Whitethorn (76 page)

‘Not a bad idea,' I heard myself saying.

‘Whaddayamean?' Dirkie called, almost panic-stricken. ‘I'm shitting myself anyway, the International Blasting Licence? No way, man!'

‘The point is, if you get your International you can work anywhere in the world, but the Local is only for here,' I said. ‘Anyway, if we miss out they hold the exams every three weeks, first the International and then a week later the Local. It also means because we've studied for the International we'll be bound to pass the Local as it will be a lot easier.'

‘I dunno, man,' Dirkie said, shaking his head.

‘
Ag
, it will give you confidence, Dirkie,' Karl assured him. ‘Like Tom said, if you fail the International it's
blêrrie
good practice and you'll pass the Local easy as anything, man.'

And so we all decided to sit for the International Blasting Licence, an occurrence that had never been attempted by a trainee-mining group.

Three weeks from the end of the three-month course, after another particularly difficult shift using jackhammers to drill an end for blasting, Jones stopped me as we were about to enter the cage to take us to the surface. I was soaked to the skin, cold and dirty, my face blackened from the wet, powdered muck kicking back from the holes we were drilling, and I was looking forward to the glorious promise of a hot shower and clean, dry gear.

‘Fitzsaxby, stay! We need to talk, Boyo.'

I looked at him and he must have seen my dismay, the next cage was in twenty minutes and I was tired as a dog. ‘Mr Jones, can't we do it on the surface?'

‘You being cheeky, Boyo?'

‘No, Sir, er, Mr Jones.'

I watched as the cage left with the others in it, whereupon Jones drew me into a side haulage. ‘Sit!' he commanded.

I did as he'd instructed and sat on the bottom rung of a ladder leading up into a grizzly escape tunnel.

‘It's got to stop!' Jones barked, standing directly over me.

‘What has, Mr Jones?' I asked, confused.

‘You're fucking giving them the answers, Boyo!'

‘But I'm not,' I protested.

‘But I'm not,
Mr Jones
!' he shouted down at me. ‘Yes, you bluddy are!'

‘Honestly, Mr Jones, I'm not.'

‘It's some sort of sign language, with your hands. What do you take me for, Boyo, a bluddy idjit?'

I shrugged. ‘I can't help you, Mr Jones, I honestly can't,' I pleaded.

‘Look, Fitzsaxby, I've been teaching young idjits like this for ten years, they don't change, this class is no more intelligent than any other, which means they're stupid to the fucking core. Of the ten trainee miners, on average three will get through the Local Blasting Licence the first time, then four weeks later, when I've drummed a little more sense into their thick heads, four more and we'll piss the other three off. But you've all applied to be judged for an International Blasting Licence and that's fucking absurd! You're the only one capable of getting one, but take my word for it, Boyo, you won't be going for it because unless you tell me how you're doing it, I'll break you before you get to take the exam.'

‘But wouldn't it be to your credit if they all did get their blasting licence, Mr Jones?'

‘That's bullshit, Boyo! Because they won't! You can't turn crap into chocolate pudding! We'll have lost six grizzly men, my reputation and my copper bonus and that is definitely
not
going to happen, son!'

I was caught between a rock and a hard place. Gareth Jones could do exactly that, prevent me from taking my blasting licence by coming up with some reason why I shouldn't work underground. Ian de la Rue had warned me that Jones had absolute power over the trainee miners and that he couldn't interfere unless it was a safety matter. Jones was a good miner, but that's all. He knew his stuff but not a great deal beyond it. He believed in the school of hard knocks and everything he'd ever learned had been by doing it tough. He also knew the nature of miners and the capacity of the trainees. Nothing on earth was going to convince him that all ten of us could pass the test or that even three of us could pass the difficult International Blasting Licence. He was, he believed, facing a wipe-out and with it personal disgrace. All his trainees were going to fail with the exception of myself, and he'd convinced himself this was an act of revenge on my part, my personal payback for the hard time he'd given me. As usual, I'd been too smart for my own good. Here I was once again rescuing drowning puppies and, in the process, had landed myself in the shit. The two-and-a-bit months of sheer hell I'd been through under the Welsh git's direction had all been for nothing. Without his imprimatur it was as good as over for me.

The stupid thing was that I was convinced all ten of us could pass; the guys had really enjoyed the study and had come ahead in leaps and bounds. I'd used a game they loved and understood intimately to teach them something that had been made into a daily purgatory that they had come to hate, but now enjoyed. They would test each other constantly, proud of their new-found knowledge. Besides, if one or two of them failed the International test they could still do the Local one the next week, and I knew even Dirkie de Wet could get his Local Blasting Licence in his sleep.

The whole shebang was about to come apart for me. This stupid man was capable of upsetting everything. The three months in the School of Mines barely paid for the rent on the hut and my mess bill. Until we obtained our blasting licence we couldn't share in the prosperity brought about by the copper bonus. Instead we endured, for four pounds a week, the daily misery Jones seemed to enjoy inflicting on us.

It was all put down to the reality of mining, Jones was thought to be toughening us up for the environment in which we were eventually to work. Even Ian de la Rue believed that young mining students ultimately worked better when they were faced with the so-called reality of the real world of mining. Jones worked us all to the point of exhaustion and commonsense indicates that's the point when men have accidents. Whenever one of us collapsed or hurt himself, this was put down to stupidity or a lack of hardness or physical ability. It was almost always due to exhaustion or because of some deeply resented punishment that preoccupied a trainee to the extent that he took his eye off the ball. In reality, no miner ever worked under anything like the conditions Jones put us through. We accepted that initially some of us were soft and needed hard physical work to condition us, but this was achieved in a fairly short time. After this point it simply became bloody-minded perversity by our instructor.

