Sally part 2 .... Have you read part one posted earlier

 

The plate dropped from Molly Blacks nerveless fingers, while her heart turned to ice at the sound of the steam whistle. It was the sound of the tin plate rattling on the stone floor that turned Sally in time to see her mothers face.

“Oh God not Sam, not Billy…. please God no.” Sally felt her heart leap into her mouth, as her mother grabbing her hand, pulled her towards the door saying.

“Sally quickly it’s the pit.” Sally didn’t need to be told. In her ten years she had only heard the pit whistle once before sounding like that, and it had meant something bad had happened. Men had died.

She found herself being pulled out of the house and down the lane, stubbing her bare toes on the stones in her mother’s hurry.

They weren’t the first, nor were they the last to collect inside the gates, as the whisper spread. ‘Men had been trapped by a roof fall.’ Sally looked up at her mother, whose eyes were fixed towards the big wheel over the pit shaft waiting for it to turn, turn and bring up news.

Someone in the crowd was saying it had been an hour since the wheel had last turned, and now one man had been brought up in the bucket, his words spreading like the wind through those waiting.

“We need help down below, there’s a part of the tunnel roof that’s fallen in.” There was a movement among the watchers as a voice called out.

“How many are trapped?”

“Don’t rightly know, thirty, more or less.”

Twice the bucket made its descent, thirty two men taken down into the dark as twice that number waited, hoping. Fires were lit to warm the waiting as the wheel remained still. One…. Two…. three hours, it was growing dark when Sally heard a horse approaching.

As she watched a carriage came through the gates and drew to a halt. The driver hurrying to the back lifted down a large box. Squire Tamworth climbing out turned to help his wife down before helping the driver to carry the large box to the weighing platform.

For a time curiosity overcame Sally’s worry, as Squire Tamworth and the driver lifted the box onto the weighing platform, where they started to lay out food for his wife and a maid to portion and give out to those waiting. 

It wasn’t long before a smaller cart coming in the gates crossed the yard and drew up at the bucket. Then as Sally watched, she heard murmurs of surprise and gratitude from the watchers, as baskets of food and drink were unloaded and sent down to the men working below. Two men cut and bleeding came up when the bucket returned, two men who had to be helped out over the rim to give the news that there had been another fall.

As the night grew colder, Sally hunkered down close to her mother; her hands under her arms, letting her skirt cover her frozen bare feet. It was long after Sally would have been in bed, when Squire Tamworth moved among the watchers quietly telling the women with children. 

“Go home; it’s past ten of the clock, and there is nothing you can do here. The men below say they are going to work through the night, Take your children they are tired and cold. Go home and pray. If there is any word, we shall sound the whistle.”

 

****

It was Sally’s scream that woke Molly from a fitful half sleep, followed by a kick and punch as Sally thrashed about moaning and sobbing. Holding her, she heard Sally sob.

“They’re dying ma, Mr Walker he’s dead, I heard them, I heard Johnny Jones say he was dead. There are sixteen down there alive; I can hear dad and Billy. They’re frightened ma, Billy’s hurting and the air’s bad.”

“Hush it was just a bad dream.”

“No ma, I can hear them in my head. Ma, I can hear you now. I can hear every one in the village, Mrs Jones, Mrs Davy…. Mrs Martin, they’re all next door. Oh ma, Billy Martin, they say he’s dying. Ma his chest hurts so bad.”

“You shut up, don’t say things like that, it’s not true you’re making it up…. it was just a bad dream.”

“No ma it’s real. I don’t know how, but it’s all in my head, voices and I can’t stop them.”

“Don’t be silly you’ve just had a bad dream.”

 “No ma, I can hear them, voices in my head. Its dark and they’ve no lights, the candles all went out when the roof came down.”

“Don’t say things like that, it’s all make believe, you’re just making it up and frightening yourself. The men digging will reach them soon.”

“The men trapped, they don’t think so ma, and they know there’s a lot of tunnel between them and any men digging.”

