Tales of the West Riding (9 page)

“There's other reservoir commissioners besides Mester Beaumont,” reflected Joe.

“Nearest is three miles away. Sit thee down, Joe. Drawer will find it out in t'morning, when he goes to let watter flow down for t'mills. News'll be all over valley by noon.”

In this forecast at least the old man was correct, and the news of the Ling danger spread rapidly up and down the valley. The next couple of days, though not to be called dry, for mist and drizzle prevailed, were not as wet as Sunday, and quite a few Yarrow men walked or rode up to the reservoir, and stood gazing at it with mixed alarm and fascination. They could not help feeling a certain enjoyable interest in the reservoir, which was certainly very full; waves, driven by one of the westerly breezes so frequent in the Pennines, slapped sharply against the embankment only a few feet from the top. Here and there, indeed, the surface of the water was less than a yard from the top; the embankment had certainly sunk in an uneven and untidy fashion. Criticism of the reservoir commissioners was severe. They should never have let it get into this state—it's disgraceful—well, they've no money—Lords wouldn't pass the Bill—I don't care; they should have repaired it, choose how. Mr. Beaumont, riding up on Tuesday morning, gave orders that the valves regulating the flow of water down the river were to be opened wide. With one culvert, this was immediately effected; the other valve for some reason stuck; a bush or tree had become lodged against the opening, perhaps; such a temporary closure had happened before. In this case, however, the closure proved not
to be temporary, for the combined efforts of the drawer and several men borrowed from the upper mill where Joe now worked failed to open the valve.

In the early hours of Wednesday morning the weather changed. The drizzle gave way to pouring rain. A westerly breeze sprang up, became a wind, became a storm. All through the day the rain deluged the hills, the wind howled down the narrow valley. It was later estimated—perhaps erroneously—that during the afternoon the Ling reservoir was filling at the rate of eighteen inches an hour, while the strong wind drove all this vast volume of water against the embankment.

In the evening the rain suddenly stopped; the clouds cleared, the moon came out. The wind, however, still howled, and the air was biting as Joe made his way up the valley after work. A group of men, similarly drawn by curiosity, were standing on the hillside gazing down at the reservoir. Among them were the drawer, and Joe's father.

“Well, rain's stopped at last,” said the drawer in a tone of relief.

“Aye, but watter hasn't stopped coming in,” said John Booth. “Look at those becks up yonder.”

He pointed to the hills which rose to the west. In the moonlight the streams on their sides showed white and swollen, leaping and foaming down the steep slopes into the Ling reservoir.

“She'll brim,” he said in a gloating tone.

“I reckon she will,” said the drawer. “But the fields below will sop it all up, surely.”

“If they don't it'll be a poor do for the mills along the river side,” said John Booth.

After a time Joe, hungry and tired, began to think of home and tea. His father, however, declined to budge.

“Don't stop too late, now, father,” urged Joe.

“I shall stay till she brims,” replied his father.

Joe was by now so tired of this expression, which had become a byeword in the valley, that without any further attempts at persuasion he left the hillside.

In the silver light of the full moon every wall and building, every field and lane in the Valley lay clear to his sight as he hurried down, driven on by the strong cold wind at his back.
Remembering what his father had said, he eyed the mills on the banks of the river apprehensively and thought it was lucky that the overflow would occur—if it occurred at all—during the night when the mills were closed. Now that the rain had ceased, the peak of the water intake would be past in a few hours; if nothing happened before dawn, the reservoir would be safe for this time. Luckily Beaumont's Row stood halfway up the hillside, where surely the overflow would not reach. Beaumont House, however, stood on the level of the mill yard, tucked into the side of the hill. Joe hesitated. Pride made him exceedingly reluctant to approach the Beaumonts, yet it seemed to him mean, ignoble, not to give them warning. At length his natural goodness triumphed; he entered the massive front portico and pulled the bell. The maid who opened the door started back in alarm as she recognised him, and this angered Joe.

“Please tell Mester Beaumont as the Ling is still filling and there's like to be an overflow,” he said drily.

“Shall I say who brought the message?”

“No. It's no matter. Well, say it came from the drawer—that's true enough,” said Joe.

