How Green Was My Valley (68 page)

But Dai Bando was up in front there, burrowing without a stop, working in darkness,
feeling for rock with his hands, no sound only the sobs of his breath, and in his
crouched back, a mightiness of threat to any who stayed even to hitch his trews.

Then Dai shouted, a high whisper of a shout, that sent ants crawling up my head.

“Cyfartha,” he was shouting, “here is his coat, see.”

“Up in a stall road,” I said, for we had worked close to the wall and the coat was
in the hole going up to the right.

“Clear the main, or the stall road?” Dai said.

Everybody stopped work.

If we went on up the main, we might be leaving Cyfartha and perhaps my father up in
the stall road.

If we worked up the stall road they might be dying in the main in front of us.

I believe God the Father knows how you feel at such a time and sends a sign.

We had a sign, then.

We heard Cyfartha’s pick hitting a signal on a rock.

Up in the stall road.

If we had gone on working, we should never have heard.

And Dai, who had never been in Chapel to pray since a boy, hit his hands together,
and fell on his knees in the muck, crying like a woman.

“O God,” he said, “with thanks I am, for this gift to me. Cyfartha is the blood of
my heart. Have my eyes and my arms. I am thankful. In Jesus Christ. Amen.”

“Amen,” said we all.

“Give me the bloody pick,” Dai said, with new life. “Stand away now.”

And the pick swung and struck as though he had just started.

“Mind the roof, Dai,” Gomer said, in fear, for the pick was driving deep, and the
stone above us was growling.

“To hell with the roof,” Dai said, like an animal, “God is with us, and bloody near
time, too.”

Behind us we heard men coming, and saw lanterns, with the manager and more of the
men behind him.

“Right,” he said, “you men can go to the surface. I am proud of you.”

But Dai went on picking and pulling, and none of us stopped.

“Come on,” he said, with sharpness, “these men are fresh.”

“I will crush him in pieces,” Dai screamed, up in the narrow tunnel, “I will have
Cyfartha from here. Tell him to go to bloody hell, with him.”

And the manager knew, and the rock came back, and back, and Dai went up, and up, lying
full length now, and a man behind, full length, and behind him, another, full length,
passing rock and muck behind, one to another, with the roof touching our backs, and
our bellies in blood from stones and black heat that was pain to breathe, about us.

And Dai screamed again, a sound of terror, and of triumph, dulled by the tunnel and
the heat and footage.

“Cyfartha,” he was screaming, “Cyfartha. Back out.”

“Back out,” Gomer said, in front of me, and his boot soles came close to my face to
bruise.

“Back out,” I said, to Willie, behind me, and I slid back, taking my rock with me.

“Back out,” Willie said, to his hind man.

Out of the heading we crawled, and Gomer coming to fall in a faint in the water, and
then Dai.

If the Devil rises from the Pit as Dai came from the tunnel, a few of us are booked
to die a second death with fear.

Black, and naked, and with lumps of mud stuck to his head and shoulders, and all of
him shaking with strength that has gone weak, he shone wet in the lantern lights,
and his eyes framed with pink, sightless with tears, and his mouth wide to the roof
to breathe.

And in his arms Cyfartha, black, too, and still.

“Is my father up there?” I asked him.

“Up there,” Cyfartha said, but only just. “I was after him.”

“I will take Cyfartha to the top,” Dai said, “and back, then, for your father.”

“I am going in,” I said.

“I love you as a son,” Dai said. “Go you.”

So up I went, and as far as Dai had gone, in a little chamber of rock, and more rock
piled in front again.

“Dada,” I shouted, “are you near me?”

I hit my pick on stone and listened.

Only the growling up above, and voices from behind in the tunnel.

So on I went again, pick and pull, pick and pull and wasting more time getting the
rock back, and scooping mud, and trying to shovel.

And then I found him.

Up against the coal face, he was, in a clearance that the stone had not quite filled.

I put my candle on a rock, and crawled to him, and he saw me, and smiled.

He was lying down, with his head on a pillow of rock, on a bed of rock, with sheets
and bedclothes of rock to cover him to the neck, and I saw that if I moved only one
bit, the roof would fall in.

He saw it, too, and his head shook, gently, and his eyes closed.

He knew there were others in the tunnel.

I crawled beside him, and pulled away the stone from under his head, and rested him
in my lap.

“Willie,” I said, “tell them to send props, quick.”

I heard them passing the message down, and Willie trying to pull away enough rock
to come in beside me.

“Mind, Willie,” I said, “the roof will fall.”

“Have you found him?” Willie asked me, and scraping through the dust.

“Yes,” I said, and no heart to say more.

My father moved his head, and I looked down at him, sideways to me, and tried to think
what I could do to ease him, only for him to have a breath.

But the Earth bore down in mightiness, and above the Earth, I thought of houses sitting
in quiet under the sun, and men roaming the streets to lose voice, breath, and blood,
and children dancing in play, and women cleaning house, and good smells in our kitchen,
all of them adding more to my father’s counter-pane. There is patience in the Earth
to allow us to go into her, and dig, and hurt with tunnels and shafts, and if we put
back the flesh we have torn from her and so make good what we have weakened, she is
content to let us bleed her. But when we take, and leave her weak where we have taken,
she has a soreness, and an anger that we should be so cruel to her and so thoughtless
of her comfort. So she waits for us, and finding us, bears down, and bearing down,
makes us a part of her, flesh of her flesh, with our clay in place of the clay we
thoughtlessly have shovelled away.

