Killer mine, p.17
Killer Mine, page 17
I went back again and tried another. This led me upwards, passing me from level to level. It had a plan. I could understand it. Then it suddenly petered out for no apparent reason except, of course, that the tinners had come to the end of the lode in that particular spot. I went back again, working my way down through the mine. If I could get within earshot of the pump -that would act as a guide for me. I followed the run of the water. The galleries were like narrow Gothic passages. And then suddenly they would open out into cathedral-like spaces where a broad seam had been worked, I worked my way down deep into the mine and the lower I went, the wetter it became. The black walls poured water. The air was dank and stale. There was no sound of the pump. No sound of the sea. Only the whispering trickle of water running over rock surfaces. A narrow winze took me down into a broader gallery. Here the water was almost up to my waist.
I struggled along it. I knew I should go back. I was too deep. But I couldn’t face the thought of failure. The light of the torch was beginning to dim. For a time I refused to admit it. But down here in this swamped gallery with the dark surface of the water curving ahead of me I knew the battery was fading. The beam was no longer a white shaft of light. It had yellowed and lost its power. The change had been so gradual as to be almost imperceptible.
I forced my body forward through the weight of the cold water. Ahead the dark, polished surface was broken with water pouring in from the roof. And as I reached this point, my foot slipped from under me and I plunged forward, the water closing over my head. I came up gasping, holding the torch above my head and feeling about with my feet for the muddy floor of the gallery. I found it and climbed out of the hole, cold and dripping. One glance at the roof told me that I had stepped into a shaft for there was a gaping hole there out of which water poured in a steady stream.
I knew then that I was down to the water level of the mine. Below me were miles and miles of workings, all flooded. There was nothing for it, but to go back. I was scared now. Really scared. It was the yellowing beam of my torch that scared me. The battery had been stored too long. It might last five minutes. It might last an hour. But my time was limited. I had to find a way out.
I glanced at my watch as I waded back along that flooded gallery. The luminous hands showed five minutes to eleven. I’d been underground about an hour. I turned up a steep raise, dragging my mud-filled boots out of the water. My haste was almost frantic now. I must get as near to the surface as possible before the torch gave out. If I could find a shaft that ran up to a gleaming circle of moonlight - I could try and climb it. At any rate I could stay there until daylight and then start calling for help. There wouldn’t be much chance of any one hearing me. But at least it would give me some hope. Or if I could find one of the galleries that led out on to the face of the cliffs.
As I climbed, I began to search about with my face for a sign of a breeze that would indicate the direction of the sea or shaft. But the air was still and lifeless. The galleries were like a tomb. I began to think of the catacombs of Rome again. No, I mustn’t think of that. I’d lose my head if I thought of that. There was that story by Edgar Allan Poe. What was it? The Cask of Amontillado. Damn Poe. He was the last writer I ought to be thinking of if I was to preserve my wits.
Then suddenly I stopped. A gentle throbbing sound was in my ears. Was it my blood beating in my temples? I was panting like a lunatic. Was it the blood, or was it the sound of the pump? I tried to forget the beating of my heart and listen. But I couldn’t be sure. Fear and the still, damp air could play all sorts of tricks.
I went forward slowly, concentrating all my energies on listening. The gallery roof rose. A rock ledge ran up to a dark hole. The sound seemed to come from there. Or was it my imagination? It was so ephemeral. I climbed the ledge and crawled into a narrow tunnel that was comparatively dry. God, how dim my torch was getting. The tunnel broadened and lifted to a gallery. The throbbing sound became louder and sharper and turned to a dripping. The rock was softer here. Part of the floor had caved in. Water dripped there resonantly. That was the sound I had heard.
I switched the dimming torch off and leaned against the wall, closing my eyes so that the darkness would not be so apparent. That sudden spark of hope had vanished. I felt exhausted. I put the torch in my pocket and leaned my whole tired weight against the wall. I had to think. I hadn’t long now before I should be in darkness. The gallery was utterly still. The only sound was the steady drip of the water. There was no breath of air to guide me.
