Archibald Cronin - The Stars Look Down

“Ouch,” he said as he clumped down in a chair. “This hurts me like hell. What’s up?”

Barras told him.

Jennings forgot about his boil. All of a sudden he looked perfectly aghast.

“No,” he said, in a tone of absolute dismay.

There was a silence. Barras said formally:

“Will you inspect the bank?”

Although he had just sat down Jennings got up. He said:

“Yes, I’ll have a look up top.”

Barras led the way. Jennings and Barras inspected the bank. The pumps were completely overcome, the water had risen another six feet in both shafts. Jennings questioned the winding-engineman. Jennings and Barras returned to the office. Jennings said:

“You’ll need extra pumps on these shafts, Mr. Barras. You’ll need them soon. But there’s that much head of water I question if they’ll do much good…”

Barras listened with determined patience. He let Jennings talk himself out. He made no comment whatsoever. But when Jennings had finished he declared, in his clear, judicial voice, as though Jennings had not spoken at all:

“It will take days to dewater these main shafts. We must go in from Scupperhole in the hope of travelling a roadway. That much is positive. Hudspeth will be back immediately from Old Scupperhole shaft. The instant it is possible we must go in.”

Jennings looked a little put down. He felt the impact of a personality stronger than his own, it subordinated and depressed him. His boil was paining him too. Yet Barras’s definition of the position was crystal clear, his scheme for the rescue the only logical course. A grudging admiration showed in Jennings’ blunt face.

“That’s about it,” he said, and then: “But how’ll you manage without plans?”

“We must manage,” retorted Barras with sudden intensity.

“Well, well,” Jennings conciliated, “we can but try.” He sighed. “But if only we’d had these plans we wouldn’t be in this bloody mess now. God, what idiots they were in those days!” He winced from the pain in his neck. “Oh, damn this carbuncle I’ve got on me. I’m taking yeast for it. But I don’t think it’s doing a hate of good.”

As Jennings fumbled painfully with the dressing on his boil Hudspeth returned. Hudspeth said:

“I’ve had a good look, Mr. Barras, sir. The shaft at Old Scupperhole isn’t that bad. There’s rubbish in the shaft, not that much though. But there’s black damp there too, a bad bit of black damp. We lowered a man on a crab rope and he came out pretty sick. I fancy we could clear the shaft of stowing and black damp in twenty-four hours.”

Barras said:

“Thank you, Mr. Hudspeth. We’ll go over to Scupperhole shaft now.” There was no question: Barras was in charge. There was something sublime in his calm and resolute command, he dominated without effort, he subdued panic, he was absolute.

As the four men came out of the office young Dr. Lewis, who was now Dr. Scott’s partner, came hurrying across the pit yard. He said:

“I’ve just heard… on my way back from a confinement case…. Can I do anything?” He paused expectantly, seeing himself doing dramatic heroism down the mine. He was pink-cheeked and eager, his ideals and enthusiasms simply bubbled within him; in Sleescale he was always referred to as young Dr. Lewis. Jennings looked as if he would like to kick young Dr. Lewis’s young backside. He turned away.

Barras said kindly:

“Thank you very much, Dr. Lewis. We may need you. Go in the office and Saul Pickings will make you a hot cup of cocoa. We may need you later.”

Young Dr. Lewis bustled away happily. Barras, Jennings, Armstrong and Hudspeth went on to Old Scupperhole shaft. It was only now beginning to get light. It was very cold. A few thin snow-flakes began to fall, trembling gently out of the unseen sky. A party of twenty-five men went with them, moving in silence across the troubled ground, until the snow enwrapped and curtained them. This was the first rescue party.

And now the news began to travel through the town. Doors in the Terraces flew open and men and women rushed through the open doors. They ran down Cowpen Street. As they ran, more ran with them. They ran as if they could not help themselves, as if the pit had suddenly become a magnet drawing them, drawing them irrespective of their own volition. They ran because they had to run. They ran in silence.

Martha heard the news from Mrs. Brace. Her first thought was less of anguish than of gratitude: Thank God my Sammy isn’t down. Clutching her breast, she wakened Sammy, then threw on her coat and ran with Sammy to the pit. Old Hans Messuer was running too. Hans had been shaving an early customer when he heard, and running, he still held the lather brush in his left hand. David heard as he cycled into the town. He tore straight to the pit. The Slogger’s wife heard in bed, and Cha, the Slogger’s son, heard at the side-door of the Salutation. Susan Wept heard as she said her morning prayer. Mrs. Reedy, the midwife, heard at her case with young Dr. Lewis. Jack Reedy, her eldest son, heard on his way to pick up a stiffener at the pub. Joining Cha Leeming, Jack ran towards the pit. Ned Softley’s mother heard on her way to the public wash-house. Old Tom Ogle heard in the closet. Buttoning his trousers, Tom Ogle ran.

In no time at all five hundred men and women stood packed on the outskirts of the pit yard and there were more outside. They stood in silence, the women mostly in shawls, the men without overcoats, all very black against the white snow. They stood like some vast chorus, massed in silence under the snow-dark sky. They were not the actors in the drama but they were of it none the less. In silence they stood, in mortal silence, under that immortal snow-dark silent sky.

It was nine o’clock and snowing hard when Barras, Jennings and Armstrong recrossed the Snook and came into the pit yard. Armstrong looked at the crowd. Armstrong said:

“Will I have the yard gates shut?”

“No!” said Barras, inspecting the people with his remote, myopic eyes. “Have a fire lighted in the yard. A large fire. Light it in the middle of the yard. It is cold for them standing there.”

They lit the fire. Charley Gowlan, Jake Wicks and the banksmen brought lots of timbering to feed the fire. Just as the fire was going well the first party of volunteers rolled in from the Seaton collieries. They went immediately to the Scupperhole. Then the riggers came from Tynecastle bringing three truckloads of their gear. Armstrong stood by the telephone. Barras and Jennings went back to the Scupperhole. The black damp made it impossible to descend the shaft but soon they would clear the black damp. Already they had started to fit headgear, winding engine and a fan.

At eleven o’clock Arthur Barras arrived. Arthur had been spending the week-end with the Todds at Tynecastle, he had just arrived by the ten forty-five train. He dashed into the office with nervous haste.

“Father!” he exclaimed, “this is terrible.”

Barras turned slowly.

“It is heart-breaking.”

“What can I do? I’ll do anything. What a thing to happen, father.”

Barras looked at his son with heavy eyes. He made a gesture with his hand. He said:

“It is the will of God, Arthur.”

Arthur stared back at his father with anguish in his face.

“The will of God,” he repeated in a strange voice. “What does that mean?”

At that moment Armstrong rushed in.

“They’re pulling out two pumps at the Amalgamated. They’ll be on their way over presently. A new turbine pump is coming from Horton’s, Mr. Probert says no trouble is too great.”

“Thank you, Mr. Armstrong,” Barras said mechanically.

There was a strained silence until old Saul Pickings limped in with three large cups of hot cocoa. He was over seventy was Saul, and though he had a wooden leg he could get along very fast; he limped about doing surface jobs and was good at cocoa. Arthur and Armstrong each took a cup; Barras refused. But Arthur and Armstrong pressed Barras to drink the cocoa, saying that it would do him good, Armstrong adding that it was impossible to work on an empty stomach. But Barras still refused; he seemed a little exalted.