How Green Was My Valley

by Richard Llewellyn

  So back we went home, and me with that empty feeling, that heating, empty feeling that rouses anger in you, when you want to know something which only a few words would give to you, and you are denied to have them.

  Up at the house Davy was talking to a couple of men in the back, a couple not generally looked up to, and a surprise to find near our house, for Dai Bando and Cyfartha Lewis were prizefighters, rough but gentle men.

  “Come you, Huw,” Davy said, and put his arm about my shoulder. “You know Huw, Dai.”

  “Yes, indeed,” said Dai, and smiled to show one tooth to the side of his mouth. He was not much taller than me, but broad as six, and long in the arm. His face was covered with little punch cuts, all dyed blue with coal dust, and his eyes were almost closed by skin which had been cut and healed time and time again. But his eyes were bright as a blackbird’s. They said he had fought more than a thousand fights, and a Marquis had asked him to go to Oxford to teach the students to fight, with the knuckles, of course, but he had got drunk in London and put a couple of police in hospital, and landed in jail. So not many had a word for him.

  Cyfartha Lewis was younger, taller, but tidy in the chest and big in the shoulder, well known to be champion in his weight at the pit head. Instead of going to Chapel he and Dai were off to Town on Saturdays to fight at night, and they used to come back home in time for the morning shift on Monday. But it was certain that whatever they did on Sunday, going to Chapel was not one.

  “Dai is going to give you lessons in the art of boxing, Huw,” Davy said. “I asked him to come up and see if he could do something with you.”

  “Strip off, boy,” Dai said, in his high little voice, and making a little move with his hands, that were bumpy and in funny shapes with him, and always half closed to show the big thumb joints.

  So I took off my shirt to the waist, and Dai looked and pinched, as my mother did with a chicken for the pot.

  “More in the shoulder, more in the back, more in the forearm,” said Dai, with a look I thought was disgust. “And his legs want two more pairs like them before they will be going on to be enough, eh, Cyfartha? Hit me by here, boy.”

  He put out his chin and poked it with his short finger, but I had a fear to give him a good one.

  “Go on, boy,” he said, “hit to kill.”

  “Go on,” Cyfartha said, and smiling. “A sovereign if you will have him on the floor.”

  So I hit, but his head was nowhere near my fist, and I never saw Dai move.

  “Nothing to buy a stamp for,” said Dai, “but he uses his shoulders, and he stands well, eh, Cyfartha?”

  “I have seen many a one worse,” Cyfartha said. “His legs are his trouble. He will never ride a punch with them. And one good clout and they will put him to bed.”

  “Look you, now, Dai,” Davy said. “The boy’s legs have stopped him going to a good school. But you shall teach him enough to fight his way through the school he is in now, legs or not. Yes or no?”

  “Yes,” said Dai, and meant it. “I was up there the night his mother came. God, there is a shocking night it was, too, eh, Cyfartha?”

  “Yes, indeed,” Cyfartha said, “and we built a fire on the rock all night and slid down the mountain to the pit next morning. Say nothing to me of that night, indeed. Twenty pound solid it cost me to have my hands right, with the frost.”

  “What time in the morning?” Davy asked, and impatient.

  “Half-past four at the top here,” Dai said, “and five o’clock up the top of the mountain. An hour up there to six, half an hour down, to half-past, and breakfast then, to seven. Eh, Cyfartha?”

  “Yes,” said Cyfartha. “And nothing only water before he comes up.”

  “Good,” said Davy, well satisfied. “You will have lessons from champions, Huw. Now in to your lessons from books.”

  So I went from Dai Bando and Cyfartha Lewis, in to Pericles and John Stuart Mill.

  That first morning Davy came in to give me a shake and hold down the loose board while I crossed the landing in quiet at quarter-past four in pitch black, and cold to make your teeth chop, no wash because the bucket would rattle in the well to wake the Hill, and only enough in the house for breakfast first thing, then off outside the house into a wind with ice in it, bringing tears to the eyes, and a pain, like the grip of a clothes-peg, to the nose. Dai and Cyfartha came from the lee of the last house, both of them black lumps, and only their bootfalls to tell which was them and which not.