And then suddenly I realised that my hands were touching, not granite, but a softer rock. I got my torch out again. Yes, it was softer rock. That was why the floor had caved in. This was the same sort of rock that I had encountered shortly after Manack had led me across that sloping. Of course, this bad bit of country might extend over a wide area of the mine. But it was unlikely. The mine was predominantly granite. Soft stone would be only likely to fill in a fissure in the granite country.
I went on again. I came to a winze and peered down it. My torch barely showed me the outline of the walls. But a breath of cool air seemed to caress my face. I went down the winze and turned left into a narrower gallery, following the air. The walls were granite here and the roof was low. At the next bend the gallery finished in nothingness. I stood in the gap and looked out into what at first appeared to be a cavern. But I could just make out a wall of rock rising opposite me.
And then with a gasp of joy I saw a ledge running down to a fall of rock. The rock of the fall was soft and the water pouring over it had welded it into a solid mass. I slid down on to it. Surely this was the way Manack had led me? Surely I wouldn’t be mistaken? There couldn’t be two falls so identical. As I went down the gallery I became more and more convinced that I had stumbled on to the track by which I had come. The rock walls were soft. The roof was full of crevices and great cracks. Lumps of broken rock lay on the slime-covered floor.
And then I was suddenly at the sloping. I could hear the water pouring down the slope of the rocks to the sea far below. And right above me was that little pin-point of light that marked the top of a shaft.
The relief made me feel weak at the knees. I stood there for a moment, steadying myself and gazing up at that distant circle of light. What a difference it made to feel that I was in contact with the world above ground! It made even the darkness bearable.
Then I switched on the torch again and felt with my boot for the first of the iron staples. I found the wooden stump of the sloping timber. The staple was just above it, but I couldn’t seem to find it. Perhaps in my excitement I was feeling in the wrong place. I took a firm grip at the handhold I had and felt farther out. But there was nothing, only the rotten stump of timber. I stepped back into the arch of the gallery then and leaned out with my torch glowing dimly against the rock above the stull.
There was no staple. Nor was there a staple above the next baulk of timber.
At first I thought this sloping must be different to the one I had crossed before. But there was the tiny pin-point of light high up above me and the slopping of the sea below. The rock formation was the same, too. I might be in the same cutting, but higher or lower than when I’d crossed before. Bui surely that fall of rock would not have been duplicated with the ledge running back and up to the narrow cleft that ran into granite country? I went back down the gallery to see. It was the same fall all right. When I returned to the slope I knell down and leaned out, shining my torch on to the place in the rock where I thought a staple should have been.
A ragged hole showed in a cleft. The iron of the staple had marked the rock and dirt was pressed back on either side. The staple had been knocked back and forth until it had fallen out.
It was then that my torch began to flicker. It hardly gave any light at all. I switched it off. Here, thank God, was not complete darkness. I could look up to that little circle of moonlight. Remote though it was, I derived some comfort from it.
I got a match from my pocket, struck it and leant far out. Its flickering light showed me that the next staple was also missing, and the next after that. They had been there when I had followed Manack across the slope. Now they had been prised out. It could mean only one thing. Manack had known I was following him. He had been waiting for me at each bend. He had deliberately taken me up into the old part of the mine. Then he had doubled back and crossed the stoping, knocking the staples out behind him. My God, what a devil! That was murder. It wouldn’t seem like it. But that’s what it was. And I remember thinking again — a man who would cold-bloodedly throw a dog down a shaft would do anything. I sat down on the floor of the gallery with my legs dangling over the abyss and considered what to do. I was quite calm now. I wasn’t lost any more. I knew my way back to the pump and the main shaft from here. All I had to do was get across that twenty foot gap. That was a problem I could understand. I wasn’t scared any more. There was nothing to frighten me about it. I wasn’t facing the unknown now. This was a reality, something I could understand. Manack had tried to kill me. Indirectly he had attempted to murder me. And all that stood between me and safety was twenty feet of bare, sloping rock. It was my wits against his.
