Yates, younger than the others, appeared unhelpfully subservient to them, and spoke with a slight speech impediment in the order of a cleft palate. He gave me a twitchy smile and said he hoped I wouldn’t mind, he wasn’t used to showing people round, it wasn’t usually his job.
‘It’s kind of you to do so.’ I said soothingly.
The others were moving off in their little groups and were soon lost in the general crowd of white overalls.
‘Come along then.’
We continued down the tunnel. I asked my new guide what the gradient was.
‘About one in twenty,’ he said. But after that he lapsed into silence, and I reckoned if I wanted to know any more I would have to ask. Yates did not know the conducted tour script like Losenwoldt, who in retrospect did not seem too bad.
Holes appeared from time to time in the left-hand wall, with apparently a big emptiness behind them.
‘I thought this tunnel was through solid rock,’ I observed. ‘So what are those holes?’
‘Oh... we are now in the reef. The reef has been removed from much of that portion behind that wall. In a minute I’ll be able to show you better.’
‘Does the reef slope at one in twenty, then?’ I asked.
He thought it a surprising question. ‘Of course,’ he said.
‘That tunnel which is still being drilled, back there, where is that going?’
‘To reach another area of reef.’
Yes. Silly question. The reef spread laterally for miles. Quite. Removing the reef must be rather like chipping a thin slice of ham out of a thick bread sandwich.
‘What happens when all the reef is removed?’ I asked. ‘There must be enormous areas with nothing holding up the layers of rock above.’
He answered willingly enough. ‘We do not remove all supports. For instance, the wall of the tunnel is thick, despite the holes, which are for blasting and ventilation purposes. It will hold the roof up in all this area. Eventually, of course, when this tunnel is worked out and disused, the layers will gradually close together. I believe that most of Johannesburg sank about three feet, as the layers below it closed together, after all the reef was out.’
‘Not recently?’ I said, surprised.
‘Oh, no. Long ago. The Rand gold fields are shallower and mining began there first.’
People were carrying tungsten rods up the tunnel and others were passing us down it.
‘We are getting ready to blast,’ Yates said without being asked. ‘All the drilling is finished and the engineers are setting the charges.’
‘We haven’t very long, then,’ I said.
‘Probably not.’
‘I’d like to see how they actually work the reef.’
‘Oh... yes. Just down here a bit further, then. I will take you to the nearest part. There are others further down.’
We came to a larger than usual hole in the wall. It stretched from the floor to about five feet up, but one could not walk straight through it, as it sloped sharply upwards inside.
He said, ‘You will have to mind your head. It is very shallow in here.’
‘O.K.,’ I said.
He gestured to me to crawl in ahead of him, which I did. The space was about three feet high but extended out of sight in two directions. A good deal of ham had already gone from this part of the sandwich.
Instead of a firm rock floor, we were now scrambling over a bed of sharp-edged chips of rock, which rattled away as one tried to climb up over them. I went some way into the flat cavern and then waited for Yates. He was close behind, looking across to our right where several men lower down were working along a curving thirty-foot stretch of the far wall.
‘They are making final checks on the explosive charges,’ he said. ‘Soon everyone will begin to leave.’
‘This loose stuff we are lying on,’ I said. ‘Is this the reef?’
‘Oh... no, not exactly. These are just chips of rock. See, the reef used to lie about midway up the stope.’
‘What is the stope?’
‘Sorry... the stope is what we are now in. The place we take the reef from.’
‘Well... down there, in the part which is not blasted yet, how do you tell which is the reef?’
The whole thing looked the same to me. Dark grey from top to bottom. Dark grey uneven roof curving down in dark grey uneven walls, merging into dark grey shingle floor.
‘I’ll get you a piece,’ he said obligingly, and crawled crabwise on his stomach over to where his colleagues were working. It was barely possible to sit up in the stope. Just about possible to rise to hands and knees, if one kept one’s head down. I supported myself on one elbow and watched him borrow a small hand pick and lever a sliver of rock out of the far wall.
He scrambled back.
‘There you are... This is a piece of reef.’
We focused both our lights on it. A two-inch-long grey sharp-edged lump with darker grey slightly light-reflecting spots and streaks on its surface.
‘What are those dark spots?’ I said.
‘That’s the ore,’ he said. ‘The paler part is just ordinary tock. The more of those dark bits there are in the reef, the better the yield of gold per ton of rock.’
‘Then is this dark stuff... gold?’ I asked dubiously.
‘It has gold in it,’ he nodded. ‘Actually it is made up of four elements: gold, silver, uranium and chrome. When the reef is milled and treated, they are separated out. There is more gold than silver or uranium.’
‘Can I keep this piece?’ I asked.
‘Certainly.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I am sorry, but they have a job for me to do down there. Could you possibly find your own way back up the tunnel? You cannot get lost.’
‘That’s all right,’ I said. ‘You go on, I don’t want to interfere with your job.’
‘Thank you,’ he said, and scrambled away in haste to please the people who really mattered to him.
I stayed where I was, for a while, watching the engineers and peering into the interminable dug-out space uphill. The light of my helmet couldn’t reach its limits: it stretched away into impenetrable blackness.
The workers below me were thinning out, returning to the tunnel to make their way back towards the shaft. I put the tiny piece of reef in my pocket, took a last look round, and began to inch my way back to the hole where I had come in. I turned round to go into the tunnel feet first, but as I started to shuffle backwards I heard someone begin to climb into the stope behind me, the light from his helmet flashing on my overalls. I stopped, to let him go by. He made a little forward progress and I glanced briefly over my shoulder to see who it was. I could see only the peak of his helmet, and shadow beneath.
Then my own helmet tipped off forward and a large chunk of old Africa clobbered me forcefully on the back of the head.
Stunned, it seemed to me that consciousness ebbed away slowly: I fell dizzily down endless mine shafts with flashing dots before my eyes.
I had blacked out completely long before I had hit the bottom.
Chapter Ten
Blackness.
Nothing.
I opened my eyes. Couldn’t see. Put my hand to my face to feel if my eyelids were open.
They were.
Thought was entirely disconnected. I didn’t know where I was, or why I was there, or why I couldn’t see. Time seemed suspended. I couldn’t decide whether I was asleep or not, and for a while I couldn’t remember my own name.
Drifted away again. Came back. Snapped suddenly into consciousness. Knew I was awake. Knew I was me.
Still couldn’t see.
I moved; tried to sit up. Discovered I was lying on my side. When I moved, I heard the crunching noise and felt the sharp rock chips shifting against my pressure.