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Twenty-eight Men

Written by Mark H. Huston

January, 1635

The cold wind cut through to the very core of the men as they walked to the entrance of the mine. It was dark, well before dawn, in the dead time of the night. The cold was complete, a January cold, dry, harsh and sharp. Soon they would be down in the dark and warmth of the mine. Deitrich, the shift foreman, still smiled at the incongruity of the whole thing. They were going into a mine that had been started over three hundred years in the future, and abandoned because it wasn't profitable enough. Abandoned with a large amount of the equipment in place. The power, phones, ventilation equipment, even some of the low electric carts were still there. It was almost if they were placed there for the men to pick up and start the operation again. Of course, many things were missing, or so the up-timers said. But there was much that they could use. So they did.

The mine was a dangerous place, but Deitrich always felt safe there. Even after the up-timer training about the dangers, it seemed a much safer place than the front of a tercio. There he could take a musket ball or a pike at almost any time, and it was far beyond his control. "No," he often said, "the mine is a much safer place." There he had some control over what happened. There were procedures for safety and rescue techniques, and equipment that was designed to provide them with the ability to survive in the worst of conditions. He spent ten days in a special mine safety school before he was even allowed to be on the job site. Deitrich often said that his job under the ground was a warm and safe place to be. It was secure. Snug somehow. That confidence, many said, had made him a natural foreman in the mine. Some said that he was too confident.

Twenty-eight men went down in the mine that late January night.

As part of their training, the new miners had visited a local park and the "Memorial." The memorial was an imposing black granite pillar, twenty feet high, and was inscribed with the names of seventy-eight men who had died in the "Consolidated Coal Number Nine Mine Disaster." The incident had happened back up-time. The trainees were brought to the natural glen that nestled in a small valley, a short distance out of town. There were many carefully planted trees in a small meadow that was now groomed by a flock of sheep. The monument itself was imposing, almost frightening from some angles. From others, it was gentle, stepping back in two places as it reached for the sky. It was most gentle at the top, where there was a cross carved into the face, in a style that looked strange to most down-timer eyes. The clean outlines and the perfectly formed hole in the center of the cross drew their eyes skyward to the top of the monument, away from the seventy-eight names carved into the face. The hole represented loss, a black hole, aching to be filled by those no longer there. Along with the names carved into the front face, there were words calling the ground beneath their feet a cemetery. It was considered hallowed ground.

The miner who trained them spoke of unity and brotherhood. He sounded like a priest as far as Deitrich was concerned. They were told that many famous up-time leaders had been to this place to pay homage, and that it was still used even today as a memorial by families who had lost a father or a grandfather in the explosion. The down-timers brought there became hushed, picking up on the somber mood of their usually jovial up-time partners. This was a holy place for the up-timers, and the rare display of public and universal piety surprised many of the old-hand down-timers. It had struck Deitrich as an unusual mood for the up-timers, especially in public.

It was shift change at the mine, and Deitrich met briefly with his counterpart, the afternoon shift foreman, Johan Gruber. The previous shift had noticed slightly elevated levels of methane near the working face. It was well below the danger level but Johann had duly noted it on his safety report. This wasn't unusual. The Ring of Fire had lifted a three-mile sphere of twentieth-century West Virginia back in time, and its active geology of coal and gas along with it. Methane is common, and there were clear procedures for dealing with it. As well, on a night when the weather was cold and the atmospheric pressure was low, methane tended to outgas at a higher rate.

"Not something to worry about," thought Deitrich. "We have training to deal with an increase in elevated methane. Simply clear the area and wait for the ventilation system to do its job."

The ventilation system was a giant fan. Deitrich had seen it as part of his training. An up-timer and several down-timers were assigned to keep it running day and night. Without the fan operating, the methane would seep out of the surrounding coal and rock and could build up to dangerous levels and cause an explosion. The fan drew fresh air into the mine through the same shaft where the lift moved men and equipment in and out. It was expelled at another shaft, where the coal was hoisted out. The fan was driven by an electric motor that was five hundred horsepower. Deitrich had seen five hundred live horses at once before. When the fan was turned on, he believed that every one of them had been somehow harnessed in the large metal housing. That fan pulled air through the mine with a tremendous amount of volume and pressure, turning the passageways into large pathways for the air. Concrete block barriers were installed through the mine to guide the air to the areas where men were working and along escape routes. Behind the barriers didn't matter, since nobody was working there. As long as those barriers were in good condition and the fan kept running, the methane wasn't something to seriously worry about.

This mine had started as a "room and pillar" mine, Deitrich recalled. That style of mining was practiced back up-time, with up-time technology. Over the past two years the up-time equipment had begun to fail, and old techniques had to be rediscovered. Instead of a conveyer belt, they now used mining carts pulled by mules. Instead of the roof bolts that had supported the up-time mine roof, they now used timber for support, and carpenters and timber men to put in the supports. It was a hybrid operation, but always it was tested so that it would be safe, always safe.

