Archibald Cronin - The Stars Look Down

“Do you hear me?” asked Barras faintly, distantly. “The rescue party will meet you there. Do you hear me?”

“Yes,” shouted Robert. Then a water blast tore out the wires and left the instrument dead in his hand. He let it fall, it swung dangling… Christ! he thought again, weak with a terrible emotion.

“Quick, dad,” Hughie cried, approaching, frantically. “Quick, quick, dad. The water’s coming up on us.”

Robert turned, splashed over to the others. Christ! he thought again. He shouted:

“We’re going into the waste, lads. We can’t do no more.”

He led the way at the double up the slant, a dead end no one ever thought of trying. Yes, there was the old frame dam, not so much a dam as simple stopping, a row of three-inch planks set on edge eighteen inches apart with clay between. Slogger kicked a way through in two minutes. The party entered the waste of the Old Neptune workings.

The waste was cold and full of a curious smell. It was not styfe, though there was black damp about, but the smell of disuse. The waste had not been worked for eighty years.

Led by Robert they pressed forward with rising hope… it was dry here, they were leaving the water. Oh, thank God, they were leaving all that water. Six of them had lamps still lit, and Harry Brace had three pit candles in his pocket. They could see the way. There was no difficulty. There was only one road, the main road, the road that struck due east.

For about a quarter of a mile they followed the abandoned road. Then they checked. In front of them the roof had fallen.

“Never mind, lads,” shouted Slogger. “It’s nowt but rubble. Us’ll soon be through.” He threw off his jacket and tightened his leather belt. He led the attack on the fall.

They had no tools, all their tools, bait pokes and water-bottles lay submerged half a mile away. They worked with their bare hands, scraping, scraping, tearing out the loose stones. They worked in pairs: and Slogger worked double shift. How long they worked nobody knew, they worked so hard they did not think of time, nor of their bleeding hands, but they worked actually seven hours straight and went through fifteen yards of fallen rubble. Slogger crawled through first:

“Hurrah!” he yelled, pulling Pat Reedy after him. They all came through, all talking at once, laughing, triumphant. Famous it was to be through that fallen rubble. They laughed like children.

But fifty yards further on they stopped laughing. Another fall, and this time no rubble. Stone, hard solid whinstone, impenetrable to anything but a diamond drill. And they had their bare hands. Only one road. And the one road blocked. Solid whinstone, thick and hard as the face of a cliff. Their bare and bleeding hands. A silence. A long, cold silence.

“Well, lads,” Robert said with studied cheerfulness, “here we are and not that far off the Scupperhole either. They’re comin’ in for us now. They’re sure to reach us sooner or later. We’ve nowt to do but crook our houghs and jowl. And keep our spirits up.”

They all sat down. Harry Brace, crouched next the fallen roof, picked up a heavy lump of whinstone and began to jowl, beating out a sort of tattoo on the rock face so that the rescuers might hear. Occasionally he raised his voice and let out a long high call. Deep in the abandoned waste, quarter of a mile inbye from the old Scupperhole shaft, they waited. Jowling and calling, they waited there.

A little before six that morning Richard Barras was wakened by a light knocking on his door. The knocking had been going on for some time. He called out:

“Who is it?”

Aunt Carrie’s voice, diffident and frightened, came through the door:

“I don’t wish to disturb you, Richard, but the underviewer is here from the pit. He will see you.” Aunt Carrie shrank from the word which Hudspeth had flatly used… let Hudspeth himself say that terrifying word to Richard.

Richard dressed and came downstairs; it was in any case near his usual time for rising.

“Good morning, Hudspeth.” He saw that Hudspeth was only half clothed and extremely agitated; he saw that Hudspeth had been running. And Hudspeth burst out immediately:

“There’s water in both main shafts, Mr. Barras, covering all levels. We can’t drop the cage below Five Quarter Seam.”

There was a terrible pause.

“I see.” It came out just like that, reflex, with automatic composure.

“The whole of the foreshift has gone into Globe Coal and Paradise.” Hudspeth’s usually stolid voice shook. “We can’t get near them, not one of them has come outbye.”

Barras carefully inspected Hudspeth:

“How many in the shift?” he asked, with that mechanical precision.

“A round hundred men and boys, I don’t know, something like that, I’m not five minutes out of my bed, one of the lamp-men fetched me, I sent him running to Mr. Armstrong and came on up here as fast as I could.”

Richard hesitated no longer. Six minutes later they were in the pit yard. Jimmy, the lamp-man, stood with the banksman, the assistant banksman and Cousins, the timekeeper, in a silent, intimidated group. As Barras arrived the banksman said:

“Mr. Armstrong has just come, sir. He went up in the winding room.”

Barras said to Hudspeth:

“Fetch him.”

Hudspeth ran up the steps to the winding room. Meanwhile Barras went into the office where the round clock fixed on to the wall above the fireplace indicated six-fifteen. As Barras entered the empty office the underground telephone rang. He picked up the receiver instantly. In his hard impersonal voice he said:

“Hello, hello, hello…”

Robert Fenwick’s voice answered from Scupper Flats. It was the call from the entombed party, and when the conversation had terminated and the instrument lay dead in his hand Barras blindly replaced the receiver. Then he inflated his chest, took command of himself. A moment later Armstrong and Hudspeth came into the office.

“Now tell me, Mr. Armstrong,” Barras began instantly in a voice of authority, “tell me everything you know.”

Armstrong, labouring under some strain, told him. All the time Armstrong was speaking, which was about two minutes, Armstrong kept thinking, the end of this is the end of my job. The skin under one of his eyes began to twitch, he put up his hand to hide it.

“I see,” Barras said; then, abruptly: “Ring Mr. Jennings.”

Armstrong answered hurriedly:

“I sent Saul Pickings for him, Mr. Barras, that’s the first thing I did; he’ll be here any minute now.”

“That was well done,” said Barras in a pleased manner. His command was perfect, under that beautiful command Armstrong and Hudspeth were recovering themselves. Armstrong especially. Barras continued: “Get on the telephone, Mr. Armstrong. Instantly. Ring the Rigger and Headstock Co., Tynecastle, ring Messrs. T. & R. Henderson of Seaton, ring Amalgamated Collieries, and the Horton Iron Co. — ask especially for Mr. Probert senr. here — give them all my compliments, inform them of our situation, ask for every assistance, every assistance if you please. We shall want headgear, all pumping and electrical equipment they can give us. Ask Tynecastle especially for steam winding gear. Ask Amalgamated Collieries for any rescue men they can spare. At once if you please, Mr. Armstrong.”

Armstrong ran to the telephone in his office. Barras turned to Hudspeth:

“Take ten men and go to the Old Scupper shaft. Make an inspection. As quick and complete as you can. Find out all you can about the condition of the shaft. Then hurry back to me.”

As Hudspeth went out, Mr. Jennings arrived. The mines inspector was a blunt, compact, red-faced man with a cheerfully determined manner. It was well known that Jennings would stand no nonsense, he was unassertive yet strong, rather too hail-fellow-well-met perhaps, yet everybody liked and respected him. Just now he had a large boil on the back of his neck.