by Dai Smith
Frenzy quelled Gabe Lloyd’s fear, gave him the blind power of heroes and agonised cowards. He caught Billy’s boots, dragging him clear, the cap lamp trailing on its flex from the battery clipped to Billy’s belt. Unbuckling the belt, Gabe hitched it over his own. He thrust Billy’s lamp into his jacket pocket. With Billy dead in his arms, he lurched back to the tram. Seconds into minutes later came the biggest fall in memories of Bothi Number Two. Forty yards of heading blanket crashed, leaving eight new rings, strained but upright behind Stan Evans’ tram of debris.
Head bent against slow-surging clouds of dust, Gabe sat on the hitching plate with Billy across his lap. He’s muttering, ‘You were right, Coch. Man, you were right.’
Pain registered. He dangled his right arm. There were lacerations along the back of his hand, blood clotting, glints blackening. Fist clenched, he tightened the forearm muscles, a sense of wonder beguiling him. It was OK, the arm, proved by digging his fingernails into his palm. Gabe waggled his bandaged foot, feeling it tolerably sore. The soreness comforted his existence.
‘Cochyn, hey, Billy…’ Widening the spread of his thighs, bending over to lever up Billy’s head and shoulders, he saw a blood bubble film out of the small mouth, burst soundless, the lips set still.
He’s crying, ‘Billy, Billy, Billy,’ and staring at the pulped flesh behind Billy’s ear, bone punched inwards, all of it wet black, minute highlights shrinking, fading to overall matt black. ‘Ah, Christ, Billy,’ he grieved, wrung bankrupt, desolated, and lowered him over his thighs again, letting the slack head loll down.
Gabe didn’t know what to do. He sat on the hitching plate, listening to the roof sounding off. High up air pockets imploded in rock molten and sealed for three hundred million years. Tension drained away. Reveries surfaced, disconnected, the mixture unstoppable: Sue’s wedding day, her new husband bragging in the kitchen, already half pissed, confetti peppering his curly hair. Flabbergasted Sue. She dapped him in his place before the first week was over. Very likely banned cock on him. No doubt, aye. Sue, she’s a Lloyd. Married a runaway husband. Mansel’s big welcome for Martha when she came home from hospital. Martha created ructions. Carpet clashed with the wallpaper and they hadn’t bought stair rods. Last round of his match against Nobby Graham. Two straight lefts smack on the point, then Nobby fetched a right-hander from nowhere and they wobbled back to wrong corners like in a comedy. Shoni Joseph’s gang of boys racing up the old big tip incline, Shoni in front with a new wristwatch. Shoni’s record for running up the incline. He could gallop along like a milgi. Crumped-up Grancha Lloyd showing newspaper cuttings, reports about pit owners who refused to allow food sent down the shaft when colliers were on stay-in strike. Police on guard around the pithead, batons keeping away wives and lodge committeemen. Grancha Tommy’s walking stick bouncing off the mantelpiece, him reciting olden times, his voice quavery inside his chest, ‘Durrty swines, they’d leave men rot so as to make their profits!’ The winter weekend of twenty-foot snowdrifts, top-pit horses sledging groceries from the shops. Everything altered. Hedges vanished. Bank manager’s bungalow just a white trump. Sheep down off the hills, they’d crash into your pantry. Lucy last night… up there in the canteen, blonde hair like Goldilocks. Lovely Lucy.
His breath groaned for himself stranded alone. Muttering, ‘One-two-three,’ he staggered lop sidedly to his feet, hoiked Billy over the rim of the tram. Thus Gabe laid out his butty on the rubble. Didn’t matter anymore. Cuts on Gabe’s hands were burning, his fingers stiff as he unclipped his cap lamp. He tried the pilot bulb. The faint glow swung his head, stare pop-eyed at the full glare of Billy’s lamp. Gabe switched it off, waited, adjusting his eyes to the dim light: ‘Give a bloody rabbit nystagmus.’ And he switched it on again.
He drained his water jack, the last capful chilling inside his chest, then he settled down on his heels, tired but sure of his strength, compelled to dismiss Billy Holly, dead. Concentrate on himself, trapped in his heading. Air for instance. Aye. Christ, aye! The big canvas ventilation bag from the main was under the fall, smashed to smithereens.
Gabe went searching for the 2" compressed air pipeline which powered Stan Evans’ boring machine. It was buried.
