A FIGHT WITH DEATH
Robert Sinclair seemed to be the one man who knew what to do--at least,
he seemed to be the only one who had a definite aim in view and as if by
some natural instinct everyone was just ready to do his bidding. He was
the leader of the herd towards whom everyone looked ready for a new
order to meet any new situation which might arise. Initiative and
resource were a monopoly in his hands. He was silent, and worked to get
ready to descend the old air-shaft, with grim set lips. Yet there seemed
to be no sense of bustle, only the work was done quickly and orderly,
his orders being issued as much by signs as by speech, and soon a
windlass was erected with ropes and swing chair fastened, into which he
at once leaped, followed by another man. Tools and explosives were
packed in and lamps lit and the order given to lower the chair.
Robert felt a queer sort of feeling as he stood waiting on the first
motion of the little drum round which the rope wound. He was cool and
clear brained--in fact he wondered why he was so collected. He felt he
was standing out of all this maelstrom of suffering and terror. Not that
he was impervious to anxiety for the men below, not that he was unmoved
by all that it meant to those standing round; but after that first wild
throb of terror that had clutched at his heart when his mother had told
him the dread news and that his two brothers were imprisoned in the
mine, something seemed suddenly to snap within him, the load and the
intensity of the pain lifted, and from that moment he had been master of
the situation.
He glanced round him as he waited quietly in his swinging seat. He felt
as he looked, no sense of fear or impending doom. He knew that black
damp probably lay in dense quantities down in that yawning gulf below
him, he knew that the sides of the shaft were in a bad state of
disrepair, and that they might give way at any time as the swinging rope
must inevitably touch them, and bring the whole thing in upon him, with
hundreds of tons of débris and moss.
Yet it was not of these things he thought. Perhaps he did not think of
anything particularly, but a far-off lilt of a children's game which was
played at school, kept iterating and reiterating through his brain, and
everything seemed done to that tune.
"Don't take a laddie, oh,
Laddie oh, laddie oh,
Don't take a laddie oh,
Take a bonnie wee lassie."
It sang continually within him and men seemed to move to its regular
beat, as they hurried to get ready. He looked at the hills, and noted
how quiet everything seemed, their curving outlines gave such a sense of
eternal rest. There was a patch of lovely blue sky above him, he noticed
where the clouds opened up and a glint of golden glorious sunshine came
through; but it looked garish and it closed again and the white clouds
trailed away, their lower fringes clinging to the hill tops like veils
of gossamer woven by time to deck the bride of Spring. A lark rose at
the edge of the crowd of weeping women and children as if unmindful of
the tragedy over which it sang so rapturously, and he noted its
fluttering wings and swelling throat as it soared in circles of glad
song.
All these things and more he noted though it was but a momentary pause.
"Are you right?" came the question from the men at the windlass, far
away it seemed and unconnected with the scene.
"Right," he answered with a start, and looking round he seemed to become
aware of the white-faced, red-eyed women among whom his mother's face
seemed to stand out. She was not weeping, he noticed, but oh God! her
face seemed to turn him with the intensity of the suffering in her eyes.
He realized that he had not noticed her before, and now with a wild
throb of pity he stretched out his hands towards her, a look of
suffering in his eyes, as if he were feeling the pains of humanity
crucified anew, and the chair began to drop slowly below the surface,
swinging down into the darkness and the evil dangers that lurked below.
Her face was the last thing he saw--a face full of agony yet calm with a
great renunciation coming to birth in her eyes, her lips drawn thin like
a slit in her face and all the color gone from them, the head bent a
little as if a great blow had fallen upon her--an island of agony set in
a sea of despair.
A wild impulse seized him to go back. It was too much to ask of a woman,
he felt. Too great a burden of tragedy to heap upon one soul, as he cast
his mind back through the suffering years and viewed all the pain she
had borne, and the terrible Gethsemane which her life had been; but as
the chair swung round he clutched the swaying rope and with the other
hand steadied it from crashing against the side of the shaft as they
slowly dropped lower and lower into the darkness and the evil smells
which hung around.
"Things look bad here," said his comrade as they passed down where at
some time a huge portion from the side had fallen out and down into the
bottom of the old shaft.
"Ay," answered Robert, "everything seems just ready to collapse," and
they dropped lower and lower, swaying from side to side, cautiously
guiding their swinging chair from the moss-oozing side, their nerves
strained as they listened to the creeking rope as it was paid out from
above.
"Holy God," cried his mate, "that was a near thing," as a huge mass of
rocks and slimy moss lunged out a little below them and hurtled away in
a loud rumbling noise.
Robert pulled the signal cord to stop and looked up to see the white
clouds passing over the narrow funnel-like shaft in which they hung.
Then he gave the signal to let out again noting how thick with damp the
atmosphere was becoming, and having difficulty with his light.
Lower and lower they swung and dropped down into the old shaft and as
the rope creaked and crazed above them it lilted:
"Choose, choose, wha' you'll tak',
Wha' you'll tak', wha' you'll tak',
Choose, choose wha' you'll tak',
A laddie or a lassie."
