A Bugle For The New Day

                                            Chapter Two, part eight.

 Glyn fought to suppress a laugh as the hapless bugler stretched himself to attention with a dignity coming form nowhere obvious. He pointed his ancient instrument at the roof and produced three blasts of an intensity sufficient to make gunpowder obsolete. The sound vibrated and echoed around the caverns until it seemed that legions of buglers were out there and all answering in protest. Warning and alarm broke out everywhere, but at last the noise died away, and then it was that a change came over the little man…

He shrunk within himself as though trying to hide, his shabby clothes suddenly too big for him. His good eye took on a misty look, distant and detached, as he began to play the bugle as it was never meant to be played. Soft poignant sounds cascaded from the battered brass in an outpouring of what could only be described as emotion, for there was no shape to it, no melody, only a succession of melancholy notes, strung together in a nostalgic way that spoke of a longing  to escape from the harshness of life underground. It spoke of a yearning for gentler things, for blue skies and blossom blowing in the wind, of sunlight on water and the freedom of birds in the open sky.

“Away now, Handel.” The gruff voice of Rhys grated into the recital and put an end to the interlude. “‘Down the road the eisteddfod, man.”

Handel wiped the mouthpiece of his bugle and looked sheepish. Without a word he touched his cap, slung his battered instrument on a cord  over his shoulder, and slouched away.

They had three minutes to ignite the fuses, this being the traditional time recognised by the rockmen. Precise procedures were laid down in regulations approved by the inspector of mines. But precautions and codes of practice were considered restrictive by the workers as they interfered with money in the hand and as such they were ignored.

The charges were lit and spluttering as they sheltered behind a boulder serving as a screen; Then the first exploded, immediately followed by a mighty blast and a rush of hot air and dust. They scampered through the hanging fog, hurried to inspect the result, ignoring the possibility that one of the charges might be a slow burner and an eye or a finger could be lost. But all was well….through the dispersing cloud Glyn could see his brothers slapping their father on the back, and cries of triumph going up. The rock had fractured perfectly across the intended planes, exactly as Geriant had calculated. The week had started on the right note…

© Mark Pearson 2007.

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                                                   Chapter two, part seven.

Geriant began to speak, low and gentle and reverent. “Mother Earth,” he said with a sadness enough to make a thousand bosoms heave, “Forgive thy thieving children come to steal what is thine…Taking thy family away from thee we are and well we know it.

But the taking is not of our choosing, for forced we are to take this road and nothing proud we feel. We ask thy wrath not fall upon us, knowing as we do that terrible indeed can be thy retribution. Small we are- aye, nothing but specks of dust in the wind. We pass in the twinkling of an eye; bedside thy great power we are nothing, and we humble ourselves before thee.”

As the supplication went on Glyn had a picture of Mr. Mostyn Jones, the Minister at Chapel, droning on with his “thees” and “thous” and then he saw one of his old school books and a native on some tropical island paying homage to a hideous god carved out of stone, but there was an intimacy in his father’s voice as though he shared a joke with the obdurate rock.

The one sided conversation, to the onlookers at least, now appeared to be over and Geriant turned to look past Glyn and call to the two below; “Right now, send for Handel.”

This was the second ritual destined to remain with the impressionable Glyn for the rest of his life.

It was custom in Brynllech to sound a bugle to signify that firing was about to take place. A bell was used in the open broad vein and at many other quarries, but here a more flamboyant warning system was employed, an embellishment made incongruous by the appearance of the instruments owner.

No one knew his real name; to all he was Handel. And now, summoned by Ifor, he shuffled before them, a ragged, shrunken figure with an old army cap on a few wisps of white hair crowning a face battered and scarred from wounds he would enlarge upon with great relish. The milky sightlessness of his left eye he attributed to an unguarded moment and an Afghan sniper, the loss of a finger to a Zulu assegai when he had been fending off impossible odds. All his colourful stories were accepted by the younger men, but the older were more doubtful, saying he came from the north, or the south, and maybe his injuries came from his time in the copper mines, or working the lead.

 © Mark Pearson 2007.

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Best to leave him to his own thoughts, Geriant decided as they came to the arch of rock marking the entrance to the access tunnel. They entered quickly without a word and the memory of the rugged quarryman flew back to the time when he himself had gone underground for the first time. He knew what  must be going through his son’s mind and he saw the need to avoid fuss or encouragement.

They progressed though the tunnel on the hard walk beside the tramway, the daylight petering out and the niched candles set in the walls taking over, throwing grotesque shadows that danced to the clatter of their heavy boots, echoing and bouncing and vibrating all about them.

If Glyn felt any apprehension it was unnoticeable and he kept it well hidden, considering he had dreaded this moment for so long. He matched his father stride for stride, had the same unwavering look fixed to the same distant object, and he hoped his father would glance down with approval.

