at eight o'clock, on a chill morning, the women in the red-brick cottages of hyde, which are built round the hyde collieries, felt the earth quiver beneath their feet, and heard a low roar, reverberating about them. their hands went up to their beating hearts; they rushed to their windows that overlooked the grey wastes where the shafts of the mines stood gaunt against the horizon; they saw a burst of flame leap from the upcast shaft of no. 3 mine; leap vividly for a swift moment, and leave behind it a vision of a twisted cable-rope, and twisted iron, and the flame that vanished swiftly bore with it the souls of two hundred men: their husbands, their sons—their men. they gathered their shawls about them, and ran, with their clogs clattering on the cobbled streets, to the pit-mouth, joining a stream of men, whose eyeballs shone whitely from the grime and black of their faces—they ran with terror clutching at their hearts and fear at their heels, and every lip was parched and dry with the horror and dread of the moment. there had been a disaster to no. 3 pit: an explosion; a fire—"what is it? tell us?" they crowded round the mine offices, besieged the mine manager: "for the love of heaven, for the mercy of mary, for the sake of christ—tell us! we must know ... we are the wives, the daughters, the mothers of those who went below to their work in the blackness of the coal.... no need to tell us: we know, now; we see the thin cloud of smoke, with its evil smell, floating above the shaft ... the engine-room is silent. the ventilation fan is not working. it has been shattered, with the lives of all those who matter, by this explosion.
[156]
"yes, yes, we will wait. some of our men are sure to have escaped; they know the workings. they will find their way to the arden mine shaft adjoining, and come up in the cages. perhaps they all will, and no lives will be lost. we will wait...."
at eleven o'clock the little tape machines in the newspaper offices printed out letter by letter the message that was sent by the hyde reporter, who overslept himself that day, and did not hear the news until ten. "an explosion occurred in the no. 3 mine of the hyde collieries this morning. two hundred men were working at the time, and it is feared that there has been a serious loss of life."
"off you pop," said rivers to wratten, who had just arrived at the office. "this looks big. i think you'd better have some one with you. boy, tell mr quain to come up."
half an hour later wratten and quain were on their way in a cab to euston, humphrey thrilling with the adventure of being chosen to accompany wratten, looking forward to a new experience. "horrible things, these mine disasters," said wratten. "i hate 'em," as if any one in the world was so misguided as to like them.
"are they difficult to do?" asked humphrey.
"sometimes ... it depends. if there's a chance of rescue, you've got to hang about sometimes all night. they get on my nerves. this'll be your first, won't it?"
"yes," humphrey said. it seemed strange to him that they should be discussing such an appalling disaster so dispassionately; considering it only from their point of view. there was no sense of tragedy, of deep gloom, in their talk. it was all part of their business—a lecture, a murder, an interview, a catastrophe—it was all the same to them. they were merely lookers-on.
when they arrived at euston, a tall man, whose chief characteristics were gold-rimmed spectacles and a black moustache, came towards them. he wore a red tie and[157] carried a heavy ash stick in his hand. "what—ho! wratten," he said, jovially, "coming up?"
"hullo, grame," said wratten, "anybody else here yet?"
"oh! the whole gang. we're for'rard in a reserved compartment."
kenneth carr, white-faced and breathless, arrived at the last moment. "hullo!" he said, "isn't this awful.... two hundred men! i'll join you as soon as possible."
"poor kenneth!" wratten remarked to quain, as they followed grame to the carriage. "he really feels this quite keenly. he realizes the immensity of the tragedy to which we're going to travel. it's a mistake. it hampers one."
"i should have thought it would make you do better work," quain answered, "if you really felt the tremendous grief of it all."
"not a bit. it makes you maudlin. you lose your head and go slobbering sentimental stuff about. remember, you're no one—you don't exist—you're just a reporter who's got to hustle round, find out what's happened, and tell people how it happened. never mind how it strikes you—the day ain't interested in you and your sensations—it wants the story of the mine disaster."
