Nan sat by the window of the brown upper room; from it she commanded
a view of little beyond the quiet street into which people seldom
entered. Few people did that afternoon, although it was a fine
Saturday; after a time, however, she saw someone, Michael carrying his
bag, on his way home after the visit of inspection to the cotton-mill.
He looked up as he reached the house, and she smiled to him, trying
to learn from his face if any good had resulted from the visit. She
did not succeed, she must wait till he came in. Till after he had been
in some time very likely, for she seldom asked questions, it seemed
to her intrusive to do so, usually waiting till information should be
volunteered.
To-day it happened that she did not have to wait long; soon Michael
joined her at the window and began almost at once to speak of the
events of the last few days and the work at Jeffersons’.
“I am not going to take it up,” he said.
“Not? Did not Mr. Carson want you to?”
“I suppose I might have had it, but it wouldn’t have answered.”
She asked what it would have been worth; he did not know, but he
guessed a liberal salary. She guessed so too, and also that it would
have entailed something like the possibility of a return to a life and
position not dissimilar from the one he had lost. Yet he had said it
would not answer for him to take it.
“You see,” he explained, “it was not the machinery which was wrong;
there were other things.” He went on to tell her about them in
the intermittent way in which he used, going into some things with
unnecessary minuteness, forgetting others altogether, misstating and
twisting some, conveying to most people a very inaccurate idea of
facts, but to Nan a most accurate one of the way in which he personally
saw them, and the mental and spiritual process which underlay it.
“So I told Carson I wouldn’t do it,” he concluded, “and here I am
again, where I was last October.”
“Not quite where you were,” she corrected; “that time the thing, work
and position and all the rest, was taken from you; this time you have
declined it.”
“I had no choice.”
She held that he had. “But even supposing you had not, there is still
a great difference between then and now. There seem to me to be three
ways of taking it when a thing is forced upon you—to resist, to submit
doggedly, or to accept and forward the end yourself. And the last—to
will what the gods will—always seems to give one the strong place, to
make one no longer the victim, but almost the equal and fellow-worker
with them.”
Such an idea had not occurred to Michael, it interested him a good deal
on the theoretical side though——
“Practically,” he said, “it doesn’t apply in this case. I’m not a
victim; in fact, it was Carson who felt bad about the decision, not I.”
Nan forbore to point out that his own words might be thought a
confirmation of her theory. She pursued the subject no further, but
mentioned instead more mundane matters.
“Miss Foregood and George are coming to tea,” she said. “Father and
Josiah have gone to look at a lot of furniture which is for sale at a
big house in Warwickshire, so Miss Janet is coming to tea with me to
hear about Rosalind’s wedding. What with Josiah being ill and then
father we have not had a chance of talking about it before. George
wants to speak to you about some warp-winding machinery, so, when I
heard you would be home to-day, I said he had better come too.”
Soon after the visitors arrived; the one shabbier and rather more
gloomy than when Michael had last seen him, but not less dogged by
reason of six months more failure; the other, Miss Janet, as cheerful
as ever. It required more than the illness of herself and Josiah—she
had been through both lately—or even the undiluted company of George to
reduce Miss Janet.
“He is a damper,” she owned at tea—in his presence—“but damp things
don’t bother me. I hang ’em to the fire and let ’em steam; if they
don’t do much good drying, why, they don’t; I’ve something else to do
than to mind that. Now tell me about the wedding. You needn’t listen,
George, if it’s too cheerful and trivial for you. He went out when Mrs.
Barker came to talk about it. Not that I blame him for that, if ever
there was a stupid woman on this earth! She was simply full of how much
a yard they paid for the trimming of Rosalind’s dress, and how many
dozen teaspoons she had, as proud as a peacock. I’ve no patience with
her; one’d think, to hear her talk that day, she’d made the Annarlys,
not God Almighty and the dressmaker.”
