Six
It was already dark by the time the first casualties arrived in the village. Mr Davies, the landlord at The Farmers Arms had opened his rooms to receive some of the men being brought from the mine but had become quickly overwhelmed by the number of injured people needing space so Mr Williamson, the schoolmaster, agreed to open the school building as an overflow makeshift hospital.
A group of men from the village had organised a rescue party and headed to the site of the explosion to see how they could help. I offered my services but Mr Hopkin suggested it might be best that I stay to look after Mair on account of me being unfamiliar with the area and not knowing the language, so we quickly made our way to the school to see what we could do to help.
The main road of the village was chaotic. People dashed around in confusion as they waited for confirmation about their loved ones while men in carts brought injured men and bodies to be treated and identified. In the yard outside the school, Mrs Hopkin and another woman had set up a table with jugs of clean water and were taking turns ripping bed sheets that people were bringing from their homes, organising them into strips of bandages to be used for dressing wounds. A few metres away another group of women formed a production line from the entrance of the school and were transporting desks out of the building to make extra room in the classrooms. With most of the men helping in the rescue efforts, it was left to the women to move, carry, tend to the sick and collect clean water from the well outside.
Mair, her face grief-stricken, wandered in circles around the premises in search of updates. She had begged to be allowed to go with the men on the rescue operation, and I had no doubt that she would have clawed on her hands and knees in search of her brother had she been allowed, but Mr Jones, who had organised the first group, would not hear of it.
In the field next to the school, placed carefully in rows, the bodies of the deceased that had been carted to the village were being placed under blankets in an effort to not distress the wounded and bereaved further, while also giving people a chance to identify their husbands, sons and fathers. As soon as the first bodies were moved there Mair rushed over.
“I can’t lose him too,” she said as she pulled back the sheet on a body lying on the ground. A young man lay underneath, his face covered in dirt and blood. Mair took a sharp intake of breath and brought her hand to her mouth at the sight. “Owen Thomas,” she whispered before hurriedly covering his bloodied face back up, “I went to school with him.”
I grabbed her at the shoulders and raised her to her feet. Her body trembled, a mix of cold and shock, and she shook me off to move to the next body in the line. I wanted to tell her that it would be ok, that her brother would be fine, but as the number of sheets in the field increased it was feeling more and more unlikely.
As more people arrived in the village the noise in the school yard turned so loud that it was nearly impossible to distinguish one voice from another. People were shouting out from all sides, barking instructions or calling out for loved ones in the hope that someone may answer back. The wails of the injured carried on the wind and sent shivers across my skin but it was the cries of anguish from those reunited with the bodies of their relatives that were the worst sounds of all. I didn’t need to understand their words to know what they were all thinking and feeling.
Mair moved further along the row peeling back sheets and staring down at the bodies of friends and neighbours and every time she did, her face filled with the same look of relief that it was not her brother, and a sadness that it was somebody else’s.
“Tom, come quickly.” I turned to see Nellie at the entrance to the school beckoning me over. As soon as we’d gotten word of what had happened she’d fallen straight into action and called for the organisation of the classrooms to receive the wounded, proving herself to be a competent and confident leader. Mair gave me a nod to let me know she would be fine and I ran to where Nellie stood. “I need your help inside,” she said as she rushed back into the building.
Her aprons were covered in blood and her hair had come loose and fallen in little waves down past her shoulders but was kept out of her face with a veil tied at the back of her neck. It was a stark contrast to the composed and well-kept demeanour she always presented.
“Where are all the doctors and nurses?” I asked as we rushed through the corridor weaving in and out of people, some coming and going in their efforts to help while others stood waiting for updates on the men inside the classrooms. The building was small which left it feeling cramped and I was struggling to get through the mass. There were only two classrooms that I could see, and Nellie led me to the furthest one. “Shouldn’t a doctor be taking over here and treating the wounded?”
She came to a stop outside the classroom and turned to face me. “These men can’t afford doctors,” she said, exasperated, “and even if they could there is only one and he’s at the mine. We are all they’ve got. Now, are you going to help me or not?”
Her usual smile and charming demeanour were gone, replaced with determination and self-assuredness and she clearly had no time for my questions. I nodded affirmatively and she walked inside the classroom.
Twelve men were being treated in the room, lying on the floor amongst sheets and bandages as young women whizzed around trying to treat them. Some had lost consciousness but most were crying out in agony or shock and I tried to avoid making eye contact with them in case they could sense the fear in me.
“I only have a little first-aid training,” Nellie said, kneeling beside a man and pulling back his sheets, “but I know this leg needs setting.”
I looked down and then immediately away wishing I’d mentally prepared myself for the sight. Protruding from the man's leg and covered in blood was the splintered end of his shin bone which had pierced his skin and torn a hole through his trousers. I offered him a reassuring smile and he stared back at me with gritted teeth and heavy breaths as he tried to stop himself from screaming.
“Take his shoulders, Mr Jacob.” She grabbed scissors and cut at his trousers exposing his entire left leg and the many cuts on his skin. She said something to one of the other women in Welsh who proceeded to place a wooden rod into the man’s mouth and his eyes went wide with panic. “This is going to hurt,” she said, and I wasn’t sure if it was me she was telling or the patient.
He writhed in pain as she put her hands near the wound and I pushed on his shoulders to stop his attempts to sit up and pull away. When she wrapped her hand underneath his calf he let out a blood-chilling scream and I looked away immediately unable to meet his terrified stare.
“Now,” Nellie shouted, and without looking I pushed down hard on the man's shoulders. He let out another gut-wrenching scream and the sound of crunching bone echoed across the room. A second later his body became limp and he passed out.
“He’ll wake up soon enough,” she said, grabbing two bits of wood that were piled beside her and affixing them to his leg as a makeshift splint. A girl of about twelve years old ran over to her offering bandages and she took a handful, setting them down in her lap, then she made a command in Welsh to a woman standing nearby who nodded her head and disappeared down the corridor.
“Tom, take these and apply pressure to that boy's head.” She handed me a pile of bandages and pointed to a young lad sitting on the floor near the corner of the room. His face was featureless through the soot but he couldn’t have been much older than ten.
With the bandages in hand, I kneeled in front of him and offered a reassuring smile, but his expression remained unchanged, terrified. From behind me, a girl brought a bowl filled with water and cloths, though neither looked particularly clean, and I began cleaning his face as best as I could to get a better look at him. He had a cut above his eye that was bleeding into his eyebrow and running down the side of his face but seemed otherwise unharmed.
“I’m Tom,” I said, wiping the cloth across his cheek. “What’s your name?”
He took a moment before finally replying. “Daniel.”
“We’re going to get you cleaned up and you’ll be right as rain, ok? Do you remember what happened?”
“I don’t know,” he said. His voice was shaky and quiet and his eyes remained fixed in the distance. “I ran to the cage to go up top for help and then there was a bang. Next thing I know, Mr Granville was putting me in the cart and bringing me here.”
“It looks like you’ve taken quite a bump to the head,” I said, noticing the lump forming above his eye and cautiously running the wet cloth over it. “Your mother and father will be here looking for you shortly and then you can go home and rest.”
“My father was still down there, sir,” he said, and for the first time, his eyes began to fill with tears. He wiped them away with his cuff, smearing more dirt across his face. I had no idea what to say to him that could make any of this any better.