The Undaunted Page 5

  It surprised David how a door not much taller than he was could be so heavy, but he managed to drag it open without it stopping. Then he pushed it shut again, which was easier.

  “Gud. The trick be ’earin’ the tubs cumin’ so ya ’ave the door open in time. The loaded coal tubs be full an’ very ’eavy, so it be a real pull fur the ’urriers and the thrusters cumin’ this way. If they git ta the door an’ it ain’t open, they be boxin’ yur lugholes reet sharply. Un’erstand?”

  “Yes, Dahd. But if the door’s shut, how will I know when they are coming?”

  “Ya gotta be lis’nin’. Cahrnt be dozin’ off or anythin’ lek that. But ya be ’earin’ ’em whilst they still be maybe ’alf a minute away. That be plenty of time.”

  Now he turned and pointed toward the way they had come. “When they be bringin’ the empty tubs back frum the gangway, yoo’ll be seein’ thare lights almost b’fur ya ’ear ’em. Each ’urrier ’as ’is own Davy lamp. Since the tubs be empty then, sumtimes the ’urriers stop an’ talk. Makes a good brek fur ’em. And fur the trappers, too.”

  He took a quick breath. “Davee, thare be a couple of very important things. First, if’n yur candle suddenly starts burnin’ brighter, in a flickerin’ sort of way, git oot of ’ere. Ya cum runnin’ fast as ya can scoot an’ tell me or one of t’other miners. D’ya un’erstand, Davee? This be very important. D’ya un’erstand what Ah be sayin’?”

  “I think so.” There was a growing hollow in the pit of David’s stomach. But if my candle isn’t lit, how will I know if the fire damp is building up? He bit his lip and said nothing more.

  John laid both hands on David’s shoulders. “Yes’day, David, ya be no more than a boy, but t’day ya becum a trapper. T’day ya start bein’ a man.”

  “I understand, Dahd.” At the moment, he wasn’t feeling much like a man. The elation of his first day on the job had left him about the time he had stepped into the cage.

  He felt the hands lift from his shoulders. “Ah must git back. Ah be back at midday.”

  “Bye, Dahd,” David said, forcing a lightness into his voice that he wasn’t feeling at the moment. “I be fine.”

  “I know, Son. I know.” He turned, bent down, and disappeared into the tunnel.

  In a fit of bravado that he instantly regretted, David snuffed out his candle about quarter of an hour later. He wanted to feel the darkness for himself, see what he was going to have to cope with. He instantly wished he hadn’t. It was crushing. Like something primeval pressing in on him, filling his nostrils, pushing down on his eyelids, clamping his arms against his body. At first he thought that once his eyes adjusted, it would be better. He was wrong. After waiting five minutes, he put his hand an inch in front of his nose and waved it back and forth. He could discern no movement whatsoever.

  Next he bent down, groping for the track. He decided he wouldn’t wait for his father to return with a shovel. He began scooping up handfuls of dirt and gravel and tossing it in the direction of the stool, hoping his father would be proud that he hadn’t waited for him to solve the problem. But it was arduous work, and since he couldn’t see if he was even throwing it in the right direction, he gave up and groped his way back to the stool.

  With the absolute darkness came absolute stillness. Or so he thought. As his ears adjusted to the silence, he began to hear things he hadn’t noticed before—the drip, drip, drip of water from the ceiling. The rustle of his clothing when he moved. The creak of the stool when he shifted his weight. Something scurrying past him in the darkness. That one made him stiffen.

  He got off the stool and moved to the center of the tracks, feeling around with his hands. He found three or four apple-sized chunks of rock or coal and placed them beside the stool. The next time he heard the whisper of something racing across the floor, he hurled a rock in the direction of the sound. “Git outta here,” he yelled. He held his feet off the floor for a time but finally couldn’t stand it any longer.

  He forced himself to concentrate on the dripping sound. It was steady, always plopping at the same interval. About every two seconds, he decided. After five more minutes, he began to wonder how many times it dripped during a full shift. Wishing he had a paper, he forced himself to do the arithmetic in his mind. One drip every two seconds. Thirty drips per minute. Um. One hundred eighty drips per hour. No. Eighteen hundred drips per hour. However, when he tried to calculate how many there would be in a full shift, the math defeated him and he gave up.

