Archibald Cronin - The Stars Look Down

Bennett died next and Seth Calder six hours after him. They were marrows who had worked with each other for nearly fourteen years. For fourteen years they had worked, got drunk, played pot-stour bowls together. But it didn’t seem in the least appropriate to them that they should die together. Bennett was the quieter of the two, Seth Calder, when he felt himself sinking, kept moaning:

“I don’t want to die. I’m a young man yet. I’ve got a young wife. I don’t want to die.” But for all that he did die.

Everyone was too weak now to move the bodies of Benbett and Seth Calder, and besides Robert had only two matches left in his pocket with his stump of candle. He gave the last cough sweet to Pat Reedy. Surely to God it wouldn’t be long now before they broke through from the Scupperhole. Surely to God! Oh, let them come in quick, dear God, or it won’t be no use!

They just lay there now, too weak to move themselves. They were too weak even to move up to the place they used. They just lay. Lying there Robert had an idea. He called out each name three times. If no answer came back after the third time he knew it was finished.

Ned Softley stopped answering next. He must have died as quietly as Harry Brace. Ned always had the name for being weak-witted, but he died well. He never said a whimper. Then Swee Messer went, a lewd fellow was Swee, but he’d finished with his funny stories now for good.

It was after Swee died that Wept went mad. Like the rest of them he had been quiet for a long time. But now he got up on his feet. He stood there in the darkness, they could feel his madness as he stood there in the darkness. He said:

“I see them! I see the seven angels which stood before God! I hear their trumpets. It is revealed to me.”

At first they tried to take no notice, but Wept went on:

“I hear them sound their trumpets. The first angel sounds and then follows hail mingled with blood.”

Slogger said:

“Oh, for God’s sake, man, shut up.”

Wept continued louder:

“Then the second angel sounds and as it were a great mountain burning with fire is cast into the sea and the third part of the sea becomes blood. Not water, my brethren, but blood. It is not water that has brought us here, but blood.”

Slogger sat up. He said:

“Wept, for the love of God, I can’t stand no more of that.”

Wept went on in that rapt voice:

“The third angel sounds and the star Wormwood falls. Wormwood and gall, my brethren, is our lot upon earth, we are crushed by the greed of man. And the fourth angel sounds and the fifth and another star falls into the bottomless pit and there arises a smoke out of the pit. We are in the pit, my brethren, and the air is darkened by reason of the smoke in the pit and the seal of God is upon our foreheads, and punishment will come upon those in high places who brought us here. I see it, my brethren. To me is given the gift of prophecy. I am a prophet in the Paradise pit.”

Then Robert knew that Wept was mad. He said:

“Sit down, man, do.” He coaxed Wept. “Sit down, now, do. It cannot be long till they reach us now. Sit down and wait quiet like. It isn’t long now.”

Wept went on:

“And the sixth angel sounds and a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God and the four angels loosed which are prepared to slay the third part of men by smoke and by brimstone and the rest of men which are not killed by these plagues yet repent not of the works of their hands, nor repent they of their murders nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornications, nor of their thefts.”

Wept’s voice rose gradually to a shout that echoed, reverberating, and seemed to rock the very roof.

Slogger groaned:

“I cannot stand no more of this.” He crawled forward to Wept, feeling with his hands.

Wept went on in a terrible voice:

“And now the seventh angel sounds…”

But before the seventh angel sounded, Slogger caught Wept by the ankle and pulled the feet from him. Wept collapsed, moaning.

“But the seventh angel sounds. I see it. I see the millennium brought by the madness and the greed of man. Money, money, money… we are crushed and killed for it. I will prophesy…. From high places they fall… not water, but blood… the blood of the Lamb… come, mother, pass the hymn-books and we’ll sing love is poke my hand, mother, hold me tight for it is no sin come great Deliverer come….”

His voice trailed off, he lay groaning for a few minutes, then he was silent. He had exhausted himself with prophesy. He cried a little. For a minute Jesus Wept wept. Then Jesus Wept died.

Time passed. Robert gave Pat Reedy a drink. Pat was only half conscious, he retched back the coaly water over Robert’s cupped hands.

“O God, let them come quick,” Slogger said in a kind of delirium, “or it won’t be no use them comin’ at all.” He crawled over to the fall and began to jowl. But he was too weak to jowl now, the stone fell from his slack fingers.

Time passed. Slogger put his hand to his throat and croaked:

“God, Robert, mon, I’d give anything for a pint.” Then he fell over on his side and did not move again.

Pat Reedy died next. He lay relaxed in Robert’s arms with his head resting on Robert’s flat chest like an infant upon his mother’s breast. He rambled a little towards the end. At the last he said:

“Come on, mam, an’ make us truly thankful.”

After that Robert called every man in turn. Then he said:

“It’s only you and me, Hughie, lad.”

Hughie said mechanically:

“What day is it, dad?” He said it again, then he said: “I wish I had a drink, dad, but I cannot be bothered.”

Robert crawled over and got Hughie a drink.

Hughie thanked him.

“It’s all over now, dad,” he said. He was still thinking about the match. “They’ll never give me another chance now.”

Robert said:

“No, Hughie.”

Hughie said:

“I would have liked to have played, dad.”

Robert said:

“I know, Hughie.”

Robert had given up hope. He had listened and listened and heard never a sound of the men coming in. They must have met something, water, or a terrible fall of roof. He was beyond hope and beyond bitterness.

Gently he put Pat Reedy’s body down and put his arm round Hughie’s shoulder. He had never devoted himself enough to Hughie, perhaps. Hughie was too like himself, too silent and contained. He had not loved Hughie enough.

He tried to talk to Hughie but it was difficult, the words came out of his mouth all wrong. He coughed and the cough tasted salt and ran out of his mouth like the wrong words.

Time passed. A last faint sigh passed over Hughie’s body. Hughie died thinking about the match he would never play, he died really of a broken heart.

Time passed. Robert kissed Hughie on the brow, tried to fold Hughie’s dead hands like he had done Harry’s hands. He was too weak almost to do it. He was too weak even to cough. He said the Lord’s Prayer silently. The words of the Lord’s Prayer right, though the cough did not come right.

Robert’s thoughts wandered: he felt it strange that he should be the last to die, that he who was consumptive should last out so many healthy men. Well, he had always said his cough would never kill him… it would not kill him now. He lost the sense of time and place, was back on the Wansbeck fishing with David, his little boy David… showing David how to cast… watching David land his first small speckled trout… eh, Davey boy, isn’t it a beauty!

Time passed. Robert stirred, opened his eyes. He lit the last small piece of candle. He thought, a pity not to use it. Since he had the choice he felt he would rather not die in the dark.

The candle cast a yellow glow upon the silent spectral forms of the dead around him. He knew that he too would soon be dead. He had no fear, no anything… but he did think at last that he would like to write to David… he had always loved David.