The ‘cage’, as Jambo Mine’s lift is referred to, judders to a halt midway up the mineshaft. Suspended from a single thick cable, it’s surrounded by utter darkness. The floor and the ceiling of the cage are two meters square, made from thick steel panels welded between three steel-latticed walls. The weight of the cage is balanced out by a hinged double door, also latticed, through which miners can watch the granite wall of the mineshaft slide by as they descend or ascend.
This particular cage has serviced several mines over its lifetime, and is currently installed at a small-scale working where men toil underground, following veins of that elusive and valuable mineral, gold. Apart from an emergency exit (a slanting shaft equipped with ladders that reaches half a kilometre underground into the belly of sub-Saharan Africa), the cage is the only way in or out.
During Jambo Mine’s two daily work shifts, a maximum of sixteen overall-clad miners can be crammed into the cage. Tonight, however, there are just two.
“What’s happened topside?” asks Mpofo, an apprentice blaster. “Why’ve we stopped?”
The lamp atop Mpofo’s hardhat lights up the worry-lined face of Ngoche, the chief blaster. He has a hand cupped to his ear and is listening intently. “Can you hear that?” he asks.
Apart from the diminishing twang of the lift cable, and the drip of subterranean water, Mpofo can hear nothing.
“The generator’s stopped, stranding us halfway to the surface,” the older man continues. “The air pumps ventilating the mine have stopped working, too. It’ll get hot and stuffy in here, soon.”
“That’s the least of our worries,” says Mpofo. He imagines the panicked cage operator desperately trying to re-start the generator, to get the wheel at the top of the headgear turning again, to bring them up. But what if the generator’s run out of fuel and there’s no more diesel? he wonders.
“We’ve lit fuses at the rockfaces of two tunnels,” Ngoche mumbles to himself. “That’s eight sticks of dynamite.”
Mpofo recalls a story about a South African mine where the cage got blown clean out of its shaft, like a cork from a bottle. It was found a kilometre away, the mangled remains of the miners still inside. Was the story truth, or urban myth?
“They’ll get the generator re-started,” Ngoche reassures, but his voice is laced with doubt.
“We should’ve climbed out through the emergency exit,” says Mpofo, “like we’re supposed to. I have a wife and a small child.”
Ngoche remains silent. Over the years he’s become lazy, careless, complacent. Now his apprentice is about to pay the price for that complacency. “They’ll get the generator re-started,” he repeats, his lamp illuminating Mpofo’s perspiring face.
The younger man checks his watch. “Three minutes to detonation.”
High above them, the thump of the generator starts up again, followed by the thrum of air pumps. The cage judders and moves upwards, toward the surface.
Both men are silent, wondering if three minutes is sufficient.
Paul A. Freeman writes in Mauritania.
Thank you for your Patreon support; it means a lot to us.