As Deitrich was turning away, Johann called to him. "One more thing, Deitrich. Do you know where your crew is working tonight?"

Deitrich looked at Johann and shrugged. "Of course I do. I inspected it yesterday."

Johann smiled. "You are near the old mine, the one with the monument we visited. Some of the bodies of the men are still in it. Also, it's near the Ring of Fire border. This will be the last shift working in that section. We don't want to get too close to either of those things. The seams and roof are unstable, the engineer tells us, and the old mine may be flooded."

Deitrich shrugged again. "How close are we supposed to be to the other mine? Wasn't that mine massive and went on for miles?"

Johann counted off the hazards on his fingers. "Yeah. Watch out for methane, unstable ribs and roof, and be on the lookout for ghosts under the ground. There were bodies left in that mine up-time, don't forget. They just sealed it up." He was holding up three fingers.

Deitrich also held up three fingers. "I always watch the roof and the ribs—" He dropped one finger, leaving two. "I always watch for methane—" He dropped the second finger, leaving the middle one extended to Johann. "And that's what I think of your ghosts!" Both men grinned, and moved away with a wave, one going home, and the other to work underground.

***

Their up-time hard hats were now fitted with the old-time carbide acetylene flame lamps. The warm light shone off of the black walls. They were in the Pittsburgh seam, a ten-foot thick layer of coal. That seam had been mined back up-time for a hundred years, and the up-timers had developed amazing ways of bringing it out of the ground, in quantities that were astounding to Deitrich. With the mining machines, conveyors, and the automated processes, the up-time miners could move more coal in a day than Deitrich and his crews could move in a week.

As he walked, Deitrich kept scanning the ceiling, what the miners called the "roof," and the walls, which they called the "ribs." In the older, up-time part of the mine, he didn't worry about the ceiling coming down. They used technology to drive long bolts into the rock to hold it together above their heads. The bolts worked well. When he got to the part of the mine that had been worked since 1631, he always paid more attention. There the roof and, occasionally, the ribs were supported by wood beams and planks, the same way a down-time mine would be, with wooden beams and supports overhead. It had worked for them well in the last couple of years, and they had only lost three men to falls of the roof.

He was always listening to the mine. Deitrich joked that he could almost hear her talking to him. As their mining activity expanded, they eventually reached the edge of the Ring of Fire. The closer to the edge of the ring, the more unstable the rock became. They could hear the rock above them "working" more and more the closer to the border they mined.

The men soon reached the point where they were to part for their different tasks.

"Ernst. Take your crew to the end wall at the far east end. Pay attention to your methane monitor. Get the machinery up and running. I'll be back to check on you when I'm done with these guys. You know where you are going?"

"Ya. West face, cuts twenty-two and twenty-three. Build stopping, remove tracks, secure equipment, get ready to stop operations. Close to Ring Wall. Test for the methane and make sure the ventilation is good. Okay." Ernst nodded and smiled. He was nearly fifty, one of the oldest men on the crew, but strong and steady. He had been one of Deitrich's men when they were with Wallenstein back in '31. He knew Ernst, and knew that he understood.

"The rest of you guys are with me. Ernst, give me your carpenters, you won't need 'em for a while."

"Okay, Deitrich. See you later."

The men began to move to their assigned areas. By the time they started to work, they would be more than a mile apart. Deitrich's crew was mostly apprentices. Young electricians, carpenters, general maintenance men ,and miners who still wore the red hard hat that signified that they had been in the mine for less than six months. They began their short hike to the east side of the mine. The west side of the mine, where Ernst and his crew would be working, had initially been mined before it was abandoned back up-time. The east side had not been developed as much. As mining activity ended at the edge of the Ring of Fire, they were stopping mining in that direction, and turning the mine around to the east. Deitrich and his crew were going to begin preliminary work to prepare the area: pull power lines, prepare the floors to accept the relocated rail lines, and general preparation and safety inspections. Good work for the apprentices to learn, and he could check nearly everything they did before it would be put into critical service. Ernst and his crew were shutting own the mining operation at the west end, and preparing to relocate the operations to the east side. There would be no actual mining this shift, only maintenance and prepratory work.

As Dietrich and his crew headed to the east side of the mine, they passed a large device with cables coming in and out of it in the mine passage.

"Hey, Zing!" One of the red hats with the carbide lamp turned to him. Zing was a little guy, only on his second trip out of the classroom and into the mine. His real name was Zingerle, but the up-time instructor had called him Zing. His nickname also reflected his attitude, as he occasionally overcompensated for his small height with excess bravado. Deitrich knew this. Knew that it could be good to be brave, but bad to be foolhardy. "What is in that big box with the wires? You electricians keep quiet; he should know the answer."