When I had rested a while I started out to do the only thing possible. I switched my torch on, I found a foothold and a handhold and swung out of the gallery on to the rock face, the torch gripped in my mouth. The rock was not quite sheer — an angle of about eighty degrees, I should say - and pressing my body close to the wet face of it, I was able to relieve the strain on my limbs. The trouble was that the rock was slimy with water and fingers and boots were inclined to slip. Below me the sea slopped about noisily as though licking its lips in expectation of my fall.
I worked steadily out across the gap from handhold to handhold. Sometimes my feet were firmly set in a crevice or on a jutting rock, sometimes they dangled uselessly. At the fifth handhold I could find no place for my foot to grip. I hung there by my hands, searching in the dim flickerings of the torch for the next hold. But I couldn’t see one. I searched about with my feet. There was nothing but smooth rock. I hung by one hand and felt out with the left. There was no handhold and no foothold, just the slimy surface of the rock. I had to go back then.
I tried climbing up. I got a little way and nearly stuck. My elbow joints were quivering with the strain by the time I regained the gallery. I sat down then with my back against the rock wall of the gallery. I’d try again later. But first I had to rest. I felt utterly exhausted. I seemed to have been stumbling through the workings of this mine for a lifetime. Yet it was only half-past eleven.
I tried to relax. My clothes were wet and uncomfortable. I wasn’t cold. The air, though dark, was quite warm. I just felt dirty, wet and tired. Damn that blasted old man! What was the idea? Why had he wanted to kill me? What was he afraid of?
My limbs soon began to grow stiff. My clothes clung to me in a sodden mass. I began to shiver. I wasn’t consciously cold, just wet. I got to my feet. I had to get across that gap. I tried climbing down and along under the stoping. But again I reached a point where there were no hand or footholds. Coming back my foot slipped and the sudden strain on my hands caused one of them to slide on the wet rock. I hung for a moment by one hand and only just managed to find a crevice with my boot. It was with great difficulty that I climbed back into the gallery.
After that I knew it was no use. I had to find a way round. But my torch was finished now. The pale glimmer of light was only sufficient to reveal the rock face when held a few inches from it. I felt my way back to the fall of soft rock, from the ledge, climbed it, crawled into the tunnel and took the first crosscut to the left. Creeping along with my hands on either wall, I took another turning to the left. It sloped down and a moment later the floor fell away from under my feet. I risked one of my precious matches here. The gallery dropped almost sheer for about fifteen feet and then levelled out again. I scrambled down and went on. The gallery forked and I took the left and was brought up in a few yards by a fall. I struck another match. There was no way through. I went back and tried the right fork. Again a fall and at the cost of still another match I discovered the gallery was completely blocked.
I went back, scrambling up the steep part in the dark. I tried another gallery and another. One ended in a shaft, the other in a blank wall of rock. I had only five matches left now. And suddenly I got scared I wouldn’t find my way back to the sloping. At least there was a gleam of hope there. I took a wrong turning first time. I tried again in a sweat of fear. This time I came out through the tunnel on to the fall of soft rock. And so back to the sloping with that little pin-point of light high, high above me.
I sat there, shivering and listening to the sound of water. Perhaps daylight would show a gleam of light on the sea water below. If not… That didn’t bear thinking about. Nobody knew I was down here. I could just stay here and rot.
And then suddenly I sat up. I thought I heard a voice, very faint and distant. There it was again. A long, echoing call. I must be going mad. It was like a woman’s voice. I listened, but it didn’t come again. I sat back. It was possible to imagine all sorts of sounds in the dripping of the water. I thought of the stories old tinners had told up in my father’s shack in the Rockies, stories of goblins working underground, of the spirit of Gathon and sudden flares and lights. ‘Wherever there do be a lode o’ tin, thee’s sure to hear strange noises,’ I remember one grizzled old miner saying. But they never spoke of a woman’s voice.
