No Man’s Land

The ostler was about to respond but Rawdon reached forward with a stick he was carrying in his hand and tapped the pony’s hindquarters. Immediately the animal leapt forward, pulling the train of water tubs behind him. And at the last moment Adam ran out and vaulted over the side of the last tub; he landed in the water inside, which splashed over the side, soaking the astonished ostler. He shouted out but Rawdon was concentrating on trying to control the pony as it charged away down the tunnel and didn’t turn round.

Adam was shoulder-deep in water, soaked to the skin. It had been cold at the maingate but now it felt as if he was being burnt in ice. And the water was foul too, drawn from the stagnant sump at the bottom of the shaft. He hadn’t been able to avoid taking a mouthful as he jumped into the tub and he was still retching it up as he struggled to come to terms with the pitch-blackness all around. The tub’s wheels screeched over the rails and up ahead the pony’s hooves pounded through the coal dust that swirled in the air, making it hard to breathe.

Above the noise Adam could hear Rawdon shouting commands at the pony. But they were clearly having little effect. Their speed increased on the downward slopes and Rawdon’s voice rose to a scream as they reached a sharp corner and the tubs swayed hard from side to side, almost turning over. A lot of the water was spilling out over the side and at the back of the train Adam was fighting a losing battle to stay upright, using all the strength in his cold aching arms to maintain his grip on the side of the tub. He knew that he would likely drown if he allowed himself to be thrown about inside the tub, hitting his head against the iron sides until he lost consciousness and the foul water filled his lungs.

The end came just as he felt he couldn’t hang on any longer. They rounded a bend and the pony smelt the smoke of the fire up ahead. Terrified, it reared up on its hind legs, and then made a violent right-angled turn to the left where a narrow side tunnel led off the main roadway. Showing remarkable presence of mind, Rawdon stood up on the limbers and jumped clear as the pony ran forwards for a few yards and then came to a shuddering halt as the tubs behind left the rails and slammed into the wall at the corner of the junction.

In the darkness at the back Adam had no chance to take evasive action. He was thrown forward and then sideways as his tub crashed into the one in front and turned over, spilling its water and Adam out on to the thick dust covering the floor of the tunnel. He came to, looking up into the glare of the lamp that Rawdon was holding up over his head.

‘I don’t believe it. Of all the fuckin’ people—’ Rawdon broke off, taking a step back as he tried to absorb the double shock of discovering not only that he had been carrying a stowaway but also that that stowaway was the person he disliked most in the entire town. ‘What the ’ell are you doin’ ’ere?’ he demanded as soon as he had had time to recover at least some of his composure.

‘Looking for my dad – he’s down there somewhere,’ said Adam, pointing down the pitch-black tunnel. There was no visible sign of the fire but the smell of smoke was getting stronger and Adam coughed violently as he tried to get to his feet. Rawdon had to put out a hand to stop him falling over.

‘I’m sorry to ’ear that,’ said Rawdon. ‘Well, you’re welcome to go an’ find ’im if you like, but I ain’t givin’ thee my lamp. If you helps me with the pony, I’ll maybe take thee down there, but, as I say, you’ll ’ave to ’elp me first.’ He gestured behind his head to where the pony was still standing in the side tunnel, snorting and kicking as it tried to break away from the train of overturned tubs that were now half blocking the entrance.

Adam hesitated. He desperately wanted to go on – he was frantic with worry for his father – but he knew it was suicide to venture forward without a light. The next water train that came down the tunnel would run him over even if he didn’t get lost. He thought of trying to take the lamp from Rawdon by force but he couldn’t bring himself to try. He couldn’t in all good conscience leave Rawdon alone in the dark to cope with the maddened animal and, besides, the lamp would almost certainly get broken in any struggle. It was a miracle that Rawdon had been able to keep it intact through the crash. And if he helped Rawdon with the pony and the tubs, then they could go on together.

‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked.

‘’Old on to ’is collar while I take off the limmers – otherwise ’e’ll run off up that side passage an’ God knows where that goes,’ said Rawdon, smiling his trademark cold smile. He’d kept the light on Adam while he was thinking and was sure he could read what had been passing through his enemy’s mind. ‘’Ere, you can give ’im this,’ he added, handing Adam an apple that he had taken from his pocket. ‘’E likes apples.’