  “That you, Huw Morgan?” Dai said, and shouting in the wind, but only a whisper coming.

  “Yes,” I shouted back. “Good morning.”

  “To hell,” Dai said, and spat. “Come, you.”

  We went up the mountain together, but I saw in surprise that Cyfartha was following with a dozen or more from the sound, but Dai put his fingers down my neck and swore when I stopped to see. Up we went, quicker than I had ever gone before, but being late for school a couple of times had given me practice in running up, so I was not far behind Dai at the top and hardly a breath out of place.

  “Off with your shirt,” Dai said, and pulling his off, and all the others pulling the clothes from them. So off came mine, and I thought I would freeze, sure, for the wind was high and calling low and strong enough to push you over flat. It was still dark, but above the other valley it was just starting to show grey, black everywhere else, and nothing but black down in the valleys except where Merddyn Jones was getting up, with a little yellow light, and the light in the winding house down at the colliery.

  In the coming of the morning Dai Bando was a man to fear.

  His skin was pinkish with cold, and with muscle to make you doubt your sight. His arm muscles were bigger than my thigh, and over the top of his trews, six squares, each as big as my two fists together, stood out so that you could have rattled a stick over them. His shoulders had great fat fingers of muscle leading down to the tops of his arms like opening a fan, and behind his shoulders, bunches of muscle lay about the blades, with two great cords going down on each side of his backbone.

  I will never forget Dai Bando in that grey light, with night all about him and cold pricking his skin to little pimples as his shirt came from him and he pulled at his trews.

  Cyfartha was not much less than Dai, and the boys and men with them were all the same. Only I was skin and bone.

  “Come on, boys,” Dai said, and slapping himself hard, “get the blood going with you.”

  For minutes we all danced about there slapping the cold out of us, and hopping and jumping about like mad flies, until the light was coming apple green and orange, with lines of gold, and we could see each other, and the trees taking shape and colours of deep green.

  “Down on the back,” Dai ordered, and down flat we went, on the short grass that was smooth as moss, covered with the crystals of frozen dew and sparkling lovely, but so cold it was like red-hot to the back.

  “Kick the legs above your heads and back and fore with the arms,” said Dai, and that we did.

  “Sit up and lie back, no hands,” Dai shouted, and up and down we went, until never mind the cold, we were sweating, and hot as hot.

  “Now pair off, and straight left one, guard the other,” Dai said. “Huw Morgan, over here.”

  Over I went, and while Cyfartha and the other boys paired off, Dai put up his fists, and I put up mine, and we did straight lefts, and slipping them, and riding them, and ducking, with the punches to counter, and those to score. Then Dai made me come in close and hit him on those muscles of his in the belly with half-arm blows to strengthen my punching muscles at the back, until I was ready to drop.

  “Good,” he said, and smiling he was, “there is plenty in you, indeed. Run to school and put fat and muscle on your legs. But run, not walk. Strong legs you want, nothing else. I will give you the rest.”

  “Thank you, Dai,” I said, and so pleased I could have jumped across the Valley. “When shall I fight, now?”

  “To-day,” Dai said. “Fight all
the time. You will only learn in a fight how much you have got to learn. When you know that, you can come and ask and I will show you. But fight.”

  “Good,” I said, “I will fight to-day.”

  “Same time to-morrow,” Dai said. “Put on your shirt, and run down the mountain home. And fight, is it?”

  “Yes,” I said. “To-day, indeed.”

  When I got in, my mother had my breakfast ready and when I had washed I sat to it, but she sat beside me and smoothed my hair.

  “Did you go out on the mountain this morning, Huw, my little one?” she asked me.

  “Yes, Mama,” I said.

  “To learn to fight, is it?” she asked me, as though she was hoping I would say no.

  “Yes, Mama,” I said.

  “There,” she said, and sat back, hopeless. “I knew it when I heard you go from the house. Right, you. But if you come back with bruises again, not a word shall you have from me. Nothing. Break your old nose and see what I will do. Nothing. Not a word, not a look.”

