he would have already been gone, overpowered in a moment by the firedamp gas that had suddenly swamped the seam.
Adam felt cold and nauseous. He had never seen a dead man that he knew before and he had to fight for a moment to stay upright before he forced himself to inspect the other tables. As far as he could tell, none of the other corpses was his father’s, but it was hard to be sure as many of the faces were badly burnt and disfigured.
He looked up and saw that the parson was watching him from the other side of the room.
He clearly knew what was going through Adam’s mind.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘Your father’s all right. Wait for me a minute. I want to talk to you.’
Adam nodded. Relief flooded through him, making him weak at the knees. But he felt guilty when he looked back at Edgar who hadn’t survived but had instead been cut down in the prime of his life. Adam looked at the thick muscles in Edgar’s neck and the broad set of his shoulders. He doubted he had ever seen a stronger man. And yet now this powerful body was no more than a hollow shell, a husk emptied of meaning. Soon it would fall apart and rot, food for worms in the damp ground.
Adam closed his eyes and remembered Edgar’s ebullience: the way he seemed to fill a room, coming out of the scullery in his soapsuds in the evening and squatting before the hot fire to get dry; or singing snatches of old songs in a pitch-perfect baritone as he mended his boots – his voice vying for ascendancy with the hammer.
I’d shake thy hand, lad, but it needs washing first. Edgar’s first words to him came floating into Adam’s mind as he recalled that first morning when he and his father got off the train from London and met the miners coming home from the night shift. And then a year later he had refused to shake Edgar’s hand when they left the house in Station Street. It seemed a petty gesture now.
He glanced over at Annie. She hadn’t moved since he had come into the shed and she seemed completely unconscious of his presence. She was dry-eyed, staring unseeing into the middle distance behind his shoulder. Only her hands were active, pulling repetitively at the stitching of her husband’s cloth cap, which she was holding in her hands. She was wearing her best black dress and a hat decked out with black imitation fruit. He wondered if she’d already known or suspected that Edgar was among the dead when she’d gone to the pit after the alarm was sounded and had dressed up for the occasion. He realized that it was a question to which he would never know the answer.
‘She’s in shock,’ said the parson, coming up to Adam and drawing him aside. ‘Grief can take people this way as well – they just shut down because the loss is more than their minds can accept, at least to begin with. She’ll be better later, I hope.’
‘What about her son, Thomas?’ Adam asked, lowering his voice. ‘He was working with his father last time I was here.’
‘Yes, he was, but he got lucky – I think he’d gone back to fetch something when it happened. So he’ll be able to support his mother. Others haven’t been so fortunate. She’s lost both her sons,’ he said, pointing over at the woman who was crying the loudest, shaking uncontrollably as the sobs were torn from her throat.
‘Where is everyone?’ asked Adam, looking away. ‘There’s no one outside.’
‘They’ve gone to the Hall with Whalen Dawes. Surely you know that?’
‘No, I was in the mine with Rawdon. We were lost and we just got out.’
‘I didn’t know he was a friend of yours,’ said the parson, raising his eyebrows.
‘He’s not. Or he wasn’t,’ said Adam, stumbling over his words. ‘Has my father gone too – to the Hall?’
‘Yes. And I fear the worst, to be honest with you. Whalen’s worked the men up to a fever pitch, saying that the accident’s the owner’s fault; that he doesn’t care; that he thinks the miners are like the third-class passengers on the Titanic – not worth saving …’
‘Well, that may be true, but that doesn’t make it Sir John’s fault. What’s Whalen’s basis for saying that?’
‘He says that if they’d had reverse ventilation then they could have taken the air away from the fire, starved it of oxygen. There was a law passed last year requiring mine owners to install it but it’s expensive and so they were given two years’ grace, so I suppose you can argue it either way. What matters is that Whalen’s been waiting for something like this to happen ever since he took over from your father – he wants to start the revolution here in Scarsdale and he thinks this is his opportunity.’
‘What about my father? What did he do?’
‘He tried to talk the men out of going and I did too, but they wouldn’t listen. They’re angry and they’ve taken Edgar’s death very hard. He was their real leader, but I expect you know that.’
‘How long ago did they set off?’ Adam asked.
‘Fifteen minutes; maybe more. I got Mr Hardcastle to call the police in Gratton so I hope they’ll get there in time. And he called Sir John as well to warn him. I don’t know what more we can do.’
‘Well, I’m going after them. Have you got your bicycle here, Mr Vale?’
‘Yes, but …’
‘I’d really like to borrow it. I’ll look after it, I promise,’ said Adam, putting his hand on the parson’s arm to underline the urgency of his request.
‘But I don’t think you should go,’ said the parson anxiously. ‘As I said, I fear the worst.’
‘Please, Mr Vale. I have to. Where is it?’ asked Adam, refusing to be put off.
‘Outside, around the back,’ said the parson, bowing his head. And, reaching in his pocket, he handed Adam the key to the padlock.
‘Thank you,’ said Adam, turning to go. But at the door he came back. ‘I don’t like to ask but can you make sure Rawdon’s all right before you go? We had a bad time in the mine and his leg is hurting him. We almost didn’t make it.’
‘Where is he?’ asked the parson.
‘He’s asleep over by the pithead steps.’
‘You can rely on me. And I wish you luck. I think you’re going to need it,’ said the parson, putting out his hand.
‘I think I will too,’ said Adam with a faint smile. He shook the parson’s hand and was gone.
The hours of anxious wandering, breathing in the fetid, stale air of the mine, followed by the frightening climb up the ladder had left Adam exhausted, and he cast an envious look back at Rawdon before he pushed off, pedalling hard as he began the steep climb up the road to the station with the bicycle’s oil lamp flickering in its case above the back wheel. The town was quiet with a sense of foreboding in the air, and he jumped, almost losing his balance, when a stray dog ran out of a side street barking viciously at him as he rode past.
Out in front the moon hung pale and full over the eastern horizon, illuminating the church tower at the top of the hill, but down below the trees and the houses were fast disappearing into the evening shadows. Flocks of birds wheeled overhead and flew away, screeching and crying. And Adam shivered, gripping the handlebars as his mind raced, wondering what was happening up ahead.
On his left he passed Edgar’s house. There were no lights on inside and he wondered where Ernest was and whether he yet knew about his father. He remembered the torment he’d suffered when his mother died and it hurt him to think that his friend would now have to undergo the same searing experience. There was no escaping the open wound of grief; only time healed or at least dulled the pain of loss.
At the top of the hill he had to stop to catch his breath, resting the bicycle against the wall of the graveyard. The moon had temporarily disappeared behind a bank of clouds, but the light on the parson’s bicycle enabled him to make out the dim outline of the pitched tile roof covering the