The Stars Look Down (30 page)

“Thank you, Mr. Armstrong,” Barras said mechanically.

There was a strained silence until old Saul Pickings limped in with three large cups of hot cocoa. He was over seventy was Saul, and though he had a wooden leg he could get along very fast; he limped about doing surface jobs and was good at cocoa. Arthur and Armstrong each took a cup; Barras
refused. But Arthur and Armstrong pressed Barras to drink the cocoa, saying that it would do him good, Armstrong adding that it was impossible to work on an empty stomach. But Barras still refused; he seemed a little exalted.

Saul Pickings said:

“Young Dr. Lewis wants to know if you still want him. If he’s to wait I’ll take him in this cup of cocoa.” Young Dr. Lewis had already had four cups of cocoa, his heroism was slightly diluted now. And he had been obliged to ask, politely, for the lavatory.

Barras looked at Armstrong.

“It would be a good thing if the doctors of the town could manage for one of their number always to be on duty here for the next few days. Let them take turns.”

“That’s a splendid idea, Mr. Barras,” Armstrong exclaimed. He hurried out to use the telephone again.

“Father,” Arthur said in a kind of desperation, “how did this happen? I’ve got to know.”

“Not now,” Barras answered. “Not now.”

Arthur turned away and pressed his brow against the cold, feathered window-pane. For the moment his father’s tone had silenced him.

Then Firemaster Ebenezer Camhow puffed in. He had changed into his uniform, which carried a pleasant amount of bright red braid and eight important brass buttons kept beautifully shined by Mrs. Camhow. The firemaster was short, round and bald-headed, he was like an orb. He was fond of uniforms, had started early with a pill-box cap in the boys’ brigade, was now both firemaster and bandmaster of Sleescale. He played four musical instruments, including the triangle, and won prizes regularly for his sweet peas at the county show. In the last five years he had extinguished one small fire at a disused brewery.

“I’m at your service, Mr. Barras,” he declared. “I’ve got my men outside. Outside in the yard. They’re there in a row. Every one has a first-aid certificate. You’ve only got to command me, sir.”

Barras thanked the firemaster, Saul Pickings gave the firemaster the cup of cocoa that was left over, then the firemaster went out. As he went into the yard the firemaster looked so official and important that two reporters who had just arrived from Tynecastle took his portrait, which appeared next morning in the
Tynecastle Argus
. The firemaster cut it out.

Offers of assistance kept pouring in, telegrams, telephone calls, Mr. Probert of the Horton Iron Co. came over in person, three further relays of rescue men came in from Amalgamated Collieries.

Before twelve o’clock Barras and Arthur went out to inspect the erection work at Old Scupperhole shaft. The shaft lay in the wretched piece of waste land known as the Snook, all hummocks and subsidences, covered with snow and swept by a bitter wind. Troubled land was what they called it. In spite of the fire in the pit yard nearly everybody had left the yard and stood gathered on the Snook. They stood well back from the riggers who were raising headgear, working fast and hard. As Barras and Arthur approached the crowd parted silently, but one group of men did not give way. It was then that Arthur saw David.

David stood at the head of the group of men which did not give way. Jack Reedy, Cha Leeming and old Tom Ogle were also in the group. David waited until Barras came up to him. His skin seemed drawn upon his cheek-bones with cold and the hidden tension of his mind. His eyes met the eyes of Barras. Under that accusation Barras dropped his gaze. Then David spoke.

“These men want to know something?”

“Well?”

“They want to know that everything will be done to rescue the men underground.”

“It is being done.” A pause. Barras raised his eyes. “Is that all?”

“Yes,” David said slowly. “For the meantime.”

It was here that old Tom Ogle thrust himself violently forward.

“What’s all this talking?” he shouted at Barras. He was a little out his mind. He had already tried spectacularly to jump down the Scupperhole shaft. “Why don’t ye save them? All this rigging does nothing. My son’s down there, my son Bob Ogle. Why don’t you send inbye and fetch him out?”

“We’re doing what we can, my man,” Barras said, very dignified and calm.

“I’m not yer man,” Tom Ogle snarled and raising his fist he hit Barras full in the face.

