we blast.'
after the successive earth tremors of the blast, rod put them back into the stope, and at nine o'clock they uncovered the bodies of two machine boys crushed against the metal of their own rock drill. ten feet further on they found the white miner; his body was unmarked, but his head was flattened. ' at eleven o'clock they found two more machine boys.
rod was in the haulage when they dragged them out through the small opening. neither of them were recognizable as human, they looked more like lumps of raw meat that had been rubbed in dirt.
a little after midnight rod and big king went into the stope again to take over from the team at the face, and twenty minutes later they holed through the wall of loose rock into another chamber that had been miraculously left standing.
the air in here was steamy with heat. rod recoiled instinctively from the filthy moist gush of it against his face.
then he forced himself to crawl forward and peer into the opening.
ten feet away lay frank lemmer, the general manager of the sander
ditch mine. he lay on his back. his helmet had been knocked from his head, and a deep gash split the skin above his eye. blood from the gash had run back into his silver hair and clotted black. he opened his eyes and blinked owlishly in the dazzle of rod's lamp. quickly rod averted the beam.
'mr. lemmer,' he said.
'what the bloody hell are you doing with the rescue team?' growled frank lemmer. 'it's not your job. haven't you learned a single god damned thing in twenty years of mining?'
'are you all right, sir?
'get a doctor in here,' replied frank lemmer. 'you're going to have to cut me loose from this lot.' rod wriggled up to where he lay, and then he saw what frank lemmer meant. from the elbow his arm was pinned under a solid slab of rock. rod ran his hands over the slab, feeling it. only explosive would shift the rock. as always frank lemmer was right.
rod wriggled out of the opening and called over his shoulder.
'get the telephone up here.' after a few minutes delay he had the receiver, and was through to the station at 95 level which had been set up as an advance aid post and rest station for the rescuers.
'this is ironsides, get me doctor stander.'
'hold on.' then moments later, 'hello, rod, it's dan.'
'dan, we've found the old man.'
'how is he, conscious?'
'yes, but he's pinned you'll have to cut.' 'are you sure?' dan stander asked.
'of course i'm bloody well sure,' snapped rod.
'whoa, boy!' admonished dan.
'sorry 'okay, where's he caught?'
'arm. you'll have to cut above the elbow.' 'charming!' said dan.
'i'll wait here for you.' 'right. i'll be up in five minutes.' 'it's funny, you see them chopped time and again, but you know it will never happen to you.' frank lemmer's voice was steady and even. the arm must be numb, rod thought as he lay beside him in the stope.
frank lemmer rolled his head towards rod. 'why don't you go farming, boy?' 'you know why,' said rod.
'yes.' lemmer smiled a little, just a twitching of the lips.
with his free hand he wiped his mouth. 'you know, i had just three months more before i went on pension. i nearly made it. you'll end like this, boy, in the dirt with your bones crunched up.' 'it's not the end, said rod.
'isn't it?' asked frank lemmer, and this time he chuckled. 'isn't it?'
'what's the joke?' asked dan stander, poking his head into the tiny chamber.
'christ, it took you long enough to get here,' growled frank lemmer.
'give me a hand, rod.' dan passed his bag through, then as he crawled forward he spoke to frank lemmer.
'union steel closed at 98 cents tonight. i told you to buy.'
'over-priced, over-capitalized,' snorted frank lemmer.
dan lay on his side in the dirt and laid out his instruments, and they argued stocks and shares. when dan had the syringe full of pentathol and was swabbing frank lemmer's stringy old arm, lemmer rolled his head towards rod again.
'we made a good dig here, rodney, you and i. i wish they'd give it to you now, but they won't. you're still too young. but whoever they put in my place, you keep an eye on him, you know the ground don't let him balls it up.' and the needle went in.
dan cut through the arm in four and a half minutes, and twenty-seven minutes later frank lemmer died of shock and exposure in the mary anne on his way to the surface.
once he had paid patti's alimony there was not too much of rod's salary left for extravagances, but one of these was the big cream maserati. although it was a 1967 model, and had done nearly 30,000 miles when he bought it, yet the instalments still took a healthy bite out of his monthly pay cheque.
on mornings like this he reckoned the expense worthwhile. he came twisting down from the kraalkop ridge, and when the national road flattened and straightened for the final run into johannesburg he let the maserati go. the car seemed to flatten against the ground like a running lion, and the exhaust note changed subtly, becoming deeper, more urgent.
ordinarily, it was an hour's run from the sander ditch mine into the city of johannesburg, but rod could clip twenty minutes off that time.
it was saturday morning, and rod's mood was light and expectant.
since the divorce rod had lived a jekyll and hyde existence. five days of the week he was the company man in top-line management, but on the last two days of the week he went into johannesburg with his golf clubs in the boot of the maserati, the keys to his luxury hillbrow apartment in his pocket, and a chuckle on his lips.
today the anticipation was keener than ever for, in addition to the twenty-two-year-old blonde model who was prepared to devote her evening to entertaining rodney ironsides, there was the mysterious summons from doctor manfred steyner to answer.
the summons had been delivered by a nameless female caller describing herself as 'doctor steyner's secretary. it had come the day after frank lemmer's funeral, and was for saturday at 11 A.m.
rod had never met manfred steyner, but he had, of course, heard of him.
anyone who worked for any of the fifty or sixty companies that comprised the central rand consolidated group must have heard of manfred steyner, and the sander ditch gold company was just one of the group.
manfred steyner had a bachelor's degree in economics from berlin university, and a doctor's degree in business administration from cornell. he had joined crc a mere twelve years previously at the age of thirty, and now he was the front runner. hurry hirschfeld could not live for ever, although he gave indications of doing so, and when he went down to make a takeover bid on hades, the word was that manfred steyner would succeed him as chairman of crc.
chairmanship of crc was an enviable position, the incumbent automatically became one of the five most powerful men in africa, and that included heads of state.
the betting favoured doctor steyner for a number of good reasons. he had a brain that had earned him the nickname of 'the computer, no one had yet been able to detect in him the slightest evidence of a human weakness, and more than this he had taken the trouble ten years previously to catch hurry hirschfeld's only granddaughter as she emerged from cape town oniversity and marry her.
doctor steyner was in a strong position, and rod was intrigued with the prospect of meeting him.
the maserati was registering 125 miles an hour as he went under the over pass of the kloof gold mining company property.
'johannesburg, here i come!' rod laughed aloud.
it was ten minutes before eleven o'clock when rod found the brass plaque reading 'doctor m. k. steyner' in a secluded lane of the lush johannesburg suburb of sandown.
the house was not visible from the road, and rod let the maserati roll gently in through the tall white gates, with their imitation cape dutch gables.
the gates, he decided, were a display of shocking taste but the gardens beyond them were paradise. rod knew rock, but flowers were his weak spot. he recognized the massed banks of red and yellow against the green lawns as cannas, but after that he had no names for the blazing beauty spread about him.
'wow!' he muttered in awe. 'someone has done a hell of a lot of work around here.' around a curve in the macadamized drive lay the house.
it also was cape dutch and rod forgave doctor steyner his gates.
'wow!' he said again, and involuntarily braked the maserati to a standstill.
cape dutch is one of the most difficult styles to copy effectively, where one line in a hundred out of place could spoil the effect; this particular example worked perfectly. it gave the feel of timelessness, of solidarity, and mixed it subtly with a grace and finesse of line. he guessed that the shutters and beams were genuine yellow wood and the windows hand-leaded.
rod looked at it, and felt envy prickle and burn within him. he loved fine things, like his maserati, but this was another
