No Man’s Land. Simon Tolkien

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СКАЧАТЬ think I will too,’ said Adam with a faint smile. He shook the parson’s hand and was gone.

      The hours of anxious wandering, breathing in the fetid, stale air of the mine, followed by the frightening climb up the ladder had left Adam exhausted, and he cast an envious look back at Rawdon before he pushed off, pedalling hard as he began the steep climb up the road to the station with the bicycle’s oil lamp flickering in its case above the back wheel. The town was quiet with a sense of foreboding in the air, and he jumped, almost losing his balance, when a stray dog ran out of a side street barking viciously at him as he rode past.

      Out in front the moon hung pale and full over the eastern horizon, illuminating the church tower at the top of the hill, but down below the trees and the houses were fast disappearing into the evening shadows. Flocks of birds wheeled overhead and flew away, screeching and crying. And Adam shivered, gripping the handlebars as his mind raced, wondering what was happening up ahead.

      On his left he passed Edgar’s house. There were no lights on inside and he wondered where Ernest was and whether he yet knew about his father. He remembered the torment he’d suffered when his mother died and it hurt him to think that his friend would now have to undergo the same searing experience. There was no escaping the open wound of grief; only time healed or at least dulled the pain of loss.

      At the top of the hill he had to stop to catch his breath, resting the bicycle against the wall of the graveyard. The moon had temporarily disappeared behind a bank of clouds, but the light on the parson’s bicycle enabled him to make out the dim outline of the pitched tile roof covering the lychgate, and he remembered with a sudden intensity how he had stopped dead in his tracks when he came out of the church on that first Sunday in Scarsdale, arrested by the sight of Miriam in her simple black dress standing there beside her father. The organ had been playing in the church behind his back: a rousing fugue filling the morning with a crescendo of sound – not faint like the music he thought he could hear now, little more than a breath on the breeze, coming up soft and muffled out of the valley below.

      He wiped the cold sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his jacket and rode on, accelerating as the road ran downhill into the open countryside beyond old Scarsdale village. And now he knew he was not mistaken: he could hear the music up ahead – the rich, mellow horns and cornets of the colliery’s brass band playing ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’, and rising up over the sound of the instruments a great swelling of men’s voices singing out in unison:

      ‘I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,

      They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;

      I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:

      His day is marching on.’

      Adam rounded a corner in the road and stopped, momentarily confused. The miners were close by. He could hear their marching feet, pounding the ground to the rhythm of the song’s chorus:

      ‘Glory, glory, hallelujah!

      Our God is marching on.’

      And yet the road ahead was empty. He could see no lights in the darkness.

      He rode on a little way and then braked hard as the brick wall on his left ended in a pair of high columns surmounted by stone lions with thick silver-coloured manes, staring fiercely out into the night. The wrought-iron gates between them were half pushed back, giving Adam the sense that they had been forced open, and he felt an upsurge of anxiety as he turned the handlebars and headed down a wide tarmac avenue lined on both sides with ancient elm trees.

      Now there were burning lights up ahead, and as he got closer he was able to see that they were flaming torches being carried high above their shoulders by the men. They weren’t singing any more and the brass band had fallen silent too, except for a single drummer beating out a monotonous tattoo. Adam slowed down, staying back just behind the marchers, not wishing to draw attention to himself until he had found out what they were going to do.

      They went on at an even pace and then abruptly stopped as the line of trees came to an end and Adam caught sight of the façade of Scarsdale Hall up ahead, looming high above the miners’ heads. The house looked very different now to how Adam remembered it on that summer afternoon with Ernest when it had seemed to glitter invitingly in the warm sunshine. Now, illuminated by the pale moonlight, it had a sinister appearance. Perhaps that was why the miners had come to a halt. Adam sensed their uncertainty and he could hear Whalen’s voice up ahead, trying to encourage them to go on. At first it was hard for Adam to make out what he was saying, but as Whalen’s voice rose and the drumbeat ceased, Adam realized that he was talking about the house and what it meant:

      ‘Beautiful, ain’t it?’ Whalen’s voice was thick with angry sarcasm. ‘But you know who paid for it?’ He paused for effect before answering his own question. ‘You did. That’s who. Ev’ry last fuckin’ penny of it, with back-breakin’ toil an’ with yer blood.’ Again he stopped before going on in a louder voice so that he was almost shouting: ‘Yes, an’ with our comrades’ burnt black bodies lying under cold white sheets in the tool ’ouse back yonder. An’ now Sir John, ’e must account to us for ’em; an’ if ’e won’t, why, we mus’ make ’im. ’E canna ’ide from us, not this time.’

      Adam shivered, feeling the raw power of Whalen’s words, and they certainly seemed to have the desired effect on his listeners, who roared their approval and resumed their march at a faster pace than before.

      Soon the drive swung away to the right, curving round the side of the ornamental lake which reflected the red and yellow lights of the miners’ flaring torches on the still surface of its black waters. Adam was frightened: pushing forward, he could feel the miners’ rising anger and determination. Whalen had talked of blood and he sensed that there would be more spilt before the day was done. He needed to find his father, extricate him from what was coming before it was too late. But it was too dark to see people’s faces and nobody seemed to hear him when he asked about Daniel. Adam was sure his father was there somewhere but it was as if he was invisible in their midst.

      A little further and they reached a fork in the drive at the front of the east wing. The parson’s bicycle was an encumbrance now and Adam abandoned it in a recess, taking care to padlock the front wheel before following the marchers into the stone quadrangle facing the house. Behind them the manicured lawn ran back down from below an ornamental terrace to the shore of the lake; while in front and on both sides the house was dark, although here and there faint gleams of light were visible behind tightly drawn curtains. Mixing with the moonlight, the flickering flames of the miners’ torches played up and down the pale stucco walls and across the silent windows.

      The miners had fanned out, filling the quadrangle in disparate groups, all with their eyes fixed on Whalen as he strode unhesitating up the curved flight of steps leading to the entrance portico and banged the golden lion’s head knocker against the ebony-black front door. Once, twice, three times but each time there was no response.

      ‘Come out, Sir John!’ Whalen shouted, bellowing out his challenge to the established order. ‘Eight good strong men died in your mine today an’ you need to come out and tell us why. You can’t hide from us an’ you can’t hide from them.’

      Adam could feel the tension among the miners all around him. They were angry, inspired by Whalen’s fearlessness, but they were frightened too. No one made demands of the gentry like this; no one except Whalen. It was breaking a taboo and they sensed there would be consequences; evil consequences that might affect them all.

      Whalen went back to the knocker again but harder this time – a flurry of blows that СКАЧАТЬ