The bunker faces outwards, away to the far corner of the ground surface area. When it requires replenishing (twice nightly) I push the bogey out into the corridor and through the rearmost swing doors, down the steep incline onto the pathway by the canal, along to where the coalmountains pile some thirty yards from the embankment. It is good to walk here, the buckled rattle of the bogey wheels only emphasizing the absence of noise. The Nightoutsideman has charge of this area. I used to envy him. His job has always seemed so straightforward in comparison to this one of mine. He sits on his chair to the side of his hut door, gazing to the sky or to the canal. I walk past him but he doesnt look across, not until he hears that first strike of my shovel into the coal, when he turns and waves.
It takes 4 bogey loads to replenish the bunker. I could manage it with 3 but the incline up into the factory is too steep to push the bogey comfortably if fully laden. And there is no need to rush. This is a part of the shift I like. Once the 4th load is in the bogey I leave it standing and go over to have a smoke with the Nightoutsideman. We exchange nods. I lean my back against the wall on the other side of the hut door from him; sometimes I lower myself down to sit on my heels. Due to the configuration of warehouse and factory buildings there is never any wind here (a very very slight breeze, but only occasionally) and the canal is still, its water black, gray foam spreading out from its banks.
He will have been waiting for me to arrive before making his next cigarette. He used to make one for me but I prefer my own. I strike the match; while I am exhaling on the first draw I flick the match out onto the canal, watching for its smoke but there never is any; if there is I havent been able to see it. He raises his eyebrows, a brief smile. He smiles a lot, speaks very rarely; he just likes to sit there, watching the tilings that happen. Most of the buildings are unoccupied during the night and their differing shapes and shadows, the shades of black and gray, red-tinged. Now and then he will gesture at the sky, at the bend in the canal, sideways at one of the buildings, to the one where jets of steam suddenly issue from escape pipes, and to high up in the same building, at the large windows where headlike shapes appear frequently. I never quite grasp what he is on about but it probably has to do with plain truths, and I nod, as though acknowledging a contrast. Then when I finish the smoke I flick the dowp out onto the canal, listening for the plop which never comes (which never could come, not in any canal). I wait on a few moments, before going to get the bogey. I like this last push up the incline, that rutted point near the top where the wheels seem to be jamming and the bogey halts and I cannot hold it any longer! All my strengths gone! The load’s going to roll back down and crash into the canal! and then I grin; I breathe in and shove, continuing on up and through the swing doors into the corridor, still grinning.
I have charge of the boilers. Their bodies are situated in the basement and their mouths range the ground surface area, shut off by solid square hatches with set-in rings. The floor is made of specially treated metal plating so that although it is still very hot it is never too hot such that it is impossible to walk upon when wearing the special boots (metal studded, and perhaps the uppers are of a special substance?). When I arrive with the 4th load of coal I wheel the bogey past the bunker and go straight across to begin stoking. I have a crowbar to insert in the rings to wedge up the hatches which settle at an angle of 100°. with the hatch raised the heat and light from the boiler is tremendous and I have to avert my face while stoking. Asbestos gloves are there to be used but I work without them, simply taking care not to touch the metal parts of the shovel. It is habit now and I cannot remember the last time I burnt my hands. There is an interesting thing that a child would like to see; this is the coaldust dropping from my shovel during the stoking, it ignites simultaneously to touching the floor so that countless tiny fires are always blazing, and it looks startling (diamonds that sparkle). Then I have finished and kick down the hatch, and that thud of impact separating the loud roaring of the open boiler from the dull roaring of the closed boiler that I can never quite anticipate. And I move onto the next. Finally, when I have finished them all, I wheel off the bogey to its position by the bunker then return with the wirebrush to sweep clean the floor of the ground surface. Coalbits will be lying smoldering or burning nearby the hatches; I sweep them straight across and into the water trench next to the basement entrance. Towards the end of the shift I rake out the trench and use what is there on the last stoke. Whenever I forget to do this the trench is full when I come in next evening. The Dayboilerman is responsible. This is his way of reminding me not to do it again.
