Ruled by the Rod (24 page)

On one such
occasion we were warned in advance that he was coming to take us
back with him to Monmouthshire. Since we might be away for some
weeks, we thought the gentlemen might have refused his request, for
we had, in our arrogant female pride, come to feel we were
essential to their health and comfort. But they assured us they
would make shift without our services, and had already made
suitable arrangements to cover our absence.

It was for our
own good we were being sent, they assured us, to learn the dignity
of labour and the benefits of toil, and they would make the best of
things while we were absent, so that we might not miss the
opportunity offered.

We travelled
in the gentleman's own carriage, staying the first night in
Salisbury, where I was deputed to visit his room to remove the
harmful accretions occasioned by his close proximity to us in the
coach, then arrived very late in Bath the following evening, where
we stopped the night, Charlotte being his choice of remedy for the
excessive pressure visible in his britches from long confinement
within an arm's length of three fertile females.

We saw nothing
of the city that might once have been our home, to the great danger
of our moral health, no doubt, a fate from which we had saved
ourselves by persuading the judge to take us under his hand.

The next day
we crossed to Chepstow on the ferry and proceeded to the hall, set
in parkland, where Mr Brangwyn resided. It came as somewhat of a
surprise that, during those last few miles, when we were in country
where he was the local squire, and well known, the folk along the
way greeted the carriage with sullen looks and muttered curses. We
were moved to comment on this to our host, but he dismissed it,
saying the local people were a surly breed, and to ignore them.

Marion
extracted his malign juices that night, and in the morning we were
to have our first experience of industrial labour. We speculated
among ourselves what form it might take, for Mr Brangwyn had given
us no inkling of what he intended for us, and we had been
specifically enjoined by our guardians to ask no questions of him,
but to display that total obedience to all commands, to which we
had been trained.

We left the
house before dawn, for we understood work started early. As the
carriage passed along the street of mean houses where the workers
lived, there were many of them along the way. They shouted and
shook their fists at us, the women worst of all, screaming insults,
calling us whores and scabs, though we had little understanding of
what they were about. Again our host advised us to take no
notice.

'These are
idle folk, who will not work,' he said. 'Nor listen to the wisdom
of their betters, both by rank and gender.'

We felt sorrow
that women could so demean our sex, and determined that we, at
least, would do nothing to disgrace womankind, resolving to obey
implicitly, and to work as hard as our female frames permitted.

We were taken
to the mine adit, a shed with a windlass worked by patient horses,
that lowered wheeled tubs down into the pit, to fetch the coal, and
hoisted them out after, when filled.

It appeared
the workers, as well as the coals, travelled this route, and there
was just room in the cage for the three of us to stand together. Mr
Brangwyn addressed us before the windlass was released.

'There is no
room for me to accompany you further,' he said, 'but the overseer
will be waiting at the pit bottom. You are to obey him, as myself,
and not to question anything he orders, however surprising.
Everything that is done is for the safety of the mine, and the
health of the workers. It is a pity that the idle women whose place
you are taking, do not understand this. I look to you to show a
better sense of a woman's duty and place.'

With that he
signalled to the man at the windlass, who let the brake loosen, and
the swaying platform on which we stood fell below our feet,
dropping us into the shaft.

The motion was
so sudden, unexpected and swift, we screamed as one woman. In pitch
darkness we plunged into the depths, shrieking like lost souls.
Indeed, at the time we thought ourselves just that, doomed and on
our way to hell. Nor were we altogether wrong in our assessment,
though it was a hell quite beyond any of our imaginings.

After what
seemed an age the cage began to slow, as the winch-man applied the
brake, and our feet pressed as strongly against the floor as they
had lightened as we fell. The motion almost ceased, and we became
aware of a faint light as we dangled on the thread of rope that was
all that held us from being dashed to the ground below.

