by Wilbur Smith
Davy came to a halt in the centre of the work area, and without a conscious command from his brain his hands began the routine process of striking the wick of the safety lamp.
The little blue flame came alight behind the protective screen of wire mesh, and Davy held the lamp at eye level before him and walked slowly along the drive. His eyes were watching the flame without seeing it.
The air in the tunnel was cool and refrigerated, scrubbed and filtered, there was no odour nor taste to it. Davy walked on somnambulantly. He was wallowing in self-pity now. He saw himself in a semi-heroic role, one of the great lovers of history caught up in tragic circumstances.
His brain was fully occupied with the picture. His eyes were unseeing.
Blindly he performed the ritual that a thousand times before had begun the day's shift.
Slowly in its wire mesh cage the blue flame of the safety lamp changed shape. Its crest flattened, and there formed above it a ghostly pale line. Davy's eyes saw it, but his brain refused to accept the message.
He walked on in a stupor of gilt and self-pity.
That line above the flame was called "the cap', it signified that there was at least a five percent concentration of methane gas in the air.
The last shot hole that Johnny Delange's gang had drilled before going off shift had bored into a methane-filled fissure. For the previous three hours, gas had been blowing out of that hole. The ventilation system was unable to wash the air fast enough and now the gas had spread slowly down the drive. The air surrounding Davy's body was heavy with gas, he had breathed it into his lungs. It needed just one spark to ignite it.
Davy reached the end of the drive and snapped the snuffer over the wick, extinguishing the flame in the lamp.
"All safe," he muttered, not realizing that he had spoken.
He went back to his waiting men.
"All safe," he repeated, and with the Swazi boss boy leading them the forty men of Davy Delange's gang trooped gaily into the mouth of the drive.
Moodily Davy followed them. As he walked he reached into his hip pocket and took out a pack of Lexington filter tips. He put one between his lips, returned the pack and began patting his pockets to locate his lighter.
Davy went from team to team of his machine boys, directing them in the line and spot to be drilled. Every time he spoke, the unlit cigarette waggled between his lips. He gesticulated with the hand that held his cigarette-lighter.
It took twenty minutes for him to set all his drills to work. And he stood and looked back along the tunnel.
Each machine boy and his assistant formed a separate sculpture. Most of them were stripped to the waist. Their bodies appeared to be carved and polished in oiled ebony, as they braced themselves behind the massive rock drills.
Davy lifted his cupped hands, holding the cigarette lighter near his face, and he flicked the cog wheel.
The air in the tunnel turned to flame. In a flash explosion, the flame reached the temperature of a welding torch. It seared the skin from the faces and exposed bodies of the machine boys, it burned the hair from their scalps. It turned their arms to charred stumps. It roasted their eyeballs in their sockets. It scorhed their clothing, so as they fell the cloth smouldered and burned against their flesh.
In that instant, as the skin was licked from his face and hands, Davy Delange opened his mouth in a great gasp of agony. The flame shot down his throat into his gas, drenched lungs. Within the confines of his body the gas exploded and his chest popped like a paper bag, his ribs fanning outward about the massive wound like the petals of a sunflower.
Forty-one men died at the same moment. In the silence after that whooshing, sucking detonation, they lay like scorched insects along the floor of the drive. One or two of them were moving still, an arched spine relaxing, a leg straightening, charred fingers unclenching, but within a minute all was absolutely still.
Half an hour later Doctor Dan Stander and Rodney lronsides were the first men into the drive. The smell of burned flesh was overpowering.
Both of them had to swallow down their nausea as they went forward.
an Stander sat at his desk and looked out over the car park in front of the mine hospital. He appeared to have aged ten years since the previous evening.
Dan envied his colleagues the detachment they could bring to their work. He had never been able to perfect the trick.
He had just completed forty-one examinations for issue of death certificates.
For fifteen years he had been a mine doctor, so he was accustomed to dealing with death in its more hideous forms.
This, however, was the worst he had ever encountered.
Forty-one of them, all victims of severe burning and massive explosion trauma.
He felt washed out, exhausted with ugliness. He massaged his temples as he examined the tray of pathetic possessions that lay on the desk before him. This was the contents of the pockets of the man Delange.
Extracting them from the scorched clothing had been a filthy business in itself. Cloth had burned into the flesh, the man had been wearing a cheap nylon shirt under his overalls. The fabric had melted in the heat and had become part of his blistered skin.
