A Time Like No Other (41 page)

As the dust, inches deep, settled, those who crowded the yard and the lane that led to it, for the folk who lived nearby and who had heard the great explosion had rushed to the mill gates, were appalled by what was revealed. They had, as yet, no idea what had caused it, all those, that is, except Adam Elliott, but though the walls of the building stood with every window shattered, there was simply no roof!

Lally and Susan, still hand-clasped, stood at the bottom of the steps, the dust, which was beginning to settle to below head height, covering the pair of them, coating their clothing, their colourless faces, their hair, their eyelashes and into their ears and nostrils making it hard to breathe. They were so stunned, almost blind and deaf, it is doubtful they would have noticed anyway.

As one they began to make their way across the chaos of the yard towards the shattered building. There was smoke now, billowing and black and threatening, for there was much oil and woollen waste for the fire that had taken hold to feed on. Ash floated higher and higher into the air above the stricken mill, drifting on the slight breeze across the yard and surrounding area, reaching up to Mill House where Mrs Cannon, the housemaids and the outdoor men stood with their hands to their horrified faces. Beneath Lally and Susan’s feet, strewn haphazardly like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, were dozens and dozens of unidentifiable pieces of wood, metal, stone, glass.

It was then they heard the screaming, not from the frantic mothers who zigzagged about the yard looking for children who only hours before they had been clouting for being slow to rise from their beds and get to the mill, but from
inside
the stricken weaving shed. There were many more in the lane beyond the gate trying desperately to get through. Men were converging on the building, accompanied by women who had a child, a man, some loved one who had, fifteen minutes ago, been peaceably working in their loom gates. When the boilers blew, six whole floors, along with the roof, had been raised to a great height with one huge lift and the entire mass of worsted spinning frames and weaving looms, along with the men, women and children working them, were precipitated in one deafening crash to ground level, entombed in the mass of ruins. It was difficult to conceive that one human life could have survived.

‘Dear God in heaven,’ Lally whispered, but even as she felt Susan tug at her hand, figures appeared, human figures, covered in dust and what was surely blood. They began to stagger from the entrance of the broken building. Eager hands took them, leading them gently away, the victims silent and in deep shock, the rescuers murmuring wordlessly, then, as those rescued emerged, others ventured inside, led by two men who were taking charge of the rescue operation. Adam and Brice had disappeared inside the wrecked building and though those in the yard could not see what was happening inside the standing walls except through the shattered windows, they could hear the shouts, the cries for help and of warning as those who were helping, scrabbling with their bare hands, did their best to lift enormous beams and blocks of stone from those who were buried. Flames licked dangerously close and from up the lane that led to Moorend, the fire brigade clattered, pulled by sweating horses. Timber and slate were passed out through the windows to make room for the rescuers to search for those buried in the wreckage.

The crowd had become immense by now, many of them no more than onlookers come for the thrill, and though Lally thought only minutes had gone by, it must have been longer, for a powerful troop of police and even a party of infantry from the local barracks began to take charge of the crowds who were impeding progress. Rubbish and fallen materials began to come out of the tottering building at a greater pace, for it was thought the whole mill might collapse, passed from hand to hand in a human chain and with it the bodies, some beyond help, others miraculously still alive.

It was Susan who began the task of tending to the injured, some merely badly bruised, some silent and smashed almost beyond recognition but living, some burned and screaming. Many of them were little girls who had not had the sense to run for it when the boilers went, as the older operatives had. Doctor John was suddenly beside them, along with others from the infirmary.

Lally worked by Susan’s side, viciously biting the inside of her cheek to stop herself from fainting at the sight of some of the injuries. Doctor Channing, who had once tended her family, had one remedy for a broken limb. Take it off and had not John had violent words with him there would have been many a child minus an arm or a leg, or even both!

Carly was there with men come from the Priory and even Biddy who had galloped over in the gig, though she had never driven it before, with Jenny beside her. The pair of them, with Mrs Cannon and her maids to help, began to carry the most badly injured children up to the Mill House where one of the infirmary doctors tended them as best he could with the help of the mill women.

