'I'll need help,' I told him.
'You can have Friar.'
'Okay.'
We started back down the gallery then. Nothing I could do about it. He was right there. I'd get the job done as quickly as possible, and then go back to Italy. I'd be able to forget about Cripples' Ease in Italy.
Back at the main shaft, whilst we were waiting for the gig to come down, Manack said, 'We'll run the air compressor and drill out to the Mermaid immediately after lunch. I've got about half a dozen sharp drills. I'll have Slim re-sharpen the rest.'
'I'll need an extra long drill when we get near the sea bed,' I told him.
He nodded. 'I'll get one,' he said. 'I'll borrow one from Wheal Geevor tomorrow.'
We didn't go straight to the surface, but stopped off at the storeroom gallery. Slim and Friar had practically completed the job of walling up the stores. In half an hour it was done. When it had been covered with muck and dust it looked like solid rock. Slim knew his job as a stone mason. They knocked off for lunch then. Manack stopped me as we went along the gallery to the shaft. 'You feed here,' he said. He pushed back the slabs that formed the entrance to the hideout. 'You'll find iron rations in those boxes. I'll have milk and bread and other things brought down to you. It's not safe for you to feed up at the house now. Okay?'
I nodded. 'No harm in my coming up for a breath now and then?'
'I suppose you'll have to. But keep your eyes skinned.' He left me then and went down the short gallery to the gig. As it rattled upwards and their feet disappeared, I was overcome with a sense of loneliness. I'd never been so lonely in all my life. I heard the gig stop and the door opened. The sound of their voices died away. All sound ceased. It was deathly quiet. The drip of water in the shaft was no more than an echo in the stillness.
In the hideout I found spare lamps, carbide, electric torches, clothes, a clock and a radio. I prised open one of the boxes — corned beef, canned tomatoes, sardines, biscuits, Vitawheat, canned salads, apricots, jam, syrup, butter, knives, spoons, forks, even a can opener. I took some bully and biscuits and went up the narrow, sloping gallery that led to the surface.
This gallery climbed steeply and came out at the bottom of a short shaft. The circle of light at the top was blue and the sun was shining on one half of the protecting wall. There was no ladder to show that it was used, but stone footholds had been placed so that it was easy to climb up the rock wall. I blinked as I climbed over the stone wall into a patch of gorse. The mist had gone. The sky was blue. The light hurt my eyes. I switched off my lamp and looked about me.
I was about fifty yards inland from the main shaft of Wheal Garth. There was no one in sight. The world was very quiet and still, but it was a live stillness, not the deathly stillness underground. A corncrake chattered in a patch of scrub and there was the hum of bees in the blazing gold of the gorse bushes. The chaos of the mine workings, which had looked so grim in the mist, now blended pleasantly into the landscape of wild cliffs and grass green headlands. The debris of rock, which had before looked grey, was now a mass of colour from dark purple to russet brown. The workings sloped away in a riot of dark colour to the cliff tops, and beyond the cliff tops was the sea, calm and blue and shimmering with light.
I climbed up to a slight knoll and lay down in the warm heather to eat my lunch. Cripples' Ease was hidden beyond the rise of the hill, but I could see the track that wound down from it through the ruined mine buildings. And beyond was Botallack Head. There was a farm on the top of it. And down the near side of it were remains of the mine. An old chimney stood out against the shadowed darkness of the cliffs halfway down, and right at the foot, almost in the break of the waves, an engine house stood on a slab of rock. It looked like an aged fort. There were others strung along the cliff top to my left, out towards the headland known as Kenidjack Castle. Three, I counted, square and solid with thick granite walls and broken chimneys of warm red brick rising from one corner.
A girl's voice hallooed. It was far away, towards Botallack Head. I turned, rustling the dry bells of the heather. A lizard scuttled into a crevice of a rock. It was a moment before I could pick the girl out. She was almost at the foot of the Head, standing on the slab of rock on which the old engine house stood. Her hair was blonde and she wore a red shirt and white shorts, and she was waving. In the distance she looked infinitely attractive, infinitely desirable. A man's voice called in answer and I saw his figure scrambling down the rocky path to join her.
I lay back and closed my eyes. How nice to be on holiday. How nice to be on holiday down there with a girl. I'd never realised how beautiful Cornwall could be. My father had always said it was the most beautiful spot on earth, but when I'd arrived I'd thought it bleak and grim. I opened my eyes again — the boy and. girl were climbing up a narrow path to the top of the cliffs. I watched them disappear over the top of the headland.
I closed my eyes again. The shimmer of the sea was very bright. But the sun hadn't the hard glare of the Italian sun — it was somehow soft and iridescent and the country was green and pleasant, not burnt an arid brown.
When I looked about me again, a figure was coming over the brow of the hill that hid Cripples' Ease. I sat up. It was a girl. She was not coming down the track, but striking across the heather above the mine. She was walking straight towards me, taking the direct route from Cripples' Ease to the shaft of Wheal Garth. It was Kitty. She was wearing a brown skirt and a green jersey. Her legs were bare and brown, and her hair was blowing in the wind.
I turned over on to my elbow and watched her as she came towards me across the heather. She had a basket in her hand and she was gazing out across the sea. She moved carelessly and with ease, as though she'd walked these cliff tops all her life. I wondered if she, too, were glad to be out of that house. Fifty yards from me she turned down the slope towards Wheal Garth. She didn't notice me in the heather. Soon I could see into the basket. It contained milk and bread and several packages. 'Are you looking for me?' I asked.
She stopped and glanced quickly round. 'Oh,' she said seeing me looking down at her. 'You startled me. Captain Manack asked me to bring these things down to you.' She held up the basket. 'I'll leave the basket here. One of the men can bring it back when they come up this evening.' She set the basket down. 'I brought it straight down because I thought you might need bread for lunch. Those biscuits must be awfully dry. The milk's fresh, too.' She started back the way she had come.
'Don't go,' I said. 'Come up here and sit with me for a moment.'
'No. No, I must get back.'
'Why?' I asked.
'— I've a lot to do.' She stood irresolute, her face clouded.
'If you've got so much to do,' I said, 'why didn't you let Slim or Friar bring the basket down?'
'I've told you,' she answered quickly. 'I thought you might need some bread for your lunch.' She started up the slope.
'Kitty,' I said. 'Don't go — please. I want to talk to you.'
'No,' she said. 'I thought you'd be down the mine. I didn't expect to find you here.'
She was hurrying up the slope. I got to my feet. 'Well, if you won't come and talk to me, I'll have to come and talk to you,' I said.
'Go back to the mine,' she said. 'You oughtn't to be out here in the open.'
I caught up with her, 'Please,' I said. 'I must talk to you.'
She stopped and faced me suddenly. She was panting and her cheeks were flushed. 'Will you have some sense? If you're seen out here you'll be recognised at once — anybody would recognise you from that description.'
'Oh, you know about that,' I said.
'I can read,' she answered. 'Now be sensible and go back to the mine. Besides, the milk will spoil out there in the sun.'