There was a bunch of keys on a brass ring, a Joseph Rogers pen-knife with a bone handle, a Ronson cigarette lighter which had been clutched in the man's clawed and charred right hand, a springbok skin wallet, and a loose envelope with one corner burned away.
Dan had already passed on the effects of the Bantu victims to the agent of the Bantu Recruiting Agency, who would send them on to the men's families. Now he sighed with distaste and picked up the wallet. He opened it.
In one compartment there were half a dozen postage stamps, and five rands in notes. The other flap bulged with paper. Dan glanced through salesmen's cards, dry-cleaning receipts, newspaper cuttings offering farms for sale, a folded page from the Farmer's Weekly on the planning of a dairy herd, a JBS savings book.
Dan opened the savings book and whistled when he saw the total. He fanned the remaining pages.
There was a much-fingered envelope, unsealed and tucked behind the cardboard cover of the savings book.
Dan opened it, and pulled a face. It contained a selection of photographs of the type which one found offered for sale in the dock area of the Mozambique port of Lourenqo Marques. It was for this type of material that Dan was searching.
When the man's possessions were returned to his grieving relatives, Dan wanted to spare them this evidence of human frailty. He burned all the photographs and the envelope in his ashtray and then crushed the blackened sheets to powder before spilling it into his waste-paper bin.
He went across to the window and opened it to let the smell of smoke escape. He stood at the window and searched the car park for joy's Alfa Romeo. She had not arrived as yet and Dan returned to his desk.
The remaining envelope caught his eye and he picked it up. There was a smear of blood upon it, and the corner was burned away. Dan removed the four sheets of paper and spread them on the desk: Dear Johnny, When Pa died you were still little and I always reckoned you were more like my son, you know, than my brother.
Well, Johnny, I reckon now I've got to tell you something... Dan read Slowly, and he did not hear joy come into the room. She stood at the door watching him. Her expression fond, a small smile on her lips, shiny blonde hair hanging straight to her shoulders. Then she moved up quietly behind his chair and kissed his ear. Dan started and turned to face her.
"Darling," joy said and kissed him on the mouth. "What is so interesting that you ignore my arrival?" Dan hesitated a moment before telling her.
"There was a man killed last night in a ghastly accident.
This was in his pocket." He handed her the letter and she read it slowly.
"He was going to send this to his brother?" she asked, and Dan nodded.
"The bitch, Joy whispered, and Dan looked surprised.
"Who?" the girl it's her fault, you know. "Joy opened her purse and took out a ti
ssue to dab her eyes. "Damn it, now I'm messing my make-up." She sniffed, and then went on. "It would serve her right if you gave that letter to her husband."
"You mean I shouldn't give it to him?" Dan asked. "We have no right to play God." "Haven't we?" asked joy, and Dan watched quietly as she tore the letter to tiny shreds, screwed them into a ball, then dropped them into the waste bin.
"You are wonderful," he said. "Will you marry me?"
"I've already answered that question, Doctor Stander." And she kissed him again.
Hettie Delange was in a turmoil.
It had started with the phone call that had roused Johnny from their bed. He had said something about trouble at the shaft as he pulled on his clothes, but she had come only briefly awake and then drifted off again as Johnny hurried out into the night.
He had come in hours later and sat on the edge of the bed, his hands clasped between his knees and his head bowed.
"What's wrong, man," she had snapped at him. "Come to bed. Don't just sit there."
"Davy's dead." His voice had been listless.
There was a. moment's shock that had convulsed the muscles of her belly, and brought her fully awake. Then, immediately, she had felt a swift cleansing rush of relief.
He was dead. It was as easy as that! All day she had worried. She had been stupid to let it happen. just that moment of weakness, that self-indulgent slip and she had been dreading the consequences all that day. She had imagined Davy trailing after her with puppy eyes, trying to touch her, making it so obvious that even Johnny would see it. She had enjoyed it but just the once was enough.
She wanted no repeat performance and certainly no complications to follow the original deed.
Now it was all taken care of. He was dead.
"Are you sure?" she had asked anxiously, and Johnny heard the tone as concern.
"I saw him!" Johnny had shuddered, and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.
"Gee, that's terrible." Hettie had remembered her role, and sat up and put her arms about Johnny. "That's terrible for you." She had not slept again that night. Somehow the thought of Davy going directly from her to his violent death was exciting. It was like in the movies, or a book, or something. Like he was an airman and he had been shot down, and she was his girl. Perhaps she was pregnant and all alone in the world, and she would have to go to Buckingham Palace and get his medal for him. And the Queen would say... The fantasies had played out in her mind until the dawn, with Johnny tossing and muttering beside her.
