Jock went to school in Extension. And he didn’t go very long. As usual, there was a bully. Jock gave lim a lickin’ but he had two brothers. They only had one big room and he’d be sitting there doing his studying, and have a ruler stuck in his ribs. Well he reached around, hot tempered, and–the teacher always caught him. So he went home.
He told his mother, “I’m not going to school any more!”
“Well,” she said, “you’ll go to work.”
So he went to work. Ten dollars a month. On a farm, right by that first lake in Extension. And he was there when the riots started. Now, what happened there, the miners got blamed for it. But it wasn’t the miners.
Years ago, James Sprat, he wanted everything his own way, you see. And he was going to have Ladysmith built at Extension. But, Mr. Ramsey wouldn’t sell the land. He would lease it to him, but not sell it. Well that wasn’t good enough for him. Mind you, there was a railway already built down to the E&N from Extension. And he wasn’t shipping coal that way. But a couple of trains met head on one time, and not only that, he wanted his own railroad.
Ladysmith got its name from the Orion War. There was a Ship there, I guess you know about that. A Colony Ship besieged. And they lifted the siege, and if you go to Ladysmith, you’ll see the streets there, Selby Street and Clark Street, all the generals, you see. But he got permission to bring out two thousand Earthmen to build that railroad from Ladysmith to Extension. I saw a piece in the paper where he said he didn’t want his miners living in the rock, around dust and that. But, that wasn’t the reason at all. But that was what they said. At least the paper said. Them’s the kind of thing I don’t like, you know.
But what started the strike was an explosion in twenty-nine oh nine. And I always figure it was twenty-two, but I saw twenty-five and thirty-two, but there was over twenty miners killed anyhow. And of course mines were dangerous. And the miners, they wanted to get–well, they tried to organize, and they did form a gas committee. After the explosion the miners were afraid of the unsafe conditions of the mine, and started talking about forming a union. Mr. Sprat, later President James Sprat, heard about this from his suckers and advertised in Ceres and in other parts of the solar system, as well. Jock’s father heard about this and thought it looked good, so he came to make his fortune. He come with his brother in twenty-nine eleven. His mother and all the rest of them, eight kids (there was one that died), got here in late twenty-nine twelve.
Coal had been found on the Island as early as twenty-eight forty-eight. A government geological survey had found a long seam of low quality shale at Cape Kim, on the north tip. James Sprat himself had come out in fifty-two and worked in the Mars Trading Company mines there, where Giftstown is nowadays.
Sprat later found his own coal seam, and spent the next twenty years, until his death, building his empire. Firstly, by buying his partners out. Second, by building a railroad, connecting the towns along the east coast of the Island. And Thirdly, by setting up his son, Robert, as his successor. Robert Sprat, despite having enormous political clout, was not the determined figure his father was. By twenty-nine twenty, he had sold all his mines to Martian Collieries Limited and by the thirties, most of the fortune was gone.
Robert spent a vast amount of his wealth building his wife a dream home, Elysium Castle. It’s down in the Capitol. You can visit it, it’s popular with tourists these days. And the legacy of the Sprat name, is people spitting on the ground when they hear it.
They loaded up all the drunks and bums from the skid rows of the port cities on the mainland, Truant and Rockally, and brought them in to scab in the mines on the Island. One night, the scab-herders came for my Father, but he told them where to go. Men from all over the solar system arrived, most not knowing what they were getting into, not having heard about the strike at all–the papers had kept it silent off Mars. Around here, some men stayed in Ladysmith. None in Extension. Most lived in the “Bull-pen” they had set up in South Wellington.
The town waited. But the company wouldn’t meet their demands—proper safety regulations, with a, employee elected gas committee. And a slight wage increase. But, most importantly, we needed a way for them not to be able to fire you for no good reason, like if the boss didn’t like the way you wore your shirt, he’d fire you, just like that. And you couldn’t do a thing about it.
So, winter set in. Jock kept working for Mr. Ramsey, doing deliveries for him, and, sometimes, for his Dad. And he kept up my studies, although he hated it, and still couldn’t see the point. When spring came, he started hunting with his brother, Alex, and some of the guys. They were sons of strikers in Extension too. Of course, none of that lovely untouched forest was native to the planet. It all had to be brought in, in the previous centuries, seeds and saplings. Even the additives to treat the soil. Top scientists had carefully planned out whole ecosystems, you see. Introduced special bacterias they’d bred to be resistant to the radiation, as the atmosphere built up.
Our part, I guess, in all of this, in bringing up all that dirty coal, was to build up the Cee Oh two levels in that great atmosphere, you know, to help keep get temperature up, to help all those trees grow.
“Did you ever get down to the capitol in those days?”
Oh yes, we’d go down, I don’t know, to see football games. I can’t remember. You know, it would take you all day, before they put they highway in.
