by P J Skinner
‘I wanted to tell you how much I appreciated you getting the bread oven finished. My bedroom is dry now. It’s made such a difference,’ she said.
Javier had a trapped look on his face but Sam persevered.
‘Life in camp would be miserable without you and Selma to look after us.’
He muttered his thanks and tried to leave.
‘Where’s Galo?’ said Sam.
‘He had to go home. His child is ill. He’ll be back tomorrow.’
‘Oh, okay. Well, we’ll carry on then. Thank you.’
Javier couldn’t get away fast enough. Sam scratched her head.
‘Let’s go then,’ she said.
Napoleon nodded and followed her into the adit. They walked to the end of the ore cart railway where they stopped, ostensibly for Sam to get something out of her rucksack but really so that Napoleon could catch his breath. A thought flew through Sam’s consciousness.
‘Does Galo have children?’ said Sam.
‘No, his wife lost her uterus.’
‘I didn’t think so.’
Then the lights went out and they were left in the damp blackness of the tunnel.
‘What the hell?’ said Sam
A drop of freezing water hit the back of her neck making her gasp in shock. The sound reverberated in the pitch black of the tunnel.
‘¿Que pasa?’ A frightened voice in the dark.
‘Nothing. Some cold water fell on me and gave me a fright.’
They had remained frozen in position waiting for the lights to come back on. After a couple of minutes, Sam reached out towards her rucksack which she had dropped in fright.
Suddenly there was a huge boom followed by several others in quick succession. They were muffled by distance but this didn’t make them any less terrifying. Napoleon whimpered ahead of her in the tunnel.
Sam shrank instinctively, waiting to be crushed by falling rocks, but none came. The explosions stopped and eerie silence reigned.
‘Are you okay?’ said Sam.
A grunt of assent came from her colleague.
‘Morons,’ said Sam. ‘They could have killed us.’
‘Who could be setting charges so close to our adit? They must have tunnelled though the mountain.’
‘Or maybe they didn’t. I’m pretty sure the sound came from further down the tunnel towards the entrance.’
More grunts.
Having established they were alive, Sam took charge. She found her torch in the rucksack and shone it in his face and he threw his hand up to protect his eyes.
‘Sorry.’ She lowered the torch. ‘Okay sit here and don’t move. I’m going back out to get the lights switched on again.’
Sam found her rucksack and took out the windup torch which she handed to Napoleon. He sat on a protruding rock shelf wheezing with fright.
‘I’ll be back,’ she said. ‘Don’t move.’
As she started off down the adit, the illumination from the torch bounced off the walls, creating shadows that confused her. The sound of her boots splashing in the water on the floor of the tunnel contrasted with the suffocating silence that had settled over it.
Her heart battered against her rib cage as she inched towards the exit. She should have been close to the opening but no light pierced the darkness. A horrible feeling crept up her spine as she neared the entrance and the torchlight bounced off dust particles in the air. A few of them caught in her throat making her choke.
She shone her torch into the void where a black cloud of dust circled in the air. The explosion must have been close to dislodge particles in the adit. The answer hovered in her brain but she refused to countenance the scenario that suggested itself. Come on, that only happens in movies.
She waited for the dust to settle, trying to stay calm and then lifted her torch again. The light bounced off a wall of rock which had blocked the tunnel up ahead. She stumbled forward almost falling face first as her boot connected with the debris littering the tunnel floor. What on earth had happened? Had there been a cave-in?
The adit had been sealed shut so that no chink of light appeared from the outside. Sam approached the rock wall with caution and tried to reach the roof of the adit by standing on some fallen rock. The light cable had been wrenched off its ties and hung useless in the adit.
She searched for the other half of the wire hoping to reconnect it but it was a thankless task only covering her in dust.
‘Hallo?’ she shouted. ‘Can you hear me? We’re in here.’
The only sound was the dripping of water and her own laboured breathing.
