Miners in the Dark

Digging for coal is a dangerous endeavour, made more so by the greed and avarice of mine owners. Many of whom consider themselves the equal, or superior, of their miners in grit and determination although, obviously, there is not a one of them who would deign to so much as pick up a shovel.

Instead they leave the actual hard graft to other men; strong-backed, stubborn-headed men who spend their lives toiling in the dark to make their betters rich, forever breathing in a thick, toxic fugue that devastates their health as they sell their lives for a few more days of living.

It’s a hellish, black atmosphere you work in.

In the wintertime it’s dark when you clamber out of your bed, sluggishly tying up your boots, if you even bothered to take them off, and by the time your shift is over the sun has already set. You’re forced to trudge home in the dark before taking whatever meagre supper you can afford and submitting to the sweet embrace of a dreamless sleep before you’re forced back into the stygian mirk where you claw at the cold earth for a few copper coins each day.

There are old miners and there are healthy miners but there are no old, healthy miners.

If the Storeman is pushing, and they are always pushing, you’ll be forced to take your midday meal down the pit and nothing tastes right. The water on your tongue is bitter and brackish & so most of the miners wash it down with strong beer. Which means that the, already woeful risks involved in coal mining are exacerbated by the majority of workers being less than careful and long past caring.

Seamus Greenfield was the shift supervisor on the Number 7 coal face and he’d had his fair share of beers but he wouldn’t have said that he’d had a skinful. As a good Irishman “Greenie” could handle his ale better than he could handle the water they served here. He’d been on the shovel all morning as they’d raised the required quotas again last week so all hands had to pitch in to meet them. The Company made money hand over fist but they wouldn’t hire new personnel when they could simply drive the workers harder, and they can always drive the workers harder.

Greenie reached into his waistcoat pocket to check his fob watch by the flickering electric light. As he did, he took the chance to stretch out his back a little after being bent double for, he checked the watch, five hours. That’ll have to do for now, he thought. He had to make sure his paperwork was in order or there’d be the very devil to pay.

He picked up his shovel and balanced it on one shoulder as he made his way back from the coal face. He had to be wary around the other miners. Some of whom were swinging their picks like there was no tomorrow and others who were shovelling tonnes of coal into the mine carts behind them.

Eventually he came to the junction between his tunnel and the main trunk road, where his meagre supplies of writing materials rested. He picked up the writing board and the pencil and started to fill out the relevant information in the correct columns.

A mine supervisor had to note down how much coal was being dug and by whom, since most of the miners were paid by the tonnage they shifted. This being the reason the supervisors tended to be the biggest, meanest men on shift. It forestalled any attempt by the miners to intimidate their gaffer into fudging the numbers in their favour. Just another way the mine owners kept their workers fighting amongst themselves.

Greenie was just about to call time for dinner when he looked over to where there was a small brass clock on the wall. The second hand wasn’t moving but that wasn’t what caught his eye.

Hanging by the clock was a small bird cage and the canary inside it was dead.

A cold lump of fear clawed down his throat as Greenie reached for the signal line and began to pull it in and out frantically. The line reached down and along all the tunnels and even out of the shaft to the surface. Attached to the line, at every major turn or junction in the mines was a bell.

Before long the ringing of the bell began to replace the beating tattoo of shovels and picks and the grinding of minecart wheels along the tracks. Eventually the sound of tools stopped entirely.

Every worker down the pit knew what the bell meant; bad air in the mine.

When the bell rang, the miners knew the air was bad. If you were near the mine shaft you would scurry back to the opening, where the air was good. If you were deeper in, however, your only hope was the “breather” hoses.

As mine tunnels were dug, rubber hoses were run along the full length of them. Every six feet or so there was a smaller “breather” hose run off the main line that hung limp down the mine wall.

The echoes of the bells’ tolling still reverberated around the mine as the miners scrabbled to get to a breather. When they did, each man would sit down, leaning against the tunnel wall, and then remove his helmet and hold it in front of his face. He took the end of the breather hose and pointed it inside his helmet and that created a small pocket of just enough breathable air that you wouldn’t choke.

They had to do it quickly because up above, on the surface, the fittest, most tireless men would manually pump the bellows that fed clean air to the breather hoses. But they would also cut the lights. Meaning that hundreds of men, half a mile below, were trapped and helpless, feeling all alone in the dark and the cold. Sometimes it could be hours before the all clear was sounded and, in the damp, oppressive darkness, it didn’t take long before minutes started to feel like hours.

Greenie had got himself sorted out and then the lights went out and then, there was nothing to do but wait. And so, he waited, with nothing but the sound of his own breathing and the occasional scuttling of rats in the tunnels to distract him.

Then, one of his lads cried out in fright as a rat crawled across him.

It broke the tension a little and, of course, a chorus of geers and ridiculing immediately followed. Much to the supervisor’s relief; men that were laughing were men that weren’t panicking.

He took his watch out of his pocket to check the time. He’d had the glass front removed so that he could tell the time by feel.

Twenty five minutes, Greenie thought to himself. Jesus, but it feels like hours.

Still, all he could do was wait.

Just sit there, and wait.

The men couldn’t even lie down and sleep because the length of the hose was such that if they tried to lie down, there’d be no guarantee that it would stay in place as they slept. A few inches more would have made all the difference but that would have cost the company another couple of pennies.

“Aw Goddamnit” cried a voice in the dark. “How long are we gonna have to wait here like this‽”

“As long as it takes” said Greenie. “Now sit still and shut th’ hell up!”

In the dark he could hear a tapping. It sounded like a ring knocking against the head of a pick. One of his lads was getting agitated.

Please, he prayed silently. Please just keep it together, lads.

“Ah for fuck’s sake!” the same man cried out.

Greenie could hear someone standing up and a helmet clattering away down the tunnel. There was a yelp as it hit someone further off.

“Stay where the fuck you are, boy!” Greenie shouted, knowing it was too late.

He could hear the sound of footsteps.

And then coughing…

“Hey Gaffer!” another voice cried out. “It’s Charlie. He ain’t got no air!”

“Leave ‘im” yelled Greenie. “There’s nothin’ ye can do for ‘im now!”

They had to listen to him die. He was lost and alone, he couldn’t see anything and he coughed and coughed as his lungs filled up with firedamp. He paced to and fro, completely disoriented by the dark and with tears streaming down his face.

When he hadn’t the strength to walk the others heard him crawl and, with his last breath of air he feebly called out.

“I want my mum!”

And then there was silence.