I looked Above for help, and prayed for one sweet breath for him, but I knew as I
prayed that I asked too much, for how were all those tons to be moved in a moment,
and if they were, what more hurt might be done to others.

Afraid I was, to put my hands with tenderness upon his face, for my touch, though
with the love of the heart, might be an extra hurt, another weighing, for they were
with dirt and cuts, and ugly with work that was senseless, not good to put before
his eyes, for they were the hands of the Earth that held him.

His eyes were swelling from his head with pain and his mouth was wide, closing only
a little as with weakness, and then opening wide again, and his tongue standing forth
as a stump, moveless, dry, thick with dust.

And as the blood ran from his mouth and nose, and redness ran from his eyes, I saw
the shining smile in them, that came from a brightness inside him, and I was filled
with bitter pride that he was my father, fighting still, and unafraid.

His head trembled, and pressed against me as he made straight the trunk of his spine
and called upon his Fathers, and my lap was filling with his blood, and I saw the
rocks above him moving, moving, but only a little. And then they settled back, and
he was still, but his eyes were yet beacons, burning upon the mountain-top of his
Spirit.

I shut my eyes and thought of him at my side, my hand in his, trying to match his
stride as I walked with him up the mountain above us, and I saw the splashings of
water on his muscled whiteness as he stood in the bath, and the lamplight on his hands
over the seat of the chair as he knelt in prayer at Chapel.

Air rushed from his throat and blew dust from his tongue, and I heard his voice, and
in that strange noise I could hear, as from far away, the Voice of the Men of the
Valley singing a plain amen.

So I closed his eyes and shut his jaw, and held him tight to me, and his bristles
were sharp in my cuts, and I was heavy with love for him, as he had been, and with
sadness to know him gone.

“We can move the rocks now, Willie,” I said.

“O Christ, Huw,” Willie said, “is he out, then?”

“Yes,” I said, and feeling warmth passing from between my hands, “my Dada is dead.”

“Hard luck, Huw, my little one,” Willie said, and coming to cry. “Hard old bloody
luck, indeed. Good little man, he was.”

My mother sat in the rocking-chair with her hands bound in her apron, and looked through
the open doorway up at the mountain-top.

“God could have had him a hundred ways,” she said, and tears burning white in her
eyes, “but He had to have him like that. A beetle under the foot.”

“He went easy, Mama,” I said.

“Yes,” she said, and laughed without a smile. “I saw him. Easy, indeed. Beautiful,
he was, and ready to come before the Glory. Did you see his little hands? If I set
foot in Chapel again, it will be in my box, and knowing nothing of it. O, Gwil, Gwil,
there is empty I am without you, my little one. Sweet love of my heart, there is empty.”

Well.

It is strange that the Mind will forget so much, and yet hold a picture of flowers
that have been dead for thirty years and more.

I remember the flowers that were on our window-sill while my mother was talking that
morning, and I can see the water dripping from a crack in the red pot on the end,
for Bronwen was standing there, with her face in deep, dull gold from the sun on the
drawn blind.

Thirty years ago, but as fresh, and as near as Now.

No bitterness is in me, to think of my time like this. Huw Morgan, I am, and happy
inside myself, but sorry for what is outside, for there I have failed to leave my
mark, though not alone, indeed.

An age of goodness I knew, and badness too, mind, but more of good than bad, I will
swear. At least we knew good food, and good work, and goodness in men and women.

But you have gone now, all of you, that were so beautiful when you were quick with
life. Yet not gone, for you are still a living truth inside my mind. So how are you
dead, my brothers and sisters, and all of you, when you live with me as surely as
I live myself?

Shall we say that good Dr. Johnson is dead, when his dear friend Mr. Boswell brings
him to thunder and thump before your very eyes? Is Socrates dead, then, when I hear
the gold of his voice?

Are my friends all dead, then, and their voices a glory in my ears?

No, and I will stand to say no, and no, again.

In blood, I say no.

Is Ceinwen dead, then, and her beauty dear beside me again, and her eyes with jewels
for me, and my arms hurting with the grip of her fingers?

Is Bronwen dead, who showed me the truth of the love of woman? Is she dead, who proved
to me that the strength of woman is stronger than the strength of fists, and muscles,
and the male shoutings of men?

Did my father die under the coal? But, God in heaven, he is down there now, dancing
in the street with Davy’s red jersey over his coat, and coming, in a moment, to smoke
his pipe in the front room and pat my mother’s hand, and look, and O, the heat of
his pride, at the picture of a Queen, given by the hand of a Queen, in the Palace
of a Queen, to his eldest son, whose baton lifted voices in music fit for a Queen
to hear.

Is Mr. Gruffydd dead, him, that one of rock and flame, who was friend and mentor,
who gave me his watch that was all in the world he had, because he loved me? Is he
dead, and the tears still wet on my face and my voice cutting through rocks in my
throats for minutes while I tried to say good-bye, and, O God, the words were shy
to come, and I went from him wordless, in tears and with blood.

Is he dead?

For if he is, then I am dead, and we are dead, and all of sense a mockery.

How green was my Valley, then, and the Valley of them that have gone.

GUIDE TO PRONUNCIATION OF WELSH NAMES

The exact pronunciation of Welsh words into English is made possible only by the use
of many English words to show each shade of sound. I shall be forgiven for simplifying
in the barest manner so that the names may have at least some semblance of their true
sounds.

R. L.