THE COLLAPSE
On the third day the rain abated, and work was resumed at the
well. For the first few hours it went steadily on; but before
noon an awful catastrophe had occurred, and it became known all
over Willowton that the brickwork had fallen in, and that Chapman
and Hayes were entombed under the _débris._
---
Mr. Rutland was at the Workhouse Infirmary when the news reached
him. The doctor was there too, and the two gentlemen drove off at
once to the scene of the disaster, where stood Annie Chapman with
a white drawn face, her baby in her arms and three other little
ones clinging to her skirts as usual. Martin's girl stood by her.
The children were out of school, and they too were there, a
hundred or more of them with wide eyes and horror-struck faces.
What was _not_ there was any sensible, capable man to take
command and keep the crowd back; for it was not yet the
dinner-hour, and the labourers were still in the fields, and
Martin, on the principle that what is important had better be
done by yourself, had rushed off, after sending a boy to fetch
Mr. Rutland, to telegraph to Ipswich for scientific help from the
firm who had supplied Hayes, and who had given advice as to the
mode of proceeding at the outset. Martin returned scarcely a
minute later than Mr. Rutland and the doctor, and hurriedly
informed them of his action in the matter.
Having made a clear space of some thirty feet or so round the
spot where the unfortunate men were perhaps even now lying with
the life crushed out of them, the doctor threw himself on the
ground and listened anxiously for some sound of life. If they
lived, the men would, of course, shout loudly and untiringly for
assistance; and then--as it was was just possible that, even if
they could not make themselves heard, some sound might reach
them--Mr. Rutland leaned over the chasm and shouted words of
encouragement and cheer. But he might have shouted to the empty
air, for never a sound reached them.
When one o'clock struck from the church tower the vicar sent the
children to their homes, and with kindly firmness insisted on
Annie Chapman's going back too and getting some refreshment. The
children's needs was a good excuse.
"I would not keep you away if you wish to come back," he said.
"No one has, alas, a greater right to be here than you. Come when
the children are gone into school again. I will have the
tarpaulin shelter that was taken down on account of the rain put
up again, and you can rest there."
Annie thanked him with a look; she was beyond speaking, and
seemed dazed. "Martin's gal" went home with her, helped her with
the children's dinner, and came back to watch with her all that
long, weary afternoon.
It was two hours before the Ipswich man arrived in a carriage
drawn by a strong, fast horse, white with foam, and reeking with
the heat of his rapid run. An assistant quickly unpacked the
apparatus for lowering the men who had volunteered for the
dangerous task of removing the fallen bricks. The accident, the
man said, was due to the violence of the rain, which had
percolated through the earth so quickly that it had loosened the
soil all round the well to a depth of some twenty or thirty feet,
and caused the brickwork to bulge inwards and fall. How far down
the mischief extended, of course, he was as unable to determine
as any one else; but one thing was sufficiently obvious--that
_time_ was everything. Another downfall would be almost certain
destruction, and the unfortunate men, he said, had two dangers,
not one, to contend with. At any moment the springs might begin
to work, and they might have escaped death from the fall of the
well only to be drowned by the rising water. It was a truly awful
predicament, and as it always happens when a real calamity
overtakes any of their mates, those who had most reviled them for
refusing to strike now came forward with offers of help, and even
forbore to make unpleasant remarks of any sort.
Corkam, who was, of course, soon on the scene, actually held his
tongue too until the work of rescue was fairly set in hand, and
each man had been told off to his hours of duty, when he
entertained a favoured group with various supercilious remarks,
and an assurance that these things were much better done in
'Meriky. No one, however, paid much attention to him. They
naturally could think of nothing but the horror and the magnitude
of the present catastrophe. Things that had or had not happened
years ago in a foreign country mattered very little to any one
now in the face of this horrible reality; and Martin told him so
pretty plainly, and not a little roughly, with the desirable
result that he went off to the bridge to give his friend Farley
the latest details. And nobody missed him particularly!