Shoes for Anthony (24 page)

I shook my head.

‘I thought as much. There's been too much excitement to be thinking about schooling. It's been lovely to see all you boys looking up to the soldiers, all the new people coming into the village. It's like the world has come to pay us a visit, isn't it?'

I nodded.

‘When you're older, do you think you'd like to go and see the world instead of waiting for it to come to you?'

I nodded again.

‘And do you think you'll get to see the world if you're set for a life underground?' She paused and fixed me with her eyes.

‘Don't know, miss,' I mumbled.

‘Look at this picture you've drawn, Anthony,' she said, holding up my drawing. ‘Pointing up and away towards a free bird. Wouldn't you like to be like that kite? Going where she pleases? You won't get to do that if you stay as you are. Isn't it better for life to be an unknown adventure?'

I stared up at her. I felt conflicted in a way I had never been before. I had always known who I was: Davey's boy, set for a life underground. I might even have had my Father's tommy box, if Alwyn didn't want it. Or Emrys. But that was before. And now …

My eyes fell away from hers. ‘I don't know,' I said, again.

There was a silence. Miss Evans turned away from me and placed my drawing back onto the pile. ‘Where did I put those maths books?' she muttered, hands on hips. ‘Ah. There they are.' She walked away from me, striding, confident. ‘Thanks for your help. You can go join your friends now. Quite a decent football match on the go, by the sounds of it.'

I turned towards the door.

‘You've got a week to make your mind up,' she added, not looking at me. ‘Then I'll have to tell the Grammar.'

I turned to say something, but she was bent over, rummaging in a cupboard. I looked back again towards the map, then ran towards the corridor.

‘Grammar boy?' said Ade, eyes wide. ‘Get away, man? That means going to school for ever. Not for me. I'll be out of here next year. Job on, bob in pocket. A man should be in work, that's what my mam says.'

‘You going underground straight away?' I said, drawing a line diagonally across a circle in my workbook. ‘You'll be too young, man. Unless you want to work the ponies.'

‘Nah,' said Ade, chewing the end of his pencil. ‘Shopkeeping for me. I'm already delivering for Mr Hughes, ain't I? Work my way up. I'm on the bike now. One day, I'll be in the van. 'Ere.' He stopped and gave me a nudge. He stared past me out the window, his face suddenly etched with worry. ‘Look out. All the mams are by the gates …'

I glanced out over the playground. A gaggle of women were gathering, scarves on, heads tightly clustered.

‘Miss,' said Ade, calling towards the front, ‘look.'

Miss Evans, who had been writing problems up onto the blackboard, stopped what she was doing and glanced out towards the school gate. The chalk in her hand, hovering in mid air, fell to the floor unnoticed.

We all knew what this meant.

‘Pack away your things, boys,' she said, quietly, taking off her glasses. ‘Get home.'

The news was coming in dribs and drabs: some said a tunnel had collapsed at the pit, others that a fire was raging. Three dead, someone had heard, many more injured. The situation was sketchy; the only thing we did know was that stretchers were on their way.

All the women were out, standing on the flagstone steps of their houses, waiting. The mood was quiet, sombre. There was no larking about on occasions such as these; we all knew how hard the pain would bite.

‘Not shoulder high,' said Bopa, who was standing on the pavement, waiting with my mother. ‘Please, not shoulder high.'

We all stared towards the tinder track. Shoulder high was a phrase that landed like ice. When men were wounded, they were stretchered home at waist height. If they'd been killed, it was shoulder high. It was a sight I had only seen a few times, but it made your stomach plunge as you willed the stretcher away from your own front door. Bopa had lost her husband to the mountain ten years ago. He'd been digging a low seam, killed by a charge that had gone off by accident. ‘Blown to bits,' Father had said. She didn't even have a proper body to bury. It left her bereft, more so, as she'd never been able to have children. Mam reckoned that was the reason she loved us so much. We were her family now.

I stood close to my mother, pressed tight into her, her arm wrapped about my shoulder, thoughts of Father, Alwyn and Emrys rattling through me. It had happened before that a woman had lost all her men to one seam. It was a story told on cold, dark nights when the mood was maudlin. It was the life of the pitman, the mountain's revenge: hew the black, but never forget it's man against an ancient land. ‘We're stealing from her, remember,' Father would say. ‘We're taking what is hers.'

