by Jack Higgins
‘As you can see,’ Chela said. ‘Our methods are primitive by the standards you gentlemen are used to.’
‘Which can be remedied easily enough,’ Janos told her, ‘as long as the prospect exists for the right kind of return, then the introduction of modern machinery and methods will be our first priority.’
‘Since starting again what particular problems have you had?’ I asked her.
‘So many rockfalls that I have lost count.’
‘Then your timbering must be at fault,’ Janos said. ‘Only to be expected after so many years of idleness and decay. Have you any kind of expert assistance available?’
‘Many of the villagers worked here before when the mine was fully operational. Rafael Moreno from the hotel was shift foreman as a young man and also an expert shot-firer. He is supervising the work at the rock face for us and Jurado organizes the actual labour force.’
On her brother’s insistence, presumably, but Janos let it go and smiled brightly. ‘Señorita, I have a confession to make. I have had a hatred of confined places since childhood. Surprising, I know, in one with my business interests. That is why I employ professionals such as Mr Keogh to give me the benefit of their expert advice.’
‘Which means you’ll sit out here enjoying a cigar while I do the necessary tour of inspection,’ I said.
‘Correct.’ He smiled rather complacently and perfectly in character. ‘The privilege not only of age, but of position, Mr Keogh. I shall sit on a boulder in the sun contemplating this extraordinary view and think of you down there in the darkness – often.’
Chela de la Plata smiled. ‘Then if I may be your guide, Señor Keogh, and yours, father?’
And so the three of us left him in the sunlight and ventured into the darkness.
At the Hermosa Mine there was a considerable criminal element provided by the local state prison and the rest of the labour force had consisted of men newly released from the ranks of the army of the Revolution. A pot constantly on the boil.
The company had operated according to the age-old formula of working them until they dropped, but one essential requirement always faced up to was the need for adequate ventilation, for underground you either breathed or died. A step inside the tunnel and the heat seized me by the throat which gave me an opportunity to play mining engineers.
‘What’s wrong with the ventilation?’
‘The main airshaft was blocked by a rockfall a week or two back. Moreno says it would take quite an operation to clear it so we decided to carry on for the time being.’
‘Surely he told you how dangerous that could be?’
‘We are short of everything, señor, time as well as money and we needed as much ore out as possible to be in a position to raise more capital. A vicious circle.’
We turned a corner and the light faded, leaving us in a corridor of shadows, patches of light illuminated by guttering candles in niches in the rock, marching into the darkness at spaced intervals. We stood to one side as a truck rattled over the rails pushed by a couple of weary, dust-covered men who seemed at the end of their tether.
‘As you can see, the work takes a great deal out of them. They can only manage an hour or two at a time in the heat and are then compelled to return to the surface.’
‘Which would all be effectively remedied by a reasonable ventilating system, I presume, as Mr Keogh indicates,’ van Horne said helpfully.
We reached a fork and Chela paused. ‘There are two main faces. Have you any preference?’
‘I think I’d like a chance to speak to Moreno,’ I said.
‘Then we must try what we call Old Woman. He is usually there.’
There was a lamp on a hook in the wall. She took it down and led the way, stooping as the tunnel closed in. There was a strange, humming vibration in the rock, sure sign that picks were at work not too far away, a light in the distance, and we emerged into a low-roofed cavern illuminated by a couple of pressure lamps.
A dozen or fifteen men worked at the rock face, jabbing away with short-handled picks. Three or four more gathered ore into baskets which they then emptied into another truck. It was almost impossible to breathe because of the heat and the dust. One of the men at the face got up and came to meet us and in spite of the sweatband around his forehead, the patina of dust, I recognized Moreno.
‘Señorita.’ He nodded his head awkwardly.
‘You will answer any questions Señor Keogh puts to you,’ she told him.
He turned to me, obviously uncertain. There was a sudden shower of soil and pebbles in the corner and one of the men got out of the path fast.
‘The timbering could be better,’ I said.
He took out a knife, sprung the blade and jabbed at the nearest prop, breaking away a large, brittle flake. ‘As you can see, the wood is old, dried-out to the point of desiccation. The whole mountain waits to come down on us. Each time a man coughs another rock falls.’
‘Which is why you aren’t using machinery down here?’
‘The vibration might be all that is needed.’
I asked him one or two reasonably intelligent questions about ore samples and so on, then we left and went back along the tunnel until we reached the place where it forked.
‘Would you like to see the other face?’ she asked me. ‘The one we call Crazy Man?’
It was necessary, I suppose, to make things look as authentic as possible although the sooner I was out of the place, the happier I would be.
I said, ‘A brief visit only, señorita, I promise you.’
She turned to van Horne. ‘The tunnel to Crazy Man drops to four feet in places. An uncomfortable journey for you particularly and not necessary.’
‘Then I’ll wait for you here,’ he told her.
I didn’t blame him for his enormous size was ill-suited to the conditions we had found and he had scraped his head on roof trusses more than once on our way to the other face.
