‘I told you, they simply don’t give a damn!’ the engineer shouted. ‘And what the bloody hell have you been doing? Aren’t you supposed to supervise them?’
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ stammered the overman. ‘But I might as well talk to a brick wall – ’
‘Maheu! Maheu!’ Négrel bellowed.
They all came down, and he continued:
‘Look at it. Do you really think that’s going to hold?…It’s completely botched. Look at that cross-timber there, the uprights aren’t even supporting it any more. And all because the whole thing was done in such a hurry. It’s obvious…God! No wonder the timbering’s costing us so much. Just as long as everything holds firm while you’re responsible, isn’t that it? And then it all collapses and the Company has to bring in an army of men to fix it…Just look over there! It’s a total mess!’
Chaval was about to speak, but Négrel cut him short.
‘No, don’t bother, I know what you’re going to say. Why don’t we pay you more, eh? Well, I can tell you now, you’ll leave management with no alternative. Yes, we’ll have to pay you separately for the timbering, and we’ll reduce the rate for a tub accordingly. Then we’ll soon see if you’re better off…In the meantime, replace those props immediately. I’ll be back tomorrow to check.’
And off he went, leaving them in silent shock at his threat. Dansaert, so humble in Négrel’s presence, remained behind for a few moments and spoke to them in no uncertain terms:
‘You’ll bloody get me into trouble, you lot…I warn you now. You’ll get more than a three-franc fine from me, I can tell you.’
After he had gone, it was Maheu’s turn to explode:
‘God damn it! It’s simply not fair. I’m all for remaining calm, because that’s the only way to get anywhere, but in the end they just drive you mad!…Did you hear what he said? A reduced rate for the tubs and the timbering paid separately! It’s just another way of paying us less!…Lord God Almighty!’
He looked round for someone to take his anger out on and caught sight of Catherine and Étienne standing there idly.
‘Just get me some props, will you? As if you bloody care anyway!…Hurry up, or you’ll feel my foot you know where.’
As he went to fetch some, Étienne felt no resentment at this rough treatment and was so angry with the bosses himself that he thought the miners were being much too easygoing.
Levaque and Chaval for their part had vented their fury in a string of oaths, and all of them, including Zacharie, were now timbering away like men possessed. For almost half an hour all that could be heard was the creaking of wooden props being sledge-hammered into position. Breathing heavily with their mouths now firmly shut, the men waged their desperate battle against the rock, which, had they been able, they would have raised or shoved to one side with a simple heave of the shoulder.
‘That’ll do!’ Maheu said finally, spent from anger and exhaustion. ‘Half past one…Huh! Some day’s work! We’ll not make fifty sous!…Well, I’m off, I’ve had quite enough.’
Although there was still half an hour to go, he put his clothes back on. The others did likewise. It made them angry now just to look at the coal-face. Catherine had gone back to rolling her tub, and they had to call her, irritated by her zeal: the coal could remove itself for all they cared. And so the six of them departed, with their tools under their arms, and walked the two kilometres back to the shaft by the route they had followed that morning.
Inside the chimney Catherine and Étienne lingered for a moment as the four hewers slid down to the bottom. They had chanced on little Lydie, who had stopped in the middle of her road to let them pass and was now telling them how La Mouquette had been absent for an hour after having such a bad nose-bleed that she’d had to go off to wash her face. After they had gone, the child, exhausted and covered in grime, returned to pushing her tub, straining forward with her matchstick arms and legs like some thin black ant struggling with a load that is too big for it. Meanwhile Catherine and Étienne slithered down the chimney on their backs, pressing their shoulders flat so as not to graze their foreheads; and such was the speed of their descent down the rock-face, worn smooth by every backside in the mine, that from time to time they had to catch on to the timbering to slow themselves – so their bums didn’t catch fire, they jokingly said.