Nan and Michael both laughed, and, tea being finished, Nan proposed
Miss Janet should come to her room to see the dress which she had had
for the wedding.
“Mrs. Barker was very nice to me that day,” she said, as she led the
way.
“So she told me,” Miss Foregood answered. “She was nice to Michael too,
I understand; she prides herself on not giving the cold shoulder to
those in misfortune. To do her justice, she doesn’t either, though she
hasn’t much gumption in her way of not doing it. It was a good thing
for her it was Michael and not George she ‘was going out of her way to
be nice to because he was down on his luck’—that’s what she calls it.
George would have helped her into the way again with a flea in the ear.
Is this the dress?”
Nan said it was, and Miss Janet examined it critically and without
entire approval: the breadths were too scanty, and the material
too unsubstantial to justify the price, in her opinion. After the
examination they talked of the wedding, remaining in the bedroom to do
it, so that George’s conversation on warp-winding might be undisturbed.
Nan did not add much to what her visitor had already heard, although
she described from rather a different point of view. There was,
however, one fact she mentioned which Mrs. Barker had not—for the good
reason that she was not aware of it—her own acquaintance with Mr. Giles
Cordover.
“He brought me back in his car,” she said; “that’s how it was I got to
your house so soon after the wedding. I didn’t tell you, did I?”
“No, you didn’t—you didn’t tell me anything then, and I didn’t ask
either, there was something else to think about. So Mr. Cordover
brought you back in his motor-car, did he?”
“Yes, and he said he would come and fetch me some fine Saturday and
take me to his house.”
“What for?”
“I don’t quite know”—Nan had evidently considered the question
herself—“unless, perhaps, it is for me to see his furniture—we
talked about that, you know—and possibly, just a little, to annoy
the Annarlys. He is out of humour with them I fancy just now, and he
may think it would annoy them if he took me in the car to his house,
though, of course, it wouldn’t really.”
Miss Janet rubbed her nose with the end of her pince-nez, a habit she
had when considering. “I don’t know so much about that,” she said.
“Anyhow, you’d better go, if he does come, which he very likely won’t.”
“I think he will,” Nan said, “and if he does, I shall go, if I can—not
because of annoying the Annarlys, I’m sure it wouldn’t do that—but
because I rather liked him. I think oldish men are easier to get on
with than most other kinds of people, don’t you? One understands
quicker what they mean, and what they like.”
“They aren’t often backward in telling you, if you don’t,” Miss Janet
said; “at all events in telling you what they don’t like; certainly
George isn’t. By the way, talking of George, you’d better be careful
about Michael’s going into anything with any friends of his, for it
won’t pay him. Everyone George knows is either a thief or a victim,
or both, none of ’em good folk to deal with. According to him all the
world’s the same—which is stuff and nonsense, just like saying all
butchers are liars because some of them cheat over the weights, if
you don’t keep an eye on them. What I say is, if you go to a thieving
neighbourhood, you must expect to be cheated; but if you don’t, you
needn’t. And as for always expecting to be cheated, that’s ridiculous,
and very effectively prevents you from getting on with anything. Why,
George has not managed to do anything with his invention yet, and
principally, I believe, because he’s so suspicious that he can’t deal
with anyone.”
Nan suggested that Miss Janet was showing herself a little suspicious
too, at all events, of George’s friends.
“That’s because I know the sort,” Miss Janet answered; “there’s
nothing to be made out of any of them, you’d better tell Michael so.”
Nan said she would; and, in pursuance of the promise, inquired about
George and what he had been saying when the brother and sister had gone.
“It was about a man he knows who wants an alteration made to some
winding gear,” Michael said; “a small thing, but rather interesting.”
Nan, remembering Miss Janet’s warning, inquired, “Is there any money in
it?”
Michael thought not. “The man’s a warp dyer,” he said; “that’s a trade
which is very seriously cut now, and he appears to be a poor member of
it.”
“Shall you do what he wants?”