And the memory of the old lilt brought back other scenes again and he
found himself guiding the chair from the shaft side steering it off with
his hand at every rhythmic beat of the child song.
Soon they reached the bottom of the shaft, for it was not very deep, and
found a mass of débris, almost choking up the roadways on either side of
the bottom. But they got out of their chair and soon began to "redd"
away the stones though they found very great difficulty in getting the
lamps to burn. Occasionally, as they worked, little pieces came tumbling
from the side of the shaft, telling its own tale, and as soon as Robert
got a decent sized kind of opening made through the rocks which blocked
the roadway he sent up the other man to bring down more help and to get
others started to repair the old shaft by putting in stays and batons to
preserve the sides and so prevent them from caving in altogether.
He found his way along the level which had been driven to within nine
feet of going through on the heading in which the inbreak of moss had
taken place. He noticed the roof was broken in many places and that the
timber which had been put in years before was rotten. Strange noises
seemed to assail his senses, and stranger smells, yet the lilt of that
old childish game was ever humming in his brain and he saw himself with
other boys and girls with clasped hands linked in a circle and going
round in a ring as they sang the old ditty.
"Three breakings should dae it," he said as he looked at the face of the
coal dripping with water from the cracks in the roof. "If only they were
here to put up the props. I could soon blow it through," and he began to
prepare a place for batons and props, pending the arrival of more help
from those who were only too eager to come down to his aid.
It was almost an hour before help came in the shape of two men carrying
some props. Then came another two and soon more timber began to arrive
regularly and the swinging blows of their hammers as they drove in the
fresh props were soon echoing through the tunnels, and Robert set up his
boring machine and soon the rickety noise of it drowned all others. He
paused to change a drill when a faint hullo was heard from the other
side.
"Hullo," he yelled, then held his breath in tense silence to hear the
response which came immediately. "Are you all safe?" he roared, his
voice carrying easily through the open coal.
"Ay," came the faint answer; "but the moss is rising in the heading and
you'll have to hurry up."
Robert knew this, and one of his helpers had gone down an old heading to
explore and had returned to say that it was rising steadily and was now
within two hundred feet from the old shaft down which he had descended.
"Where away did the roof break?" roared Robert as he changed his second
drill.
"Half way doon the cousie brae," came the answer, "an' we're all shut in
like rats. Hurry up and get us oot," and again the rickety, rackety
noise of the boring machine began and drowned all other noises.
He soon drilled his holes and he could hear them on the other side
singing now some ribald song to keep up their courage, while others who
were religiously inclined chanted hymns and psalms, but all were
wondering whether Robert and his men would be able to break through the
barrier in time to save them before the persistently rising moss claimed
them.
He charged his shots and called them to go back, telling them the number
of his charges, then lit his fuse and ran out of the old level to wait
in a place of safety while the explosion took place.
Soon they boomed out and the concussion put them all in darkness; but
they soon had the lamps re-lit and were back in among the thick volumes
of powder smoke, groping about and shading their lamps and peering in to
see what their shots had done to lessen the barrier between them and
their imprisoned comrades.
Then the shovels set to work and tossed the coal which the shots had
dislodged back into the roadway and soon the boring machines were busy
again, eating into the coal; for those tireless arms of Robert's never
halted. He swung the handle or wielded the pick or shovel, never taking
a, rest, while the sweat streamed from his body working like some
mechanical product for always in his mind he was calculating his chances
for being able to blast it through the barrier before the moss rose.
"It has only a stoop length an' a half to rise now," reported one of the
men. "It's creeping up like the doom o' the day o' judgment. But I think
we'll manage. If these shots do as well as the last ones we should be
within two feet of them, an' surely to God we can bite the rest of it,
if we canna blaw it. Let me stem the shots, Rob, an' you take a rest."
"You go to hell," was the unexpectedly astounding reply; for no one had
ever heard Robert Sinclair use language like this before. "As soon as
thae shots are off an' if they blaw as well as the others we'll turn out
the coal an' then you can gang up the pit, every yin o' you. I'll soon
blow through the rest of it, and if you are all up by then it will make
for speed in getting the others out. We're going to have a race for it
even though we manage as I'm thinking to. So get out of the way and
don't talk. Again the air's getting too dam'd thick for you all
remaining here. There's hardly as muckle as would keep a canary living,"
and again he called to those on the other side to beware of the shots,
and again ran out to a place of safety while the explosions took place.
Once more the result of the shots was good; but the smoke choked and
blinded them and one man was overcome by the fumes. They carried him out
the road a bit and after he showed signs of coming round, Robert gave
instructions for him to be taken to the surface.
"Oh, Lod, but it's nippin' my e'en," said one as he rubbed his eyes and
blew his nose, sneezed and finally expectorated. "It's as thick as soor
milk, be dam'd!"
"Well, get him up, and I'll away back and redd out the shots and try
and get it through again. The moss is rising quicker noo an' it has only
aboot eighty feet to come."
So back he went among the thick choking volume of smoke, tripping and
stumbling and staggering from side to side as he scrambled on. Would he
be in time to blast the barrier down before the steadily creeping moss
rose to cut off his only avenue of escape?
