Hosts of Rebecca

by Alexander Cordell

  Across the blackened tips went Morfydd and me to the ragtailed, heaving labourers staggering under their baskets of coal and mine – women and children, mostly, cheaper labour than men. Little ones bent under loads, their stoops a perpetual deformity that jackknifed them over the eating tables and doubled them in their beds; black-faced, white-teethed; spewed from the womb of a deeper world, chanting to the labour of the stamping trot; a tuneless breath of a song that kept them to the rhythm, this, the night shift ending in exhaustion. Eyes peeped at the strangers, heads turned under baskets, but the labour never faltered, and the shale trembled to hobnail stamping. And we stood in the misted air, me and Morfydd, and watched the ants; watched them building the anthill; chanting, scurrying, one eye wide for Foreman – building up the monuments that future generations will despise, sweating and dying for their ninepence a day.

  “Worse than bloody Nanty this,” I said, and fisted Foreman’s door.

  Never seen the like of this Job Gower for size. Ducking under the frame he grinned at Morfydd, ham-hands on hips, stripped to the waist in frost. Deep-chested, hairy, the bull of his family; out of a Welsh womb by a Donegal slaughterer, according to Grandfer; tore his mam to pieces, sixteen pounds.

  “You wanting labour?” asked Morfydd, hands on hips, too.

  “Well, now!” Double bass, flat as that.

  “Good labour. Skilled,” I said, but he never even heard; just strolling around Morfydd inspecting fresh cattle.

  “Brecon coal, Top Town iron,” said she at nothing, “and we work on rates.”

  He rubbed his bristled chin, grinning.

  “Monmouthshire rates for skilled labour,” I said. “Trams or basketing, ladders or winding – towing if you like.”

  “Coal face hewing and he works to chalk,” said Morfydd.

  The bedlam rose to a shout about us, the tempo surging at the sight of Foreman. The pigmies scurried, these the brothers; brother to the black-skinned slave of the cotton lands, the ear-nicked trash of the branding iron, whip-scarred, mutilated.

  “There is a beauty,” said Job.

  “Till you put a hand on her,” said Morfydd. “Then she’s a bitch.”

  Didn’t stop grinning, to his credit.

  “Bargaining, eh?” He turned to me. “Coal face, you – with Liam Muldooney on Number Two. He’s driving me to hell, let’s see what he’ll do for you. The woman goes towing, no skilled women.”

  “Monmouthshire rates. Penny a basket,” said Morfydd.

  “Trams, too – halfpenny a basket – twenty a day,” he replied.

  “Ladders thrown in?” I asked, innocent.

  He grunted.

  “And what height is this pit?” asked Morfydd.

  “A hundred feet – you can damned near jump it.”

  “Then jump,” said she. “A penny a basket is Top Town rates and we weren’t born yesterday.”

  “I can see that,” said he, looking her over. “Take it or leave it.”

  “Come, Jethro,” said Morfydd. “Work to death by all means, but not starving too. Come.”

  “Penny a basket,” said Job Gower. “But keep it to yourself.”

  “Thank God for the Unions,” said Morfydd.

  “Plenty of tongue for strangers,” said he. “We will see how you do. If not, you’re out, the two of you.”

  Twenty shillings a week between us, six day week. Not bad, I thought, but I was afraid of the ladders for Morfydd.

  A hundred feet down is a platform of light and the two ladders are snakes that reach to the bottom, baskets coming up one side, baskets going down the other.

  “You first,” said Morfydd, and I saw the sweat suddenly bright on her face, for she had never done ladders before, and I wondered at her head for heights. Job Gower was behind us as I swung myself into space and gripped the rungs, and I saw the shadow of Morfydd’s leg come over above me as I went down hand over hand. Twenty feet down I stopped, for a woman was climbing against the platform of light, and her gasps were preceding her on the swaying rungs.

  “Down with you,” roared Job from the top. “Don’t mind old Towey, plenty of room to pass.”