Then suddenly I sat up, my nerves stretched taut to a stifled scream. There was a light in the gallery beyond the sloping.
I tried to tell myself I was seeing things, that the darkness was playing tricks on my eyes. But I could see the cleft quite plainly, like an old doorway and it was all yellow with light. I stood up. Perhaps it was Manack coming back. The light seemed to be getting stronger. Then a long-drawn out cry curdled my blood. It was a soft wailing sound that dragged itself through the galleries and came echoing back in wail after wail, growing fainter each time. It came again. It was a woman’s cry - a mad, wailing, echoing cry. And slowly the light grew brighter in the shaft beyond the sloping.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Mad Manack
I don’t know what I expected to come along that gallery. I stood there, clutching at the wet rock of the walls and my blood pounded in my ears. But for the darkness of the gallery behind me, I think.I would have run. The light grew steadily brighter till the walls glistened and I could see the rotten stulls of the sloping thrust out like arms from the sloping rock. If it were human I knew it couldn’t cross that gap. But I don’t think I thought it was human. No man brought up on the old tinners’ tales could possibly have thought that wild cry human.
At last the light itself appeared. It was attached to a miner’s helmet and the miner himself came steadily on towards the slope. I thought of all the men who must have lost their lives down here. The mine was old. Two or three centuries of tinners must have worked down here, burrowing down from above and in from the cliffs. Many would have been killed.
I wailed in a sweat of fear to see what the thing would do when it reached the rotten lagging. Would it come on — or would it stop?
The figure reached the gap, stopped and then swung itself against the rock, feeling for the staples.
It was human.
But it wasn’t Manack. It was much smaller than Manack. It wasn’t his son either, or Slim or Friar. I hesitated. I hadn’t been seen. I was in the shadow of my pan of the gallery. The miner failed to find the expected foothold, drew back and bent down, looking for the staples that should have been there. The beam of his lamp shone like a disc of light straight at me. Then I found my voice. ‘Who are you?’ I asked.
The figure jumped back with a startled cry.
It was a woman’s cry.
‘Is that you, Jim?’ asked Kitty’s voice.
Relief, surprise, humiliation — they were all mixed up. ‘Yes,’ I said, coming out into the light of her lamp.
‘Oh, thank God!’ she said.
‘What in the world are you doing down here?’ I asked her.
‘I came down to find you. Thank God you’re all right.’ The softness of her voice whispered back at me as though it had wandered through countless galleries.
‘Didn’t you think I would be?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘I didn’t know what to think. I saw Mr Manack come up. I was down by the sheds where you said you’d meet me. I waited. But you didn’t come up. And then I got scared. I went down to the hideout. Mr Tanner hadn’t seen you. I went out to the Mermaid then. I thought you might be down there. But you weren’t, and when I got back you hadn’t returned to the hideout. I was really scared then and decided to come up into the old workings. I thought you might have got lost - or something. But I see I needn’t have bothered,’ she added with a trace of sharpness.
I said, ‘Is this the only way into the old workings?’
‘No. There’s one other way. It’s a very low tunnel. You have to crawl flat on your stomach. A stranger wouldn’t find it.’
‘I see,’ I murmured. ‘But this is the way you’d normally come?’
‘Yes. My stepfather drove staples into the rock.’
‘Well, your stepfather’s just knocked them out again.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You won’t find any staples now.’
‘I was just looking for them when you spoke to me.’ She peered down. ‘No, you’re right. They’ve been knocked out.’
‘Yet less than an hour ago when I followed the old man across this gap, they were there. What do you know about that?’
‘You mean -‘ She broke off, unwilling to put the thought into words.
‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘He led me up into a rabbit warren of galleries, then doubled back and cut off my only line of retreat. A nice fellow, your stepfather.’
