She shook her head. ‘God knows,’ she breathed. ‘He’ll have to give evidence, I suppose. He knew it was unsafe, that faulted area particularly.’ She paused, staring at me very directly. And then suddenly she leaned forward, a note of urgency in her voice. ‘You knew it, too. You were down there — you said yourself it was unsafe.’
‘Yes, the pillars supporting the overburden were rotten with oxidization.’
‘So it collapsed, just like that?’ She was staring at me. ‘There’ll be an inquest and you’ll be called to give evidence. You realize that?’
I hadn’t thought about it, but this was basically an English country, the same legal procedures. ‘I suppose so.’
‘Then you’ll tell the Coroner. You’ll testify it was dangerous and that was why Daddy wouldn’t let anybody down there?’ She was living the scene in her imagination, her voice low. ‘It was an accident.’ I didn’t say anything and she stubbed out her cigarette and got to her feet. ‘I’d forgotten for a moment that you were a mining consultant. That makes a difference.’
‘Well, naturally. It’s an expert opinion and they’ll accept that.’
She was moving past me then, out on to the verandah, but I caught hold of her shoulders. ‘Janet. What was it you came to tell me?’
‘Nothing.’ I could feel her trembling.
‘You said you had to tell somebody.’
‘Did I?’ Her voice was blank. ‘Well if I did, I’ve forgotten what it was. I think I just wanted to talk to you.’
She was lying. I knew that. But I couldn’t force it out of her and I let her go. I was too physically exhausted to care very much. But back in that narrow bed, with the lumps of the mattress all in the wrong places, I was nagged by the things Westrop had said, her father’s behaviour, and the thought that he might have seen them going into the old shearing shed. But clarity of thought was beyond me and, with my mind still groping for a reasonable explanation, I drifted off to sleep.
Andie woke me a little after one. The Grafton Downs men had arrived. Ed Garretty had given them an account of what had happened, but they wanted a briefing from me. There were seven of them, only three of them miners, and I had to tell them I didn’t think there was a hope in hell of their getting any further into the mine than we had, let alone find Westrop or the other two alive. ‘My guess is it’s a total collapse from the second level down.’
‘At least we must try to recover the bodies,’ the Clerk said.
‘But not at the risk of any more lives,’ I told nun.
The big Dutch foreman looked across at Ed Garrety, sitting bewildered and uneasy, the Alsatian at his feet. ‘You agree with that?’
‘Yes, of course. You mustn’t take any chances.’
‘No, vat I mean is, do you agree with your friend’s assessment of the situation?’
He hesitated, then nodded reluctantly. ‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘Okay. Then ve go.’
They finished their beers and got to their feet. Ed Garrety remained where he was. He seemed dazed and I wondered how he must feel with half the world attempting to break into his mine.
‘Anything we can do?’ one of the station owners asked.
The Dutchman shook his head. ‘From vat I hear there will be only room for one or two of us at a time. And it vill be very slow.’
He was right there. Kennie and I went down shortly after midday. They had shifted about ten tons of rubble, working on their hands and knees, and they were rapidly losing heart, even though Mt Newman had sent half a dozen volunteers. They had all of them been up the gully. They had seen how the old workings had become gaping pits. They had looked down the shaft, too, and they knew it was hopeless. The only thing that kept them going was the thought that Westrop and his companions might have been caught before they had gone any distance into the second level gallery.
We took our turn, but it was a gesture only. We had no hope of achieving anything. It was back-breaking work, the air was thick with dust and no room to move. As soon as we had finished our stint we went back up into the open air. Hot though it was, it still seemed wonderfully fresh after that narrow tunnel.
By the time we had got back to the homestead it was already dark and the local constable had arrived. He was with Ed Garrety, taking a statement. He took one from me, too, writing it all out laboriously in longhand, and when he finished, he went into Ed Garrety’s den to make his report on the radio. He was back a few minutes later with the news that the aborigine, Wolli, was alive. He had been found wandering in a state of exhaustion in the Mindy Mindy Creek area some 40 miles to the northeast. I remember the look on Ed Garrety’s face as the constable told us — a sort of shocked disbelief.