“I can’t without going to see the machines. I don’t know that I could
then; it is a pretty complicated bit of machinery.”
“You can go if you want to.”
“I can’t. How can I? I have just been away a week. This certainly would
be only a matter of a day or two, Friday night to Sunday night would do
it, but I can’t expect your father to let me go again.”
“You can,” Nan said. “It was part of the bargain you were to go when
necessary; you have been less than he expected.”
“Yes,” Michael said doubtfully. “Whose bargain? Yours. I know perfectly
well it is a favour you ask and obtain for me, what I receive from your
father, all of it is.”
“There is no favour,” Nan said; “the bargain was made at the outset,
and father would not only expect but want to abide by it. And I don’t
fancy he feels cheated over it; you know him by this time, do you take
him for a man who would make a bad bargain and be content with it? I
don’t.”
Michael saw there was some truth in that, and, if not entirely
convinced, was partly satisfied. Nan did not think it necessary to
mention the birthday-present incident: she did not consider that in the
light of a favour; nor did her father, she was right there.
It was settled between them that Michael should go to the warp dyer
if he could come to any satisfactory arrangement with him. Nan had
a private conviction that he would go even if the arrangement were
not very profitable, the problem put to him by George had caught his
attention.
And she was right: the arrangement when made was not very satisfactory,
quite likely would work out to be little more than his expenses; still,
he agreed. With Barmister’s consent he undertook to go to the dyeing
works the first Friday evening that he could get away.
Among the many industries which at the present time are not
flourishing, the one, little known except in the circle of allied
trades, of warp dyeing ranks high in misfortune. No doubt there are
warp dyers who do well, and there were in the days when George Foregood
knew Milligen and Freegarten; but Milligen and Freegarten were not
among them now. There had been a time when they, shrewd, hard-dealing
workmen who had risen, had made good profits; when they had saved
some money and spent more, and their families had blossomed forth
as a consequence. But that was past: the profits were gone and the
families too largely; perhaps the latter had blossomed too quickly to
make strong roots. Freegarten was dead; his interest in the concern
was represented by a widow suffering from asthma and a conviction that
she did not get what she ought—both complaints chronic. Milligen still
lived, an old man rather wedded to old ways, but too doggedly devoted
to his business to let it die if a new one would save it—provided
the new one could be applied as a patch, not as regeneration and
reconstruction.
The works were situated in one of the small Midland towns, on the edge
which was least prosperous, and from which richer works and factories
had migrated. There were several sites and buildings to let in the
immediate neighbourhood, possibly owing to the fact that a certain
amount of coal had been taken out in the last century, and the shallow,
disused pits were thought to make the erection of heavy factories in
their vicinity unwise. The only prosperous-looking building near the
dye works was the town council’s power station. That abutted on to
Milligen’s, and, by its size and general appearance of opulence and
conformity to all the latest regulations, made the dyeing works look
older and shabbier than ever.
Inside the place was such as Michael had never come across: many of the
arrangements make-shift and almost amateurish; the plant largely such
as could have been collected from Galhardy’s scrap heap and put up by
a working foreman and a couple of fitters. Old Milligen himself was
responsible for some of the work and much of the patching; he stopped
once on his way through with Michael to calk an especially big leak
in one of the tanks. Michael did not mind that; indeed, he himself
stopped to tighten a steam joint. He could not help it; he could no
more comfortably pass a leaky tap which did not concern him than omit
to work out a problem in ballistics which was not his affair, if either
happened to attract his attention. Possibly it was as a consequence of
this characteristic that he did not think much about the poverty of the
works or the inadequacy of the materials at hand; he was too interested
in the problems there presented. It is true he offered advice in
passing on ways to reduce work in pumping and any other small matter he
observed, much as he would on the faulty draught in a kitchen-stove,
otherwise he did not notice. Without knowing it, he won old Milligen’s
respect as a first-class workman; this before he entered into the
matter he had come to consider.