The tunnel led them into a cavern which opened out and reached up into a darkness that hid it’s height, with a glistening wall of rock facing them across a chasm that yawned almost at their feet, and here men were dangling on chains as they hacked and hammered at the rock in the spluttering light from a multitude of candles.

 Instructions, profanities, insults floated down from suspended rockmen, rolling around the hollows, coming back at them in a succession of sound.

Glyn saw it all with first a feeling of wonder and astonishment at the toil and skill employed by men like his father and his brothers, and then, as he stared at the plight of the hanging rockmen, saw the danger and the degradation. a choking sensation of horror seized him and his blood ran cold. He stood rooted to the spot, unable to tear his eyes from the grim spectacle, while Geriant called out in reply to the shouts directed at him from the rock face.

Geriant gave a final shout and wave and took a turning on their right, leading to a smaller chamber, where they found Rhys and Ifor perched on a ledge above them. They were working on a slab, preparing it for shot firing by drilling holes with a long rod. This was called a jumper and the operation of it required as much patience as vigour. They were now satisfied, straightened up and signalled to Geriant, who took off his coat and climbed up to them with an agility belying his years.

Glyn watched from below and saw for the first time evidence of his father’s affinity with the rock, the strange mystical union he had with the earth. His father’s hands were light upon the rock, almost caressing, it seemed his brothers standing back, looking on impassively, accustomed as they were to their father’s behaviour, something they tolerated but never understood or questioned.

When Geriant tore himself away, he issued gruff instructions to his sons, bringing Glyn into the proceedings, for there was fetching and carrying to be done and the newcomer was to become skilled in that direction. Above them the wall of rock glistened in the candlelight, underground seepage mustering tears for the sacrifice now dressed and ready.

© Mark Pearson 2007.

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Top image by larae. Image Slate Cavern by Stan160of flickr.

                                          Chapter two, part five.

In an effort to clear his mind and to concentrate on the important issues facing him, he closed his eyes as though shutting a book, and when he opened them again, the incident with Flora had been relegated to another page the one now before him devoted entirely to the affairs of the morning and the meeting with his landlords.

He called them the Three Crows, an understatement uncommon for Ragway: the Three Vultures would have been more apt. Individually unreasonable, collectively implacable, they had been at war with him since the day he bought the quarry two years ago. Josiah Morgan owned the land containing the broad vein, producing most of the dressed slab: Eli Humphreys held the floor of the valley where the quarry buildings spread in such disarray: and Ithel Pugh, self designated leader of the trio, he possessed the largest slice of the land, through which ran the narrow vein workings and three quarters of the quarry’s output.

The three Welshmen were as formidable, as stubborn as the land itself, their roots deep and entrenched as their opinions. Their eyes having the far away look of those who spend their lives scanning horizons in a constant vigil to repel intruders, an impression outsiders  would soon verify when confronted by their inherent prejudices.

Yet the land over which they lorded with such imperious disdain was, as they must have been aware, incapable of producing revenue until the Tudors scratched the surface and found the blue rock hiding beneath the worthless scrub. Previously, man had struggled with this land, and the ruins of their hopes testified in overgrown walls and skeletal cottages reduced to piles of stones by the merciless winds. As Ragway saw it, marauding nature would return if he failed to convince the three grasping landlords that his quarry was, in all truth, losing money and in danger of closing unless they agreed to the terms he was about to put to them.

When he bought Brynllech it was making a modest profit and he had seen the venture as a way to integrate himself with the community, and, more important, provide him with the opportunity to become a local overlord in control of lives and destinies. Slate was then in demand: there was talk of a boom. But it was not to last…

Competition was coming from overseas, building styles were changing, the industry was going into decline. Yet the quarrymen’s Union, gaining strength despite the setbacks at Bethesda, was demanding higher wages, although production was falling. It was time for cutting costs, impossible at Brynllech without an injection of capital, for more bores were needed urgently, as many of the narrow vein facings were worked out.

None of these difficulties had been given consideration by the Three Crows; they had pushed all his arguments aside and looked around covetously at the magnificence of his home, at the princely style of his living. Not only did they defend the onerous overheads with which they burdened him, they were continually seeking more. In addition to basic rents, he had to meet a royalty of one fifteenth cash value of all slate removed. He also had to limit himself to set areas of working, and deviation from agreed shaft locations and depths being pounced upon immediately.

He was caught in a dilemma of an asset he would be unable to sell requiring extra capital with no guarantee of any return, a position exacerbated by the intransigence of Welsh landlords determined, he was convinced, to meet and defeat the possibility of further exploitation by the English.

He heard the crunch of wheels on the drive. The carriages were arriving….

© Mark Pearson 2007

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image by aerialfroggof flickr.