‘Walter’s down there too,’ Ella cried. ‘Oh, Millie, I’m that scared!’
It was another twenty minutes before word seeped out that a shot-firer’s explosion had caused a fall of stone in the new flat and up to ten pitmen were trapped.
‘That’s where Albert is!’ Millie gasped, clutching on to her friend.
‘Walter could be anywhere mending things,’ Ella agonised too. ‘There’s been no sign of him.’
Millie fought to hide her terror with brave words. ‘That doesn’t mean anything – it could take over an hour for some of them to travel to the shaft.’
They stood around shivering for an hour as men began to emerge from the pit, and cries of relief went up from those who spotted a husband or son. Grant appeared, sweat running in rivulets through the grime on his face as he shouldered a young man to safety. Ella dashed forward.
‘Have you seen Walter?’ she demanded, clinging on to him. ‘Tell me what’s happening!’
Grant spat out the tobacco, now tasteless, that he had been chewing. ‘I saw him about an hour ago – mending one of the cutters,’ he said, breathing hard. ‘I thought he would’ve been up by now.’ He looked at Ella in concern. A woman shrieked and rushed up to Grant, claiming the youth he was supporting.
‘Thank you, thank you!’ she kept repeating as she led the stunned young pitman away.
As he turned back, Grant’s look met Millie’s. She could not move for the fear which gripped her, or speak the words that were frozen in her throat. Somewhere beneath them her son was trapped. She knew it with all the intuition of years worrying about her children, knowing their wants and feeling their needs. Yet she had let Albert go off that morning with hardly a word exchanged, still punishing him for being the last to know about his trial for Newcastle. She tried to mouth Albert’s name, but the effort just brought blinding tears to her eyes. For a moment she saw her anguish reflected in Grant’s face, then without further hesitation he said, ‘I’ll go back and see what I can do.’
Another long hour passed as they hung around waiting in the cold. Neighbours came out with flasks of tea for the anxious onlookers and shared cigarettes. Charity appeared, muffled in a hat and scarf, carrying a coat for Millie. Millie took it gratefully. ‘You should be in bed, lass!’ she scolded half-heartedly. ‘But ta for the coat.’
‘Granny Mercer’s going to send some soup over,’ Charity said wheezily. ‘Is there any word of Albert or Uncle Walter?’
Millie shook her head and put an arm about the slim, pale girl. ‘You take the bike and get yourself off home. There’s nothing to be done except stand around. I’ll come as soon as there’s any news.’ She was determined young Charity should not witness any distressing scenes. ‘Go on, off you go!’
The girl pulled a face but did as she was told. Shortly afterwards there was a flurry of activity around the pit entrance, shouting and running and men bearing stretchers.
‘Who is it?’ Ella demanded, standing on tiptoes next to the taller Millie.
Millie craned over the crowd. ‘I can’t, see, but they’re putting someone in the ambulance.’
A moment later the ambulance bell sounded and the vehicle came trundling out of the gates. The crowds stood back to let it through and a buzz went up about who might be inside.
‘I think I see Grant,’ Millie said, her heart pounding.
In another moment Grant appeared on the other side of the pit yard, beckoning to Millie. She exchanged a frightened look with Ella and then rushed towards him. He met her breathlessly. ‘They’re taking two lads to the hospital – one of them’s Albert.’
He steadied her as she fell against him. ‘He’s alive?’ she gasped.
‘Aye,’ he replied, ‘but he’s unconscious – a head injury, they say.’
Millie’s initial relief was immediately shattered. ‘Will he be all right? I should be with him!’ she sobbed. ‘What shall I do?’
‘I’ll take you to the hospital,’ he said in a low voice, ‘but I need you to help me first – with Ella.’ The way Grant looked into her eyes made Millie’s heart lurch.
‘What’s happened? Is it Walter?’ she whispered in fear.
Grant nodded grimly, his face harrowed. He could hardly speak. ‘They’ve laid him out in the medical centre,’ he gulped. ‘He got caught in the fall of rock, broke his neck—’ He stopped, unable to go on.
Millie gripped his arm in support. ‘Oh, dear God!’ she hissed. ‘I’m so sorry, Grant. Poor Walter!’
