Grantville gazette vol.., p.12
Grantville Gazette - Volume X, page 12
part #10 of Grantville Gazette Series
When the mine was first constructed, it was surrounded by a large cyclone fence topped with barbed wire, but not now. That resource had long since been redirected.
He wished the fence were still here, as there was a knot of people around the mine control shed already. Things would get out of control real soon if somebody didn't take charge. He could see hand-waving and arguing going on as he approached. He swallowed hard again.
He dropped the pickup truck down into second gear and let the engine slow him down. With the busted up exhaust system, the V-8 made an ominous rumbling sound as he rolled up to the small, but rapidly growing, knot of people. It had the effect he desired, as they all turned and looked at him.
He hopped out of the cab and began to give orders. He looked for the biggest men there. "You four men, I need some crowd control now. Keep everyone back from this shed. If they're cold, have them go into the locker rooms or the old guard trailer. You two, keep everyone away from the lift. I don't want anybody trying to do something stupid. Nobody goes into the lift until rescue is here. You women, get inside before you freeze to death. Go to the locker rooms or the trailer." He didn't stop to see if his orders were followed, but strode to the control shed.
Shackelton met him at the door. "I'm damn glad you're here, Boss."
As he closed the door behind him, Larry felt himself shrink, as the bravado of his entrance wore off. He rested his back against the closed door. Shackelton, along with a much older retired miner whose name he couldn't quite remember looked a little surprised.
Larry took a breath. "What do we know, for sure?"
"For sure? Not too damn much. The mine phones quit working right after that big ass boom."
"Who's on the phones today?
"April Lafferty. I heard from the guys before, and there was a roof fall of some sort. Deitrich somehow heard about it and he was headed for the workface when we powered everything up. Then there was just that big boom."
"Have you heard from anybody since the explosion?"
"No, sir" Stacks looked at the ground.
"Could anyone have survived? I mean, the goddamn furniture moved in my house, and I'm over two miles from here."
"Anything's possible, Boss"
Larry needed good news. He hung on to the hope that some men had survived the blast. It gave him a focus. He straightened and noticed the other man. Skinny to the point of bony, bald, with a wisp of gray hair on the sides. He looked vaguely familiar, probably from a union meeting somewhere. He wore a work coat of brown canvas, boots, and work pants. "How did you get here so fast?" Larry asked.
The old man smiled a toothless smile. "I only lives 'bout a quarter mile up the blacktop." He waved up the road, beyond the mine. "I was up'n'bout when she went. Took me only coupla minutes or so."
Larry nodded. "Thanks, old timer."
"My pleasure, son. What c'n I do?" Once again he flashed Larry the gummy smile.
"How well do you remember the lift system?"
"I 'magine I kin help. Y'all wan' me to take a look?"
"Yes, sir. I think I'd like that. Who's on the phone system today?"
Shackelton looked a Larry a little funny. "I told ya'. April Lafferty."
Larry's stomach took another flop. "Yeah. You did tell me."
The old man looked at Larry. "You can do it, Boss. Hell, after all of the assholes I seen run mines over the years, you got it all covered. Y'all will be jus' fine." He looked Larry in the eyes, shuffled to the door, and was gone. Larry saw that more people had gathered outside. He turned to Shackelton. "Did you call the cops?"
The sixty-plus good ol' boy from Kentucky, who would be down there with the men except for his bad knees, simply nodded. "We're gonna need more crowd control." Larry stopped. He could still feel that sick feeling in his stomach. He fought it back. He heard the first ambulance roll up, followed by the fire trucks. He stood up straight once again. "Emergency Response Team?"
Stacks nodded again.
Larry sighed. "Has anyone called Reverend Green? We should get a couple of busses running between here and the church. This may be a while."
* * *
"Prime Minister Sterns?" The lieutenant interrupted the meeting in the Prime Minister's office, causing all of the heads to turn toward him. This was the weekly morning briefing, and everyone who was there was supposed to have all the pertinent information they needed before the meeting started. If it was important enough to interrupt, it was going to be a surprise. And the men in the room didn't like surprises.
"What is it?" Mike's voice was level, his look clear and relaxed.
"Thought you should know, sir. Telegraph report from Grantville says that a very large explosion has occurred."
All of the heads in the room swiveled and focused on Mike Stearns. A dark cloud seemed to come over his face.
There was a pause.