  The first cart came about an hour later. He heard the low rumble of steel on steel before he saw the light. It grew larger quickly and, because it was coming from his right, he understood that the hurrier was pulling an empty tub. He quickly swung the door open, then stood far enough back from the track to be out of the way. The light from the Davy lamp bobbed up and down with the movement of the person’s head as he bent over and pulled the cart.

  “Ain’t ya got no candle?” a boy’s voice grunted as the cart rumbled past.

  Momentarily startled, David blurted, “Yep. Just savin’ it.” Then, as an afterthought, “I be the new trapper.”

  But the cart passed him and went through the door. In the diminishing light of the lantern, David saw another boy following behind, hanging onto the tub to hold it back on the slight decline. This was the thruster. He lifted one hand and waved at David as he passed. “Hiya.”

  “Hullo,” David responded, happy even for that single word. Then they were gone, and David was alone again with the suffocating darkness.

  Anticipating that it would take maybe half an hour for them to return with a loaded tub, David waited for what he guessed was a little less than that, then went to the door and opened it a crack. Ten minutes later, he felt the cart coming even before he heard it. The solid floor beneath his feet began to tremble almost imperceptibly.

  Eager to follow his father’s counsel, he pulled the door full open, even though he could not yet see the hurrier’s light. Surprised at how eager he was to see them—anyone!—again, he moved down the track about fifty feet to wait for them.

  In a moment, the small point of light appeared; then the sound of the loaded tub came echoing up the tunnel. As the lamp grew brighter and closer, he could see the dim figure of the hurrier, leaning forward into his harness, hunched over so that he was almost on his hands and knees. When the cart trundled slowly past David, there was a momentary jerk of the boy’s head as he suddenly realized he was not alone in the tunnel.

  “Door’s open,” David called, knowing they couldn’t see that far ahead yet.

  But there was no answer, just the grunts and the sound of labored breathing. He fell in behind the thruster, who, to his great surprise, was pushing not only with both hands but also with his head. The upward grade here was taking its toll on both of them.

  “Push!” It was the hurrier and it was sharp, angry. “’Arder, Robbie!”

  David leaped forward and threw his weight against the tub as well. There was a startled look, then a flash of white teeth. “Thanks, mate.”

  The cart started to move a little faster, and in a moment they passed through the door. Here the grade leveled a little, so David jumped aside, letting the cart roll on without him. He stared after them well after the light had disappeared and the sound of the tub had died. Finally he groped his way to the door, pulled it shut, and sank down again on his stool.

  When they returned about twenty minutes later, David walked forward to meet them. “Beggin’ your pardon,” he said to the lead boy as he fell into step beside him, “but could I get a light off your candle, please?”

  There was a nod and a grunt, nothing more. But as the tub approached the door, the hurrier called over his shoulder, “We be pullin’ up, Robbie.”

  The wheels creaked and groaned as the coal tub rolled to a stop. With one deft movement, the lead boy, the hurrier, removed a short length of stick, called a sprag, from his belt and jammed it under one of the wheels so it could no longer turn.

  As Robbie
came around from behind, the other boy, clearly the older of the two, undid the belt around his waist and stepped out of it. This was the “gurl belt,” a leather girdle about two inches wide to which two chains were attached, one on each side of the buckle. These passed down and between the boy’s legs, then joined together at a swivel behind him into one chain that was hooked to the coal tub.

  Still not speaking, the hurrier took down his lamp from the strap around his head and handed it to David. David quickly opened the latch on the glass cover, lit his candle from the flame, then handed it back. “Thank you.”

  In the brighter light, David saw that both boys wore light cotton pants and shirts and flat caps with narrow bills, like his. They wore shoes, but those looked pretty tattered. He was not surprised to see that both of their faces were black with coal dust, smeared here and there where they had wiped away the sweat with the back of their hands. Their eyes gleamed like half-crown coins from out of the darkened features.

  “Hullo again. My name is David Dickinson.”

  The leader nodded. “This be yur furst day as trapper?” When David nodded, he said, “Thot so. Ah be Jimmie Parker. This be me brother, Robbie.”