Hunkered in the roadway, Gabe felt confident, untested yet confident, conscientious, talking to himself as if discussing pit work over a beer, ‘Pipe column finishes this side of Stan’s toolbar, blast hose connected to the column and the valve’s turned off. Must be turned off because Stan’s drills and boring machine are stacked behind his toolbar. There’s roughly four yards of fall between me and that bloody valve. Eight, ten drams of muck if I can timber up as I drive through. Big IF. Umpteen drams if the heavy stuff starts shifting again. It won’t move though, not if I go careful on the timbering.’ Gabe climbed to his feet. ‘Hey, any case it’s shit or bust.’
Stan’s shovel, pick and hatchet were propped against the side of the tram. Testing the blade with his thumb, he remembered the other hatchet buried under the fall. He carried the new 4½' posts to the edge of the fall. Three journeys and he was sweating. He sniffed for air. There wasn’t much circulating. None at all, maybe. The canvas ventilation bag was in ribbons, some twenty yards out from the tram.
Filling his water jack from a thin streamer glinting below the high, narrow seam of mothering-coal, he kept his eyes averted from Billy Holly. Pointless examining a corpse. First things first. Drive through to the stop valve. Knock on the pipe column. Remind anyone at the other side that he was alive and kicking. Time enough to worry about Billy when they could bring in a stretcher for him.
Gabe worked hard, careless of his durability, following the left-side tramrail, intent upon digging a low burrow between the rail and slewed butts of the collapsed rings. Every shovelful had to be thrown well back. The muck would have to be handled twice. At least twice. For a couple of hours he cleared sliding rubble. No alternative. He had to reach the solid, stone packed fall. Again Gabe counted his posts. Thirteen. One extra, Welshman’s luck. Flats, he thought, I’m without flats. Strong flats, else I’ll have muck tamping off my bloody helmet. Can’t expect to hold big stuff up with these thin four’n halves. He cooped on his heels, expectant, waiting for ideas, thinking, I shan’t travel far trimming these lagging timbers. Flats? Bloody flats… Sleepers! Yes, by Christ, sleepers. Rip the lot up.
He prised out rail cramps from the end sleeper. Slackening the wheel sprags, he pushed the tram forward over the loose rails. Then he removed four more sleepers. Pleased with himself, he said, ‘Now for the real fucken graft.’
Massive slant-locked stones were his enemies. Gabe tackled them cautiously, loosening rubble with his pick, his head always protected by a half-length of sleeper flatted across short props. He chopped 18" off the posts, using off-cuts for wedges. His small burrow meant less digging. Less muck to clear. Twice the service from his sleepers.
Seven hours after Billy Holly’s death, Gabe sounded a steeply-raked slab of rock with his pick-head, and he put the pick aside. Groping upwards, he finger-tipped delicate fern shapes, rippled tracings etched in the edge of the stone. They signified naught. He crawled out. Rest, think – instead he wondered about the rescue team working into the fall from the other side. Jammy sods, plenty of timber and steel flats. ‘Few six’n-half posts would do me al’right,’ he said. Two six-and-a-halves, that’s all I need. There’re thousands mouldering on collieries all over Wales. Fuck Wales. Fuck the mines. How would Mansel and Tommy perform, stuck in a crib like this? No-answer bloody question.
Then, straightening out his legs, instinct crowed from him, his bootstuds scraping on the nearside rail. ‘Just the job,’ his touch of joy. Gabe knew he’d found a way to work under the big stone. Plant a couple of 2-yard rails up against it. Rails and heavy wedges.
Prolonged toil wearied him. He struggled, hooking out shovelfuls of packed shale inside the line of rings, working back to a firm base upon which to slope the tramrails against the slab of rock. God knows how many feet of broken ground above th
e slab.
Muttering, ‘So far so good,’ he came kneeling out for a drink of water. And tired, weary, the gristle of his bones fiery. Sleep, he decided, save light, save my battery. Precious cap lamp held to his stomach, he slept in the dark. Dull pain from his bruised foot and grazed hand failed to message his senses.
Gabe awoke fearfully, conscious of time spent. How much time? He inhaled, testing the air. It smelt familiar, the stale atmosphere of abandoned districts. Stale, like a dead-end airway road before knocking through to a ventilated coal face. Not too bad. I can stick a lot of this. Besides, doesn’t seem to be any gas here inside the fall. No killer gas, thank God.
Head turned from glancing at Billy Holly on the tram of muck, Gabe returned to his burrow.
He plodded now. Fatigue centred his body. He fiddled with the mandrel instead of hacking debris loose enough to shovel away. And his shovelfuls fell short. Crawling out, he remained stooped until he fell sideways, his limbs creeping to slumped rest. Rest, peace.