"My God! What's that?" he asked himself as he paused while a rumble and
crash behind him told him that the old shaft had caved in burying his
comrades in rocks and moss and water.
He ran back but could get no further than within a stoop length of the
old shaft. There were hundreds of tons of débris and all was finally
lost. For the first time terror seized him and he tore desperately at
the bowlders of stone, cutting his fingers and lacerating his body all
over with cuts and bruises. He raved and swore and shouted in
desperation, the sweat streaming from every pore, his eyes wild and
glaring, but he was soon driven back by the moss which was oozing and
percolating through the broken mass of bowlders and gradually it forced
him back with a rush as it burst through with a sudden slushing sound as
if suddenly relieved from a barrier which held it. Back he rushed, his
light again becoming extinguished, the flood pursuing him relentlessly,
the air now so heavy that he could hardly breathe, but groping his way
he reached the first end roadway down which for the moment the flood ran
to meet the rising moss creeping up relentlessly from below.
Choking and only half conscious he staggered on with all sense of
disaster gone from his mind, with no thought of his comrades on the
other side waiting so impatiently to be released, and singing their
frothy songs in the hope that all was well, his legs doubling below him,
and his lungs heaving to expel the poison which the thick air contained.
Down at last he fell, his head striking against the side of the roadway,
and he lay still.
The moss might rise hungrily over him now, the rotten roof might fall
upon him, all the dangers of the mine might conspire together against
him; but nothing they might do could ever again strike terror into the
young heart that lay there, feebly throbbing its last as it was being
overcome with the deadly poison of the black damp.
He was proof against all their terrors now, the spirit could evade them
yet; for though the old shaft might collapse and imprison his body and
claim it as a sacrifice to the King Terror of the Underworld, no prison
was ever created that could contain the indomitable spirit of man as
God. He was free--free, and was happy and could cry defiance to the
dangers of the mine, to the terrors of time itself. He could clutch the
corners of the earth, and play with it as a toy of time, among the Gods
of Eternity.
"Choose, choose wha' you'll tak'," throbbed the young heart and a smile
of triumph played upon the lips as the pictures of bygone times flitted
across his dying brain. He was again the happy infant, hungry it may be,
and ill-clad, but Heaven contained no happier soul. The little stomach
might not be filled with sufficient food; but the spirit of him as it
was in younger years knew no material limits to its laughter in the
childish ring games of youth. Again he was waiting in the dark wintry
mornings on Mysie, so that she would not be afraid to go to work on the
pit-head; ay, and he was happy to take the windward side of her in the
storm, and shield her from the winter's blast, tying her little shawl
about her ears and making her believe he did not feel the cold at all.
He was back again at his mother's knee, listening to her glorious voice
singing some pitiful old ballad, as she crooned him to sleep; or lying
trying to forget the hunger he felt as the glorious old tune seemed to
drown his senses while he waited to say his prayer at night.
"Jesus, tender shepherd, hear me,
Bless Thy little lamb to-night,
In the darkness be Thou near me,
Keep me safe till morning light."
Then there was the "good-night" to everyone and the fond kiss of the
best of all mothers, the sinking into sleep that billowed and rocked
the weary young spirit of him, crushed and bruised by the forces of the
world, and finally the sweet shy smile of a young girl blushing and
awkward, but flooding his soul with happiness and thrilling every fiber
of him with her magic as she stood upon the hill crest, outlined against
the sunset with a soft breeze blowing, kissing the gray hill side,
bringing perfumes from every corner of the moor and beckoning him as she
rose upward, he followed higher and higher, the picture taking shape and
becoming more real until it merged into spirit.
And the creeping moss moved upward, hungry for its prey and greedy to
devour the fine young body so fresh and strong and lusty; but it was
balked, for it claimed only the empty shell. The prize had gone on the
wings of an everlasting happiness and the spirit of the moor, because
there is no forgetting, triumphed over the spirit of destruction, so
that in the records of the spirit he shall say:
"I shall remember when the red sun glowing
Sinks in the west, a gorgeous flare of fire;
How then you looked with the soft breeze blowing
Cool through your hair, a heaving living pyre
Fired by the sun for the sweet day's ending;
I still shall hear the whirring harsh moor-hen,
Roused from her rest among the rushes bending
I shall remember then.
"I shall remember every well-loved feature,
How, on the hill crest when the day was done,
Just how you looked, dear, God's most glorious creature,
Heaven's silhouette outlined against the sun;
I shall remember just how you the fairest,
Dearest and brightest thing that God e'er made,
Warmed all my soul with holy fire the rarest,
That vision shall not fade."
But pain and tragedy forever seem to have no limit to their hunger; and
in the clear spring air above the place where the bodies of her boys
lay, Mrs. Sinclair's heart was again the food upon which the tragedy of
life fed. All the years of her existence were bound up in the production
of coal, and the spirits of her husband and of her sons call to-day to
the world of men--men who have wives, men who have mothers, men who have
sweethearts and sisters and daughters, stand firm together; and preserve
your women folk from these tragedies, if you would justify your manhood
in the world of men.