  “But I must learn, Mama,” I said, “or I shall have them and nothing to stop them coming, and nothing to give back.”

  “I am not listening to you,” she said, and over at the fire, now, with her hand over her eyes. “Breaking your Mama’s heart every time you do go from the house. Remember what I say. Not a word, not a look.”

  “Yes, Mama,” I said, and finished my tea, and picked up my bag and can, and off.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I HAD SETTLED DOWN at school by then, so I never had that fear to go in. An awful feeling it is, to look at a door, and find every feeling inside you telling you to run away. But the run over the mountain cured it more than anything else, for I got into the other valley with a head of steam on that would have carried me solid through brick walls.

  I was knowing other boys, too, enough to have a kick and a run with the ball with them, but they were boys not on my list. The listed I kept away from, and even when they called after me I took no notice. But those calls went on the list against them. I remembered Motshill’s warning about fighting, too, so I had kept my eyes open for a bit of ground away from the school which would hold us safe from the policemen and the masters, and give us room for a fight, however many there were to see us. A lovely little place I found by the hotel, and next to the drapery shop, where the buildings formed three sides of a square, and only one little window high up. That place I kept in my mind.

  Lessons went on just the same that morning, Mr. Jonas taking no notice of me, and me just sitting, and then came playtime.

  Out in the yard we went, and straight to Mervyn Phillips I went.

  “I will fight you after school,” I said, “at the back of Spackman the Draper. Is it?”

  “Right, you,” he said, and with his bread and butter half in and half out of his mouth, and surprise in his eyes. “I will murder you.”

  “Good,” I said. “At the back of Spackman the Draper.”

  “Never mind to go to Spackman’s,” Mervyn Phillips said, and put his eating back in the box, “come you, now.”

  “Remember what Mr. Motshill said,” I said.

  “Coward,” Mervyn Phillips said. “Excuses you are making, is it?”

  All the boys were pressing about us, and Mervyn Phillips took off his coat. So I took off mine, and a boy on the list tried to tear it from me, but I gave him a little clip with the butt of my hand that made him feel silly for minutes. It is strange how one little action like that, of determination bringing hurt, will put a crowd quiet. The boys stopped to press about me, and made a ring instead, and a couple of the boys not on my list came to me and took away my coat and can, and another made a knee in my corner. Off came our shirts and the boys laughed to see the difference between us, but their laughing only made me colder to have Mervyn Phillips on the floor.

  “Right, you,” said Mervyn Phillips, and stood out, fists up and squaring well. A head and a bit taller than me, he was, and well set to be a good big man. His face and neck were a strong red colour, and going into rich white at the throat and below, and his fists were black on the end of fair-haired forearms, not from lack of soap and water, but from coal dust grimed into the flesh.

  I went round him a bit to see where his fists worked, and he tried a left, but it went short and I put one into his chest that made him take his breath. His eyes were deep blue and clear, and wide, now, with watching me. I saw them change colour as he started to come in at me, and I weaved from left to right, watching the black fists from the corners of my eyes come past my ears with whispers of wind, and straightened my left to have him fair upon the nose, with my shoulder behind it and my right swinging back for the cross. But he knew his danger and quickly his right was up to block me. Over came his left and caught me beside the head and down I went flat on my back, with the feet of the crowd over me and their faces going round and round.

  “Corners,” shouted the seconds, and mine came across to give me a hand back to Mat Powell’s knee. I was steady on my feet, but inside my head was like the winding house when the wheel is turning to bring up the cages, and there is a shaking and a low hum of the engine at pressure.

  “Are you right, Morgan?” Mat Powell asked me, and his hair falling across his eyes and him blowing it away, “keep away from him, man. A couple more lefts like that and you will be good for the cats.”

  Time again, and in we went with a push from the seconds, pulling up before we went full-tilt into each other. Careful again, I worked round him, knowing the holes in his guard and his habit of hitching his trews with his elbows. But while a man is hitching his trews, his fists are idle. So I got him moving faster to have them falling the quicker, and sure enough, there they slipped, and down went his elbows to hitch them up.