Often he simply listened. Surely to Christ they were working on the fall from the other side, day-shift colliers fresh from the kitchen table. Rescue teams from all over this bloody Number Three Eastern Area. Working side by side in pairs, under new rings, turn and turn about every few minutes. Slash into it, you dim-witted buggers. Bang on the pipe column, you bastards, let a man know you’re getting stuck into it.
Gabe crawled out.
Clear sterile water dripped, spun candlewick streamers from the high, narrow layer of impure coal. Small puddles spread around the grey heap of rubble. Water seeped back under the tram, dampness invading dust in the shallow indent left by the far side rail, swelling half an inch wide to surface-coiling current where it leaked beneath the fall. Resting outside his burrow, Gabe thought. Thank Christ it’s over there, otherwise I’d be soaked to my knees in this bloody dugout. I’ve shifted tons of muck. Few more hours should put me by the stop valve, near as damn it, I hope. By then I’ll be knackered. Just about knackered as it is. There’s old Cochyn my butty, he’s out of it. He’s finished. His missis’ll go off her rocker when she sees him. As Mansel would say, here’s the price of the old black diamonds. He was never stuck in a crack like this. Stan Evans’ heading, right place for trying out our NCB office staff, our collar-and-tie brigade.
Gabe’s mind feathered as drift around himself and Lucy Passmore, finally vanishing, become phantasmal. He drank from his jack before crawling into the hole.
Raging, ‘Anyone back there?’ careless insanity promised to protect him. He slaved briefly, desperately. Exhaustion and stale air drained his spirit. He threw muck twice, clearing the burrow. He dragged in his last two props. When they were fixed in position, Gabe crawled out and slept. Cap lamp in his hand, consciousness settled greyly peaceful. Stop valve, get on to the pipe column or you’ll wind up a deader like Billy Cochyn, which sparked defiance. Never. But torpor held his unfeeling body.
He hacked slowly at the rubble, levering away larger stones, rolling them behind him. The rail was his base for shovelling, screwing aside, turning every shovelful over his left thigh.
As in dream, impacting like divine insight, a streak of black low down in the debris, Gabe scrabbled with his fingers, freeing a loop of rubber hose. The blast hose connected to the 2" pipeline. Confidence swam warmth, magic hurrahs singing his blood. Uncoiling the tough rubber hose, scratching forward through rubble, he found the smooth iron pipe. Gabe turned the stop-valve wheel, clung to it with a searing wrench of strength as compressed air whined, howled from a leak at the hose connection, purging the burrow with pricking dust and grit. Sobbing breaths, he eased back the knurled wheel until gentle air purred out, consistent, like a soft chimney draught drawing a fire. Gabe lashed his muffler around the leak. He crawled back to the tram. He felt convinced. All he had to do now was rest, wait for rescue teams to work through the fall.
Sprawled in the roadway, cap lamp and helmet held to his stomach, he listened to cool, flowing air. Memory fragments bobbled like spawn. His fight-training days in the basement below the Institute. Sweat and snobs. Hard. Nothing like this.
Few minutes rest, relax all over, then start banging on the pipe column. Battery’s just about flattened. He switched on as he stood upright. Glimmer focused on Billy’s studded bootsoles projecting above the rim of the tram. And Gabe’s throat lamented, ‘Poor old Cochyn.’
Whispery, human-sounding air flowed out from the threaded nozzle of the blast hose. Gabe pulled on his jacket, feeling his bones worn, feeble. He dragged Stan Evans’ hammer-headed hatchet into the burrow, poised it over the 2" pipe and knocked six hard bangs. He waited, eyes shut, his mouth open. Six far-off signals resounded faintly. He hammered aggressively until he realised the danger of dislodging stones above his head.
As before, answers came softly pecking along the pipeline.
He’s mumbling, ‘Christ… Christ-man, it’ll take ’em ages to cut through.’
Gabe huddled at the end of his burrow. The banging clacked on and on, all the time far, far away. He couldn’t calculate how far. Head wrapped in his arms, he lapsed into misery worse than any physical beating, worse than the deaths of his father and mother. He was reduced, flawed in power, Gabe’s secret faith where he lived heroically.
Frightened, he skulked around the tram to peer at Billy Holly’s shrunken face, ‘Billy Coch,’ he said, mawkishly superior, ‘we’re trapped inside a bloody big dose of it, heading’s blocked right out to the main, way they’re knocking through on the blast pipe. Trapped, see?’ He reached over and buttoned Billy’s jacket, tidily, the way Sue straightened his tie before he went to Dove Street court. ‘But you’re safe, Cochyn, lucky man you.’