Adam appeared for a moment, his face the colour of the underside of a mushroom, filthy, breathing hoarsely, his clothes in tatters about him, for he had crawled through many small spaces to reach a whimper or a moan and had many times shouted out for complete silence in an effort to locate some sound. Men and women, scarcely recognisable as such, dug frantically at whatever they could get their hands on, their places taken eagerly by others when they lurched out from the mountain of rubble that had once been their livelihood. Splinters of glass and shards of wood and metal caught the unwary, cutting them to the bone so that not only the victims but their rescuers needed attention.

Both he and Lally were alarmed when Susan suddenly darted away and before either of them could stop her or even shout to warn her she ran through the opening that Adam had just come from, disappearing into the haze of dust and smoke that filled the stricken building.

‘Susan,’ Adam shouted hoarsely, beginning to follow her, then he too vanished from Lally’s appalled sight. Slowly she began to move towards the broken doorway but a hand on her arm held her back and when she turned, yelling at whoever it was to release her, she looked into the concerned face of Biddy.

‘No, lamb, not you an’ all. He’ll fetch her out . . .’ But as she spoke there was another frightening rumble from the ruined mill as something gave way and a cloud of dust rose high into the air.

‘Dear sweet Jesus,’ Lally moaned, then hid her face in Biddy’s comforting shoulder, for inside the ruin was her dearest friend.

In a patch of bare woodland where the fox had finally been caught by the hounds, Roly Sinclair winked at the pretty young thing who had been ‘blooded’, while about them those of the gentry and minor aristocracy who had hunted over her husband’s land murmured that old Roly was up to his tricks again and him with a pregnant wife at home!

26

She and Adam stood in the yard, both silently contemplating the wreckage of what had once been High Clough Mill. It stood, or rather tottered in its woeful shambles, the walls ready to crumble and indeed were to be taken down the next day. Albert Watson had been and shaken his head in what Lally knew was to be a long-winded preamble of a tale of doom and disaster which would end with his estimate, his exorbitant estimate of what it would cost to put it all right. All that remained of the shed and the rubbish that had been pulled out from it would need to be carted away he had told them. The land would need to be totally cleared before he could even think of putting up another mill. It had been insured, of course, for Harry had been a prudent man when he had taken over from his father and the money would be there to rebuild, a fact Albert Watson was well aware of and if he could squeeze more cash from the owner’s wife, who was after all only a woman and therefore unused to business, he meant to do so.

He did not, naturally, know that she had a man by her side who would challenge every word and movement, his every estimate, his cunning – for Albert was an astute man and cared nothing for the fact he and Harry Sinclair had been socially acquainted for years.

The funerals of those who had perished in the disaster had taken place two days ago, every one paid for by Mrs Sinclair. There were many operatives, most, in fact, who could scarce get through from one week’s end to the next on what they earned so the chances of putting something by for an emergency, which was what a funeral would be, were well nigh impossible. There were thirty-one deaths, most of them women and children, some from the same family. Two Barkers, two Hoosons, five Mitchells besides the rest. There were children whose names could not be discovered and some so deep in shock they could not speak. These children had only been at work for a week and it was the practice not to put their names down until they had worked for a fortnight. It was a practice Lally had not known of and did not understand but she meant to change it, she told Adam, along with many other wrongs that had existed before the explosion. One child, a boy whose head had been severed from his body, was never identified and, remembering the indifference of some of the mothers she and Susan had talked to, Lally was not surprised. He was buried with great dignity in a small coffin with the inscription
God knows him
on his tombstone.