Zing nodded. "That's easy. It's a suction breaker." Several men laughed, most of them electricians. "What? That's what it is," he said defiantly, turning to his fellow classmates. "It's a switch for the high voltage electricity that's used on the machines and battery chargers. It's called a suction breaker. It needs that because of the high voltage can jump, so it uses suction to open and close."

The group laughed, but abruptly stopped when Deitrich asked the next question. Deitrich's tone wasn't conducive to humor.

"Metzinger. What is that thing? Zing is close, but not right"

The apprentice electrician smiled. "It's a vacuum breaker. Almost everything he said is sort of right. Sort of. But it does disconnect power inby from here. Normally in an up-time mine there are more of them, but we have what we have."

Deitrich aimed the light from his carbide cap light on to Metzinger's lean face. "Good. But you're an electrician, you should know." He raised his voice to make his point. "What Metzinger does with that box is life or death for our little Zing." He shone his light on Zing. "Isn't that right, Zing?" Deitrich asked the question in the voice that he had used as a soldier. It was a voice than held men in place in the face of a musket volley or a pike charge. Unlike most, Zing straightened instead of cowered and answered in a brave, if somewhat tense, voice.

"Yes, sir."

Deitrich glowered. "What is inby?" Several cap lights now illuminated Zing's face, as more heads turned to watch the exchange. There were a few suppressed snickers. Deitrich's eyes hardened.

"We learned that our first day . . . ummm . . . inby is toward the working face—where the actual mining is done."

"And outby?"

"Just the opposite."

"So if we're walking toward our new work area, are we inby or outby?"

Zing took a deep breath. More cap lights turned his way. "We're outby." The answer didn't come with a high degree of certainly. He then brightened. "But we're walking inby, toward the east work face."

The cap lights went to Deitrich. He smiled. "Good answer, Zing. Now what is that thing?" He pointed down a passageway that intersected their path at a right angle. Cap lights illuminated it as the passing group glanced down the intersecting passageway. They saw what looked like a concrete block wall.

Zing looked at him in shock.

Deitrich growled. "This keeps you alive too. You should know what it is. Everyone halt!" The knot of men stopped cold with the command. Deitrich walked down the short passageway. "This passage is called a . . ." he looked to Zing to finish the statement.

"Umm. It's a concrete block wall that seals off the passageway?"

"No and no! I asked you what the passageway is called."

"Uhhh. I think it's a crosscut. Sir." The sir was added after the fact, with a measurable degree of hope.

"You think?" Deitrich's voice boomed and echoed off into the darkness. "You can't 'think' down here. You've got to know, Zing. Know! Our lives—my life—yours, all of us—depend on one another down here. We cannot have you taking the time to think. Do you know what you are, Zing? You are an unconscious incompetent!" His booming voice went off into the darkness, as confusion over the up-timer phrase bubbled through the little group.

The bellowing continued after a brief pause. "First word. Unconscious. Asleep, unknowing, unaware. Next word. Incompetent. Don't know what you're doing, not adept, inexperienced. In other words, gentlemen, you are all so wet behind the ears that you don't even know enough to ask the right questions to keep from getting killed. What is that wall called, Zing?"

Deitrich watched as Zing clenched his jaw, straightened to his full diminutive height, and looked him in the eye. "That's a seal, sometimes called a 'stopping,' sir. It secures the area against flowing or escaping gas. It's there as a barrier to isolate working parts of the mine from non-working parts of the mine. It also guides the ventilation."

Deitrich suppressed a smile. Zing was doing well. "And if it's made of wood and cloth, and it's temporary, what is it called?"

Zing stood up a little straighter, if that were possible. "A brattice, sir!"

Deitrich looked up at the group, satisfied. He felt a little bit bad about picking on Zing. Zing always reminded him of a terrier with his quick movements, and the way he was small and seemingly fearless. Deitrich had never liked terriers. "By the end of this month, I want to elevate all of you conscious incompetents. I want you all to wake up and know you don't know anything, and that almost anything down here could kill you. I want you all to know when you are being safe and to recognize when you are not, before it kills you. Or me, God forbid. If you kill me, I'll come back to haunt you for the rest of your life, so be extra careful. Learn your procedures, learn your safety gear, and take care of your fellow miners. Take care of this mine, and she will take care of you." As he finished, his voice once again echoed off into the surrounding darkness.

"Let's go to work." Deitrich began walking, and the rest followed him, subdued.

***

Peter was very tired. He was driving one of the old Grantville public works dump trucks, full of sand that had been hand-shoveled out of a dried up bend of the river. It had been two days of backbreaking, cold, hard labor. Much of the sand in the old riverbed was frozen, and breaking it loose with shovels and picks was difficult. He would arrive at the Grantville public works department soon, park the truck, and head home to bed. The sand would be used on the steep roads around Grantville to maintain traction. He was going to make sure next year that they had enough sand so they wouldn't have to dig it in the winter. It was much easier to remove from the riverbank when it wasn't frozen.