"but—" humphrey began.
wratten turned on him savagely. "oh! good god! don't you think i feel it too? don't you think i hate the idea of never being able to write it as i see it? by god! i wouldn't dare tell the story of a mine disaster as i see it. the day would never print it—it would be rank socialism."
there were five other reporters in the carriage. two of them humphrey had met before: mainham, who wore pince-nez, looked like a medical student, and spent every saturday at the zoological garden, where he discovered[158] extraordinary stories of crocodiles, who suffered from measles; he was, in a way, the registrar of births, deaths and marriages among the animals; and chander, a thin-faced, thin-lipped young man, who wore long hair, whose conversation was entirely made up of a long chain of funny stories.
chander faced the little tragedies of his work daily, but he kept himself eternally young by pretending only to see the humorous side of things. for instance, he once spent a whole morning in the rain and slush of a january, trying to verify some story. he tramped the dismal pavements of a dirty street off tottenham court road, in search of a certain man in a certain house, finally gave it up in disgust, and discovered that he should have gone to another street of the same name by king's cross. that would have disheartened the average man: but chander turned it into a funny story—it is good to have the chander point of view.
the other reporters were thomas, who worked for the courier—a penny paper—a well-ordered, methodical, unimaginative man, who had a secret pity for the poor devils who had to work for halfpenny papers; and a big broad-shouldered man, whose name was gully. his face at a glance seemed handsome enough, until you noticed the narrow eyes and the coarseness of the heavy under lip. he had brought a pack of cards with him and wanted to play nap.
"good heavens!" said kenneth carr, irritably, "try and behave as if you had some decency left. we're going to a mine disaster. there's two hundred dead men at the other end of the journey."
"well, you do talk rot," gully replied. "are they relations of yours?" he sniggered at his joke, and asked mainham to play. mainham said he couldn't play in the train, but thomas was willing. chander, who knew that kenneth carr loathed gully and all that he stood[159] for, joined the party out of sheer good-nature. he hated quarrelling.
"why look on the black side of things, carr?" he said. "perhaps they're not dead at all. we needn't go into mourning until we know everything, and we don't know anything except what the early editions of the evening papers had. and newspapers are so inaccurate."
"ass!" said kenneth, with a grin, for he and chander were good friends, and he understood chander's tact.
gully shuffled the cards. "i hope they're dead," he said, "because then we shall be able to get back to-morrow."
kenneth carr, grame and wratten looked at each other. wratten gave his head a little toss, and made a clicking noise that meant, "what can you expect, after all, from gully."
"charitable soul," chander said, admiringly. "what a sweet temperament you have. won't it be sad if you find 'em all alive and ready to kick!"
kenneth carr, wratten, mainham and humphrey went into the dining-car, as the express rocked northwards towards luton. the journey was full of apprehension for humphrey; he had never been on such a big story as this, and, though he knew he had to do nothing but obey wratten, there was still a doubt of success in his mind. it interfered with his appetite. he marvelled that the other men could eat their food so calmly, as though they were going on a pleasure trip, and talk of ordinary things. of course, they were thoroughly used to it. it was as common an incident in their lives as casting up columns of figures is to a bank clerk, or the measuring of dead bodies to an undertaker.
after luncheon, mainham left them to go back to the carriage, and the three friends were alone over cigarettes and coffee.
"i'm sorry i lost my temper with gully," carr said, after a pause.
[160]
"oh, we all know gully." wratten smiled and sipped his coffee.
"don't get like gully," kenneth said to humphrey, "even if you feel like him. it's bad; it's the gullys that have brought such a lot of disrespect on journalism. he's the type of journalist whom people think it necessary to give 'free' cigars to, and 'free' whiskies and sodas; 'free' dinners, even. they think it is the correct thing to give 'free' things to us, as one throws bones to a dog. it's the gullys who take everything greedily and never disillusion them."
"but don't you think you're too sensitive?" humphrey ventured. "it seems to me that the work we do demands a skin thick enough to take all insults. look at the things we have to do sometimes!"
"it's our business to take risks," wratten interposed. "i don't mind what i do, so long as there's a good story in it. if it's discreditable, the fault isn't with me. i'm only a humble instrument. it's the day who's to blame—the day and the system. i do my duty, and any complaints can be made to neckinger or ferrol, with or without horsewhip. that's my position."