We left him there and started along the tunnel which was in many ways a replica of the first except for the fact that the roof came down to meet us rather sooner than I had expected, in spite of her warning. I was aware of the same vibration in the rock, the tapping of picks. We got out of the way of another truck which scraped past us, its top almost touching the roof. When it had gone, we moved on towards the dim light at the far end.
There was a considerable amount of angry shouting, disagreeably loud in that confined space and when we finally emerged into the cavern which contained the working face, I quickly discovered the cause – Jurado, his face a mask of dust and sweat, a rawhide whip in one hand.
He cracked it at the heels of the men who loaded the baskets with ore. ‘Come on, you lazy scum. Faster!’
Like van Horne, the man had not been built for such work and his enormous bulk obviously made his existence in such a place extremely uncomfortable. The anger and frustration showed clearly in the eyes, the twitching whip and his face and chest were thick with dust.
He nodded to Chela, ignoring me completely. She said, ‘Is there anything you wish to know, Señor Keogh?’
‘I don’t think so,’ I replied. ‘Conditions here seem much the same as at Old Woman.’
She turned to Jurado. ‘Everything is in order?’
‘It would be if these miserable swine would put their backs into it.’
‘Surely the fault of their working conditions?’ I said. ‘I would have thought the whip possessed only a limited application.’
‘You don’t know these people as I do. It is all they understand.’
One of the men collecting ore hoisted his basket to the edge of the truck, paused to take breath and lost his grip, tipping the contents over the floor. Jurado sprang forward and started to belabour him with the weighted handle of the whip.
Chela de la Plata grabbed his arm and cried, ‘Leave him, Jurado, I order you.’
His control had gone to such a degree that he lashed out, catching her across the side of the face with his clenched fist, sendi
ng her back into my arms. In the same moment, the unfortunate peon who had been the cause of things tried to make a run for it. Jurado lunged at him, lost his footing and fell against one of the timber roof supports, his great weight knocking it from position.
A waterfall of shale and pebbles erupted from the darkness above. The men who had been working at the face were on their feet with cries of alarm, already moving towards the tunnel and already too late.
There was a distinct cracking sound as a twenty-foot roof truss split in the centre and the mountain rushed in on us.
The air had changed into layers of thick whirling dust that was impossible to breathe. I found myself on my back. The most frightening discovery of all was to find that my legs were trapped and yet, at the first frantic kick, they pulled free of what turned out to be nothing more than a great mound of earth and shale.
I groped forward blindly through the curtain of dust towards a dim glow on the floor and found the pressure lamp half buried. I pumped it up quickly to increase the brightness and held it above my head.
Chela crouched on her hands and knees, dazed and frightened, a streak of blood on her cheek staining the dust and on a first quick check, most of the miners seemed to be in one piece.
Jurado was standing against the rock face, a look of complete incomprehension on his face. It was as if he could not believe that this was happening to him. As I held up the lamp, illuminating the working and its furthest corners, he gave an angry growl and scrambled up the sloping ramp of rubble which now blocked the entrance to the tunnel.
He started to tear at the top of the mound with his bare hands and several of the miners joined him, coughing spasmodically as they choked on the thick dust. Chela got to her feet and stood there, swaying a little as if uncertain of her balance. I put out a hand to steady her and she pulled away from me violently. So, even in circumstances like this she could not help but react on being touched by a man as her brother had described, but before I could do or say anything, there was a hoarse cry from Jurado.
When I scrambled up beside him with the lamp, I saw that there was now a distinct gap between the heap of rubble and the roof of the tunnel and there was a steady current of air moving through. It was all that was needed. The men started working like beavers and I went back to Chela and took her firmly by the arm.
She started to react in the same violent manner, trying to pull free of me. I slapped her face and shook her hard. ‘Will you damn well listen to me? It’s going to be all right. We’re going to get out.’
She stopped struggling, staring at me rather vacantly as if unable to comprehend and the mountain chose that moment to deposit another couple of tons of rubble in the far corner. She came into my arms and held on tight.
Not too long after that, Jurado called to me again. I sat her down against the rock face, climbing up the sloping pile of rubble to join the others. There was a gap a good foot wide now, light streaming through from the other side, voices.
It was with no particular surprise that I saw Oliver van Horne peering through at me.
It took perhaps an hour of hard work from both sides to create a gap on top of the rock fall about ten feet long and two high, just right for a cautious passage out, and not before time for the mountain groaned above our heads and the roof trusses moved uneasily as if in protest at having to continue to carry all that weight.
Chela was second out and only because Jurado went through the instant the passage was clear in what can only be described as indecent haste. I brought up the rear and found Moreno waiting on the other side with two or three men to help me through.
‘Father van Horne has gone on ahead with the señorita,’ he told me. ‘She seemed much disturbed.’
A remark which certainly ranked as the understatement of the day, but I was concerned only with one thing at that moment which was getting to some fresh air. When I finally stumbled out into the sunlight, everyone was there, not only the workers, but also Tomas de la Plata and his men.
He had Chela on the ground against his knee, one arm about her shoulders as he gently wiped the filth from her face with a damp cloth provided by one of his men who stood holding a bucket of water. As I discovered later, he had been attracted by the sound of the alarm bell which hung in a tripod by the ore shed and was always rung in time of disaster.
