kowalski came back down the drive alone, he was sweating heavily in the lamp light, and the handle of the hammer in his hand was black and glistening with wet blood.
he threw it at their feet.
"work!" he growled, and was gone, big and bearlike, into the shadows.
on 100 level, joseph m'kati was hosing down and sweeping the spillings from under the giant conveyor belt. joseph had been on this job for five years, and he was a contented and happy man.
joseph was a shangaan approaching sixty years of age; the first frost was touching his hair. there were laughter lines around his eyes and at the corner of his mouth. he wore his helmet pushed to the back of his head, his overalls were hand-embroidered and ornament ally patched in blue and red, and he moved with a jaunty bounce and strut.
the conveyor was many hundreds of yards long. from all the levels above the shattered gold reef was scraped from the stopes and trammed back down the haulages in the coco pans then from the coco pans it was tipped into the mouths of the ore-passes. these were vertical shafts that dropped down to 100 level, hundreds of feet through living rock to spew the reef out onto the conveyor belt. a system of steel doors regulated the flow of rock onto the conveyor, and the moving belt carried it down to the shaft and dumped it into enormous storage bins.
from there it was fed automatically into the ore cage in fifteen-ton loads and carried at four-minute intervals to the surface.
joseph worked on happily beneath the whining conveyor. the spillings were small, but important. gold is strange in its behaviour, it moves downwards. carried by its own high specific gravity it works its way down through almost any other material. it would find any crack or irregularity in the floor and work its way into it. it would disappear into the solid earth itself if left long enough.
it was this behaviour of gold that accounted in some measure for joseph m'kati's contentment. he had worked his way to the end of the conveyor, washing and sweeping, and now he straightened, laid his bast broom aside and rubbed his kidneys with both hands, looking quickly around to make certain that there was no one else in the conveyor tunnel. beside him was the ore storage bin into which the conveyor was emptying its load. the bin could hold many thousands of tons.
satisfied that he was alone, joseph dropped onto his hands and knees and crawled under the storage bin, ignoring the continuous roar of rock into the bin above him, working his way in until he reached the holes.
it had taken joseph many months to chisel the heads off four of the rivets that held the seam in the bottom of the bin, but once he had done it, he had succeeded in constructing a simple but highly effective heavy media separator.
free gold in the ore that was dumped into the storage bin immediately and rapidly worked its way down through the underlying rock, its journey accelerated by the vibration of the conveyor and bin as more reef was dropped. when the gold reached the floor of the bin, it sought an avenue through which to continue its downward journey, and it found joseph's four rivet holes, beneath which he had spread a square of polythene sheet.
the gold-rich fines made four conical piles on the sheet of polythene, looking exactly like powdered black soot.
crouched beneath the bin, joseph carefully transferred the black powder to his tobacco pouch, replaced the polythene to catch the next filtering, , stuffed the pouch into his hip pocket, and scrambled out from under the bin.
whistling a tribal "ranting tune joseph picked up his broom and returned to the endless job of sweeping and hosing.
Johnny delange was marking his shot holes. lying on his side in the low stope of 27 section he was calculating by eye the angle and depth of a side cutter blast to straighten a slight bulge in his long-wall.
in the sander ditch they were on single blast. one daily, centrally fired, blast. Johnny was paid on fat homage the cubic measure of rock broken and taken out of his stope. he must, therefore, position his shot holes to achieve the maximum disruption and blow-out from the face.
"so," he grunted, and marked the position of the hole in red paint.
"and so." with one bold stroke of the paint brush he set the angle on which his machine boy was to drill.
"shaya, madoda!" Johnny clapped the shoulder of the black man beside him. "hit it, man." machine boys were selected for stamina and physique; this one was a greek sculpture in glistening ebony.
"nkosi!" the machine boy grinned an acknowledgement, and with his assistant lugged his rock drill into position.
the drill looked like a gargantuan version of a heavy calibre machine gun.
the noise as the big bantu opened the drill was shattering in the low-roofed, constricted space of the stope. the compressed air roared and fluttered into the drill buffeting the eardrums. Johnny made the clenched-fist gesture of approval, and for a second they smiled at each other in the companionship of shared labour. then Johnny crawled on up the stope to mark the next shot hole.
Johnny delange was twenty-seven years old, and he was top rock breaker on the sander ditch. his gang of forty-eight men were a tightly-knit team of specialists. men fought each other for a place on 27 section, for that's where the money was. Johnny could pick and choose, so each month when the surveyors came in and measured up, Johnny delange was way out ahead in fat homage here was the remarkable position where the man at the lowest point of authority earned more than the man at the top. Johnny delange earned more than the general manager of the sander ditch. last year he had paid super-tax on an income of 22,000 rand. even a miner like kowalski, who brutalized and bullied his gang until he was left with the dregs of the mine, would earn eight or nine thousand rand a year, about the same salary as an official of rod ironsides" rank.
