Gold Mine

by Wilbur Smith

  "Satisfied?" Herby asked.

  "Okay," Rod nodded, and the two of them went out through the door in the far wall. Locking it behind them.

  Immediately they had gone the four Bantu attendants reacted. They straightened up, the scowls of concentration smoothed out to be replaced by grins of relief. One made a remark and they all laughed, and opened the waist bands of their tunics. From inside each trouser leg they drew a length of quarter-inch copper wire and began probing them through the steel screen.

  It had taken Crooked Leg, the photographer, almost a year to work out a means of milking gold from the heavily screened and guarded separators.

  The method which he had discovered was, like all workable plans, extremely simple.

  Mercury, quicksilver, absorbs gold the way blotting paper sucks up moisture." It will suck in any speck of gold that comes in contact with it. Mercury has a further property, it can be made to spread on copper like butter on bread. This layer of mercury on copper retains its powers of absorbing gold.

  Crooked Leg had devised the idea of coating lengths of copper wire with mercury. The wire could be inserted through the apertures in the steel mesh and the wire laid across the corrugated rubber sheet, where it set about mopping up every speck of gold that flowed over it. The lengths of wire could be quickly slipped down the trouser leg at the approach of an official, and they could be smuggled in and out of the reduction works the same way.

  Every evening Crooked Leg retrieved the gold-thickened wire, and issued his four accomplices with newly coated lengths. Every night in the abandoned workings beyond the ridge he boiled the mercury to make it release its gold.

  "Now," Herby could speak normally in the blessed quiet of the cyanide plant, "we have skimmed off the free gold and we are left with the sulphide gold." He offered Rod a cigarette as they made their way between the massive steel tanks that spread over many acres. "We pump this into the tanks and add cyanide. The cyanide dissolves the gold and takes it into solution. We tap it off and run it through zinc powder. The gold is deposited on the zinc, we burn away the zinc and we are left with the gold." Rod lit his cigarette. He knew all this but Herby was giving him a Cooks" tour for visiting VIPS. He flicked his lighter for Herby. "There is no way anyone could swipe it when it's in solution." Herby shook his head, exhaling smoke. "Apart from anything else, cyanide is a deadly poison." He glanced at his watch.

  "Three-twenty, they'll be pouring now. Shall we go across to the smelt house?" The smelt house was the only brick building among all the galvanized iron. It stood a little isolated. Its windows were high up and heavily barred.

  At the steel door Herby buzzed, and a peephole opened in the door.

  He and Rod were immediately recognised and the door swung open. They were in a cage of bars which could only be opened once the door was closed behind them.

  "Afternoon, Mr. Ironsides, Mr. Innes." The guard was apologetic.

  "Would you sign, please?" He was a retired policeman with a paunch and a holstered revolver on his hip.

  They signed and the guard signalled to his mate on the steel catwalk high above the smelt room floor. This guard tucked his pump action shotgun under one arm, and threw the switch on the walk beside him.

  The cage door opened and they went through.

  Along the far wall the electric furnaces were set into the brickwork.

  They resembled the doors of the bread ovens in a bakery.

  The concrete floor of the room was uncluttered, except for the mechanical loader that carried the gold crucible in its steel arms, and the moulds before it. The half dozen personnel of the smelt house barely looked up as Rod and Herby approached.

  The pour was well advanced, the arms of the loader tilted and a thin stream of molten gold issued from the spout of the crucible, and fell into the mould. The gold hissed and smoked and crackled, and tiny red and blue sparks twinkled on its surface as it cooled.

  Already forty or fifty bars were laid out on the rubber-wheeled trolley beside the mould. Each bar was a little smaller than a cigar box. It had the knobby bumpy look of roughly cast metal.

  Rod stopped and touched one of the bars. It was still hot and it had the slightly greasy feeling that new gold always has.

  "How much? "he asked Herby, and Herby shrugged.

  "About a million rand's worth, perhaps a little more." So that's what a million rand looks like, Rod mused, it's not very impressive.

  "What's the procedure now? "Rod asked.

  "We weigh it, and stamp the weight and batch number into each bar." He pointed to a massive circular safe deposit door in the near wall. "It's stored there overnight, and tomorrow a refinery armoured car will come out from Johannesburg and pick it up." Herby led the way out of the smelt house. "Anyway, that's not the trouble. Our leak is sucking off the shine before it ever reaches the smelt house."

  "Let me think about it for a few days," Rod said. "Then we'll get together again, try and find the solution." He was still thinking about it now. Lying in the darkness and smoking cigarette after cigarette.

  There seemed to be only one solution. They would have to plant Bantu police in the reduction works.

  It was an endless game involving all the mining companies and their reduction plant personnel. An inventive mind would devise a new system of sucking off the shine.