He circled around the tram. Cracked saucepan tappings were still coming from the burrow, endless, and he thought, they’ve put a youngster on the job, just bashing the pipe column. Monte Leyshon’s back there, Monte the gog-eyed wonder, in charge of operations. He’d better be. I hope he is for Christ’s sake. I’m relying on more than brains to get me out from here.
When the knocking ceased, he stilled himself in listening. Abruptly then, with blind certainty, Gabe leaned over the tram and rifled Billy’s waistcoat pockets. Jacket pockets never carried anything except water jack and tommy box. A harmless WHUMP froze him in the act. He gazed up at the new untightened ring. Shot firing on big stuff back there.
The distant explosion shook down diminutive whiffs of dust. He crouched into the burrow. Billy had small change and a return bus ticket in a Zube tin, a piece of hacksaw blade attached to a wrist loop of baling string, pair of pliers, box spanner to fit nuts on the longwall cable pommel, and two sticky boiled sweets wrapped in paper. Gabe switched off his cap lamp, lowered his mouth to the sweets, sucked, a king of clockwork suck-suck-suck, then crunched, savouring fragments to his upper palate, draining juice out of them, twitchy like a rodent. Hours later he replaced the articles in Billy’s waistcoat pockets.
He licked buttery crumbs off greaseproof paper which had wrapped Billy’s sandwiches – Sue Lloyd always packed his sandwiches in a plastic bag. Sleep, he thought, for the time being, sleep. She’s heard the news by now, odds are Sue’s on top pit, blinding holy Jesus out of officials. Sue and Cochyn’s wife, that queer little sprat of a woman. Strange little piece, Mrs Holly, busy-busy like women with kids are supposed to be.
Gabe examined ground around the tram for a dry, shaly place to sleep. Knock first, he thought. Ease off the blast or I’ll freeze.
He clanged the pipe six times with the hatchet, returned to the driest side of the tram and curled up with his head tucked inside his jacket. Nine hours later, when he roused feeling broken, nerves snapped beyond cure, a fourth rescue team were beginning their work on the fall.
Gabe drank too much water, felt it grip his insides like colic. The worthless mystery of his heart said, ‘I’m starving.’ I’m starving. Jesus Christ, I could eat now, put away the eggs and heaps of rashers. Forearms pressed to his stomach, he see-sawed from the waist, defendi
ng himself against gnawing chill. Bound to wear off, he thought. Gripe. I’ll have to go steady on the water. It’s easing already. Must keep warm. At a pinch I’ll borrow some of Billy’s clothes. Dead cert there won’t be any grub. Set my mind on that. God help me if I can’t go without grub for a couple of shifts.
Insectile vibrations plagued along the metal. He’s squawking, ‘Slash into it!’ the same dumb answer along the compressed air pipeline.
Idle bastards, he thought, they’re not putting their backs into the job. Every man in Bothi Number Two should be out there, all the rings, timber and flats they want coming up right behind their legs. Everything to hand for the asking, while me, I’m…
He rubbed his eyes, quenching tears. The knockings were punishing his mind. But tears flowed as crawled from the hole, clogging runnels in his blackened face. Gabe sobbed, warning himself, ‘Hang on, gotto hang on to my nerve. Once my nerve goes I’ll be useless. I won’t lose my nerve. I won’t. No matter what, I’ll stick it out. Must hang on, thinking if it takes them a few shifts to clear the fall, I’ll be al’right. Just hang on, stick it until the first lamp comes up the heading.’
By way of inane authority, he shouted, ‘Cochyn, I’ll stay company with you.’ Then mumbling defeat, ‘Ah, poor old Cochyn.’
On in front of the tram, waxily black against grey rock, the rider seam of inferior coal wheezed airily, handfuls spraying down over the rubble. Gabe hunkered motionless, chin on his chest. He was failing to estimate how long he’d been cut off in this bloody deathtrap of a heading.
Like a drugged man he scuffed his shape in the shaly rubble. Gabe laid flat on his back, Billy Holly’s jacket wrapped around his legs. Staring at darkness, cap lamp clipped to the front of his belt, he invented tactics: The longer I’ll sleep, less I’ll panic. There’s enough strength left in me. I’m a long way from beaten, hell of a long way yet, as I’d show if Lucy Passmore was here. I could use a good woman, put some life in my guts. She’ll be waiting. Lush blonde. I had the green light off her again last night. Last…? How long since the fall? We’d finished cutting when Jobie came. Say around six o’clock in the morning. Saturday. I worked at least a full shift digging through to the stop valve. Then slept. Slept three, four times. Making it Sunday evening. Sunday night at the latest.
