The Burning.
by Justin Richards.
Chapter One.
Fighting Fire.
The fire was a living thing. Burning. Roaring its way through the roof timbers and running liquid down the front of the building. It licked its way out of the eye*windows of the house, crackling and cackling in the doorway.
The glow was hot on the boy's face as he watched. His eyes were wide, his mouth an open 'o' of rapture. He sat immobile, letting the firelight dance and flicker in his eyes and across his reddened cheeks. The blur of movement, of people running, buckets passed, hoses unwound, hands at the pump, was lost to him. Only the flames mattered, the heat. The burning.
'There you are.' There was relief mixed in with the annoyance in her voice. 'Mum was worried. We all were.'
He did not reply. He leaned slightly to the side, to watch the flames past her. They seemed to erupt from the black silhouette of her body in the autumn dusk.
'Supper's been on the table for an hour,' she said. 'Don't you know what time it is?' More anger now. 'What do you think you're doing?'
'Watching.' His voice was barely more than a whisper. 'I'm watching the fire, aren't I?'
She raised her hand, ready to cuff him for his insolence. 'I can see that,' she hissed. 'But it's time to come home. Long past time. Mum'll learn you to be late when we get back.'
There was a crack from across the street as a wooden beam gave way under the onslaught of the fire. It crashed through the weakened first floor joists sending cascades of sparks flying out of the ruptured roof and through the sightless windows. The girl turned to watch.
For a moment, the briefest of instants, her expression mirrored her brother's awe, excitement, rapture. For an instant she too seemed to see the beauty and life in the dance of the flames. Her hand rested on her young brother's shoulder, holding it affectionately, protectively.
Then a fireman ran across in front of her, oilskin jacket glistening as the water from the steam pump dried in the heat. Behind him a horse whinnied and trod the air in fright and surprise at the sparks and the flames. The steam pump lurched as the horses moved. Firelight gleamed off the brass of the boiler mounted on its carriage. Black smoke rose from the funnel, mingling with that from the house fire. The people encircling the burning house stepped back, as if part of the dance, as the fire jumped and raced to the adjacent house and started to rip into its roof with a dry throaty cackle.
'Mum says you're to come now,' the girl said. Her voice was husky and dry, barely audible above the cracking and popping of the fire and the cry of the horses and the people. Somewhere down the street a baby cried. At the front of the house the flames balled and gathered, as if preparing for an attack on the house opposite. The fire was gathering itself.
The boy licked his lips.
Chapter Two.
Manson's Progress.
The tankard had a glass bottom. Harry had told him more times than he cared to recall how he was forced to watch the beer slosh about as Pete Manson drank. Harry had also told him just as often that he didn't care for the view of the inside of Pete's mouth as he drained the pint. But Pete didn't care. In fact, it made him smile almost every time he saw the picture etched on to the bare of the tankard emerge from the froth and body of the ale.
Almost every time. But not today. He kept the tankard raised as the last drips of warm liquid ran into his mouth. Even the beer didn't stay cold in winter these days. What was happening to the weather? The picture revealed on the glass disc beneath the ale was a gallows. Not an especially good sketch, it showed a sticklike figure hanging from the noose. There was nobody else depicted. The man was dying in a world of his own. Beneath his perpetual death was inscribed: 'The Last Drop'.
The last drop indeed, Pete reflected as he set down the tankard and wiped his mouth. His last drink in The Pig and Trumpet The Pig and Trumpet. His last drink with Harry Devlin. His last ale in Middletown.
'Another?' Harry asked, as if offering a reprise.
Pete shook his head.
'This is it then.'
'This is it,' Pete agreed.
'Well.' Harry considered. He pulled himself slightly unsteadily to his feet. 'You'd best be off then.'
'Best be off,' Pete repeated. a fair walk to Ambleton.' He stood up beside Harry Devlin. He reached almost to Harry's shoulder. He felt his hand smothered by Harry's huge paw as the big man sadly said his farewells. Then abruptly, Pete felt himself dragged into a crushing embrace. When he stepped back, there were tears in Harry's eyes.
'We'll miss you, lad,' Harry said. 'You have to go, I suppose.'
Pete looked round the public house. It was almost deserted. By eleven in the morning on a Saturday it should be heaving with life. They should have to shout to be heard. As it was, the loudest sound was the click of the dominoes from the other side of the room. 'I have to go,' he said. 'Nothing to keep me here. Not now the mine's closing. You know that.'