The salient point seemed to be overlooked that we'd all come to the mines for the singular purpose of earning more money than we could expect to earn elsewhere. Our future salaries would depend on our own efficiency. Even the dullest trainee among us was anxious to learn and absorb as much information as possible and besides, we, like almost all humans, had a personal interest in staying alive. This was the framework on which I had based the simple method of learning, using the game of rugby as the matrix. Curiously, every trainee seemed to work harder than under the acerbic tongue and constant harassment that was our instructor's method of learning how to survive underground. Gareth Jones simply couldn't conceive of a method of instruction that depended on cooperation and the practical intelligence most men with personal ambitions possess. Hard graft and punishment was how he'd learned mining in his native Wales, and what was good for the goose was also good for the goslings.

I sighed, then shrugged. ‘Okay, it's an association of ideas, Mr Jones, a mental game.'

‘Ha! Gotcha, Boyo! Brainwashing, eh? I knew it!' he exclaimed triumphantly.

‘Hardly that, it's simply, like I said, an association of ideas, each object or move or association is intended to act as an
aide-
mémoire
. We used rugby because everyone knows the rules. It's very simple really, a mental game that helps them to learn. I can show you how it works, if you like.'

Jones reeled back in horror. ‘That's it! Mental telepathy! Oh no you don't! You're not getting inside
my
mind, Fitzsaxby.'

‘Of course not! There's no such thing as mental telepathy, Mr Jones.'

‘Don't you go denying it now, Boyo, I know what you're up to! Do you think I'm stupid? They'll all go in front of the blasting licence examiner and you'll wipe their minds clean and they'll all fail. It's your revenge, isn't it?'

I sighed, the whole thing was suddenly becoming ridiculous. ‘You're becoming paranoid, Mr Jones, no such thing can happen.'

‘Don't you go using them big words on me, Boyo! I know what you're up to and it won't work, you're on report and that means you're out of my school!' He paused, and then smacked his palm against his forehead. ‘Christ, of course! It's hypnosis!'

If it hadn't been so serious I would have laughed. ‘Please, Mr Jones, this is ridiculous, first it's hand signals, then brainwashing, mental telepathy and now hypnosis. I admit we've been coaching each other using a game everyone likes to play. But what's wrong with that? If they know the answers they'll pass and you'll get the credit!'

‘But they
won't
fucking pass, in ten years one trainee in every three intakes might get their International. I don't mind telling you I had to sit three times to get it and it took me four frigging years! Now you're telling me nine bluddy Afrikaner gits are going to pass the first time they try?' He leaned back, a sneer on his face. ‘Do me a favour, son!'

‘But if they fail, the following week they can sit for the Local and be confident they'll pass. Honestly, Mr Jones, the guys know their stuff, even de Wet does. It wasn't my idea that they sit for the International, they want to and they know if they don't make it they can have another go at the Local Blasting Licence.'

‘It's brainwashing, you're making them think they can do stuff they can't do.'

I thought of Doctor Van Heerden's advice to me. ‘No, Mr Jones, most of these guys have been constantly told they're
domkops
, it's probably happened from the first day they went to school. You constantly tell us how stupid we are and for them, anyway, it's a reinforcement of what they already believe about themselves. That's a form of brainwashing. They believe you and that's the problem. No-one can make you feel inferior without your own consent. All I've managed to do, by using the rules of a game they all consider they're experts at, well, to use a rugby term, I have helped them sidestep this belief they have of themselves as stupid. You're a Welshman, you know that every Welsh kid, like every South African one, believes he knows the game of rugby inside-out. It's like using baseball as a medium to teach an American kid or to an English one the rules of football. Probably for the first time in their lives they've become interested in learning.' I shrugged. ‘That's all that's happened, Mr Jones. You've seen it for yourself in the past three weeks, very few of your questions go unanswered, the guys are even eager to participate, and the practical mining we do, you have to admit, has greatly improved.'

Jones shook his head, unable to deny that this was true. ‘They won't pass the International, Fitzsaxby, even
you
may fail it. It's not your responsibility to get them through, it's fucking mine! If the whole class fails there's enough people around here and in management who'd just love to put in the boot. Two more years and I can go home a rich man. Nobody, you least of all, is going to fuck that up for me. The mine needs six grizzly men out of your intake and, by Christ, they're going to get them. But listen to me carefully,

Boyo. You won't be one of them!'

‘But even if they fail, they can sit for the Local Blasting Licence a week later!' I persisted.

‘Listen, Boyo, don't think I don't understand you're setting me up. Nobody sits for the International the first time, let alone a whole new intake of mining trainees who combined haven't got the brains of my dog Spot!'

I had to think fast, by making the class believe they could go for the big one, the International, I'd clearly over-reached myself. Gareth Jones knew such an achievement to be impossible. It was a task well beyond his certain knowledge of the ability of his trainees. Underground miners are not generally known for their mental acuity. Only the diamond drillers possessed an International Blasting Licence and most of them, like Jones, had taken years to obtain it. He had become convinced that I'd hatched some diabolical plot to bring him undone. He seemed to truly believe that I could somehow enter the minds of my fellow trainee miners and make them believe they could succeed when they'd fail, vastly over-reaching themselves. He was about to become the laughing stock of his fellow miners and, in his own eyes, lose the respect of the mine management.

While Jones had absolute authority within the school, every trainee was free to choose which blasting licence he undertook. I had foolishly thought that the extra pride my fellow trainees would gain having an international accreditation would be worth it, and I hadn't thought how the idea of ten novice miners getting the big prize first-time round was likely to put every miner's nose out of joint. What's more, such a result didn't help the mine, they only needed young men with quick reactions to qualify for working on a grizzly, an efficient but very dangerous method of getting ore from the stope, outlawed everywhere with the exception of the Copper Belt.