“Nothing much happened,” Snook told him in a matter-of-fact voice. “Some people have been seeing things, that’s all.”
Stepping out of the cage into a bright morning world of sunshine, colour and warmth gave Snook a powerful sense of reassurance. Life, it seemed, was continuing exactly as usual regardless of what terrors lurked beneath the ground. It took Snook a few seconds to appreciate that a tense and highly abnormal situation was developing within the mine head enclosure. Perhaps two hundred men were gathered outside the check-out building, from the steps of which Alain Carrier was addressing them in an angry mixture of English and Swahili, laced here and there with expletives in his native French. Some of the miners were giving their attention to
Carrier, others were engaged in group arguments with various supervisors who moved among them. The management were putting across the message that it was the duty of the miners to return to work without further delay; while the latter—as Snook and Murphy had predicted—were refusing to go underground.
“Gil!” Murphy’s voice came from close by. “Where,have you been?”
“Having another look at our transparent visitors.” Snook scanned the superintendent’s face. “Why?” .
“The Colonel wants to see you. Right now. Let’s go, Gil.” Murphy was almost dancing in his impatience and Snook began to feel an obscure anger at the men, and the power they wielded, which could affect other and better human beings in that way.
“Don’t let Freeborn buffalo you, George,” he said with deliberate stolidity.
“You don’t understand,” Murphy replied in a low, urgent voice. “The Colonel has already sent to Kisumu for troops—I heard him on the radio.”
“And you think they’d fire on their own people?”
Murphy’s gaze was direct. “The Leopard Regiment is stationed at Kisumu. They’d massacre their own mothers if the Colonel gave the word:”
“I see. And what am I supposed to do?”
“You have to make Colonel Freeborn believe you can smooth things over and get the men back to work.”
Snook gave an incredulous laugh. “George, you saw that thing down there as well as I did. It was real. There’s no way anybody can convince those men it didn’t exist.”
“I don’t want any of them to get killed, Gil. There’s got to be some way.” Murphy pressed the back of a hand to his mouth in a childlike gesture. Snook felt a pang of sympathy which surprised him with its intensity. It’s happening, he thought. This is the way you get involved.
Aloud he said, “I’ve got an idea I can put up to the Colonel. He might listen, I suppose.”
“Let’s go and see him.” Murphy’s eyes signalled gratitude.
“He’s waiting in his office.”
“Okay.” Snook walked several paces with the superintendent, then stopped and clutched his lower abdomen. “Bladder,” he whispered. “Where’s the lavatory?”
“That can wait.”
“Want to bet? Listen, George, I don’t make a good advocate when I’m standing in a pool of urine.”
Murphy pointed at a low building which had red flowers growing in window boxes. “That’s the supers’ rest room. Go in there. First door on the left. Here—I’ll hold the cameras for you.”
“It’s all right.” Snook walked quickly to the door of the building, went through to the toilets and was glad to find them empty—it appeared that the disorderly meeting was keeping the supervisors busy. He locked himself in a cubicle, set his carton on the toilet seat, picked up the camera which had been fitted with a magniluct filter and took out its spool of self-developing film. A quick glance at it showed him that the improvised technique had been successful—there were surprisingly clear images of the first apparition he had seen -and he dropped the spool into his pocket. Working as swiftly as he could, Snook put a fresh film in the camera, pressed the palm of his hand over the lens to block out all light, and pushed the shutter button twelve times, producing the same number of exposures as were in the other cameras. He put the camera back in the box, flushed the toilet and went outside to where Murphy was waiting.
“That took long enough,” Murphy grumbled, his composure fully recovered.
“It doesn’t do to rush these things.” Snook handed the box df cameras and equipment to the superintendent, dissociating himself from it. “Now where’s Fuhrer Freeborn?”
Murphy led the way to another prefabricated building which was partly screened by oleander bushes. They went into a reception room, where Murphy spoke quietly to an army sergeant who was seated at a desk, and then were ushered into a larger room which was given a vaguely military atmosphere by the presence of numerous maps on the walls.
Colonel Freeborn was exactly as Snook had remembered him—tall, lean, hard as the polished teak of which he seemed to be carved, somehow managing to appear meticulously neat and rough-shod at the same time. The cup-shaped depression glistened at the side of his shaven skull. He looked up from the paperwork he had been studying and focused on Snook with intent brown eyes.
“All right,” he snapped, “what have you found?”
“And a very good morning to you, too,” Snook said. “Are you well?”
Freeborn gave a tired sigh. “Oh, yes -1 remember you. The aircraft engineer with principles.”
“I don’t care about principles—I just don’t like being shanghaied.”
“If you remember, it was your friend Charlton who brought you to Barandi. I simply offered you a job.”
“And refused me permission to leave.”
“Worse things have happened to men who entered this country illegally.”
“No doubt.” Snook eyed the cane with the spherical gold knob which lay on the desk.
Freeborn got to his feet, went to the window and stood looking out towards where the miners’ meeting was still in progress. “I have been informed that you have done valuable educational work among the labour force at this mine,” he said in a surprisingly mild voice. “It is very important, at this stage, that the education of the miners should continue. In particular, it should be impressed on them that ghosts do not exist. Primitive beliefs can be harmful…if you know what I mean.”
“I know what you mean.” Snook was about to announce that he preferred the Colonel not to try being subtle, when he intercepted a pleading glance from Murphy. “But there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve just been down to the bottom levels. The ghosts do exist—I’ve seen them.”
Freeborn spun on his heel and pointed an accusing finger.
“Don’t try it, Snook. Don’t try to be clever.”
“I’m not being clever. You can see them for yourself.”
“Right! I’d be very much interested in that.” Freeborn picked up his cane. “Take me to see the ghosts.”
Snook cleared his throat. “The snag is that they only appear shortly before dawn. I don’t know why it is, but they rise up into the bottom levels of the mine around dawn. Then they sink down out of sight again. They seem to be rising higher each day, though.”
“So you can’t show me these ghosts?” Freeborn’s lips twitched into a smile.
“Not now, but they’ll probably appear tomorrow morning again—that seems to be the pattern. And you’d need to be wearing Amplite glasses.”
Aware of how incredible his story sounded, Snook went on to describe everything he had seen and done in the mine, with a full description of the ghosts and of his experimental camera equipment. When he had finished speaking he called upon Murphy to corroborate his statement. Freeborn gave Snook a speculative stare.