The Colour of Gold

by Oliver T Spedding

  "Who buys the gold from these miners?" Isaiah asked.

  "There are many illegal gold buyers and they are the people who make the most money." Johnson said. "But they are not to be trusted. They know that if they cheat you, you cannot run to the authorities. There are also buyers who are working for the police and trap the illegal gold miners who then get sent to jail."

  "If there are so many dangers," Isaiah asked, "then why do the miners work in the abandoned mines?"

  "Firstly, because they cannot get work anywhere else and secondly, there's always the chance that they will hit a rich vein and never have to work again." Johnson replied.

  "Who are these illegal gold miners?" Isaiah asked.

  "They are mostly men from the gold and platinum mines who have lost their jobs for one reason or another and can't find any other work." the man said. "They are not allowed to be here because they don't have work permits but they refuse to return to their homelands as there is no work there at all. Many of these men stay underground for months at a time, constantly searching for the gold that will set them free."

  Isaiah thanked his friend for his information but decided not to take the matter any further. He was quite happy to work in Hillbrow.

  Now, as he walked Isaiah walked South he began to wonder if this wasn't the solution to his problems. He tried to remember what else he had heard about the buffer zone between the white city of Johannesburg and the black metropolis of Soweto. It had originally been the place where all the small gold mines had been established but these mines had proven to be unsustainable as the bigger mines developed mining and extraction processes that they couldn't match. These small mines had been abandoned but now, with the price of gold so high, it was possible for illegal miners to exploit these old diggings and survive.

  Isaiah walked through the central business area, still in awe of the towering buildings that he passed. He walked through the area known as the Southern Suburbs, staring at the thousands of small red-roofed houses built right next to each other and that had housed the families of the white men that worked on the mines for over eighty years.

  Eventually Isaiah saw the huge blue gum trees and thick bush that covered the vast buffer zone between the white and black cities. As he drew closer he noticed the piles of papers, plastic shopping bags, empty tin cans and bottles and builder's rubble that littered the area. He also saw the huge mounds of white sand made from the crushed and processed rock that had been extracted deep below the earth's surface at such a deadly cost in human lives during the more than eighty years that man had been searching for gold on the vast gold-bearing reef known as the Witwatersrand.

  Furtively Isaiah moved into the desolate dusty forest, the dry grass crackling beneath his feet. In the distance he could hear the roar of the traffic travelling on the main road between Johannesburg and Soweto. Birds chirped in the branches above him. As he walked he occasionally glimpsed other black people, mostly dressed in rags, and huddling around small fires cooking food or lounging in the shade of the huge trees. There were also a number of small hovels made of cardboard boxes, sheets of rusty corrugated iron sheets and large pieces of plastic sheeting. Whenever he heard people approaching he quickly hid in a nearby clump of bushes, not wanting to be confronted with anyone until he felt more comfortable in these surroundings.

  After wandering about the vast wasteland for several hours Isaiah noticed a small group of six men wearing dirty overalls and orange hardhats with lamps attached to their fronts and standing around a large hole in the ground. A huge mound of white sand lay nearby. As he needed to do something about his predicament he walked closer to the men. He raised his right hand in a gesture of friendliness.

  "I'm looking for work as a miner." Isaiah said. "I come from Natal. Can you help me?"

  The men stared at Isaiah suspiciously.

  "How do we know that you aren't a police spy?" a large man who appeared to be the group's leader asked in a harsh voice.

  "I'm not a police spy but I have no way of proving it." Isaiah replied. "What proof do you need?"

  The big man, completely bald with large protruding eyes, a broad flat nose and thick lips that exposed strong white teeth studied Isaiah, his eyes narrowing as he tried to assess the stranger.

  "Have you worked on a mine before?" he asked.

  "No." Isaiah replied. "I have just recently come to Jo'burg from Natal where I lived and worked on my father's farm. I was going to work on the Deep Reef Gold Mine but decided to work in Hillbrow instead. Then I got into trouble and came here to hide from the police."

  The big man nodded and turned to the other men.

  "What do you guys think?" he asked. "Is this man genuine?"

  The men stared at Isaiah. He stared back, his expression neutral. He saw the men begin to nod their heads.

  "He's okay." one of the men said.

  The others nodded their heads vigorously.

  "Okay." the big leader said. "My name's Paul and I'm the leader of these men who all work here in this abandoned gold mine. If you really want to, you can join us now. We are just about to go back down underground. You must understand something though. It's very dangerous work and there isn't much money in this type of work unless you strike a big gold vein and I have never heard of this happening yet. But, if we didn't think that it might happen to us we wouldn't be here now. Are you prepared to risk your life for a possible fortune?"

  "Yes." Isaiah replied. "I'll join your team. Maybe I'll bring you luck."

  The men grinned and began to descend into the darkness of the mine tunnel. Isaiah followed, walking next to Paul.

  Isaiah followed the men through the darkness, the lamps on their helmets casting beams that exposed the ragged walls of the tunnel. The tunnel sloped downwards quite steeply and zigzagged as it progressed deeper into the earth. The men walked in silence their steps echoing off the walls of the tunnel. Eventually, after what seemed like hours to Isaiah, they reached a tunnel that branched off from the tunnel that they had been walking down. They turned into the level tunnel. Behind them Isaiah noticed what must be the main shaft that went down to the deeper tunnels.