Arthur shivered. Charley Gowlan and some others pulled Tom Ogle away, struggling, shouting. Barras stood upright. He had not defended himself, he had received the blow in a kind of spiritual exaltation as though, deep down
in the centre of his being, the blow satisfied him. He proceeded calmly to the shaft, ordered another fire to be lit, remained supervising the work of erection.

He remained at the pit all that day. He remained until Old Scupperhole shaft had been fitted with headgear, steam winding engine and fan, until the shaft was cleared of black damp. He remained until relays of men were started in to remove the stowing which marked the road into the waste. He remained until both main shafts of No. 17 had been fitted with new pumps, the one sending out two hundred and fifty gallons per minute from the main winding, the other, a turbine, four hundred and fifty gallons per minute in the upcast. Then, alone, he walked back to the Law.

He did not feel tired nor particularly hungry, he swung between the torpor of his body and that curious exaltation of his mind. He was impersonal; what he was doing was illusory. He was like a man sentenced to death who receives the verdict calmly. He did not quite understand. His belief in his own innocence remained unassailable.

Aunt Carrie had seen to it that oxtail soup was ready for him—Aunt Carrie knew that when Richard had a “hard day,” he liked oxtail soup better than anything. He ate the soup, a wing of chicken, and a slice of his favourite blue cheddar cheese. But he ate very sparingly and he drank only water. Of Aunt Carrie, who hung in a fluttering servitude in the background, he took no notice whatever; he did not see Aunt Carrie.

At the table Hilda sat opposite, she kept her eyes fixed upon him with a sort of desperate intensity. At last, as though she could bear it no longer, she said:

“Let me help, father. Let me do something. I beg of you to let me do something.” In the face of this emergency Hilda’s lack of opportunity maddened her.

He raised his heavy eyes to hers, observing her for the first time. He answered:

“What is there to do? Everything is being done. There is nothing for a woman to do.”

He left her then. He climbed the stairs, went in to his wife. To her, as to Arthur, he said:

“It is the will of God.” Then, inscrutable and stem, he lay down fully dressed upon his bed.

But in four hours he was back at the pit and immediately proceeded to Old Scupperhole shaft. He knew that the real
chance of penetrating to the Paradise lay through the Scupperhole. He went down the shaft.

They were working in relays down the Scupperhole, working so fast they were clearing the stowing from the main road at the rate of six feet an hour. There was more stowing than they had thought. But the relays launched themselves in waves, they battered into the stowing, there was something frantic and abandoned in their assault. It was more than human this progress through the stowing, one relay slipped in as another staggered out.

“This road runs due west,” Jennings said to Barras. “It ought to take us pretty near the mark.”

“Yes,” said Barras.

“We ought to be near the end of the stowing,” Jennings said.

“Yes,” said Barras.

In twenty-four hours the relays had cleared one hundred and forty-four feet of stowing from the old main road. They broke though into clear road, into an open section of the old waste. A loud cheer rang out, a cheer which ascended the shaft and thrilled into the ears of those who waited on the surface.

But there was no second cheer. Immediately beyond the stowing the main road ran into a dip or trough which was full of water and impassable.

Dirty, covered with coal dust, wearing no collar and tie, an old silk muffler round his swollen neck, Jennings stared at Barras.

“Oh, my good God,” he said hopelessly, “if only we’d had a plan we’d have known this before.”

Barras remained unmoved.

“A plan would not have removed the trough. We expect difficulties. We must blast a new road above the trough.” There was something so sternly inflexible in the words that even Jennings was impressed.

“My God,” he said, exhausted almost to the edge of tears, “that’s the spirit. Come on then and we’ll blast your blasted roof.”

They began to blast the roof, to blast down the iron-hard whinstone into the water so that the trough might be filled and a road established above water level. A compressor was erected to supply the drills; the finest diamond drill bores were used. The work was killing. It proceeded in darkness, dust, sweat and the fume of high explosive. It proceeded in
a sort of insane frenzy. Only Barras remained calm. Calm and impenetrable. He was there. He was the motive, the directing force. For a full eighteen further hours’ he did not leave the Scupperhole.

Fresh back from six hours’ rest, Jennings pleaded with him:

“Take some sleep, for God’s sake, Mr. Barras, you’re fair killing yourself.”