Harry nodded. 'I'd go myself,' he said, staring past Pete as if afraid to look at him. 'If I had anywhere to go.'
Pete slapped him on the shoulder. 'And you've got Rosie and the kids to think about.' He tried to sound bright, optimistic. 'Hey, you're the foreman. You'll get another job easy.'
'Sure I will,' Harry said quietly. 'Mind how you go, eh?'
Pete laughed, but there was little humour in him. 'I'm only going to Ambleton, no harm in that.' He hefted his holdall over his shoulder.
The sound of breaking glass made them both flinch with surprise. A moment later there was another crash as the floor trembled beneath them. A bottle behind the bar edged and jiggled its way to the front of its shelf before toppling forwards and shattering on the flagged floor.
'Not again!' Arthur Melstead said loudly. He dropped the cloth he had been using to polish a glass and started to push bottles back deeper on to the shelves. He grabbed other bottles from the more crowded shelves and dumped them on the bar. 'Give us a hand, will you?' he shouted. He had to shout to be heard above the crash and splinter of glass. A framed map fell from a wall and cracked on to the table beneath. The lamps swung, spreading smoky trails of light in their wake.
'Another tremor,' Harry sighed. 'Best be on your way,' he said to Pete. 'Otherwise Arthur'll have you sweeping up and you'll be here all day.'
Arthur's noisy swearing cut across Pete's reply. Harry turned away. 'All right, all right, I'm here.'
The tremor was subsiding now, the shuddering of the floor, the shaking of the walls abated, faded. Stopped.
Middletown was dead. How many of the houses were empty shells now, Pete Manson wondered? There were a couple of hawkers in the street. A costermonger with a barrow of fruit and vegetables stood alone and forlorn on a corner. He exchanged a sullen nod with Manson.
The community had been and gone. Only the tin mine helped Middletown to ding on at all after the railway ignored the town and came to Ambleton instead. And now even the mine was closing. Empty factories, empty houses, empty ground. Soon there would be nothing left and the place would become in reality as well as name just the midway point between Ambleton and Branscombe*sub*Edge. A place defined by where it was rather than what what it was, with no identity of its own. it was, with no identity of its own.
The built*up centre of the town was very small, just a few streets. The housing was mainly stretched out towards where the factories had been. The mine was in the opposite direction, on the Ambleton side, and close to that was the remains of the original medieval village clustered round the small church. The church tower was the highest point on the skyline as Pete Manson left the main part of the town. A point of reference, somewhere to head for.
He passed the Reverend Stobbold outside the Grange. Visiting Lord Urton probably, Pete reflected as they exchanged greetings. Stobbold was the one person who was likely to get more work when the mine closed. Until everyone had realised that there was nothing left for them here and moved on. He reckoned Lord Urton himself would be on his way before long. Without the mine, he had no income. His last desperate gamble to keep it open, to find a new seam of tin, had failed. Local gossip had it that he had spent all his remaining money on building the dam.
They had drained the river, tunnelled underneath it along the dying vestiges of the most promising seam of metal. And found nothing. Just earth. That was when Pete had decided it was time to leave. That was when Lord Urton had announced that he would shortly have to close the mine. There was no resentment, no bitterness amongst the workforce. They all knew the mine hadn't made a profit in years. They all knew that Urton had kept it going, had kept their jobs going, for far longer than made any sense. Now he was ruined, just as his workers were. If anything, Pete and Harry and the others felt more keenly for Lord and Lady Urton than they did for themselves. In a way, they were themselves to blame.
Pete's plan once he got to Ambleton was simple. Find work if there was any. If not, then get on a train and go where there was was work. London, maybe? Birmingham? He had never travelled further than Ambleton before. Never been on a train even. work. London, maybe? Birmingham? He had never travelled further than Ambleton before. Never been on a train even.
In the distance he could see the dam, its pale stonework standing out against the darker rock that surrounded it at the head of the valley. It was a massive and massively expensive construction. Building the dam had provided employment for almost a year. More than that, it had imbued them with optimism, with a feeling that the future was assured and bright. For a while. Now it was simply a constant reminder of their folly, of the stark reality of life in Middletown.
It was the movement that attracted his gaze. He stood and watched for a while, shielding his eyes with his hand from the wintry sun. Despite the time of year it was hot, humid. He wondered whether it would be easier if he carried his coat. There was movement on the top of the dam. Tiny specks of red clustered at one end. Without making a conscious decision, Pete found he was heading that way. He could always join up, he thought. Army life couldn't be that bad.