From a distance the entrance to the basement resembles another boilermouth but it is set away to the side of the ground surface, and its hatch is permanently raised. There is a step ladder going down, the top of which is welded onto the inside panel of the hatch. I enjoy descending. I grip either side with both hands, sometimes scurrying down to break the existing speed record, other times I go stepping very very slowly, very deliberately, as though engaged upon ultra serious business to do with submarines or spaceships. I can be standing watching myself from way over beyond the bunker, seeing my head sink from view, vanishing, wondering if it cracked against the edge of the metal plated floor but no, always I just avoid that by the briefest margin possible, gglullp. gone. Then I poke out my head again. Or maybe remain exactly there, just beneath the surface, counting 25 and only then will I reappear, and back down immediately.
Nowadays I appreciate no tasks more than those that have me down in the basement. It did use to have its frightening aspects but my imagination was to blame. The black holes is the best example. I would step past them and pretend they were not there, or if they were, that I was not particularly bothered by them. This was daft and I knew it was daft but I was just working out a method of conquering myself. At that time I was having to actually force myself to enter the basement. I would say inwardly; these black holes, they are ordinary black holes, ordinary in the sense that they are man-made, they only exist because of the way the walls have been designed. (They also exist as they do because of the effect the lighting system has on the boilerbodies: permanent shadows.)
The basement is a sealed unit, built to accommodate the boilers; the only entrance/exit is by way of the step ladder. Firstly the boilers were sited then they built the basement, and the rest of the building. It took me a while to understand that fully. And when I had I think I was either over my fear or well on the road to it. It was pretty bad at the time. I had to force myself to sit down beside them, the holes, facing away from them, not able to see them without turning my head. I would sit like that for ages, thinking of horrible things, but not being aware of it till later, sometimes much later, when walking home. One morning the Dayboilerman found me. It was a terrible shock for him. The sound of his boots on the steps of the ladder had reached me but could scarcely correspond to anything I knew so that I wasnt really aware of it beyond my thoughts. Then he was there and his eyes staring as though seeing a ghost, seeming about to collapse with a heart attack. Yet he had been looking for me. I hadnt clocked out at the gate and the timekeeper had asked him to check up. So he was looking for me and when he found me reacted as though I was the last thing he expected to see sitting there. He told people I looked like a zombie. A zombie! But eventually it made me realize he had never managed to conquer himself. He must have been really nervous, terrified about what he might find.
The switches for the basement lighting are on the wall behind the ladder so they can be turned on before reaching the bottom, but they are supposed to be kept on permanently. I think the reason for this has to do with the idea of one man being down and then another man coming down without realizing the first is there, and returning back up and switching the lighting off, leaving the first man in total blackness. That would be a horrible thing to happen, particularly to someone new in the job. But I have to admit here and now that I do play about with the switches, sometimes leaving the lighting off during the times I’m away from the basement. I think about how it all looks down there, different things. Also, there is that incredible sensation when switching them back on again later. I go stepping off the ladder with my back to the inner wall, facing away from the shaft of light above, right out into the blackness. Occasionally I will walk 3 or 4 (5 at the most) paces until that feeling of narrowness has me stock-still and trying to reflect on a variety of matters, maybe wondering how it would be having to work in such conditions forever (a miner whose lamp keeps going out?). And I continue standing there, thinking of different things, then slowly but surely I notice I am moving back the way, sensing the approach of that strange feeling of being buried in cotton wool and I am turning to reach for the switches calmly, not panicking at all, getting my bearings from the shaft of light high above at the entrance. And the lighting is immediate throughout the basement, and the noise of everything now audible apparently for the first time, that deep deep humming sound.
The boilerbodies dominate the basement. I can stand watching them. They are large, their shadows rigid but falling on each other (it can seem as though your eyes are blurring). There is a complex of narrow passageways between them, just wide enough for a man to walk, carrying a crate of cinders and a rake and shovel perhaps. I used to think a bogey might be adapted to fit the passageways but this is not at all necessary; it is possible the idea only occurred to me because of movable objects—I thought it would be good to have one. There are 4 tools: 2 crates plus a rake and a shovel. There are also 2 pairs of boilersuits, 1 for the Dayboilerman and 1 for me; they have to be kept in the basement, if we want to wear boilersuits on the ground surface we have to order different ones for the purpose. I also keep a towel down here which I find necessary. Although the atmosphere is not stifling it must be akin to tropical. I think of equatorial forests full of those peculiar plants, gigantic ones, with brightly coloured buds the size of oranges hanging down the middle, and that constant dripping. But there isnt any dripping in the basement, nothing like that. There is water in the trenches of course, which surrounds the bottom of the boilerbodies. Cinders fall through to here somehow and I rake them out and carry them in a crate to the foot of the ladder, dumping them into the other crate which I will carry up later on, for eventual use in the last stoke. I enjoy carrying the crate between the boilerbodies. I take different routes and go quickly or slowly, sometimes very very slowly, studying my boots as they land at that point on the passageway nearest to the trench. Even though I work naked I continue to wear the boots. I once tried it barefoot but the edges of the trenches get quite slippery when I’m raking the cinders out; also a daft thing, I was being continually tempted into the water, just to dip my feet (but if I had succumbed to that I would maybe have gone in for a swim!).
