Blair lifted a leech from a jar and set it in a row of its companions feeding on his bruised and swollen hip. Not that he expected leeches to draw anything but subcutaneous bleeding. He lay on his side to keep deeper blood from pooling, wearing only a loose shirt and socks, his skin red from the overstoked fire of his hotel sitting room. Since his veins swam in aspirin, arsenic and brandy, he expected the worms to soon swoon and drop.
Leveret had delivered a bound copy of the coroner’s report, and Blair had sent him off for a list of pit girls who had attended the Home for Women. Where else could Rose have learned how to stitch a wound? What better place to meet John Maypole?
The report weighed an imperial pound.
Being the Inquest of the Coroner’s Jury into the Circumstances and Causes of the Explosion at the Hannay Pit, Wigan, Lancashire, Jan. 21, 1872, held at the Royal Inn.
The site didn’t surprise him. Inquests were held in a local public room, which usually meant any inn with space enough to seat the jury, witnesses, bereaved families and interested parties.
The first page was a foldout map of the Hannay mine, the scale fifty yards to an inch, marked with arrows to show how fresh air arrived from the down shaft, branched from the tunnel called the Main Road, and circulated through cross tunnels to the far periphery of the coal face. Ventilation returned through the Back Road tunnel until it was sucked up a diagonal channel called a dumb drift to join the up shaft far enough above the furnace so that the tainted, gassy air wouldn’t explode.
The map was also marked from “1” to “76” to indicate where men had died. There was a capricious quality to mine explosions because blast and smoke underground could multiply like a dozen locomotives racing through tunnels, suddenly swerving from a likely victim to chase down a less fortunate man half a mile away. Also, in the insidious alchemy of a blast, the methane that fueled a fire was always followed by afterdamp—carbon monoxide—and no man was safe until he had reached the surface ahead of the spreading gas.
Death certificates followed. Blair’s eye skipped around because there were so many.
1. Henry Turton, 8 years, pony tender. Attempting to aid his pony, Duke, he became tangled in the reins and was carried to the bottom of the shaft.…
23, 24 and 25. Albert Pimblett, 62, his son, Robert Pimblett, 41, and grandson Albert, 18, found side by side and apparently unmarked in the Main Road. It is surmised that as one succumbed to gas, the others stayed to help, and so all perished. They were identified by their wives.…
45. In the Main Road, an Irishman called Paddy, no other name known. Age unknown. He was identified by a Fenian tattoo.…
48. William Bibby, 14. Identified by his brother Abel, who had not gone to work that day because of a headache …
53. Bernard Twiss, 16. Burned. Recovered at the coal face by his father, Harvey, who failed at first to recognize him. Identified later by red cloth he used to hold up his pants …
66. Arnold Carey, 34. Found burned and disfigured at the coal face. Identified by his wife, who recognized his clogs.…
73. Thomas Greenall, 54. At the coal face. Burned and mutilated, recognized by the fact that he had previously lost a finger.…
74, 75. George Swift, 21, and John Swift, 20. Burned and mutilated. Identified by George’s belt buckle and John’s watch …
76. A dayworker known as Taffy. Age unknown. Identified by a black tooth …
A missing finger, a watch, a tattoo. It was enough to make a man take personal inventory.
The thirteen members of the jury were listed: three bankers, two retired Army officers, a builder, one insurance agent and six shop owners, all of a social caste that turned to the Hannays the way flowers heeded the sun. A jury of one’s peers.
George Battie was the first witness.
CORONER: As underlooker, you are one of the employees most responsible for the day-to-day safety of the Hannay pit and the men who work in it, is that not true?
BATTIE: It is, sir.
CORONER: Last week seventy-six men died in that mine. Every home in Wigan lost a husband, a father, a brother, or at the very least a friend. Their widows are gathered here today, asking how it is possible that such a mass calamity could have been allowed to occur. We will hear testimony and opinion from survivors and rescuers, experts who were called immediately to the scene of the disaster, as well as experts who visited the pit later, agents for the mine owner and miners’ union, and finally from Her Majesty’s Mines Inspector. However, you may be the most important witness of all, since you were the individual charged with the safety of those victims.