Van Horne watched, stripped to the waist, exhibiting the kind of muscular development that would not have disgraced a heavyweight wrestler. Jurado, the cause of it all, stood hesitantly by, wild-eyed.
Tomas de la Plata looked up as I appeared, his face white and angry. ‘So, now you know how things stand here, Señor Keogh and no need of any official reports. I will hear no more of this nonsense which has almost cost me my sister’s life.’
Interesting that the emphasis should be upon his own loss and not hers. If there was a time to throw Jurado to the wolves it was then, but to my surprise, Chela opened her eyes and said simply, ‘Take me home, Tomas.’
He murmured something softly that was for no one but her, kissed her on the brow, then picked her up in his arms. When he went, he took her on the saddle with him, his men following behind and all watched them go in silence.
It was Janos who spoke first and the remark was typical. ‘By God, sir, Mr Keogh, but you have a remarkable facility for survival in all things.’
‘It can’t come any closer than that. The roof was still coming down as we got out.’ I managed a weary grin for van Horne. ‘A beautiful sight, that face of yours peering through.’
I walked to a nearby water trough, sluiced my head and shoulders, then slumped down on the ground, my face turned to the sun. It was too good to last, of course, for Moreno who had been moving among the men making a tally, came and stood before me, his face grave.
‘We are missing one man, señor.’
I got up wearily and van Horne, who was washing himself at the trough, turned at once.
‘Are you certain?’
‘Oh yes, señor, Jose Jardona, the shotfirer on that face. There can be no question.’
Jurado, who had been sitting sullenly on the ground, his back against one wall of the ore shed, got to his feet and came forward. ‘He will be dead by now.’
‘We can’t be certain,’ I said. ‘We’ll have to go and see.’
‘Don’t be a fool,’ he said. ‘How long were we in there before getting out? An hour at least. Did anyone hear a sound?’ He turned in appeal to the miners who stood listening in a semicircle. No one answered and he turned back to me. ‘He must have been killed instantly under that first fall.’
I said to Moreno, ‘You’ll come with me?’
There was fear on his face, real fear and he was, after all, no longer young. He took a deep breath and gave me a queer little bow. ‘At your orders, señor, but no one else, not under the circumstances.’
Hardly a pleasant thought, but it made sense. We started towards the mine and Jurado caught me by the shoulder. ‘Don’t be a fool, the mountain still moves.’
But he was more afraid for himself than me and I pulled away and went after Moreno. When I joined him, he already had two pressure lamps burning, gave me one and we started in.
Van Horne caught up with us just as we reached the fork in the tunnel.
Crawling back across the rockfall, the roof of the tunnel close enough occasionally to scrape my back, was not the most rewarding of experiences, especially as the rattle of falling stones and soil could be heard monotonously in the darkness ahead.
When I went back inside the working, it was to find a scene of even greater chaos. There had obviously been a bad fall quite recently and the mountain, squeezing in, had reduced the size of things by half, roof trusses and props smashed like matchsticks and pointing every which-way.
Just to move among them was a hazard and yet it was not to be avoided for a low, continuous moaning as of someone in great pain, led us to the corner where the full force of the first fall had been felt.
Jardona was under a ton o
r so of rock, his head and shoulders and one arm only clear, the dust-covered face glistening with sweat. I can only presume that he had lost his senses at the first shock and had lain unconscious in the darkness of the corner during the time we had been clearing our way out.
Moreno started to dig carefully with his hands, feeling his way gingerly. After a while he looked at me and shook his head slightly. Not that it mattered for Jose Jardona was a dying man, had only clung to life by a miracle.
He opened his eyes and stared blankly at us and then something clicked, a kind of wonder. His lips moved and he said quite distinctly, ‘Father, is it you?’
I found van Horne at my shoulder. He was stripped to the waist again, the face a mask of dust. He ran the back of a hand across his eyes as if to clear them and edged forward.
‘I saw you at the church,’ Jardona said. ‘There was a fire.’ He closed his eyes again, shuddering in pain, then opened them and said weakly, ‘I am going to die, father, and I’ve done so many terrible things. I didn’t think it would matter, but it does.’
There was a sudden rumble like distant thunder above us and I ducked, arms raised to cover my head as shale and rubble cascaded across us.
There was blood on Jardona’s mouth. He spat it out and said weakly, ‘Don’t leave me, father.’
Van Horne took his hand and a roof truss cracked and sagged in the far corner. He glanced over his shoulder and said, ‘No sense in you two staying.’
Moreno, poor devil, looked as if he expected to meet his Maker at any moment and yet some stubborn streak would not allow him to betray his manhood. ‘Jose is my cousin, señor.’ He smiled apologetically. ‘A matter of family, you understand me?’
I held up the lamp and said, ‘A little light against the dark, father. I suggest you get on with it.’
Van Horne did not waste further time in argument. He leaned close and said in a calm strong voice, ‘I want you to make an act of contrition. Say after me: “O, my God, who art infinitely good in Thyself …”’
