Golden Soak

by Hammond Innes

  By the time we’d got the last cover on and the wheel bolts tightened she had the coffee ready. She’d washed and put some lipstick on, but she still looked desperately tired, her face drained of colour. I asked her about the abo they called Half-Bake. ‘They said he was working at Golden Soak when the cave-in took place.’

  She nodded, but absently, her mind elsewhere.

  ‘And he’s been here ever since?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Does he remember things?’

  ‘How do you mean — what things?’

  ‘About what happened here afterwards,’ I said. ‘The cave-in occurred in 1939. Your grandfather’s journal doesn’t help. But this man might know. I’d like to have a word with him.’

  But she wouldn’t agree to that. ‘I don’t think he’d know the difference between you and the men who were asking him questions. Reminding him, like that - it was cruel.’

  I drank the rest of my coffee, knowing it was no good, and she didn’t say anything about another entrance. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘We’ll get going now.’

  She wanted to come with us, of course, but I told her No. I didn’t know what she was going to find and I didn’t want her along. She was too tired, anyway. She came with us to the Land-Rover. ‘He may not hear you calling to him down the shaft.’ And she began to tell me how to reach that drift on the third level.

  ‘I know where it is,’ I told her.

  She nodded. ‘Yes, of course. I forgot.’

  The significance of her words passed me by, for by then I was behind the wheel and started the engine. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. I’ll find him and bring him back with me.’

  ‘Yes, but what about those men?’

  ‘An entrance that hasn’t been used for at least thirty years isn’t going to let them just walk into the third level. They’ll need to work at it, and that’ll take time.’ She stared uncertainly, wanting to believe me. ‘We’ll be about three hours,’ I said.

  She nodded, her eyes red-rimmed in the sun, her pale hair blowing in the hot breeze. I turned the Land-Rover and headed down the track to the paddock, leaving her standing there, a still small figure motionless in my driving mirror. It was just after eleven, barely an hour since Westrop had left. By now he would be at Golden Soak, and if he hadn’t run into Ed Garrety on the way, he might at this moment be working his way into the mine by the alternative entrance. I was trying to visualize where it might be as I crossed the cattle grid and put my foot down hard. Previously, driving this track, we had taken the switchbacks and the dry stone watercourses at leisurely speed. Now I was in a hurry, and I just hoped the springs would take it and that our tyre patches would hold up to the blistering intensity of the sun and the heat of gravel friction.

  ‘There all night, she said.’ Kennie had to shout to make me hear above the roar of the engine, the rattle of the aged chassis. ‘Must be pretty tired by now.’

  I nodded. ‘Maybe we’ll meet him coming back.’ He had told Janet he wouldn’t be long. I hoped we would meet him.

  ‘What is it he’s looking for if he’s already found the reef?’ But I didn’t answer. I was tired and though I was driving as fast as I could on that lousy track, the nearer I got the less I seemed to want to arrive. It wasn’t premonition. It was just that driving was in itself sufficient activity for my depleted reserves. In the end, I drove in silence, and as we left Mt Robinson behind us, I found myself dreading the moment when I saw the mine buildings again with that thin, solitary chimney towering black against the blinding white of the sky. A sound of thunder rumbled in the distance. But no sign of rain, the whole oven vault above empty of the smallest cloud.

  It was eleven minutes to twelve when the mine buildings came abruptly into view round that red outcrop of rock. But everything was obscured, the iron chimney a blurred pencil-line, half lost in a haze of dust. It hung over the gully and plain below, a red miasma that had both of us choking with our handkerchiefs across our faces as we drove into it. ‘Dust storm,’ Kennie yelled.

  But I knew it wasn’t a dust storm. ‘No wind.’

  ‘Mebbe wind out there.’ He nodded east towards the Gibson. But if this was Gibson sand, driven and suspended over miles of bush, we would have felt the weight of the wind and we’d have been in the sand all the way. Whatever it was, it was entirely local, and with my heart suddenly pounding I drove past the tin-tattered buildings wrapped in dust and swung the Land-Rover up the track towards the dark shadow of the mouth of the gully. I was on headlights then, everything choked with fine red dust, and where the old workings began it was pouring out of the ground, red boiling smoke billowing up and a great pit just in front of us. If I’d been going downhill I wouldn’t have had a hope, but because of the gradient I was able to stop the Land-Rover dead. Even so the front wheels were on the very edge of that enormous boiling unbelievable cavity.