Stuffed into the cab with him were the three men who had helped him with the task. They were asleep, but crammed into the cab of the truck this way, they were at least warm. He looked at the dark road ahead of him through the dusty headlights. He knew that the road conditions could change fast, so he tried to drive no faster than his headlights could see ahead. The frozen dirt roads had been easy and not slippery, but the blacktop roads could be treacherous in icy conditions.

Peter had struggled to stay awake most of the way back to town, but now, near the turnoff for the mine, he began to relax. He shifted in his seat, and stretched to relieve the cramps in his back and shoulder. The downhill road was in good shape, with only spots of snow and ice left in the shaded areas where the afternoon sun didn't reach.

As he was stretching, the truck hit a small patch of ice. It caught him unaware, and because he was tired, cramped, and half asleep, he overcompensated when the truck started sliding. The result was that the back end of the truck caught the ice and then lurched toward the shoulder. The whole thing happened in slow motion.

As he violently jerked the wheel back to counter the developing skid, a joint in the steering assembly broke, causing the left side wheel to part from the steering gear. The massive wheel now moved in whatever direction it wanted, and it was generally not in the direction that Peter wanted it to go.

He saw a slope off to the side of the road that led to the river below. All he could see with the headlights was the blackness of the drop-off. He jammed on the brakes and the truck lurched off the side of the road, halted for a brief moment, its nose down the slope and the back wheels still on the shoulder. It then began to slide down the icy slope.

He kept trying to make it go nose first, but there was no real control. He realized he was now only a passenger, with nothing to do but wait until it was over. He yelled at his co-workers to hang on. He was afraid that the truck might roll over, but it stayed upright, going straight down the embankment. The slope wasn't steep and the transition to the frozen creek wasn't as severe as it could have been.

The truck gained speed and hit the bottom of the ditch nose first. The front bounced up, and then slammed down and through the ice in the shallow creek bottom. There was enough momentum still left to carry the truck out the far side of the creek bed and bounce up the other side. The truck began to slow in what appeared to be someone's side yard. Peter had a brief thought that they were going to make it without any major damage when he spotted the power pole dead ahead.

***

Ernst wasn't happy. "Willie. Get your head out of your ass." He liked many of the up-timer sayings, and that one was his favorite. It wasn't quite as crisp in German as it was in English, but Willie got the idea. Willie was twenty, and the newest member of the crew, having only just recently finished his safety training. He, too, was wearing the red hat of a new miner. He was daydreaming, gazing into the darkness. His coworkers smiled. Willie was newly married, and his wife kept him up very late. It was unusual for down-timers to get married so young, and Ernst didn't approve of this break with custom. He blamed it on the bad influence of the up-timers.

"Willie. Do you hear me?" Remove your head from your ass. Pay attention."

Finally Willie looked at Ernst and blinked. Ernst was standing on top of one of the battery-powered carts, which had a coal scoop on the front. When the coal was blasted away from the mine face, the cart acted as a small bulldozer, quickly scooping the coal into the waiting cars, which would be pulled to the exit by mules. It was the typical incongruity of the new and the old, the familiar and the unfamiliar, that his men had become accustomed to.

Ernst was finishing his start-of-shift methane reading. It was less than one half of one percent, well within safety limits. He eased himself off of the heavy battery compartment to the ground. Since methane was lighter than air, he tested it at the roof of the tunnel, where he could smell the fresh cut pine boards that formed parts of the roof of the mine.

"Time to get to work, gentlemen. Let's go. Willie, get the pneumatic hammer drills and the twenty-foot bits, and start to load everything into the coal cars. Next shift will haul it out.

"Schmidt and Fredric, pick up the undercutting equipment on the other face." Those two men grabbed the heavy pneumatic jackhammer that was mounted on a cart horizontally, right at the floor. Normally, they would cut along the floor into the face as far as the highly-modified tool would reach. When they blasted the coal out of the face, the undercut would make it easier to control the blast and to recover the broken coal. But tonight they were disassembling it and all of the support equipment that went with the tool, such as the pneumatic lines, braces, and wedges.

"Hans. You are the loader driver tonight; you passed your certification. Back it outby and put it in the next crosscut. I want it out of the way." He turned to the rest of the men. "When that machine finally breaks down, we go back to shoveling coal into the carts by hand, so we're all very careful of it, aren't we, gentlemen?" He smiled, and the rest of the crew responded with a friendly and half-satirical, "Yes, Herr Ernst."

"Very good. Now get to work" The work area erupted with activity. Hans backed the noisy battery-powered hydraulic loader away from the coal face. The noise of the loader could be deafening and only hand motions and signals with their headlamps could be used. They could communicate basic signals by facing their partner and nodding their head in such a way that the light formed a pattern. Ernst found himself once answering a man in the Gardens by using these headlamp signals. It was so natural that the other man immediately understood.

