doesn’t just emerge from the ground in convenient containers, and we seem not to have made any provision for acquiring it.”
So, after brief discussion, the One Hundred Strategy was applied once again. One hundred workers were allocated to quarrying this utilitarian rock.
While speaking of quarries, Alf Richards pointed out that a supply of granite would be very useful as a building stone, as well as for paving roads and providing aggregate material for concrete. So yet another one hundred were assigned to this task.
“We’re on a roll,” Richards roared with delight, “and while we’re talking about quarrying, we might as well get into mining.” With this he turned to Peter Mavimbela, the head of the miners’ union. “What do you think, Peter?” he asked. “To get our industrial revolution underway, what we need is iron and coal, coal and iron, preferably close together and preferably not too far out in the boondocks. No matter what processes we decide to use in making steel—and, Ichiro, with your guidance we’ll be talking about that in due course—we know what the basic raw materials must be, and we can’t have them too far apart from each other. Transporting these materials is going to be a big problem when we first get started. It’s not like the good old days when long freight trains rumbled into Richards Bay bringing tons of coal and ore for shipment overseas.”
“You don’t need to remind me about what it pleases you to call the good old days,” Peter Mavimbela said dourly. He was a tall man, but stooped and gaunt, with dark, dreamy eyes that belied his practical, political approach to life and to the issue under debate. He seemed about to launch into a discourse on mining under the apartheid government, but then thought better of it and spoke to the technical point at hand. “I think I can find you a place—or possibly two places—that will be suitable. But there are a couple of things that we ought to get straight at the outset.”
Alf Richards could tell that in Mavimbela he was dealing with a rugged individual, almost belligerent, a very different sort from the diplomatic Simon Kambule. There was a sudden feeling of suspense among the group, as if a serious confrontation might be brewing.
“Okay,” Alf said. “What is it that we have to get straight?”
“First,” Peter replied, “understand that this is not going be an efficient operation. We—like the farmers and timber workers and everybody else—have practically no tools. And when we finally get some, I am certain that they will be of relatively poor, or primitive quality. So we cannot go digging down into the depths of the earth. We’ll have to begin by getting what we can from the surface. Where this is not possible, we will cut parallel tunnels into the hills and leave large pillars of material in place as supports for the tunnel roof. That way we won’t have to install timbers, which are not available in any case. So, we’ll be leaving lots of material in the ground; but that will have to do for a beginning.”
“What’s your other concern?” Alf Richards asked.
“My men,” Mavimbela said, with barely concealed emotion. “In those ‘good old days,’ as you call them, the miners of South Africa were obliged to travel far from their families and live in prison-like dormitories. Now, I expect that decent housing will be provided for them—and their families—within a reasonable distance from the mines.”
“That’s no problem, Peter,” the chairman said. “Assuming that the decent housing you’re referring to is the same sort of deluxe shack that we’re all living in these days.” Mavimbela’s acknowledgment came by way of a grim smile.
Then a follow-up from Richards: “Can you round up seven hundred men, Peter?” To the rest of the group, he said, “That is a large commitment, I know. I’m suggesting the use of ten percent of our non-agricultural workforce. But in mining, we’re talking about a lot of hard work, important work, vital for our future.” The subcommittee, by its silence, indicated assent.
“I can manage that,” Mavimbela said, after a few moments of thought. “Many of my union members were home celebrating Christmas with their families when the disaster struck. If I assure them that the new social order is to be founded on principles of social justice, I know they will give of their best.”
The two men, Richards and Mavimbela, shook hands firmly to seal their understanding.
“If you want results,” the union leader added, “get us a supply of half-decent tools as soon as you can, so we might start picking away at whatever we can reach. Also, get us wheels, plain wheelbarrows if that is all you have, but then rolling trams of some kind, preferably on rails, even wooden rails—for starters. And, of course, to be at all efficient, we’re going to need explosives. Mining is essentially drilling holes in the rock, inserting materials that will blow up, and then letting her rip—in a controlled way, of course. We really should have steam drills, but knowing that is impossible right now, we’ll go back to drilling holes the old-fashioned way, hammering steel bits with sledges. It’s tough work, but we can do it. Without explosives, though, it’s pick and shovel, and that is even tougher. We can do that, too, but you won’t be too happy with the results.”
“You know, I hadn’t thought about explosives,” Richards said, scratching his head.
At this point, Gordon Chan spoke up again. “It is not such a big deal, Alf. We Chinese invented black powder more than a thousand years ago. Just mix saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal—in the right proportions, of course. I’ll be happy to tell you what those propor tions are, just as my ancestors told your ancestors. Then ignite the powder with a burning fuse, and poof! Better be careful, though. That powder is pretty volatile stuff. It’s a lot safer to use TNT, which is a solid organic nitrogen compound, or dynamite, which is nitroglycerine mixed with ammonium nitrate. But the trouble with the safer materials is that you need safety fuses and blasting caps, and that requires another manufacturing operation. We have people with us who have the needed chemical knowledge to mix you up whatever you’d like, and others who can make you the fuses and caps. But I’m not sure that this is the first project on which you want to concentrate.”
“Okay,” Richards said. “You heard the man, Peter. I think we’re going to have to start with picks and shovels and make do with whatever you can get us that way. In the meantime, we’ll put some people—let’s say thirty or so—to work on explosives. I’m sure, also, that one of these days our police and military guys will be looking for ammunition. No way we can go back to the future without some booms and bangs in our suitcases.”
The sun seemed to have raced across the sky, although no more speedily than the subcommittee had been dashing across the technological spectrum. But even with a substantial amount of work accomplished, Alf Richards felt that the urgency of his mission did not allow for an evening of relaxation. So, before adjourning, he asked Ichiro Nagasaka and Eric Steenkamp to meet with him after dinner. The objective would be to select a group of metallurgists and mining engineers, both Inlanders and Outlanders, who would visit the locations that Peter Mavimbela had designated as possible centers for a mining operation.
It so happened that both of these sites were among the places that had been mentioned by Pieter Kemm and Kelvin Marshall in their original briefing of the Governing Council. One was at Dundee, seventy miles northwest of Ulundi. The other was near Em pangeni, just twelve miles north of Engineering Village. Dundee was more distant than Alf would have liked; but the coal and iron were known to be suitable. The area had been badly burned by the fires, but this would not now impede a mining operation. The Empangeni site was centrally located, and provided ample coal. But the iron would have to be extracted from laterite, a weathered rock, rich in iron oxide, but far from what one would call a high-grade ore. It would tax the professional skills of the engineering experts. In the end, both sites were approved, and served very well, the engineers being equal to the technical challenge.
When, the next day, they gathered for their third session, the members of the Joint Planning Subcommittee were in high spirits. Several of them had brought items that began to give the meeting pavilion a lived-in quality— odd-looking chairs; maps and charts; and even a few whimsical decorations, most notably a Boston Red Sox cap atop a driftwood giraffe.
“I think we are actually making progress,” said Lucas Moloko, a government official from Ulundi who, from the outset, had been openly skeptical of the group’s ambitious approach. He had been rather quiet during the first meetings, but now felt a bit looser and more confident that they were moving in the right direction.
“Can do, Lucas,” responded Commodore Harry Presley of the U.S. Navy Seabees, whose specialty was the planning and construction of military bases. “That’s our motto.”
Yet, as deliberations continued, the mood began to darken. Repeatedly, good ideas seemed to be foiled by the problems inherent in transportation. It was increasingly clear that even the best laid plans—for making bricks, quarrying stone, mining coal, or whatever activity—would be frustrated unless the new society had the capacity for
