After the death of the revivalist, his followers disappeared. The meetings at street corners no longer took place; the wild skin-clad figures ran no more through the city. I believe that Nordenholt took steps to arrest those of the inner circle who escaped the machine-guns in the Park; but many of them seem to have slipped through his fingers in spite of the efficiency of his Secret Service. Probably they were kept in concealment by sympathisers, of whom there were still a number in spite of the general disillusionment. On the surface, the whole movement appeared to have been arrested completely; but, as we were to learn, it was not blotted out.
I can still remember the first news of the disaster. A trill on my telephone bell, and then the voice of Nordenholt speaking:
“Hullo! … That you, Jack? … Come over here, will you? … At my office. I may need you. … It’s a bad affair. … What? … Two of the pit-shafts have been destroyed. No way of reaching the crowd underground. I’m afraid it’s a bad business.”
When I reached his office he was still at the telephone, evidently speaking to the scene of the catastrophe.
“Yes? … Shaft closed completely? … How long do you think it will take to reopen it? … Permanent? Mean to say you can’t reopen it? … Months? … How many men below just now? … Six hundred, you think? … That’s taking the number of lamps missing, I suppose. … Well, find out exactly as soon as you can.”
He rang off and was just about to call up another number, the second pit, I suppose, when the telephone bell sounded an inward call.
“Yes? … What’s that? Numbers what? … Three, seven, eight, ten, thirteen, fourteen. … Ring off! I’ll speak to you again.”
He rang furiously for the exchange.
“Put me through to the Coal Control. Quick, now. … Hullo! Is that you, Sinclair? … Nordenholt. … Send out a general call. Bring every man to the surface at once. … Yes, every pit in the Area. Hurry! It’s life or death. … Report when you get news.”
Without leaving the instrument he called up another number.
“Go on. No. 14 was the last. … Take down these numbers, Jack. … 3, 7, 8, 10, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19. … That all? … Good. Get me the figures of losses as soon as you can. Also a note of the damage. Goodbye.”
Behind this disjointed sequence of phrases I had caught hints of the magnitude of the calamity; and I was to some extent prepared for what I heard when he had time to turn to me at last.
“Eleven pits have been destroyed almost simultaneously, Jack. No. 23 and No. 27 went first; and then that list I gave you just now. There are no details yet; but it’s quite evidently malicious. Dynamite, I think, to judge from the few facts I’ve got. The shafts are completely blocked, as far as we know; and every man underground is done for.”
“How many does that amount to?”
“There are no figures yet; but it will run into more than three figures anyway.”
Again the shrill call of the telephone bell sounded. He took up the receiver.
“Yes? … What’s that? No. 31 and No. 33? … Complete block? No hope? … Do your best.”
He turned to me.
“Two more gone, before we could get the men up. It’s a very widespread affair. I told you we hadn’t done with the Reverend John.”
“What’s he got to do with it?” I asked, astonished.
“Some of his friends carrying out the work he left unfinished. They mean to smash the Area; and they’ve hit us on our weakest point, there’s no doubt. No coal, no work in the factories, no nitrogen. This is serious, Jack.”
Another call on the telephone brought the news that three more pits had been destroyed. Nordenholt rang up the Coal Control once more and urged them to even greater haste in their efforts to get the men to the surface. Then he turned back to me.
“Do you realise what it all means, Jack? As far as I can see, it’s the beginning of the end for us. We can’t pull through on this basis; and I doubt if we have heard the full extent of the disaster even now.”
I have endeavoured to convey the impression made upon my mind by the first news of the catastrophe; but little purpose would be served by continuing the story in detail. All that morning we stood by the telephone, gathering in the tale of disaster bit by bit in disjointed fragments as it came over the wire. Here and there, items of better news filtered through: reports that in some pits the whole of the underground workers had been brought safely to the surface, accounts of the immunity of certain shafts. But as a whole it was a black record which we gathered in. The work had been planned with skill; and the execution had not fallen below the level of the plan. In one or two cases the miscreants had been detected in the act and captured before they had time to do any damage; but these discoveries were very few. As far as most of the pits were concerned, we never were able to establish how the work had been done; for all traces were buried under the debris in the wrecked shafts, which have been left unopened ever since the catastrophe. One thing was certain, the whole of the workers actually in the galleries at the time of the explosions were lost for good and all. They were far beyond the reach of any human help.
It is no part of my plan to do more than indicate the horror of this calamity. I draw no pen-pictures of the crowds around the pitheads, the crying of the women,
