Is (25 page)

This fetched a lot of response from the Bottom Layer.

‘Ah! My dad’s one o’ that kind! Used to lay into us with the fire-tongs! That’s why I run off from Clerkenwell.’

‘So did mine, any time he was on the gin!’

Then Is told them about her dad, also one for the gin, and how he used to make up tunes. Many of these they knew already, and at the mention of each song a wave of inaudible music would pass through the mine, like the ripples of prayer that pass outwards from a minaret.

Is worried sometimes that she ought to be teaching the workers something more useful than stories and songs and riddles, but the main thing, she supposed, was to keep talking; to keep the channels open and responses flowing along them. And she knew that she was getting stronger responses; shift by shift, new voices made themselves heard.

One day Joe suddenly spoke up, in the bord ahead of her.

‘Is that
you
, buzzing away back there? I thought it was a swarm of bees got into the pit . . .’

Is found this very funny.

‘Oh, Joe! Didn’t you ever know? I told them who I was, ever such a long time ago.’

‘I didn’t hear that. I didn’t know your name was Is. You never told
me
!’

After that, she and Joe talked to each other in thoughts, more often than they used words.

And time went on . . .

Emptying her basket into the corf one day, Is felt something brush against her leg and bite her ankle. She let out a startled gasp.

‘Don’t fret, it’s only me,’ said the teasing voice of Arun Twite. ‘And a pest of a time I’ve had finding you!’

‘Arun! It’s really you! Am I glad to hear your voice!’

‘Listen!’ he said. ‘There’s danger! I’ve come to warn you. Aunt Ishie – ’

‘Oh, Arun! Have you been to see her! I’m glad! How is she? Did Grandpa die – ?’

‘Never mind that, this is urgent. Ishie and the old gals at Corso put their heads together – they all reckon there’s terrible stormy weather coming soon. They’re weather-wise, you know that. A big mountain, they say, a mountain called Hekla on an island hundreds of miles north-west, that’s going to blow its top off, and send huge waves chasing over the sea, and
that
’s liable to smash in the roof of this pit like you’d smash an egg with a spoon.’

‘Lord-a-mercy!’ said Is. ‘When’s this going to be?’

‘Soon. Dunno when. In a few days, they think.’

‘Then we gotta get the Bottom Layer out o’ the pit. Arun – how in the name of goodness do
you
get in?’

‘Same way I first got out,’ he said. ‘I swim. And that’s how I go to and fro with the pockets Ma Macclesfield gives me, in a wet-proof bag.’

‘Swim?’

‘There’s a cave down in the cliff at sea-level on Holdernesse Head. That’s how I found my way out when I was a collier. But it’s a half-hour swim round the point before you can get ashore; the cliffs are too sheer to climb.’

‘Then that wouldn’t do for the Bottom Layer,’ said Is. ‘For I’ll lay most of ’em can’t swim. No more can I, for that matter. We’ll have to get them out by the whim-gin.’

‘What about the guards?’

‘I think I can fix ’em,’ said Is thoughtfully. ‘Or some. That ain’t the main snabble.’

‘What is?’

Joe suddenly broke into their talk, coming through to Is on a thought-wave.

‘What the plague’s going on? Who are you colloguing with, back there?’

‘Oh, Joe! Listen. My cousin Arun’s here – the catboy – ’ And she told Joe what the old ladies were predicting.

‘Ah,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Yus. That’s what I’ve allus been afeared of. A few real big waves up above would break the pit-pillars down here like parsley-stalks. And no use to tell the guards about it and try to get ’em on our side; they’re locked in with us. The Chief Mine Manager out in the town, he keeps the keys. So what do you reckon?’

Is told him her plan.

‘What we got to do,’ she said, ‘the hard thing, will be getting the people out
in turn
, so they don’t panic and jam up and squash together like bullocks at a gate.’

Joe said: ‘The way to do it would be to have the ones closest to the whim-gin go first. Then the ones a bit farther off move in. Then them farthest of all; they can all be moving in closer while the others is going up.’

‘Yus,’ agreed Is. ‘That’s the way to do it, no question. But how do we explain, how do we get that plan into their noddles?’

‘The bords have numbers,’ said Joe. ‘If they don’t know their number, they gotta find out. Then it’ll be easy, for the lowest numbers are closest to the whim-gin, where they started digging. Here we’re in number thirty-two. A long way back.’