He paused again, watching the tiny figures spreading out along the top of the dam. Several were hanging off the side on ropes, inspecting the workmanship. He had heard they were sending engineers from the barracks at Ambleton to check the structure after the tremors. Maybe they would want help from someone who had worked on the construction. Maybe there was a few shillings' work to be had there.
The dam and the church were equidistant from Manson. If he could see over the hill to his left. he thought, he would see that the entrance to the mine was also about the same distance away. He was in the centre of the triangle formed by the three constructions. More interestingly, he was standing on dry land where only a year ago there had been a river. The moorland was already reclaiming the land. Tufts of grass poked through the damp ground; the rocky outcrops echoed the rest of the moor between here and Ambleton. There was nothing now to show what had been here. Nothing save the dam.
As he stood considering this Pete Manson saw that the tiny figures on the top of the dam had become a blur. They were running to and fro, pausing perhaps to peer over the edge at the dry land one side, the new reservoir the other. They were hauling up the ropes with the tiny red figures clinging to the ends. But the blur was not caused by the motion of the figures. He felt it in his feet first. Then the sensation ran up his legs and he felt his whole body start to quiver as the ground bucked beneath his feet.
The grass was moving. Not just waving in the breeze. Not even trembling with the ground. It was parting, ripped aside, as a dark gash ran across the earth towards him, rupturing the moorland. creating a new river along the bed of the old. It was heading straight for him, but Pete Manson could not move.
It was as much as he could do to maintain his balance. And there was the heat. He could feel it through the soles of his boots. His feet were getting warmer. Burning. There was a hot smell in the air, more than just the sun on the rocks. Like a fire just as it catches in the grate. And the sound seemed to split the air just as the ground was splitting.
He realised that the sound was his own voice, shouting. Screaming. The heat was unbearable now, yet still he could not move. The world shook and blurred around him. A heat*haze of pain and fear. There was steam rising from the jagged black slash that was almost at his feet, running between them. Then, mercifully, just as the heat became truly unbearable, just as the leather of his shoes started to smoulder, the ground disappeared from beneath him and Pete Manson tumbled headlong into the smoking abyss.
Few people waited outside the church. It was as if the uncommon heat of the last month had been vented by the tremors the previous day, sucked down into the chasm that had opened on the moorland. There was a thick frost on the late January turf of the churchyard, the gravestones dripping icicles and glittering in the crystal sun. The congregation stamped and blew their way out of Holy Communion, dutifully shook the hand of the Reverend Matthew Stobbold, and hurried home to the warm.
Lord and Lady Urton waited outside the church, exchanging words of greeting with everyone, no matter from what walk of life or social background. It was their way. Aristocracy with a human face. Lord Urton looked up in surprise at the several uniformed figures that had emerged finally from the church. Their red jackets were a contrast to the greys and blacks of the rest of the people.
Urton had put a brave face on things with the mine workers, knowing as they did that whatever Stobbold might preach about the delights of Heaven, there was bound to be some immediate suffering here on Earth before transcending to glory above. He held out his hand to the tall, straight*backed man in front of him. 'Colonel Wilson, I didn't notice you in church.'
Colonel Wilson shook Urton's hand, then pressed Lady Urton's delicately gloved hand to his immaculate moustache. He was well*built with dark haft and lively eyes. 'We were a little late, I'm afraid. Sneaked in at the back.'
'But why here at all, Colonel?' Lady Urton inquired. 'Why not attend the parish church in Ambleton?'
'We started at the dam as soon as it was light,' Wilson explained.
'Not still checking it?' Urton sighed. 'Thought you were due to finish last week.'
'We were, sir,' one of the other soldiers replied. 'Just about done yesterday in fact.'
'Captain Brookes,' Wilson explained. 'My chief engineer.'
'So why are you still here?' Lady Urton asked. 'The fissure?'
Wilson nodded. 'If it's wise to check the stonework and integrity after a few minor earth tremors in the area, you can imagine the necessity for caution after a thing like that opens up across the moors.'
Behind the soldiers, Lord Urton could see Matthew Stobbold approaching. He had removed his white surplice and carried it over his arm. In the hand that emerged from the folded material was held a prayer book. He was within earshot and caught the end of the Colonel's comments.
