He was falling in the dark,
down, down, helplessly, the black walls flashing past, down, down... He opened his mouth to scream and a hand shook him.
"Come on, Sam. Wake up, lad. ‘Tis
nearly five o'clock."
Sam struggled
to open his eyes, to banish the fog-fumes that clung in his mind as he climbed
from the bed he shared with three younger siblings. He fumbled numb feet into
clogs bought too large and badly worn from a tinker, but cheap and glad to
have them. Fighting to keep his eyes open, he tottered from the
attic and down the ladder to the room below.
His mother's hands caught his
shoulders and gave him a little shake."Come on now,
Sam. Wake up, time to go." She pulled his cap onto his head and pinned a piece of hessian sacking around his shoulders."Here, lad,
take this!" She thrust a hunk of bread spread with lard into his hands before tying a tin box about his waist with stout string. "No eating your snap, mind,
Sam, not till dinner break." She handed him a bottle of water, "Make it last, lad." A push towards the door and he
stumbled out after his father. She didn't kiss him. He was seven years old now
and a man. A working man!
It was bitter
cold in the street and very dark. Pinpricks of stars showed between the clouds
and the towering smoke that rose from the factory chimneys. Sam and his father
joined a stream of men, women, boys and girls, their clogs striking sparks
from the cobbles. Eating his bread and lard, Sam looked around as he trudged
at his father's heels, Ernie, the boy from up the street with whom he'd played
marbles in the time when they weren't grown enough to work, was there. And
Nancy, who at six was one of the youngest. Sam moved away from Nancy. She was already struggling and she'd fall soon, more than once. He liked Nancy,
but he didn't want to be the one to pick her up; he hadn't the strength. This was the sixth shift of the week and he could barely move his legs. Reaching,
he caught hold of his father's rousers and his father looked down and briefly
touched his head. A fleeting contact, but one of love. Sam tottered on.
The houses
ended. They reached a desolate wilderness that contained the pit head. The
Man' gave the adults candles and they made their mark on his paper. The
candles would be paid for when the wages were doled out. Sam didn't get a
candle. Neither did Ernie or Nancy or any child under twelve. They stood in
line, silent apart from the coughing that never stopped even on rest days.
Sam leaned
against his father and was nearly asleep when he was jerked forward. It was their turn to enter the cage. As Sam stepped inside, 'The Man reached and
caught the back of his shirt.
He peered down at Sam."No sleeping on the job now, boy, or no pay for you."
"No, sir, I
won't, sir." Sam spluttered, terrified by the threat. Six days work and no pay at the end of it? And his few coppers so vital to the survival of his family -
and there would be another new mouth to feed soon, maybe even today. "No, sir, I won't sleep, sir."
"Better
not!"
'The Man' gave
him a shove that propelled him roughly into the cage.
And then they were
falling, down, down, into the dark, and his dream was back and he closed his
eyes and bit hard on his lip to keep from screaming. They fell forever into
the black bowels of the earth, down into Hell itself. And then the cage
stopped with a bone-wrenching jerk and the miners stumbled out to run along
the galleries to the coal face, the men and women and the older children, for
there was no time to waste. They were paid for what they could cut.
Sam, Ernie and
Nancy, together with a few other oungsters, were gathered up by a Mister and
herded along the galleries to their places of work. They dropped one child
off- and then another - and it was Sam's turn. They had stopped beside one of
the doors that controlled the air flow. Sam was told to sit and take up the rope which opened and closed the door as the trucks of coal were hauled along the rails.
"Stay alert,
boy. Don't you dare sleep," the Mister warned before he ushered away the
remaining children and left Sam alone in the dark, alone in the silence with
only the rats that scurried over his feet and sniffed hungrily at his tin box
for company. Sam had hated the rats at first, but now he tolerated them. They
were company, living beings. He was not entirely alone.
Sitting on the
little stool, Sam listened to the groan of the walls and the roof, the clicks and rustling and grating as the faces moved and settled. He thought of the thousands of tons of rock above him. He knew it would be light up there now,
people were about, walking and breathing and seeing. As he stared into the black that was blacker than any black, his thoughts went unwittingly to all those who had perished down here and whose souls were said to roam the
galleries looking for their lost lives - and looking for those who sat alone
in the dark.
Terror filled his racing heart.
Thankfully, for he was on the point of fainting, Sam heard the approaching
rumble. Hauling valiantly on the rope, he opened the door. A woman was
crawling along the gallery towards him, harnessed to a truck filled with coal.
She came slowly, painfully, the veins in her neck and shoulders writhing like
thin bue snakes. Sam
knew her, a neighbour and mother of two small infants. He welcomed her warmly
for she brought light. A candle was attached to a band around her sweating
forehead, its light feeble enough to the human dray-horse, but a brilliant
beacon to poor, lonely, terrified Sam.
"Good lad,"
the woman grunted as she crawled through the doorway. "God be with you, son,"
"And with you too, missus." Sam looked up
at the roof. It was still there, the big stone that jutted just above the
place where he sat. Did it stick out more than it had yesterday? It seemed to
judder as the truck was hauled through. Yanking on the rope, he let the door
close with a thump. The stone trembled.
Sam wept
silently as the flickering light faded along the gallery and the rumble of the
truck, and the painful panting of the woman, faded into silence. He was alone
again, alone with the dark and the restless stirrings of walls and roof, and
the soft squeaking of rats. He thought of the stone above his head. It would
fall very soon now. The rats would tell him when for they would leave him
before it happened. Only the ghosts would remain as they gathered to
welcome him.
Sam crouched,
petrified by the horror of it, but somehow not afraid. When the stone fell,
they would take him up to the light. They would make a place for him in the
churchyard on the hill where the sun shone and the wind blew.
He would have escaped for ever
this living hell.
