Fall of Giants

by Follett, Ken

  Ethel Williams said: “And they couldn’t put out the flames because there was insufficient water kept underground.” Her eyes flashed with fury in a way that Fitz found alluring, and his heart skipped a beat.

  “There’s a fire engine!” Jones protested.

  Gus Dewar spoke again. “A coal dram filled with water, and a hand pump.”

  Ethel Williams went on: “They should have been able to reverse the flow of ventilation, but Mr. Jones has not modified the machinery in accordance with the law.”

  Jones looked indignant. “It wasn’t possible—”

  Fitz interrupted. “All right, Jones, this isn’t a public inquiry, His Majesty just wants to get people’s impressions.”

  “Quite so,” said the king. “But there is one subject on which you might be able to advise me, Jones.”

  “I should be honored—”

  “I was planning to visit Aberowen and some of the surrounding villages tomorrow morning, and indeed to call upon your good self at the town hall. But in these circumstances a parade seems inappropriate.”

  Sir Alan, sitting behind the king’s left shoulder, shook his head and murmured: “Quite impossible.”

  “On the other hand,” the king went on, “it seems wrong to go away without any acknowledgment of the disaster. People might think us indifferent.”

  Fitz guessed there was a clash between the king and his staff. They probably wanted to cancel the visit, imagining that was the least risky course; whereas the king felt the need to make some gesture.

  There was a silence while Perceval considered the question. When he spoke, he said only: “It’s a difficult choice.”

  Ethel Williams said: “May I make a suggestion?”

  Peel was aghast. “Williams!” he hissed. “Speak only when spoken to!”

  Fitz was startled by her impertinence in the presence of the king. He tried to keep his voice calm as he said: “Perhaps later, Williams.”

  But the king smiled. To Fitz’s relief, he seemed quite taken with Ethel. “We might as well hear what this young person has to propose,” he said.

  That was all Ethel needed. Without further ado she said: “You and the queen should visit the bereaved families. No parade, just one carriage with black horses. It would mean a lot to them. And everybody would think you were wonderful.” She bit her lip and subsided into silence.

  That last sentence was a breach of etiquette, Fitz thought anxiously; the king did not need to make people think he was wonderful.

  Sir Alan was horrified. “Never been done before,” he said in alarm.

  But the king seemed intrigued by the idea. “Visit the bereaved . . . ,” he said musingly. He turned to his equerry. “By Jove, I think that’s capital, Alan. Commiserate with my people in their suffering. No cavalcade, just one carriage.” He turned back to the maid. “Very good, Williams,” he said. “Thank you for speaking up.”

  Fitz breathed a sigh of relief.

  { VII }

  In the end there was more than one carriage, of course. The king and queen went in the first with Sir Alan and a lady-in-waiting; Fitz and Bea followed in a second with the bishop; and a pony-and-trap with assorted servants brought up the rear. Perceval Jones had wanted to be one of the party, but Fitz had squashed that idea. As Ethel had pointed out, the bereaved might have tried to take him by the throat.

  It was a windy day, and a cold rain lashed the horses as they trotted down the long drive of Tŷ Gwyn. Ethel was in the third vehicle. Because of her father’s job she was familiar with every mining family in Aberowen. She was the only person at Tŷ Gwyn who knew the names of all the dead and injured. She had given directions to the drivers, and it would be her job to remind the equerry who was who. She had her fingers crossed. This was her idea, and if it went wrong she would be blamed.

  As they drove out of the grand iron gates she was struck, as always, by the sudden transition. Inside the grounds all was order, charm, and beauty; outside was the ugliness of the real world. A row of agricultural laborers’ cottages stood beside the road, tiny houses of two rooms, with odd bits of lumber and junk in front and a couple of dirty children playing in the ditch. Soon afterward the miners’ terraces began, superior to the farm cottages but still ungainly and monotonous to an eye such as Ethel’s, spoiled by the perfect proportions of Tŷ Gwyn’s windows and doorways and roofs. The people out here had cheap clothes that quickly became shapeless and worn, and were colored with dyes that faded, so that all the men were in grayish suits and all the women brownish dresses. Ethel’s maid’s outfit was envied for its warm wool skirt and crisp cotton blouse, for all that some of the girls liked to say they would never lower themselves to be servants. But the biggest difference was in the people themselves. Out here they had blemished skin, dirty hair, and black fingernails. The men coughed, the women sniffed, and the children all had runny noses. The poor shambled and limped along roads where the rich strode confidently.

