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By Root 1795 0

darkness. Each time they met and exchanged a snort, they both seemed to be uttering a lament, the older horse because he could no longer remember, the younger because he could not yet forget. In the stables they shared a manger and spent their time together hanging their heads and blowing into each other’s nostrils, sharing their constant dream of daylight, their visions of green grass and white roads and yellow brightness stretching into infinity. Then, as Trumpet lay dying in the straw, bathed in sweat, Battle had begun to nuzzle him, in despair, with short snuffles that sounded like sobs. He could feel him getting cold: the mine was taking away his one last joy in life, this friend who had come down from above all full of lovely smells that recalled the days of his own youth up in the fresh air. And when he had seen that the other horse was no longer moving, he had broken his tether and whinnied with fear.

In fact Mouque had been warning the overman for the past week. But what did they care about a sick horse at a time like this! These gentlemen were not keen on moving horses. But now they really would have to do something about getting him out. The previous day the stableman and two other men had spent an hour trying ropes round Trumpet, and then Battle was harnessed to haul him as far as the shaft. Slowly the old horse pulled his dead comrade along, dragging him through a tunnel which was so narrow that he had to jerk him forward from time to time, at the risk of skinning him. It was heavy going, and the horse kept shaking his head as he listened to this mass of flesh scraping against the rock on its way to the knacker’s yard. When they unharnessed him at pit-bottom, he gazed with a doleful eye at the preparations for Trumpet’s ascent, watching as they pushed him on to cross-beams placed over the sump and roped him to the bottom of a cage. Eventually the onsetters signalled that the ‘meat’ was on its way, and he raised his head to watch him leave, gently at first, then suddenly being whisked away into the darkness, lost for ever up the black hole. And as he stood there craning his neck, the animal could perhaps dimly remember the things of this earth. But it was all over, his comrade would never see anything ever again, and one day he too would be tied into a miserable parcel like this and make his way to the surface. His legs started trembling, and he began to choke on the fresh air coming down from those distant landscapes; and as he plodded slowly back to his stable, it was as though he were drunk.

In the pit-yard the mood was sombre as the miners stood round Trumpet’s corpse. One woman said softly:

‘At least a person can decide if they want to go down there or not.’

But a new wave of people was arriving from the village, and Levaque, marching at their head followed by La Levaque and Bouteloup, was shouting:

‘Death to the Belgians! No foreigners in our pit! Death to the Belgians.’

They all surged forward, and Étienne had to check them. He walked up to the captain, a tall, thin young man in his late twenties, who looked grim but determined, and he explained the situation to him, trying to win him over, watching carefully to see what effect his words would have. Why risk a pointless massacre? Wasn’t justice on the side of the miners? They were all brothers, they ought to be able to come to some agreement. At the mention of a republic, the captain gestured nervously, but he maintained his stiff military bearing and said abruptly:

‘Stand back. Don’t force me to do my duty!’

Three times Étienne tried again. Behind him the comrades were becoming restive. A rumour was going round that M. Hennebeau was at the pit, and somebody suggested letting him down the shaft by his neck to see if he would dig out the coal himself. But the rumour was false; only Négrel and Dansaert were there, and they appeared briefly at a pit-head window. The overman remained in the background, unwilling to show his face since his episode with La Pierronne, but the engineer boldly surveyed the crowd with his sharp little eyes, smiling with