Mr. Probert, Armstrong and several of the senior officials from the Department all pleaded with him: he had done so much, it would take at least five days to blast above the trough, let him spare himself until then. Even Arthur pleaded with him:

“Take some sleep… please… father…”

But Barras snatched only an odd half-hour in his office chair; he did not go home again until the evening of the fourth day. Once more he walked home. It was still bitter cold and the snow still lay upon the ground, freshly fallen snow. How white was the snow! He walked thoughtfully up Cowpen Street… yet he did not think. Since the accident he had refused to think, subconsciously his mind had detached itself, developed this powerful attack upon the pit, fixed itself inflexibly upon the work of rescue. His icy detachment persisted and sustained him. Strong currents were working deep beneath the crust of outer coldness. He did not feel these currents. But the currents were working there.

About him the streets were deserted, every door closed, not a single child at play. Many of the shops were shuttered. A still agony lay upon the Terraces, the stillness of despair. From opposite ends of Alma Terrace two women approached. They were friends. They passed each other with averted faces. Not a word. Silence: even their footsteps silenced by the snow. Within the houses the same silence. In the houses of the entombed men the breakfast things were laid out upon the table in preparation for their return. It was the tradition. Even at night the blinds remained undrawn. In No. 23 Inkerman Martha was making a fresh pot pie: Robert and Hughie both liked a fresh pot pie. Sammy and David sat in silence, not watching her. They had both come back from Scupperhole shaft; they had both been helping there; David had not been near the school for four full days. He had forgotten about school, forgotten about his examination, forgotten about Jenny. He sat in silence, his head buried in his hands thinking of his father, thinking his
own bitter thoughts.

After the heat and clamour of the Scupperhole this cold seemed to strike at Barras. As he went on, a great sigh broke from his chest. He was not conscious of that sigh. He was conscious of nothing. He entered the Law. An enormous correspondence awaited him, letters of praise, sympathy, condolence, a telegram from Stapleton, the member for Sleescale, another from Lord Kell, owner of the Neptune royalties, another from the Lord Mayor, Tynecastle—
Your heroic endeavours on behalf of the entombed men evokes our highest admiration we pray God success attend your further efforts.
And yet another, a Royal Message, pregnant with gracious condolence. He studied them carefully. Curious! He studied a letter from the wife of a rubber-tubing manufacturer in Leeds offering to supply
free
—underlined—five hundred yards or
more
—underlined—of her husband’s quarter-inch tubing so that hot soup might be conveyed to the buried miners. Curious! He did not smile.

He returned to the pit early next morning. They had lowered the water level in the main shaft sufficient to allow divers to descend. The divers had to contend with a maximum head of eighteen feet of water in the levels. In spite of this they fought their way along Globe and Paradise levels as far as the fall. They made an arduous, exhaustive search. No one knew better than Barras how useless this search would be. All that the divers found was seventy-two drowned bodies.

The divers came back. They reported the absence of any living soul. They reported that at least another month would be required to dewater the levels completely. Then they started to bring out the bodies: the drowned men, roped together, dangling out of the mine into the brightness of the day they did not see.

Everything now concentrated on the approach by Scupperhole: it was fully realised that men unaccounted for might be imprisoned in the waste. Though it was now ten days since the date of the disaster these men might still be alive. In a fresh frenzy of endeavour, efforts above the trough were redoubled. The men spurted, strained every nerve. Six days after blasting was begun the last charge was fired, they broke through and regained the old main roadway beyond the trough. Exhausted but jubilant the rescuers pressed forward. They were met, sixty paces due west, by a complete fall of whinstone roof. They drew up hopelessly.

“Oh, my God,” Jennings moaned. “There might be a half mile of this. We’ll never reach them, never. This is the end at last.” Utterly spent, he leaned against the whinstone rock and buried his face in his arm.

“We must go on,” Barras said with sudden loudness, “we must go on.”

Harry Brace was the first to die. Harry’s heart was weak; he was not a young man, and his immersion in the Flats had been severe, he died from sheer exhaustion. No one knew how or when he died until Ned Softley knocked his hand against Harry’s death-cold face and cried out that Harry was gone. Actually that was towards the end of the third night, though, of course, it was always night with them now, for the lamps had burned out and all the pit candles were used except one that Robert had kept and was saving for emergency. The darkness was not so bad, it clothed them, linked them in comradeship, hid them and was kind.