  The carriages drove down the mountainside to Mafeking Terrace. Most of the inhabitants were lining the pavements, waiting, but there were no flags, and they did not cheer, just bowed and curtsied, as the cavalcade pulled up outside no. 19.

  Ethel jumped down and spoke quietly to Sir Alan. “Sian Evans, five children, lost her husband, David Evans, an underground horse wrangler.” David Evans, known as Dai Ponies, had been familiar to Ethel as an elder of the Bethesda Chapel.

  Sir Alan nodded, and Ethel stepped smartly back while he murmured in the ear of the king. Ethel caught Fitz’s eye, and he gave her a nod of approval. She felt a glow. She was assisting the king—and the earl was pleased with her.

  The king and queen went to the front door. Its paint was peeling, but the step was polished. I never thought I’d see this, Ethel thought; the king knocking on the door of a collier’s house. The king wore a tailcoat and a tall black hat: Ethel had strongly advised Sir Alan that the people of Aberowen would not wish to see their monarch in the kind of tweed suit that they themselves might wear.

  The door was opened by the widow in her Sunday best, complete with hat. Fitz had suggested that the king should surprise people, but Ethel had argued against that, and Sir Alan had agreed with her. On a surprise visit to a distraught family the royal couple might have been confronted with drunken men, half-naked women, and fighting children. Better to forewarn everyone.

  “Good morning, I’m the king,” said the king, raising his hat politely. “Are you Mrs. David Evans?”

  She looked blank for a moment. She was more used to being called Mrs. Dai Ponies.

  “I have come to say how very sorry I am about your husband, David,” said the king.

  Mrs. Dai Ponies seemed too nervous to feel any emotion. “Thank you very much,” she said stiffly.

  It was too formal, Ethel saw. The king was as uncomfortable as the widow. Neither was able to say how they really felt.

  Then the queen touched Mrs. Dai’s arm. “It must be very hard for you, my dear,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am, it is,” said the widow in a whisper, and then she burst into tears.

  Ethel wiped a tear from her own cheek.

  The king was embarrassed, but to his credit, he stood his ground, murmuring: “Very sad, very sad.”

  Mrs. Evans sobbed uncontrollably, but she seemed rooted to the spot, and did not turn her face away. There was nothing gracious about grief, Ethel saw: Mrs. Dai’s face was blotched red, her open mouth showed that she had lost half her teeth, and her sobs were hoarse with desperation.

  “There, there,” said the queen. She pressed her handkerchief into Mrs. Dai’s hand. “Take this.”

  Mrs. Dai was not yet thirty, but her big hands were knotted and lumpy with arthritis like an old woman’s. She wiped her face with the queen’s handkerchief. Her sobs subsided. “He was a good man, ma’am,” she said. “Never raised a hand to me.”

  The queen did not know what to say about a man whose virtue was that he did not beat his wife.

  “He was even kind to his
ponies,” Mrs. Dai added.

  “I’m sure he was,” said the queen, back on familiar ground.

  A toddler emerged from the depths of the house and clung to its mother’s skirt. The king tried again. “I believe you have five children,” he said.

  “Oh, sir, what are they going to do with no da?”

  “It’s very sad,” the king repeated.

  Sir Alan coughed, and the king said: “We’re going on to see some other people in the same sad position as yourself.”

  “Oh, sir, it was kind of you to come. I can’t tell you how much it means to me. Thank you, thank you.”

  The king turned away.

  The queen said: “I will pray for you tonight, Mrs. Evans.” Then she followed the king.

