Archibald Cronin - The Stars Look Down

He fumbled for the notebook and the pencil and the sheet of paper. He set himself to think painfully, then he wrote:

Dear David, you will get this when they find me. We have done our best, but it is no use. We holed in the Flats. I managed to telephone surface and Barras directed us to the Scupperhole, but this fall stopped us, a very bad fall. Hughie has just gone. He died without pain. Tell your mother we had service. I hope you will get on Davey and make something out of life.

He thought for a moment without knowing that he thought, then he added on the back:

P.S. Barras must have had plans of this waste his instructions were correct.

He folded the paper, put it under his singlet next to his emaciated chest. He sat huddled with his back against the fallen roof, as if thinking. Formless swathes of darkness floated into his brain. He coughed, his intimate kindly cough, the cough that was he. Then his body slid down slowly and sprawled out. He lay upon his back with his arms outstretched as though pleading. His dead eyes were open. He lay there amongst his dead comrades. The candle guttered feebly and went out.

The final session of the formal Inquiry, held under Section 83 of the Coal Mines Act, into the causes and circumstances of the Neptune disaster, was drawing to a close. The Town Hall in Lamb Street was crammed to suffocation, crowds waited outside, a sense of tension filtered with the afternoon sunshine through the high leaded windows into the steamy atmosphere of the court. Upon the bench sat the Commissioner, the Rt. Hon. Henry Drummond, K.C., supported by the Technical Assessor, the Deputy Chief Inspector of Mines. In the body of the hall were the Divisional Inspector and Mr. Jennings, the local Inspector, both representing the Mines Department; Mr. Lynton Roscoe, K.C., instructed by Mr. John Bannerman, solicitor, Tynecastle, acting for Richard Barras of the Neptune Colliery; Harry Nugent, M.P., and Jim Dudgeon on behalf of the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain; Tom Heddon on behalf of the Sleescale Miners’ Lodge; Mr. William Snagg, solicitor, Tynecastle, representing the dependants of the deceased; and Colonel Gascoigne, watching the case on behalf of Lord Kell, owner of Royalties. Occupying the front seats were Barras, Arthur, Armstrong, Hudspeth and the officials of the Neptune. Three rows of witnesses came next, with David, Jack Reedy, Harry Ogle and some men from the Terraces placed immediately behind Nugent. Then followed the relatives of the dead men, mostly women, rigged out in cheap black, a few bare-headed and in shawls, all faintly bewildered, uncomprehending and over-awed. The rest of the hall was packed with miners and townspeople, not an inch of space remained.

Following the customary official practice, a certain period of time had been allowed to elapse between the calamity and the subsequent investigation. But now, for six full days, since July 27th, 1914, the court had been in session, the hall humming with voices, fifty-four witnesses called and recalled, fifteen thousand questions asked and answered, words flying to and fro, angry, persuasive, bitter, hundreds of thousands of words. There was Heddon, with his hot violence, losing the thread of his argument, being sharply called to order: Jim Dudgeon, genial and ungrammatical, supporting Nugent’s calm logic; Colonel Gasgoigne with his technicalities of bench-marks, ordinance datum and geological formation; Lynton Roscoe, practised in the art of oratory, master of gesture and smoothly turned periods.

But it was all drawing to a close now, quickly drawing to a close. Lynton Roscoe, K.C., was at this moment on his feet, a portly, imposing figure, heavy jowled, with long upper lip and a florid port-wine colouring. Since two o’clock he had been re-examining witnesses and now, with a full dramatic gesture, he turned to the Commissioner. A silence.

The Commissioner: Have you an application to make, Mr. Roscoe?

Lynton Roscoe: It is the question of Mr. Richard Barras, sir. I think it would bring matters to a fitting conclusion if for the last time I recalled him.

The Commissioner: By all means then, Mr. Roscoe.

Richard Barras was called. He left his seat immediately and entered the witness-box, where he stood upright, his reserve gone, a faint flush on his high cheek-bones, his head inclined forward as though eager to answer every question with the utmost candour. Arthur, stooping in his seat, kept his eyes upon the floor, shielding his face so that it remained invisible.

Lynton Roscoe: Mr. Richard Barras, I am sorry to trouble you again, sir, but there are certain points which I wish to emphasise. I think you have told us that you are the owner of the Neptune Colliery, a mining engineer of some thirty-five years’ standing?

Barras: That is so.

Lynton Roscoe: Inevitably, your experience in mining engineering has been wide?

Barras: Yes, I think I may say that.

Lynton Roscoe: Once again, Mr. Barras (slowly), had you any idea when you started to strip the Dyke that you were in any way near the water-logged workings of the Old Neptune pit?

Barras: I had no idea.

Lynton Roscoe: I take it, Mr. Barras, in plain language that there are only two ways of getting to know your whereabouts underground. The one is by boring and the other Is by resort to records, in short a plan?

Barras: Quite.

Lynton Roscoe (persuasively): But a bore, after all, will only tell you what is in its own track. And you may have very large faults. In fact boring will often teach little or nothing?

Barras: Not in a case such as this.

Lynton Roscoe: Precisely. And as for the other method. Had you any record, or plan, or tracing of these Old Neptune workings?

Barras: No.

Lynton Roscoe: Such a plan, if it ever existed, must in these early days of mining, when records were not treated with the respect due to them, have been mislaid or destroyed. It was never in your possession?

Barras: Never.

Lynton Roscoe: You had, then, no knowledge of the impending peril. (Dramatically) And in the light of logic and reason, you were as much a victim of the disaster as those unhappy men who perished. (Turning to the Commissioner) That, sir, is the point I thought fit to re-emphasise. I have no wish to trouble Mr. Barras further.

The Commissioner: Thank you, Mr. Barras, I am much obliged.

Barras stepped out of the box, head well up, as if inviting the inspection of every eye. So admirable was his bearing that an involuntary murmur of applause came from the sides of the court. There was genuine sympathy for Richard. His conduct during the Inquiry had been commented on most favourably and, coming on top of his efforts during the rescue operations, had raised him almost to popularity.

As Barras sat down beside Arthur, Harry Nugent, M.P., rose quietly. Nugent was a quiet man with an air of purpose and stability and an eye that was luminous and direct He was tall, rather emaciated, with a bony cadaverous face and a fine brow across which a few thin strands of hair were streaked. Unprepossessing at first sight there was a warmth, a quiet sincerity about Nugent which wore down the prejudice created by his appearance. For the last five years he had represented the Tyneside borough of Edgely, he was recognised as a rising force in the Labour Movement and some of his adherents spoke of him as the future leader of the Party. He faced the Commissioner, stooping slightly as he spoke.

Harry Nugent: Since my friend has recalled his principal witness, Mr. Chairman, have I your permission to put David Fenwick in the box again?