The matter was to alter the winding machinery so as to enable longer
warps to be dealt with than heretofore; a thing which, if it could be
done, might enable the dyer to hold on and just work at a profit, which
was not possible now. It sounded a small problem, simpler a good deal
than it really was, at least, to the uninitiated; but Michael was aware
there might be considerable difficulties in the way, at all events, of
effecting any great improvement without an outlay beyond Milligen’s
inclination and means.
He spent all Saturday in the works, mastering present methods and
working out various ideas for improvement as they came to him. After
mid-day he had the place very much to himself, which really suited him
better. Old Milligen had to go to a neighbouring town to a funeral,
a solemn social ceremony such as are still sometimes to be met with
in the Midlands, and which, with the return journey, would occupy him
till far into the evening. The workmen had left at the half day, all
except one, a little misshapen handy man called Billy, who followed
Michael about, found bits of scrap when he wanted them, and made
rough contrivances to his direction. In the days at Galhardy’s some
of the finest workmen in that half of England carried out the designs
or variations of designs that the directors’ genius was pleased to
suggest, with the finest materials, and in the shortest time. No
recollection of that occurred to Michael now, he was too absorbed
in the present work to have thoughts for anything else; the which,
perhaps, is one of the most unqualifiedly happy attributes of genius.
But Billy, the handy man, thought of other things; he thought of tea
among them.
“I’d better knock off a minute and see after tea, mister,” he said,
when six was more than past.
And Michael assenting, he disappeared for a little while. When he
returned, it was in a rather breathless state. Michael had a way of
inspiring people who worked with him with a feeling that there was not
a minute to spare.
“It’s a step to the Co-op,” Billy said, as he deposited crusty bread
and stringy ham on an improvised table. “I reckon I’ve done it three
minutes quicker this time ’n it’s been done yet, there and back.”
He rummaged in a cupboard and brought out a black teapot and a still
blacker saucepan and set about boiling water for tea.
“—It’s down beyond the power station,” he explained with some pride.
“The power station?” Michael asked, then inquired casually, “Why did
they put the station out here? I should have thought the other side of
the town would have answered better, and saved something in wiring.”
“Cheaper here,” Billy told him; “got the land for next to nothing.
They put the value down themselves by all their talk of old pits when
someone else was thinkin’ of takin’ over that bit. Not that they’re so
sure to make so much savin’ on it after all; their chimbley’s saggin’
and may cost ’em a bit to shore it up yet.”
Michael had noticed that the chimney was out of the straight. “Rather
seriously too,” he said. “I should have thought it was hardly safe.”
“So’d the council, if it didn’t happen to be their’n,” Billy answered,
grinning; “but they aren’t condemmin’ theirselves, not much—what d’ye
take ’em for?”
“Fools,” Michael said, “if they let it come down; they will find that
a deal more expensive than repairing, or rebuilding either.”
Billy agreed, but from politeness not conviction: in his opinion
buildings and other things were condemned, not because they were
unsafe, but because they did not conform to the council’s by-laws:
could those be avoided the buildings might be expected to stand; when
the council itself was concerned they would naturally be in abeyance.
“That chimbley ain’t comin’ down,” he said, peering into the teapot.
“Why should it?”
“Because it is about seven or eight degrees out of the perpendicular,”
Michael answered.
Billy did not appreciate that as sound reason, but forbore to say so,
merely admitting that Brassey, the head engineer, had his doubts. “He’s
in a bit of a takin’ about it,” he said. “It’s sottled some more lately
on the hither side they do say, and he’s fetched the manager back from
the seaside to have a look at it; a chap as works there was tellin’
me yesterday. He was comin’ for a pow-wow to-day, Brassey would have
him though it is Saturday. But what’s the good o’ that, I’m askin’? It
’on’t do nothin’; it’s them old pits as does it, and who’s going to
account for them?”
“Why build on an old pit?” Michael asked. “It seems a little idiotic to
attempt to save money that way.”
