ain’t it?’ Whalen’s voice was thick with angry sarcasm. ‘But you know who paid for it?’ He paused for effect before answering his own question. ‘You did. That’s who. Ev’ry last fuckin’ penny of it, with back-breakin’ toil an’ with yer blood.’ Again he stopped before going on in a louder voice so that he was almost shouting: ‘Yes, an’ with our comrades’ burnt black bodies lying under cold white sheets in the tool ’ouse back yonder. An’ now Sir John, ’e must account to us for ’em; an’ if ’e won’t, why, we mus’ make ’im. ’E canna ’ide from us, not this time.’

Adam shivered, feeling the raw power of Whalen’s words, and they certainly seemed to have the desired effect on his listeners, who roared their approval and resumed their march at a faster pace than before.

Soon the drive swung away to the right, curving round the side of the ornamental lake which reflected the red and yellow lights of the miners’ flaring torches on the still surface of its black waters. Adam was frightened: pushing forward, he could feel the miners’ rising anger and determination. Whalen had talked of blood and he sensed that there would be more spilt before the day was done. He needed to find his father, extricate him from what was coming before it was too late. But it was too dark to see people’s faces and nobody seemed to hear him when he asked about Daniel. Adam was sure his father was there somewhere but it was as if he was invisible in their midst.

A little further and they reached a fork in the drive at the front of the east wing. The parson’s bicycle was an encumbrance now and Adam abandoned it in a recess, taking care to padlock the front wheel before following the marchers into the stone quadrangle facing the house. Behind them the manicured lawn ran back down from below an ornamental terrace to the shore of the lake; while in front and on both sides the house was dark, although here and there faint gleams of light were visible behind tightly drawn curtains. Mixing with the moonlight, the flickering flames of the miners’ torches played up and down the pale stucco walls and across the silent windows.

The miners had fanned out, filling the quadrangle in disparate groups, all with their eyes fixed on Whalen as he strode unhesitating up the curved flight of steps leading to the entrance portico and banged the golden lion’s head knocker against the ebony-black front door. Once, twice, three times but each time there was no response.

‘Come out, Sir John!’ Whalen shouted, bellowing out his challenge to the established order. ‘Eight good strong men died in your mine today an’ you need to come out and tell us why. You can’t hide from us an’ you can’t hide from them.’

Adam could feel the tension among the miners all around him. They were angry, inspired by Whalen’s fearlessness, but they were frightened too. No one made demands of the gentry like this; no one except Whalen. It was breaking a taboo and they sensed there would be consequences; evil consequences that might affect them all.

Whalen went back to the knocker again but harder this time – a flurry of blows that would have broken a less solid door. But still nothing happened – no sound came from the house at all and no movement except one: a curtain in a ground-floor window across from where Adam was standing was pulled back and a face looked out: only for a moment before the drapery fell back, but it was enough time for Adam to recognize the thin ascetic features of Sir John Scarsdale. And enough time for Whalen Dawes to see him as well. He’d been watching the window out of the corner of his eye because he knew it was the window of Sir John’s study, having been there several years earlier when he’d come to the Hall with a union deputation, and he’d been fervently hoping that the class enemy would respond in some way to his provocation.

‘I saw ’im. ’E’s in there,’ he shouted, coming back down the steps and pointing over at the study window. ‘Peepin’ out from behind the curtain like an ol’ woman. Waitin’ for the police to come an’ do ’is dirty work for ’im.’

It was the wrong thing to say. The lack of any response from inside the house was making the miners restive. They had started to sense that Whalen was lacking a strategy for how to proceed and his mention of the police made them think twice about what they were doing. A few of them began to back away out of the quadrangle.

And Adam could hear his father encouraging them to leave. ‘This isn’t the right way to go about this,’ he said, moving from one group to the next. ‘Sir John’ll never listen to you if you threaten him. No good will come of this – you should leave now while there is still time.’ For a moment Adam could see his father’s strained, anxious face lit up by the torchlight but then he was lost again in the crowd, apparently unaware of Adam stepping forward and calling out his name, trying to attract his attention.

But Whalen knew what his rival was doing. ‘Don’t listen to ’im,’ he shouted furiously. ‘’E’s not one o’ us; ’e’s Sir John’s lackey – that’s who ’e is, ’e doesn’t care tuppence about any of you.’

But his words had little effect. The murmuring among the miners grew louder and more and more of them began to retreat. And Whalen, sensing that he was losing them, took a stone out of his pocket and threw it hard at the study window. The glass cracked but it didn’t break until he threw another. The noise stopped the men in their tracks and for an instant everything seemed to be suspended in mid-air, waiting on what would happen next. The future was hanging in the balance, and when Whalen seized a torch from the man nearest to him and threw it through the broken window it seemed to Adam like an exhalation, a moment of final decision.

Immediately the red damask curtains ignited and as they burnt away, Adam could see the fire spreading through the study. Sir John was still there, standing by a desk in the centre of the room, madly searching through the drawers, while behind him a tall bookcase was alight and flames were licking up the papered walls towards the high ceiling. And then thick black smoke began to billow out through the broken window, blotting out the interior.

It was hard for Adam to know what was happening. All around him people were shouting, screaming for water, crying for help as they ran this way and that, their stricken faces white and wild with fear as they emerged out of the swirling clouds of smoke and then disappeared back into the blackness. Suddenly the remaining glass in the study window exploded outwards, shattering in the heat, and the fire shot up the outside wall for a moment before falling back. But, as far as Adam could tell, it did still seem to be contained in the ground floor of the east wing, and he even began to feel a little encouraged when he saw a group of men, stripped to the waist, dragging a huge linen hose up from the direction of the lake.

In the midst of the cacophony he thought he could hear someone shouting his father’s name from over by the front door. It was wide open now and a melee of servants was spilling down the steps, running away from the house. The chaotic scene was lit up by the blazing lights in the hall behind them. Without thinking Adam rushed towards the voice, but almost immediately he was knocked backwards. Luck was on his side and he was just able to retain his balance and so avoid being trampled underfoot, but the impact had winded him and he stayed doubled over for a moment, fighting to regain his breath.

The crowd was mostly gone when he straightened up and he could see as if through a window in the smoke a man bent almost double, staggering down the front steps, carrying another man on his back. At the bottom he slipped down on to his knees, gasping in the smoky air like a drowning man, allowing his burden to roll away on to the grey flagstones beside him. He looked as though he was praying but Adam knew he wasn’t; he couldn’t be: the man on his knees was his father.