Private Gold

Chapter 27

Scrambling down the ladder, Joey descended into a cramped underground hell. The engine fumes were stronger down here. The air was filled with choking fumes, but Joey could also pick up the sour stench of unwashed bodies, and the reek of vomit. Nausea roiled inside him, his body’s reaction to the toxic air. He tried to suppress it as hands from below reached up to grasp him, and hoarse voices pleaded for his help. His flashlight shone over their terrified faces and dread stabbed him as he saw a few had already collapsed on the ground.

“Right, come on. Let’s get you out of here.”

There was a language barrier to overcome; Joey had a basic knowledge of Zulu and Sotho, but some of the men had no English and didn’t speak either of these local languages. He had a sense that they were not down here voluntarily. He’d met a few zama zamas during security operations in this area. They had been hard and dangerous men, often with a criminal history, and prone to violence. Perhaps it was the effect of the gas, but these miners appeared only frightened and confused.

As he started organizing a hasty triage system, he clearly heard the sound that he had feared most. A harsh, grinding noise started, and then stopped abruptly. It told him that the grate had started to slip. One of the links must have weakened. If the rope broke entirely, the grate would crash down, an unstoppable weight, sealing the entrance again.

Nothing he could do now... he just had to get these men out as fast as possible.

And then, as he helped the first of the survivors up the ladder, a prolonged, harsh, scraping sound from above made his heart jump into his throat. At first he thought the grate was falling — that they were all doomed.

But as he struggled to the surface with the first of the weakened men, he saw that Isobel had used the car jack, jamming it into the angle of steel and cranking it up so that this sturdy structure took strain off the rope.

Then footsteps were rushing to meet them, flashlights cutting the darkness. The paramedics had arrived. Moments later, the weight of the miner’s body was lifted from his arms.

“Oxygen. Quick!” Joey called, and within seconds, life-saving supplies were making their way down the ladder in the hands of two more paramedics. In that instant, Joey knew that the miners’ lives were going to be saved.

He wanted to hug Isobel, to take her in his arms and feel the warmth of her against him, to smooth down that spiky blond hair and watch her smile up at him, because they had done it. The two of them together had achieved the impossible in bringing the men to safety.

But when he finally left the tunnel and strode out into the open air, he didn’t get that chance.