  An eruption? A crater?

  ‘What the hell’s happened?’ Kennie was staring.

  But I think I knew. I think we both knew as the dust smoke veered and the ragged nature of the pit showed in the headlights.

  ‘Christ! It’s a cave-in.’

  We got out, handkerchiefs pressed tight over our mouths. It wasn’t just one pit. It was a series of pits. All the old workings opened up into gaping holes that vented dust. The whole mine must have collapsed internally. I was thinking of Ed Garrety then as we climbed towards the entrance, wishing to God we’d met him on the track. Down there he hadn’t a hope. Even if he were still alive, I didn’t think there was a chance of a rescue team reaching him.

  The entrance, when we reached it, was still there, the rock mouth gaping and billowing dust, no sign of the wooden door. It was impossible, so soon after the cave-in, to reach the shaft, and I just stood there, gazing about me, too appalled to do anything but wonder how I was going to break the news to Janet.

  ‘That the door you spoke about?’

  We had started back and he was pointing to a heavy rectangle of wood lying on the far side of die gully. It has been blown there by the force of the air rushing out of the mine. I was thinking of the two lower levels, the dangerous sloping: the whole thing must have come down like a pack of cards.

  The dust-boil had lessened by the time we got back to the side of the old costeans, the headlights of the Land-Rover dimmed by the strange fluorescence of sunlight on dust, a glow that hurt the eyes after the darkness of the gully. We climbed in, not saying a word, and I backed and turned and drove into the brightness, the mine buildings growing ghostly in the iridescent light. ‘The noise,’ Kennie said. ‘Remember? Like thunder. It must have been a hell of a collapse.’

  ‘Yes.’ I was out of the gully now, following the tramlines down.

  ‘Couldn’t be anyone alive down there, not after that. We must have been two miles away when we heard it. And it was his own fault really. He must have known it would collapse at any moment.’

  Kennie’s face was white below the dust film, his eyes scared.

  I said: ‘I’m going back to the homestead now. Janet has to be told. And then she can get the authorities on the radio. We’ll come back when the dust has settled and see if the shaft is still intact.’

  He nodded, but reluctantly, his long-fingered hands clasped tightly about his knees.

  ‘Then there’s Westrop. If we can find out where the other entrance …’ A figure appeared in the red haze at the corner of the crusher shed. I had reached the bottom of the tramlines then and had just turned left past the mine office. I didn’t recognize him at first. He jerked to a stop as though shocked into immobility at the sight of us. The iron grey hair, and stooped, slightly rounded shoulders - I hardly dared believe it. But as I slowed to a stop the Alsatian joined him and I knew it really was Ed Garrety.

  ‘What’re you doing here?’ His voice shook, his eyes seemingly half afraid, his body literally snaking with nervous exhaustion. He looked at the point of collapse. ‘Were you here when -‘ His Adam’s apple worked as though the dust he’d absorbe
d had clogged his throat.

  ‘No — about two miles away.’ I said. ‘Thank God you weren’t in the mine.’

  He nodded vaguely. ‘Two miles away. You heard it?’

  ‘Like thunder,’ Kennie cried excitedly. ‘And then all the dust. We thought you were a goner for sure.’

  He nodded slowly, seeming to relax a little. ‘You saw Janet?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She’s back at home then.’ He seemed relieved. But when I told him about Westrop and how he’d learned of another entrance to the mine he went still as death.

  ‘You say - they’re down there now?’ He seemed to have difficulty getting the words out.

  ‘I hope not, but I don’t know.’

  He shook his head as though unwilling to accept responsibility for others getting themselves involved. His face grey beneath the stubble, his breath short, his eyes desperately weary.

  ‘Do you know where the other entrance is?’

  He didn’t answer. He seemed completely dazed.