Adam had no experience of ponies and this one scared him with its neighing and whinnying and stamping feet. But he faced down his fear and edged his way into the side tunnel and along the near wall, holding his hand lightly against the pony’s sweating flank as he felt for the harness straps. The water from his sodden clothes dripped down on to the dusty ground.

‘What’s his name?’ asked Adam, thinking it might help to talk to the pony.

‘Masher,’ said Rawdon, laughing. ‘Good choice, eh?’

But Adam had no stomach for laughter. His heart was beating hard as he felt the pony’s hot breath on his hand and, forgetting the apple, he reached up and wrapped his hands around the collar, holding hard.

‘I’ve got him,’ he shouted back. And immediately he could hear Rawdon working at the pony’s back, uncoupling the shafts that connected the harness to the overturned tubs behind. But then, sensing he was free, the pony lunged forward, kicking out with his hooves. Adam just about kept his hold on the collar and he was aware of Rawdon, who was now on the other side of the pony’s head, trying his best to bring the animal under control. Using all their strength, they were just about able to stop its forward momentum, but then they couldn’t stop it reversing direction, kicking backwards into the timber props that held up the entrance to the passageway. There was a noise of creaking and cracking and the roof began to collapse in a roar of sound that was like a vast ocean wave crashing down on to the shore. Adam and Rawdon ran down the passage, trying to drag the pony with them but where they led it could not follow: the falling cascade of shale and rocks poured down on its hindquarters, trapping it where it stood, and cutting the boys off from the main tunnel. The pony’s front half was curiously unaffected as it sank to the ground, mortally wounded.

The animal was clearly in intense pain. The thick muscles under its skin were visibly trembling and the pupils were dilated in its glassy eyes. It panted out each laboured breath through its flared nostrils but it would not or could not die.

‘We can’t leave him like this,’ said Adam.

‘I know that,’ said Rawdon angrily. ‘’Ave you still got that apple I gave thee?’ he asked.

He took it from Adam and held it to the animal’s mouth but it couldn’t eat.

‘Joe uses a spiked cap when ’e has to do it,’ said Rawdon. ‘I’ve seen it; ’e keeps it in the stables. Got a ’ole in the middle where the bugger’s brain is and ’e bangs in the spike with a ’ammer. Me, I got to use a bloody rock.’

He reached over and picked up a big jagged stone that had fallen from the ceiling, set his feet, and then brought it down with all his might on the pony’s head. Again and again, until there was no possibility that the animal could still be alive. For some reason he didn’t understand, Adam forced himself to watch. It felt like an obligation and, looking back on it afterwards, he wondered at the paradox that the act of terrible violence against the defenceless animal made him think so much more of Rawdon than he had before.

Rawdon’s hands were shaking when he was finished and he stood for a moment with his hands on the wall, drawing deep breaths of the hot air into his lungs as he tried to steady himself before he bent down and picked up the lamp. ‘All right,’ he said, turning his back on the dead animal and setting off into the darkness of the passageway. ‘Let’s get on our way, although I doubt we’ll be much better off than Masher afore this day is done. Ain’t nobody’s ganna come lookin’ for us – they don’t know you’re down ’ere and they won’t be frettin’ about me.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I weren’t in the fire. They’ll know that. An’ my father’s got other things on his mind than worryin’ about where I’ve got to.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like startin’ the bloody revolution,’ said Rawdon bitterly. ‘’E’s been hopin’ for a disaster like this to ’appen for as long as I can remember.’

They walked in single file, soon losing all sense of direction as the passage twisted and turned this way and that. And their feet were sore and aching when they stopped to rest after what seemed like hours of wandering, although without watches they had no way of knowing how much time had elapsed. They sat with their backs to the wall and shared the apple that the pony hadn’t been able to eat before it died.

‘You know, if I ’ad to make a list of all the people I’d least like to spend me last day on earth with, I reckon you’d top the list,’ said Rawdon conversationally.

‘Higher than Joe?’ Adam asked.

Rawdon laughed in spite of himself. ‘No, maybe you’re right,’ he said. ‘Joe’s a pain in the backside, ’e is.’