"you see," kenneth carr said, musingly, "there are, roughly, three classes of reporters. there's the man who is keenly alive to the human side of his work and talks about it, as i'm afraid i do; there's the man who feels just as keenly and shuts up, as you and wratten and mainham and hosts of others do; and there's the chap, like gully, who hasn't an ounce of imagination, and gloats over things like this mine disaster, because he's a ghoul. i envy people like you and wratten. you do the best work because, although you feel pity and sorrow, you never allow these feelings to hamper your instincts of the reporter."
humphrey smiled. "wratten doesn't." the time passed in recounting some of wratten's audacious doings.[161] his bullying a half-suspected murderer into a confession; his brutal exposure of a woman swindler—he had answered an advertisement for a partner in some scheme or other, found the advertiser was a woman with a questionable commercial past, pretended he was bona fide, and, when he had obtained all his material, ruthlessly exposed her in the day. there was the case of the feeble-minded millionaire, who was kept a prisoner in his house. there was the case of the gaiety girl who married a lordling, and wratten pried into their private lives, forced the lordling into an interview, and wrote a merciless story that made london snigger. he was absolutely callous in his work, yet so human and tender-hearted out of it. humphrey, since that night when he had been helped by him, had looked up to wratten as the type of the ideal reporter, with courage unlimited, who never flinched, even when the work was most unsavoury and humiliating.
he was not popular with the reporters of the papers: he kept himself away from them, and restricted his friendship to one or two men. the reason of his unpopularity was simply because others feared him as a rival, and humphrey found, later, that there was merit in that sort of unpopularity. the strong men are never popular.
the train had now sped past rugby, and the green valleys and chequered landscapes ran by in a never-ending panorama. the sunshine held with them as far as crewe, and then, as they came into an unlovely stretch of land bristling with factory chimneys, the clouds gathered, and the greyness settled over the day. the three friends sat silently now: wratten and carr, seated opposite, were looking out of the window, and humphrey over carr's shoulder caught glimpses of the little world to which they were journeying. he saw the great brick chimneys everywhere now, breathing clouds[162] of foul black smoke, and then, wherever he looked, the strange-looking gearing-wheels of the coal-mine shafts came into view. some of them were quite near the railway line, and he could see the light twinkling between their spokes as the great shaft wheels moved round, hauling up invisible cages. there were tangles of iron-work, and buildings of grimy brick, and, as they rushed on, they passed gaunt sidings where coal-stained trucks waited in a long line.
they were in a world of brick and iron and coal: down below them, beneath the throbbing wheels of the express, the earth was a honeycomb of burrows, where half-naked men sweated and worked in the awful heat and close darkness. this was a hard world, spread around them, a world where men lived hard, worked hard, and died hard. a world without sunshine,—all grimy iron and coal and brute strength. and again humphrey could not help feeling the pitiful artificiality of his own work, that mattered so little, compared with this real and vital business of dragging coal from the heart of the earth to warm her children.
they had to change at wigan: the bookstalls were covered with placards of manchester and bolton newspapers telling of the horror of the disaster. they bought copies of every paper, and saw the whole terrible story, hastily put together, and capped with heart-rending headlines. they would have to wait thirty minutes for the train to hyde: wratten twitched humphrey's sleeve and drew him aside. "look here," he said, "i don't know what the other fellows are going to do. trains are no good to me—i mayn't be able to get back to wigan to wire, and the hyde post-office will be a one-horse show. i'm going to get a motor-car. come on." so they left the group. social friendship was at an end: there were no "good-byes," each man was concerned with himself and his own work.
[163]
motor-cars were not used by newspapers at that time to the extent that they are used to-day; they were doubly expensive, and even a little uncertain, but the day was always generous with expenses when it came to getting news.
they went outside, and wratten hailed a dilapidated four-wheeler. "drive to a motor garage—quick," he said.
"won't t' old hoss do, guv'nor?" asked the cabby, with the broad northern accent.
"no, it won't, and look slippy," growled wratten. the old cab rattled over the stones and down a steep hill.
"this is a pretty dull hole," humphrey said, looking out at the town, which seemed to be oozing coal from all its pores.