Ernst watched Hans closely and walked with him as he backed the loader down the tunnel. At the crosscut, Hans backed the loader around the corner. He did it rather fast, and looked to be accelerating instead of slowing down.. There was silence for a moment as the loader was put into an emergency shut down, but not soon enough. Ernst could hear the heavy impact of splintering wood as the loader began hitting something.

"Scheiss," is what Ernst heard from Hans.

***

Peter's truck hit the wooden power transmission pole squarely in the center of the hulking front bumper. The truck pushed the pole to the ground as if it were a sapling, and drove the top of it into the ground with a hammer blow. Darkness turned abruptly and prematurely to day as the wires hit the ground and the transformer mounted on the pole exploded. The truck continued to slide toward the transformer and its associated fireworks until it finally eased to a halt. It stopped just inches from the transformer. Peter re-fired the truck engine and put it into reverse to back away from the transformer fire. He stopped when there was no more traction; the back wheels now deep in the frozen creek bed.

Peter's three passengers were awake now. Wide-awake. They shielded their eyes from the bright blue light of the burning transformer and saw the sparks from the downed power lines. They all sat transfixed by the display. Peter saw that the transformer and the top of the pole had landed on a piping assembly that he knew to be a natural gas wellhead. This one appeared to have been abandoned, as there wasn't anything connected to it on the surface. Once they began to understand they were uninjured, they began to smile at each other, and then laugh the giddy laugh of surviving a close call.

One of the men opened the passenger door and started to step out. Peter shouted to stay in the truck, but it was too late, and the down-time laborer jumped out and onto the ground. Peter thought for sure the man would be killed with that much voltage flowing around them in the snow and ice. But he soon realized that the wellhead was acting as a grounding rod, pulling all of the high voltage current away from them. They were safe.

***

Ernst frowned. The small amount of electric lighting they had in the work area had gone out. "Double Scheiss," he thought. At least the air compressor, service power, and the large fan ran off of the emergency generator, so they could continue working for a couple of hours when the generator came on.

It grew very quiet.

Ernst wasn't pleased. it was a matter of honor that Ernst's shift was the most productive, and this wasn't shaping up to be a very productive day. He adjusted his carbide light up higher, and strode toward the crosscut where the loader had disappeared.

***

Stacks Shackelton had bad knees, the kind that hurt just because the weather changed. The kind of knees that had more than one large scar from surgery, and he was always pulling up his pant leg to show them off. Those knees were really hurting tonight. He sat in the control room topside, monitoring the large fan that supplied fresh air to the mine, watching the lift, and manning the emergency phone. His feet were up on the desk, and he was beginning to get comfortable, when the lights went out.

"Awwwww, crap." He grabbed his radio and stood up, then winced as his knees straightened out. Dawn was beginning to break over the hills. "Hey, Fred and Fred. You copy?"

The radio popped and crackled in his hand for a moment, and he listened to the unusual quiet around him. Without the noise of machinery and the hum of the transformers it was eerily quiet. He chewed on his lip as he waited for the response. Fred and Fred—or, more properly, Fredric and Fredric—were the day shift maintenance electricians. Their job was to pull the manual switches that allowed them to start the massive backup generator and feed power to critical systems. It was something that would happen automatically back up-time, with lots of complex equipment kicking in during a power failure. But they didn't have the complex equipment. They had Fred and Fred.

The radio came alive. "We're on it, Stacks. Gen should start in a minute. Are you ready to accept load?"

While Fred—or was it Fred?—was talking, Stacks began throwing switches in the control room to shut down non-critical equipment and lessen the load on the generator. They were not totally comfortable with the mine operating this way, so the procedure was usually to contact the power plant and see how long they thought they might be down. Usually he got a call if there was a trip at the main plant, so Stacks figured that it might be a downed line. He would call when the generator started, and then call for more maintenance help to start the mine back up when the power came back on.

Stacks smiled. "All set there, Freddy, my boy. You can hit the go button whenever you want to, over"

"We're starting the generator now, hope it starts in this cold. Damn, it's cold out here. Are you warm in your chair, Stacks, you lazy up-timer?"

"Don't you two boys worry 'bout me none. I'm nice and warm in here. You get the generator goin' and you can cuddle up to the big ol' exhaust and warm up just fine." Stacks looked over at the Franklin stove that kept him relatively comfortable and rubbed his left knee. It was really acting up today.

***

Ernst surveyed the damage. The loader was still in good shape, but the mine rib and support beams for the roof were knocked askew. Hans was apologizing profusely and was nervous as hell. It seemed he got the brake and the accelerator confused; the other unit he had trained on was slightly different. Ernst took advantage of the nervousness and proceeded to ream Hans up one side and down the other for his carelessness, all the while surveying the damage to the mine ribs and roof support structure. Dammit, Ernst thought, Deitrich grabbed my carpenters. We'll have to fix this next shift.

