How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn
“Dai,” I said, “Cyfartha has gone down by himself to see if there is flooding.”
“O?” he said, and went on playing patience. “Is there news of your good father yet?”
“No,” I said, “I am going up to the house to see my mother, now just. Perhaps Cyfartha has met trouble, Dai.”
“My respects to your good mother,” he said, “and call in here on the way back, is it? I will have a couple of the boys here.”
“Right,” I said, and I could hear him shouting half-way up the Hill.
Fire-light was red on our curtains in the back, but Bron’s kitchen was dark, no smoke was coming from the chimney, and Gareth’s wooden engine was hiding its colours in the evening by the back door. That was strange, for the engine should have been inside long before, and the wash-house full of smells for supper, and Bron singing in the kitchen.
You know a loneliness and a quiet at such times.
“Mama,” I said, half-way through our back, “are you here?”
“Where else, then?” she asked me, from my father’s chair by the fire. “Is he with you?”
“No,” I said, and knew that she meant my father and was in terror for him, though in her voice was a slow carelessness that she had put there to try and assure herself and blind me. But I knew when I kissed her, and felt her shaking. And she was sitting in darkness, in my father’s chair.
“Will you have to eat, my little one?” she asked me, and that was wrong, too, for she had made no move before to ask.
“No, Mama,” I said, “only come up for a kiss, I have.”
“Your Dada has been gone since this morning, Huw,” she said, and I put an arm about her, and O, a pity that was a century of fire passed through me to feel her littleness, and to think of the men and women who had taken life from out of her.
“Yes, Mama,” I said. “So you are sitting in the dark to wait.”
“No,” she said, and staring wide in the fire, “I was in the wash-house peeling potatoes, and Ivor came.”
The kitchen went black about me, and my jaws were tight with fear for her and for myself.
“You have worried too much, Mama,” I said, but not in the voice that I knew.
“Do I know my own son?” my mother asked me, with quiet, and with a certainty of utterance that silenced me. “Ivor, I saw, and I smiled at him, and he smiled at me, and nodded his head.”
The plates on the dresser laughed in the fire-light and the wind put his lips to the chimney-pot and blew a little tune.
My mother looked at me and tried to smile, but her face was slack with weakness, and her mouth kept pulling in jerks that were ugly.
“I wonder what has come to your Dada?” she said, and her voice was like her mouth.
“I am going down now to see,” I said, and got up. “Is Bronwen out?”
“She is down at Iestyn’s pit,” my mother said. “She went with Olwen, this afternoon, to take dry clothes for him.”
“But he was coming up through our shaft,” I said.
“He was too long underground,” she said, “so they went to Iestyn’s pit in case he came back up there. The crowd was too big down the bottom, here.”
“They should never have left the house,” I said.
“It was something for them to do,” she said, and then she was crying, but not with tears.
“Mama,” I said, “no more thinking like this, is it? You are in darkness and frightened. Come you, now. A light, and a cup of tea, quick.”
“Leave me,” she said, and I never heard her sterner. “Go to your father.”
“Yes, Mama,” I said, and kissed her, and went from the house, and ran down the Hill to the Three Bells.
Dai was with the boys all in their working clothes and Dai’s cleaner than any, sharp with creases from the cupboard shelves, and tight for him. They all had a glass and Dai gave me one that was three fingers deep with brandy.
“Come you, Huw,” he said, “a health. To two good ones underground. Drink with love.”
We drank, and Dai seemed to have drunk only tea, but I was still coughing when we were down among the crowd at the pit-top, with Dai holding my arm, and fisting with his right, and the rest of us using picks and shovels to have a clear way. Over to the cage we went, with police making a baton charge from the boiler-house to keep the crowd from us.
“Have anybody come up?” Dai asked the sergeant.
“No,” the sergeant said, “and the water-gauge is still rising in there.”
“Right,” said Dai, and holding on to me until we were in the cage, “there is good to be in my clothes, and ready for work again. Not a button to meet on my trews, see, and string to keep me tidy round the middle. I have got a belly like a sow through sitting to swill in that old bar.”
The cage swung gently, not quite on the bottom level, for the water was up to the waist, and we stopped it where it would rest dry, and jumped, one by one, into a black stillness of quiet ice, walking through to the pumps as though chained at the ankles. One of the pumps was damaged, but the other looked to be sound, and we started to work on them till the engineers gave a signal up to the surface.
Good, it was, to hear the voice of them, and to know that the waters were beaten.
“They had a good try, whoever it was,” the engineer said. “No time to finish, thank God in His Goodness. There must have been more than a couple.”
“Cyfartha must have caught somebody at it,” Dai said. “You will find the rat in the water, here. But where is Cyfartha?”
“I wonder did he chase the others?” Gomer said.
“No surprise to me,” Dai said. “Let us find him. You have got the eyes. Come, you.”
So into the main we went, with candles high, and splashing at the rats, with water to the chest in places, and to the knees later. Then we came to the trouble.
The roof had fallen. Props had been weakened, and the pressure of water had torn away cogs as though made of paper.