  As they were getting into their carriage, Fitz gave Mrs. Dai an envelope. Inside, Ethel knew, were five gold sovereigns and a note, handwritten on blue crested Tŷ Gwyn paper, saying: “Earl Fitzherbert wishes you to have this token of his deep sympathy.”

  That, too, had been Ethel’s idea.

  { VIII }

  One week after the explosion Billy went to chapel with his da, mam, and gramper.

  The Bethesda Chapel was a square whitewashed room with no pictures on the walls. The chairs were arranged in neat rows on four sides of a plain table. On the table stood a loaf of white bread on a Woolworth’s china plate and a jug of cheap sherry—the symbolic bread and wine. The service was not called Communion or mass, but simply the breaking of the bread.

  By eleven o’clock the congregation of a hundred or so worshippers were in their seats, the men in their best suits, the women in hats, the children scrubbed and fidgeting in the back rows. There was no set ritual: the men would do as the Holy Spirit moved them—extemporize a prayer, announce a hymn, read a passage from the Bible, or give a short sermon. The women would remain silent, of course.

  In practise there was a pattern. The first prayer was always spoken by one of the elders, who would then break the loaf and hand the plate to the nearest person. Each member of the congregation, excluding the children, would take a small piece and eat it. Next the wine was passed around, and everyone drank from the jug, the women taking tiny sips, some of the men enjoying a good mouthful. After that they all sat in silence until someone was moved to speak.

  When Billy had asked his father at what age he should begin taking a vocal part in the service, Da had said: “There’s no rule. We follow where the Holy Spirit leads.” Billy had taken him at his word. If the first line of a hymn came into his mind, at some point during the hour, he took that as a nudge from the Holy Spirit, and he would stand up and announce the hymn. He was precocious in doing so at his age, he knew, but the congregation accepted that. The story of how Jesus had appeared to him during his underground initiation had been retold in half the chapels in the South Wales coalfield, and Billy was seen as special.

  This morning every prayer begged for consolation for the bereaved, especially Mrs. Dai Ponies, who was sitting there in a veil, her eldest son beside her looking scared. Da asked God for the greatness of heart to forgive the wickedness of the mine owners in flouting laws about breathing equipment and reversible ventilation. Billy felt something was missing. It was too simple just to ask for healing. He wanted help in understanding how the explosion fitted into God’s plan.

  He had never yet extemporized a prayer. Many of the men prayed with fine-sounding phrases and quotations from the Scriptures, almost as if they were sermonizing. Billy himself suspected God was not so easily impressed. He always felt most moved by simple prayers that seemed heartfelt.

  Toward the end of the service, words and sentences began to take shape in his mind, and he felt a strong impulse to give voice to them. Taking that for the guidance of the Holy Spirit, he eventually stood up.

  With his eyes shut tight he said: “Oh, God, we have asked Thee this morning to bring comfort to those who have lost a husband, a father, a son, especially our sister in the Lord Mrs. Evans, and we pray that the bereaved will open their hearts to receive Thy benison.”

  This had been said by others. Billy paused, then went on: “And now, Lord, we ask for one more gift: the blessing of understanding. We need to know, Lord, why this explosion have took place down the pit. All things are in Thy power, so why didst Thou allow firedamp to fill the Main Level, and why didst Thou permit it to catch alight? How come, Lord, that men are set over us, directors of Celtic Minerals, who in their greed for money become careless of the lives of Thy people? How can the deaths of good men, and the mangling of the bodies Thou didst create, serve Thy holy purpose?”

  He paused again. He knew it was wrong to make demands of God, as if negotiating with the management, so he added: “We know that the suffering of the people of Aberowen must play a part in Thy eternal plan.” He thought he should probably leave it there, but he could not refrain from adding: “But, Lord, we can’t see how, so please explain it to us.”

  He finished: “In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

  The congregation said: “Amen.”

  { IX }

  That afternoon the people of Aberowen were invited to view the gardens at Tŷ Gwyn. It meant a lot of work for Ethel.

