Forty

Aubrete stood at the pit head.

Behind him, the pulley in the horse gin groaned. They were bringing the men up as fast as they could—they could hear the voices crying to them from the shaft—but it was not fast enough. The pit head manager came though the building, pushing women aside who had gathered at the doors.

‘We need a winding engine,’ he said to Aubrete. ‘They have a winding engine at Conygre.’

‘I know it,’ Aubrete said.

‘A winding engine, winding by day and pumping by night.’

‘Yes,’ Aubrete said.

‘Sir—’tis common practice!’

‘I know it,’ Aubrete repeated. ‘But we have no investment.’

‘Then you have no pit, sir,’ the man said.

They stared at each other as the first men came to the surface. Men and boys, faces blackened. Third in line came the Egyptian, tumbling from the rope. The colliers came running to the two men standing in the centre of the pit house, a crowd of dark shadows advancing on the light.

‘The lowest seam is gone,’ the Egyptian said.

Aubrete took him by the arm and pulled him to one side. ‘You promised me,’ he said.

‘You have lit fires in the pit bottom,’ the Egyptian said. His voice was cracked with fatigue and terror. His eyes held pictures Aubrete did not want to see.

‘I have to have a furnace to burn away the bad air,’ Aubrete said.

‘It’s no good.’

‘I have given you money!’

The Egyptian put his hands to his face momentarily. ‘I am only one,’ he said. ‘Take your money back. I don’t have a need of it where I am going.’

Aubrete shook him, his grip tightening. ‘You’ll go nowhere,’ he muttered. ‘You are my bought man.’

The Egyptian said nothing at all. He looked for a long time into Aubrete’s eyes. Then, he prised Aubrete’s fingers from his arm. ‘I am God’s man alone,’ he said softly.

The rope was up. Only eighty-four had come to the surface. The last boy was weeping, screaming.

The Egyptian caught hold of the rope. The men fell silent.

‘Turn it!’ the Egyptian called. ‘Put me down, for God’s sake—take me down!’