Rising from the Ashes

It was just a dark lump covering a black sack.  Barely lit in that damp cellar, I moved closer.  Suddenly the lump shot up. I turned and ran up the stairs faced old Mr. Banks, who was selling me his windmill.

‘I think I’ve just seen a ghost in your cellar’

‘No, sir’ said Mr Banks. ‘No ghosts here, that will be my chimney boy, Jack Sweep.  Parents didn’t want him, so I bought him.  He was a six- year-old boy bargain.  Naturally, he comes free with the windmill.  Go with him to Oakwood Farmhouse, see how he turns soot to gold.’

Before sunrise Jack was standing in the fireplace and staring up into the blackened brick chimney of this Oakwood farmhouse kitchen.

‘Tell him to hurry up, I want my kitchen ovens working by noon’ insisted the red-nosed farmer to Mr Banks.

30 feet tall, and narrowing to 18 inches wide, this chimney had a reputation.  It had swallowed up generations of small boys as they had become trapped, or wedged between tight corners.  Though no one had actually died, many had come close as they coughed and choked out blood and soot. 

I stared hopelessly at Jack before he started to climb.  I winced as I looked into his swollen owl-like eyes and his stooping sparrow boned- frame.  I heard a faint but regular rattle in his breathing.   Most upsetting were the red and purple sores which covered his knees and elbows, and that young hairless head, which remained bald as it was easier to keep clean.  Jack was good at his job.  He had a special climbing technique, but over time, it had left permanent scars. 

‘Well, what’s keeping you boy?  Up you go then’ shouted Mr. Banks. 

With his dark hands clutching the long, spikey brush and with a big bag dragging on his side, Jack pulled and pushed upwards using his elbows, knees, feet and back.  As the soot began to fall, great clumps of it, the coughing and spitting started.  Jack dropped back down and shovelled heaps of soot to his Mr. Banks.  Then back up again, each climb taking longer than the last time.

Like a trapped bird you could hear the flapping, kicking and coughing.  Then suddenly, all the coughing stopped.

‘Ah’ said the master Banks, ‘he’ll be looking into the sky’.  Buckets of soot continued to drop, but the boy’s silence continued.

‘What’s going on, Jack?’ Banks shouted from the fireplace.  But there was nothing.  It was as silent as the grave.  ‘Are you playing games with me, boy?  Speak up, or you’ll be taking a beating and there’ll be no food for two days.   I could see the Banks was becoming agitated, and after a few choice curses, old Banks took a rag and a match from his pocket.

‘Mr. Banks, surely you do not intend to smoke him out’ I said.

‘It’s for his own, good’ mumbled Banks. ‘Jack, if there’s no noise from you by the time I count to one, I’ll be putting those young feet to the fire.  Three… two…. one.  Without hesitation, Banks took the match, lit the oiled rag and wafted it in the fireplace.  For a small amount of cloth, the smoke and heat were intense.  Banks waited for the coughing to resume.  The cloth burnt to a cinder, with black smoke filling the room.  A look of horror spread across the Bank’s face.   

‘That’s never failed before, better get the farmer’  said a very worried looking Mr. Banks.

Within ten minutes, the farmer had his labourers taking the chimney wall apart.  Brick by brick.  The more the bricks fell, the faster the wall was demolished.  After twenty minutes and half way up the chimney, they found a shoe locked between two bricks.  It wasn’t looking good. A little higher and they found a second shoe.  The silence and the speed at which each brick was being removed was laden with doom.  They all knew children got trapped and died in chimneys, they began to dread what they would find.

After an hour of pulling bricks and scraping concrete they stopped as the clear, bright blue sky dazzled their eyes.  To their astonishment there was no sign of a bag, a brush, a boy.

Brick by brick, they kept dismantling the chimney, until they revealed a narrow passage which connected with the chimney for the fireplace in the adjoining room. 

They burst into the room which was in a shocking state. It was covered in black soot and dirt.  A brush and bag were in left in the fireplace.   Then clear for all to see from the fireplace to a small window, there was trail of tiny black footprints.  At the window the footprints combined with tiny, delicate hand prints climbing up the wall and around the frame of the open window.

I would like to think Jack would find his way back to the windmill when I was the owner, but for now, he had risen from the ashes and had found his freedom.