Page images
PDF
EPUB

XXV

THE SULPHURING OF SUNDERLAND RED

T

HE day was one blaze of glory on the grounds of the Carbonville Country Club. A sky of speckless blue bent over the links. The air was balm. The summer yellow birds rippled overhead on the crest of waves of light.

The grounds of the Country Club comprised a sort of rolling table-land on the top of the first range of mountains, near the boulevard leading to Sky Summit. It was a matter of common knowledge how much the grounds had cost the Country Club, but only the trustees knew how much per blade it cost to keep the grass so green.

But the members of the Club thought it was worth all it cost, for when they were here upon their own grounds, they were above all the clamour and dust of the world of coal workers in the Anthrax Valley.

The outlook from the club house was marred by but one reminder of the busy world below, a small frame building from which a jet of steam issued. It was the boiler house where a new bore-hole was being driven. It was disfiguring of course and annoying to think that the company must invade the landscape with their machinery, but in the land where coal is king one could not expect to escape from the sight

of toil and struggle altogether. Some of the visitors to the club even thought that the derrick which towered above the boiler house added to the scene.

It was club day and the grounds about the handsome club house were filled with smart equipages. The coal barons were out in force. Several automobiles were gliding about the red shale roads and one tally-ho coach had driven up. The links were gay with men in scarlet coats and girls in green and gold. Strains of music came from the club house. A gay ripple of laughter and badinage quickened the bracing air.

A thousand feet under ground, directly under the golf links, gaunt, wearied men, with faces blackened with coal dust and smoke, were rushing down a gangway in the red-ash vein of the Hatton Mine soon to come back gasping and faint. They were fighting a fire in the mine.

The fire had commenced a week before. Limpy Hetherington had been sent with a message to the superintendent in an adjoining gangway. As he passed through a heading, the lamp in his cap set fire to a blower of gas in the roof. It was a very simple thing. Limpy had seen these jets of gas set on fire purposely many a time to startle visitors, and then quickly beaten out again. So he was not at all concerned.

He took the lamp in his hand and struck at the flaming gas with his cap to quench it, but it blazed more fiercely. Then he took off his coat to beat it out. To his horror he saw that the flame had caught a piece of dry timber.

Now he realized the danger, and dipping his coat in the stream of water running down the gangway he struck madly at the flame. But the fire, fanned by the strong current of air in the heading, grew hotter, and soon the entire piece of timber was burning fiercely, while the flames leaped to some adjoining brattice work.

When he saw the hopelessness of his fight against the fire, he turned and ran down the gangway at full speed, warning man after man of the danger. The men poured out of the chambers and gangways, out past the fire to the foot of the shaft. Meanwhile the air rushing through the burning heading had filled the gangway with stifling smoke and gas. Limpy struggling back towards the fire had to bend low to breathe.

Just before he reached the fire he remembered that in a new gangway to the left a Pole had gone to work alone that very morning. He had heard Mr. Hudderfield talking about it, so he knew exactly where it was. This man had not been warned. Even if he had heard the shouts, he knew no English and so could not understand the danger.

Without a moment's hesitation Limpy turned back, stumbling and falling now and then, but finally reaching the gangway where the Pole was at work.

When Limpy seized his arm and frantically pantomined "explosion" there was no need for English speech to make the Pole understand the danger of the situation. He dropped his pick and ran with the boy for his life.

The air in the gangway seemed to be on fire; the heading roared like a furnace. The struggle was not a long one. They drew their jackets over their heads and clung to the rails for guidance; but the scorching heat penetrated their clothes and made progress impossible. Their clothes were on fire, their lungs stifled with the gas. Then the explosion came. A mass of rock fell-that was all. It might have been so much harder! There was no long, weary waiting, with hopes of rescue and growing misery. It was all over so quickly! Limpy's had been a good brave heart. And as for the Pole, who knew?

All this had happened a week before. The fire went on in the meantime eating into the coal, burning more fiercely. The Company fought it desperately. All their efforts to smother it out had proved a failure. So all the miners were called out of the shaft, until the Company could fight the fire successfully. If the fight should fail, the waters of the Anthrax creek would have to be diverted from their bed and poured into the shaft as a last resort. If that should be necessary, the men might starve for months and the Company would lose heavily besides, until the water could be pumped out again and the necessary repairs made to the damaged machinery. So they were fighting the fire face to face.

It was a slow operation. Only a small gang of men could work to advantage and there were often times when the few men who were in the fight must stand idly at a distance, because the great heat cracked

[graphic][merged small]
« PreviousContinue »