In the stope.
Cautiously I put up a hand. The rock ceiling was a couple of feet above my head.
No helmet on my head. A tender lump on the back of it and a thumping pain inside it.
Bloody hell, I thought. I must have bashed my head. I’m in the stope. I can’t see because there isn’t any light. Everyone has left the mine. And the blasting charges will go off at any minute.
For a paralysing age I couldn’t think beyond the fact that I was going to be blown to bits before I had even finished realising it. After that I thought it might have been better if I’d been blown to bits before I woke up. At least I wouldn’t now be awake worrying. After that, and not before time, I began wondering what to do.
Light, first.
I felt around to my back, found the lead from the power pack, and gently pulled it. The other end scraped towards me over the choppy shingle, but when I picked up the torch I knew I wasn’t going to get any light. The glass and the bulb were both smashed.
The light unit had come off the bracket on the helmet. I felt around with an outstretched hand, but couldn’t find the helmet.
Must get out, I thought urgently, and in the same split second wondered... which way was out.
I made myself stay still. The last thing I remembered was agreeing with Yates that I could find my own way back. I must have been stupid enough to try to raise my head too high. Must literally have hit the roof. I couldn’t remember doing it. The only thing that seemed clear was that I had smashed my helmet light when I fell, and that no one had seen me lying there in the dark.
Bloody fool, I cursed myself. Clumsy bloody fool, getting into this mess.
Gingerly, with one arm outstretched, I shifted myself a foot forward. My fingers found nothing to touch except stone chips.
I had to know which way I was going. Otherwise, I thought, I may be crawling away from safety, not towards it. I had to find the hole into the tunnel.
I picked up a handful of the flinty pebbles and began throwing them methodically round in a circle, starting on my right. It was an erratic process, as some hit the roof and some the ground, but enough went far enough before they fell to assure me that there was a space all around me in front.
I rolled over on to my back and the power pack dug into me. I unfastened the webbing and pulled it off. Then I threw another lot of stones in an arc round my legs.
The wall of the tunnel was there. A lot of the stones hit it.
My heart by then was thudding so much it was deafening me. Shut up, shut up, I said to myself. Don’t be so bloody scared, it isn’t of any practical use.
I threw more stones, this time not to find the wall, but the hole in it. I found it almost at once. Threw more stones to make sure: but there it had to be, just to the left of where my feet were pointing, because all the stones that went over there were falling further away, and clattering after they landed. They weren’t round enough to roll, but heavy enough to continue downhill when they fell. Downhill... on the steep little slope from the stope into the tunnel.
More stones. I moved my feet, then my whole body, until the hole was straight in front over my toes. Then on my elbows and my bottom, keeping my head well back, I shuffled forwards.
More stones. Hole still there.
More shuffling. Another check.
It couldn’t have been more than ten feet. Felt like ten miles.
I tentatively swept my arms around in the air. Could feel the roof, nothing else.
Went forward another two or three feet. Felt around with my arms. Touched solid rock. Ahead, to the tight.
Another foot forward. Felt my feet turn abruptly downwards, bending my knees. Put both my hands out sideways and forwards and felt rock on both sides. Halfway out of the hole... and gingerly, lying flat, I inched forward until my feet scrunched on the tunnel floor. Even then I bent my knees and continued slithering without raising my head, all too aware of the hard sharpness of the rock above and the vulnerability of my unhelmeted skull.
I ended on my knees in the tunnel, gasping and feeling as frightened as ever.
Think.
The holes had been in the left-hand wall, as we came down. Once in the tunnel, Yates had said, I couldn’t get lost.
O.K. Turn right. Straight forward. Dead simple.
I stood up carefully, and with the hole at my back, turned left. Put my hand on the rough rock wall. Took a step forward.
The scrunch of my boot on the rock floor made me realise for the first time how quiet it was. Before, I had had both the stones and my own heart to fill my ears. Now, there was nothing. The silence was as absolute as the darkness.
I didn’t waste time brooding about it. Scrunched ahead as fast as I dared, step by careful step. No sound... that meant that the air-conditioning had been switched off... which hardly mattered, there was a mineful still to breathe... even if it were hot.
My hand lost the wall suddenly, and my heart set up a fresh chorus. Taking a grip on my breath I took a step backwards. Right hand back on wall. O.K. Breathe out. Now, kneel down, grope along floor, keep in contact with wall on right... navigate past another of the holes which led through to the stope.
Holes which would let the blast out of the stope, when the charges exploded.
Blast travelled far when confined in a long narrow space. Blast was a killing force, as deadly as flying rocks.
Oh God, I thought. Oh hell’s bloody bells. What did one think about if one were probably going to die at any minute.
I thought about getting as far back up the mine as quickly as I could. I thought about not losing contact with the right-hand wall when I passed the holes in it, because if I did I might turn round in the darkness and find the other wall instead, and go straight back towards the explosion. I didn’t think about anything else at all. Not even about Charlie.
I went on. The air became hotter and hotter. The stretch that had been hot coming down was now an assault on the nerve endings.
Struggling on, I couldn’t tell how fast I was going. Very slowly, I imagined. Like in a nightmare, trying to flee from a terror at one’s heels, and not being able to run.
I got back in the end to the wider space, and the explosion still hadn’t happened. Another explosion was due to take place down the branch tunnel also... but the bend in the tunnel should disperse some of the blast.
Beginning at last to let hope creep in, and keeping my hand on the right-hand wall literally for dear life, I trudged slowly on. Two miles to go, maybe, to the bottom of the shaft... but every step taking me nearer to safety.
Those lethal pockets of dynagel never did explode; or not while I was down the mine.
One minute I was taking another step into darkness. The next, I was blinded by light.
I shut my eyes, wincing against the brightness, and I stopped walking and leaned against the wall instead. When I opened my eyes again, the electric lights were blazing in all their glory, and the tunnel looked as solid, safe, and reassuringly painted, as it had done on the way in.
Weakened by relief, I shifted off the wall and went on again, with knees that were suddenly trembling, and a head that was back to aching like a hang-over.
There was a background hum now again in the mine, and from far away up the tunnel a separate noise detached itself and grew louder: the rattle of the wire cage trucks making the outward journey. Eventually it stopped and then there was the sound of several boots, and then finally, round a shallow curve, came four men in white overalls.
Hurrying.
They spotted me. and began to run. Slowed and stopped just before they reached me, with relief that I was mobile showing on their faces. Losenwoldt was one of them: I didn’t know the others.