She woke him when it was first light in the room.
"How was he?" she asked softly. "What did he look like, Johnny?"
Johnny shuddered again, and then he started to tell her.
His voice was husky, and the sentences broken and disconnected. When he stumbled into silence, Hettie found herself trembling with excitement.
"How terrible," she kept repeating. "Oh, how awful!" And she pressed against him. After a while Johnny made love to her, and for Hettie it was better than she had ever known it to be.
All that morning there were phone calls, and four of her friends came over to drink coffee with her. A reporter and photographer from the Johannesburg Star called and asked questions. Hettie was the centre of attraction, and again and again she repeated the story with all its grisly details.
After lunch Johnny came home with a little dark-haired man in a charcoal suit and black Italian shoes, with a matching black briefcase.
"Hettie, this is Mr. Boart. He was Davy's lawyer. He's got something to tell you."
"Mrs. Delange. May I convey to you my sincere condolences in the tragic bereavement you and your husband have suffered."
"Yes, it's terrible, isn't it?" Hettie was apprehensive. Had Davy told this lawyer about them? Had this man come to make trouble?
"Your brother-in-law made a will of which I am the executor. Your brother-in-law was a wealthy man. His estate is in excess of fifty thousand rand." Boart paused portentously. "And you and your husband are the sole beneficiaries." Hettie looked dubiously from Boart to "I don't, what's that mean? Beneficiary?"
"It means that you and your husband share the estate between you."
"I get half of fifty thousand rand?" Hettie asked in delighted disbelief.
"That's right."
"Gee," exulted Hettie. "That's fabulous!" She could hardly wait for Johnny and the lawyer to go before she phoned her friends again. All four of them returned to drink more coffee, to thrill again and to envy Hettie the glamour and excitement of it.
"Twenty-five thousand," they kept repeating the sum with relish.
"Hell, man, he must really have liked you a lot, Hettie," one of the girls commented with heavy emphasis, and Hettie lowered her eyes and contrived to look bereft and mysterious.
Johnny came home after six, unsteady on his feet and reeking of liquor.
Reluctantly Hettie's four friends left to rejoin their waiting families, and almost immediately after that a big white sport car pulled up in the driveway and Hettie's day of triumph was complete.
Not one of her friends had ever had the General Manager of the Sander Ditch Gold Mining Company call at their home.
She had the front door open the instant the doorbell rang. Her greeting had been shamelessly plagiarized from a period movie that had recently played at the local cinema.
"Mr. Ironsides, how good of you to come." When she led Rod through into the over-furnished lounge, Johnny looked up but did not get to his feet.
"Hello, Johnny," said Rod. "I have come to tell you that I'm sorry about Davy, and to.
"Don't give me that bull dust, Tin Ribs," said Johnny Delange.
"Johnny," gasped Hettie, you can't talk to Mr. Ironsides like that."
And she turned to Rod, laying a hand on his sleeve. "He doesn't mean it, Mr. Ironsides. He has been drinking."
"Get out of here," said Johnny. "Get into the bloody kitchen where you belong."
"Johnny!"
"Get out!" roared Johnny, rising from his chair, and Hettie fled from the room.
Johnny lurched across to the chrome and glass liquor cabinet that filled one corner. He sloshed whisky into two glasses and handed one to Rod.
"God speed to my brother," he said.
"To Davy Delange, one of the best rock hounds on the Kitchenerville field," said Rod, and tossed the drink back in one gulp.
"The best!" Johnny corrected him, and emptied his own glass. He gasped at the sting of the whisky, then leaned forward to speak into Rod's face.
"You've come to find out if I'm going to finish your bloody drive for you, or if I'm going to quit. Davy didn't mean nothing to you and I don't mean nothing to you.
Only one thing worrying you you want to know about your bloody drive."
Johnny refilled his glass. "Well, hear this, friend, and hear it well.
Johnny Delange don't quit.
That drive ate my brother but I'll beat the bastard, so you have nothing to worry about. You go home and get a good night's sleep, because Johnny Delange will be on shift and breaking rock tomorrow morning first thing."
A Silver Cloud Rolls-Royce was parked amongst the trees in the misty morning. Ahead was the practice track with the white-painted railings curving away towards the willow-lined river. The mist was heavier along the river and the grass was very green against it.