She turned back towards her friend, knowing she would have to be stronger than she had ever been in her life. Her mind was in turmoil, thinking of Albert lying injured, being jolted down the road. She longed to be with him, yet she knew that Ella needed her too. Dear, kind Walter dead! It was unthinkable! As they walked towards her, she saw the fear on Ella’s appalled face.
‘Walter?’ she trembled. ‘It’s my Walter, isn’t it?’
Millie rushed forward as Ella buckled at the knees and gave out a wail of anguish. She caught her friend in her arms.
‘Oh, Ella!’ she cried. ‘I’m so sorry!’
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Millie did not go to bed for two days. With Grant’s help, she eventually got the hysterical Ella back to the hotel. She was mad with shock and grief, her screams and wails echoing down the lanes. Dr Percy came and gave her a sedative and they put her to bed, where she finally slept. By this time Millie was quite exhausted, but nothing would stop her from going to the hospital to find out what had happened to Albert.
‘Someone will have to tell Marjory,’ Teresa said, pale and trembling from the shock of it all. They all agreed, but no one wanted to contemplate the task.
‘Ella needs her with her as soon as possible,’ Millie agreed. ‘I’ll telephone the hospital and leave a message for her to ring us here.’ She shuddered. ‘Oh, that poor lass!’
‘Let me do that,’ Patience offered. She had come rushing home from her office during the lunch hour to see if she could help. ‘You’ve had enough strain on you already.’
‘Thank you, pet,’ Millie said gratefully. She pulled on her coat and hat and said she would go by bus to the hospital, but Grant, having just seen the doctor away, stopped her.
‘I said I’d take you,’ he insisted. ‘I’ve asked Dr Percy to give us a lift. He said he’ll be back for us in twenty minutes.’
Millie was thankful to have someone to go with, and she tried to pacify the tearful Charity. ‘I can’t take you with me this time,’ she said distractedly.
Patience swiftly took over. ‘I need your help here,’ she coaxed her sister, ‘for when Jack gets back from school – and in case Auntie Ella wakes up.’
When Dr Percy returned, he told Millie he had rung the hospital. ‘He’s still unconscious, Mrs Nixon. I don’t see there’s any point going just now—’
‘There’s every point!’ Millie answered desperately. ‘I’m his mam and he needs me whether he’s conscious or not.’
‘Please, Dr Percy,’ Grant added quietly. ‘Can’t you see how worried she is?’
‘Of course,’ the doctor agreed at once, and they followed him out to his car.
Half an hour later, Millie was standing beside Albert’s bedside in the high-ceilinged ward, with its arched windows and rows of uniform beds. Beside her son an old man cried out deliriously for someone called Bella. Millie looked down tearfully at Albert’s pale face under the swaths of bandages around his head and left eye. She silently took his hand in hers and noticed it was still grimy from the pit.
‘You haven’t even cleaned him up!’ she said angrily to the nurse who had brought them in.
‘We wanted to move him as little as possible before the doctor sees him,’ she answered defensively. ‘We don’t know how bad his injuries are until he regains consciousness.’
Millie covered her mouth to stifle a horrified sob.
‘Maybe we should go,’ Grant suggested, twisting his cap awkwardly in his hands.
But Millie shook h
er head and knelt down at Albert’s side. Squeezing his hand, she whispered, ‘Mam’s here now, pet. You’re all right. We’re all going to get through this together.’
‘He can’t hear you, Mrs Nixon,’ the nurse declared. ‘You’d be better coming back later, like your husband said.’
‘He’s not me husband,’ Millie snapped. ‘And how do you know he can’t hear me?’
‘Millie, she doesn’t mean any harm . . .’ Grant tried to calm her.
But she would not be pacified. ‘I want to be here with him even if he can’t hear. At least I can hold his hand and be near him. He’s me son and he means the world to me!’ she choked.
‘I’m sorry,’ the nurse said, embarrassed.
Just then, Millie felt a faint twitch in the hand she held, and she gasped. They all stared at Albert’s prone figure. His eyelids flickered and then opened. Millie clutched his hand and leaned towards him, her mouth trembling.
‘Mam?’ he whispered, his eyes unfocused.
