Have you seen my wife, Mr Jones?

[lslaw.livejournal.com]

"Quickly, man!" the under-viewer roared. "Bring more buckets!"

"It's no good!" the miner called back. "The pumps have gone! The water's rising too fast! We'll never get it clear in time!"

"We have to try!" With furious vgour the under-viewer hurled himself at the blockage, wrenching at the stones with his pick, heedless of the coal-black water swirling around his knees and rising swiftly.

Rough hands grabbed his arms and hauled him away from the rockfall.

"No!" he bellowed. "There are men back there!"

"And men out here!" the miner insisted. "Sir; they won't leave you. You have to come now or we'll all die down here. Now come on!"

The miner half-led, half-dragged his boss along the tunnel. They were wading almost to their shoulders by the time they reached the ladder. Eager hands reached down and pulled the under-viewer up.

"Quickly, sir!" the miner insisted. "I'm right behind you."

They climbed fast, and beneath them the water boiled up, swift and angry, its turbulent roar ringing through the shaft.

"We need to get to the upper gallery!" The under-viewer reminded his men. "The water will slow down there."

Like rats from a flooded drain they poured out onto the hard floor of the upper gallery. The under-viewer flopped onto the ground and rolled over, reaching down to haul the miner up. Water spilled out across the floor, but it wasn't rising so fast, merely spreading out into the vast gallery.

"Get going!" the under-viewer ordered breathlessly. "Soon as you can, get climbing. We won't drown up here, but we might all freeze to death."

Slowly, the bedraggled men staggered up and climbed, weary and heartsore, up and out into the evening cool. Women rushed forward, wives and mothers and sisters folding their menfolk in blankets and pressing hot mugs of soup and cold mugs of whiskey into their hands, while the unlucky ones watched in vain for their husbands and sons and brothers to emerge.

The under-viewer slumped down in his daughter's care and watched through tear-filled eyes. The sky above was clear and the air was dry. Up here, no-one could have guessed at the horror which had been played out mere yards beneath the surface of the Earth.

He groped in his pocket, but his steel-rimmed spectacles were destroyed, crushed during his struggles, and he cut his fingers on the glass.

"You did everything you could," his daughter told him as she bandaged the cuts.

"It wasn't enough," he sighed. "It's never enough."