‘I see,’ said Is. ‘How’ll they find out their numbers?’

‘’Times it’s stuck up at the end of the stall on a bit of board. If it ain’t, they’ll have to ask the overlookers at the whim-gin.’

‘Won’t that make those coves smell a rat?’ said Arun.

Is chuckled. ‘They can say it’s for a lottery. Winner gets an extra lump of cheese on Sunday.’

Joe said: ‘But how about the coves up at the top of the whim-gin? How’ll we fix them?’

‘I can take care of that,’ said Arun.

‘And how are you going to let us know when we’re to go?’ Joe asked.

‘Can you send a thought message, Arun?’

But this Arun could not do.

‘Well, can’t be helped,’ said Is regretfully. ‘We’ll just havta start work right away on getting them ready. It’ll surely take a while. We can’t afford to wait. You best go off, Arun, and fix the coves on top. – But wait, is there any other news? About Grandpa, and Aunt Ishie?’

‘Eh? No,’ he answered rather hurriedly, and then: ‘Well, there was a message, Miss Sibley said, from Ishie; she’d seen Captain Podmore and he had asked her – this was important – to tell you that someone you know of had died.’

‘Someone I know of – my stars!’ muttered Is. She drew a long breath. ‘Someone I know of. Oh, my cats alive.’ Poor old King Dick, she thought. That sad news about his son was the last straw for him. ‘Weren’t there no more than that?’ she asked after a moment.

‘Yes, there was. Wait till I think.’ In the darkness, Arun scratched his head; if he’d really been a cat, Is knew, he’d have suddenly washed an inch of fur behind his elbow.

‘This was the other bit,’ said Arun, after he had done thinking. ‘Someone you know of didn’t have any other children, Captain Podmore said. So his cousin was going to take over his job.’

‘His cousin?’ Baffled, Is wondered who King Dick’s cousin might be. How would she be expected to know a thing like that?

‘I’ll be off then,’ Arun said, and left, promising to put in hand his scheme to nobble the upper-level operators of the whim-gin in about two days’ time. If anything went wrong with this plan, he would try to drop bunches of heather down the shaft as a warning.

And Is addressed herself to the task of telling the Bottom Layer that they must now get ready to escape from the pit. It was a hard and complicated process. First she had to reassure them, over and over. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. This is a real early warning. The flood won’t happen for days and days. But it will come, it’s bound to come. And it’s going to take a precious long time for everybody to clamber up the whim-gin; we gotta do it sensible and orderly, so’s not to start a stampede and make a louse-ladder of the business.

First you gotta find out your bord number. Then call in and let me know what it is.

This part of the affair took a nerve-rackingly long time. Very few knew their numbers. Some of the older bords had names – Dead Man’s Lane, Shelly Bottom, Echo Level – but hardly any of the workers knew where they were in relation to the other workers with whom they had begun to form thought connections. All this took several shifts to sort out.

Is talked to them tirelessly, hour after hour, going over the details.

‘First number three, Alice and Tom – then number four, Mick and Fred – then Sol and Sim – then Ann and Sue – then Dick and Peg. Just remember who comes before you, that’s all you really have to learn. Don’t forget to bring your corf with you –
empty
. I’ll be at the foot of the whim-gin, and I’ll call in the first ones, jist as soon as we’re ready to start moving. I’ll be there first, and I’ll stay there all through, I promise.’

All the days of practice conversation – the stories, the riddles, the back-and-forth responses – had been worth it, she realised; the Bottom Layer were calm now, and ready to trust her.

Just the same she had a last-minute flash of panic, wondering: suppose there’s some folk in the pit that have never switched in on our thought channels? Will they understand what’s going on? Will they run amuck, or will they get left behind and caught in the flood? Or suppose Arun doesn’t manage to nobble the coves at the pit-head? What then? But it was no use dwelling on such anxieties.

When all the workers had been sorted into a rational order of escape, and the order had been practised and recited over and over again, Is dragged her corf down to the whim-gin with Joe close behind her.

‘Now, Joe, you gotta make a ruckus up the passage a way, while I fix t’other guard,’ she told him.

So Joe began to yell out lustily, ‘Help! Help! The roof’s a-caving! I’m caught! I’m trapped!’