Several little girls were badly scalded and were being treated in the infirmary by the patience and compassion of Doctor John. Though several cabs had been ordered into the yard by the Superintendent of Police some of those extricated alive from the building and placed in the vehicles took almost an hour before they reached the infirmary. They were put in a special children’s ward that John had set up, cared for by nurses he himself had approved though Doctor Channing had fought him tooth and nail, being of the old school who did not believe in ‘cosseting’ as he put it, be it a child or an adult. Doctor John had great faith in some of the herbal remedies he had experimented with and had ordered witch-hazel, known for its healing properties and as a balm for burns, to be applied to soothe the damaged skin of those who suffered and, being a somewhat radical doctor in Doctor Channing’s opinion, had made his small patients drink plenty of liquids since he believed that it would have a beneficial effect on those who had lost bodily fluids. So far none had died.

Susan was recovering slowly. When Adam had found her she had been lying on her stomach trapped by the legs beneath a wooden beam and, single-handedly, his love and fear for her giving him strength, he lifted it from her. To his amazement she had a small boy in her arms, her body protecting his. She had been calling Adam’s name as he had been calling hers and like the flight of two birds, the sounds of their voices had winged through the smoke and dirt, the dust and debris, guiding him to her. He had brought her out, the small boy speechless and staggering behind them and had been surprised and affronted when that bloody doctor, the friend of the Sinclair family, had done his best to take her from him.

Lally ran to meet him, elbowing Doctor John aside, fluttering round Adam and Susan in what she recognised later as a foolish manner, transfixed by the expression on his face, for what he felt for Susan was plainly written there. It was then it seemed to her that her past approval of a match between Susan and John was clearly a mistake.

‘I’ve got her,’ he had snarled. ‘Get out of my way while I take her to the infirmary.’

‘Let me examine her . . .’

‘Bugger off and see to the others. This lad, for instance,’ indicating the small boy who was doing his best to cling to the tatters of Adam’s coat-tails. ‘I’ll tend Susan.’

‘Adam,’ Susan gasped weakly. ‘John’s a doctor. I need someone to . . . to look at me back . . . me legs . . .’ for both Susan’s legs were dangling in a most peculiar fashion over Adam’s arm.

‘Please, sir, let me take a look, then you can get her to the infirmary. I’d come with you but there are still many who need me here. When you get there ask for Doctor Gibbons. On no account let . . . let . . . er . . . any of the others attend her,’ meaning, of course, Doctor Channing who would have her legs off before you could say knife.

John had strapped up Susan’s legs with makeshift splints, her agony making both him and Adam sweat and groan, for they both loved her and would spare her pain. Adam had carried her gently to a waiting gig, the one Biddy had driven at breakneck speed from the Priory and with the small, speechless lad beside them though they were scarcely aware of him, got her to the infirmary and into the experienced care of Doctor Gibbons. Doctor Channing had been greatly displeased by Adam’s high-handed refusal to allow him to take the fainting woman under his wing but after hours of waiting, striding up and down the corridor, which was heaving with the injured and their relatives, Adam had seen Susan wheeled to a ward, still unconscious from the anaesthetic. He had refused to leave her, following her to her bedside and, sighing patiently, Doctor Gibbons had allowed it, and the small boy who he thought was a relative.

Susan was to come home when Doctor Gibbons allowed it, home being the Priory, and before her had come the small boy whose life she had saved and whom not one soul had claimed. He had not uttered a word since and was simply addressed kindly by one and all as ‘boy’. He had been taken to the children’s nursery where Jamie, Alec and Jack had studied him curiously, demanding of Dora who he was and what he was doing in their nursery. But as Dora philosophically put it, what was one more in a house already bursting at the seams with children. He seemed to settle after a bath and a good plate of Biddy’s broth, though he had no notion how to play when the boys kindly invited him to join in. His little face was pinched and his eyes haunted but he was no trouble, poor little mite, said Dora, and when she put him on her knee, he sat quite still, looking like a trapped rabbit before he fell asleep. He had been placed in a cot beside the other boys and when he woke sat quietly in a small chair, his eyes on the door waiting for something or someone, Dora inclined to believe it was his mam, though nobody came to claim him.