the problem was to build up a picture from results like that. it looked like a mess of faulted and waterlogged ground with the gold reef fragmented and fluky, showing unbelievably high values at one spot, and then more than likely pinching out fifty feet away.
they may mine it one day, thought rod, but i hope to hell i'm on pension by the time they do.
in the distance beyond the slimes dam he could just make out the spidery triangle of the drilling rig against the grown grass.
"go to it, boys," he muttered. "whatever you find there won't make much difference to me." and he went in through the imposing gates at the entrance to the mine property, halting carefully at the stop sign where the railway line crossed the road and he forked two fingers at the traffic policeman lurking behind the gates.
the traffic cop grinned and waved; he had caught rod the previous week, so he was still one up.
rod drove down to his office. -"that monday morning allen popeye"
worth was preparing to drill his first deflection "on the sd no. 5. borehole. allen was a texan not a typical texan. he stood five feet four inches tall, but was as tough as the steel drill with which he worked. thirty years before he had started learning his trade on the oilfields around odessa and he had learned it well.
now he could start at the surface and drill a four-inch hole down 13,000 feet through the earth's crust, keeping the hole straight all the way, an almost impossible task if you took into account the whippiness and torque in a jointed rod of steel that long.
if, as happened occasionally, the steel snapped and broke off thousands of feet down, allen could fit a fishing tool on the end of his rig, and patiently grope for the stump, find it, grapple it and pull it out of the borehole. when he hit the reef down there, he could purposely kick his drill off the line and pierce the reef again and again to sample it over an area of hundreds of feet. this was what was meant by deflecting.
allen was one of the best. he could command his own salary and behave like a prima donna, and his bosses would still fawn on him, for the things he could do with a diamond drill were almost magical.
now he was assessing the angle of his first deflection.
the previous day he had lowered a long brass bottle to the end of his borehole and left it overnight. the bottle was half filled with concentrated sulphuric acid, and it had etched the brass of the bottle.
by measuring the angle of the etching he knew just how his drill was branching off from his original hole.
in the tiny wood and iron building beside the drilling rig he finished his measurements and stood back from the work bench, grunting with satisfaction.
from his hip pocket he drew a corncob pipe and pouch.
once he had stuffed tobacco into the pipe and lit it, it became very clear as to why his nickname was "popeye'. he was a dead ringer for the cartoon character, aggressive jaw, button eyes, battered maritime cap and all.
he puffed contentedly, watching through the single window of the shack as his gang went about the tedious business of lowering the drilling bit down into the earth.
then he took the pipe from his mouth and spat accurately through the windows replaced the pipe and stooped to minutely check his measurements.
his foreman driller interrupted him from the doorway.
"on bottom, and ready to turn, boss."
"huh!" popeye checked his watch. "two hours forty to get down, you don't reckon to rupture a gut do you?"
"that's not bad, protested the foreman.
"and it sure as hell isn't good either! okay, okay, cut the cackle and let's get her turning." he bounced out of the shed and set off for the rig, darting quick beady little glances about him. the rig was a fifty-foot-high tower of steel girders and within it the drill rod hung down until it disappeared into the collar. the twin 200 horsepower diesel engines throbbed expectantly, waiting to provide the power, their exhausts smoking blue in the early morning sunlight.
beside the rig lay a mountainous heap of drilling rods, beyond them the 10,000-gallon puddling reservoir to provide water for the hole. water was pumped into the hole continuously to cool and lubricate the tool as it cut into the rock.
"stand by to turn her," popeye called to his gang, and they moved to their stations. dressed in blue overalls, coloured fibreglass helmets, and leather gloves, they stood ready and tensed. this was an anxious moment for the whole team: power had to be applied with a lover's touch to the mile and a half length of rod, or it would buckle and snap.
popeye climbed nimbly up onto the collar, and glanced about him to make sure all was in readiness. the foreman driller was at the controls, watching popeye with complete absorption, his hands resting on the levers.
"power up!" shouted popeye and made the circular motion with his right hand. the diesels bellowed harshly, and popeye reached out to lay his left hand on the drilling rod. this was how he did it, feeling the rod with his bare hand as he brought in the power, judging the tension by ear and eye and touch.
his right hand gestured and the foreman delicately let in the clutch the rod moved under popeye's hand, he gestured again and it revolved slowly. he could feel it was near breaking point and he cut down the power instantly, then let it in again. his right hand moved eloquently, as expressively as an orchestral conductor, and the foreman followed it, the junior member of a highly skilled team.
slowly the tension of the gang relaxed as the revolutions of the drill built up steadily, until popeye gave the clenched fist "okay" and jumped down from the collar. they scattered casually to their other duties, while popeye and the foreman strolled back to the shed, leaving the drill to grind away at a steady four hundred revolutions a minute.