“O, God,” Dai said, and feeling the rock with his hands, “is he under this?”
“Is my father?” I said, and seeing my mother plain beside me.
“Come on,” Dai said, “into it.”
Into it, yes, into it.
With fright chewing holes in me, and my mouth dry, and trembling, I went at it with the pick, and Dai doing the work of three beside me.
We had to smash through that dead weight of stone and clay, and carry it rock by rock and spadeful by spadeful out of our way, knowing that somewhere inside it my father or Cyfartha might be lying hurt, or dying, or dead.
As we worked we prayed, and between the prayers, we cursed the heavy, dead, stupid hardness of the stone and the thick, lifeless clay, and then prayed each time we strained to lever a bit of rock that some sign would be given to us that we were near.
But we had to work carefully for the roof was soft and with low rumbles to warn us that more would come down on top of us if we put a pick too far or a shovel too high.
When we tired, others took our places, and when they were dropping, three more, until our turn came again, but all the time we were taking rocks away, or piling clay and muck. To the knees in water, and bent, for there was only four feet of head room and knowing we must work fast, but held back because of the danger of a fall to make our work a waste of time.
The candles began to go, and a man went back for more, and something to drink, for we were dying down there, so hot it was, so filled with dust, and a scum of dust thick on the water, and mud to the calves, and water rising fast as we worked downwards.
Dai was thick with mud, and throwing rocks from him as fast as he could have his hands on them, with a curse for each one, and his mouth in a wide line of hate, and his eyes mad through shining black muck, using the pick now, and nobody able to go near because of its bite, and throwing it down to pull out more rock, and toss it behind him, careless where it went as long as it was not in front.
Hour after hour we were down there, and with every yard, air
And muscle screaming please to rest, if only to straighten the shouting back, or stretch the torn palms of the hands.
But Dai Bando was up in front there, burrowing without a stop, working in darkness, feeling for rock with his hands, no sound only the sobs of his breath, and in his crouched back, a mightiness of threat to any who stayed even to hitch his trews.
Then Dai shouted, a high whisper of a shout, that sent ants crawling up my head.
“Cyfartha,” he was shouting, “here is his coat, see.”
“Up in a stall road,” I said, for we had worked close to the wall and the coat was in the hole going up to the right.
“Clear the main, or the stall road?” Dai said.
Everybody stopped work.
If we went on up the main, we might be leaving Cyfartha and perhaps my father up in the stall road.
If we worked up the stall road they might be dying in the main in front of us.
I believe God the Father knows how you feel at such a time and sends a sign.
We had a sign, then.
We heard Cyfartha’s pick hitting a signal on a rock.
Up in the stall road.
If we had gone on working, we should never have heard.
And Dai, who had never been in Chapel to pray since a boy, hit his hands together, and fell on his knees in the muck, crying like a woman.
“O God,” he said, “with thanks I am, for this gift to me. Cyfartha is the blood of my heart. Have my eyes and my arms. I am thankful. In Jesus Christ. Amen.”
“Amen,” said we all.
“Give me the bloody pick,” Dai said, with new life. “Stand away now.”
And the pick swung and struck as though he had just started.
“Mind the roof, Dai,” Gomer said, in fear, for the pick was driving deep, and the stone above us was growling.
“To hell with the roof,” Dai said, like an animal, “God is with us, and bloody near time, too.”
Behind us we heard men coming, and saw lanterns, with the manager and more of the men behind him.
“Right,” he said, “you men can go to the surface. I am proud of you.”
But Dai went on picking and pulling, and none of us stopped.
“Come on,” he said, with sharpness, “these men are fresh.”
“I will crush him in pieces,” Dai screamed, up in the narrow tunnel, “I will have Cyfartha from here. Tell him to go to bloody hell, with him.”
And the manager knew, and the rock came back, and back, and Dai went up, and up, lying full length now, and a man behind, full length, and behind him, another, full length, passing rock and muck behind, one to another, with the roof touching our backs, and our bellies in blood from stones and black heat that was pain to breathe, about us.
And Dai screamed again, a sound of terror, and of triumph, dulled by the tunnel and the heat and footage.
“Cyfartha,” he was screaming, “Cyfartha. Back out.”
“Back out,” Gomer said, in front of me, and his boot soles came close to my face to bruise.
“Back out,” I said, to Willie, behind me, and I slid back, taking my rock with me.
“Back out,” Willie said, to his hind man.
Out of the heading we crawled, and Gomer coming to fall in a faint in the water, and then Dai.
If the Devil rises from the Pit as Dai came from the tunnel, a few of us are booked to die a second death with fear.
Black, and naked, and with lumps of mud stuck to his head and shoulders, and all of him shaking with strength that has gone weak, he shone wet in the lantern lights, and his eyes framed with pink, sightless with tears, and his mouth wide to the roof to breathe.
And in his arms Cyfartha, black, too, and still.
“Is my father up there?” I asked him.
“Up there,” Cyfartha said, but only just. “I was after him.”
“I will take Cyfartha to the top,” Dai said, “and back, then, for your father.”