Blair could see Battie strapped into a Sunday suit, facing the questions like a pony staring down a shaft.
CORONER: What did you do on the morning of January 18 to ensure the safety of the men in the Hannay pit?
BATTIE: I am always first man down pit at 4:00 in the morning to hear the report of the night underlooker whether there have been accidents or complaints since the previous day. There were none. I then checked the barometer and thermometer.
AARON HOPTON, ESQ., counsel for the Hannay pit: Why is that?
BATTIE: If the barometric pressure falls, gas creeps out of the coal. When that is the case, I caution the men against setting off any shots that might ignite the gas. The barometric pressure did drop that morning and I issued such a caution as the men came down the cage. I then visited workplaces to make sure that the caution was understood, paying particular attention to districts of the coal face I knew to be fraught with gas. As I did so, I also examined the ventilation to be sure that every part of the mine had access to good air, and that every workplace had two routes of escape.
MILES LIPTROT, ESQ., counsel for the Hannay pit: Did you examine where the explosion originated?
BATTIE: Yes, sir. That is, I believe I can estimate where the explosion took place, and I did inspect that area the morning of the fire.
ENOCH NUTTAL, ESQ., counsel for the Hannay pit: Did you detect gas that morning?
BATTIE: Yes.
ISAAC MEEK, ESQ., counsel for the Hannay pit: Determined by?
BATTIE: Passing my lamp across the coal face and observing a lengthening of the flame. I moved a brattice—
HOPTON: Brattice?
BATTIE: A frame of wood and canvas for directing ventilation. And I told Albert Smallbone—
LIPTROT: That would be the fireman at that location?
BATTIE: Yes, sir. I told him to watch the gas and not to fire any shots.
NUTTAL: To set off any gunpowder for the easier getting of coal?
BATTIE: Yes, sir.
MEEK: Describe, Mr. Battie, where you were and what you did when you became aware of an explosion?
BATTIE: I was at my desk at the bottom of the shaft at 2:45 in the afternoon when the floor jumped and hot clouds of coal dust shot from the tunnels. The ponies were in a turmoil. One carried a boy to his death in the cistern beneath the cage shaft. The cage arrived almost at once, seconds too late for the poor boy.
HOPTON: Go on.
BATTIE: I wrote a note for the pit manager, explaining the situation, and sent the cage back up. Then I took men with rescue supplies that are always at the ready—picks and shovels, litters and splints, brattices and timber, block and tackle, canaries in cages—and started with them into the Main Road because that is the main artery of fresh air. The first men and ponies we encountered were rushing out. I soon began to find brattices that had been blown out of position, disrupting the inward draft of good air and allowing afterdamp to spread. We repaired the canvas to improve ventilation and push the gas back. Only as the quality of air improved could we move forward. It is one thing for fate to take a life; it is another matter altogether for the leader of a rescue party to endanger more lives through recklessness or haste.
Five hundred yards in, we found men who had succumbed to gas and fallen face forward unconscious to the floor, a sign they had fallen while running. We turned them on their backs so they could breathe and tended some twe
nty men in this fashion as proper ventilation took hold. All survived. Another fifty yards on, however, the canary in the cage I held dropped, and we now started to find men stretched out on the floor, unmarked by violence but beyond any ministration. We also started to meet cave-ins and were forced to dig through obstructions, propping up rock as we went, rigging block and tackle to move fallen props. There were pockets of good air as well as gas, and we were able to extricate another eighteen men alive, besides finding the bodies of thirty-five more.
CORONER: What about the canary? Canaries are sensitive to carbon monoxide, hence their use in mines. You said the canary in the cage you held dropped to the bottom of its cage. Were you progressing with a dead canary?