Down at the bottom they found themselves alone. In the distance red stars were disappearing round a bend in the roadway. Their merriment ceased and they began to walk, with a heavy, tired tread, Catherine in front, Étienne behind. The lamps were smoking and he could barely see her through the foggy haze. It disturbed him to know that Catherine was a girl because he felt he was stupid not to kiss her and to let the memory of Chaval having done so prevent him. But there could be no doubt that she had lied to him: that man was her lover, they must be at it all the time on every available spoil-heap, for she already knew how to swing her hips like a slut. He sulked, quite without reason, as if she had been unfaithful to him. She, on the other hand, kept turning round to warn him about obstacles in his path, as though encouraging him to be more friendly. They were completely lost, they could have had such fun together! But eventually they came out into the main haulage roadway. Étienne felt released from his agony of indecision, while Catherine gave him one last look of sadness, full of regret for a moment of happiness that might never come their way again.
They now found themselves surrounded by the commotion of life underground, as deputies passed at regular intervals and tub-trains came and went, hauled along at the trot by the horses. An endless succession of Davy lamps pricked the darkness. They had to press themselves against the rock to let the shadowy presences of man and beast go past, feeling their breath on their faces as they did so. Jeanlin, running barefoot behind his train, yelled some piece of wickedness at them, but it was lost amid the rumble of the wheels. On they went, she now silent, he unable to recognize a single fork or junction from that morning’s journey and imagining that she was leading him further and further astray beneath the earth. What ailed him most was the cold: it had felt increasingly chilly ever since they had left the coal-face, and the closer they came to the shaft, the more he shivered. Once again the air being funnelled between the narrow walls was blowing like a gale. They were beginning to despair of ever reaching the shaft when suddenly they found themselves at pit-bottom.
Chaval looked at them askance, his lips pursed in suspicion. The others, similarly silent, were standing there sweating in the icy draughts and busy trying to swallow their sense of grievance. They had arrived too early and were not being allowed up for another half-hour, especially as some elaborate operation was under way to bring down a horse. The onsetters were still loading tubs into the cages, with a deafening noise of clanking metal, and the cages would vanish up into the driving rain falling from the black hole. Down below, the bougnou – a sump ten metres deep where all the water gathered – gave off its own slimy dampness. Men were milling about constantly in the vicinity of the shaft, pulling signal-ropes, pressing levers, their clothes drenched by the spray. The reddish glow from the three open lamps cast huge moving shadows and lent this underground chamber the air of a robbers’ den, like a bandit forge beside a mountain stream.
Maheu made one last attempt. He approached Pierron, who had begun his shift at six, and said:
‘Come on, surely you could let us go up?’
But the onsetter, a handsome fellow with strong limbs and a gentle face, refused with a gesture of alarm:
‘I just can’t. Ask the deputy…I’d get fined.’
There was further muttering. Catherine leaned over and whispered in Étienne’s ear:
‘Come and see the stable. It’s nice and warm in there.’
And they had to slip away without being seen, because it was forbidden to go in there. The stable was situated on the left, at the end of a short roadway. Hollowed out of the rock and measuring twenty-five metres long by four metres high, it had a vaulted brick ceiling and could accom
modate twenty horses. It was indeed nice and cosy in there, warm with the heat of living animals and smelling sweetly of fresh, clean straw. The one single lamp shone steadily like a nightlight. The horses resting there turned to look, with wide, childlike eyes, and then went back to munching their oats, unhurriedly, the picture of well-fed workers whom everybody loves.
But as Catherine was reading out the names on the metal labels above the mangers, she gave a little cry when a human form suddenly rose up in front of her. It was La Mouquette emerging startled from the pile of straw where she had been sleeping. On Mondays, when she was too tired to work after her exertions on Sunday, she would give herself a punch on the nose, leave the coal-face on the pretext that she needed to bathe it, and then come here and snuggle down with the animals in their warm bedding. Her father, who had a very soft spot for her, would let her be, at the risk of getting into trouble.
And at that very moment old Mouque walked in. He was a short, bald man, battered-looking but still with plenty of flesh on him, which was unusual for an ex-miner who had turned fifty. Ever since he had been put in charge of the horses, he had taken to chewing tobacco so much that his gums bled and his mouth was all black. When he saw the pair of them with his daughter, he was furious.