  Down, down, hand over hand, with the ladder bucking and the coal dust flying up, sucked upwards by the draught. Looked up at the light above me and the morning clouds and saw Morfydd coming after me, her fingers peaked white on the rungs, skirts and petticoats billowing indecent, and I knew she was fearing the drop. Began to wonder how I could break her if she came, hang on and elbow her against the shaft, foot against the up-ladder, but I knew she’d take me if she came from a height. So I waited a bit till her feet were above me.

  Down fifty feet and I met Mrs Towey. Swing over to the right as she comes labouring up, for her basket is lopsided and her body is swaying.

  “Good morning, Mrs Towey,” I said to cheer her.

  “O, Christ,” said she. “Do you give me a hand.”

  Sixty if she’s a day, this one, eyes upturned, breathing in gasps; sweat-streamed, shuddering, clinging to the rungs, with the coal from her basket spilling down and dancing as gnats against the square of light. Thank God nobody was following her.

  “O, God,” said Towey.

  “Shift you over, woman,” I said. “I will come on your ladder,” and steadied her basket.

  “O, man,” said she. “Let me keep my coal.”

  “Easy with it, then,” and I jacked the thing up with my knee. “Rest,” I said, gripping her skirts. The two of us there with Morfydd above me, and I looked up past her to the sky and Gower’s face was peering down with clouds doing halos above his head.

  “What the hell is happening down there, Towey?” he roared.

  “Come down and see,” I roared back. “Little old Towey it is, and I am giving her a spell. Damned scandal, it is.”

  “Aye? She’ll have you basketing for her before you are finished.”

  “Strangers, is it?” asked Towey, eyes closed, forehead sweating against a rung.

  “Aye,” I said. “Rest yourself, girl.”

  “Kind, you are, boy. This old ladder will be the death of me, mind. Twenty times I have been up it since last night. Is it light up by Job, or darkness?”

  “Morning,” I said. “The end of the shift.”

  “Thank God for His mercies,” said she. “For there is fire in my chest and I couldn’t climb again” and she opened her eyes and looked at me with a wrinkled grandmother of a smile. “Eh, now, young you are, man. But a baby.”

  “Nigh fourteen,” I replied. “Do not talk.”

  So we rested, Towey and me, with Job shouting his head off at the top till Morfydd started some lip and he went off disgusted.

  “Will you climb now, old woman?” I asked.

  “Eh, aye! Got my breath back now. Mind, fit as a horse I am most times, see, but poorly lately, not up to standard. You Chapel?”

  “For God’s sake,” I said, heaving back to my ladder.

  “O, a curse on the first woman who ever climbed this ladder,” said she, “and rot her soul in everlasting Hell. Dying this, not living, and I have a husband to keep – you heard about Tom Towey?”

  “For grief’s sake,” said Morfydd above us. “Are we serving up tea?”

  “Go now, Towey,” I said. “It is only fifty feet.”

  Up with her then, basket creaking and her coal spilling down, clouting on the head and naked shoulders of a woman coming after her. Irish by the sound of her, sending up Irish curses. Legs as sticks has Mrs Towey, the rags about them fluttering, and Morfydd gave her an elbow as she went up past her to Job hands on hips at the top.

  Welsh and Irish waiting at the bottom; waiting for their turn with their baskets at their feet. Waiting for Towey to get clear being the truth of it, for a six inch coal nut takes some heading.

  “Good morning,” they said in chorus. “Who you after, man?”

  “Liam Muldooney.”

  “Down on Number Two, girl.”

  “Eh, there’s lucky. Biblical, mind, but a
dear little man, old Liam.”

  “Hewing, then?” asks one, stumps of teeth champing – Towey’s mam by the look of this one.

  “Hewing for him,” said Morfydd. “I am for towing.”

  “You got the pads, girl? ’Tis terrible rocky. Plays the devil with your poor old knees.”

  “I have pads,” says another, and Morfydd catches them.

  “Strangers, is it?”

  “Aye.”

  “Brother and sister?”

  “Don’t be daft, girl – look, spit and image.”

  “Dear God, anna she pretty!”

  “Church of England, is it?”

  “Chapel,” I said.

  “Eh, Chapel! Oi, Meg Benyon by there – strangers are Chapel, you heard? Nothing like Chapel, mind, real Christian, and a fine little minister we have in our Horeb, very good to the children, bless him, too.”