The small scooploader weighed close to seven tons, and was driven from a low seat near the middle. It was a low, solid steel, box-shaped piece of machinery with a scoop on the front. Huge batteries powered it and it could load coal at a tremendous rate when handled by an experienced operator. Ernst knew that Hans had just passed his operator test the day before. As the consequences of his rookie error, he would go back to shoveling coal by hand or get to wield one of the vacuum cleaners that sucked up the coal dust. It was a toss up which was the worse job. Ernst finished his colorful lecture, then began looking at the damage. The loader had snapped a brace that held up the roof and torn boards off the ribs of the mine.

The crosscut showed evidence of the rock "working," or moving around and possibly coming loose, so the carpenters had placed planks on the ribs and the roof for safety. Behind them, the concrete block "stopping" wall that separated the non-working—and possibly methane-filled—side of the mine from the ventilated and working side of the mine looked relatively intact. He looked the damage over and decided that it would be good enough for now.

Four or five miners came around the corner of the crosscut to see what was going on and began to walk toward the loader. Ernst heard the noises from the roof first and his heart jumped into his throat. The rock was "working" above them. His hand went up to try to stop the miners coming down the crosscut. Before he could shout a warning, it was too late. The support gave way, and a twenty-foot long single piece of rock fell out of the roof. The shifting pressures caused the damaged rib to burst, and it added its own two tons of rock, crushing and trapping the men from above and the side. There were no screams when the rock stopped falling. It was silent, and black with dust.

Ernst and Hans had been beyond the fall, past the rib failure, and were helpless to do anything except dive to the floor next to the loader for protection. They helped each other to their feet. The black dust was so thick they couldn't see more than a couple of feet in front of them. Behind them was the block wall; in front of them was the half-filled passageway with their fellow miners buried beneath the heavy rocks. They could hear the shouts of the other miners who had stayed on station.

Ernst answered them. "How many are under there? Who is trapped?" He began a fit of coughing and stopped shouting. He saw some faint light, probably reflections from the other miner's helmets, above the pile of rubble. At least he and Hans were not trapped.

Willy, the youngest miner, answered, "We think there are four or five under there. We're starting to dig."

Ernst stopped coughing and caught his breath. The dust was beginning to settle. He noticed the there was some movement of air and assumed that the ventilation system had finally come back on. That was good. "Get to a phone. Tell them topside we got a fall and we have men trapped under the fall. Run to a phone. Now! The rest of you start digging." He began coughing again. Hans thumped him on the back until he finally stopped.

"Look." Hans pointed. "I think we can crawl over the top. There's room there; we can get over it. Before there's another fall." Ernst nodded and pushed Hans ahead of him. The younger man scrambled over the top of the pile, paused to listen to the rock, and quickly squeezed through the opening above. Ernst could see the hands of his co-workers helping him from the other side.

Ernst started up the pile. The breeze was blowing stronger as he neared the top. His dusty eyes narrowed. Something isn't right, he thought. This isn't blowing in the right direction. It should be blowing in my face, not from behind me. If there's airflow, then the wall must be . . . Once he was near the top of the pile, he turned to look. The concrete block wall that separated the abandoned and methane-rich part of the mine was damaged in the fall. It was nearly gone; only the two bottom rows of blocks were left. The breeze he felt was pressure from the abandoned side of the mine rushing into the occupied side of the mine, where his fellow miners now stood. Scheiss. The ventilation system is still down! He pulled his methane meter out of his pocket and turned it on.

***

"Hey, Fred and Fred. Come in, Fred and Fred. C'mon you two sparkies, answer me. Is your radio working or did you two freeze your asses off out there? Where'n hell's my generator?" Shackelton stared at the radio for a moment. "C'mon, you guys. I need that generator soon," he mumbled. He absentmindedly rubbed his knee again, and began to pace slowly. Finally, the radio crackled to life.

"Stacks, we got a problem. This generator lost the heater, and the thing won't start."

"What do you mean, it lost a heater? The thing is a diesel engine, what does it need a heater for?" Stacks looked at his radio again, and held it up to eye level. "Just get that thing running or we'll lose the whole shift and it will take us another shift to re-ventilate the mine once we get it running. C'mon, guys. We're depending on you."

"A fuse blew for the heaters for the fuel and the oil. The whole thing is as cold as ice. Don't you know anything about a diesel? These don't like to start when the fuel turns to jelly. It don't flow too well. We got the circuit back up, but it's going to take a while to heat up. Why don't you send a couple maintenance guys over with a torch set? We can at least warm up the crankcase faster that way."