Then she remembered Napoleon. He would be frantic with worry. She started back into the mine stumbling in her haste and cutting her knee on a rock in the filthy water on the floor of the adit. Swearing, she got to her feet and walked back to where she had left him. He had slumped onto the floor, his lungs rattled as he fought for breath.
Sam pulled him into a sitting position. Mine water had saturated his clothing and he shivered violently.
‘What happened?’ he said. ‘You were gone a long time.’
‘There’s been a cave in. We’re going to have to wait a while until they can rescue us.’
‘A cave in?’
Napoleon’s eyes widened. He grasped at Sam’s shirt.
‘Am I going to die in here?’
‘Of course not. They’ll dig us out. It may take a while but we have supplies. It’s going to be okay.’
Napoleon reached into his pocket and pulled out a string of beads. A crucifix caught the light as it spun on a swivel fixed to the rosary. He started to mumble prayers and pass the beads through his fingers. The shivering had diminished but not stopped.
‘Give me your shirt,’ said Sam.
‘My shirt? No, I’m freezing.’
‘I’m going to give you mine. It’s dry at least.’
‘No, I can’t do that.’
‘Come on, I’ve always wanted that shirt.’
A dry cackle followed by a racking cough.
‘It’s my favourite. I love Tartan, like a lumberjack,’ he said.
He couldn’t have looked less like one in his pitiful state.
‘Very macho. Hand it over.’
Napoleon unbuttoned his shirt, his thin fingers slipping on the buttons. He leaned forward and Sam pulled it off his back.
‘Wait here,’ she said, ‘and no peeping.’
She rounded the corner and balanced her torch on a ledge. She took off her shirt, replacing it with the wet tartan one. It smelled of sweat and mould as if it had hung in a damp cupboard without being washed. She wrinkled her nose in disgust as it clung to her arms, making it difficult to put on.
Reaching for the torch she dislodged it and sent it rolling off the ledge and onto the floor. There was a popping sound as it hit the ground and the light went out. She swore in the blackness. Could things get any worse?
She inched her was back around the corner but there was no light.
‘Hey, buddy, I’ve got your shirt. Can you wind the torch up please? I can’t see anything.’
There was no answer.
‘Napoleon, are you there?’
She pushed her feet along the floor trying to find him in the darkness. Fear tightened her chest and shortened her breath.
‘What the--’
She tripped over her rucksack and fell unseeing into the wall of the tunnel. A sensation of heat and pain flooded her skull. The darkness in the tunnel enveloped her as she slipped from consciousness.
***
Selma was sitting at the table chopping onions when Javier entered the canteen. She smiled at him and opened her mouth to say something when a massive explosion shook the house. She jumped up in fright with her hand over her mouth. He flinched but he didn’t look surprised.
‘What exploded?’ said Selma.
‘Oh, I sealed the mine,’ said Javier. ‘Sorry, I should have warned you. I wasn’t thinking. It was becoming unsafe so the owners asked me to block it up until they
come back.’
‘But wasn’t Sam in there?’ said Selma. ‘And Napoleon?’
Rhett came down the stairs from his room.
‘I sent her to Calderon. Amanda needed her help again.’
His curt tone did not invite discussion. She hesitated but the frown on his face intimidated her. Sweeping the onions into a pot, she took them into the kitchen and fried them with some oil before adding cheap beef cuts and stock she had in the fridge. She left the mixture to simmer and picked up her cleaning bucket.
The door to Sam’s room hung open. Inside the contents had been tossed as if someone had searched for something. Her clothes were in a pile on the bed and her toiletries scattered on the floor. Selma stared at the mayhem trying to process the scene but she could make no sense of it. Then she saw Sam’s wallet and passport on the floor.
A shiver ran through her. Sam would not go to Calderon without her passport and money. Selma picked them up and put them in the pocket of her dust coat. She sank to the bed and tried to slow her racing thoughts. Had Javier trapped Sam and Napoleon in the mine? That lad had only days left to live; he would die in there.