BATTIE: We had three cages. Only one was in the lead. When it dropped, it was handed back to revive while one of the other canaries was handed to the front. We were indeed slowed by thicker concentrations of gas, which required men as well as birds to take turns in the lead. Five of us were overcome and had to be carried out. However, we were reinforced by survivors who chose to participate in the rescue rather than to run for safety. Smallbone had been injured by a rockfall and was being assisted to my office by William Jaxon when the explosion took place. Both joined us and took such extreme risks I had to restrain them.
HOPTON: They heard cries for help?
BATTIE: After an explosion, timbers make all manner of sounds. However, from a thousand yards on there were no more survivors.
LIPTROT: And you advanced quickly?
BATTIE: It was 3:45 when Jaxon and Smallbone joined us, but our progress slowed despite their efforts. If you can’t see the bird in the cage and the flame in your lamp sinks to a nub, you order everyone back until fresh air lifts the flame again, because dead rescuers are no help at all.
NUTTAL: You cite the zeal of Smallbone and Jaxon. Why do you think they pressed so hard?
BATTIE: The explosion was at their district of the coal face. When we emerged at the near end of the face, the bodies there were singed. With every step, the destruction was more severe. Midway, the victims were burned. Some were buried under coal tubs thrown off the track, others blown by the force of the explosion into old workings. The far end of the coal face was Smallbone and Jaxon’s station. Had they been there at the time of the explosion nothing would have been left of them.
MEEK: Who was the last victim recovered?
BATTIE: A dayworker, a Welshman we called Taffy.
The black tooth, Blair remembered.
CORONER: At least we can trust that the death of these men was mercifully swift. The watch later identified as that of John Swift was found with its crystal shattered and its hands stopped at 2:45, the very moment of the blast.
Progressing with a dead canary was an accurate description of Blair’s own life. He shuffled stiffly across the carpet to feed the fire grate. Since they were along for the ride, he decided to name the leeches on his leg Famine, Death, Conquest and War after the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Blair was self-taught. What had there been to do in a Sierra winter but read through the old man’s library of classics? Sober, old man Blair had no conversation beyond engineering or, drunk, the Revelation of Saint John. The women the boy saw were either Chinese or whores. To win attention he told them stories that he stole. His favorite was a version of Robinson Crusoe in which the castaway was a woman instead of a man, and Friday was a boy instead of a native. They lived so happily on the island that they let ships pass rather than wave them down.
HOPTON: I appreciate that you and the other members of the rescue party were operating under strain and emotional upset. Did you, however, immediately examine the coal face for evidence that a worker had fired a shot contrary to your caution?
BATTIE: Not immediately.
LIPTROT: Why not?
BATTIE: There was more gas.
CORONER: From what?
BATTIE: From old workings, sir. Waste stone and unusable small coal that we’d bricked it to help support the roof. It’s normal practice, but unfortunately all sorts of gases accumulate in waste. The explosion had cracked the bricks. The whole tunnel lit up when our lamps felt the gas. The choice was to abandon the coal face with any bodies in it that we hadn’t found or stop up the leak.
NUTTAL: What was the condition of your lamps?
BATTIE: Red, sir. Too hot to hold.
NUTTAL: Because of gas?
BATTIE: Yes.
MEEK: What access did you have to this leak?
BATTIE: Poor. The gas was blowing from a bricked-up area deep in the coal seam under a low shelf, and the way was partially blocked by debris. While we tried to ventilate as best we could, I sent for bricks and the makings for cement that we store in side tunnels, and when they arrived I sent everyone out but Smallbone and Jaxon. We mixed mortar at the face and they took turns crawling with two bricks at a time in almost total darkness to repair the wall. They succeeded, and as a consequence I was able to bring lamps to that area of the coal face that I most wanted to examine.
HOPTON: Why that part?
BATTIE: It was the area where I had detected gas that morning.
HOPTON: Did you suspect that, contrary to the caution you issued, one of the victims had set off a shot?
BATTIE: No, sir.
LIPTROT: Perhaps you feel it would be uncharitable to speculate?
BATTIE: I couldn’t say, sir. Besides, sir, the only fireman in that district of the coal face was Smallbone.