‘What the hell are you all doing in here? Come on, out you go! Little trollops, bringing a man in here like this!…And using my nice, clean straw for your dirty deeds!’
La Mouquette thought this hilarious and laughed helplessly. But Étienne was embarrassed and left, while Catherine simply gave him a smile. Just as the three of them were making their way back to pit-bottom, Bébert and Jeanlin also arrived on the scene, bringing a tub-train. There was a pause as the tubs were loaded into the cage, and Catherine went up to their horse and stroked it as she told her companion all about him. This was Battle, a white horse with ten years’ service2 and something of an elder statesman. He had spent the ten years down the mine, occupying the same corner of the stable and doing the same job every day up and down the roadways; and not once in that time had he seen daylight. Very fat, with a gleaming coat and a good-natured air, he seemed to be living the life of a sage, sheltered from the misfortunes of the world above. Moreover, down here in the darkness, he had become very crafty. The roadway in which he worked had now grown so familiar to him that he could push the ventilation doors open with his head, and he knew where to stoop and avoid getting bumped at the places where the roof was too low. He must have counted his journeys too because when he had completed the regulation number, he flatly refused to start another and had to be led back to his manger. Old age was now approaching, and his cat-like eyes sometimes clouded over with a look of sadness. Perhaps he could dimly remember the mill where he had been born, near Marchiennes, on the banks of the Scarpe, a mill surrounded by broad expanses of greenery and constantly swept by the wind. There had been something else, too, something burning away up in the air, some huge lamp or other, but his animal memory could not quite recall its exact nature. And he would stand there unsteadily on his old legs, head bowed, vainly trying to remember the sun.
Meanwhile the operation was continuing in the shaft. The signal-hammer had struck four times and they were bringing the horse down, which was always an anxious moment because occasionally the animal would be so terrified that it would be dead on arrival. Up on the surface it would struggle wildly as they wrapped it in a net; then, as soon as it felt the ground vanish from under its feet, it would go quite still, petrified with fear, and disappear from view, its eyes wide and staring, without so much as a quiver along its coat. This particular horse had been too big to fit between the cage guides, and when they had hooked its net below the cage they had been obliged to tie its head back against its flanks. The descent took nearly three minutes, as they had to slow the winding-engine for safety’s sake. The tension mounted, therefore, as they waited for it below. What was happening? Surely they weren’t going to leave him there dangling in the dark? Finally he appeared, as motionless as stone, his staring eyes dilated with terror. It was a bay, hardly three years old, called Trumpet.
‘Mind out, mind out!’ shouted old Mouque, whose job it was to receive him. ‘Bring him over here. No, don’t untie him yet.’
Soon Trumpet was lying in a heap on the cast-iron floor. He did not stir, seemingly still caught up in the nightmare of the dark, bottomless hole and this noisy chamber deep beneath the earth. They were beginning to untie him when Battle, who had just been unharnessed, came over and stretched out his neck to sniff this new companion who had dropped from the earth above. The workers made a circle round them and began to joke. Mmm, now then, what lovely smell was that? But Battle was becoming more excited, impervious to their mockery. He must have caught the scent of good fresh air and the long-forgotten smell of sun-drenched grass. And suddenly he gave a loud whinny, a song of gladness that could also have been a sob of tender pity. This was his way of welcoming a newcomer: with joy at the fragrant reminder of former days and with sadness at the sight of yet another prisoner who would never return to the surface alive.
‘Come and look at Battle!’ the workers called to each other, entertained by the antics of their old favourite. ‘He’s having a chat with his new comrade!’
Now untied, Trumpet still did not move. He continued to lie on his side, garrotted by fear, as if he could still feel the net tightening round him. Eventually they got him to his feet with the flick of a whip, and he stood there dazed, his legs quivering. And as old Mouque led them away, the two horses pursued their fraternal acquaintance.