"got something for you," said the foreman, as they entered the shed.
"what?" demanded popeye.
the latest playboy."
"you're kidding!" popeye accused him delightedly, but the foreman fished the rolled magazine out of his lunch box.
"hey, there!" popeye snatched it from him and turned immediately to the coloured foldout.
"isn't that something!" he whistled. this dolly could get a job in a stockyard beating the oxen to death with her boo-boos!" the foreman joined the discussion of the young lady's anatomy, and so neither of them noticed the change in the sound of the drill until two minutes had passed. then popeye heard it through an erotic haze. he flung the magazine from him, and went through the door of the shed white-faced.
it was fifty yards from the shed to the rig, but even at that distance popeye could see the vibration in the drilling rod. he could hear the labouring note of the diesels as they carried increased load. he ran like a fox terrier, trying to reach the controls and shut off the engines before it happened.
he knew what it was. his drill had cut into one of the many fissures with which this badly faulted ground was crisscrossed. the puddling water from his borehole had drained away leaving the bit to run dry against dry rock.
the friction head had built up, the dust from the cut was not being washed away and in consequence the rod had jammed. it was being held tightly at one end while at the other the two big diesels were straining to turn it. the whole rig was seconds away from a twist-off.
there should have been an operator at the controls to meet just such an emergency, but he was a hundred yards away, just emerging from the wood and iron latrine beyond the puddling dam. he was desperately trying to hoist his pants, clinch the buckle of his belt and run all at the same time.
"you whore's chamber pot roared popeye, as he ran.
"what the hell you goofing off-" the words choked off in his throat, for as he reached the door of the engine room there was a report like a cannon shot as the rod snapped, and immediately the diesels screamed into over-rev as they were relieved of the load.
just too late, popeye punched the earth buttons on the magnetos, and the engines spluttered into silence.
in that silence popeye was sobbing with exertion and frustration and anger.
"a twis
t-off, he sobbed. "a deep one. oh no! god, now it might take two weeks to fish out the broken rod, pump cement into the fissure to seal it, and then start again.
he removed the cap from his head, and with all his strength hurled it on the engine room floor. he then proceeded to jump on it with both feet. this was standard procedure. popeye jumped on his cap at least once a week, and the foreman knew that when he had finished doing it, that he would then assault anybody within range.
quietly the foreman slipped behind the wheel of the ford truck, and the rest of the gang scrambled aboard. they all bumped away down the rutted track. there was a roadhouse on the main road where they went for coffee at times like this. when the mists of rage had dispersed sufficiently from his mind for popeye to start seeking a human sacrifice, he looked about to find the drilling area strangely still and deserted.
"stupid bunch of yellow-bellied baboons!" he bellowed in frustration after the retreating truck, and, as the next best thing, went into the shed to phone his managing director.
this gentleman sitting in the air-conditioned offices of "hart drilling and cementation" high above rissik street in johannesburg was a little taken aback to learn from popeye worth that he, the managing director, was directly responsible for the twist-off of an expensive diamond drill at the sander ditch no. 5 hole.
"if you used that sack of custard that passes for a brain, you'd fight shy of trying to sink holes into this bunch of knitting," popeye yelled into the mouthpiece. "i'd prefer to stick my old man into a meat grinder than put a drill into this ground. it stinks, i tell you!
it's really ugly down there.
god help the poor son of a bitch who tries to mine it!" he slammed down the phone and stuffed his pipe with trembling fingers. ten minutes later his breathing had returned to normal and his hands were steady. he picked up the phone again and dialled the number of the roadhouse. the proprietor answered.
"jose, tell my boys it's okay, they can come home now," said popeye.
for rod ironsides there was more excitement than usual in meeting and solving the dozen paper problems that lay an his desk to welcome him back to the office. as he worked he kept remembering that manfred steyner might be able to do it, might just be able to do it.
the sander ditch might really belong to him soon. he dispatched the last problem and lay back in his swivel chair.
his mind was clear of the last cobwebs of dissipation and, as always, he felt purged and cleansed.
if i get her, i'll make her the star performer in the whole field, he thought greedily, they'll talk about the sander ditch from wall street to the bourse, and about the man who is running her. i know how to do it too. i'll cut the costs to the bone, i'll tighten her up solid. frank lemmer was a good man, he could get the stuff out of the ground, but he let it creep up on him. it cost him almost nine rand a ton to mill it.
well, i'll get it out as well as he did and i'll get it out cheaper. an operation takes its temperament from the man at the head.
frank lemmer would talk about costs every now and then, but he didn't mean it and we knew he didn't mean it. we have become a wasteful operation because we are on a rich reef, we have become big spenders.