  In I went, with my father’s face near to him and his words in a whispered shout loud in my ears, and Dai Bando standing behind me with his hands working my arms as they had that morning. A good long left hard on the base of the nose, from the shoulder, with feet planted firm, a pace forward as his head went back with drips of blood flying away from my fist, one, two, three, more short ones, more poke than punch, to have him off his balance, then a pace forward to be nearer to him, and right, half-arm, with my swung body full behind it, to the spot between his breast bones, and my fist meeting flesh with a hard, clean sound, and going in as to a hole, a big grunt as he doubled forward, and now I swung on my heels to catch his chin with a left as his head came forward, and brought my right to the side of his jaw with all the strength of my muscles, and down he went full length, and down I went, too, backwards, from the force of hitting him.

  And there he was, getting up to his knees with his hand holding his jaw and blood shining wet on his face, and there I was, on my feet again and waiting, and Mr. Jonas came round the corner.

  “The bell has gone,” he said to the crowd. “Are you deaf?”

  Then he saw me over the boys’ heads.

  And he smiled.

  “Dear, dear me,” he said, coming closer, very slowly, with his hands behind him, and putting his feet with deliberate steps, “so our coal-mining friend has been indulging his favourite passion again?”

  He came to stand over me, but I took no notice, and put on my shirt, and a couple of boys helped Mervyn Phillips into his. All the other boys had gone away quietly, but I could hear them running blind as soon as they were out of Mr. Jonas’ sight. I wished I was with them.

  “I should report you to Mr. Motshill, of course,” he said. “But I shall punish you myself. You are in Standard Six and I am responsible for your conduct. You were warned, so you cannot complain. Go to my desk and get my stick, and wait till I come.”

  I turned from him and went into the school, with Mat Powell beside me. The day was a bit grey, not very cold, and a spitting of rain in the east wind, nothing to cheer. I have never hated anything without life so much as I hated the yellow bricks of that low schoolhouse.

  “Stuff my coat down your trews,” Mat said, “or he w
ill have you in blood.”

  “No matter,” I said. “There will be no change in it for him.”

  Inside the classroom we went, Mat to his seat in the long desk, me to take the stick from the hook and stand by the book cupboard. The class was more than forty in number, more than half of them boys and the rest girls. I had never had much interest to look at the girls, for they were always quiet, and I never troubled to tell one from another, for they were only girls. But facing them I had more chance to see them, and a dull lot they were, except two.

  Ceinwen Phillips sat near her brother. Both of them were the same height and the same shape of face, but Ceinwen was shorter and finer in the nose, with a mouth always a little open to show good teeth and fat and square in the bottom lip. A good big eye she had with her, blue like her brother’s, but with plenty of woman in it, and long curling hair to her waist the same colour as new hay.

  She looked murder at me when her brother came in, and kept looking, straight and without a blink, while she felt for her handkerchief in her belt to give him to wipe off the blood. Past face after face I looked, along the long desks, past my empty place and more faces, some on the list and some not, to Mat Powell who was looking bright at me as though to cheer, past more faces to Shani Hughes, who sat at the end of the row nearest to me. In something of blue was Shani, a blue that you will see in the fire sometimes, a pale, but not watery blue, with depth in it, and plenty of sky.

  Shani had hair the colour of September leaves, that shone, and a red ribbon coming up behind her ears with a bow on top. She was small, and gentle in her voice and movements, dark in the eye, and with a little line of a mouth, and sideways, looking like those queens on coins from Greece. In her eyes I found pity, and dark sadness.

  From Shani back to Ceinwen I looked, and found murder in her still, and back to Shani. And I made my mind strong whatever Mr. Jonas might do to me, to keep shut my mouth.

  He came in behind me, quietly, and without a look at him, I knew he was smiling, and the quiet grew hot as he came to stand behind me. He took the stick from my hand, but I still looked at the picture of the Duke of Wellington on the back wall.