NUTTAL: And he was with you. So it was unlikely that Taffy or the Swift brothers or Greenall or any of the deceased set off a shot of gunpowder in the absence of Smallbone.
BATTIE: Yes, sir.
MEEK: But if they did, they would be less expert.
BATTIE: Yes, sir.
HOPTON: Isn’t it true that Greenall had been reprimanded in the past for lighting a pipe in the mine?
BATTIE: Ten years back.
LIPTROT: It’s true, though?
BATTIE: Yes.
NUTTAL: Any heavy drinkers among the men at the coal face?
BATTIE: I wouldn’t say heavy.
NUTTAL: Weren’t John and George Swift reprimanded by police only last week for carousing on the street?
BATTIE: John was just married. They were celebrating.
HOPTON: Does drink affect a miner’s judgment?
BATTIE: Yes.
HOPTON: Miners drink.
BATTIE: Some.
NUTTAL: Do you drink?
BATTIE: I’ll have an ale on the way home.
NUTTAL: An ale or two?
BATTIE: The temperature down pit is 100 degrees. You sweat off five pounds in a day. When you come up, you need something to drink.
HOPTON: Are you suggesting that ale is purer than Wigan water?
BATTIE: You said it, sir, not I.
MEEK: You are involved with the miners’ union, are you not?
BATTIE: I am a miner and I am in the union.
MEEK: More than that. An active leader. A defender, is that right?
BATTIE: I suppose so.
MEEK: With no insinuation intended, would it be fair to say that the last thing a union leader would admit was that one of the unfortunate victims was himself to blame?
BATTIE: I don’t know what happened down pit that day. I do know mining is dry and dangerous work, that’s a fact of life. Nothing is ever going to change that.
* * *
Blair felt dry himself, and the ache from his head was crowding out his ability to focus. He drank a brandy, wished it were ale, set down the report, peeled off the leeches and napped.
He lunched on cold beef, cheese and wine, keeping in mind Battie’s warning about the water. The leeches lunched on him. A different foursome now: Juliet, Ophelia, Portia and Lady MacBeth.
He hated coal mines. Gold was noble and inert. Coal, which had been living material, was still alive, exhaling gas as it changed into rock. Of course all the easy, shallow coal was long gone. As mines went deeper, coal was harder, air fo
uler, firedamp stronger. For what? No nugget of gold.
CORONER: Mr. Wedge, you are the manager of the Hannay pit. Were you aware of a danger of explosive gas at the coal face on the day of January 18?
WEDGE: I was so informed by George Battie, and I agreed with Battie’s caution against firing shots. That’s what an underlooker is for, to take such precautions and protect property.
CORONER: As manager, where were you and what did you do when you became aware of the explosion?
WEDGE: I was in the yard and knocked almost off my feet by the explosion. With my very first breath, I sent runners for medical assistance and help from the nearby pits. A bad fire requires the transport of injured and dead for long distances underground at a time when your own miners are incapacitated. Next, I looked after the cage, which was, thank God, operative, although a volume of smoke rose from the shaft. A messenger had come from Battie to say he had started rescue operations below. Although we had to wait for the cage to return to the surface again, we immediately sent volunteers down with lamps. It is a sad fact that in mine disasters rescuers are often among the victims. That is why we strictly count lamps, so that we know by simple arithmetic when everyone is out of the pit. The worst for a family is not knowing if someone is found.
Blair wasn’t certain of his own age and had no idea of his birthday. Old Blair, however, taught him geometry, and when Blair was probably no more than nine he figured with a protractor—using the average time of an Atlantic crossing and taking into consideration trade winds and winter seas—the approximate latitude and longitude where he last saw his mother. Since then he had crossed the same position only once. He had stood at the rail and looked down at dark swells that moved under sheets of foam. The sense of cold and isolation was overwhelming.
CORONER: Your name is?
JAXON: William Jaxon.
LIPTROT: You are the miner who usually drills holes for the fireman at the coal face where the explosion took place?
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