The Killer Mine

'O'Donnel,' I said. 'Jim O'Donnel.'

His eyes met mine with a glint of amusement. 'Irish, eh?' He smiled. 'Funny thing. You fellows always pick on Irish names. You seem to think it fits this sort of job. There's a boy working for me here now — O'Grady he calls himself. Cockney right through to his backside.' He shrugged his shoulders. 'What experience have you had of mining?'

'Pretty fair,' I told him. 'Started working underground in the Canadian Rockies when I was sixteen. I'm thirty-two now and, with the exception of four years in the army, I've been working in mines all the time — various goldmines in the Coolgardie district of Australia, a short spell in Malaya on tin, and finally in lignite mines in North Italy.'

'Know anything about blasting?'

'I ought to,' I said. 'You can't help knowing about it after twelve years of mining.'

He nodded as though satisfied by my reply. His fingers were drumming on the chair arm again. 'You understand the nature of the business we're engaged on?' It was more a statement than a question and he looked at me sharply.

I raised my glass. 'I guess so,' I said. 'Liquor running.'

He nodded and pulled a sheet of paper towards him across the desk.

'Suppose I tell you I don't want anything to do with it?' I said.

He swung round on me then. 'You've no alternative,' he barked. 'Get that clear right from the start. I wasn't joking when you were in here with Mulligan. You're here and you'll do the job I want doing before you leave.'

'That's not the way to get good work out of a man,' I told him. He didn't reply for a moment. He just sat there staring at me. Those eyes of his — they worried me. Most people, when you look them in the eye — you feel in touch with them, you can see their mood even if you can't see what they're thinking. But not with Manack. His eyes told me nothing. I've seen it in animals, particularly dogs. Often as not when you can't trust a dog his eyes have a wild look, they shut you out — you can't see what he's feeling. That's the way Manack's eyes looked.

'Listen,' he said suddenly. 'You come here without a friend in the world. You're broke and the world's against you. Do this job and you get your hundred and forty-five quid back plus a further fifty. Not only that, but I'll fix you a passage anywhere you want to go.'

'And if I say No?'

He nodded to the phone on the desk. 'Then I'll ring the police.'

'Isn't that a bit risky for you?' I asked.

But it's no use trying to scare a man like Manack. 'I don't think so,' he said. 'I'm pretty well known around this end of Cornwall. I've made it my business to be. At worst I'd have to lay off a shipment or two. But you stand a chance of hanging with the evidence that would pile up against you.'

'You mean I'd be accused of having a hand in the revenue cutter business?' I felt a surge of anger at the injustice of it. But it was swamped by my sense of helplessness. What could I do about it? What the hell could I do?

He nodded his head slowly like a doctor agreeing with his patient's worst fears. 'Well, O'Donnel, what do you say?' I thought I detected a derisive emphasis on the name of O'Donnel.

I shrugged my shoulders. Damn it, why wasn't I dressed? Perhaps if I'd been dressed I'd have had the guts to call his bluff and walk out of the place. But one glance at his face told me it wasn't bluff. It wasn't that his features looked fierce or cruel, it was just that it was a tense, reckless face. The man would do what he said. 'How long will the job take?' I asked.

'Not being a miner I wouldn't know,' he replied. 'It might take a week, maybe two. My offer is twenty pounds a week and a fifty-pound bonus on completion of the job. And all free of income tax.' He smiled. It would have been a friendly, pleasant smile but for those eyes.

'Okay,' I said. My voice sounded hoarse. 'What's the job?'

'That's more like it,' he said, and seemed to relax. His gaze wandered to the bottle. 'Another drink?' I finished mine at a gulp and held out my glass. I needed that drink. That's another thing,' he said as he poured it out, 'there's no shortage of liquor in the place. But I only serve it out after dark. That's just so as nobody goes up to the village drunk.' He picked up the sheet of paper from his desk. 'Now then, what I want you to do is to blow a hole in the sea bed.'

'Blow a hole in the sea bed?' I stared at him in astonishment.

But he was quite serious. 'Yes,' he said. And then added after a moment's thought, 'No point in my not telling you why, since as soon as you see the layout you'll be able to figure it out for yourself. At the moment we bring the stuff in by boat to the main adit of Wheal Garth. The adit empties into a big cave and we've got a large, flat-bottomed barge in there. Well, that method is too dangerous. We've got coastguards' look-out as close as Cape Cornwall, which is the next headland but one to the south. Not only that, it means fine weather runs only. Sometimes our boats have to lie off for several days pretending to fish until the sea's calm enough for the operation to be carried out.'

He handed me the sheet of paper. 'There's a plan of Wheal Garth at the hundred and twenty fathom level — that's fifty feet below sea level. We've de-watered the mine down to this level which is the first of the undersea levels. Now then, see that long gallery running out under the sea?' He pointed it out to me on the plan — a finger of ink stretching almost straight out from the coast. Beside it was the name Mermaid. 'That gallery is half a mile long. I've had two men working on it for nearly a year — deserters, same as you. One of them is a stone mason, the other a quarry man. We've straightened it out, squared it off and built up a neat ledge along both sides. On these ledges a carriage drawn by a hawser can run — even when the gallery is full of sea water. No metal rails to rust, you see. What I want you to do is — '

He stopped then, for the door had opened. I looked round. An elderly man had entered. He was tall and blond with a short, pointed beard and small, round eyes that looked at me from beneath shaggy eyebrows. 'I didn't know you'd anybody here, Henry,' he said to Manack and made as though to go. His voice was soft and, but for the trace of a Cornish accent, I would have said he was a Norseman, so fine a figure did he make as he stood there with the firelight glowing on his rugged, bearded features.

'Just a minute, Father,' Manack said. This is Jim O'Donnel. He's going to work here for a bit. He's a miner.'

The old man's eyebrows lifted and there was a glitter of something like excitement in his eyes. 'A miner, is he?' He smiled. It was a nice smile, the sort of smile that seemed to warm the room. 'Well, my boy,' he said to me, 'it's good to know there'll be a miner working here at last. I've been trying to persuade my son to take on miners here ever since he came back. But there've always been — ah — difficulties,' he added vaguely. He turned to Manack. His eyes were shining. 'This is kind of you, Henry.' He shook his head sadly. 'Pity you didn't grow up to be a miner. You'd have understood the possibilities of Wheal Garth then. However, one's a help — a very definite help. At least we can make a start now.'

'O'Donnel is working for me.' Manack's voice was sharp. The old man's eyebrows went up again. It was a trick he had. He was all tricks, but I didn't know it then.

'Working for you?' he said. 'And what, may I ask, can you be wanting a miner for? You know nothing about mining. He must work for me. If he's a good miner, then I'll prove to the world that the Cornish mining industry isn't dead.'

'Well, you may as well know about it now as later,' Manack said. 'I'm letting the sea into the Mermaid gallery.'

'Letting the sea in!' The old man's beard shot up. 'You're mad. You can't do it. I won't allow it.'