  "We'll give you a hardhat when we get to our base." Paul said. "In the mean time walk in the centre of the tunnel along the hopper tracks so that you don't hit your head on the roof."

  "What are hopper tracks for?" Isaiah asked.

  "Hoppers are also known as coco pans." Paul said. "They're large steel containers on wheels that carry the broken rock from the mine face to the main shaft where it's hauled to the surface to be crushed and treated to extract the gold. The big mines now have electric trains that carry the broken rock to the mine shaft. In the old days the workers had to push the hoppers. It must have been back-breaking work."

  "How deep underground are we?" Isaiah asked.

  "Actually, we're not that far underground." Paul said. "We're just over a kilometre down. Many of these mines go as deep as two kilometres down and the big mines like Deep Reef go down almost four kilometres."

  The group walked along the level tunnel and again Isaiah was astonished at the length.

  "Where is your base?" he asked.

  "It's about five kilometres along this tunnel." Paul replied.

  "Five kilometres!" Isaiah exclaimed.

  "Yes." Paul said. "We would go a lot further but the tunnel's blocked where our base is due to a rock fall."

  "How to you get the gold out of the rock?" Isaiah asked.

  "First we have to find rock that we think has gold in it." Paul said. "We look for small specks of gold on the rock and then break out those pieces with hammers and crowbars. It would be a lot easier if we could use explosives but they're too expensive. Then we break the rock up into powder with hammers, sift it through a fine mesh and mix it with mercury. We heat the mixture in a small steel dish and this separated the gold from the rock. Then we put the mercury into a strong rag and squeeze it out. The gold is left inside the cloth. We store the gold and when we have enough we ta
ke it to a dealer and split the money that we get."

  "Sounds like very hard work." Isaiah said.

  "It is." Paul replied. "But then, beggars can't be choosers. All of us were unemployed before we came here, and like you, many of us were being hunted by the police."

  "Do other miners use explosives?" Isaiah asked.

  "Some do but, as I say, it's too expensive." Paul said.

  "Where do they get the explosives?"

  "From the big mines." Paul said. "Large quantities of dynamite are stolen from these mines every year by black miners who sell it to illegal explosives dealers."

  "How did you learn about mining?" Isaiah asked.

  "I started working on a mine in called Roodepoort Deep Gold Mine many years ago but then I was fired for assaulting a white miner and I couldn't get work on any of the other mines." Paul said. "The government wanted to send me back to the Transkei where I was born but there was no work there so I came here. I've been working here for three years now."

  Finally the group of men reached their base. Several lanterns were lit and Isaiah was surprised and pleased to see how neat and orderly the place was. An area along the wall of the tunnel had been divided up into small sleeping lots, each with an air mattress with a blanket folded on top of it and a large suitcase to store belongings. At the far side of the camp a number of brass primus stoves, a variety of steel pots, pans and plates and two fireplaces made of rock with steel grids on top indicated the cooking area. Food was stored in two large steel kitchen cupboards. On the other side of the tunnel stacks of mining tools and jars of a silver substance that Isaiah presumed was mercury, leant against the wall.

  "You'll have to sleep on the ground until you can buy a mattress." Paul told Isaiah. "It's always warm down here so you probably won't need a blanket and I'll find a plate for you for your food. I'll keep a record of your expenses and take it off your share of the money that we get when we sell the gold that we've collected since you arrived here."

  "When will that be?" Isaiah asked.

  "It usually takes us about six to eight weeks to collect enough gold." Paul said. "Then we sell it, buy more provisions and share what's left over."

  Isaiah settled into the routine of the camp and was soon accepted by all the men. The schedule was very basic. Because there was no indication of day or night each man had a wristwatch and a calendar had been scratched onto the wall of the tunnel with white chalk and each day recorded. The day began with the lanterns being lit and breakfast of maize porridge with sugar and long-life milk eaten. The team then split up into two groups, one to break the rock off the walls of the tunnel with hammers and crowbars and the other to pound the rock into powder using hammers. It was Paul's responsibility to select parts of the tunnel wall that he considered to contain gold.

  In the beginning Isaiah was consigned to the group pounding the rock into powder. He quickly developed large blisters from gripping the wooden handle of his hammer. He covered the handle with a cloth and continued. Each night, after eating his meal of canned beans and sausages he collapsed onto his blanket, his hands and the muscles of virtually his whole weary body aching.

  "Just stick with it." Paul told him. "We all went through what you're going through now. In a week or two calluses will replace the blisters and your muscles will grow accustomed to the work. Just keep thinking of the rich vein of gold that we're going to find that will allow us to stop working."

  Once the rock had been pounded into a sufficiently fine form it was sifted through a fine steel mesh and the remaining stones crushed into powder. The powdered rock was then placed in a steel dish, mixed with mercury and heated over a small fire. Isaiah watched the process carefully and clearly saw the tiny flakes of gold collecting in the mercury. Once Paul was satisfied that all the gold in the powdered rock had been extracted he allowed the mercury to cool and then poured it into a strong piece if fine cloth. The mercury was then squeezed through the weave of the cloth and returned to its container.