“They didn’t go to do it,” Billy told him. “They suspicioned there was
pits hereabouts, but they didn’t reckon to hit one for their chimbley.”
“Surely they have a map of the district?”
Billy shook his head. “Old pits ain’t mapped, not the very old ’uns.
They hadn’t no councils those days, all the better for them! Parties
howked out the coal where they found it, and shut down when there
warn’t no more worth gettin’, with no by your leave and notifyin’ the
town surveyor or dustman or anybody else. You never know when you’re
over a pit some parts—till you’re in it, and not often then. I mean,
the chances are you won’t get in, if you’re on one; it’s just bad luck
if you do, and the damn settlin’ of the ground which happens now and
then, the Lord knows why, and no ’un can allow for.”
He gave the teapot a final shake as he explained these points of local
interest, and then announced that tea was ready.
It was very black indeed, almost as black as the teapot and saucepan,
and it was drunk with tinned milk and brown sugar, and the bread and
stringy ham was eaten with pocket-knives; there was nothing else. But
Michael did not notice, he was absorbed again in the work, and thinking
of that only. He had speedily forgotten the difficulties of the
council’s head engineer, the state of their chimney, and the opinions
of Billy on pits and by-laws; none of them had really interested him.
He was occupied solely with devising a means to enable Milligen’s
winding machines to wind long lengths of warp instead of short.
Through the slow-closing spring evening he gave himself up to the
problem. The patient Billy attending, puzzled and half fascinated
by this new phenomenon among masters and workmen; this courteous
person who always spoke politely, almost diffidently; who looked at
things doubtfully, as if he hardly understood them, and touched them
tentatively, as if he were afraid of breaking them. And, by some magic
unexplained, brought forth more ideas of worth and simple yet perfect
devices in these hours than all others had brought forth in all the
years of the little man’s experience. Darkness closed in, and the
neighbouring power station supplied light to the works and all the
town. No one, not even the two in the warp dyer’s, gave a thought to
the supply, or to the anxious engineer even now waiting, grim-faced,
for his manager.
Michael was standing by the largest winding machine, a big tank of blue
dye below and the warp threads, to be passed through it on Monday, in
great balls beside. From a more distant part of the building came the
sound of hammering on metal, Billy busy with some fitting of his own
contrivance or Michael’s. Nearer at hand there was only the regular
but muffled noise of the engines in the power station beyond the party
wall. Michael had just leaned across the corner of the dye-tank to
place, in imagination, some modification on the machine when there
was a terrific crash. A deafening noise, as if the whole structure
were coming about his ears, a shock that shook the building to its
foundations; then a roar as of a cascade of falling masonry, a very
chaos of sound, and then darkness. Dye sprang from the tanks and fell
again like rain, with bricks and dust and broken timbers; the air was
choked with refuse and vibrant with the noise of displaced machinery;
this for a minute, then the whole pandemonium was swallowed in one
tremendous roar.
“Boilers!” The thought leapt up in Michael’s mind, and he fled.
Through the darkness, stumbling among bricks and broken roofing,
avoiding by a miracle the still falling masonry; making by instinct,
more than knowledge, for the nearest way out and the power station.
There is a workman who still tells how a dyed man came to the power
station that night. Through choking dust and smoke and steam he came:
out of darkness, now beginning to be lit with fire-gleams, and chaos
and deafening turmoil. He came straight and swift, halting for nothing,
seeing nothing it seemed, speeding for the centre of the catastrophe as
others sped from it. He went past the bedazed man without even seeing
him, running at top speed to the dynamo-room.
