One of the miners stepped forward. ‘Two midway on the east side. One a third of the way down towards the middle. Two more on the nearside. Saw the runner take them from the top all the way to near the bottom when they finally disappeared.’
‘Talek you can’t go down there.’ It was Grace.
‘I’ll not send my workers to do a job I’m not prepared to do myself. I told you to go home.’ He addressed the miners who had volunteered to go down with him. ‘You four take the two men on the east side. You two the middle one. I will take the two on the nearside. Those remaining at the top watch out for movement and direct us as to where to dig.’
He signalled for the men to take up the slack as he edged to the side.
‘I am staying to help. The men will be wounded and will need tending to.’
Despite his earlier order, he was grateful for Grace’s offer. He gave a curt nod in acceptance.
‘Just stay out of danger. I may have five deaths on my hands. I don’t want you to be added to them.’ He ordered for the slack to be taken up in the rope before slowly climbing down over the edge. Due to the recent torrential rain, the pit surface was unstable and slid easily beneath his feet. He cursed himself for not inspecting the pit as soon as he had arrived on site. Perhaps if he had, he would have stopped the men working today.
He glanced up one last time as he lowered himself down and saw Grace arranging for a makeshift stretcher to be made available. Talek knew that the wounded would be in good hands, should they live long enough to reach her and he was grateful for that. He gave himself a mental shake. He must concentrate. In order for the survivors to reach Grace he needed to find them and bring them to the surface.
On several occasions, the pit surface began to slide down around him. His clothes, no match for manual labour, were soon dirty, sodden and torn. Miners shouted directions from above, as the digging teams set to work in the areas where the miners were last seen. The first body located was found quickly and dragged to the surface, gasping for air. A cheer went up as he was hauled to a more stable surface, where he was rolled onto a makeshift stretcher and carried away.
The second miner was found shortly after. His twisted leg and painful cries suggested he was badly injured. Talek paused briefly in his digging to order his rescuers to take care.
‘The soil has settled. Take your time. The man’s leg looks broken and he cannot tolerate rough handling.’
Talek returned to his frantic digging, but found nothing. He looked up to the miners above for more guidance. ‘Can you see any movement? Were they carried this far?’
Someone shouted new directions, so Talek and his digging partner lowered themselves further to a new place to dig.
A cry went up. A third miner had been found. His flaccid, silent body was dragged to the surface and hauled across to safety. The sombre silence and bowed heads of the miners gathering around him told Talek that he had probably not survived. He renewed his efforts, digging frantically in tune with his partner.
Talek spied a piece of cloth sprouting from the dirt. He barred the other man from digging with an outstretched hand.
‘I can see a man’s shirt.’ He shouted up to the stretcher-bearers above him. ‘We need a stretcher. Quick! Now!’ He looked down at his feet and cast his shovel aside. ‘We need to use our hands to dig or we will cut him to shreds.’
Both men fell to their knees and began to dig with their hands. A cloth cap was soon exposed, together with the curve of Tommy’s back. ‘We have Tommy!’ shouted Talek to the miners above. ‘Steady now,’ he said more quietly to the miner beside him. ‘He is in a kneeling position. Easy now. Lift him slowly in case his back is broken.’
The old man was stiff and heavy, but despite a few cuts and bruises, his skin still had the warmth of life pulsing through him.
‘He’s alive, Captain,’ said the miner. Tommy stirred as they eased him from his hole. Talek couldn’t help smiling when the other miner added. ‘Damn it, Tommy, the landslide has carried you several hundred yards and you still have your cloth cap on your head.’
‘That’s not all I’ve kept ’old of,’ croaked Tommy, rolling over to blink and gasp in the early morning sun. To their surprise, huddled beneath him like a newborn babe, lay Billy. Tommy coughed and rolled his head to the side to watch as they dragged the boy out. He blinked away the soil from his eyes and smiled a toothless welcome.
‘Didn’t I tell you to stick with me, Billy?’ the old man chuckled as the boy was laid beside him. He winked at Talek. ‘I told the boy I would look after ’im. And I did, didn’t I, Captain?’
Talek looked at the pale body of the boy, his legs and arms unusually straight and still, his body covered from head to foot in mud. The boy looked dead, yet, in that moment, he didn’t have the heart to tell the old miner the truth. Let him have his moment of heroism, best tell him the boy died later.
Tommy was still chuckling. He nudged the boy. ‘It’s alright, Billy. You’re safe now. Open your eyes and say ’ello to the Captain.’ The boy’s body rocked at his touch. Talek turned away, unable to watch.
‘Hello, Captain.’ The two simple words lifted the hairs on his neck. The boy had spoken, his voice strong and clear, with a joyful lilt, as if he was offering him a mug of tea.
Talek spun around to find Billy smiling at him and squinting in the bright sun. The dirty, thin child, with worn boots and mud mattered hair, was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
‘Glad you are still with us,’ he said, his throat thick with emotion. He swallowed it down and began to busy himself tying a rope around Billy’s waist. ‘It’s time to get the both of you to safety. And this time, Billy, someone else will be making you a mug of tea.’
Talek ordered his digging partner to hold on to Tommy so they could accompany them both to the top. He was about to follow, when a fragment of material, jutting out of the tumbled rocks like a waving surrender flag, caught his attention. He felt duty bound to investigate, he would never forgive himself if he found out later there was someone else missing.
‘Take them both up,’ he ordered the man helping him. ‘I will follow in a minute.’ He watched for a moment as the men began their journey to the surface, hauled up, one pull at a timeon creaking ropes, by miners on the surface. Small stray rocks tumbled down in their wake to greet him.
Content the rescue was well on the way, Talek eased himself across the pit surface towards the material, his feet sliding away from beneath him with each precarious yard he gained. As he neared his goal, the soil became wetter, clogging together in clumps. It sucked at his shoes, which held no grip and provided little protection against the uneven stones hidden in the mud. He finally reached the cloth, dragging it from the ground in the hope, no fear, that it had a body attached. At first, the fabric resisted to his pull, until suddenly the tension was too much and it released in his hand. His relief that it was no more than a fragment of sacking blown in by the wind was quickly extinguished when he felt the now familiar tremor beneath his body. The vibration spread upwards from deep in the earth, shaking the surface and onwards into his bones.
He looked up to see Billy and Tommy being hurriedly lifted from the pit. They had heard it too. And now he saw it — a wave of earth, clay and grit heading his way. It tumbled down towards him, like an angry monster belatedly woken by a storm long since gone. Instinct told him to curl up into a ball and hope for the best, yet he knew that if he did Grace and Amelia would have no body to mourn. Best fight, he told himself, as he reached to the sky as it hit him. The wave robbed his body of breath, battering his flesh and tearing at his clothes. He stretched high above him for an anchor to hold. Objects, sweeping past him, became temporary, fleeting handholds; hope rose and fell as he tried to break himself free.