Johnny reached the top of his long-wall and painted in the last shot holes. down the inclined floor of the stope below him all his drills were roaring, his machine boys lying or crouching behind them.
he lay there on one elbow, removed his helmet and wiped his face, resting a moment.
Johnny was an extraordinary-looking young man. his long jet black hair was swept back and tied with a leather thong at the back of his head in a curlicue. his features were those of an american indian, gaunt and bony. he had cut the sleeves out of his overalls to expose his arms arms as muscular and sinuous as pythons, tattooed below the elbows, immensely powerful but supple. his body was the same, long and sinewy and powerful.
on his right hand he wore eight rings, two on each finger, and it was clear from the design of the rings that they were not merely; ornamental. they were heavy gold rings with skull and cross-bones, wolves" heads and other irregularities worked into them, a mass of metal that formed a permanent knuckleduster. of the big eyes in the one skull's head rod ironsides had once asked: "are those real rubies, Johnny? "and Johnny had replied seriously: "if they aren't, then i've sure as hell been gypped out of three rand fifty, mr. ironsides."
delange had been a really wild youngster, until eight months ago. it was then he had met and married hettie. courtship and marriage occupying the space of one week.
now he was settling down very well. it was all of ten days since he had last fought anybody.
lying in the stope he allowed himself five minutes to think about hettie. she was almost as tall as he was, with a wondrously buxom body and chestnut red hair. Johnny adored her. he was not the best speech-maker in kitchenerville when it came to expressing his affection, so he bought her things.
he bought her dresses and jewellery, he bought her a deep-freezer and a fifteen cubic foot frigidaire, he bought her a chrysler monaco with leopard-skin upholstery and a kenwood chef. in fact, it was becoming difficult to enter the delange household without tripping over at least one of Johnny's gifts to hettie. the congestion was made more acute by the fact that living with them was Johnny's brother, davy.
"hell, man!" happily Johnny shook his head. "she's a bit of all-right, hey!" there was an eye-level oven he had spotted in a furniture store in kitchenerville the previous saturday.
"she'
ll love that, man," he muttered, "and it's only four hundred rand.
i'll get it for her on pay day." the decision made, he clapped his helmet onto his head and began crawling out of the stope. it was time now to go up to the station and collect the explosives for the day's blast.
his boss boy should have been waiting for him in the drive, and Johnny was furious to find no sign of him nor the piccaninny who was his assistant.
"bastard!" he grunted, playing the beam of his lamp up and down the drive. "he's been acting up like hell." the boss boy was a pock-marked swazi, not a big man, but powerful for his size and highly intelligent. he was also a man of mean disposition; Johnny had never seen him smile, and for an extrovert like Johnny it was galling to work with someone so sullen and taciturn. he tolerated the swazi because of his drive and reliability, but he was the only man in the gang that Johnny disliked.
"bastard!" the drive was deserted, the roar of the rock drills was muted.
"where the hell is he? "Johnny scowled impatiently. "i'll skin him when i find him." then he remembered the latrine.
"that's where he is!" Johnny set off down the drive. the latrine was a rock chamber cut into the side of the drive. a flap of canvas served as a door; beyond was a regular four-holer over sanitary buckets.
Johnny pulled the canvas aside and stepped into the cubicle. the boss boy and his assistant were there. Johnny stared in surprise, for a moment not understanding what they were doing. they were so absorbed they were unaware of Johnny's presence.
suddenly realization dawned, and Johnny's face tightened with revulsion and disgust.
"you filthy-" Johnny snarled, and catching the boss boy by the shoulders pulled him backwards and pinned him against the wall. he lifted his heavily metalled fist and drew it back ready to hurl it into the boss boy's face.
"strike me and you know what happens," said the boss boy softly, his expression. flat and neutral, looking steadily into Johnny's eyes.
Johnny hesitated. he knew the company rules, he knew the government labour officers" attitude, he knew what the police would do. if he hit him, they would crucify him.
"you are a pig!" Johnny hissed at him.
"you have a wife," said the boss boy. "my wife is in swaziland.
two years i have not seen her." Johnny lowered his fist. twelve thousand men, and no women. it was a fact. the actuality sickened him, but he understood why it happened.
jim "get dressed." he stepped back, releasing the boss boy.
"get dressed both of you. come to the station. i will meet you there." for a week now, since the fall of hanging in 43 section, big king had been out of the stopes.
rod had ordered it that way. the excuse was that big king's white miner had been killed in the fall and now he must await an allocation to another section. in reality rod wanted to rest him. he had seen the strain both physical and emotional that big king had undergone during the rescue. when together they had unearthed the miner's corpse, the man with whom big king had worked and laughed, rod had seen the tears roll unashamedly down big king's cheeks as he picked up the body and held it easily against his chest.