  “We are Horeb,” I said to please her.

  “Speak for yourself,” whispered Morfydd.

  “Now, where’s that Meg Benyon? Anyone seen Meg Benyon?”

  “Passed just now, Crid – gone back to Muldooney.”

  “Well, there’s a pity, for she is with Muldooney. Horeb, eh? What a coincidence. Where you from, boyo?”

  “Nantyglo.”

  “Where the hell’s that, man?”

  Morfydd told her.

  “Other end of the earth, eh? O, well, got to get going.”

  “Is that old Towey up?” She looked Towey’s grandmer till she bent to the basket and it flew up under her hands. Must have been forty, no more.

  “Shake your legs, woman.”

  “Up a dando, then – give a bunk on this old basket. Take care of the strangers, mind. Liam Muldooney they are after, see?”

  On.

  Hand in hand now, me and Morfydd; along the galleries where the trams are thundering, with the tallow lamps flaring in crevices of rock, on to the switch road where the nightshift lies hewing, naked as babies, these men, flat on their backs. And the tallow lamps flash on their postures of love-making, rolling, frowning up to the black seam, picking, chinking as they head the new gallery. A snake of women now, bending to their baskets, headed by a Welsh girl, broad as a man, stripped to the waist and shining with sweat.

  “Right for Number Two, Liam Muldooney?” I asked her.

  “Next gallery, boy. You just come down?”

  “Aye,” said Morfydd.

  “The props are going on Six – has Gower heard?”

  “Never mentioned it,” said I.

  “Give it an hour and the roof will be in.” She turned, cupping her hands, shouting above the picks. “Gower don’t know, Mark. Send Foreman down, is it?”

  “Head first if you can, followed by the owner,” came a whisper from darkness.

  The Welsh girl nudged me sideways.

  “That your sister, man?”

  “Aye.”

  “Watch, then. A swine for a face as pretty as that, is Job Gower. Eh, hark at that Bronwen!”

  Bronwen is howling by the draught door of the gallery that heads Number Six. Important is Bronwen, shilling a week; opening and closing the draught doors so men can breathe.

  “Now, now,” said Morfydd, kneeling. “What you crying for, you pretty little thing?”

  Cats.

  “Cats, is it?” asks Morfydd, cooing.

  “Took the bread from my fingers,” says Bron, and her arms went out, but Morfydd folded them back. Frowning up, she said, “Bait bag, Jethro,” and I gave it to her. “There now,” says Morfydd, “we will give you more bread. Damned old thievers, them cats. You have this, Bron.”

  “Stand clear,” cries a voice, and Bron opens the draught door.

  Meg Benyon, this time, the Meg we missed farther back. On all fours is Meg Benyon, shod as a donkey, kneepads, handpads, with a belt round her middle and a chain over her flanks, and up on her haunches she goes, smoothing her black hair from her face.

  “Well now, good morning. Just come to see Bronwen I have, and bump into strangers. Welsh, is it?”

  I gave her some and she slapped her thigh, joyful. “Well, there’s a pleasure – all in the family. Two in three are foreigners these days, undercutting wages. Chapel, too, is it?”

  “Horeb,” I said, getting used to it.

  “Well! And I called you strangers! O, hush your moaning, Bronwen, fach. You still weeping? Still the old cats, is it? Now you leave them to Benyon, I will give them a belting.” She looked as us, eyes flat. “A scandal, isn’t it?”

  I nodded.

  “No child of mine would come down the pits. Die first. You towing, girl?”

  “Over with Muldooney.”

  “And I am hewing there,” I said.

  “Same face as me. There’s fine. A caution is Liam, mind – good job you’re Chapel, though he’s Irish as the shamrock. Lay preacher spare time, too – very kind to my mam, Mrs Towey – taking her from ladders a week next Monday. Never been the same since she lost our dad. You see her coming down?”

  “Saw her going up,” I said.