I looked behind me into the hallway of our house. ‘Where's Piotr?' I asked, my eyes flicking up to Mam.

She shook her head. ‘Gone to see Captain Willis. He's been gone all day. Never mind that now, Ant.'

A cry went up. ‘Here they come!' My mother's hand tightened on my shoulder.

Ahead of us, beyond the stream, men were coming down towards the village, walking wounded at the head, then beyond them, the first of the stretchers. Bopa's hand fell into my mother's, her grip tight.

‘Emrys!' I called out. ‘There's Emrys, Mam!' I pointed towards him. He was crossing the tinder track, filthy, as he always was, but he looked broken, as if the life had been sucked out of him.

‘Oh, thank God,' said Mam, clutching her chest. ‘Can you see Alwyn? Father?'

I shook my head.

‘Shoulder high!' The cry went up.

Beyond my brother, I had the first sight of a stretcher aloft. I looked again at Emrys, his head bowed, and a surge of panic coursed through me. Where was Alwyn? Where was Father?

Down the street, women clung to each other as the stretcher approached, eyes wide with terror. Please don't stop here. Please don't stop. I swear I could hear my mother's heart beating.

Four men were bearing the stretcher. I strained to see who they were, but their heads were bowed, caps low over their foreheads.

‘Is that Alwyn, Mam,' I mumbled. ‘On the corner?'

She gripped my hand so tight, I could feel the blood squeezing out of it.

Women were crossing themselves, a few crumpling with relief as the stretcher passed. They were the lucky ones. I was willing the stretcher to stop. Don't be us. Please. Don't be us. Emrys was getting closer but he still hadn't looked up. Where was Father?

The stretcher-bearers came to a stop and an unearthly wail reverberated up the street.

‘Oh, no,' said Mam quietly, ‘it's John Reece.'

The stretcher had stopped. ‘Poor Peggy,' said Bopa, her voice low. ‘I'll go to her. You stay here. See your men home.' She squeezed my mother's upper arm and left us to join the surge of women drawn towards their stricken neighbour. I felt a stab of guilt. I turned and buried my face into my mother's side. I couldn't bear to look.

‘Emrys,' I heard her cry. She pulled away from me and flung her arms about him. ‘Where's Alwyn? Father?'

‘It's bad, Mam,' his voice barely audible. ‘Father's bad.'

I stared up at him, my chest imploding. ‘How bad?' she said. ‘Where is he?'

‘The Americans sent ambulances for the worst injured. They've got a field hospital in Pontypridd …' He stopped, his voice catching in his throat. ‘His chest was crushed, Mam. They don't know if he'll live.'

Mam's hand involuntarily went up to her mouth. ‘Oh, no.' The words slipped through her fingers like water.

‘What about Alwyn?' I said, shooting another look down towards the tinder track. ‘Where is he?'

‘Broken wrist. He did it pulling Father out. He'll be fine. He's gone to get it set.'

‘I have to go there,' said Mam, her eyes wild and determined. ‘Ant, fetch me my bag and coat. Get me there, Emrys. I have to be with them.'

I'd never seen so many tents. Eileen Place Park, a flat field beyond the village, was rammed with green canvas. To our left, lines of soldiers were doing P.T.; beyond them, men were practising trench digging, and everywhere, groups of soldiers huddled around blackboards. Behind everything, a Nissen hut loomed large, and from it wafted smells I'd completely forgotten about. I lifted my nose into the air. ‘Chicken,' I mumbled.

I was holding Mam's hand. It was something I hadn't done in years, but she had reached for it as we'd walked here with Emrys and I hadn't been inclined to let go. Emrys had a glazed look in his eye. We'd all been at the crash site, that night up the mountain, but when it's your own, your neighbours, your family, it bites in the soft spots. He was hurting.

‘An explosion ripped through the tunnels,' Emrys said, as we walked into the encampment. ‘A rescue team was sent down but the fire underground, it was so fierce they were forced back up. I volunteered to go down but the cage got stuck in the shaft, it was that damaged. Alf climbed out, slid down a guide rope. It was him who found Alwyn, dragging Father up a tunnel with one arm. They carried him together. By the time I got down there, they were trying to keep Father's spirits up, keeping him talking. But he was bad, Mam.' His voice trailed off and he stared off towards the top of the mountain. ‘There were men still down there. They said they had to flood the shaft. Only way of putting the fires out. The pit'll be closed for months.'