One of the two guards went with caution to investigate. The other, following fixed orders, stayed by the rope and the baskets with his hand close to his pistol. But Is, who had brought a stub of candle with her, lit it and walked up to him.

‘Mister!’ she said urgently. ‘Look at this candle! Look at this light!’

‘Well? What of it? What the deuce are you playing at?’ he growled, as she moved it gently to and fro.

‘You are walking down a cool grassy path to a river,’ she told him. ‘Now you are walking right into the water . . .’

His eyes wavered. Oh, lord-a-mercy, thought Is,
what if it doesn’t work
, what’ll I do then?

But it did work.

His eyes became fixed, his breathing grew deeper and slower. His hands relaxed. The pistol fell to the ground.

‘You are fast asleep,’ she told him. ‘You are going to sit down comfortably with your back resting against the wall, and you will not wake up again until you hear a rooster crow.’

At this moment Joe appeared, panting and triumphant, dragging the other guard, whom he had knocked unconscious with his pick handle. ‘It was easy as pie!’ he said, astonished. ‘Why didn’t I do it months ago? But how in the world did you ever manage to nobble your fellow?’

‘He’ll be out for hours. But you better tie yours, if you can find a cord.’

While he did so, Is began sending out her call. ‘
We are ready to go. Now we are ready to go
. Alice and Tom, you are the first, come
now
; then the others, in the order we planned. Mick and Fred – Sol and Sim – leave your places and come as fast and quietly as you can. We are ready to go. Don’t panic. Don’t rush. Just wait for your turn, then come. Tell your names to the others, give your number as you leave your bord. Just come . . .’

In less than four minutes, two grimy figures appeared at the whim-gin: Alice and Tom.

‘Two into a corf – that’s right,’ said Joe, and helped them start the slow, dizzy, swinging ascent. There was no spark of light to be seen overhead now, Is noticed, which must mean that it was night-time in the world outside the mine. Just as well; she hoped it might be early in the night, so that they would have all the hours of dark ahead, time to empty the whole mine of its workers before anybody up above realised what was happening. She knew now, from counting names and bord numbers, that there were well over two hundred workers in Holdernesse Pit. They had a long job ahead of them.

In fact the evacuation took over five hours.

Is found it strange, meeting people face to face who hitherto had been known only by their thoughts. A boy called Desmond, who in his thought-shapes had come over as forceful, strong and highly intelligent, was revealed as a thin, small shy figure with a crooked shoulder; Mary-Ann, the yellow-haired giggler of the Playland Express, turned out to be a most efficient organiser, bringing several workers who had not tuned into the transmission of thought. And, for their part, many of the Bottom Layer were startled, almost incredulous, at their first sight of Is, whom they had expected to be big and bossy and fierce.

At the very end came Tess with little Coppy, who had been left out of the number-roll because he was not in a bord at all, but had been given the job of trapper-boy, obliged to sit all day and night beside a ventilation door which he had to keep opening and shutting. He was wailing and furious at being left behind, but Tess carried and comforted him.

‘Soon we’ll be out. See, we’re going up in the basket – like the old woman who went over the moon.’

‘Right, that’s the lot . . . ’ sighed Joe, stretching his shoulders with immense relief.

‘Let’s
hope
– ’ said Is. She sent out a thought-call through the mine: ‘Is there anybody left, is anybody still working?’

No answer came back.

‘Best us go now; my cove’s beginning to stir,’ said Joe.

‘Hold on a moment then.’

The guards had a slate on which they kept the tally of the corves and which hurriers had brought them; Is wiped it clean and wrote:
WEVE CLEARED OUT AS PIT IS DUE TO FLOOD YOU GOT SENSE YOULL CLERE OUT TOO
, while Joe undid the rope round his man’s wrists.

Then Is joined Joe in the corf and began the slow creep up the black well. Suppose the rope breaks, she thought. Well – it didn’t for the others, why should it for us? And Joe and me don’t weigh so much as a basket of coal. But just the same – suppose it did? She thought of the black depth underneath.

‘Joe,’ she said, ‘can you crow like a rooster?’

‘If you want me to,’ said he, and did so, hanging over the side of the corf. ‘
Cock a doodle doo!
’ Is thought of the woods at home, and the faraway cock on the Kentish farm.