There was a range of six dynamos down the centre of the building,
the switch-board at one end. Across that end, right across the
switch-board, cutting all connection and destroying all control, the
sagging chimney had fallen. Tons of brickwork lay there: under them,
somewhere under, buried in the ruin, was the head engineer and with
him the manager he had insisted on calling to council, neither the
one nor the other ever to give counsel again. Others may have been
buried in the overthrow; if so, they had never a chance, for, to add
to the general confusion, fire was breaking out at the spot. Michael
did not stop for that, he went by as a man who has one idea only. He
had one, to shut off steam from the dynamos. He knew that they must
be shut off; he knew it to the exclusion of everything else; it was
the one essential. Because it was, and because he knew it, and knew
it even when the first roar of the bursting boilers shook the air,
he took control. He saw no one to help him, he thought of no one, he
only thought of the dynamos and the one thing to be done. Swiftly he
seized the wheel by the first, screwing it down hard and shutting off
steam—then the next, and the next. It was not to be done in a moment:
done as quickly as might be, in an incredibly short time as time really
is, it was not possible to shut off all. The end ones were bound to
fuse before he was through with the others, even if their proximity to
the fire, now beginning to get a hold, had not by then prevented any
approach to them.
With the shutting off of the first dynamo the deafening sound of
escaping steam was added to the other confusion. By the time three were
done the uproar was such that nothing could have been heard above it;
when one would have the attention of another he must touch him. One
did touch Michael, a dazed workman, with blood running down his face.
Michael did not notice the blood, he merely saw an assistant. He gave
him an order, somehow conveyed it by dumb show or force of will. It was
to draw the fires.
The fires were drawn, and though it seemed impossible to add more smoke
and fume to the already nearly unbreathable air, it grew yet thicker in
consequence.
By this time the fire at the end of the building was the most pressing
danger: the last of the dynamos, probably by this time fused as well
as beyond reach, was left, and all attention given to getting the fire
under control. It was useless to think of the fire brigade, there
was no way left of communicating with them except by foot-messenger;
and even were a message got to them, they, but too surely, would be
more wanted elsewhere. There must be more fires than this in the town
by now, many fuses would have gone when the accident happened with
disastrous results somewhere; the sudden darkness, which had fallen
when the chimney fell, would by now be lit by as many fires as the
brigade could deal with. Michael had out the hydrants belonging to the
station and organised what men were at hand. By this time there were
more to obey orders; not the full night-shift: one or two had run for
their lives, one or two, no doubt, were killed, blown to pieces by the
bursting boilers, or crushed under masonry and wreckage. But enough
were left to carry out orders, and they carried them out, never asking
who it was that gave them.
Mr. William Heath, clerk of the council, did not ask either; it did
not occur to him at first, and afterwards it was too late. He was the
first person from outside who appeared on the scene. Those who at this
hour were near enough to have come sooner, had not. There were not
many of them, and they were not of the sort to come; they had made off
in the opposite direction as hard as they could, feeling, no doubt,
that the accident was no affair of theirs and the safety of their
lives, for which they had not unreasonable fears, was. But Mr. Heath
came. He came in a borrowed car when he realised that it was from the
power station had arisen the accident which had plunged the town in
darkness, stayed the trams in progress, held up cranes late loading by
the river, stopped alike the electric theatre and the doctors’ work,
turning the busy Saturday night town into a nightmare of arrested life.
It had taken time to realise this, such a reversal of all ordinary
experience arrests more than the actual physical thing it controls,
mental processes are arrested too. On the whole, Mr. Heath felt, he
recovered himself and recognised the seat of trouble in a creditably
short time. When he realised it, and when afterwards he perceived by
obvious demonstration, that it was a trouble which was not going to
immediately right itself, he set off for the power station. Someone in
authority should be there, he felt, and there at once.
Others were making for the station besides himself by this time, the
wives of those employed among them, for the news of the catastrophe
was abroad by now. Through these people, at rather reckless pace, the
borrowed car went, outdistancing them and reaching the scene first.