well, i'm going to talk costs, and i'll skin the arse of anybody who thinks i'm joking.
last year hamilton at western holdings kept his working costs per ton milled down to just a touch over six rand.
i could do the same here! i could jump our profits twelve million rand in one year, if only they give me the job i'll shout the sander ditch's name across the financial markets of the world.
the problem that rod was pondering was the nightmare of the gold mining industry. since the 1930s the price of gold had been fixed at $35 a fine ounce. each year since then the cost of mining had crept up steadily. in those days they reckoned four penny-weights of gold in a ton of ore was payable value. now around eight penny-weights was the marginal value.
so in the interim all those millions of tons of ore whose values fell between four and eight penny-weights had been placed beyond the reach of man until such time as they increased the price of gold.
there were many mines with vast reserves of gold bearing ore, millions in bullion, whose values lay just below the magical number eight. those mines stood deserted and forlorn, rust reddening their head gears and the corrugated iron roofs of the buildings collapsing wearily. rising costs it had shot the guts out of them, they were condemned by the single word'llnpay'.
the sander ditch was running twenty to twenty-five penny-weights per ton. she was fat, but she could be fatter, rod decided.
there was a knock at the door.
"come in!" called rod, and looked at his watch. it was nine o'clock already. time for the monday meeting of his mine captains.
they came in singly and in pairs, twelve of them. these were rod's front-line men, his combat officers. they went down there each day, each to his own section, and directed the actual assault on the rock.
while they chatted idly, waiting for the meeting to begin, rod looked them over surreptitiously and was reminded of a remark that herman koch of anglo american had made to him once.
"mining is a hard game, and it attracts a hard breed of men.
these were men of the hard breed, physically and mentally tough, and rod realized with a start that he was one of them. no, more than one of them. he was their leader, and with a fierce affection and pride he opened the meeting.
"right, let's hear your gripes. who is going to be first to break my heart?" there are some men with a talent for controlling, and getting the very best results out of other men. rod was one of them.
it was more than his physical size, his compelling voice and hearty chuckle. it was a special magnetism, a personal charm and unerring sense of timing. under his chairmanship the meeting would erupt, voices crackle and snap, then subside into chuckles and nods as rod spoke.
they knew he was as tough as they were, and they respected that.
they knew that when he spoke it made sense, so they listened. they knew that when he promised, he delivered, so they were placated. and they knew that when he made a decision or judgement, he acted upon it, so every man knew exactly where he stood.
if asked, any one of these mine captains would have admitted grudgingly that "there was no bull dust in ironsides'. this was the equivalent of a presidential citation.
"very well then." rod terminated the meeting. "you have spent a good two hours of the company's time beating your gums. now, will you kindly haul arse, go down there and start sending the stuff out." these men planned the week's operation, so their men were at work in the earth below them.
on 87 level, kowalski moved like a great bear down the dimly-lit drive.
he had switched off the lamp on his helmet, and he moved without sound, lightly for a man of such bulk. he heard their voices ahead of him in the dimly-lit tunnel, and he paused, listening intently. there was no sound of shovel crunching into loose rock, and kowalski's neanderthal features convulsed into a fearsome scowl.
"bastards!" he muttered softly. "they think i am in stopes, hey?
they think it all right if they sit on fat black bum, no move da bloody rock, hey?" he started forward again, a bear on cat's feet.
"they find plenty different from what they bloody think, soon!" he threatened.
he stepped round the angle of the drive and flashed his lamp.
there were three men kowalski had put on lashing, shovelling the loose stuff from the footwall into waiting coco pans two of them sat against the coco pan smoking contentedly while the third regaled them with an account of a beer drink he had attended the previous christmas.
their shovels and sledge hammers leaned unemployed against the side wall of the drive.
all three of them froze into rigidity as the beam of kowalski's lamp played over them.
"so!" the word burst explosively from kowalski, and he snatched up a fourteen-pound hammer in one massive fist, reversed it and struck the butt of
the handle against the foot wall. the steel head of the hammer fell off and kowalski was left with a four-foot length of selected hickory in his hand.
"you, boss boy!" he bellowed, and his free hand shot out and fastened on the throat of the nearest bantu. with one heave he jerked him off his feet onto his knees and began dragging him away up the drive. even in his rage, kowalski was making sure there were no witnesses. the other two men sat where they were, too horrified to move, while their companion's walls and cries receded into the darkness.
then the first blow reverberated in the confined space of the drive, followed immediately by a shriek of pain.
the next blow, and another shriek.
the crack, thud, crack, thud, went on repeatedly, but the accompanying shrieks dwindled into moans and soft whimperings, then into complete silence.
Wilbur Smith - Gold Mine Page 5