Mam blinked. ‘There's men still down there?' she said. ‘But they can't. They'll be drowned.'

Emrys stood, staring at the coal on his hands as if it were blood. ‘They've already done it.'

The three of us stood in silence. We didn't yet know how many had been lost, but in a small village, where everyone knew everybody, boy to man, every pitman down was a bitter blow.

‘Where's Alf?' asked Mam, suddenly. ‘Did he get out?'

Emrys nodded. ‘He went with Father and Alwyn in the truck. I would have gone. But Alf said it were best if I told you what had happened.'

An American officer was crossing the field towards us. We didn't need to tell him why we were there, he was already pointing towards an open-backed wagon. ‘You for Pontypridd?' he yelled. ‘Jump into that. Leaving when we're full.'

It was a grim journey. Someone joked it was bonus training for the medical corps, but nobody had laughed. Mam didn't speak once, her knuckles white around the handle of her handbag. Her eyes were fixed, staring up towards the mountain. I stared too. Somewhere, in its depths, men were drowning.

‘How long you reckon the pit's going to be shut?' said a woman sitting to my right. Her voice was low and anxious. ‘Things are hard enough as it is with rationing. But with no wages …' A quiet chorus of mumbles filled the wagon.

‘Months,' said Emrys. ‘At least.'

‘How are we all going to manage?' continued the woman. ‘No men working?'

‘Let's just get everyone safe first,' said Mam, quietly. ‘Then we'll worry about the money.'

The field hospital in Pontypridd had been set up behind the local schoolhouse, and as we pulled up, a line of children's faces, resting on forearms, peered over the back wall of the yard. A man wearing a white armband with a red cross on it was waiting for us. Beyond him there was a soldier in a bloodstained apron. He was leaning against a metal pole, the tail end of a cigarette burning between his lips. He saw us coming and with one last long drag, he tossed his ciggie to the ground.

He held his hand out.

‘Captain Bundy. I'm one of the medics. Who have you come for?' Mam let her hand drift into his. She looked shell-shocked, lost.

‘David Jones,' explained Emrys, taking over. ‘I'm his son. This is his wife. That's my little brother.' He gestured down towards me. ‘My elder brother should be here too. Broke his wrist.'

‘Emrys!' I heard a voice calling. I looked behind Mam to see Alwyn, his hand in the air. Alf stood up in front of him and walked towards us.

Mam cast a glance towards the medic. ‘It's fine to go,' he said. ‘We've made him comfortable. He'll be pleased to see you.'

Mam gave a short, small smile and for a fleeting moment, the life came back into her eyes. ‘He's over here,' said Alf, taking my mother gently at the elbow. ‘You too, little man,' he added, gesturing for me to follow.

‘If I could have a word …' The medic steered Emrys to one side. I looked over my shoulder. He looked worried.

‘He's broken three ribs,' said Alf, as he led us into the tent. ‘He's been in a lot of pain. But they've given him something for that. He's had a blunt injury to the chest. So there might be a problem with his lungs. They won't know for twenty-four hours.'

Mam gripped Alf's arm a little tighter. ‘How bad will it be if there is a problem?'

Alf ignored the question. ‘He'll be ever so pleased to see you.'

We walked through a small maze of camp beds: most men were being treated for cuts and scrapes, and we could see cleaned swathes of bright white flesh shining out from the black. We knew all of them, and Mam nodded and smiled to everyone who caught her eye.

Fez's dad was having some stitches. ‘Don't worry, Em,' he said, as we passed. ‘He's a fighter.'

Alwyn was sitting on the edge of his camp bed next to Father. He had one arm in a sling. ‘Don't touch it,' he said to me, nodding down to the fresh cast. ‘It's not set yet. Hello, Mam.'

Mam leant down, her handbag dropping onto the floor beside him. She held his face in her hands for a moment and then turned to Father. ‘Oh, Davey.' The words escaped out of her.

He was lying, eyes half-closed, his nose and mouth obscured by a heavy, dark mask. Thick elastic straps were digging into his cheeks, and below the mask hung a rubber balloon. I watched it swell then suck itself tight.