Mr. Heath meant well; indeed, he had done well; the council afterwards
congratulated him on the promptness, decision, and courage he had shown
in the emergency. That he did not take command when he arrived on the
scene was not his fault; he would have done so had it been possible;
he was, no doubt, prepared to do so. But there was another man already
there: a slight, youngish man, with nothing conspicuous or individual
about him, except, perhaps, a greater share of dirt and grime than
anyone else. Mr. Heath had no idea who he was; he had never seen him
before, and, as has been said, it did not occur to him to ask when he
first saw him giving orders and dealing with the situation. Afterwards
when it did occur to him it was too late.
It occurred when the man gave him orders. This he did when Mr. Heath
came in his way.
Mr. Heath, stumbling over pipes, and hydrants, and fallen brickwork,
much distressed for the woeful destruction of council property,
hastened here and there on the outskirts of the fire. He was shrill
with excitement: asking what was being done, who was doing it, and
where was the engineer, whom he held responsible. “What has become of
Brassey?” he demanded. “Why is he not here?”
“He’s dead,” one of the men answered briefly.
“—No, we haven’t got him out yet, but he’s dead sure enough, the
chimney’s on him.”
He shook himself free, Mr. Heath had grasped him by the arm to pour out
incoherent questions, and went on with his work.
“Dead!” Mr. Heath said, grasping his handkerchief and gazing about in
horror. “This is awful—awful!”
He made an effort and mastered himself. “Something must be done,” he
said energetically. “The work of rescue must be undertaken!”
He hurried to another point, and tripped over a hydrant, jerking it
from the grasp of the man who held it—to his own detriment and the
confusion of several.
“I must have volunteers!” he said authoritatively. “We must turn our
attention to saving life.” He took hold of the nearest man. “Where
are the fire brigade?” he asked. “They should be doing this, you are
wanted elsewhere. Why were they not called in? Why is this in the hands
of amateurs?” He chanced to turn to Michael himself now. “The council——”
“Do you represent the council? Go and see about having the road up.”
Mr. Heath stared.
“Have it up just outside here,” Michael said, unaware even of his
astonishment, “and waste no time about it. We must take up the electric
mains, and we can’t do it from inside; the pit where they are will be
full of water—even if it weren’t impossible to get at it for the fire.
We must get at them from the outside. Have the road up where they come
in. As quick as possible, please; I can’t spare any men to do it, but
there are plenty outside by this time, set them on it, and tell them to
work like the devil!”
Mr. Heath swallowed something; but he went. Afterwards he took some
pains to explain to himself and others how it happened in the confusion
and stress of circumstances that he did go. Though, had he only known
it, he need not have been ashamed; it was the one really wise thing he
did that night.
They had the road up, working by hastily procured flares and the light
of the now lessening fire; men vigorously plying picks, most of them
hardly knowing for what purpose except vaguely that they were looking
for electric mains for someone. Inside, Michael left others to finish
dealing with the fire. It was under control now, and there were things
elsewhere demanding his attention; the steam mains to be looked to and
a temporary switch-board to be made and put up if the place were to
be got going again. Nothing but getting it going occurred to him as
possible, seeing the complete paralysis of life otherwise entailed.
He set men, as soon as any could be spared from the fire, to repair
the steam mains or to cut off the parts damaged beyond repair by the
bursting of the group of boilers attached to the fallen chimney. He
himself attended to the switch-board. There were materials at hand,
and he went to work at once to make an efficient, if rather rough,
substitute for the one which had been destroyed. A junior electrician
stood by to help him and carry out orders.
To them thus occupied came Mr. Heath, insistent on the subject of
rescue, somewhat incensed and very important.
“It is a positive disgrace!” he said. “Nothing being done for any of
the poor fellows! Precious lives may be lost by this delay. I insist on
the work being undertaken at once; I insist on my orders being obeyed!”
Michael glanced round. “Mind the wire,” he warned.
Mr. Heath minded in so far as to become entangled. “I insist!” he
repeated, extricating himself. “These poor fellows, pinned down by
masonry——”
Michael gave an order to the man at his elbow, who stood watchful for
a word from him, stolidly indifferent to anything else. “Pick up those
wires,” he said, and the man did. Together they executed some deft
piece of manipulation with them.
