Archibald Cronin - The Stars Look Down

Things were happening faster now and there was more confusion. Men darted about the yard with their heads ducked down. Beams were falling and red-hot bricks. The flames ate everything, wood, rubble, stone and metal; the flames consumed them. Loud reports went off from time to time and the sound went booming through the town like gunfire from the sea. Cowpen Street was solid with the people, all watching, watching.

Half of the bank was razed when Heddon reached the pit. He raced from the station in the day-bright glare, fighting his way forward through the crowds. As he struggled to reach the yard two fire engines from Amalgamated Collieries came clanging down the street. He swung himself up on the tail of the last engine. He entered the Neptune yard.

The power house was gone now, the safety room, lamp room and pumping station. The wind, a freshening forced draught, was fanning the blaze under the broken gables of the offices. The heat was torrid.

Heddon threw off his coat and joined with the firemen from Amalgamated. Hose after hose sent its powerful stream hoisting upon the flaming bank: steam boiled amongst the smoke and raised a pall that hung and drifted sluggishly. Ladders went scaling up. Men ran, climbed, hacked and sweated. And the night passed.

When the dawn broke there was no fire, only a smouldering. The grey cold light of the morning showed that; and all the desolation of the wreckage.

Arthur, supporting himself against a ladder, gazed upon the wrecked pit-surface. A sigh broke from his chest. He knew there was worse below. Suddenly he heard someone shouting. It was Heddon.

“Here, Armstrong,” Heddon shouted. “You’ll need to rig new pumps quick.”

Armstrong looked at Heddon and walked on. He walked up to the charred headstocks where Arthur stood beside the empty cage. In a cracked voice Armstrong said:

“We’d better see about new pumping gear. We’d better ring Tynecastle immediately if it’s to be any use.”

Arthur raised his head slowly. His brow was blacked, his eyes inflamed by smoke, his whole face empty.

“For God’s sake,” he whispered. “For God’s sake let me be.”

Despite the new and spirited memoranda in his diary beginning Further defence of Neptune Schedule P , and some complex figures multiplied determinedly in the margins of Robert Elsmere , Richard could not wholly understand. Every day at the hour of noon he struggled down to the foot of the lawn past the bare laburnum tree and balanced himself against the clean white gate of the paddock. This viewpoint, from which he could just see, and no more, the tops of the Neptune headstocks, he had named Observation Post No . 1. Strange, very strange: no signs of activity about the headstocks, neither steam nor smoke visible. Were the wheels spinning, the wheels of the winding headgear? Impossible to tell, even when the ringed eyes were shielded by both tremulous hands, telescope fashion, as befitted Observation Post No . 1. Strange, oh, very strange.

On this early January day he returned from Observation Post No . 1 with an air both baffled and triumphant: dimly aware that there was trouble, the trouble he had predicted. He was, indeed, triumphant solely because he had predicted trouble. They would call him in soon, presently, immediately! — to correct the trouble. They!

But for all his triumph he looked a shaky and ill old man. He walked very badly, even Aunt Carrie admitted that there was not much improvement with poor Richard lately, and as he came back across the lawn he staggered and almost fell. His walk was like a stuttering speech, made up of little runs and halts, a quick rush of steps, quicker and quicker, until suddenly the steps tripped themselves up and there was a stagger, then the steps had to wait and start again as though fumbling for the right syllable. But in spite of every difficulty Richard would take his walk alone, refusing Aunt Carrie’s arm with abruptness and even suspicion. It was quite natural; the man was interfered with, watched and threatened. He had his own interests to safeguard. A man must look after himself.

Having crossed the lawn he avoided Aunt Carrie’s sad and tender eye as she stood awaiting him by the portico and stuttered and stammered his way round to the French window of the drawing-room. He let himself in by the French window, lifting his feet with great care over the narrow bottom ledge. He went into the smoking-room and composed himself in a chair to write. His way of composing himself was to adjust himself accurately with his back to the chair and then allow himself to fall.

He wrote shakily: Memorandum from Observation Post No . 1 12.15×3.14. No smoke again to-day, a bad sign. The chief offender has not appeared but am convinced of trouble. Am daily expecting to be called in defence of Neptune. Query. Am still concerned over the presence here of my daughter Hilda and the man Teasdale. Why? The answer to this may reveal the clue. But there are many comings and goings against me especially since the disappearance of Ann. Above all I must protect myself and hold myself in complete readiness.

A sound disturbed him and he looked up peevishly. Aunt Carrie had come in — Caroline was always coming in; why couldn’t she leave him alone? He shut his writing-book jealously and crouched in the chair very shrunken and angry and suspicious.

“You haven’t taken your rest, Richard.”

“I don’t want my rest.”

“Very well, Richard.” Aunt Carrie did not insist; she looked at Richard with that sad and tender gaze, her eyes red around the rims and swollen about the lids. Aunt Carrie’s heart gushed towards Richard; poor dear Richard, it was dreadful that he should not know and yet it might be worse, even, if he did. Aunt Carrie could not bear to think of it.

“I want to ask you, Caroline.” The dull suspicious eye became shot with a coaxing playfulness. “Tell me, Caroline, what are they doing at the Neptune?”

“Why, nothing, Richard,” she stammered.

“I’ve got my interests to safeguard,” Richard said with great cunning. “A man must look after himself. A man who is tampered with like me. You understand, Caroline.”

A painful silence. Aunt Carrie said again, pleadingly:

“Don’t you think you should rest a little now, Richard?” Dr. Lewis was always insisting that Richard should have more rest but Richard would not rest more. Aunt Carrie was sure it would help Richard’s poor head if Richard rested more.

Richard said:

“Why is Hilda here?”

Aunt Carrie smiled with a watery brightness.

“Why, she’s come up to see you, Richard, and to see Arthur. Grace might have come too… only she’s going to have another baby…. You remember, Richard dear, I told you.”

“Why do all these people keep coming about the house?”

“Why.” Aunt Carrie’s watery smile was brave; not wild horses would have dragged the truth from her. If Richard must know he would not know from her. “Why, what people. Richard? Now do come and rest. I beg of you.”

He glared at her, his irritation mounting to a fever heat, then leaving him suddenly; and when his irritation left him he felt quite bewildered. His pale ringed eyes fell and he discovered his own hand that held the diary shaking violently. Often his hands would twitch this way and his legs too. It was the electricity. All at once he wanted to cry.

“Very well.” Drooping, and with a childish desire for sympathy, he explained: “It’s the current that makes me… the electricity.”

Aunt Carrie helped him from his chair and helped him upstairs and helped him partially to undress and to stretch himself out upon his bed. He looked an old exhausted man and his face was very flushed. He fell asleep instantly and slept for two hours. He snored heavily.