She stood up and refolded all of Sam’s clothes putting them back on the shelves. Then she went to change the sheets and remembered the Ziplock bag. Lifting the mattress, she peered underneath it and saw that it was missing. The only person who had been upstairs since breakfast was Rhett.
But why would Rhett harm Sam? She could see they weren’t close but they had appeared to patch it up after a rocky beginning. Since she couldn’t speak English, their tone of voice gave her all the clues she had. Were they going to murder Sam over the contents of a Ziplock? It didn’t make sense. One thing was for sure. Javier would not keep his secret while she still breathed.
Chapter XX
Galo Martin had gone to the core shed to discuss the latest model of the deposit with Kennedy and Marlon. The geologists took the three-dimensional model from him and were taking turns to hold it up in the sunlight. The mild shockwave hit them before the roar of the explosion. Galo’s first instinct told him it was an earthquake, not uncommon in Sierramar, but only one explanation offered itself after the massive sound.
‘What on earth was that?’ said Kennedy.
Marlon had dropped the model on the ground and had picked it up, trying to replace the struts which had become unglued.
‘I think it came from our mine,’ he said.
‘Isn’t Sam in there with Napoleon?’ said Galo
‘Jesus. Zombie would never survive something like that. He’s hanging on by a thread.’
They all ran towards the mine, grabbing picks and spades as they went but it was much worse than they had imagined. A large slab of rock had detached from the hillside and had slid down over the entrance to the adit crushing the ore carts and knocking down a wall of the Denver stamp mill. It had shattered into lumps the size of small cars, which blocked the access to the adit
‘We’ll never get them out of there. Not by hand. It would take months,’ said Kennedy.
‘I don’t understand. Was it a landslide? I’ve never heard a noise like that before,’ said Galo.
‘That was no landslide. I can smell explosives, and look at the debris. Some of it is material from inside the adit, not outside,’ said Marlon.
The wire from the lighting lay on the ground in a shallow puddle. Galo reached forward to pick it up and jumped in the air with a yelp.
‘It’s live,’ he said. ‘Don’t pick it up.’
Marlon ran over to the generator and switched off the current. He walked back shaking his head. They stood rooted to the spot until Javier spotted them and trotted down the hill from the accommodation blocks.
‘Sorry about the explosion. I hadn’t realised how loud it would be. I set the charges inside.’
‘You gave us a fright,’ said Kennedy.
‘Where’s Sam?’ said Galo. ‘I was supposed to meet her in the mine with Napoleon.’
‘She had to go back to Calderon.’
‘She didn’t tell me that.’
‘Who knows what the hurry was? Anyway, Rhett’s still here if you want to send her a message.’
Javier turned on his heel and headed back up the hill.
‘Why were the lights still on?’ said Kennedy. ‘If he intended to blow the charges. That could have been dangerous.’
‘I can’t believe Sam left without telling me. We’re at a crucial point in our interpretation of the deposit,’ said Galo, twirling his moustache.
‘Where’s Napoleon?’ said Marlon.
***
Sam groaned and rolled over. She rubbed her head, finding a cartoon style bruise on her forehead, wincing as her hand passed over the tender lump. She removed her other arm from underneath her and pushed herself up onto her haunches. A wave of nausea hit her and she almost fell over again. The urge to vomit swelled and then passed as she took in a deep breath and let it out again.
She blinked several times but she could not see anything. Panic stricken she rubbed her eyes hard. Why was she blind? Then she remembered the explosion and the lights going out. But what had happened after that? She must have fallen. She shivered. Her trousers had absorbed the freezing water from the floor and they stuck wet and cold to her legs.
How long had she been out? It felt like seconds but it could have been hours. And where was Napoleon?
‘Napoleon?’ she whispered, afraid to make her own head explode if she spoke out loud.
But he did not answer. It struck her that she had no idea which direction she was facing. Which way was the entrance and where was Napoleon? Panic gripped her. She bit her lip hard trying to focus by slowing her breathing.
