He nodded and his cheeks cracked in a grin. 'It'd ruddy better,' he said. 'More'n a year we bin cuttin' they ledges. An' just over twenty-three 'undred kerb stones we made outa the rock we cut. So for Gawd's sake be careful when yer blast through to the sea. I got fifty pa'nd on it.'
'I will,' I said. I was looking up at the dark hole that showed between the scaffolding. I think at that moment I had forgotten everything else but the job of breaking through to the sea bed as neatly as possible. It's a ticklish job blasting through to what Cornish miners call the house of water. I hadn't done it for a long time, not since I was in the Rockies — in the Coolgardie fields I'd always been working deep. The job only happens in hilly country. Your mine has been developed to the limit of the capacity of the pumps to remove the water. When you reach that limit you have to consider some alternative means of de-watering. If the mine is on the side of a mountain, as so many of the mines in the Rockies are, then the next thing is to drive an adit from the nearest valley up under the mine to act as a drain for the water that is preventing deeper development. It's quite a straightforward job, provided there's no underground river or reservoir of water — that's what makes it dangerous. You probe ahead with a long drill. And sometimes when you reach the house of water and the drill comes out with a gush of water pouring from the drill hole, the whole face of the adit collapses, drowning the miners. There'd been some nasty accidents like that at mines my father and I had worked in. But it had never happened to me.
In this particular case, drilling up to the sea bed, it was less dangerous in one respect — Manack had said he could give me accurate figures for the amount of country we had to blast through. On the other hand, the weight of water was likely to be much greater than one would ordinarily encounter. I stood there for quite a time, gazing up into the gaping hole and considering the problem.
'Come on, mate,' Friar said at length. 'Let's get crackin'.'
'Okay,' I said.
We removed the tools, fitted the air pipe to the compressor and got the drill up to the platform of the scaffolding. Friar then went down to the very end of the gallery where the giant block and tackle was fixed that held the hawser, pulled a rock out of the wall and lifted the receiver of a field telephone. He wound the handle and then said: 'Slim? Okay — yes, she's workin'. Pull the Basket back about four yards, will yer?' An instant later the hawser at the rear of the carriage drew taut and the whole thing, complete with compressor, backed away from under the scaffolding. 'Yes, that's fine,' Friar said as the carriage stopped. He replaced the receiver and climbed up on to the platform beside me, 'On'y fing we ain' got laid on da'n 'ere is room service.' He peered up at the shaft above our heads. 'Wot aba't when the ruddy sea comes in?' he said. 'It's the only fing as far as I can see that may gum the 'ole works.'
'You mean if too much rock comes in and blocks the carriage way?' I asked.
He nodded.
'That's my job,' I said. 'We'll keep to light blasts, clearing the rock after each blast, as you've been doing up to now. In the end there'll be a thin crust of rock between us and the sea. If the rock's sound it'll be all right.'
'An' if it ain't?'