As the cage
steadied and came to a halt, we found ourselves at an opening in
the side of the rock-lined shaft, lit by flickering lamps on either
side, whose light seemed only to make more black the cavern, grimed
as it was with coal dust, which lay everywhere and entered
everything. Standing in the entrance to this fearful tunnel was a
man, the overseer we had been promised, we assumed.

He was short
but broad, very powerful, his coarse features ingrained with coal,
dressed in thick woollen trousers, heavy boots, and a dirty
collar-less shirt. His head was wound about with a cloth, over
which he wore a flat cap, presumably as some protection for impact
with the roof of the workings, for the tunnel, after the relatively
wide space at the pit bottom for handling of tubs and workers,
shrank to no more than a yard high by two wide, just enough for the
tubs to pass on their way to and from the coal face.

He peered at
us in the dim light of the lamps, and an evil grin came onto his
face.

'So you're the
scabs he promised,' he said. 'Well, what's keeping you? Off with
them.'

We must have
looked totally bemused by this, for he went on.

'Women don't
work clothed down here,' he told us. 'Too hot, and their skirts get
in the way. Besides, you'd never get all clean again, with so much
petticoats and such. Come now, quick. Get all that gear off and
hurry up about it.'

We looked at
each other in shock. It was Marion, the eldest and clearest headed
as usual who recovered first.

'We must do as
he asks,' she said. 'I can see some sense in what he says and, more
importantly, we have our orders. We are to obey him without
question, so we must strip and get ourselves ready for the
work.'

We each
removed our outer clothing, our dresses, our underslips, our
petticoats. When we stood in a state of almost total undress,
merely stays, stockings and shoes, in accordance with our
long-standing custom we wore no drawers of any kind, we
instinctively paused, feeling that this must be enough. The
overseer, seeing us stopped, said nothing but unbuckled the heavy
leather strap from around his waist. Still without a word, he
lashed it across Marion's thighs, then Charlottes, finally my
own.

'Are you deaf
or daft?' he exclaimed. 'When I say stripped, I mean as nature made
you. Every last thing off, and as bare as a slug in the rain.
That's how the women work here. Let's have no more delay, or you'll
get more than just a touch of my belt.'

In no doubts
now of what he required, and the desirability of meeting his
requirements, we tore off the last of our clothing and stood before
him in the state he demanded.

'That's
better,' he conceded, and proceeded to buckle a wide strap about
each of our waists, for all the world like the girths used on dray
horses, pulling up tight on the twin buckles until they were tight
about our hips.

He led us over
to where some empty tubs waited at the bottom of the shaft.

'Kneel,' he
said, and we dropped to our knees before him. From the front of
each belt a length of heavy chain fell, with a hook at its end. He
thrust Marion's head down until she went on all fours, and reached
between her legs from behind to grasp the hook, pulling the chain
through her parted thighs and dropping the hook into a ring on the
front of one of the wheeled tubs.

He treated
Charlotte and I in the same way. I could not help cringing from the
feel of his coal-grimed hairy wrist brushing against my vulva, as
he reached between my thighs, and he laughed evilly.

'Touched your
private purse, did I, my little darling? I'll do more than touch
one of these days.'

I shuddered,
but made no reply.

When we were
all hooked up to tubs, he ordered Marion to crawl on her hands and
knees into the entrance of the narrow tunnel, then Charlotte and I
were formed into line behind her.

'Crawl down
the passage, and keep right on going until you reach lights,' he
ordered. 'Keep to the left-hand side, in case there are men or tubs
coming the other way. You'll find men working and loaded tubs where
the lights are. The men will unhook your chains from the empty tubs
and fasten them to full ones, which you will pull back here. You go
on doing that until someone tells you to stop.

'Off you go,'
he cried, and brought the strap down heavily across Marion's
rump.