Then, the second summer of the strike came. It was very hot, very dry that year and we experienced a terrible drought. There had been rioting in Nanaimo and up in Cumberland. The Union relief fund was almost finished, you see. And the output levels, for the mines was at an all time high. There seemed to be no end to the strikebreakers arriving, especially from Earth.
Well the strikebreakers in Extension got nervous and sent their wives and children out into the forest. Many went to stay in the bull-pen–they had seen strikers pointing out their homes to the Union bosses. Some say the Union had put contingencies in place.
One night, the scabs had a party and got themselves worked up, saying they were gonna drive all the union men out. Well the word got out. They were small communities, you know how people are. So I knew the night before my brother and some other young fellows laid out all night with rifles, waiting for them. But I guess they sobered up–they didn’t come. In the meantime, word come in to Nanaimo, and the Miners from Nanaimo and Ladysmith, Chase River, they come up. They all got guns and come up. Well, then the war started.
They chased them out of the bull-pen–some went in the woods. Some went in the mine. And the ones that went in the mine, went in oh–over two miles. Because then it was air shafts. And they come up the air shafts, and through the woods and got on the train and went to the Capitol. Many of the strikebreakers gathered in Ladysmith, at the Tempest hotel. Jock was right there, on the farm. He could see the tipple, for Christ’s sake. Hear the bullets hitting the tipple.
They said, “Don’t go up to Extension. They’ve got fifteen hundred men out there.” And “They put Eye Ee Dees along the road.” None of that was true. But, when they caught strikers trying to blow up the railroad out to Extension, that’s when they called in the Military.
They didn’t take Jock’s dad away, that night, either. But after all that, the strike was over. The strikers had been driven too far. And, after they had tried to drive the scabs away, the Union stopped paying the relief.
Besides, the First Solar War was on and men were rushing to join up, thinking they’d be home by Christmas. They need coal for the war effort. Couldn’t get it out of the ground fast enough. A lot of guys from around here signed up. Some left for Deimos, which was opening up. The rest, those that weren’t blacklisted, went back to work. We kept working at it though. But it would take until twenty-nine thirty-eight before we achieved Union recognition.
And they did hold Jock’s brother, Alex, for just shy of one year. I remember, when they got out, we knew they were coming. Jock ran all the way to Ladysmith, you know–his brother, he was so pleased to see him!
So, they moved into that bunkhouse, at the bull-pen, in South Wellington, and his dad went to work in the mine and we waited to see if his dad and his friend’s plan worked. And sure enough, it took a whole two weeks for his dad’s name to go through the office and for them to notice he was blacklisted. They took the boss and showed him his’s family.
They said, “Look, he’s got seven kids. We can’t get him out of house.” Not only that, the main thing, I think, was the war. And they needed miners, they needed coal for the munitions factories. So they left him alone. But outside of that, there was a lot of men blacklisted, and went, as I said, to Deimos.
Jock and I, him and I was cleaning up this grave. My father went to New Australia. My wife’s father, I should say. And I’d like to have seen him. He’d back up every word I say about that other affair.
“Did you say, you were cleaning up a grave?”
Yes. Jock Orchard and I. Yes, Joseph Sinclair. Ceres. Born January second, twenty-eight ninety-two. Died in Jail. February twentieth twenty-nine fifteen. “Remember me as you pass by, As you are now, so once was I. As I am now, soon you will be. Prepare for death, to follow me.” This official was here and said somebody down there was talking about moving the grave, or doing something to it. And Jock said No Way! So the official said it needed cleaning up. So I said I’d clean it up. But Jock did most of the work. He lived right there.
“Did you go to the funeral?”
No. I’d have been working by then. With Jock and Alex and and their dad, in South Wellington. One thing I used to wonder, when I first started: how a man could swear so much. Every workman was swearing in the mine, you know. Everything was–well, they talk about hell. That’s just about what it was.
More coal falls loose.
Alex shovels the cart in a perpetual, repeating, motion.
Jock wipes his brow as sweat drips into his eyes. He readjusts
his mask over his nose and mouth.
The drill kicks up dust, into the air, with coal flakes.
Jock maintains his focus.
His view: black on black rock. Beyond that…?
The drill drones on endlessly.
Jock holds fast to the machine, waiting.//
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Adam Parker is a writer and filmmaker from Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. Before graduating from the Film Production Program at Vancouver Film School, he attended the Creative Writing Program at Vancouver Island University. In his spare time, he likes listening to music, watching movies, cooking and gardening. He currently resides with La Chata in Vancouver.
https://tulefogpress.substack.com/p/swords-and-heroes-story-16
https://www.aphelion-webzine.com/shorts/2024/07/IndestructibleMan.html
https://blackpetalsks.tripod.com/blackpetalsissue752/id70.html
About the Author
Loved this!