Jack bit hard on his lip as he took in the scene of a huge boulder crushing Arnold de Souza beneath it. Only de Souza’s torso was visible, his hips and legs presumably mangled beneath hundreds of pounds of unyielding rock. His position meant that he couldn’t raise his head easily, and he was faced away from Jack.
‘I can see you, Arnold.’ He didn’t know what to say, so he uttered the obvious. ‘How much pain are you in?’
‘No pain. Can’t feel a thing,’ came the laboured reply. ‘I have no feeling in my body right now, but I have eyes and my hands can tell me there’s a fucking great rock on me,’ he said and shocked Jack by laughing.
‘Arnold, shh, just save —’
‘No, you be quiet. I’m as good as dead. We both know it. But listen, Jack – I heard voices before, I’m sure of it. There are others alive down here.’ De Souza began to retch. ‘Just let me die. You can’t move this fucking thing and neither can I. No one can in time.’
‘Wait,’ Jack said, trying desperately to push away the inevitable. ‘I can see a path through to you.’
He gingerly picked his way over the debris. For now, all that mattered was to hold the hand of the dying man in front of him. Jack reached de Souza and not a moment too soon.
‘Bryant,’ de Souza stammered. ‘Tell Amy I love her and the children. Tell her I’m sorry to leave her.’
‘I’ll tell her, Arnold,’ he said, squeezing the man’s hand. ‘She’ll be proud of you.’
De Souza smiled and it was filled with a radiance that broke Jack’s heart. He died in the next breath, his hand suddenly limp in Jack’s hand.
Jack stared at him for a moment, silently saying a prayer for his soul. He reached into his pocket and found a handkerchief, which he used to cover de Souza’s face. It seemed right. Jack blinked away his tears of frustration and then straightened. With an angry determination, he picked up his lamp and headed deeper into the tunnel.
Jack was going to hunt down those voices, for Arnold’s sake and in his memory.
29
At the surface Ned saw Charles Jones being helped from the shaft. Harold Walker was already standing by for the first casualties and they watched him give instructions for Jones to be laid on a stretcher.
All the Walkers held their breath when Harold sent a runner to them.
‘I am to tell you, madam,’ he said in his clipped Indian accent, ‘that there is no news yet of Mister Rupert.’
Flora didn’t flinch, although her lips pursed tighter still. She continued rearranging teacups and refilling her sugar bowl.
‘Mister Jones was part of the early rescue crew. Mister Bryant sent him back.’ He waggled his head.
‘Is Mister Bryant all right?’ Iris asked anxiously.
‘I do not know, Miss Walker,’ the runner admitted, then departed swiftly.
Ned turned to Iris. ‘Jack will be fine,’ he said brusquely. ‘I think I’ll go and talk to some of the other families. They need reassurance too.’
She pouted. ‘They live with this every day; it’s not as if they aren’t aware of the dangers.’
‘That’s a little uncharitable, isn’t it?’
‘Well, you know what I mean, Ned. These people know mining life. They live with its consequences.’
‘These people? Iris, the Brits and the Anglo-Indians, well they —’
‘Why do you separate them? Do you forget my father is as British as you?’
He stared at her, shocked. ‘No, not at all. We’re all the same, Iris, including the Indian families.’
Her face softened. ‘Yes, you’re right. I think we’re all so anxious, our emotions are spinning too fast, too hard. Forgive me.’
Ned put an arm around her. Despite the heat, he loved the feel of her warmth against him. Suddenly, nothing much else mattered but the love he felt for Iris and how he was going to make her the happiest woman in all of KGF. ‘Iris, let’s both go and talk to some of the families, try to reassure them as best we can.’
‘Oh, Ned, I don’t think —’
‘You can do it.’ He took her hand. ‘They’ll remember your kindness – and so will I.’
Iris allowed him to lead her around to various families. She put on a cheerful manner and shook hands with the Indian women, even spoke in rusty Tamil. Ned had become relatively proficient in the language himself, and was often surprised by how few British bothered to learn the local language.