“We've heard about Ling before,” said the maid pertly, “from your family.”

Joe shrugged his shoulders and turned away.

He went home, ate his tea, talked with his wife and mother about the Ling and went to bed.

It was ten o'clock that night when the water in the reservoir, driven hard by the strong wind, began to flow over the top of the embankment. By midnight torrents of water were cascading down the outer surface at many points, and soon this grass-grown surface, not being faced with stone, began to crumble. Tons of loose earth and rubble were swiftly carried away. Hardly had the alarmed watchers become accustomed to this spectacle than the whole outer surface of the bank disappeared, leaving exposed the inner layer of clay. At one point near the north side of the reservoir there now became visible a gap in the clay.

“That's where the spring came through,” said old Booth
pointing. “I told 'em so. I told 'em. There was clay in the watter, could only have come from the puddle in the wall.”

His hearers murmured agreement.

“I was right, I believe?” went on old Booth fiercely. “Weren't I right? Eh?”

“Right enough,” murmured his hearers, uneasily shuffling their feet.

Water now began to pour through the gap. The clay around it bulged, cracked, split; the split became fissures and ran along the whole length of the embankment; the clay bank began to slide and in a moment, it seemed, had totally disintegrated.

“This is more than brimming, John,” said one man sardonically.

“It is that,” replied old Booth gravely.

“But if that inner wall doesn't hold, what then?”

“God knows.”

“It's stone, think on,” said the drawer in the high quavering tones of fear.

At that moment, with a noise like a rolling peal of thunder, the whole mass of earthwork gave way, and three hundred thousand tons of water were released to rush down with fearful velocity upon the narrow valley through the gap thus made. For a moment the watchers stood stupefied, awestruck by the magnitude of the calamity and the fearfully grand spectacle of the huge waves billowing white beneath the moon. Then with incoherent cries of panic they turned and ran for their homes.

“Wakken up, Joe!” said his wife, shaking him.

“What's wrong?” said Joe, starting up.

“Thi father's not home yet, and thi mother's right upset.”

His mother stood in the door of the tiny loft, wrapped in a shawl, a lighted candle in her hand.

“It's so fearfully wild, Joe,” she murmured. “The wind's howling like a mad dog.” (Indeed a thunderous roar filled the air.) “Thi father'll catch his death o'cold.”

“He won't come home till Ling has brimmed,” said Joe irritably. “It's no use to expect him.”

His mother gazed at him piteously.

“Oh, very well,” he said with a sigh. “I'll go.”

He dressed rapidly and went out into the moonlight night. The wind, though keen and strong, was not as wild as he had expected from the sound, and he kept a good pace up the valley.

Suddenly round a distant turn in the lane he saw his father, running madly towards him. Whether from the moonlight or some other cause, John Booth's face looked blanched; his mouth was wide; he tossed his arms wildly in the air and shouted. His words came in snatches down the wind.

“Flood! Flood! It's coming, Joe, it's coming!”

Joe stood still. “She's brimmed all right and it's worse than father thought,” he reflected.

“Quick, quick!” shouted his father, waving his arms frantically. “Go! Warn! Flood coming!”

Joe turned and ran as fast as he could down the valley.

Awakened by the wild banging on his front door, Mr. Beaumont got out of bed and threw up the window.

“What's to do?” he cried.

“Flood, Mester Beaumont!” shouted Joe. “Ling's brimmed heavily. You mun get your wife out quick.”

“Come in and help me,” cried Mr. Beaumont. He ran downstairs and opened the door. “By God, it's here already,” he said in a hushed tone of awe, for the water was indeed swirling round Joe's ankles.

“Aye, and I guess there's more to come,” said Joe uneasily, looking back over his shoulder.

“We can't get my wife out now, we can't get her out through this. She'll catch her death. The wind's strong too. It roars like thunder.”

“Aye, if it is wind,” said Joe. “We mun be quick. We can take her out straight to the steps through one of the bedroom side-windows.”

“Nay, Joe!” Mr. Beaumont began to remonstrate, but broke off abruptly, for the water suddenly rushed round Joe's knees. “Come on!” he shouted, rushing for the stairs. “Rosa! Jane! Ellen!”

