After that it all happened quickly. No one did it. They all did it, throwing loose tools, spanners and common rods, a heavy sledge, even the can of bath brick, into the mesh of slow, gleaming pistons. The sledge actually caused the damage. The sledge hit the crosshead, danced off and fell upon the main cylinder, cracked the main cylinder, then fell smash into the bearings. There was a horrible grinding and a hiss of steam. The smooth machinery twisted and shivered and locked itself abominably. The whole engine house shuddered to its foundation and was still.
Then Slattery shouted as if he had made a great discovery:
“It’s on fire. Jesus Christ! Look! It’s on fire there.”
They looked at the waste box from which flames were leaping and they looked at the still dead engines of the pumps. Then they made for the door. They squeezed through the door in a kind of panic. Jack Reedy stayed behind. Jack always was resourceful. He walked over to the oil drum and turned on the spigot. For a minute he watched the oil flow darkly. His gaze was pale and cold and bitterly triumphant. He had done something, done something. He walked quickly out and slammed the door.
Outside they stood packed in the yard. There were no flames at first, only thick coils of smoke, but soon the flames sprang, great tongues of flame.
They retreated a little before the flames which lit their upturned faces in the dark amphitheatre of the pit bank. Wafts of heat reached towards them through the coldness of the night. Then, as the flames sprang towards the power-house roof the slates began to pop. It was amazing how the slates popped. They popped off the roof like peas bouncing from a drum, one, two, three, a perfect hail of slates came pelting down, each making a lovely blazing curve, then crashing on the concrete yard.
The crowd retreated further, pressing back against the walls of the offices, back through the yard gates, back into Cowpen Street. They released Galton and Joe Davis. It was all right, all right now. Galton ran into the main office, ran to the telephone. They let him go. It was all right, all right now; another fusillade of slates came down and the lamp-room was alight and crackling. Galton began to telephone furiously. He telephoned Arthur, Armstrong and the fire-station. He telephoned the Lodge offices in Tynecastle. He left word at the Exchange to inform everyone in the district who might be of service in the emergency. Then he sprinted out of the office to do what he could do. As he came through the door into the yard a red-hot slate whizzed past his skull and missed splitting it by inches. The slate shattered on the office floor and the fragments scattered joyfully. One sizzled straight into the wastepaper basket. That set the offices on fire.
Everything was happening very fast. More men were entering the pit yard, Forbes the deputy, Harry Ogle, some of the officials and older colliers. Then the police came, Roddam, the sergeant, and a dozen men at the double. Galton joined the police, the deputy and the officials and ran with them to the safety room where Joe Davis had already uncoiled the hoses. They led the hoses out and coupled them to the hydrant, then Davis threw on the pressure. The hoses jerked and kicked and spouted water from a dozen slits. Someone had gashed the hoses. They were useless.
Arthur and Armstrong arrived simultaneously. Arthur had been reading in his room when Galton telephoned, Armstrong on the point of going to bed. They dashed up to the knot of men outside the safety room. While the leaping flames cast light and shadow across them they stood for a moment in rapid consultation, then Arthur rushed over to the offices to telephone. He found the offices on fire.
The Sleescale fire engine arrived at last and Camhow coupled up the hose line. A thin jet of water went hissing into the flames. Another hose was coupled and a second jet went up. But the jets were thin and feeble. And these two hoses were the only hoses that they had.
Things were happening faster now and there was more confusion. Men darted about the yard with their heads ducked down. Beams were falling and red-hot bricks. The flames ate everything, wood, rubble, stone and metal; the flames consumed them. Loud reports went off from time to time and the sound went booming through the town like gunfire from the sea. Cowpen Street was solid with the people, all watching, watching.
Half of the bank was razed when Heddon reached the pit. He raced from the station in the day-bright glare, fighting his way forward through the crowds. As he struggled to reach the yard two fire engines from Amalgamated Collieries came clanging down the street. He swung himself up on the tail of the last engine. He entered the Neptune yard.
The power house was gone now, the safety room, lamp room and pumping station. The wind, a freshening forced draught, was fanning the blaze under the broken gables of the offices. The heat was torrid.
Heddon threw off his coat and joined with the firemen from Amalgamated. Hose after hose sent its powerful stream hoisting upon the flaming bank: steam boiled amongst the smoke and raised a pall that hung and drifted sluggishly. Ladders went scaling up. Men ran, climbed, hacked and sweated. And the night passed.
When the dawn broke there was no fire, only a smouldering. The grey cold light of the morning showed that; and all the desolation of the wreckage.
Arthur, supporting himself against a ladder, gazed upon the wrecked pit-surface. A sigh broke from his chest. He knew there was worse below. Suddenly he heard someone shouting. It was Heddon.
“Here, Armstrong,” Heddon shouted. “You’ll need to rig new pumps quick.”
Armstrong looked at Heddon and walked on. He walked up to the charred headstocks where Arthur stood beside the empty cage. In a cracked voice Armstrong said:
“We’d better see about new pumping gear. We’d better ring Tynecastle immediately if it’s to be any use.”
Arthur raised his head slowly. His brow was blacked, his eyes inflamed by smoke, his whole face empty.
“For God’s sake,” he whispered. “For God’s sake let me be.”
SIXTEEN
Despite the new and spirited memoranda in his diary beginning Further defence of Neptune Schedule P, and some complex figures multiplied determinedly in the margins of Robert Elsmere, Richard could not wholly understand. Every day at the hour of noon he struggled down to the foot of the lawn past the bare laburnum tree and balanced himself against the clean white gate of the paddock. This viewpoint, from which he could just see, and no more, the tops of the Neptune headstocks, he had named Observation Post No. 1. Strange, very strange: no signs of activity about the headstocks, neither steam nor smoke visible. Were the wheels spinning, the wheels of the winding headgear? Impossible to tell, even when the ringed eyes were shielded by both tremulous hands, telescope fashion, as befitted Observation Post No. 1. Strange, oh, very strange.
On this early January day he returned from Observation Post No. 1 with an air both baffled and triumphant: dimly aware that there was trouble, the trouble he had predicted. He was, indeed, triumphant solely because he had predicted trouble. They would call him in soon, presently, immediately! — to correct the trouble. They!
But for all his triumph he looked a shaky and ill old man. He walked very badly, even Aunt Carrie admitted that there was not much improvement with poor Richard lately, and as he came back across the lawn he staggered and almost fell. His walk was like a stuttering speech, made up of little runs and halts, a quick rush of steps, quicker and quicker, until suddenly the steps tripped themselves up and there was a stagger, then the steps had to wait and start again as though fumbling for the right syllable. But in spite of every difficulty Richard would take his walk alone, refusing Aunt Carrie’s arm with abruptness and even suspicion. It was quite natural; the man was interfered with, watched and threatened. He had his own interests to safeguard. A man must look after himself.