They went on in silence with Rawdon leading the way, holding the lamp aloft. Here and there, on either side, they passed old stalls where miners had once worked. There were chalk marks on the walls and sometimes a scrawled name. Adam picked up a cloth haversack from a wooden shelf and it fell apart in his hands, the stitching long since gnawed apart by rats. Each time they stopped, they could hear them scurrying away through the dust, squeaking news of the boys’ arrival as they ran. The noise reminded Adam of when old Beaky had shut him up in the school cellar when he was small and the remembered sense of claustrophobia made him shudder, weakening him at the knees.

All at once the tunnel widened out and they felt a sense of space opening out around them. In the lamplight the boys made out a succession of tall black columns on all sides, supporting the roof. Adam gasped in surprise, momentarily forgetting their plight. The place was beautiful; it was like a crude version of one of the old Greek temples that were illustrated in his school textbooks.

‘What is this place?’ he asked.

‘Old workin’s – pillar an’ stall, they call it,’ said Rawdon. ‘Sometimes they mine like this, leavin’ pillars to support the roof, although they usually takes ’em out at the end. Lucky for us, I s’pose, that they didn’t.’

Whenever the path significantly divided, as it did on the other side of the pillared hall, Rawdon stopped to sniff the stale air on either side of the crossgate, trying to work out which way the oxygen was coming from. The air quality was poor, but the fact that they were able to breathe at all meant that there had to be a way back to the upcast or downcast shafts if only they could find it. Sometimes they were encouraged as they felt the ground rising beneath their weary feet but then for no apparent reason they would start going downhill again, back down into the labyrinth.

The gradient changed but the heat and the darkness remained constant. They had found no trace of the mine’s ventilation system since the rock fall and they’d long ago stripped down to their underwear. Thirst was fast becoming the worst of their problems. Rawdon had a half-full water bottle and they used tiny amounts when they stopped to rest to wet their lips (despite his reminder of their declared enmity Rawdon seemed to take it for granted that everything they had should be shared equally between them), but there was not enough in the bottle to enable them to take a proper drink and the coal dust that flew up into the air as they walked got into their mouths and added to the parching of their throats. The overhead pipes dripping water that Adam remembered from his last visit to the mine were absent from this district and he looked longingly down at the puddles of black water that lay here and there on the ground, although he didn’t need Rawdon to tell him that they were poisonous, impregnated with coal, and gas too probably.

Above their heads the roof sagged and Adam sensed that it was only a matter of time before some of the rotten timber props gave way and another rock fall left them buried alive, dying slowly and painfully without even the hope of the bloody euthanasia that had delivered the pony from its suffering. They were both exhausted and, although he wouldn’t admit it, Rawdon’s bad leg had begun to cause him intense pain. Adam could see him wince with every step they took.

Despair overtook them when the passage opened out again and they emerged into the same pillared hall that they had passed through hours before. Rawdon sank to the ground, leaning his back against one of the black columns and closed his eyes.

‘I’m done,’ he said. ‘You carry on if you want to. I knew this mine’d be the death of me the first day I went down it. I’d ’ave been better off if I’d cashed in me chips when that friggin’ pony kicked me. It’d ’ave saved me a lot o’ grief.

Adam tried to find some words of comfort or encouragement but he could think of nothing. All that was keeping him standing was the stubborn animal refusal to be beaten that had enabled him to endure so much misfortune already in his life. It was an undying spark somewhere deep inside him that stopped him giving in even when his brain told him there was no point in continuing, and now it forced him to bend down and pick up the lamp and go on.

‘I’ll be back,’ he said, looking at Rawdon for a moment before he left him in the darkness. But there was no reply: Rawdon had slumped over on to his side and seemed to be asleep.

Once again, passing between the pillars of coal, Adam thought of the beautiful silver-white temples of Greece and Sicily, bathed in sunlight, that he now would never see. The outer columns collectively called the peristasis which surrounded the pronaos, the four-sided porch that led in turn through a beautifully carved set of double doors to the cella, the holy of holies at the centre of the building that housed the exquisite statue of the god which only his priests were ever allowed to see.