  ‘Do you know where it is?’ I repeated. ‘Can you show us?’

  He nodded slowly. ‘That explains it.’ He was speaking to himself, the words coming in a whisper.

  ‘Explains what?’

  ‘The other vehicle. An old Chev. I’d only just seen it, down by the shearing shed!’ And then he seemed to pull himself together as if he had suddenly reached a decision. ‘You follow me.’ He called to the Alsatian and walked slowly passed the mine office, his head bowed and moving slackly, uncertainly, a man near the end of his tether living in a nightmare. He disappeared behind the building that housed the crushing plant and a moment later the ute appeared. He drew up beside me, the Alsatian leaning her head out of the window, her tongue lolling. ‘Have you got helmets?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good.’ He nodded, and I followed in his dust stream, round the comer of the building, out on to a track that skirted the scrub-grown mounds of the tailings dump, running out into the flat land beyond. We stopped beside the Chev. It had Oration Downs Tin Mine painted on the side, and beyond it, the tattered tin of the old shearing shed stood blistering in the sun, gaps torn in the roof and the door hanging drunkenly on broken hinges. Ed Garrety led the way inside and it was like an oven, the wheels and belt drives for the clippers dim in the darkness above the shearing platform. The big wooden clip bailer had been pushed over on to its side revealing a hole in the ground with rough-hewn steps. ‘No dust in here, so we’ll probably find the gallery blocked by a fall.’ Ed Garrety’s voice was bleak. ‘Three of them you said, didn’t you?’

  ‘That’s right. Westrop, a Kalgoorlie miner named Lennie, and the native who used to work for you — Wolli. You saw them last night.’

  He nodded, staring down at the dark hole and the steps going down.

  ‘Did Westrop tell you he was Mcllroy’s nephew?’

  ‘He didn’t need to. I knew already.’ And he added, ‘The damned fool! Why couldn’t he let it rest, instead of digging up old rumours, believing anything Wolli told him?’

  I too, was staring at the steps, wondering what we’d find in that long-disused gallery, thinking of those men deep underground, locked in by a fall most likely, or dead of suffocation. ‘He’s convinced McIlroy came here before disappearing into the Gibson.’

  ‘That’s right. He did.’ Ed Garrety turned his head, staring at me, the blue of his eyes accentuated by the red dust that filmed his face. He stood there, very still for a moment, as though bracing himself for more questions. Then he nodded and turned away. ‘Well, better see what’s down there.’ And he donned his helmet. We did the same, switching on our lamps, and taking the pick and shovel we had brought with us from the Land-Rover, we followed him down into the black hole of that underground gallery.

  TWO

  The news that the men were missing did not go out on the Jarra Jarra radio until five that afternoon. The search had taken us over three hours, for the way into the mine from the old shearing shed was no more than a pilot gallery barely 4 feet high. It had been driven from the second level in 1934, when the eastward end of the reef had become so narrow it was no longer workable, and there were innumerable offshoots where the miners had probed in the hope of striking a widening of the quartz band. All these had to be explored crawling on our hands and knees. That was after we had reached the second level and had found the gallery blocked by a new fall at the point where they had ceased mining the reef.

  After he had sent the call out, Ed Garrety went straight to his room to have a bath. He looked grey and ill, and he didn’t want to talk about it. He was over fifty and had been in a Jap P.O.W. camp for two years during the war. Now he had been at full stretch for over thirty-six hours with no sleep and very little food. But he wouldn’t eat. Janet took him a cup of tea which was all he seemed to want. ‘He’s very tired.’ She looked very tired herself, the eyes overbright and her face pinched.

  ‘If he gets some sleep … I put some whisky in it. Do you think he’ll drink it? He doesn’t usually touch liquor.’ Her voice was flat with exhaustion, but it was more mental than physical - a note of uneasiness in it, too. ‘Would you like some?’