  The Company would become aware of the activity by comparison of estimated and actual recovery and they would work on the leak for a week, a month, sometimes a year. Then they would break the system.

  There would be prosecutions, stiff gaol sentences, and the Company would circularize its neighbours, and they would all settle back and wait for the next customer to appear.

  Gold has many remarkable properties, its weight, its non-corruptibility and, not least, the greed and lust it conjures up in the hearts of men.

  Rod stubbed his cigarette, rolled onto his side and pulled the bedclothes up over his shoulders. His last thought before sleep was for the major problem that, these days, was never very far from the surface of his mind.

  The Delange brothers had driven almost 1,500 feet in two weeks. At this rate they would hit the Big Dipper seven weeks from now, then even the theft of gold would pale into insignificance.

  At the time that Rod Ironsides was composing himself for sleep, Big King was taking a little wine with his business associate and tribal brother Philemon N'gabai, alias Crooked Leg.

  They sat facing each other in a pair of dilapidated cane chairs with a lantern and a gallon jug of Jeripigo set between them. The bad stench of the abandoned workings did little to bring out the bouquet of the wine, which was of small concern to either man, for they were drinking not for taste but for effect.

  Crooked Leg refilled the cheap glass tumbler that Big King preferred, and as the wine glug-glugged from the jar he continued "his attack on the character and moral fibre of Jose Almeida, the Portuguese.

  "For many months now I have had it in my heart to speak to you of these matters," he told Big King, "but I have waited until I could set a deadfall for the man. He is like a lion that preys upon our herds, we hear him roar in the night and in the dawn we see his spoor in the earth about the carcasses of our animals, but we cannot meet him face to face." Big King enjoyed listening to the oratory of Crooked Leg and while he listened he drank the Jeripigo as though it were water, and Crooked Leg kept refilling the tumbler for him. "In counsel with myself I spoke thus: "Philemon N'gabai, it is not enough that thou should suspect this white man. It is necessary also that you see with your own eyes that he is eating your substance"."

  "How, Crooked Leg?" Big King's voice was thickening, the level of the jug had fallen steadily and now showed less than half. "Tell me how we shall take this man." Big King showed a fist the size of a bunch of bananas. "I will..

  "No, Big King. "Crooked Leg was scandalized. "You must not hurt the man. How then would we sell our gold? We must prove he is cheating us and show him we know it.

  Then we will proceed as ever, but h
e will give us full measure in the future." Big King thought about that for some time, then at last he sighed regretfully. "You are right, Crooked Leg. Still, I would have liked to..." He showed that fist again, and Crooked Leg went on hurriedly.

  "Therefore, I have sent to my brother who drives a delivery van for SA Scale Company in Johannesburg, and he has taken from his Company a carefully measured weight of eight ounces." Crooked Leg produced the cylindrical metal weight from his pocket and handed it to Big King who examined it with interest. "Tonight, after the Portuguese has weighed the gold you take to him, you will say, "Now, my friend, please weigh this for me on your scale," and you will watch to see that his scale reads the correct number. Each time in the future he will weigh this on his scale before we sell our gold."

  "Haul" Big King chuckled. "You are a crafty one, Crooked Leg.

  Big King's eyes were smoky and blood-shot. The Jeripigo was a raw rough fortified wine, and he had drunk very nearly a gallon of it. He sat opposite the Portuguese storekeeper in the back room behind the concession store, and watched while he poured the gold dust into the pan of the jeweller's scale. It made a yellow pyramid that shone dully in the light from the single bare bulb above their heads.

  "One hundred and twenty-three ounces." Almeida looked up at Big King for confirmation, a strand of greasy black hair hung onto his forehead.

  His face was pale from lack of sun so that the blue stubble of beard was in heavy contrast.

  "That is right," Big King nodded. He could taste the liquor fumes in the back of his throat, and they were as strong as his distaste for the man who sat opposite him. He belched.

  Almeida removed the pan from the scale and carefully poured the dust back into the screw-top bottle.

  "I will get the money." He half rose from his chair.

  "Wait!" said Big King, and the Portuguese looked at him in mild surprise.

  Big King took the weight from the pocket of his jacket.

  He placed it on the desk, "Weigh at on your scale," he said in Almeida's eyes flicked down to the weight, and then back to Big King's face. He sank back into. his seat, and pushed the strand of hair off his forehead. He began to speak, but his voice cracked and he cleared his throat.

  "Why? Is there something wrong?" Suddenly he was aware of the size of the man opposite him. He could smell the liquor on his breath, "Weigh it!" Big King's voice was flat, without rancour.

  His face was expressionless, but the smoky red glare of his eyes was murderous.

  Suddenly Almeida was afraid, deadly, coldly afraid. He could guess what would happen once the error in his balance was disclosed.