"yes," wratten said shortly. "i'm trying to think out a plan. you'd better come with me to hyde, and after we've got some stuff for the main story, you can hang on, and i'll bump back here in the car, and put it on the wire. then i'll come back to the mine and relieve you. you'll probably have got some interviews by then, and we can run them on to the story."
they arranged for the motor-car, and during a ten-minutes' wait, wratten dashed off to the post-office. "always call at the post-office when you get on a job like this, and tell them what you're going to send. besides, the office may have some instructions for you in the poste restante. and always wire your address to the office. we'd better stop at the royal. i daresay every one else will be there, but it can't be helped."
they set out in the evening for the mine. the car took them through the mean streets of wigan and the outlying villages, where the shadow of disaster hung like a black curtain over the houses. the streets were strangely silent: groups of men stood at the street[164] corners, talking in constrained voices, and women with shawls over their heads flicked across the roads, grey and ghostlike, the slap of their clogs breaking harshly into the silence. now and again they passed a beer-house, brilliantly lit, and from here came sounds of voices, and high nervous laughter. "they always get drunk on days like these," wratten said. "they have to forget that death is always sitting at their shoulders."
and now there was a stretch of open country, yet even the fields had not the bright green of the southern fields. the very grass was soiled with the coal, and the mines and the tall chimneys made a ring round their horizon. humphrey moved uneasily in the car: the brooding spirit of tragedy that hovered over the place was beginning to seem intolerable. it was all so grey, so appallingly dismal and squalid. here were the houses with the blinds drawn over their windows—whole streets of them—houses where there was no man to come home now. here were women leaning over the railings of the patches of gardens, staring before them into the desolate future. fatherless babes crawling about the dusty pavements and gutters, unheedingly, knowing nothing of the disaster that had scorched and withered the mankind of their world.
they turned down a side-street, and came out upon an open space filled with a mighty crowd of people. behind them was the gate that led to the colliery, and far away, above their heads, humphrey saw the winding wheel above the shaft, twisted and broken, the shaft itself jagged and castellated where the force of the explosion had torn the brickwork, and the cable-ropes shattered and tangled, as if some giant hands had wrenched it loose and made a plaything of it.
the crowds before the gate parted as they heard the noise of the motor-car. they made a narrow lane, just wide enough for the car to creep through. the[165] gate was guarded by a police-sergeant, who, overcome by the sight of the motor-car, opened the way, and saluted: wratten, bulky with rugs and wraps, touched the peak of his cap. the car drew up outside the offices, and they set out to walk up the black hill to the pit-mouth.
desolation, utter and dismal; the lowering sky stained and splashed with the red of the dying sun; dark masses gathering below the purple pall of clouds; the ground barren and black with coal beneath the feet: these were humphrey's first impressions as they walked up the hill, with thousands of envious, resentful eyes regarding them from the crowds that huddled beyond the railings. nobody questioned them; nobody asked them what right they had to be there. they were part and parcel of the scheme—the literary undertakers, or, if you like, the descendants of the bards of old, the panegyrists, come to sing their elegies to the dead.
the full force of the tragedy came, as a blow between the eyes, when they reached the pit-mouth. those women, waiting patiently throughout the day,—and they would wait, too, long into the night, keeping up their vigils of despair—who could forget them? who could look at their faces without feeling an overwhelming gush of pity flooding the heart; those eyes, red-rimmed and staring intensely, eyes that could weep no more, for their tears were exhausted, and nothing but a stony impassive grief was left! the shawls made some of the faces beautiful, madonna-like, framing them in oval, but others were the faces of dolorous old women, grey-haired, and mumbling of mouth. and some of them laid their forefingers to their lips, calling the world in silence to witness their stupendous sorrow. they stood there compact and pitiful: thinking of god knows what—perhaps of the last good-bye, of a quarrel before parting, of a plan for the morrow, of all the little last things[166] that had been done by their men, before death had come.
and, permeating everything, into the very nostrils of all of them, there crept a ghastly smell of gas and coal-dust—a smell that brought to the vision of the imaginative the shambles in the twisting galleries of coal below their feet; great falls of black boulders, nameless tortured hulks that once were men—living, loving, laughing—lying haphazard as they fell to the same gigantic fist that smote the iron wheel above the shaft, and crumpled the brickwork as if it were cardboard.