“Have you got any ambulances and things outside?” he inquired of Mr.
Heath without looking round. “No? Go and see about getting them then;
I’ll have some pieces collected for you by the time they are here.”
“Sir?” Mr. Heath could say no more; this was the most unseemly jest and
the most ill-timed impertinence he had ever heard of.
It did not occur to him, nor could it ever have been realised by him,
that it was neither jest nor impertinence; merely a simple statement of
a simple fact by a man who was simply dealing with things as they were
in a great emergency.
And Michael never knew Mr. Heath’s view either—how should he? He was
making a switch-board in the great emergency: a man has only a given
amount of brain-energy to expend at one time.
In a little while the ambulances came and the pieces were collected.
As Michael had foreseen, there was, and could be, nothing more to put
in them: the men in charge of the burst boilers were blown to atoms at
the first explosion; the two who had stood at the base of the chimney
were crushed out of recognition. There was no work of rescue to do,
only recovery, and recovery of that which could only be identified by
those who knew what to look for. Heart-broken women were admitted for
the purpose, and Michael left the switch-board to help them through
the painful work, and gently lead them away afterwards. Mr. Heath did
not see that, or if he did, did not observe. At any rate, it did not
erase the earlier impression nor yet the later one of Michael returning
quickly to work and suggesting politely but firmly that he, clerk to
the council, and all other outsiders were better and safer off the
premises and out of the way.
Mr. Heath went; he realised that he had something to do outside. With
the concurrence of others of the council, he telephoned for someone to
come and take charge of the power station in place of the engineer who
was dead. The reason why this had not been done before was, firstly,
that up till now no one had thought of it; and, secondly, when they did
think they could not immediately agree as to whose nephew to send for.
When that matter was settled, he was summoned by telephone.
And in the station, through the remaining hours of the night, Michael
worked, getting the place into going order again. The switch-board was
made, the electric mains outside found and connected up with the leads
from the extemporised board. Afterwards the sound dynamos were switched
in; one after another they were connected, and the fires relighted.
Once more the impressive noise of them began to be heard in the long
building; at first a little jerkily as the first great engine got to
work, afterwards deepening to the strong, steady hum which was their
usual voice. By degrees things began to come alive again, beyond the
station as well as inside it; soon after dawn trams and engines, cranes
and lights, most of that which had been paralysed through the night,
began to feel the power.
Soon after dawn, too, came the new engineer. It must be remembered
that Mr. Heath had telephoned for him, impressing upon him urgency
and the need for speedy coming; not omitting to mention, among other
reasons, that an impertinent person, unknown, was at the station giving
orders and taking none. To the dynamo-room came the new engineer, and
found the person at work on the last sound dynamo. To him he announced
himself, his name, occupation, and reason for being there.
“Ah?” Michael said without ceasing from what he was doing, which was at
a critical point. “Hand me that spanner.” This to the man close under
the dynamo.
It was handed, and for a moment he worked concentratedly.
The new-comer watched, casting a critical glance at the work, and also
at the pools of blackened water, charred framework, twisted pipes,
tangled wires, and general confusion and destruction all round. He
himself, naturally, presented a contrast; he looked very clean beside
the grimy men here, more especially beside the one in command. In
the cold morning light that one showed a haggard, unkempt person,
dye-stained, oil-stained, torn and smoke-blackened, disreputable, and
unimpressive. Careless, too—the new-comer noticed a loose bolt when the
work was apparently regarded as done.
He pointed it out to one of the workmen.
The man looked at it stolidly. He had been many hours on duty, and no
ordinary duty, and his enthusiasm for bolts and casual words of casual
comers was at a low ebb.
“You might tighten that down,” Michael said, and he obeyed.
The new-comer stiffened just a little. Michael turned to go.
The other looked him over. “Are you an electrician?” he said.
“No,” Michael answered, “only the man who dealt with the situation.”