  Carefully Paul opened the cloth and Isaiah was disappointed to see the tiny collection of gold flakes no larger than the head of a large pin. Paul laughed when he saw the look of disappointment on Isaiah's face.

  "This little collection of gold flakes is worth about fifty Rand and is about average for a day's work but sometimes we get nothing. I warned you though, that this is a hard way to make money but it's still better than not having any work at all. We all live with the hope that one day we'll strike a rich vein of gold that will make us all wealthy. That's what drives us."

  Paul also kept a careful watch over the stocks of food and drink, carefully rationing it so as to make it last as long as possible. No alcohol was allowed and no smoking.

  The two main natural dangers that the miners faced were rockfalls and poisonous gasses both of which were impossible to detect early. The other danger that the men feared even more was rival gangs who murdered miners for the gold that they had collected. Paul had contrived a simple alarm setup that would warn them of unwanted intruders. It consisted of a number of tripwires connected to empty tins that would crash down noisily onto the tunnel floor when activated. It wasn't foolproof but it was all they had.

  After Isaiah had been working in the mine for two months, Paul called a meeting.

  "We are running out of food and water." he told the men. "It's time for us to return to the surface for a while. I think that we have enough gold to buy ourselves supplies for another two months and also give us each some cash. I have compiled a list of what provisions I believe we need. Have a look at the list and if you want something else, tell me. If it's essential we'll by it. We'll sell the gold and with the money buy our provisions. Whatever's left will be split equally amongst us. Okay?"

  All the men nodded in agreement and began preparing to return to the surface.

  ***

  As the miners walked along the tunnel towards their base, having sold their gold, bought sufficient provisions for another two months and shared the remaining cash, Paul spoke to Isaiah.

  "Every day I became more and more convinced that we could find much more gold if we could use explosives." he said. "We are too limited breaking off the rock with hammers, picks and crowbars. Would you be prepared to go and work at Deep Reef Gold Mine and steal explosives for us? It's a dangerous game but if it's done carefully there isn't a great deal of risk."

  "What would I have to do?" Isaiah asked.

  "You would have to get an underground job at the mine, probably as a "lasher boy" who is a worker who loads broken rock onto the hoppers or coco pans. It's hard work but it's no harder than what you're doing here." Paul said. "Then you would have to steal explosives."

  "How do I do that?" Isaiah asked.

  "The white miners are very careless with the explosives that they use." Paul said. "They leave the stuff lying around underground while they supervise the drilling of the blasting holes in the rock face. As long as you only take small amounts nobody will notice. There are quite a few men who steal dynamite but they sell it to the illegal explosives dealers at prices too high for us to afford."

  "Isn't that very dangerous? Won't the dynamite explode?" Isaiah asked.

  "No." Paul replied with a smile. "For dynamite to explode it needs an electric current to set it off, so unless you're struck by lightning it's quite safe. Of course, if you are struck by lightning it won't matter at all because you'll be dead anyway."

  "How do I gat it out from underground and then out of the mine's premises?" Isaiah asked.

  "Most of the men who steal explosives use small plastic phials or containers like the ones that pharmacies dispense tablets in." Paul said. "But you must be very careful. If you are caught you will go to jail for a long time. Easily ten years. So, once you've filled your container with dynamite and sealed it you push it up your anus as far as you can."

  "But the security guards do searches including body searches." Isaiah said.

  "Yes." Paul said. "But they don't do the body searches every da
y. Sometimes only every tenth day. And if they do body searches the word quickly gets back to the miners who are waiting to go to the surface so there's plenty of time to hide the dynamite and then bring it out the next day. It is very seldom that anyone is caught and those that are caught usually did something stupid. If you are always careful and don't take chances you won't get caught."

  "And once I've got the explosives, what do I do with them?" Isaiah asked.

  "You must hide the stolen explosives somewhere off the mine's premises." Paul said. "And then, on your day off you bring the stuff to me here. From what I remember your days off will be Saturdays and Sundays."

  "Will you pay me for the dynamite?" Isaiah asked.

  "Yes." Paul said. "I'll pay you in cash and you'll also still get a share of the profits that we make. So you'll be getting your mine pay, money from selling the dynamite to me and a share of the profits that we make."

  Isaiah quickly realised that this was an opportunity not to be missed.

  "Okay." he said. "I'll do it."

  ***

  Bogdan quickly settled into his job as a buyer at the Deep Reef Gold Mine. Although the products he dealt with were very different from those of the shipping industry the buying system was similar. His fellow workers in the buying department helped him a great deal by explaining what the various items that he ordered were used for and even took him underground so that he could see the items in operation.

  As Bogdan became more confident and got to know the suppliers of mining products better, he subtly let it be known that there were certain benefits available to suppliers in exchange for small favours. He opened a small savings account at a different bank to the one that he and Julia used and soon small amounts of money from various sources surreptitiously found their way into it. Items such as small electrical kitchen appliances and the odd bottle of expensive liquor appeared in the Vodnik home.