they had to see it all: they met other reporters wandering in and out—dream-people in a world of terrible reality. their companions of the train were all there: kenneth carr, surveying that wall of women silently; mainham, talking to the mine-manager, whose black and sweating face told of many descents into the mine; gully, buttonholing a woman with a baby in her arms, and making notes in his notebook; grame, plodding to and fro in the coaly mire, for it had been raining that morning in the north: all working, all observing, all gathering facts. it was not their business to moralize, to link up dead men and disasters with the idea of these desolate women and humanity at large. that was the leader-writer's work. their business was to get the news and say how it happened. they dared not even expose criminal negligence, or inhuman cruelty, or savage conditions of work—and libel laws were there to restrain them.
and they all felt—yes, i believe even the brutal gully felt it for a moment—the unspeakable horror of the tragedy, the injustice not of men dying like this, but having to live like this; great waves of sympathy and pity came over them, and they pitied themselves for their impotence. ah! if they could have told the millions that would read their writings in the morning, the thoughts that were in their minds....
[167]
humphrey saw it all. he saw the gaunt, drear shed where the flickering lamp-light played over a dozen shapeless bundles sewed up in white. a man came to the shed—this business of identification was no woman's work—the policeman in charge whispered something: they went in together; the policeman turned back the sheet—o god! is it possible that a face once human could look like that! turn down the sheet. we cannot recognize him. all we know is that the bundle of clothes seared from his body is his; that pocket-book is his too, and we recognize the bone crucifix that he bought one easter-tide in manchester.
"hold up.... thanks, matey, the light's a bit dim...."
an odour of carbolic mingled with the stench of the coal-dust; a blue-clad nurse with a scarlet cross on her arm moved among the white bundles, and she seemed to bring with her a promise of exquisite peace after pain, and rest and eternal sleep. outside, a grim black wagon lumbered up the hill, and, as the wind flapped its canvas doors open, one saw its load of coffins....
now the rescue party was going down again. they emerged from a brick shanty, through whose windows humphrey could see the shelves which were meant to hold the miners' lamps—there was a pathos in those empty shelves. these men were going down to dare death: they looked inhuman fantastic creatures, with goggled helmets over their heads, and great knapsack arrangements of oxygen and nitrogen to breathe, for one breath of the air in the mine below meant stupor and sleep everlasting. there were five men, and as they passed the group of dolorous women, they must have felt the tremor of hope and deep gratitude that shot through the fibre of every despairing one. here were the sexes in their elemental state, stripped of all the artificial trappings of civilization; men were doing[168] the work of men; women giving them courage with the blessings of god that they murmured.
the leader of the rescue gang carried a little canary in a cage; the little yellow bird piped and sang, and hopped about his perch. the little yellow bird was the centre of all their faith in god's mercy: for if the bird could live in the air of the mine, there was still some hope for their men.
slowly the cage descended the shaft that was unbroken. the sunset blinked between the spokes of the gearing-wheel, slower and slower—they were at the bottom of the mine. now, they were in that inferno of vaporous blackness, with death stalking them, a gaunt, cloudy monster, who had but to puff out his cheeks and breathe destruction. there would be enormous falls of coal and timber to combat; they would have to crawl on their bellies, and stagger along, stooping to the broken roofs of the galleries, and always there was the startling danger of a jar knocking their knapsacks, or breaking the mouthpieces through which they breathed their precious elixir of life.
up above, the night was coming, and a rain as soft as tears began to drift downwards. the women waited. salvation army officers moved among them, enticing some of them into the shelter of the silent machine-room. "of what use is tea and coffee to us? give us our men. no food or drink shall pass our lips until our men have kissed them, or we have kissed their still faces."
up above, a preacher preached of the infinite mercy of god, and the gospel of pain and sorrow by which the kingdom of heaven is reached. he stood there with his arms outstretched, like a black cross silhouetted against the darkening sky, his low, mournful, dirge-like voice blending with the gloom.... down below, in the reek and the stench, the rescuers' hands are bloody with[169] tearing their way through obstacles, and their pulses are hammering in their heads ... and they have seen sickening things.
now the wheel begins to move again. doctors hurry to the door of the cage—lint, bandages, stretchers, evil and glittering instruments that kill pain with pain, all the ghastly paraphernalia of death. they are coming up!... they are coming up!... a silence, so swift and sudden, that it is as if the great multitude had whispered "hush," the tinkle of the bell marking the stages of the ascent is clearly heard by people waiting on the bank. the cage appears.... the men stagger out, one by one, helmets removed, their faces grimed and sweaty, their eyes white and staring out of the black grotesquery of their faces, their lips taut and silent.
and one of them carries a cage in his hand, a cage with an empty perch, and a smother of wet and draggled feathers huddled into one corner. a world without the song of a bird—no hope! ... no hope.