“I am going in,” I said.
“I love you as a son,” Dai said. “Go you.”
So up I went, and as far as Dai had gone, in a little chamber of rock, and more rock piled in front again.
“Dada,” I shouted, “are you near me?”
I hit my pick on stone and listened.
Only the growling up above, and voices from behind in the tunnel.
So on I went again, pick and pull, pick and pull and wasting more time getting the rock back, and scooping mud, and trying to shovel.
And then I found him.
Up against the coal face, he was, in a clearance that the stone had not quite filled.
I put my candle on a rock, and crawled to him, and he saw me, and smiled.
He was lying down, with his head on a pillow of rock, on a bed of rock, with sheets and bedclothes of rock to cover him to the neck, and I saw that if I moved only one bit, the roof would fall in.
He saw it, too, and his head shook, gently, and his eyes closed.
He knew there were others in the tunnel.
I crawled beside him, and pulled away the stone from under his head, and rested him in my lap.
“Willie,” I said, “tell them to send props, quick.”
I heard them passing the message down, and Willie trying to pull away enough rock to come in beside me.
“Mind, Willie,” I said, “the roof will fall.”
“Have you found him?” Willie asked me, and scraping through the dust.
“Yes,” I said, and no heart to say more.
My father moved his head, and I looked down at him, sideways to me, and tried to think what I could do to ease him, only for him to have a breath.
But the Earth bore down in mightiness, and above the Earth, I thought of houses sitting in quiet under the sun, and men roaming the streets to lose voice, breath, and blood, and children dancing in play, and women cleaning house, and good smells in our kitchen, all of them adding more to my father’s counter-pane. There is patience in the Earth to allow us to go into her, and dig, and hurt with tunnels and shafts, and if we put back the flesh we have torn from her and so make good what we have weakened, she is content to let us bleed her. But when we take, and leave her weak where we have taken, she has a soreness, and an anger that we should be so cruel to her and so thoughtless of her comfort. So she waits for us, and finding us, bears down, and bearing down, makes us a part of her, flesh of her flesh, with our clay in place of the clay we thoughtlessly have shovelled away.
I looked Above for help, and prayed for one sweet breath for him, but I knew as I prayed that I asked too much, for how were all those tons to be moved in a moment, and if they were, what more hurt might be done to others.
Afraid I was, to put my hands with tenderness upon his face, for my touch, though with the love of the heart, might be an extra hurt, another weighing, for they were with dirt and cuts, and ugly with work that was senseless, not good to put before his eyes, for they were the hands of the Earth that held him.
His eyes were swelling from his head with pain and his mouth was wide, closing only a little as with weakness, and then opening wide again, and his tongue standing forth as a stump, moveless, dry, thick with dust.
And as the blood ran from his mouth and nose, and redness ran from his eyes, I saw the shining smile in them, that came from a brightness inside him, and I was filled with bitter pride that he was my father, fighting still, and unafraid.
His head trembled, and pressed against me as he made straight the trunk of his spine and called upon his Fathers, and my lap was filling with his blood, and I saw the rocks above him moving, moving, but only a little. And then they settled back, and he was still, but his eyes were yet beacons, burning upon the mountain-top of his Spirit.
I shut my eyes and thought of him at my side, my han
Air rushed from his throat and blew dust from his tongue, and I heard his voice, and in that strange noise I could hear, as from far away, the Voice of the Men of the Valley singing a plain amen.
So I closed his eyes and shut his jaw, and held him tight to me, and his bristles were sharp in my cuts, and I was heavy with love for him, as he had been, and with sadness to know him gone.
“We can move the rocks now, Willie,” I said.
“O Christ, Huw,” Willie said, “is he out, then?”
“Yes,” I said, and feeling warmth passing from between my hands, “my Dada is dead.”
“Hard luck, Huw, my little one,” Willie said, and coming to cry. “Hard old bloody luck, indeed. Good little man, he was.”
My mother sat in the rocking-chair with her hands bound in her apron, and looked through the open doorway up at the mountain-top.
“God could have had him a hundred ways,” she said, and tears burning white in her eyes, “but He had to have him like that. A beetle under the foot.”
“He went easy, Mama,” I said.
“Yes,” she said, and laughed without a smile. “I saw him. Easy, indeed. Beautiful, he was, and ready to come before the Glory. Did you see his little hands? If I set foot in Chapel again, it will be in my box, and knowing nothing of it. O, Gwil, Gwil, there is empty I am without you, my little one. Sweet love of my heart, there is empty.”
Well.
It is strange that the Mind will forget so much, and yet hold a picture of flowers that have been dead for thirty years and more.
I remember the flowers that were on our window-sill while my mother was talking that morning, and I can see the water dripping from a crack in the red pot on the end, for Bronwen was standing there, with her face in deep, dull gold from the sun on the drawn blind.
Thirty years ago, but as fresh, and as near as Now.
No bitterness is in me, to think of my time like this. Huw Morgan, I am, and happy inside myself, but sorry for what is outside, for there I have failed to leave my mark, though not alone, indeed.