Janet saw it, too. She was staring at him, her mouth open, her eyes suddenly very wide. ‘If Wolli’s alive, then perhaps the others are, too.’
But there was no answering gleam of hope in her father’s eyes.
‘Hal Benton found him,’ the constable said. ‘He’s taking him into Nullagine now. He should be there in about an hour.’
We had some food and shortly after nine the constable went back to the radio. He was gone about ten minutes and when he returned his sun-crinkled face was grave. Benton had questioned Wolli on the drive to Nullagine and as a result he was able to confirm that Phil Westrop and Lenny Fisher had entered the tunnel by the old shearing shed entrance at least half an hour before the mine collapsed. They had left Wolli above ground, telling him to stay with their vehicle, which he had done until the noise of the disaster scared him and he had taken to the bush in panic.
There was no longer any doubt in our minds - both the men had had time to penetrate so deep into the mine that they would have been buried instantly. ‘No good risking our necks for nothing.’ Nobody said anything. We were all too shocked. Ed Garrety’s eyes were closed, his face grey and beaded with sweat. I thought for a moment he was going to pass out, he looked so bad. But then the heavy lids flicked back, the blue eyes staring. ‘Yes,’ he murmured, ‘there mustn’t be any more deaths.’
The constable nodded, standing there waiting. I think he was expecting Ed Garrety to go with him. But when nobody moved, he nodded again and ducked quickly through the flyscreen, disappearing into the night. A moment later we heard the engine of his Land-Rover.
A silence settled on the room, broken by Janet saying in a deliberately practical voice, ‘Well, there’s Cleo and the horses to see to, and the chickens — would somebody care to give me a hand?’ Kennie was on his feet in an instant. I watched them as they went out together and when I turned back to Ed Garrety, only the Alsatian was still there. His chair was empty.
I leaned back, closing my eyes and thinking of Westrop and the rumours surrounding his uncle’s disappearance. I must have dozed off, for the next thing I knew was Janet was standing there saying her father would like a word with me. ‘You’ll find him in his den.’ And she added as I got to my feet, ‘It’s upset him and he’s — not quite himself, see.’
I found him sitting at his desk with a glass in his hand and an old plan of the underground workings spread out in front of him. He looked up as I opened the door, his face flushed, his eyes too bright. ‘Come in Alec. Come in.’ I could smell the whisky before I had even seen the half-empty bottle. ‘Like a drink?’ He didn’t wait for me to reply, but reached into a drawer for another glass, the neck of the bottle rattling against it as he poured. ‘Now you sit down. Time we had a talk - just the two of us, eh?’ He spoke slowly and with care. He wasn’t drunk, but he had already had enough to make him choose his words with deliberation. ‘I’m told you went down on your own and brought up some samples. Right?’
I nodded, sitting there drinking his whisky and wondering what was coming, why he should choose this of all moments to talk about the reef he had found.
‘And then you hitched a ride to Kalgoorlie. Did you get those samples analysed?’
‘Yes.’ And I told him the result.
He emptied his glass and poured himself m
ore whisky. ‘I don’t usually drink. But tonight…’ He sat there, savouring the taste of it, staring into space. ‘It helps sometimes.’ There was a long pause, and he was looking down at the plan again. ‘It’s the future I have to think about now.’ He tapped the plan with his finger. ‘That’s where I came across the reef. At the third level, 149 yards north of the main gallery. Five men died there and seven were injured and my father closed the mine, not knowing they’d found die reef.’
‘How did you know then?’
‘That old abo, Half-Bake. He always said he’d seen the quartz as the roof collapsed on him. But I didn’t believe him. Or perhaps I was afraid to go down there. I told you, didn’t I? That mine’s got a curse on it. And now there’s two more dead.’
‘Did you know they were in the mine?’
He looked at me, frowning. ‘No, of course I didn’t. What made you say that?’
‘Golden Soak didn’t collapse of its own accord.’ The words came out before I had really thought about them. Maybe it was the whisky, or just that I was too tired to think what I was saying.
