Young Colin Eales kicked at the dirt, sending a splosh of mud onto Bladcock’s woollen suit pants and said, ‘Bloody hell!’ And the men standing around him swore too and nodded their heads as if that explained everything.
Mister Bladcock rocked on his heels in his muddied suit, which he ignored, so as not to give Young Eales the pleasure of knowing he’d annoyed him, and said, ‘Local by-laws don’t clearly define what a wet-shaft-sink is. How deep is the shaft Mister — ah …’
‘Eales,’ said Young Colin, knowing the bugger knew exactly what his name was. ‘I reckon it’s maybe …’
‘About four hundred and fifty feet I’d say,’ put in Davo Conroy, Young Colin’s dad’s best mate, who up until recently Colin had called Uncle Dave.
‘Yeah,’ said Young Colin, ‘I reckon that’d be about right.’
‘Hmmm,’ said Mister Bladcock, ‘four hundred and fifty feet. Your dad works the mines too, doesn’t he? Where’s he gone?’
‘I don’t exactly know at the moment,’ mumbled Young Colin. Bladcock and Darby smirked and the men looked at the ground, embarrassed. It was a cheap shot. Everyone knew Young Colin’s dad was off with his other family in Hamilton. Jeez, everyone also knew that Alice Hardy had dumped her kid at Beatrix Drake’s and run off to join him.
‘Local by-laws state that nothing under five hundred feet constitutes a wet shaft. You’re fifty feet short,’ announced Darby.
The men swore some more. Who made these laws up? Bloody government employees with brooms up their arses who’d never set foot in a bleedin’ mine.
‘We’re constantly bucketing water out,’ said Young Colin vehemently.
‘Constantly?’ asked Mister Bladcock, raising an eyebrow.
Young Colin nodded and said, ‘No amount of bucketing is gonna get rid of the water and working in clothes soaked to the skin constitutes wet in my book. If you want to bring an official down here, Mister Bladcock, you go and do it, but we ain’t doing more than six hours a day in these conditions.’ Young Colin stood as tall as he could and threw his chest out like a barricade. He wouldn’t be broken by men in suits.
Mister Bladcock stepped back and had another private, mumbled word with Darby, then he nodded and stepped forward again and said to the men, ‘So you’re having to bucket water out all the time?’
‘That’s what I said, ain’t it,’ said Young Colin.
‘Hmm, yes,’ drawled Mister Bladcock, and Young Colin began to feel edgy, as if he was about to be done over. His shoulders began to slump.
‘The removal of water,’ Mister Bladcock said slowly, as if explaining to idiots, ‘constitutes shaft-sinking and shaft-sinking is paid on an eight-hour shift at six shillings. You’ll be paid after your expenses have been removed of course — unless you’d rather tributes.’
No miners wanted tributes, where they were paid a portion of the value of the gold they mined. Tributes were inconsistent and didn’t keep families fed.
‘But our normal pay is seven shillings,’ stammered Young Colin.
‘But that’s for normal labour which you yourself said is not what you are doing at present,’ said Bladcock smugly.
Colin glared at Bladcock, but couldn’t think of anything to say. The bugger had got them on a technicality. Slowly he walked off towards the mouth of the ruddy mine followed by the men.
Mister Bladcock sighed. His was a tough lot and he wasn’t paid anything like he ought to be. Some days, he felt he was taking his life in his hands dealing with these uneducated miners. Nothing’s to say there wouldn’t be another Stockade if they got it into their minds, most likely led by Eales Senior, who wouldn’t have been such a pushover as his son.
The Eales cottage was Number 7 Eddy Street. It was a small low cottage with just one step up to the verandah. The front door was plumb in the middle of the front of the house and sat there sullenly wishing it was the entrance to something much grander. Either side of the door was a window that let in very little light. When you went inside you stepped into the narrow hallway that ran right through the middle of the cottage and straight out the back door. Next to the Eales cottage was a narrow grassy laneway and then Beatrix Drake’s house at Number 9, which lorded it over the Eales cottage with its ornate cast-iron lacework at the corners of its verandah posts and its width, which was a good half as wide again as the Eales cottage.
Young Colin told Beth all about the meeting with management that night as they sat out of the rain on the verandah. He told it so that he was a hero, like Peter Lalor, and he could feel in his bones that he really could be a hero.
‘Mister Cottingham’s always trying to help the miners,’ she said. ‘You oughta talk to him.’
‘We can work this out ourselves,’ said Young Colin, who mistrusted anyone who lived around the lake. Bored with talking about work, he noticed the inviting rise and fall of Beth’s chest as she breathed, and whiteness of her breath as it floated like wisps of smoke in the chilly evening air. He thought how much better his head would feel lying on that pretty chest with her breath settling on him, so he said, ‘How ’bout you and I go up the lane and work something out?’
‘It’s raining, Colin,’ she said.
‘I can find us somewhere dry and we can keep each other warm.’
‘Yeah, and what if your nosy neighbour catches us? She knows where I work, doesn’t she,’ said Beth. ‘And we ain’t married, remember.’ She waggled her ring finger in his face.
Young Colin pushed his hand under the thick wool of her coat and rested it on her breast. He nuzzled his head into her neck under
