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?’
She shook her head. ‘God knows,’ she breathed. ‘He’ll have to give evidence, I suppose. He knew it was unsafe, that faulted area particularly.’ She paused, staring at me very directly. And then suddenly she leaned forward, a note of urgency in her voice. ‘You knew it, too. You were down there — you said yourself it was unsafe.’
‘Yes, the pillars supporting the overburden were rotten with oxidization.’
‘So it collapsed, just like that?’ She was staring at me. ‘There’ll be an inquest and you’ll be called to give evidence. You realize that?’