'Subsidence, do you think?' he asked, beaming round as the group moved slightly to allow him to join them. Stobbold was a slight man in his fifties. His hair retained its brown colour, but was receding from the centre of his forehead. His features were not prominent but his deep set eyes twinkled with an intimation of good humour and optimism. 'I mean from the mine workings.'
Captain Brookes was shaking his head. 'Don't think so, sir. For one thing, the fissure only catches the end of the workings. And it runs across them rather than following their path.'
'And it's too deep, so far as we can tell,' Wilson added. 'Still too hot to get a good look, but it seems to reach beyond the depth of your mine, sir.' He nodded to Urton.
'Yes,' Urton agreed. 'The workings themselves are quite shallow. Used all to be open cast, you know. But as the seams run away from us we dig deeper, following their path.'
As they spoke, Betty Stobbold joined them. She stood quietly beside her father, relieving him of the surplice and prayer book. He smiled at her a moment as he let her take them, before returning his attention to the conversation.
Lord Urton watched her as she stood meekly and waited. She looked after Matthew, had kept house for him since her mother died. It couldn't be much of a life for a young woman, but he had never heard her complain. When she had been born, almost seventeen years ago now how time simply flew past Urton and his wife had discussed whether she would be a good match for their son. Marrying into the clergy was hardly a step up the social ladder, but Urton was keen to maintain his links with the local community, to continue the tradition and succession that he was himself a part of.
Except of course that it would never happen now. Urton had no son, no children at all. His lineage would end with himself and his wife. And perhaps, since the fortune was gone and the mine was worked out, that was after all a good thing. He became aware that Betty was watching him, having noticed his attention. She smiled, guileless and pretty with the sun on her freckled face. He smiled back, a flicker of joy in his increasingly unhappy life, and turned his attention back to the conversation around him.
'Some of the lads,' Captain Brookes was venturing hesitantly, 'they say that, well... ' he broke off as if embarrassed.
'What do they say?' Urton prompted.
'They say,' Wilson finished for him, 'that this fissure goes down into hell itself. That Middletown is about to be swallowed into oblivion.'
Stobbold gave a snort that mixed amusement and disdain. 'As if heaven and hell were physical places within our own world. Reality is far more mundane, though I fear Middletown may well be sinking into oblivion. But for economic and social reasons rather than superstition and devilry.'
Captain Brookes blew on his hands and stamped his feet uneasily. 'Whatever the cause of it, though,' he said, 'we still have to check the dam. Every foot of it.'
Lord Urton looked down at frozen ground. 'Wish I'd never built the blasted thing,' he said. 'For all the good it's done. Now you tell me it may be falling down anyway.'
'I hope not,' Wilson said quickly.
'It might as well,' Urton said.
'I beg to differ, sir.' Wilson glanced at Captain Brookes, as if for support. 'Now that it's there, with that head of water built up behind it, any structural problems could be disastrous.'
'The water wouldn't just flow back into the old course of the river,' Brookes explained. 'Not if the dam burst. Well, it's difficult to know what it would do. But Branscombe*sub*Edge is below the old river level...'
'That's why we're giving it our full attention,' Wilson finished.
'And if it is about to give way?' Lady Urton asked.
'Oh no immediate worry, your ladyship,' Wilson reassured her. 'If there's any problem we can either repair it, or dismantle the structure carefully, in a controlled manner.'
'Like closing the mine in stages,' Urton muttered. 'Get out slowly and carefully and hope it isn't too painful an experience.' He shook his head and toed at the frosted gravel of the path. When he looked up, he fixed Stobbold with a stare. 'We'll let you worry about the theological implications of it all,' he told him. 'Just warn us if Old Nick's coming to dinner, won't you?'
The group broke up, their laughter echoing off the frozen stone work of the church and the gravestones. Lord Urton and the clergyman walked together, following the soldiers. A few steps behind them, Lady Urton walked with Betty Stobbold.
'And speaking of dinner,' Lord Urton said to Stobbold as they approached the lynch gate, 'don't forget it's the first Thursday of February coming up.'
'I'm looking forward to it,' Stobbold confirmed.
'Good. Good,' Urton hesitated. Then he confessed: 'I've, ah, I've asked some people to join us. From London.'
Stobbold made no comment, waiting for Lord Urton to continue.
'Recommended to me by a friend in the Royal Society. They're from some sort of offshoot that examines... these sorts of things.'
'What sorts of things?' Stobbold asked. 'You mean the tremors, the fissure?'
'Ye*es. That sort of thing. Apparently it's called the Society for Psychical Research.'