  A notice had gone up in the pubs on Saturday night, and the message was read in churches and chapels after services on Sunday morning. The gardens had been made especially lovely for the king, despite the winter season, and now Earl Fitzherbert wished to share their beauty with his neighbors, the invitation said. The earl would be wearing a black tie, and he would be glad to see his visitors wearing a similar token of respect for the dead. Although it would obviously be inappropriate to have a party, nevertheless refreshments would be offered.

  Ethel had ordered three marquees to be pitched on the East Lawn. In one were half a dozen 108-gallon butts of pale ale brought by train from the Crown Brewery in Pontyclun. For teetotallers, of whom there were many in Aberowen, the next tent had trestle tables bearing giant tea urns and hundreds of cups and saucers. In the third, smaller tent, sherry was offered to the town’s diminutive middle class, including the Anglican vicar, both doctors, and the colliery manager, Maldwyn Morgan, who was already being referred to as Gone-to-Merthyr Morgan.

  By good luck it was a sunny day, cold but dry, with a few harmless-looking white clouds high in a blue sky. Four thousand people came—very nearly the entire population of the town—and almost everyone wore a black tie, ribbon, or armband. They strolled around the shrubbery, peered through the windows into the house, and churned up the lawns.

  Princess Bea stayed in her room: this was not her kind of social event. All upper-class people were selfish, in Ethel’s experience, but Bea had made an art of it. All her energy was focused on pleasing herself and getting her own way. Even when giving a party—something she did well—her motive was mainly to provide a showcase for her own beauty and charm.

  Fitz held court in the Victorian-Gothic splendor of the Great Hall, with his huge dog lying on the floor beside him like a fur rug. He wore the brown tweed suit that made him seem more approachable, albeit with a stiff collar and black tie. He looked handsomer than ever, Ethel thought. She brought the relatives of the dead and injured to see him in groups of three or four, so that he was able to commiserate with every Aberowen resident who had suffered. He spoke to them with his usual charm, and sent each one away feeling special.

  Ethel was now the housekeeper. After the king’s visit, Princess Bea had insisted that Mrs. Jevons retire permanently: she had no time for tired old servants. In Ethel she had seen someone who would work hard to fulfil her wishes, and had promoted her despite her youth. So Ethel had achieved her ambition. She had taken over the housekeeper’s little room off the servants’ hall, and had hung up a photograph of her parents, in their Sunday best, taken outside the Bethesda Chapel the day it had opened.

  When Fitz came to the end of the list, Ethel asked permission to spend a few minutes with her family.

  “Of course,” said the earl. “Take as m
uch time as you like. You’ve been absolutely marvelous. I don’t know how I would have managed without you. The king was grateful for your help, too. How do you remember all those names?”

  She smiled. She was not sure why it gave her such a thrill to be praised by him. “Most of these people have been to our house, some time or other, to see my father about compensation for an injury, or a dispute with an overseer, or a worry about some safety measure down the pit.”

  “Well, I think you’re remarkable,” he said, and he gave the irresistible smile that occasionally came over his face and made him seem almost like the boy next door. “Give my respects to your father.”

  She went out and ran across the lawn, feeling on top of the world. She found Da, Mam, Billy, and Gramper in the tea tent. Da looked distinguished in his black Sunday suit and a white shirt with a stiff collar. Billy had a nasty burn on his cheek. Ethel said: “How are you feeling, Billy boy?”

  “Not bad. It looks horrible, but the doctor says it’s better without a bandage.”

  “Everybody’s talking about how brave you were.”

  “It wasn’t enough to save Micky Pope, though.”

  There was nothing to say to that, but Ethel touched her brother’s arm in sympathy.

  Mam said proudly: “Billy led us in prayer this morning at Bethesda.”

  “Well done, Billy! I’m sorry I missed it.” Ethel had not gone to chapel—there was too much to do in the house. “What did you pray about?”

  “I asked the Lord to help us understand why He allowed the explosion down the pit.” Billy cast a nervous glance at Da, who was not smiling.

  Da said severely: “Billy might have done better to ask God to strengthen his faith, so that he can believe without understanding.”