  “I am very pleased to make your acquaintance,” David said, sounding stiff and formal.

  “’Ow cum ya talk funny?” Robbie demanded.

  Remembering his father’s admonition, he didn’t flinch. “Because me mum, she be from down near London, an’ she be teachin’ me to talk right proper like.”

  That seemed to impress them, and nothing more was made of it. David turned back to Jimmie. “How long have you been a hurrier?”

  “Aboot six months noow.”

  “My dahd says I can become a thruster, like Robbie here, in a few months, then I can be a hurrier when I’m eight.”

  “’Ow old ya be noow?” Robbie demanded.

  “I just turned six on Saturday.”

  Jimmie shook his head. “’Ave ta be at least nine ta be a ’urrier. An’ ya ’ave ta be a thruster fur at least a year too. Cump’ny rules. It be ’ard work. B’sides, yur too scrawny.”

  “Am not!” David retorted.

  “Robbie,” Jimmie said to his brother, “show ’im yur ’ead.”

  The boy swept off his cap and bowed his head in David’s direction. There was a bald spot about three inches in diameter on the crown of his head. David’s eyes widened. It was not a natural baldness. It was from pushing the cart.

  “Look!” Jimmie said.

  David turned, then drew in a quick breath. Jimmie had unbuttoned his trousers and dropped them. He was standing there in his smalls. Then he raised his shirt as well. “Cum on,” he said. “Cum see what it means ta be a ’urrier.”

  As David moved in, he felt his stomach turn over slightly. Jimmie was pointing to a long patch of rough skin that looked like the sole of someone’s foot. It nearly circled his waist.

  “These be calluses whare the belt rubs,” he explained. He lifted one leg, turning toward the light. Several deep maroon circular scars were visible on the inside of his leg, just below the crotch. “The gurl chains rub ’ere. The first day ya git blisters big as soap bubbles. The next day, when ya put on the chains again, the blisters burst lek an egg dropped on a rock. Then the blisters git blisters.”

  He clearly enjoyed seeing David’s eyes growing wider. “When the blisters pop, yur trousers stick ta ’em an’ ya be ’ollerin’ lek a pig bein’ butchered when ya tek ’em off. Teks aboot six weeks ta whare it dunna hurt anymore.”

  He dropped his shirt and pulled up his trousers. “Sure ya still wanna be a ’urrier, mate?” It was an open sneer.

  Feeling a flush of anger, David lifted his head. “I be paid five p a day. What are you paid?”

  That caught the boy back a little. “Thrusters get one shillin’ fur pushin’ the tubs. ’Urriers get one an’ sixpence fur pullin’ ’em.”g

  “A day?”

  “Yah.”

  David deliberately lapsed into his best Yorkshirean drawl. “Well noow then, me mum, she worked in a match factory doon in London Town when she were but a wee lass. Me Dahd says thare be e’nuff poison in one box of matches ta kill a man, sure as a dagger in the ’eart. Even after awl these years, she still be sick. Sumtimes bad sick.” He took a quick breath. “One an’ sixpence a day buy a lot of med’cine, maybe even ’elp git ’er a real doctor.”

  David looked Jimmie Parker square in the eyes. “Ah dunna care aboot the blisters. Ah dunna care aboot cump’ny rules. Ah will be a thruster in six months, an’ Ah’ll be pullin’ a coal tub b’fur Ah be eight. An’ that be awl thare be ta that.”

  Jimmie retrieved the belt and chains and hooked himself up to the tub. He removed the sprag from the wheel, then motioned for Robbie to take his place behind the cart.

  David sprang forward and pulled the door open.

  Finally, Jimmie looked directly into David’s eyes. “Ah un’erstand,” he said. “Gud on ya, mate.” He leaned into the chains, and the coal cart rumbled forward and through the door.1

  Notes

  ^1. A word about coal mining and the life of coal miners as found in this and following chapters may be helpful. Yorkshire was a major coal-mining center from the 1700s into the twentieth century, and the Barnsley area was a major center for mining. However, not all of the information used herein is drawn strictly from the Yorkshire area or that specific time period. Some details come from descriptions of other British coalfields, or from mines in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. I have drawn details from various times and places in order to give an idea of what life was like for the miners and their families, especially for children in the mines. Specific conditions described in the novel may not have existed in Yorkshire or may not have still existed at the time described here.