‘Well? Now can we go up?’ Maheu inquired.
The cages had to be emptied first, and in any case there were still ten minutes to go before it was time for the ascent. Gradually the coal-faces were emptying, and all the miners were making their way back along the roadways. Some fifty men had already gathered, soaked to the skin and shivering, their lungs a prey to the pneumonia that threatened from every side with every draught of air. Pierron, for all his smooth exterior, slapped his daughter Lydie for leaving the coal-face early. Zacharie slyly pinched La Mouquette – for the warmth, he said. But unrest was growing as Chaval and Levaque spread word of the engineer’s threat to lower the rate per tub and pay them separately for timbering; noisy protests greeted the proposal, and the spirit of rebellion began to germinate here in this tiny space some six hundred metres below the surface of the earth. Soon they could contain themselves no longer, and these men who were filthy with coal and frozen stiff from waiting now accused the Company of killing half its workers underground while they let the other half die of starvation. Étienne listened to them, trembling with outrage.
‘Hurry up! Hurry up!’ the deputy called Richomme kept shouting at the onsetters.
He was trying to hasten preparations for the ascent, not wanting to have to reprimand the men and pretending not to hear them. However, the protests became so loud that he was obliged to intervene. Behind him people were shouting that things couldn’t go on like this for ever and that one fine day the whole bloody lot would go up with a bang.
‘You’re a sensible fellow,’ he told Maheu. ‘Tell them to be quiet. When you haven’t got the fire-power, it’s always best to hold your peace.’
But Maheu, who had calmed down and was beginning to grow nervous, was spared having to intervene, for all at once everyone fell silent. Négrel and Dansaert were emerging from one of the roadways on their way back from their inspection, and both were covered in sweat like everyone else. Habit and discipline meant that the men stood back as the engineer walked through the group without a word. He climbed into one tub, the overman into another, and five pulls on the signal-rope followed – for a ‘special meat load’, as they called it when it was the bosses themselves. And amid the sullen silence the cage vanished upwards into thin air.
VI
In the cage taking him to the surface, squashed into a tub with four other people, Étienne made up his mind to take to the open road once more and continue his hungry searc
h for work. He might as well die straight away as go back down that hell-hole and not even earn enough to live on. Catherine was in a tub higher up, so he could not now feel that lovely, soothing warmth against his body. Anyway he would rather not start getting any silly ideas. It was much better he left. He’d had more of an education than the rest of them, which meant he didn’t share their herd-like sense of resignation, and he’d only end up strangling the life out of one boss or another.
Suddenly he was blinded. The ascent had been so swift that he was left stunned by the daylight, and his eyelids quivered in the brightness to which he had already grown so unaccustomed. But it was a relief all the same to feel the cage lock into its keeps. A banksman opened the gate, and a stream of workmen poured out of the tubs.
‘Hey, Mouquet,’ Zacharie whispered in the banksman’s ear. ‘Are we off to the Volcano tonight?’
The Volcano was a café in Montsou which offered musical entertainments. Mouquet winked with his left eye, and a broad grin spread across his face. Short and stocky like his father, he had the cheeky look of a fun-loving lad who grabs what’s going without a thought for the morrow. La Mouquette was just then coming out of the cage, and he gave her an enormous whack across the bottom as a mark of brotherly affection.
Étienne hardly recognized the tall nave of the pit-head, which had previously seemed so sinister in the eerie, flickering light of the lanterns. Now it just looked bare and dirty. A grubby light filtered through the dusty windows. The one exception, at the far end, was the winding-engine with all its gleaming brasswork; otherwise the greasy steel cables flew up and down like ribbons that had been steeped in ink, while the pulleys up above in their enormous iron framework, the cages and the tubs, the whole prodigal array of metal, made the place seem dingy by lending it the harsh grey tones of old scrap. The sheets of cast-iron flooring shook beneath the ceaseless rumble of the wheels, and from the coal in the tubs rose a fine dust which turned everything black, the floor, the walls, even the beams high up in the headgear.