  She gave us both a stiff whisky, pouring it from the bottle into tumblers, her hands trembling. We drank it neat while she cooked us a steak. And then we took the Land-Rover and went back to the mine. But it was a waste of time. We got as far as the shaft and that was all, the wooden head of it collapsed, the ladders gone and the open well of it blocked with debris about 140 feet down. There was dust and rubble everywhere, and remembering the poor sloping, the softness of the pillars, I didn’t reckon it was even worth trying to get in by the shaft. Any attempt to reach the men would have to be made from the other entrance, and it would be slow work in the cramped space of that pilot gallery.

  There was nothing we could do, so we went back to the homestead. Janet met us with the news that the Shire Clerk would be arriving from Nullagine around midnight with a team from Grafton Downs. Also, a mining engineer from Mt Newman was waiting to see me. He was Italian, a thickset hairy man who talked with an accent that sounded distinctly Welsh. He had been sent up to assess the situation and Ed Garrety was with him. He listened to what I had to say about the conditions underground and the present state of the shaft, then said, ‘Tell me now, d’you mink there is any chance whatever that they are still alive?’

  ‘Frankly - no,’ I said. ‘I don’t think there’s a hope.’

  ‘And you, Mr Garrety, what do you think?’

  But Ed Garrety didn’t answer. His head was bowed as though in prayer, the heavy-lidded eyes closed. His face, shaved now, had a grey sick look, the eye sockets dark hollows, the skin like parchment stretched over the skull.

  ‘Okay.’ The Italian got to his feet. ‘I go now. But don’t expect too much from us. Mount Whaleback is opencast, you understand.’

  He left just as Andie drove in from Lynn Peak. Other station owners drifted in during the evening until there were five of them drinking beer and talking it over in their slow careful way. I left them to it and went to bed. Henry’s room had been made over to me again. It was hot and airless and, before turning in, I went out on the verandah and stood there for a while, smoking a cigarette, with the dark outline of the Windbreaks shouldering the stars. I was just turning back into the room when Janet’s voice said, ‘Is that you Alec?’ Her shadow emerged out of the darkness. ‘Can I have a word with you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  She was hugging a thin cotton dressing gown to her, her hair hanging loose across her face. ‘Not out here.’ She moved into my room, turning to face me as I followed her. ‘I hope you don’t mind. I saw you smoking out there and… She hesitated. ‘Can you spare one please? It’s about what - happened - down there at the mine this morning.’ Her voice was nervous, not quite under control.

  I gave her a cigarette and lit it for her and she said a little wildly, ‘I don’t know what to do. I must tell somebody, but …’ She stood there silent for a
moment, and then suddenly she blurted out, ‘It was an accident, wasn’t it?’ Her eyes, momentarily lit by the glow of her cigarette, stared at me anxiously.

  ‘What else?’

  ‘You’ve been down the mine, haven’t you? The night after you left here. Andie drove over two days ago to tell us it was all over Nullagine - that you’d been down Golden Soak with that women Prophecy.’

  ‘She drove me over, yes.’ I started to explain what had happened, but she was more concerned with the effect the news had on her father. ‘He’s always had this thing about Golden Soak and when he heard you’d been down there …’ She subsided on to the end of the bed, staring at me, her eyes luminous. ‘What did you find there?’ her voice was urgent. ‘Please, I must know.’

  I told her briefly, and she sat there, very still, listening to me, the cigarette trembling in her hand. ‘I see.’ There was a long pause, and then she said, ‘Ever since Andie was here, he’s hardly left the mine, except -‘ She hesitated. ‘Except yesterday morning. He was here for several hours yesterday.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  But she didn’t answer, just sat there, quite still, as though she’d been suddenly struck dumb.

  ‘What are you trying to tell me?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she murmured, her lips compressed, an unhappy look in her eyes. ‘He was here, you know, when those miners lost their lives. He would have been in his early twenties then and it made a deep impression on him. And afterwards, when he came back from the war, he wouldn’t go down there himself and he wouldn’t let anybody else go down. I think he was afraid of it - afraid it would claim more lives. I tried to get him to sell. But he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t even consider it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. Well, yes, I do in a way. I think at the back of his mind he always believed that ultimately Golden Soak would be our salvation. As long as we owned it he could at least hope.’ Her voice trailed off. ‘Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. But now … What happens now?’