Except of course that there was no God or gods – of that Adam was by now quite certain. His mother and Parson Vale and the ancient Greeks were fools – poor credulous fools; at the centre of everything was nothing, just a vast emptiness in which your voice echoed back off the walls. Echoes of echoes: that was all.

At the end of the hall, Adam reached the crossgate where he had stood with Rawdon hours before. He was almost certain they had gone to the right, although the more he thought about it, the less sure he was. The darkness unsettled his memory and he hesitated, turning the lamp from side to side in a vain attempt to find something he recognized before he followed his first instinct and went left.

Almost immediately the path sloped uphill and the quality of the air seemed to improve. A few turnings later and he stumbled out into a wide open space and looked up to where the downcast shaft rose up half a mile to the surface. At the top the underside of the suspended cage blocked most of Adam’s view of the sky and the dim light which did get through gave him no clue as to the time of day. He shouted for help until he was hoarse but there was no response except the mocking echo of his voice bouncing back to him off the red bricks lining the sides of the shaft. Rawdon had been right – there was nobody looking for them.

But there was still hope: from just above Adam’s head an iron ladder cemented into the brickwork ran straight as a die up the side of the shaft towards the surface. In the lamplight Adam could see its rusty brown side rails and narrow treads ascending into the gloom.

Rawdon was asleep on the floor when Adam got back to him, and he had to shake him awake.

‘Maybe we can wait,’ said Rawdon as he limped after Adam. ‘The miners’ll be back down ’ere soon. When no one’s working, the owner’s losin’ money and that matters to ’im a sight more’n respect for the dead, you mark my words.’

‘You’re worried about the ladder?’ asked Adam when they got back to the shaft.

‘Of course I bloody am. It’s been there forever an’ no one ever uses it or keeps it repaired. We’ll get ’alfway up an’ then we’ll come fallin’ back down again an’ drown in that sump down there,’ he said, pointing to the evil-smelling black pond at the bottom of the shaft.

Adam examined the bottom rungs of the ladder with the lamp and found it hard to disagree with Rawdon’s verdict. The brick lining the shaft was damp and mouldy and the brackets holding the side rails in place gave way alarmingly when he pulled on the two that were within reach. There had to be over a thousand treads between them and the surface and what were the chances that they would all hold?

He hesitated, uncertain of what to do. His instinct was to climb but common sense told him to wait. And perhaps he would have stayed below if the changing light of the lamp hadn’t taken the decision out of their hands. The flame had seemed to expand when they came out on to the landing by the shaft and now there was no mistaking its signal. There was firedamp in the air, probably spreading back from the fire, blown down the tunnels by the mine’s ventilation system. They couldn’t sit and wait for it to explode.

‘You go first,’ said Rawdon. ‘I’ll follow.’

‘Why?’ Adam asked, surprised.

‘It doesn’t matter. Just do it,’ Rawdon said irritably.

Something in Adam always rebelled against being told what to do when he wasn’t given a reason for doing it, and he was about to argue the point further – but then stopped, biting back his words, as he suddenly grasped where Rawdon was coming from. With his damaged leg Rawdon was clearly the one most likely to fall and logically that meant he should climb behind. If he went first he would bring Adam down when he fell; going second, he would fall to his death alone.

‘I’ll not go too fast,’ he said, looking Rawdon in the eye as if making a promise.

Rawdon nodded brusquely and then turned away, picking up the lamp. ‘Here, you’re going to need this – fasten it on to your belt,’ he said, showing Adam how the attachment worked.

‘Thanks,’ said Adam. He breathed deeply, wiped the sweat from off his hands, and began to climb.

To begin with, he made the mistake of looking up above his head, trying to measure the distance to the top. It quickly made him giddy and he had to hold still, waiting for the nausea to pass. And looking down was worse: below Rawdon the black water at the bottom of the shaft seemed to rise up to meet him. Slowly he trained himself to keep his eyes fixed straight ahead on the damp bricks passing slowly by as he climbed higher and higher up the rungs of the ladder.

But even if Adam wasn’t looking down at Rawdon, he could still hear him, and it was obvious from his laboured breathing and half-stifled cries of pain that the climb was taxing him to the limit of his endurance. Again and again Adam had to force himself to wait so that Rawdon wouldn’t get left behind in the darkness.