  "Very well," he said, and his voice was forced and off key.

  The pistol was in the drawer beside his right knee. It was loaded, with a cartridg under the hammer. The safety, catch was on, but that would only delay him an instant. He knew it would not be necessary to fire, once he had the weapon in his hand he would have control of the situation again.

  If he did have to fire, the calibre was.45 and the heavy slug would stop even a giant like this Bantu. Self-defence, he was working it out feverishly. A burglar, I surprised him and he attacked. Self-defence.

  It would work. They'd believe it.

  But how to get the pistol? Try and sneak it out of the drawer, or make a grab for it?

  There was a desk between them, it would take a few seconds for the Bantu to realize what he was doing, a few more for him to get around the desk. He would have plenty of time.

  He snatched the handle of the drawer, and it flew open.

  His fingernails scrabbled against the woodwork as he clawed for the big black U.S. Navy automatic, and with a surge of triumph his hand closed over the butt.

  Big King came over the top of the desk like a black avalanche. The scale and the jar of gold dust were swept aside to clatter and shatter against the floor.

  Still seated in his chair, with the pistol in his hand, Almeida was borne over backwards with Big King on top of him. Many years before, Big King had worked with a safari outfit in Portuguese East Africa, and he had seen the effect of gunshot wounds in the flesh of dead animals.

  In the instant that he had recognized the weapon in Almeida's hand, he had been as afraid as the Portuguese.

  Fear had triggered the speed of his reaction, it was responsible for the savagery of his attack as he lay over the struggling body of the Portuguese He had Almeida's pistol hand held by the wrist and he was shaking it to force him to drop the firearm. With his right hand he had the Portuguese by the throat, and instinctively he was applying the full strength of his arms to both grips. He felt something break under his right hand, cracking like the kernel of a nut, and his fingers were suddenly without strength, and the gun skittered across the floor to come up against the far wall with a thump.

  Only then did Big King begin to regain the sanity that fear had scattered. Suddenly he realized that the Portuguese was lying quietly under him. He released his grip and scrambled to his knees. The Portuguese was dead. His neck was twisted away from his shoulders at an impossible angle.

  His eyes were wide and surprised, and a smear of blood issued from one nostril over his upper lip.

  Big King backed away towards the door, his gaze fixed in horror on the sprawling corpse. When he reached the door, he hesitated, fighting down the urge to run. He subdued it, and went back to kneel beside the desk. First he picked up the controversial cylindrical weight and placed it in his pocket, then he began sweeping up the scattered gold dust and the shattered fragments of the screw-topped container.

  He placed them into separate envelopes that he found among the papers on the desk. Ten minutes later he slipped out through the back door of the concession store, into the night.

  At the time Big King was hurrying back towards the mine hostel, Rod Ironsides thrashed restlessly in a bed in which the sheets were already bunched and damp with sweat. He was imprisoned in his own fantasy, locked in a nightmare from which he could not break away.

  The nightmare was infinite and green, quivering, unearthly, translucent. He knew it was held back only by a transparent barrier of glass. He cowered before it, and he knew it was icy cold, he could see light shining through it, and he was deadly afraid.

  Suddenly there was a crack in the glass wall, a hairline crack, and through it oozed a single drop. A large, pear shaped drop, as perfect as though it had been painted by Tretchikoff. It glittered like a gemstone.

  It was the most terrifying thing that Rod had ever seen in his life. He cried out in his sleep, trying to warn them, but the crack starred further, and the drop slid down the glass, to be followed by another and another. Suddenly a jagged slab of glass exploded out of the wall, and Rod screamed as the water burst through, in a frothing jet.

  With a roar the entire glass wall collapsed, and a mountain high wave of green water hissed down upon him, carrying a white plume of spray at its crest.

  He awoke sitting upright in his bed, a cry of horror on his lips and his body bathed in sweat. It took minutes for him to steady the wild racing of his heart. Then he went through to the bathroom. He ran a glass of water and held it up to the light. "Water. It's there!" he muttered. "I know it's there!" He drank from the tumbler.

  Standing naked, with his sweat drying cold on his body, the tumbler held to his lips, the idea came to him. He had never heard of anyone trying it before, but then nobody he knew would be crazy enough to drive into a death trap like the Big Dipper.

  "I'll drill and charge a matt of explosive into the hanging wall of the drive. I'll get the Delange boys on to it right away. Then at any time I choose I can blast the whole bloody roof in and seal off the tunnel." Rod was surprised at the strength of the relief that flooded over him. He knew then how it had been worrying him. He went back to the bedroom and straightened out his bedclothes. However, sleep would not come easily to him. His imagination was overheated, and a series of events and ideas kept playing through his mind, until abruptly he was presented with the image of Te
rry Steyner.