‘How bad?’ Jack looked from one ashen, shocked face to another of the folk huddled close to one of the mine’s shafts.

‘’Tis a long way down, out under the sea. ’Tis reckoned some rotten timber supports gave way, crushing some, suffocating others. Another man lost his life when he fell away from a ladder. Overcome by dizziness, they said, as he fled for his life. Tis reckoned at least twenty are dead. They’ve brought up half a dozen bodies so far, more are missing. We sent the farming and fisher women back home but some of us men have stayed to help out in any way we can. Rosina Blake wanted to stay when her husband came to ride with her and their son back home, but he was against it and the miner’s wives told her it was no place for her now. She was upset, but has promised to send bandages and things up here. I’ve carried a few of the dead to their cottages to be laid out. I asked if I could help down the pit but they only want experienced miners going down there.’ Clem had not made the offer lightly but was relieved to have been refused. He was fearful of going underground and found the mine buildings, the clanking from the engine house and the heaps of waste ugly and foreboding.

Jack shuddered as he stared at the black hole a few feet away. ‘I wouldn’t like to have to go down there. Listen to the sea – sounds wild and powerful from here, like it doesn’t give a damn about what’s going on under it. Wonder if they can hear it down there, wonder what it sounds like. Don’t s’pose they can hear nothing but some awful silence.’

Clem stared at Jack for a moment then pulled his collar up to ward off the biting crosswinds. ‘Alice will be upset by this, she worked up here once. ’Tis a good job her family moved on back along or it could be her father or one of her brothers pulled out dead. Can’t do nothing for they over there,’ he inclined his head in the direction of a group of silent women. ‘They’re waiting for news of their menfolk.’

The women’s faces were set grimly with vacant eyes. Their hands, battered from years of hard work, hammering and sorting the ore at ground level, gripped their shawls about themselves. Young children clung fretfully to their skirts and one young mother sat a little apart, rocking a baby at her breast while softly singing the words of a hymn.