Both he and Jack had made a point of practising from the moment they had arrived in KGF, entertaining everyone from malis to chokra boys, forcing them to speak back to them only in Tamil. He liked that Iris slipped into Tamil, but a thought nagged at him that she was obviously more comfortable using it to give instructions, rather than to inquire after someone’s wellbeing, as she was now.
As Ned moved into the thick of the Indian families he could smell spices and sandalwood oil. When their rough hands cupped his, their many glass or gold bracelets jangled in a light cacophony and he felt humbled by their gentle bows of gratitude and murmured voices, filled with worry but still so full of hope.
He suddenly wished he was down there with Jack. Jack at least was doing something. Ned glanced up the hill and saw Kanakammal, standing aloof and alone, ethereal in the moonlight.
Iris saw her too. ‘There’s that woman again,’ she breathed. ‘Did you say she has someone lost?’
‘No. She’s here for Jack.’
‘She hardly knows him, surely?’
‘Yes, but look at her face. She’s as concerned for his safety as we are. I’m going to talk to her again.’
‘Wait for me,’ Iris said.
The tall woman watched them clamber up the hill. She looked ghostly in her pale sari, away from the floodlights. ‘Hello again, Kanakammal,’ Ned said.
She bowed to them both, her large pale eyes regarding them unblinking, her face giving nothing away.
‘Kanakammal, this is Miss Iris Walker. The Walker family live at Oorgaum.’
‘I am pleased to meet you, Miss Walker,’ Kanakammal said.
‘You’re working for Mister Bryant, I hear?’ Iris remarked, sounding lofty.
The girl lowered her gaze humbly. ‘Yes, madam. My sister and I are living at his house.’
‘Living in? Well! How very modern.’
Ned made an exasperated face.
‘What?’ she said, tartly. ‘He’s a bachelor, Ned.’
Kanakammal looked away, over their heads. ‘Something is happening, sir,’ she said, clearly glad to change the subject.
He swung around, noticed activity at the shaft mouth. ‘Well, hopefully we’ll have Mister Bryant back in his house before long.’
She gave him a look of gratitude. ‘Goodbye, sir, madam,’ she said, and then with her wraith-like ability, she melted away and joined the crowd of onlookers, who were all pressing forward, hoping for fresh news.
‘That wasn’t very subtle,’ Ned said disapprovingly as he led Iris back to her family.
‘Come on, Ned. Don’t tell me her looks escaped you.’
‘Well, yes, I think she’s incredibly beautiful, and so poised.’ He could tell he was annoying her now. ‘But I just don’t see your point.’
‘My point is that she is clearly very young, and single. And Jack is a bachelor and something of a rake.’
‘Not something of a rake, Iris. He is one! But he’s single too, and whoever he chooses to spend his time with – British, Anglo-Indian or villager – is his business. I think you’re reading far too much into this.’
‘Ned! I was looking out for her wellbeing, that’s all.’
He bit back on what he wanted to say about her noticeable preoccupation with Jack Bryant and instead reached for her hand. ‘Iris, we have to focus on Rupert now and getting him back safely. That’s all I care about. Him and Jack returned to us unharmed.’
She nodded and smiled, but he wasn’t reassured. The whispers intensifying in his mind were becoming impossible to ignore.
Jack was burning up. His l
ungs felt scorched by each new breath of hot air he took in. He knew he was too aware of his breathing. His father had once told him about this phenomenon, which could strike men below the surface. ‘Breathing happens without you concentrating on it. Your body knows how to do it,’ his father had explained.
And so now Jack tried to stop thinking about it. ‘Focus, Jack,’ he growled to himself.
After what he thought was perhaps ten minutes of inching progress, he began to doubt himself again. He was blindly moving deeper into the earth, into a tunnel he knew nothing about, after people he couldn’t even be sure were here.
He stopped, slid down the wall and held his head. It was aching from the heat, his throat was dry and his water canister had long been emptied. Should he turn back?
It was in that instant of doubt that he heard voices, clear as anything. Now he was torn. Should he go back to the rescue team or should he press on to where he was now absolutely certain that Rupert and his companions were trapped?
