The nightshift colliers had started when we left the tavern primed with enough ale to make us cheeky, and I thought of the Gower pit as I passed the black-faced labourers; the dull-eyed Welsh and Irish women hauling and singing to the clank of the wheels. But one was young, vital, alive. Irish by her looks, this girl, with the same bright beauty as my Morfydd, black-haired, one eye closing at me as I passed. Morfydd this, this the shade of another, I thought; one who was lying a hundred feet down in the press and smashed props of Number Six, one in the seam, one inch thick. Was Willie O’Hara weeping? I wondered, or seeking the breast of another Morfydd now she had left him for Richard, her lover? Strange the wish to snatch at this Irish, strange the wish to grip her, and I went back slowly to the gangplank where the captain was waiting. Matthew was doing the talking, fist thumping, bargaining. Money chinked and I was elbowed for mine, but I was not really there. I was down in Cae White with the dinner coming out, with the treadling of Mam’s wheel in my ears, listening to the swish of the shuttle, Jonathon’s high shrieks to Mari, her soft voice. And I heard again the sigh of the scythe and saw the wheat falling obliquely in sunfire; heard the herons crying doleful from Kidwelly, the curlews shouting at dawn, the barking of otters from the Reach, the whispers of Tessa. Other things I heard: Mari’s shout to go to Chapel, the crackling hiss of the blazing gates, Mam’s contralto in Sanctus. Dashing into the pitprops now, screaming for Morfydd; making love to Mari down on the shore. I put my hand into my pocket and gripped my earth, the handful I had brought from the fields of Cae White.
“Not that, you fool,” said Matthew, eyeing me. “The man wants his money.”
“O, aye,” I said, and fished it out.
Snow-white deck now, pigtailed seamen, the smell of tar.
I stood by the rail with my hand in my pocket and gripped the earth.
“What the hell is wrong with you, man?” said Matthew.
But I did not answer him. Just staring at Wales. Sails were billowing above me, oceans of white as they dropped and unfurled. Feet stamped the deck. Dimly I heard the creaks, the commands, the shrieking of capstans.
“Damned pixilated, you,” said Matthew. “I’m going below.”
I gripped it in my hand, this Wales, and bowed my head. Gripped this plot for which men died; for which my kin had stood square to invaders, mocking the whip, spitting in the faces of kings. For such small muck and pebbles men have laboured and suffered – for this proud land of the Celts, Iberians, Moors and Spaniards, Angles, Jutes, Bretons, Welsh! For this blessed race whose mongrel blood is stirred with the blood of nobles and princes, this land of song and greenness that has flung an empire of invaders into the sea. The ship shuddered and rocked to the swell and I raised my head. Relations and friends were thronging the quay now; weepy matrons, stalwart fathers, ancient grandfers pinned on sticks, and the dying red sun was shining on the bare heads of children. Screamed goodbyes now, sobs and laughter as the exiles jostled beside me.
“For God’s sake what is wrong with you, man?” Matthew again, turning me.
Wind in the rigging now, sails slapping; ropes were curling against the evening sun. The Cestria heaved and bucked beneath me. Hawsers tightened and sprayed water, drooped slack and tightened again as she fought to be free. Hands clenched, I stood there holding Tara.
What is it that enters the blood and chains a man’s soul to the soul of his country? What is it that pierces as a barb and cannot be drawn? O, this beloved country that has raised its sword to the fire of its persecutors and reddened its soil with beloved sons! Wales! What lies in your possession that you bite at the throats of those who leave you? You of the mountainous crags of Dinas, of Snowden, Pembrey and Capel Pass – you of the valleys, heaths and pastures, the roaring rivers, the village brooks – what is your golden key that turns in the hearts of your patriots; what flame sears their souls in the last goodbye?
The gap was widening. The Cestria strained to the bridling hawsers. Heard the captain then; saw his arms outstretched to the quay where the crowd was gathering into an informal choir, and the labouring Welsh and Irish rushed to join them – any excuse for a song; barefooted, ragged, come to sing.
“A song for the exiles, then?” roared the captain.
“Sanctus, Sanctus!” a woman shrieked.
“Right, you, Sanctus!” And he stood conducting.
The ship vibrated to the voices, the crew stopped work and sang; faces turned up, they sang, and it was glorious, but I could not sing.
The crowd was thicker now, pouring down to the harbour, emptying from the hovels and taverns. Vendors screamed their wares at us, bullying a path for their carts, elbowing at tipsy sailors. Bull-chested colliers shouldered in from the mine, bantering, quarrelling, forming a circle of stamping hobnails, clapping to the time as a skinny Irish woman did a jig on the quay, skirts up, scarf waving, her black sticks of legs raising the dust, and the child-labour, drooping in their rags, watched her with dejected eyes. A drunken foreigner now, bottle waving, screaming insults, bristling for a fight; a black-gowned priest, hand up in blessing, telling his beads. All the bedlam of it grew about us in a thundering of sails, and above all was Sanctus in power and majesty, pulling in the crowd until it jammed them solid before the gangplank. Only one stood alone. Bending at the stern rail, I watched her. This, the image of Morfydd I had seen earlier, cheeky with her harlot come-hitherings, lounging