She started
forward, came up short as the chain tensioned, then threw herself
against the weight to get the clumsy vehicle moving on its crude
wheels. As she entered the narrow darkness of the tunnel, the
overseer brought the strap down on Charlotte's bottom in silent
command and she gasped and threw her weight against her own tub. No
sooner had she started to move after Marion's disappearing form,
than the cruel strap lashed into my own bent buttocks, and I
suppressed a cry to hurl myself against the belt and get my tub
moving before he thought I might need more encouragement.

Though the tub
was crude and clumsy, it was empty and the tunnel ran downhill, so
at the beginning at least the task was not overwhelming and, in
fact, there were times when the tub would overrun one, catching
one's ankles painfully. The floor of the tunnel was relatively
smooth, from the continuous polishing by countless female knees and
palms, but hard, with the occasional fragment of coal to torment
one's kneecaps or soft hands.

We ploughed on
in pitch darkness, once we had left the pit bottom a few yards
behind, kept in touch by the rumbling of the trucks in front or
behind.

It was hot and
airless in the tunnel and we were soon sweating like the draught
animals we were. We crawled painfully on for what seemed hours
before we caught the first loom of light beyond where the tunnel
curved a little in front, then came to another slightly wider
portion, with two lamps burning, and a number of near-naked men
working the coal with picks, by the dim light they provided. At
first they seemed oblivious to our presence, merely cursing us for
not getting there earlier, saying the tubs were full long ago and
they were losing time. Then they looked closer and began to
exchange remarks.

'Not the usual
lasses then,' one commented.

'Nay,' his
companion agreed. 'These look as if they've been washed not long
ago,' though how they could tell, since the coal dust had clung to
every part of our sweat-soaked bodies, I could not imagine at the
time. The women they usually saw down there must have been
blackened indeed.

But it was not
long before I found out in my own person, just how much blacker one
could get.

The men
dropped their picks and hurried over to unhitch the empty trucks
and fasten us to new, taking advantage of their tasks to pass
callused coal-blackened hands over our pubes and our dangling
breasts, making no pretence of anything but lust as an excuse for
their actions. One of them evidently admired large breasts on a
woman, for he fondled Marion's generous endowment at length.

'Dugs on this
one like a milker,' he told his mates. 'Make a nice place for a man
to rest his head, eh Dai?'

'These are the
pillows for me,' Dai answered, slapping me none too gently on the
buttocks. 'There's a tight little seam I wouldn't mind
working.'

'Mind what
you're about,' another warned him. 'Get them too swollen to work,
and you'll find Evan Overseer after you.'

'Oh, there's
more ways of skinning a cat than filling its belly with kittens,'
Dai laughed. 'There's a little pit here just waiting to be mined,
and no babies squawling at the bottom, either,' and I squealed and
jerked forward as a rough finger invaded my tender anus.

'No time for
that sort of play,' their leader said. 'We've got a stint to
complete. And you bitches, get that coal to the shaft and be quick
about it. We'll be needing empty tubs again before you're back,
unless you hurry.'

Marion threw
herself against her belt again, but the truck was full now and
reluctant to move. She grunted as she thrust again and again, but
it scarcely stirred. The leader drew his belt and lashed out at her
bent buttocks and she cried out with the sudden pain, but her
convulsive jerk got the heavy tub moving, and she kept it going as
she crawled into the tunnel mouth again. First Charlotte, then I,
followed, each smarting from a dozen blows of the strap which left
our bottoms burning, but had at least given us sufficient impetus
to move the trucks.

The return
journey was a very different task to that which had brought us to
the coal face, and its coarse crew. Now we had to throw our full
weight against the belts just to keep them going. The chains
tensioned and pulled up into our forks, the rough and dirty links
digging painfully into the soft woman flesh between our legs, while
our breasts swung uncomfortably beneath us as our bodies moved
violently from side to side with the awkward all-fours progress.
The sweat ran even more freely in the stiflingly hot passage,
dripping from faces and chins, forming drops on the dependent
teats, running into the tight creases of our buttocks to sting and
smart in their tender depths.