‘Aye, Albert, I’m here, pet,’ she answered, emotion welling within her. ‘Right beside you.’
A faint smile of relief crossed his colourless face. ‘G-good, I thought I heard you.’ Millie’s throat flooded with tears as she glanced up at Grant. ‘W-where am I?’ Albert asked groggily. ‘I thought . . . ?’
‘There was an accident at the pit,’ Millie told him softly, stroking his cheek. ‘You’ve had a blow to your head. But you’re in hospital now and they’re going to take good care of you.’
‘Hospital?’ he murmured in confusion.
‘Just for a bit,’ Millie promised. ‘We’ll have you home soon. I’m going to take such good care of you, bonny lad, you’ll be up and about in no time.’ Then she forced herself to add, ‘I want to see you playing football again.’
Albert’s gaze rested on her a moment and they both smiled. Then his eyes closed again. She felt Grant’s hand squeeze her shoulder.
The nurse spoke up. ‘You should let him get some rest now.’
Millie nodded and stood up, kissing Albert on the cheek. ‘Take care of him for me, won’t you?’ she said trembling, fighting to control her emotions so she could speak. ‘I lost one bairn a long time ago – I couldn’t bear to lose another. It would kill me,’ she croaked.
The nurse put out a hand and touched her arm. ‘Of course I will,’ she assured her. ‘That’s what I’m here for, Mrs Nixon.’ Millie saw the compassion in the young woman’s face and was comforted.
***
That night Millie sat up with Ella, talking about Walter, seeing that her friend was too overwrought to sleep. The next day, while Grant made the funeral plans, Marjory arrived from Newcastle to console her mother.
‘You can both stay here for as long as you want,’ Millie insisted. But Marjory declined.
‘Thanks, but Mam would like to be at home, Auntie Millie. She feels closer to me dad there,’ she explained quietly.
Millie gave her a quick hug. ‘If you need help in any way, or just a bit of company, mind you say so.’
Every day that week, Millie made the trip to the hospital. To her utter relief, Albert’s head injury had caused no paralysis, but they had to operate on his left eye. It would be several weeks before they knew if his sight had been saved, so Millie hid her anxiety from her son and said he must be brave and she would help him recover. She was grateful to see how the staff cared for him, especially the nurse she had met on the first day, and she marvelled at how she no longer had to worry about paying doctors’ bills now that it was all part of the new NHS. Yet she agonised over whether to tell Albert about his Uncle Walter. In the end, Grant came with her on the eve of the funeral and they broke the news to him.
Grant told him as gently as possible, ‘He and the shotfirer, Cook, were killed. It would have been instant.’
Albert’s unbandaged eye began to blink back tears and for a few moments he could not speak. Millie just held his hand in sympathy.
‘Marjory’s home with her mam for a bit,’ she said. ‘She’s being very brave and a grand help.’
But Albert’s mind seemed far away. ‘He was m-mending the cutter,’ he mumbled. ‘I’d just got off. Me and Billy were having some bait. I remember Uncle W-Walter by the machine, then . . .’ He closed his eyes and groaned.
‘Don’t talk about it, son,’ Millie pleaded. ‘It’s over now.’
‘There’s nothing anyone could’ve done,’ Grant added softly. ‘Walter was doing his job and it was just bad luck.’
Millie was silently thankful that her son had been taking his break further down the tunnel when the explosion happened. The blow he had taken from falling stone was bad enough.
After they left Albert, Grant said, ‘I think you should try and find out where Dan is.’ Millie was startled by the suggestion. ‘He ought to know about Walter – he was his brother, after all, and they used to be close.’ He gave her a bleak look, adding, ‘And wouldn’t it be fair for him to know about Albert?’
Millie bristled. ‘Albert wouldn’t want to hear from him even if we found out where he was – he’s too loyal to me. And Dan’s never tried to contact Walter in years.’
Grant said nothing. They walked for the bus in silence, but before they reached Ashborough Millie relented. ‘Perhaps Dan should know about Walter. But how could I possibly find him?’
‘Why not send a telegram to that address you had for Helen? Or place an announcement in a London paper? Someone might see it who knows him,’ Grant suggested.
