Gerhard interrupted, saying, “Hans turned on the lamp too.”
“He did,” Mercer said, “but that wasn’t his main mistake. No, the mistake many of you made was listening to the victim. Think of this like saving someone who is drowning. Have any of you gotten lifeguard certification?”
He looked at the blank, sooty faces. Most of the miners were from rural coal country in whichever nation they called home. They were rednecks and hayseeds, and he didn’t think fishin’ holes and cricks had much in the way of swimmer safety. Still, he could tell they wanted to please him.
“Okay,” he went on after a beat. “First thing they teach you is to always approach a drowning person from behind. Anyone want to guess why?”
A hand went up.
“José.”
“If he see you he gonna try to drown you.”
“Basically that’s it,” Mercer agreed. “The swimmer won’t mean to drown you, but the human panic reflex when drowning is to grab anything nearby and climb on top of it, and that especially includes would-be rescuers.”
“And you’re saying that a trapped miner is like that drowning swimmer,” another of the men said.
“I am. Now, why?” This time a few hands went up. “Jimmy.”
The drawl was pure Kentucky. “ ’Cause he’s gonna be all panic like and we’re the calm ones. We know what’s best for him ’cause we been trained.”
“You do your holler proud, Jimmy,” Mercer said with a smile. “For our foreign guests I will translate that answer into English.”
A few of the other West Virginian and fellow Kentucky miners poked Jimmy Carson in the ribs. The students responded well to Mercer’s style, a combination of patient indulgence with mistakes, vast knowledge of the subject, and an easy sense of humor. They had a good time but they were learning skills that might one day save lives.
“The miner you come across,” Mercer went on, “has been alone and in the dark. He’s hungry, thirsty, hurt, scared, and begging for his momma. It doesn’t matter if he’s been down there six hours or six weeks, since time is meaningless when you’re facing the black. He wants out — and he may well see you as an impediment to his salvation rather than its harbinger. All of you have to remember to stay in command at all times, the way a cop or fireman would. Like them, we know the rules. The victims don’t.
“Tom wanted his light turned on, but providing a victim additional light is not a priority. It might make him feel more secure, but that’s not a necessity to save his life. Assessing the situation, the rock stability, gas levels, the victim’s medical condition. These are the things you focus on first.
“If you take anything away from this training seminar it is these two things.” Mercer’s voice carried a serious tone that seemed to seep into the stone walls. “First thing is to thank the stars you’re not a Chinese miner.” This got a few dark chuckles as they had spent part of a classroom session going over the horrors of the Chinese mining industry. “But seriously, know that if you are ever called upon to use the skills we’ve worked on together, then some fellow miner is having the worst day of his life — and his life is in your hands. Don’t make the situation worse by forgetting your training.”
Mercer let them think about that for a few seconds before smacking his hands together to break the hypnotic mood. “Okay children, I have taught you at least the basics, and despite a few gaffes that were not bullsheet, Hans…you’ve all passed the course.” A round of spontaneous applause broke out in the room. “And,” Mercer continued, “that means dinner tonight is on me.”
The miners roared their approbation, even if the local eatery was a kitschy overdecorated chain restaurant. It had thirty kinds of beer on tap, and all of them were cold.
They started moving off in a raucous gang, like schoolkids anticipating summer vacation. Mercer stood, watching them go.
Teaching mine rescue techniques wasn’t his primary job. Mercer was a prospecting geologist and mine engineer. He was the hired gun called in when big mining companies needed a second opinion before committing hundreds of millions of dollars to open a new pit or shaft, or when they needed guidance to maximize claims they were already working. Mercer was credited with finding billions of dollars’ worth of extractable ore, be it something as ordinary as bauxite deposits for aluminum smelting, or as exotic as the sapphires from a mine in India that was producing some of the finest gemstones ever discovered. His career had taken him to almost every corner of the planet and had made him a wealthy man, but one who did not forget the roots of his success. Mercer felt a responsibility to his profession to give back a little of his hard-won experience. In fact, his pay for the weeks here in Minnesota was less than a tenth of what he earned consulting. But some things in life weren’t about money.
“Dr. Mercer.”
“Just Mercer, Tom,” he said to the one student who’d hung back. “The doctor title is only used getting dinner reservations.”
“I just wanted to thank you for everything. It’s been real interesting.”
“Well, let me say this with all sincerity, I hope to God you never need to use what you’ve learned.”
It took a second for the young miner to catch Mercer’s meaning. “I hope the same thing. Thank you.” They shook hands. Tom Rogers turned for the long walk to the mine head, where the lifts to the surface were located. Mercer didn’t move. “You coming?”
“No,” Mercer said. “I want to check out the science team that’s leased out another part of the mine. I’ll see you at the restaurant.”
Mercer moved into a side chamber and killed the generator he’d rigged to run the lights and mini-fridge. The silence and darkness were profound. It was complete sensory deprivation — such an alien experience that most people couldn’t stand it for more than a few minutes. Many panicked in seconds. Mercer could have stood there for eternity. He flicked on his helmet light and moved off down the tunnel, away from where his men had vanished around a corner. They were headed to the main lifting station. Mercer made for the auxiliary elevator shaft, his step light even in steel-toed boots.
The science team wasn’t actually his primary interest. They were here at the Leister Deep Mine doing some research on climate change and cosmic rays. They needed to be underground and at this particular mine because the copper vein was situated below a thousand-foot-thick slab of iron ore. Though not commercially viable to mine, the ore acted as a shield to certain galactic rays while admitting others. It was, embarrassingly, a bit out of his field.
The problem with modern science, he mused, was that it had become so specialized that a geologist like him hadn’t the foggiest idea what was happening in a related field such as climatology. Both were earth sciences, but so widely divergent that the men and women down here could be doing voodoo incantations as part of their research for all he knew.
No, Mercer’s real interest was not in this particular research, but in Abraham Jacobs. Jacobs was one of the faculty advisers on the team, an éminence grise of Penn State University and later Carnegie Mellon, and was now retired but still consulted at a small private college in eastern Ohio. Far more than an adviser, Jacobs had been Mercer’s mentor during his time at Penn State while he had earned his doctorate in geology.
When asked about his background, Mercer liked to quip he was African American. People looked at his white skin and storm-gray eyes and usually cocked a questioning eyebrow, until Mercer would explain that he was born in Africa, to an American father and a Belgian mother. His parents were killed in a forgotten uprising in a forgotten part of what was then Zaire, and he was raised by his paternal grandparents. They were wonderful people who tended to all his childhood needs, but it was Abe Jacobs who really became Mercer’s role model and surrogate father.