They’ve closed their doors on the world and set about healing their wounds

Sarah didn’t dare move lest the ground would give way beneath her feet. Instead, she knelt down as near the hole as she dared go, shouting encouragement until her voice cracked with the strain. There were no answering shouts and she said a silent prayer that the rescuers would come soon. She had lost track of time when she saw them come up the hill, their lanterns like a straggling line of glow-worms in the gathering darkness. Their guide was Abie, who sat aloft Daniel’s shoulders.

As they reached her, she saw that they were carrying ropes, ladders, pickaxes and makeshift stretchers.

She was lifted to her feet, set down on one of them and covered with blankets, Abie beside her, as the men set about their task, shouting to the men trapped below as they did so.

“It’s a mine shaft from the old workings, sealed off on the drawings, but it’s collapsed in on itself. Wet weather, likely.”

Daniel paused for a moment to make sure that Sarah was comfortable, and gave her a hurried explanation.

Once everything was in place, there was a pause, then the colonel shouted into the silence. “We need a small man to go down on a rope and see how the land lies before we can start getting these fellows out. Injured or not, they’ll need help.” Volunteered

Two men volunteered, but were too big and burly for the task. Then a small figure in working clothes, his miner’s lamp shining in the darkness, pushed to the front of the throng.

“Ah’ll dae it,” Tricky Binnie announced. There was a murmur of disbelief.

“Am ah wee enough?” Tricky cut through the murmurs of the doubters to address the colonel.

“You’ll do, Binnie,” was the answer and Tricky gave one last instruction to the men holding the rope on which he’d swing away into darkness. “Watch whit ye’re daein’,” he said, before disappearing downwards.

A silence fell as his first signal was awaited – two tugs for a rope cradle to be lowered.

After what seemed an eternity, the signal came and, one by one, the men were brought to the surface, unrecognisable, eyes appearing luminous in blackened faces, working clothes clinging to them, soaked and tattered.

“Faither!” Abie Makin broke away from Sarah’s restraining arm and threw himself at a figure on a stretcher. There was a sudden respectful silence as a father’s arm was thrown protectively round his son and gripped him fast.

Warmed and caught up in the elation of the rescuers, Sarah threw off her cocoon of blankets and joined Daniel as Tricky was hoisted to the surface to the sound of cheering.

He tried to take a bow, promptly collapsed on the grass and had to be carried home in a tarpaulin by the men who followed the line of stretchers, already halfway down the hill.

Daniel folded Sarah into an embrace. “My brave Sarah,” he murmured. “There will be happy hearts tonight because of you.”

She laughed and shook her head. “No, because of Abie Makin and his wandering ways,” was her answer.

Soaked to the skin and numb from exhaustion, she refused all offers of help and later had no memory of making her way back to Langrigg with Daniel.

Nor had she any memory of being set down amid the comfort of soft pillows and counterpane, of Mary Ellen and Daniel’s voices whispering around her, mingled in concern. Exhausted, she slept a deep, dreamless sleep. Silence

By the time Sarah awoke, a new day was halfway gone and she was suddenly aware of the silence outside.

For a while she lay awake, wondering at it. When at last she joined Daniel in the kitchen, where the fire was lit and a kettle was singing on the hob, she asked him about it.

“It’s Langrigg’s way of healing,” he said after a while. “They’ve closed their doors on the world and set about healing their wounds. The menfolk face danger every day of their lives and after this they’ll have to get up and face it again.

“For the six that were rescued last night, and the lads that were injured in that first fall, it’ll be that bit harder. The womenfolk, the wee bits o’ children, all of them are injured in a way. They’ll remember all that’s happened for the rest of their lives, but it’s behind closed doors that the healing will start.”

He stared into the fire. Then he turned and took Sarah in his arms. After a moment or two, he held her away from him and smiled. “And they’ll never forget what you did last night.”

Outside, there was the sudden rattle of a cart. “That’ll be Sandy.” Daniel jumped to his feet. “He was here this morning. He wants to collect the first of the heavy stuff.”

As Sarah stared at her husband in disbelief, Daniel started to laugh. “It’s Jess’s doing,” he explained. “She sees no point in delaying, and she’s afraid that you might change your mind.”

And so, as Langrigg slumbered on around them, Daniel and Sarah helped load the cart, taking the next step in the journey life held in store for them.

As Sarah came into Mary Ellen’s kitchen, it was as if nothing had changed – as if the past two weeks had been a wild imagining, as if all the things that came together to make Langrigg what it was had been thrown up in the air and had come down again, this time in perfect order.

Mary Ellen was stirring a pot on the range and Pate was working on one of his rugs. All the way along the Front Raw, Sarah had been greeted by groups of women chatting around open doors.

“Glad tae see ye, Sarah, lass.” Mary Ellen beamed. “Ye’ll have been right busy gettin’ your new hoose tae rights. Mind ye, Daniel’s kept us goin’ wi’ a’ the news when he’s been in for his dinner. He’s been kept busy and nae mistake. Seems to be the colonel’s right-hand man these days.” Pride

Mary Ellen spoke with almost motherly pride. Sarah nodded. “He’s learning a lot from the engineers that the colonel’s brought in,” she said. “Letting him work alongside them’s a great opportunity for him.”

“Aye, and he aye has questions tae ask me when he comes here for his dinner.” Pate tried not to look pleased.

The talk ebbed and flowed between Sarah’s news of Jess and her refusal to rest, her daily visits, her insistence on hanging new curtains for her, and Mary Ellen’s news of the mothers who had worked hard to restore the Wee School to shining perfection for its opening two days hence.

“And you’ll hardly have time to turn afore it’s Christmas,” Mary Ellen remarked before veering off into an account of how good the colonel and Miss Bunty had been about making up the injured miners’ wages and seeing that the men who were helping to get the pit cleared and made safe for working again were well paid for their labour. More tomorrow. This story was originally written specially for The People’s Friend, which published it under the title The Life We Choose. There’s more fiction in The People’s Friend every week, available from newsagents and supermarkets at £1.30.

Artwork: Andrew Lloyd Jones