He stared at me, the room suddenly deathly silent. There were beads of sweat on his forehead, gleaming in the light. Far away I could hear the hum of the generator. He was staring at me a long time without saying a word. Finally he nodded. ‘No, you’re right. It didn’t collapse of its own accord.’ Another long silence, and then he said, ‘But you saw it, the edge of the reef just showing. How else was I to discover there was any depth to it? I took a chance.’
And he’d killed two men. No wonder he was drinking now. He pushed his hand up over his eyes, the fingers slowly clenching, the fist coming down and hitting the desk. ‘I was desperate.’ He said it slowly, tight-lipped, his eyes with that blank stare, ‘Then why didn’t you let me do a proper survey for you?’
He looked at me slowly. ‘Why should I? Why should I trust you? You may be a mining consultant, but you didn’t come to Australia because of the nickel boom. You came here to escape.’
‘I don’t deny it.’ The man was saying what he thought, and he was right. ‘How did you guess?’
‘Australia’s always been a bolt hole for men like you. You’ve no money, y’see. Hitching rides, clutching at straws …’ He nodded, his bright blue eyes staring at me, not accusingly, more in sympathy. ‘I won’t ask you what you’re escaping from. But we understand each other. Right?’
Was that a threat? I wondered.
Then he said, ‘I have to think of Jan now.’ A sudden smile illuminated his face. ‘Don’t worry, my boy. I like you. We don’t see many people here. I liked you the moment I saw you sitting there reading that old Shakespeare. Reminded me of Henry. Something of the temperament, too.’ He looked down at the plan of the mine again, then folded it carefully and put it away in a drawer. ‘Well, that’s the end of the Golden Soak. All these years and now it’s finished.’ He saw my empty glass and without a word poured me another drink and then refilled his own, the silence dragging. Finally he said, ‘How did you know Westrop was Mcllroy’s nephew?’
‘The Kalgoorlie Miner. His wife’s maiden name was given as Westrop.’
‘You read the reports. I see.’ He leaned back, sipping at his whisky, looking at me straight in the face as he said, ‘He was crooked as a rattlesnake, but my father admired him. Don’t you think that’s strange? He actually admired him. Said he had guts, coming here, brazening it out, and then going off into the desert like that, convinced he’d make a fortune. A cocky little bastard. That’s what my father called him. He wasn’t a great talker himself. But Pat McIlroy …’ He paused, staring past me at the wall, at an old sepia photograph of a man with drooping moustaches and a battered hat standing posed beside a team of horses hitched to a wagon. ‘Well, not much difference between a mountebank and a remittance man — talkers, actors both. I didn’t see much of McIlroy and I was only a kid at the time, but I can remember his voice, the extraordinary magnetism of the man. He liked people, y’see. A flash, brash, cocky, bouncy little bastard, but he rode the outback here with a golden tongue and a rainbow in his eyes and within a year that bank of Father’s was bursting at the seams with money.’
‘What happened to him at the end?’ I asked.
He stared at me blankly. ‘In the end? I thought you said you’d read the newspaper reports.’
‘They never found his body.’
‘The Gibson’s a big desert.’
‘The police had native trackers.’
‘God in heaven!’ He breathed. ‘After thirty years, still the same rumours.’ The bottle, more than half empty now, rattled against the glass. He put his head down, his hands to his face. ‘After all this time it’s like a dream. Trouble is, sometimes I don’t seem to know what’s real and what isn’t. I was down at Meekatharra that day, y’see. Drove back through the night and when I got there he was gone. Nobody’d seen him. It was dark when he arrived and still dark when he left. And he was drunk, my father said. Drunk on whisky and visions of a great copper mine that would feed British industry in the war that was coming - a fortune waiting for him in the desert. That golden tongue of his …’ He sipped at his drink, and then his mind switched to Golden Soak and he asked me what the chances were of the reef extending along the line of the gully up towards the gap.
‘A possibility, no more.’ His guess was as good as mine. ‘If you’d let me do a proper survey -‘
‘And have you kill yourself when I didn’t even believe the poor half-wit had seen the reef. I can remember my father recruiting those out-of-work miners, driving them to blast their way into the faulted area, knowing he was taking a hell of a risk. The day it happened I was riding the fences up beyond the Robinson Gap and I came down past Golden Soak at sunset just as the first bodies were being brought up.’ He lifted his glass, his hand shaking, staring at nothing. And I could see what he was seeing, remembering that drift offshooting north from the main gallery and the atmosphere that had clung to the third level. ‘Father never went down the mine again, and when I came back after the war I’d seen too many men die to try and reopen it.’