Jack made a snap decision to press forward. He could never live with himself if he had to look Iris in the face and admit he had turned away from her brother.
That vision alone drove him on.
Jack found Rupert dazed, slipping in and out of consciousness.
‘Rupert, talk to me! Come on, I heard you cry.’
His head was lolling. A nasty gash had torn away part of his scalp and he was bleeding heavily. He looked like he’d just clambered out of the trenches. Jack wished he had some smelling salts. He reminded himself that the rescuers could only be a minute or two away now. Until then, his job was to keep talking to Rupert, who seemed to be rallying.
‘God, it hurts,’ he groaned. ‘Is that really you, Bryant?’
‘I’m afraid so.’ He squeezed Rupert’s hand for reassurance. ‘I need you to just stay calm, stay conscious. I won’t sit you up with this head wound.’ He dared not say anything about Rupert’s mangled right arm that looked worse the more he glanced at it. ‘There’s a rescue squad right behind me and they’re going to get you out. Where’s Drake?’
Rupert began to weep. ‘He’s gone.’
‘Gone? Gone to find help?’
‘No, gone! Down that big black hole over there. The whole wall collapsed and took him with it and I think it took my arm. I crawled over here but I couldn’t go any further. I must have … must have blacked out.’ Tears began to roll down his face.
‘Listen to me. Your arm’s here, right where it should be,’ Jack reassured, allowing himself to believe he was only telling a white lie and Rupert’s arm might yet be saved. He heard another deep rumble not far from where he’d just been.
‘Oh, God. It’s going to happen again, Jack. We’re going to die down here.’
‘Be still, Rupert. That’s just the aftershocks; the earth is settling.’
Rupert snorted in scorn, despite his pain. ‘Start saying your prayers, Bryant. That was exactly the sound we heard before it blew. It’s going to do it again, I tell you!’
Jack heard the approach of the rescue squad and ignored Rupert, relief flooding through him. They were going to be safe now. He tried not to think about John Drake and Arnold de Souza, or the dozens of men whose names he didn’t know who were likely trapped, injured, dying or already dead. They had loving families too, but the mine would not see to their needs as it would the families of de Souza and Drake – with compensation payments, special pensions, counselling and all manner of other benefits. The Indian families would be left with a dead body to cremate – if they were fortunate enough to retrieve it.
He looked over at Rupert, who’d gone quiet.
‘Rupert. Come on, man. You’ll be on the surface shortly. Your whole family’s waiting. You want to be conscious to reassure them, don’t you?’
Rupert mumbled something and Jack was satisfied he was still awake.
‘Here!’ he yelled, now that voices were evident in the distance.
‘Bryant?’
‘Over here! Be careful of the —’
He got no further. At first it was a deep rumble but that gave way almost immediately to a screeching sound. Instinctively, Jack pulled Rupert towards him, covering him with his body and protecting his own head with his arms. And then, a huge fissure yawned open and rocks the size of small huts fell away. Jack could no longer see a thing and so he clung to Rupert, awaiting a death blow from the earth.
The high-pitched sound was his own long scream, he realised, barely audible above the far more powerful voice of nature. His head hurt and his body was taking some punishment as rocks and debris fell across his back and shoulders. But he held onto Rupert, while images of his parents and Iris flashed through his mind. He saw Ned, his face full of accusation, and Brent with his head caved in. He saw Arnold de Souza reaching out to him, and then he thought he saw an angel welcoming him, beckoning him towards her, but then realised it was his new servant, Kanakammal. She was wearing a floaty grey sari with silver thread running through it, sparkling amid the apocalypse, and she told him to survive.
A sharp pain roared back at him when he shifted position but he welcomed it. The pain told him he was alive. He reached behind his head and felt the telltale wetness and now realised his face was sticky with blood too.
‘Rupert … Rupert!’
Walker groaned beneath him. Jack was grateful in that instant that they’d both survived the landslide. His attention turned to the men of the rescue squad.
‘Hey!’ he yelled into the dark, his voice bouncing back quickly. Only now he understood they’d been cut off. He didn’t dare move. In this blackness he could step straight into a hole, lost for good.
