Fall of Giants

Billy ran to the deputies’ office, but he could see no keys. He guessed they were on someone’s belt. He looked again at the row of lockers, each labeled: “Breathing Apparatus.” They were made of tin. “Got a crowbar, Pat?” he said.

The onsetter had a tool kit for minor repairs. Pat handed him a stout screwdriver. Billy swiftly broke open the first locker.

It was empty.

Billy stared, unbelieving.

Pat said: “They tricked us!”

Tommy said: “Bastard capitalists.”

Billy opened another locker. It, too, was empty. He broke open the others with angry savagery, wanting to expose the dishonesty of Celtic Minerals and Perceval Jones.

Tommy said: “We’ll manage without.”

Tommy was impatient to get going, but Billy was trying to think clearly. His eye fell on the fire dram. It was the management’s pathetic excuse for a fire engine: a coal dram filled with water, with a hand pump strapped to it. It was not completely useless: Billy had seen it operate after what the miners called a “flash,” when a small quantity of firedamp close to the roof of the tunnel would ignite, briefly, and they would all throw themselves to the floor. The flash would sometimes light the coal dust on the tunnel walls, which then had to be sprayed.

“We’ll take the fire dram,” he shouted to Tommy.

It was already on rails, and the two of them were able to push it along. Billy thought briefly of harnessing a pony to it, then decided it would take too long, especially as the beasts were all in a panic.

Pat Pope said: “My boy Micky is working in Marigold district, but I can’t go and look for him, I’ve got to stay here.” There was desperation in his face, but in an emergency the onsetter had to stay by the shaft-it was an inflexible rule.

“I’ll keep an eye open for him,” Billy promised.

“Thank you, Billy boy.”

The two lads pushed the dram along the main road. Drams had no brakes: their drivers slowed them by sticking a stout piece of wood into the spokes. Many deaths and countless injuries were caused by runaway drams. “Not too fast,” Billy said.

They were a quarter of a mile into the tunnel when the temperature rose and the smoke thickened. Soon they heard voices. Following the sound they turned into a branch tunnel. This part of the seam was currently being worked. On either side Billy could see, at regular intervals, the entrances to miners’ workplaces, usually called gates, but sometimes just holes. As the noise grew, they stopped pushing the dram and looked ahead.

The tunnel was on fire. Flames licked up from walls and floor. A handful of men stood at the edge of the conflagration, silhouetted against the glow like souls in hell. One held a blanket and was batting it ineffectually at a blazing stack of timber. Others were shouting; no one was listening. In the distance, dimly visible, was a train of drams. The smoke had a strange whiff of roast meat, and Billy realized with a sick feeling that it must come from the pony that had been pulling the drams.

Billy spoke to one of the men. “What’s happening?”

“There’s men trapped in their gates-but we can’t get to them.”

Billy saw that the man was Rhys Price. No wonder nothing was being done. “We’ve brought the fire dram,” he said.

Another man turned to him, and he was relieved to see John Jones the Shop, a more sensible character. “Good man!” said Jones. “Let’s have the hose on this bloody lot.”

Billy ran out the hose while Tommy connected the pump. Billy aimed the jet at the ceiling of the tunnel, so that the water would run down the walls. He soon realized that the mine’s ventilation system, blowing down Thisbe and up Pyramus, was forcing the flames and smoke toward him. As soon as he got the chance he would tell the people on the surface to reverse the fans. Reversible fans were now mandatory-another requirement of the 1911 act.

Despite the difficulty, the fire began to die back, and Billy was able to go forward slowly. After a few minutes the nearest gate was clear of flame. Immediately two miners ran out, gasping the relatively good air of the tunnel. Billy recognized the Ponti brothers, Giuseppe and Giovanni, known as Joey and Johnny.

Some of the men ran into the gate. John Jones came out carrying the limp form of Dai Ponies, the horse wrangler. Billy could not tell whether he was dead or just unconscious. He said: “Take him to Pyramus, not Thisbe.”

Price butted in: “Who are you to be giving orders, Billy-with-Jesus?”

Billy was not going to waste time arguing with Price. He addressed Jones. “I spoke on the phone to the surface. Thisbe is badly damaged but the cage should soon be operating in Pyramus. I was told to tell everyone to head for Pyramus.”

“Right, I’ll spread the word,” said Jones, and he went off.

Billy and Tommy continued to fight the fire, clearing further gates, freeing more trapped men. Some were bleeding, many were scorched, and a few had been hurt by falling rock. Those who could walk carried the dead and the seriously injured in a grim procession.