‘You were telling me about McIlroy,’ I reminded him. I didn’t like the glazed look in his eyes, the way his hands trembled. The death of two more men seemed to be affecting him the way the death of those miners had affected his father.
He nodded slowly. ‘A pity my father didn’t go with him instead of pinning his faith to Golden Soak.’ He pushed his hand up over his eyes again. ‘Mcllroy’s Monster.’ He laughed a little unsteadily. ‘Pat McIlroy died and my father went mad. Two sides of the same coin, and a whole era went when the Garrety empire crashed.’ He looked at me then, his head lifted, pride mixed with sadness as he said quietly, ‘It was an empire, y’know, by Australian standards. Father was the North West - the biggest man of a tough hard bunch. A piece of history you might almost say, like the Duraks further north.’ He smiled, sadly and with pity. ‘But nobody was sorry for him. He wasn’t the son of man. It was McIlroy they were sorry for. Something about him, and the mystery of his death - going out like that into the desert, chasing a dream.’ He turned his head to the picture on his desk, a full-length photograph of Big Bill Garrety in knickerbockers and a stiff collar. ‘So who won in the end?’ His voice was soft and slightly slurred. ‘My father slowly dying, a drunk, and that Irishman going out with a flourish that had everybody in the Pilbara talking about him, endless speculation.’
‘And nobody knows what happened to him?’ I asked.
He looked at me, a quick twist of the head, smiling a little crookedly. ‘Can I trust you? I can’t be sure, can I?’
‘No.’ By God we were being frank, and the whisky deadening tiredness, making it easy for us.
He nodded. ‘Well, it doesn’t matter now.’ He picked up his drink again. ‘McIlroy was a sick man. He had syphilis, y’know - suffered from blackouts, hallucinations. He should never have attempted an expedition like that. He knew it, and my father knew it. But he wouldn’t go with him. He wasn’t a
gambler and anyway his mind was set on Golden Soak, not some mythical copper deposit. But when McIlroy left here he had with him the best of our native boys. I know that because, when I wanted Weepy Weeli to ride with me to check the fences beyond Yandicoogina, Father told me he’d gone walkabout. That was nonsense. Weepy - we called him that because he had an eye infection - would never have gone walkabout. He’d been at the station ever since I could remember.’
And then he was telling me how, about two weeks before the cave-in, Weepy had walked into Jarra Jarra alone. The man had been little more than skin and bone, so weak he could hardly stand. ‘I found him out there by the old forge and then -‘ he hesitated, his hand gripped tight on his glass as though to prevent it shaking. ‘Then my father took him straight off to the sacred place of his people — Father knew all the ritual, he was blood brother to one of the elders of Weepy’s tribe. What happened there I don’t know, but afterwards Weepy wouldn’t even admit he was with McIlroy in the Gibson.’
‘He told his son,’ I said.
‘Yes, he told Wolli - when he was dying.’
‘So Wolli knows what happened.’
He shook his head. ‘No. No, I don’t think so.’ He sounded a little vague. ‘Old Weepy knew the sort of man his son was. He told him just enough to ensure the bastard would keep his job here in Jarra Jarra.’ And then so softly I could barely hear him: The sins of the father,’ he breathed, ‘All my hopes, my plans, all my dreams for this place… .’ He took a quick gulp at his drink, spilling some of it down his chin, wiping the liquor clear with his hand. ‘I was a kid then. Just a kid.’ He said it as though it cleared him of responsibility. ‘There was a war coming, thank God, and after that I was in the army.’ His eyes stared at me with an appalling blankness. ‘I was in the army within a month and I didn’t see this place or my father again for six years.’ He picked up the bottle, holding it to the light, then shared out the rest of it between us. ‘Well, what are the chances?’ he asked abruptly. ‘I have to think of Jan now, and you’re a mining man.’
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