To the men in the room who knew and understood Mike Stearns, his pause spoke volumes. The lieutenant knew that the pause, the—dare he think it—the hesitation, meant the Prime Minister was caught up in thoughts about Grantville for a moment.
"Do we know a how big? What kind? Where in the town was it located?" The questions came hard and fast, a little harder and faster than normal.
The lieutenant swallowed. "We don't have any of that information at this time, sir. The telegraph operator was an up-timer. He said he thought it might be the mine, but he wanted to be clear that this was unconfirmed, and more information would be coming as soon as he had it. I thought you would like to know sir."
"Lieutenant. This information . . ." Mike cut off his statement, then started again. "Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We can deal with this in a few minutes."
Warner Barnes, an up-timer sitting alongside Duke Hermann of Hessen-Rotenberg, the Secretary of State, cleared his voice. "Umm, Mike. This is Grantville. Why don't we take a few moments and . . ."
"Thank you, Warner. Right now there are more pressing things. More pressing places. Places and people that need our full attention." Mike paused and took a breath, and looked around the room. There was a mix of government leaders, mostly down-timers, and the handful of up-timers supporting them with whatever education and experience they had. The Prime Minister's face grew grave. The lieutenant started to close the door, when Stearns looked at him. "Wait. You need to hear this too." He stood.
"Some of you are not going to like what I have to say, so I'll say it and be blunt. Right now, Grantville isn't all that important."
All of the down-timer's faces showed surprise.
"It's not that important, not compared to what is going to happen in the spring. Because if what happens this spring fails, and we get our asses kicked, then Grantville is irrelevant. There's a lot that's more important than what might be happening in our—" He motioned to the down-timers. "—old home town. And if there's one thing this group has to do—we must understand what's important."
Mike paused and straightened. "When it comes to what we're doing now, it's simply not that important. If any of us are thinking about only Grantville, or for that matter, only Sweden—" He looked at Tortenssen. "—or only Hessen-Rotenberg—" He set his gaze on the duke. "—then you don't understand what we're doing here."
Mike placed his hands flat on the table and leaned forward to gaze at everyone. "Thank you, Lieutenant. That will be all for now. Please prepare a report when you have some facts."
The lieutenant stood at the door for a moment, and then quietly closed it.
* * *
Reverend Green stood in front of the open door of his church, looking out onto the street. The cold morning air stung his face. It felt good. He breathed deeply and surveyed the block. The church was an old one, built in the Grantville's heyday, near the turn of the twentieth century. The massive red brick structure sat next to the rectory. The first of the busses from the mine would be along soon. He stood on the steps of the church, in front of the door, watching and waiting.
The church ladies had already set up the meeting hall in the back of the church with food and more was arriving. He could smell some of it all the way up here. Hot casseroles and rolls, pies, dried fruit, someone had heated a ham and brought it. Plenty of water, maybe even some tea and coffee. The smell of coffee in the church made him think back to the time that it wasn't unusual to have coffee. Now it was almost a special occasion. He looked at the ground.
"Some occasion," he thought, "we could live without more of these . . ."
He didn't have to wait long. The first bus was full of down-timers, some he knew and some he had never seen before. It was escorted by a Grantville police car, the officers bundled up against the cold. As people left the bus, he began to welcome them. It was mostly women and children, a few old men. They came to him with vacant stares, glazed and shocked eyes, red with tears and worry.
He silently prayed for more strength and ushered them through the front doors, to the meeting room. Most had not been in his church and stared in amazement at the high ceiling, the organ, and the serene color of the walls. It was warm inside and soon the place would be warm and humid, like too many people in a house at Thanksgiving, when the windows would fog over on the inside. Warm and safe.
"Welcome, welcome, please come in, welcome, go all the way to the back, there's food and drink, welcome, welcome, you'll be safe here, this is for families of all faiths, welcome, there's food in the back . . ."
There were at least forty people. Reverend Green turned to the police officers. "How many are we to expect? How many are in the mine?"
The smaller policeman spoke first. "Father, there are at least three more busloads of people at the mine. Some won't leave, but you should expect at least another one hundred twenty or more. We're making it clear that we're only allowing families of the miners on the busses."
"How many were in the mine? Do we know?"
The second officer answered. "They think twenty-eight. They're putting together the rescue team now; they should go later in the afternoon."
Reverend Green sighed and bowed his head. "Are you going to stay here?"
"Yes, Father," replied the smaller one.