Millie gave him an anxious look. ‘I’ve sometimes wondered over the past three years . . . wondered if Dan is still alive.’
‘All you can do is try,’ Grant answered, his face drained.
Millie realised suddenly how much he must be suffering too. He had lost a dear brother and continued to worry over Albert as if he was his own. Yet he had been a tower of strength for her to lean on this past week and she doubted she could have got through it without him.
‘Aye,’ Millie sighed, placing her hand briefly over his. ‘Ta for all you’re doing to help.’ She saw him flush and withdrew her hand quickly. They did not speak again, but Millie felt strengthened by his presence.
***
They were consoled by a brief visit from Robert, who was given two days’ leave to attend his uncle’s funeral. His appearance helped revive Albert’s spirits and spur on his recovery. But Millie’s telegram to Helen and notice of Walter’s death in the London Evening Standard drew no response. She concluded that Helen must have long gone and doubted she would ever discover what had happened to Dan. Maybe he had created a new life for himself with a new wife and family ignorant of his past. Perhaps it had caused a rift with Helen, and that was why news of Dan had dried up. The idea of Dan turning up again in her life was so painful that Millie felt more relief than disappointment when the weeks went by and not a word came back. She finally forced herself to admit that she would never see him again. He was lost to her now and she must dismiss him at last from her mind and her feelings.
With Albert coming home after a month in hospital, this was easier to do. She made a big fuss of his homecoming, preparing his favourite meal of liver stew followed by treacle pudding and custard. Ella had come to live with them once Marjory had gone back to Newcastle, and it was an emotional night, but Millie sensed that Ella felt comforted having Albert back, someone who had seen Walter just before he died and knew how she grieved.
Grant, who had taken on Walter’s colliery house, came round for the meal and talked of little but the coming election, fretting that the new Welfare State and the nationalised coal industry might be in jeopardy if the Tories got back in. That night, Millie was filled with thankful joy that her eldest son was back under the roof with them.
Within a month Labour had scraped back into government, and a few weeks later Albert was pronounced fit enough to go back to work. Millie was thankful that there was no lasting damage to his left eye, and his fair hair was already growing back over his head wound. But she was g
ripped by anxiety at the thought of him going back down the pit, and Ella too became tearful at such talk. Her friend busied herself during the day, helping with the hotel, but when Millie got up during the night to sit in the kitchen sewing or reading, she often heard Ella weeping. Sometimes she would go in with a cup of tea and sit with her on the bed; at other times she left her alone.
Albert gave her concern too. So cheerful on his arrival home, he had become withdrawn and edgy.
‘Are you worried about going down the pit again?’ Millie asked him one night. ‘Because I’d much rather you looked around for something else – even at less pay.’
Albert shook his head. ‘I’m not scared, Mam,’ he insisted impatiently.
‘Then what’s troubling you?’ Millie pressed.
‘Y-you wouldn’t understand,’ he muttered.
Millie felt her heart squeeze. ‘I can try. Please tell me.’
He gave her a look of despair. ‘I m-missed the trial,’ he said miserably. ‘It’s all I ever w-wanted. Now I might never have the chance again.’
Millie put an arm around his shoulders. ‘Oh, pet,’ she sighed. ‘Uncle Grant wrote and explained about the accident. You’ve got to give yourself time, get your fitness back.’
Albert shook his head. ‘I don’t know if I’m good enough any more.’
Millie took him firmly by the shoulders and made him look at her. ‘I know you’re good enough. You’ve shown great courage over these past weeks and I’ve been that proud of you. It’s up to you to show them that you’re still as good as before. You’re young and you’ve mended fast; you just need to get your confidence back. Uncle Grant thinks the scouts will be back to watch you, so you just go and show them!’
Albert smiled foolishly at his mother. ‘I c-can’t believe I’m hearing this from you!’ he said bashfully. ‘You sound like you w-want me to play.’
‘I do,’ Millie told him, with a tender smile, ‘because I know that’s what you want more than anything. And I’d much rather you were playing football than going back down that pit. I’m sorry I didn’t support you before, pet, but I’m going to now.’
THE TYNESIDE SAGAS: Box set of three dramatic and emotional stories: A Handful of Stars, Chasing the Dream and For Love & Glory Page 81