Then she remembered tripping over her rucksack, the soft material grabbing her boot. It couldn’t be far away. She had fallen flat on her face with the boot entangled in it. Napoleon was sitting on the floor beside it near the ledge. And where was her shirt? If she found any of these things that should orientate her. She needed to find Napoleon because he had the wind-up torch.
A faint noise nearby made her jump but she couldn’t identify the direction.
‘Napoleon. Is that you? I need the torch. You must give it to me.’
The faintest of moans floated in the air. Sam reached out towards the sound and touched some cold skinny fingers.
‘Whoa, you scared the shit out of me,’ she said. ‘Pass me the torch.’
But there was no movement. Sam scooted forward inch by inch, reaching out with one hand and steadying herself with the other. She found Napoleon lying on his side, his breathing so shallow that he appeared to be asleep. His hard hat was lying on the floor and she kicked it in the dark.
Groping around, she put her hand on the plastic dome which she put on so that she could stand up without banging her head on the roof of the tunnel. She slipped her hands under Napoleon’s armpits and levered him back into a sitting position. Where was his shirt? Sam’s hand flew to her chest as she remembered that she had it on.
So where was hers? It probably wasn’t dry any more but it would be better than nothing. She felt around on the floor and finally her hand touched the corrugated casing of the wind-up torch. Relief flooded through her as she picked it up and started winding. Her head swam with the effort of getting Napoleon upright and it pounded like a stamp mill.
After a minute of steady work, she switched the torch on, choosing to illuminate only one of the three bulbs. She didn’t want to risk blowing all of them before she could search for the Magnalite. Leaving Napoleon leaning against the wall of the tunnel, she made her way back around the corner where she had taken off her shirt.
She had trouble finding it due to the matt black casing on the black uneven floor. Just when frustration threatened to get the better of her, it turned up, wedged between two ruts in the ground. To her relief, the bulb had blown but the front lens had not shattered. There was a spare bulb in the screw top lid which held in the batteries which she removed and inserted into the sock
et, flooding the adit with light. Making her way back to where Napoleon sat, she joined him on the ground and wrapped his arm around her neck.
‘Come on buddy, you’ll never get dry down here. We have to go further into the workings and find a dry spot. Can you walk?’
Napoleon mumbled something she could not distinguish but he tensed himself for the effort of standing. He staggered to his feet, his chest rasping. She clasped him around his ribs and slowly walked him up the adit to a wide place in the tunnel that had been used for ore carts to pass each other.
There was a wooden platform raised off the ground, which had once held a tool station. It had been set up in a space hollowed into a solid piece of metamorphosed sandstone.
There were two steps up to the platform and Sam had to carry Napoleon on her hip to get him up them. Once up, she lowered him onto the floor and helped prop him up against the wood surround. The wood was damp but not wet. She leant on a wooden post catching her breath, trying to ignore the dizziness that assailed her.
‘Okay, don’t run away. I have to go and get the shirt and the rucksack,’ she said.
A ghost of a laugh emerged from Napoleon’s throat.
Sam walked back down the tunnel trying to make sense of what had happened and how to plan for survival. The rescue teams might take days. She needed to get organised and ration her supplies.
She patted the pockets of her khaki trousers and heaved a sigh of relief as she identified the packets of nuts and raisins, the bar of chocolate and the cheese roll she had made at breakfast. If she could find the rucksack, she also had a flask of tea and some bananas. Napoleon didn’t eat much but he would have something in his satchel. They weren’t going to die of thirst with water pouring out of every crevice.
Sam made her way back to the place she had left the rucksack. It sat on a raised piece of ground, relatively dry and all of its contents intact. Her shirt hung on the rock face where it had flown when she tripped over the rucksack. She swung it over her shoulder and went back to the platform.
Napoleon had managed to stay upright this time so she put her shirt on him. The warmth of the almost dry shirt had an immediate effect. His eyes, which had seemed to be glued shut, flickered open. He smiled at her making her heart break.