  The two most helpful sources were Fiona Lake and Rosemary Preece, Voices from the Dark: Women and Children in Yorkshire Coal Mines, and Susan Campbell Bartoletti, Growing Up in Coal Country. Their descriptions are superb and the illustrations and photographs included in both books are not only fascinating but heart wrenching. For some of the details of the mining industry in England, Geoffrey Hayes, Coal Mining, was also helpful.

  A search on Google or Yahoo under “coal mining history” is productive. A Pictorial Walk Through the 20th Century: Little Miners, U.S. Department of Labor, Mine Safety and Health Administration (http:www.msha.gov/CENTURY/LITTLE/PAGE1.asp); and Children in Coal Mines (http://www.ancestryaid.co.uk/boards/genealogy-coffee-room/2195-children-coal-mines.html) were especially helpful. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurrying).

  As grim as the descriptions included in the novel make it sound, I chose not to dwell too long on some aspects because they were unbelievably awful. For example, no mention is made of “breaker boys,” who typically were four to six years old. These boys sorted out the slate, rock, and other refuse that came out with the coal. The coal was dumped into giant crushers and breakers, then sent down long iron chutes. There the boys sat hunched over on planks that straddled the chutes, picking out the unwanted materials as the coal passed beneath them:

  As the coal streamed down the chutes toward the boys, it spewed black clouds of coal dust, steam, and smoke, which settled over the boys like a blanket and turned the faces and clothing coal-black. To keep from inhaling the dust, the boys wore handkerchiefs over their mouths. Behind the handkerchiefs, their jaws worked on wads of tobacco that they chewed to keep their mouths moist. “Smoking was not allowed,” said James Sullivan. “Chewing tobacco was supposed to prevent the breaker dust from going down your throat” (in Bartoletti, Growing Up in Coal Country, 15).

  Here are some actual statements collected by the Children’s Employment Commission formed by Parliament in 1842 to investigate conditions in England’s coal mines:

  I have had to hurry [pull the coal tubs] up to the calves of my legs in water. . . . My feet were skinned, and just as if they were scalded, for the water was bad: . . . Had a headache and bleeding (Fanny Drake, age 15).

&nbs
p; I’m a trapper in the Gawber pit. It does not tire me, but I have to trap without a light and I’m scared. I go at four and sometimes half past three in the morning, and come out at five and half past. I never go to sleep. Sometimes I sing when I’ve a light, but not in the dark; I dare not sing then. I don’t like being in the pit (Sarah Gooder, age 8).

  I stop [after] 12 hours in the pit (John Saville, age 7).

  I was five years old when I first went into the pit, and no older (John Hobson, age 13 1/2).

  In some parts of these mines the passages do not exceed eighteen inches in height. . . . Not only is the employment of very young children absolutely indispensable, . . . but even the younger children must necessarily work to a bent position of the body (Children’s Employment Commission).

  Chained, belted, harnessed like dogs to a go cart,—black, saturated with wet, and more than half naked,—crawling upon their hands and feet, and dragging their heavy loads behind them,—they present an appearance indescribably disgusting and unnatural (Children’s Employment Commission).

  I have to go up to the headings [the coal face] with the men; they are all naked there; I am got well used to that, and don’t care now much about it (Mary Barrett, age 14).

  All of the above reports are taken from Lake and Preece, Voices from the Dark, 8–20.

  I have included one of the pen-and-ink drawings from the report of the Children’s Employment Commission to give the reader a visual image of what is described in these chapters. This is also taken from Voices from the Dark.

  ^e. Crate-egg is a Yorkshire colloquialism for an idiot.

  ^f. That is, poorly made, not worth much.

  ^g. In the British monetary system at that time, there were twenty shillings to a pound, and twelve pence to a shilling. In that era, a pound was worth about four U.S. dollars.

  Chapter 5

  Monday, June 16, 1862

  Neither father nor son spoke until they had cleared the gate of the pit yard and were on their way home. Then John cleared his throat. “’Ow be yur first day as a trapper, Son?”