  “Six at home she had, see? Me being eldest, and I am going up soon, says Muldooney, being in child. Three months more, have it in summer. You be gentry, says old Liam Muldooney, you have it in comfort up in daylight, leave the pit-births to donkeys though they carried our Lord. Eh, God bless our Liam – second saviour, I reckon, treats you respectful, not like that Gower. Ah, well, got to get going. Straight down, now, follow your noses.”

  Mane flying in the draught, hooves scraping, harness chinking, Mrs Benyon goes through with the coal tram after her, ducking her head to the two foot roof – the tunnel that leads to the waiting carts.

  Liam Muldooney is fetching out coal, trews on, thank heavens, lying in the pit props. Long and gaunt, with the face of a grandfather, was Liam, though I guessed him right at under fifty. Away with his pick and he scrambled out.

  “Be damned,” said he. “There’s a neat little woman for me – Irish, is it?”

  “Welsh,” I said. “Are you Liam Muldooney?”

  “Sure as I’m Irish – you sent by Gower?”

  We told him. “Trams and hewing, when do we start?”

  “God be praised for a spirit, now,” said he, and down on a rock with him and out with a pipe. “It’s a rest I am needing and you have come the right time, for I have a few minutes to give praise to my Lord.” From a little box beside him he pulled out a Bible. “Do you know this little Book, now, me darlin’s?”

  “We are Welsh,” I said.

  “Eh, and I forgot. The harder they hit us the deeper we go, isn’t it, and there’s fine feathers up in London town who’d have difficulty spelling the great name Samuel, and you and me know it off by heart. Lucky you are, mind, best face in the county, this – best vein and easiest pickings since shamrock land, or I’m not Liam Muldooney, though me real name’s foreign, now! Settle you down the pair of you for a talk with Liam,” and he patted the rock. I looked at Morfydd and saw pity in her face.

  And I looked at Muldooney; at the battered head bumped by coal, the red-rimmed eyes of the lifelong collier. Men like Muldooney were as thousands in the upland counties, most with the look of the mountain fighter, though many had not seen a fist closed in anger. Flattened noses; screwball ears, as little bits of brain battered out of their skulls, by falls and clouts, not fists, and their speech came slow.

  “Have you heard of the man of Kabzeel who did the fine acts, now?”

  “Kabzeel,” I said, searching Samuel.

  “Make it short, Benaiah,” said Morfydd.

  “Well, there’s a woman – got me right first time, for sure. Just giving a little test, I am, for your knowledge of the Scriptures – necessary for people like us working within three foot of the Devil. And no offence, little maiden. Benaiah is my name, speak now.”

  Morfydd was smiling, ever a soft spot for the Irish.

  “Samuel twenty-three,” said she, “but you’ve hit me for the verse. Book two.”

  “Goo
d enough. I am working with Christian brother and sister – I can see that a mile. Verse twenty, for your information. Jehoiada was me dad, you see; slaughtering up the men of Moab – hitting up the Philistines right and left in spare time as I do every Sunday from pulpits in the name of Jesus the Lord. And down into a pit comes Benaiah to slay a lion in time of snow. You see the connection?”

  “No,” I said.

  “And you in a pit a hundred feet down?”

  “Go on,” said Morfydd, happy with him.

  “And in the depth of winter, and all!” He flared his pipe and the flame lit the forest of props about us and the tram line shimmering down the tunnel. Strange place to find a man with a Bible, least of all a prowling lion.

  “Ah, me, little lady,” said Liam, and took Morfydd’s hand and kissed it. “No offence, you understand, for being shamrock I always kiss me friends, and I will not ask more, alone or not. Fallen among thieves, the pair of you, taking work with that pig Job Gower, but you will work at peace with Liam Muldooney who is a slayer when it comes to women-snatching foremen. And now it is winter and a time of snow, so hip and bloody thigh I will strike him if he pesters my women, begging the pardon of the Lord for the language, for with Jehoiada for a dad I couldn’t do otherwise. You listening?”

  “God bless you, Mr Muldooney,” said Morfydd.

  “So you come hewing, little man, and you go towing, little woman, with never a backward look for Gower, and I prefer my women covered in the breast, you understand?”

  “Yes,” said Morfydd.

  “And my men with trews, you see.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Now then, you seen my little Meg Benyon go by just now?”