“I’ll get it,” I says to our pa.
“Nah, son, I’ll get it,” he says, and jumps right in like he’s a boy again. Lands straight on his cap and starts to laugh. “Bull‘s-eye,” he says. “You owe me a pint.”
“Where you going to get a pint?” I laugh. “You’ll have to walk a long way for it.”
Only pub round here that’ll serve gravediggers is the Duke of St. Albans the bottom of Swain’s Lane, and they won’t let our pa in anymore ‘cause he got so drunk he tried to kiss the landlady, then wrecked a chair.
Just then there’s a crack and the shoring on the side by Ivy May’s grave pops out. It does that when the ground round it’s shifting. Before our pa can do anything but duck the flying wood, that side of the grave collapses.
It must happen fast, but it don’t seem like it. Seem like I got lots of time to watch our pa look up like he’s just heard thunder overhead and is waiting for the next flash of lightning. “Oh,” I think I hear him say.
Then the dirt is raining down on him, piling round him up to his waist. There seems to be a little pause then but it can’t be long‘cause Joe and I ain’t moved at all yet, ain’t said a word, ain’t even breathed.
Our pa catches my eye for a second and seems to smile at me. Then a pile of dirt comes down and knocks him over.
“Man in!” I shout as loud as I can through the rain. “Man in!” It’s words no one likes to hear in this place.
The dirt is still moving like it’s alive but I can’t see our pa now. Just like that he’s not there. Joe and I scramble round the grave, trying to keep from setting off more dirt. The hole’s three quarters full now. We need a big timber or ladder to lay‘cross the hole, to give us something stable to work from, but there ain’t one around. We had a ladder but someone’s borrowed it.
There ain’t no time to wait when a man’s buried like that. He’ll die in a few minutes if he ain’t got no air. I jump into the hole though I’m not supposed to, landing in the mud on all fours like a cat. I look and look and then I see the thing our pa taught me. I see his finger sticking out the dirt, just the tip of it, wiggling. He remembered to put his hand up. I start clawing round the finger with my hands. Don’t dare use a shovel. I dig so hard the sand gets jammed under my nails and it hurts bad.
“Hang on, our Pa,” I say as I’m digging. “We’re getting you out. I see your fingers. We’re getting you out.”
Don’t know as he can hear me, but if he can it might make him feel better.
I’m digging and digging, trying to find his face, hoping he put the other hand up to it. There ain’t no time, not even to look up. If I did look up, though, I know I’d see Joe standing on the edge of the grave, looking down at me, hands at his sides. He’s a big man, and can dig for hours without stopping, but he’s no thinker. He don’t do the delicate work. He’s better off up there.
“Joe, start counting,” I say as I keep clawing at the sand. “Start from ten and keep counting.” I reckon I’ve dug ten seconds.
“Ten,” Joe says. “‘Leven. Twelve.”
If he gets to two hundred and I ain’t found our pa’s face it’ll be too late.
“Thirty-two.”
“Sixty-five.”
“One twenty-one.”
I feel something overhead and look up. There’s a ladder ‘cross the grave now. If more dirt comes down I can reach up and grab hold of the rungs so it don’t get me. Then someone jumps into the grave beside me. It’s Mr. Jackson. He reaches out with his arms wide and hugs the pile of dirt I been digging. I didn’t think he were that strong but he shifts the pile back so I got more room. He do just what I need him to do without me having to say it.
“One seventy-eight.”
My fingers touch something. It’s our pa’s other hand. I dig round the hand and find his head, then dig round that and lift his hand so his mouth and nose are clear. His eyes are closed and he’s white. I put my ear up to his nose but don’t feel breath tickle it.
Then Mr. Jackson pushes me aside and puts his mouth over our pa’s like he’s kissing him. He breathes into his mouth a few times, then I see our pa’s chest go up and down.
I look up. Round the grave, all silent and still, there’s a circle of men standing-other diggers, gardeners, masons, even dung boys. Word got out fast and everybody came running. They’ve all took their caps off, even in the pouring rain, and are watching and waiting.
Joe’s still counting. “Two twenty-six, two twenty-seven, two twenty-eight.”
“You can stop counting, Joe,” I says, wiping my face. “Our pa’s breathing.”
Joe stops. The men all move, shifting feet, coughing, talking tow-everything they held back while they was waiting. Some of ‘em don’t like our pa for his love of the bottle, but no one wants to see a man caught down a grave like that.
“Hand us a spade, Joe,” Mr. Jackson says. “We’ve got a lot of work to do yet.”
I never been down a grave with Mr. Jackson. He ain’t so handy with a spade as me or other diggers but he insists on staying there with me till we get our pa out. And he don’t tell the other men to get back to work. He knows they want to see this through.
I like working side by side with him.
It takes a long time to uncover our pa. We have to dig careful so we don’t hurt him. For a time he has his eyes closed like he’s asleep, but then he opens ‘em. I start talking to him as I’m working so he won’t get scared.
“We’re just digging you out, our Pa,” I say. “The shoring come down with you in the grave. But you covered your face like you taught me, and you’re all right. We’ll be moving you out in a minute.”
He don’t say nothing, just keeps looking up at the sky, with the rain coming down so fast and going all over his face. He don’t seem to notice it. I start to have a bad feeling which I don’t say nothing ‘bout ’cause I don’t want to scare nobody.
“Look,” I says, trying to get him to say something. “Look, it’s Mr. Jackson digging. Bet you never thought you’d see the guvnor digging for you, eh?”
Our pa still don’t say nothing. The color’s coming back to his face but something’s still missing from his eyes.
“Expect I owe you that pint, our Pa,” I say, desperate now. “Expect there’s plenty of men’ll be buying you a pint today. I bet they’ll be letting you back in the Duke of St. Albans. The landlady might even let you kiss her.”
“Let him be, lad,” Mr. Jackson says real soft. “He’s just been through an ordeal. It may take him some time to recover.”
We work without talking then. When at last our pa’s uncovered, Mr. Jackson checks for broken bones. Then he takes our pa in his arms and hands him up to Joe. Joe puts him in a cart they use to haul stones, and two men start pulling him down the hill toward the gate. Mr. Jackson and I climb out the grave, both of us muddy all over, and Mr. Jackson starts to follow the cart. I stand there not sure what to do-the grave’s not filled and it’s our job to do it. But then two other diggers step up and take up the spades. They don’t say nothing-they and Joe just start filling the rest of the grave.
I follow Mr. Jackson and the cart down the path. When I catch up to him I want to say something to thank him, something that connects us so I’m not just another digger. I was close to him in Kitty Coleman’s grave and I want to remind him of that. So I say the thing I know ‘bout him and her, so he’ll remember the connection and know how grateful I am to him for saving our pa.
“I’m sorry ‘bout the baby, sir,” I say. “I bet she were too. She weren’t never the same after that, were she?”
He turns and looks at me sharp like. “What baby?” he says.
Then I realize he didn’t know. But it’s too late to take the words back. So I tell him.
MAY 1910