"hamba gable, madoda," big king had muttered. "go in peace, man.
big king was a legend on the sander ditch. they boasted about him; how much bantu beer he could drink in a sitting, how much rock he could lash single-handed in a shift, how he could dance any other man off his feet. he had been awarded a total of over a thousand rand in bravery awards. big king set the pace, others tried to equal him.
rod had put him in charge of a transport team. for the first few days big king had enjoyed the opportunity of showing off his strength and socializing, for the transport team moved about the workings allowing big king to visit most of his numerous friends durin a shift.
but now big king was becoming bored. he wanted to get back into the stopes.
"this," he told his transport team contemptuously, "is work for old men and young women." and with one snatch and lift he picked up a forty-four-gallon drum of dieseline and unaided placed it on the platform of the loco.
a forty-four-gallon drum of dieseline weighs a little over 800 lbs. avoirdupois.
all "this fuss for that. davy delange paused in his labour of tamping the dynagel into the shot holes. he -leaned forward to inspect the reef. in the face of the stope it was a black line, drawn against the blue quartz rock.
the carbon leader reef, it was called. a thin layer of carbon never more than a few inches thick, more often half an inch. black soot, that's what it was. davy shook his head thoughtfully. you could not even see the gold in it.
davy was two years, older than his brother Johnny, and there was no physical or mental resemblance between the two of them. davy's sandy hair was cropped into a conventional "short back and sides'. he wore no personal jewellery, and his manner was quiet and reserved.
Johnny was tall and lean, davy squat and muscular.
Johnny was extravagant, davy careful beyond the point of meanness.
their only common trait was that they were both first-class miners.
if Johnny broke more rock than davy, it was only because davy was more careful than Johnny; he did not take the same chances, he observed all the safety procedures which Johnny frequently flouted.
davy earned less money than Johnny, but saved every penny he could. it was for his farm. davy was going to buy a farm one day.
already he had saved a little over r49,000 towards it. in five more years he would have enough. then he could get himself a farm and a wife to help run it.
Johnny, on the other hand, spent every penny he earned.
he was usually in debt to davy by the end of each month.
"lend us a hundred till pay day, davy." disapprovingly, davy lent him the money. davy disapproved of Johnny, his appearance, attire and habits.
abandoning his microscopic inspection of the carbon leader reef,
davy resumed tamping in the explosive, working carefully and precisely on this highly dangerous procedure. the sticks of explosive were charged with detonators and ready to burn. by law, nobody but the miner-in-charge could perform this operation, but davy did it automatically while he thought about Johnny's latest trespass. he had raised davy's rent.
"a hundred rand a month!" davy protested aloud. "i've got a good mind to move out and find my own digs." but he knew he would do no such thing. hettie's cooking was too good, and her presence too feminine and alluring.
davy would stay on with them.
rod." dan stander's voice was serious and low. "i've got a nasty one for you."
"thanks for nothing." rod made his own voice weary and resigned as he spoke into the telephone. "i'm just going on my underground tour.
can't it wait?"
"no," dan assured him. "anyway, it's on your way. i'm speaking from the first-aid station at the shaft head. come across.
"what is it?"
"assault. white on bantu."
"christ." rod jerked upright in his chair. "bad?"
"ugly. worked him over with the handle of a fourteen pound hammer.
i've put in forty-seven stitches, but i am worried about a fracture of the skull."
"who did it?"
"miner by the name of kowalski."
"him!" rod was breathing heavily. "all right, dan.
can he make a statement?"
"no. not for a day or two."
"i'll be there in a few minutes." rod hung up the phone and crossed the office.
"dimitri."
"boss?"
"pull kowalski out of the stopes. i want him in my office soonest. put someone in to finish his shift."
"okay, rod, what's the trouble?"
"he beat up one of his boys." dimitri whistled softly, and rod went on.
"call personnel, get them onto the police."
"okay, rod."
"have kowalski here when i get back from my tour." dan was waiting for him in the first-aid room.
"take a look." he indicated the fig
ure on the stretcher.
rod knelt beside him, his mouth tightening into a thin pale line.
the catgut stitches lay neatly across the dark swollen gashes in the man's flesh. one ear had been torn off, and dan had sewn it back on.
there was a black gap where teeth had been behind the swollen purple lips.
"you will be all right now." rod spoke gently, and the bantu's eyes swivelled towards him. "the man who did this will be punished."
rod stood up. "let -me have a written report on his injuries, dan."
"i'll fix it. see you for a drink at the club after work?"
"sure," said rod, but underneath he was seething with anger, and it stayed with him during the whole of his underground tour.
Wilbur Smith - Gold Mine Page 6