It quickly got colder as they neared the top so that the rusty red side rails felt icy in their sore hands, and as they gripped them harder, the iron brackets cemented into the damp wall seemed to give. Only one needs to come away, Adam thought, only one, and it will all be over. And part of him welcomed the thought – an end to the pain and the struggle and the terrible fatigue as they fell down, down, down into nothingness.

But it wasn’t Adam who fell; it was Rawdon. And it wasn’t a loose bracket or a broken tread that made him lose his footing; it was a rat. They’d heard them scuttling away into niches in the sides of the shaft as they climbed but this one was different. Perhaps it was sick and that was why it stayed lying on the tread as Adam went past it without noticing, but it was alive enough to react fiercely when Rawdon’s hand, following behind and reaching for the rung, came down on its back. The rat’s head shot round and it bit down hard on his wrist. Rawdon screamed – a terrible gut-wrenching scream that reverberated up and down the shaft – and pulled away, throwing the rat off so that it flew back against the opposite wall and then fell, turning over and over, bouncing off the masonry until it landed with a splash in the sump at the bottom that the boys would have heard if they had been listening.

But they weren’t. As the rat let go of Rawdon’s wrist, Rawdon let go of the ladder. Falling back, he instinctively grabbed hold of one of the steel guides that the cage used for its descents, and after a moment he was able to loop his feet around it too. But that was the limit of his good fortune. The guide was just too far away from the ladder for him to be able to reach it with his hand. He realized immediately that there was nothing he could do to save himself and he clung to the guide with his last remaining strength only in order to prepare himself to fall.

Adam had climbed back down opposite Rawdon and now turned half to face him, keeping one hand behind him on the ladder as he tried to measure the distance between them. The light was poor and he couldn’t risk trying to unfasten the lamp from his belt but he guessed that Rawdon was about five or six feet away.

‘There’s a chance,’ he said.

‘No, there isn’t,’ said Rawdon. ‘I’m fuckin’ done for and I’m not takin’ you with me if that’s what you’ve got in mind.’ It cost him an effort to speak and his words came in gasps. Adam wondered how much longer he could hold on.

‘Listen, I think I can get hold of your hand if you reach it out as far as you can. And if I can do that, I can swing you round on to the ladder.’

‘No, you can’t. You’re not strong enough.’

‘Try me,’ said Adam, forcing a smile. And without waiting for a response, he reached out towards Rawdon with his hand, pushing away from the ladder so that his other hand was stretched out behind him, hanging on to the rung.

He was looking straight at Rawdon, willing him to try. He could see the cold sweat on Rawdon’s forehead and the tears that were forming in his eyes. ‘Do it,’ he said, making it sound like an order. And Rawdon closed his eyes and let go, reaching out across the abyss.

Adam felt Rawdon’s hand close on his own in a death grip and the next moment he felt a pull on his arm and shoulder the like of which he had never known before, but somehow they didn’t rupture; somehow he managed to keep hold of the ladder at his back as he swung Rawdon in and felt him stick firm as he caught hold of a rung one or two below where he was standing.

Afterwards they shook, each trembling uncontrollably one above the other as they gripped tight on to the ladder, waiting for their strength to return. And then slowly, very slowly, they climbed the remaining rungs, edging past the empty cage hanging on its steel rope, until they got to the surface and emerged out into the twilight of a day that had come so close to being their last.

‘You saved my life,’ said Rawdon simply as they stood together at the mouth of the shaft, looking back down into the darkness. His voice was quiet and he sounded bemused, as if he was examining a strange artefact he’d just found, uncertain what to make of it.

‘You’d have done the same,’ said Adam lightly.

‘Would I?’ said Rawdon, as if it was a question to which he did not have the answer.

He shook his head and turned away; and stumbled down the stairs to the standpipe at the bottom where he drank greedily before he sank to the ground, dully watching Adam as he did the same. A moment later his eyes closed and he was asleep where he sat, overcome with exhaustion.

Chapter Ten

Adam could see no sign of anyone at the pithead, but there was a light coming from the stores building. Leaving Rawdon where he was, he pushed the door open: it wasn’t locked – not like the last time Adam had been inside when he’d helped to steal the dynamite for the fishing expedition. That carefree day seemed light years away now, as if it belonged to a different world.