The trenches are narrow and they slope in below the bottoms of the boilerbodies so that cinders can become stuck, and stuck fast, there seems to be a great many crannies. I know most of them through having used the rake so often. This part of the job is good, the raking noise and my own silence, that clung of the rakehead below the surface of the water on the sides of the trench, the scraping noise of its teeth in the crannies. I could have expected both that and the sense of touch to grate on me but they dont, perhaps because they come from outside of me altogether. I work silently, and in silence. It is an important point. The idea of the work noise is funny, how it would appear to somebody (not the Dayboilerman) poking his head down the ladder, seeing how all the objects and everything are so stationary, just taking it for granted for a spell while not being conscious of anything else, not until that moment he has become aware of something, of an unexpected noise, rhythmic, and I couldnt be seen from there because of the shapes and shadows, only the clung and scraping sound; after a moment the person would react by snorting, maybe giving himself a telling off for being so daft, and then he would climb back up and out as quickly as he could, trying to kid on he wasnt bothered by it.
But nobody from outside ever comes down into the basement. Firstly the ground surface area needs to be crossed and it cannot be crossed without special footwear. If anybody wishes to attract my attention they either shout or batter the floor with a crowbar. It happens only rarely and I seldom respond since it is always to advise me that the pressure isnt being maintained. This I discover myself sooner or later because of the safety precautions. I might be wrong not to respond. I sometimes wonder whether to ask the Dayboilerman what he does. But his perception of the job will differ radically from my own. It cannot be avoided, he is on constant day and I am on constant night, we each have our own distractions. Yes, I can still be distracted; in some ways it is essential to the work; but I cannot be distracted against my wishes. If I think of things they must be things I wish to think of.
I used to make myself sit by the black hole farthest from the entrance; it lies on the same side but to reach it I have to walk to the wall opposite the ladder then follow the passageway there, right around and into the corner. I would bring the boilersuit to sit on and the towel to lean my back on against the wall; then I lit a cigarette. Smoking is frowned upon down here but I’ve always done it; I really enjoy it, finishing a particular part of the work and sitting down quietly and lighting one. Sometimes when I sit down I leave the cigarettes and matches beside me for a while before smoking; other times I’m smoking even before sitting down. One thing I used to do in the early days, I used to push the matches and cigarettes inside the hole. I sat there for a long period afterwards, till finally I knelt and withdrew them without looking in, just using my hand to feel around.
There is nothing extraordinary about these black holes, they are cavities and short tunnels. I found them of interest because they had never been seen into since the factory’s original construction. I still find the idea quite interesting. When I first found them I thought they were just inshots, little gaps, and I sat by them not bothering. Then one night after sitting a while I suddenly was kneeling down and peering in and I couldnt see anything, nothing at all. I struck a match and the light scarcely penetrated. It was really funny. Then I had to push in my hand; I discovered the wall, and then a tunnel veering off at a tangent. I could have brought in a torch or a candle, and a mirror maybe, but I never did. If I remember correctly I was wanting to check the dimensions of the wall in relation to it, the cavity and tunnel. I knew it had to be some sort of double wall, but probably a triple one, as part of the safety precautions. I went round by the canal pathway to look at the outside of the building but that told me nothing. On this particular side of the factory the pathway only goes along a few yards before narrowing and tapering out altogether, with the wall going straight down into the water.
There were quite a lot of things about it that bothered me at the time but nowadays it all seems hazy. But I think the main factor must connect to the idea of isolation, maybe bringing on a form of deprivation or something. It wasnt good when I had to sit by the black holes at first, some of my imaginings were horrible. I just had to stick it out and conquer myself. I had to succeed and I did succeed. It taught me a lot about myself and has given me confidence. Sometimes I feel a bit smug, as if I’ve reached a higher level than the others in the factory; but I dont speak to many of them, I just get on and do the job, enjoying its various aspects.