Stacks smiled and pushed the transmit button. "Okay. That's one I owe you. Hey, maintenance. Did you copy the request from the sparkies?"

"Ahyep," came the reply. "We was already goin' when we heard there was no power, Boss. You think we're a buncha dummies over here?"

Shackelton made a face at the radio. "Ten-Four" didn't seem like the right thing to say.

***

Ernst looked at the meter and his heart raced. The meter read five percent. He reached up and snuffed his cap light, plunging the area into darkness. Then he began to scramble over the top of the rock fall, shouting to the men on the other side. "Scheiss. Men. Run. Run as fast as you can. Out of the mine. Run!"

"What did you say?"

"What is it, Ernst? We'll come for you. Are you hurt?"

Ernst tried to answer them but the dust choked him. He began coughing, the dust in his lungs burning and making his eyes water, but still he kept scrambling to the other side, hacking out the cry to run away, leave me, run. He was thinking it as loud as he could, trying to make his voice answer to his command, all the while battering, bruising and cutting himself as he scrambled up to the remaining few feet of the opening. Just a couple more feet.

He could see the reflections of the flames from the carbide lights through the opening and realized that those lamps might ignite the methane and air mixture that was flowing into the work area. The readings on the meter indicated the percentages were correct. Now four men with flames burning in their cap lights were scrambling up the other side of the pile of rubble, trying to save him. He had no voice to tell them to go back, to snuff the flames of their lamps, or even to pray.

The last face he saw was that of Marcus Schoenfeld. The light from Marcus's carbide lamp reflected off Ernst's own face, softly illuminating Marcus. Ernst remembered how he had helped Marcus at a meaningless skirmish when they were with Wallenstein; he had a scar across his forehead, another on his cheek, and no teeth. Even without teeth, Ernst could tell that Marcus was smiling at him, encouraging him to crawl forward. In his mind, he saw the day of their last battle together; it seemed like only yesterday.

The last thing either of them saw was Ernst reaching for Marcus's cap light, trying to extinguish it to prevent the explosion.

***

Willy ran toward the phone. It was over three hundred meters away, in a crosscut. He knew the procedures: tell the command shack who you were, where you were and what happened. Don't tell them what was needed; they would decide that. Topside would decide what was needed.

He was running that mantra through his head when he was hit from behind by a full-body blow, with an additional three or four sharp impacts in his back and legs. He was tossed forward violently, like a rag doll. He hit the floor hard and got caught in the tracks that the mules used to pull the coal cars. His shoulder and ribcage were burning with pain and he could smell horseshit. His hardhat was knocked off and the carbide extinguished. He was dazed, momentarily trying to figure out if he had tripped or been pushed. There was no light. Whatever happened, he had to get to the phone system and tell them topside. When he tried to stand, his ribs moved in ways that they were not supposed to and he fell to his knees. There was something wrong with his fingers.

Willy tried to walk, and then to trot. He fell again, this time smacking his face against the ribs of the mine. The air tasted like dusty coal mixed with his blood. He gathered himself up and tried again, going slowly, feeling his way ahead. He touched something hanging from the wall. A cable for electric power had been strung along the wall. He followed that, using it as a guide, crying from the pain in his shoulder, ribs and face. He realized that he couldn't hear, and could only perceive a loud ringing sound in his ears. He needed to get to a phone. Who, where, and what . . .

***

Deitrich had his men spread out doing several different tasks. Some were preparing temporary electric power, some were moving supplies into position, and others were readying the temporary barriers that would divert important airflows from the main passages to the work areas.

He noticed that the power had gone out but wasn't overly worried. The area they were in had no permanent power anyway, and they had prepared to work with only cap and hand lights. Later, as the cleanup on the other end was finished, they would begin to move all of the tracks, equipment, and materials to this end and resume mining as before. But he checked his methane meter every couple of minutes. This end of the mine wasn't as active as the other end and he wasn't worried about airflow. The plan said that it was up to him to pull his men out if he thought it was necessary.

Most of the time the power would come back on in a few minutes. This time it had been at least a half hour, and there was still no power. Surely the generator must be started by now. He stared back at the main passageway, looking outby toward the center of the mine and the lift stations, when he felt the air move around him. The movement was odd, not like the fans had restarted, but as if all of the air in the mine had moved at the same time. The air moved forward, and then back. It was unusual.

He felt his ears pop and shook his head. He looked around at the other men. Guys were shaking their heads and blowing their noses, trying to equalize the pressures in their sinuses and looking confused. Deitrich was confused, too.

"What the hell was that, boss?"

"I got no idea, Metzinger. I never felt that before."

Metzinger made a face. "Wonderful. If you never felt it before, what are we supposed to—"

It was then they felt the bump pulsing through the earth, and it raised some dust from the floor of the mine. The dust stayed in suspension as there was no airflow to sweep it away, and it hung in the air, lowering their visibility. All of the men stopped working and looked at Deitrich. He stared down the passageway and tossed the problem back in forth in his mind. There was a lot of work to do; maybe the bump had something to do with the power outage.