"i shall have to dash back to wigan now, and get my stuff on the wires," said wratten. "will you wait here and i'll come and relieve you. pick up any stuff you can. facts." humphrey wandered about the dismal pit-mouth—sometimes he was challenged by the police, and ordered to keep within a certain area. he found a cluster of reporters by a lighted lamp. one of them had received an official communication from the mine-manager, and he was giving it to his colleagues. humphrey took it down in his note-book. then there was another flutter. a piece of flimsy paper was fixed to a board outside the lamp-house. a message from the king.
now, the wires were humming with words, thousands upon thousands of words sent by the writers to all the[170] cities of the kingdom. and in all the offices the large square sheets of the press telegraph-forms were being delivered. humphrey saw the picture of the day office: selsey sitting at the top of the table, the boy handing him the pile of news from wigan, a sub-editor cutting it down, here and there—always cutting down. perhaps, you see, some great politician was making a speech at the albert hall, and space was needed for three columns, with a large introduction.
it was nine o'clock. another rescue party had gone down. the women still waited, their faces yellow now in the flare of lamps. it seemed to humphrey that he had left london centuries ago ... that he had never met lilian at all. it was as if that morning his life had been uprooted, and it would have to be planted again before it could absorb the old interests and influences.... he was hungry and cold. there was no chance of getting food. if he were a miner, or had any real part in this game, the salvation army would have given him tea and bread ... but he was a reporter, an onlooker, supposed to be watching everything, and, in a sense, physically invisible.
a car panted up.... it was wratten. "here i am, quain. anything happened? official communication. oh yes, and the king's telegram. better send them off. hop into the car and then send it back for me. i'll wait."
"wait?" humphrey said. "what about food?"
"i've got some sandwiches. i'll wait here until two. never know what will happen. rescuer might get killed. it's happened before. fellow might be brought up alive."
"but it's going to rain like blazes."
"is it?... off you get. you can turn in. i'll keep the deck."
it was nearly eleven when humphrey had sent his[171] telegram to london. the post-office was open by a side door for the correspondents, and some of them were still writing. cigarettes dangled from their lips. they had an opened note-book on one side and a pile of telegraph-forms on the other—not the forms that ordinary human beings use, but large square sheets, divided up into spaces for a hundred words on a page. fifteen of them made a column in the day—wratten had covered thirty forms.
humphrey went back to the hotel. his friends were in the coffee-room amazing the waitress with their appetites for cold meat and pickles and beer at half-past eleven. the tension was over, and the reaction was setting in. their faces were strained, and they all seemed unnaturally good-humoured. they laughed at anything, clutching at any joke that would make them forget the dismal horrors of their day. kenneth carr looked more pallid than ever.
"where's wratten?" he asked, as humphrey came into the room.
"still waiting up there," humphrey said.
"what's the good of waiting?" gully put in. "if anything happens, the agency men will send it through, and, anyway, it's too late for the first edition."
"i reckon i've done my day's work; me for the soft bed," chander remarked. "by the way, i found five separate men who've got five separate shillings out of me. each swore he was absolutely the first person to arrive on the scene and no one else there. it's a sad world. good-night."
kenneth carr left shortly afterwards, and the others remained drinking and telling stories. humphrey had been chary of drinking since his adventure that evening when he was on his first murder story, but to-night he drank with the rest. they were all urged by the same motives. they wanted to forget the black pit-mouth,[172] and the women, and the smell of the coal-dust.
that night humphrey woke up suddenly and heard the rain drumming against the window. he wondered if wratten were back from the mine. he fell asleep again, and dreamed of a gaunt building, where a blue-clad nurse, with the face of lilian, hovered about white, shapeless bundles.... and in london the dawn was coming westwards over fleet street, and the vans were rattling to the stations, so that all that had been written would be read over millions of breakfast-tables everywhere in the kingdom.