"Good." He looked up at the man. "We're not Catholic here, so please don't call me Father. I'm a Reverend. We're Baptists here."
"Okay, Reverend. You got it." The policeman tossed a small salute his way, and smiled.
Reverend Green went back inside and headed toward the meeting room. They were going to overflow, so he approached one of the senior church ladies. "We'll need more blankets, and we'll need to open up the sanctuary for people. There will be more. How are we set for food?"
"Could use more," said the woman. "We'll do what we can."
"Talk to my wife. She knows who to call at the other churches. We all need to get involved in this one. Twenty-eight is what they say are in the mine. I pray to God some of them make it out." He looked at the clock on the wall. Eleven thirty in the morning and the first rescue team had not yet gone in for a search. This was going to be a long, long day. He prayed a little, looked up, and then purposefully stepped into the throng of people, arms outstretched, comforting and welcoming.
Soon another bus arrived, then a second, and then a third. The building was nearly to capacity and the food was running low. Within an hour, a group of Catholic ladies, all of them down-timers, a mixed group of Methodists, and a down-timer group of Lutherans had arrived to help out. There were up-timers in the mix, but most of the crowd were down-timers.
It wasn't too much longer before the reporters started to arrive. There were five or six of them out in the street, kept there by the police officers' watchful eyes. One of them managed to talk his way in, but was soon discovered and tossed out unceremoniously by two very large and angry Methodist women, with support from a pair of Catholic church ladies. Pastors, preachers and priests showed up to comfort the waiting families. Social services were there. The place was filled to capacity. All they could do now was wait.
So that's what they did.
Every half hour, Reverend Green would walk around the church, stopping to talk, to tell someone where to get help, how to notify someone who wasn't there, offer support to the visiting clerics, and check in the back to see how all of the church ladies were getting along. He didn't have a lot to worry about. The groups of women were self-organizing. They agreed on shifts to support the Baptist core group, with relief coming from all other quarters. He stuck his head in the back rooms, and observed them for a moment. It was more diverse than it had ever been back up-time. The Protestant denominations were well represented, as well as support from both of the synagogues in town. There was even a fledgling humanist society represented, and those three people were in the back, working hard.
He leaned against the doorframe and took a moment to watch this miracle. This group of people had become a community, far more disparate than any West Virginia town could ever be, and yet it still functioned almost the same way. Good people looking out for good people. He smiled inwardly. After all, isn't that what a community is supposed to be? Come together in times of need, despite differences. Answer to the common threat, defend the common good? Here in the back room of his Baptist church, were people from different times and faiths, together. Side by side at the sinks and the ovens. Hauling out the garbage, cleaning the countertops.
His inward smile turned quietly outward, as he realized that even in the darkest tragedy, there was good.
From that, he took strength.
* * *
The leader of the mine rescue team was a coal miner named Hank Jones. He had been part of a rescue team back up-time. In his mid-fifties, he was still in good shape and was still an active coal miner. Experience had taught him that he should expect something like this someday, and knew that he would have to have a team to back him up.
The typical rescue team is five men. Hank had been training with a group of down-timers he personally selected. He'd hoped to be able to give one of the men a team of his own and expand the training, so that there would be a backup. But there hadn't been time to do so. Never enough time.
Hank and the team were ready to go in. Stacks and Larry had wanted to shut down the fans, shut down everything before they went it. Hank knew better, and there was a heated argument about what to do. It was critical to keep the situation underground stable, to not change the conditions and potentially create new hazards. It was a basic rescue team procedure. Hank's job as a team leader—the team leader—was to take charge.
He had to assert himself. When the rescue team is called, they own the mine and everyone else works for them. Mine owners, maintenance, management, everyone. There were some Swedes from the army, a couple guys that tried to take charge with a national defense posture that Hank also had to squelch. He was in charge. That's what happens when you call out a team.
Normally he wouldn't assert himself that way. He would hang back, learn who everyone was, take opinions, and collaborate. But this one was personal, for him and everyone at the jobsite. Larry Masaniello was taking it particularly hard and it could be affecting his judgment, Hank decided. But Hank didn't call Larry on it in public. He asked for a meeting off to the side, and focused Larry on supporting Hank. And the families.
"Keep these guys off my back, Larry. Let my team do our job down there. Keep the army out of this; that's the last thing we need. We brought them into the disaster planning as a courtesy more than anything else. Help me with those assholes. Focus on them and focus on the families. Have you delegated anyone to speak to the families over at the church?"