“Have you a ladder?” cried Joe.

“Aye! Round the back.”

By the time Joe fought his way back to the front door with the ladder the water was up to his waist and pouring into the hall. He tried to close the door behind him against the tide but could not, and was thankful to get the ladder to the stairway in the dark.

“Be quick, Joe, be quick!” cried Mr. Beaumont impatiently.

He had opened the bedroom window wide and was shouting “Help! Help!” to some figures on the hill. They came clambering down the steps, faces white in the moonlight.

“Take this,” said Joe, pushing the ladder across to them. “Hold it tight down against steps, now. We've got to get Mrs. Beaumont out.”

They nodded and seemed to understand, though words were blown away in the thunderous roar which filled the air. Beaumont ran back to the bed, where Rosa was wrapping her mother tightly in a blanket. Hester lay still and quiet, her great eyes beaming; as her husband picked her up, she clasped her arms about his neck.

“Can you manage, Mester Beaumont?”

“Aye, aye—she's not much weight.”

Nevertheless when he reached the window he was crimson and gasping. Joe took the invalid in his arms. Released from his grasp, the ladder end shook on the sill.

“Hold the ladder tight,” he commanded Rosa. “You, mester, get out on the ladder.”

They obeyed. Joe lifted the woman through the window. Beaumont on the ladder slowly drew his wife towards him, and presently the men on the hillside steps reached out and were able to grasp his arms. After a long silent moment of infinite peril—the swirling water was now but a few feet below the ladder—man and wife were drawn to safety.

With a sudden scream the two maids rushed for the window and climbed out, banging their heads and bruising their elbows as they scrambled through. They were of course in their nightgear, and the men on the steps could not but grin as they hauled them across.

“Now then, love, don't take on! Tha's safe enough, now!”
they said, laughing, as they pushed the girls up the steps towards the lane.

“Now, Miss Rosa,” said Joe. “Be quick now. Your mother'll be missing you.”

Rosa stood gazing at him, her head thrown back, a look of scorn and anger on her beautiful face. Her glorious hair had come loose from its plait, and hung in rich abundance over her shoulders.

“Nay, you go first. Go to your wife, Joe Booth,” she taunted him.

“Go! Go!” shouted Joe.

Rosa slowly shook her head. In a fury Joe grasped her by the wrist and tried to urge her to the window, but she resisted. For a moment they stood there together, their bodies close, a fierce hatred on each face, while the men on the hillside shouted warnings.

Then the great wave struck the house. The water which had previously come down was merely the overflow which preceded the burst; now the whole content of the reservoir flung itself against the Yarrow buildings in a towering mass. These solid structures of native millstone grit appeared to hesitate, then quivered in the wave—“wobbled a bit like on top of the water” as one of the appalled spectators later recorded—and abruptly disintegrated. Mill House and Beaumont Mills disappeared; Beaumont Row followed. Houses, mills, sheds, bridges; chairs, tables, sofas, gates; cows, horses, sheep, carts; haystacks, boulders, bales of cloth, machinery; all were swept away in the white roaring flood. The huge mill boiler, some thirty feet long, bobbed on the surface, as it swam down the valley, as if it were no weightier than a tea-kettle.

In twenty minutes the roaring waters ceased to flow; the reservoir had emptied itself. Where there had been grass, was now sand and boulders; where there had been thriving villages, tumbled heaps of stone and silence.

The awful calamity, the appalling loss of life, the fearful devastation in the Yarrow Valley, aroused the sympathy, not only of the West Riding and of Yorkshire, but of the whole nation.
Relief funds were set on foot and capably administered; a competent engineering expert was sent down from London to attend the inquest, which was adjourned for a fortnight to give him time for the preparation of a full report. Meanwhile the sad tasks of retrieving the bodies of those who had perished, burying the drowned animals, clothing and feeding those who had survived but lost all their possessions, and collecting any small pieces of property which might have been left behind when the flood passed by, were pursued with great energy, chiefly by the constabulary of the down-valley town of Annotsfield, for the Yarrow Valley inhabitants were mostly too stunned to take an active part.