“How would they know that?”

“They do ma, they’re not far from the face and they can’t hear any digging, they haven’t any food and water, that’s all buried, and da’s telling Billy, their snap’s still in the cupboard at home.”

Her mother couldn’t help it, she looked towards the cupboard. Sally wouldn’t have known that they had left that morning without their snap. Now her mother was worried, but still only half believing took hold of her daughter’s shoulders, and holding her at arms length she asked.

“I don’t know what is happening, who else can you hear apart from da and Billy?

“You mother, and like I said. Mrs Jones, Mrs Davy Mrs Martin, even those still at the pit.” Just thinking about those in the pit yard was enough, voices filled her head.

 “Mother they’re coming up.” Her mother still holding her out asked.

“Who’s coming up?”

“There’s been another fall…. Mr Allen and, she looked at her mother searching her face as she said. “And Tommy Williams, his da’s with him, and he’s dead.” As she watched even in the light of the one cheap candle, she could see her mother’s face pale as she took in what she had been told, and knowing that if what she had just been told was true, what in god’s name had happened to her daughter? 

Back at the pit there was a name that rippled through the watches, Tommy Williams. Cold gripped her soul as belief overcame her doubts, and a rising fear for her daughter made her grip Sally’s shoulders and whisper.

“You listen to your ma Sally, and you listen good. You say nothing about this; I’m not having folks say my daughter is mad, or worse a witch. I don’t want you in one of those places for crazy people, or burnt for witchcraft, so you listen well. Keep your trap shut, do you understand.”

Her mother need have said nothing. All of the horrible things that her mother thought could happen; Sally had already seen it building up in her mother’s head. Now she went cold inside, but thoughts still flowed through her head, the Squire, silently praying for the men. His wife, thinking of the women and their children, how would they manage if their husbands were dead.

They were standing waiting in the dark just inside the gates, Sally stood with her mother, her hands were covering her ears but it made no difference, the bucket had been brought up and the body of fifteen year old Tommy had been lifted out.

Now in the dim dawn light, Molly Black stood holding her daughter, whose hands were covering her ears. There had been total silence as the body of fifteen year old Tommy had been taken to the church, and now a tear stained face looked up to whisper. “They’re dying ma, it’s our Billy, da can’t wake him. Old Tom Wilson, Ben Smith, I can’t hear them any more…. Ma, I can’t hear Billy any more, and da’s crying.”.”

It seemed a long walk home for her mother; finally having to accept her son was dead, and soon she would be a widow, and worst of all was that Sally could hear people’s thoughts. Before they had even reached their door Sally was saying.

Ma, there’s been another fall, John Wilson’s trapped…. He’s dead ma, I can‘t hear him no more. Ma, they’re talking about giving up because it’s too dangerous, and they say that they must all be dead by now.”

“Are they?” Sally looked up, she didn’t answer, her eyes did it all for her.  “Your da?” Sally didn’t answer; her eyes had already said all there was to say.    

 

There was a funeral service at the mine top, not that Sally saw or heard much of it. The thoughts of the sixty souls attending hammered her senses into oblivion. So much so, it was only her mother’s arm’s that kept her on her feet.

Sally never heard the last announcement, so it came as a surprise that when most had left, instead of going home she found herself and her mother to be one of the last outside the pit office.

Squire Tamworth was there to see all those who had lost husbands or children in the accident. A decent man her mother had always said, and now he told them that there would be five shilling for every lost man; and half a crown for those under thirteen. Also he said any widow wanting work would be looked on favourably, along with any family member. 

As the days passed Sally grew steadily paler and more withdrawn. Worry of saying the wrong thing making it harder and harder to speak. Until the day came when she found words wouldn’t come, and then people said that her loss had robbed her of speech, and that now she was mute.

Stretching out the ten shillings from Squire Tamworth, her mother was able to keep her away from people. Until one day in late February, her mother arrived at the pit office to ask for work. Work for herself and her daughter.