Fear reclaimed Jack. He was trapped in tunnel nine, wounded, bleeding, and with a man so badly injured he would die if he didn’t get medical treatment quickly. Jack scrabbled around for his lamp but realised he couldn’t risk relighting it anyway. A naked flame was too dangerous with all the gases that had been released. He couldn’t imagine things could get any worse, but Rupert’s groans dragged him from his despair.
‘Walker … Rupert! How’s the pain?’
‘How do you think?’ he growled.
Jack wasn’t offended. At least Rupert was showing some gumption. He’d need it if they were going to escape. Jack would rather die on the move, fighting his way to the surface, than sit here.
‘Right, there is no rescue party now. Can you stand?’
Rupert sighed, fully lucid now. ‘I doubt it. My whole right side took a battering in the first blast.’
‘Let’s try, shall we?’
‘Why not? It should be entertaining, if nothing else.’
Jack stood up, careful where he stepped. He felt dizzy at first but his head cleared quickly, despite the pain. He gave a sigh and then leaned down. ‘Your turn.’ He reached under Rupert’s arms. ‘Use your good leg to push up if you can.’
‘Yes, thank you, Bryant. I reckon I can work that out.’
‘Then get on with it, you old woman.’
Impossibly, Rupert began to laugh. And Jack joined him. It didn’t last. Rupert was screaming within seconds as he tested his weight on his right foot. And then Jack was lowering him swiftly.
‘Broken ankle?’ he enquired politely.
‘At least that,’ Rupert replied, through short, shallow breaths.
‘Right,’ Jack said, wiping blood from his eyes. His head was bleeding and his own shoulder was on fire but that was the least of their problems right now. ‘We need to move while you’re lucid.’
‘Well, if it’s any consolation, the pain has certainly woken me up. I actually feel more alert.’
‘That’s good, Rupert. That’s really good. Well, I’m ready to hear any suggestions.’
Rupert took a longer, deeper breath and Jack remained silent. He was hoping for a miracle, but miracles did happen, so why not now?
‘If my memory isn’t playing tricks on me, there is a way out of here,’ Rupert began. ‘Nine A connects with C further down, but unfortunately no
t on the same level. We’ll have to hope the ladders are in place.’
‘What then?’
‘If the old ladders are intact, we might be able to get onto the higher levels and attract some attention, or find our way from a safer level to the cage.’
It was sound thinking. Jack was impressed. ‘Listen, if worst comes to worst, I’ll carry you up those ladders all five hundred feet if I have to.’
‘You know, Jack, you’d move a lot faster without me.’
Jack snorted. ‘I don’t particularly like you, Walker, but I’d rather risk my own life hauling you up those damn ladders than face your mother without you.’
‘So, to tunnel C it is. Shall I try to hop?’
‘I think I’ll have to carry you. I still can’t see in front of my nose, so we’re going to have to feel our way and pray for some luck.’
‘Remember to follow the trolley tracks. They’ll keep you straight and on target.’
‘Right. And before we set off, I’d better put a tourniquet around your arm.’
Within moments Jack had his shirt torn into some useable shreds of fabric and eventually fastened them tightly in place, then hefted Rupert onto his back.
Jack lurched off into the darkness. Rupert’s weight was not an issue, he was as lean as he was small, but in the darkness Jack knocked Rupert’s arm and that set off fresh groans.
Soon he lost all track of time and distance, his sole focus on safely putting one foot in front of the other. His mind was mostly blank. He wasn’t even sure if Rupert was still conscious; his intense pain would have been made worse by the tourniquet.
Jack thought of home, Pendeen, and the church graveyard where they had buried Billy; buried all the sons of Pendeen who had perished in the Levant disaster. It wasn’t going to happen again. It wasn’t!
‘Bryant!’ Rupert suddenly bellowed.
‘What?’
‘I think we should start looking for where the tunnels meet. I’ve been counting.’
‘What?’
‘Your steps. Miners are taught this, in case of this very emergency. I reckon we’re close.’
Fields of Gold Page 29