He turned to his men. "Keep working, you guys. I'll tell you when to stop." He paused, turned to Metzinger, and spoke quietly. "The phones have not been strung all the way down here yet. You know where the nearest one is, don't you?"

Metzinger nodded. "Almost all the way back to the lift. It will take me a few minutes. You want me to see if they know anything in the command shack?"

Deitrich nodded back. "I want you back here quick. This better not be a leisurely stroll to the phone. Walk from here slow. I don't want to panic any of the new guys. Go."

Metzinger strolled toward the telephone, but when he rounded the corner, Deitrich heard his footfalls increase their pace. He looked at his pocket watch. Should know something in fifteen or twenty minutes.

***

"Hey, Fred and Fred, come back on the radio. Did you guys hear that bump?"

"Negative, Stacks. Didn't hear anything except this generator trying to start. What did you hear?"

"I heard a . . . felt a . . . like a bump. Like someone dropped somethin' heavy, y'all know what I mean?"

"Control, this is April on the phone shed. You copy?"

"Sure do, sweetheart. C'mon back to me."

"I felt it over here in the phone shed. And stop calling me sweetheart or I'm gonna tell your wife, and what she'll do to you is far worse than anything I could do." There was a pause. "Sweetie."

Stacks looked at his radio and scowled. This wasn't shaping up to be a good day. "Thanks, April. Anyone else? How bout the lift? CC, you copy there, buddy?"

"Yup, I heard it too, barely. Like a truck driving by. Hey, Stacks, you heard anything from the power plant about when we're gonna get some juice?"

"They don't know. Said they think a line is down and they're checking it. If we don't get this generator working within the next half hour, we're gonna have to pull those guys out of there. A half hour is all I got left for time in the safety plan. Can't go beyond the time, no matter what. So how are you doin', Fred and Fred? Are you boys getting close? I reeely needs to know soon. Else there are gonna be a lot of pissed off miners having to climb all the way up and out of the mine."

"Sorry, Stacks. It's gonna be another half hour before we can even try it. I got about eight tons of engine block to heat up, or we're gonna destroy the starter motor. Can we get another torch?"

"You bet. Whatever you need. Maintenance, get over there with another torch, anything you got to help. My phone is starting to ring off of the hook. We must not have been the only ones who heard that bump. Just don't blow yourselves up over there."

Stacks swiveled his chair around and picked up the first line that was ringing. "Control Shack, Stacks. . . . No, we don't know what it was either. . . . I have no idea. . . . Yes, calling the police might be a good idea. . . . Ma'am, I need to keep this line clear for emergencies. No, no. There's no emergency here. I need to keep this line clear. Ma'am, yes ma'am. No, ma'am. Please, I need to go. Goodbye!" He banged the phone down, and it rang immediately. All three lines were lit.

"Shit, this isn't going to be a good day at all. Control shack . . ."

***

Willy stumbled in pain and darkness, blinking his eyes and trying to see. He knew that a working phone had a green indicator light on the base of the box. He kept looking for the green light, concentrating, wiping the sweat from his eyes, and focusing on taking another step.

He tried to ignore his growing pain, push it to the back of his mind, but his eyes had nothing to focus on, so his mind went to his injuries and the pain increased. He tried to maintain focus, and gulped some of the dense air around him. He coughed, and his broken ribs tortured him. He fell to his knees, and then struggled to get up.

He pushed off of the rib of the mine, clawing up the side with his good left hand. As he rose, he hit his head on something hard and metallic and he bit his tongue. More blood. He felt the object with his hand and found a telephone box. There was no green light. No light at all. The phone was dead, damaged by the blast.

He found the cable that served the phone and began to follow it. One foot in front of the other, keeping the cable in his hand. It helped to hold the phone cable, as it became his eyes and gave him more to focus on than the pain.

***

When Metzinger reached the phone, he was walking at a brisk pace and noticed nothing unusual. His crew was less than a quarter-mile behind him and the other work crew more than a mile away, through a labyrinth of tunnels. There were no signs of anything unusual. He picked up the phone and waited for April to answer. He liked talking to April when he had the chance, but it was unusual to do it over the phone.

"Phone shack. Who's this?"

"Hi, April. Wilhelm here. You know Wilhelm Metzinger. Second-year electrician apprentice? I'm at east section one at crosscut six."

"Hello there, Wilhelm. Is Deitrich with you?"

Metzinger frowned. Always Deitrich. The girls just seemed to like him more. He sighed. "Nein, he stayed with the others. He sent me to see what was going on. We heard and felt something, and our ears popped. He thought I could handle it on my own."

"That's nice, Wilhelm. I just talked to Stacks and he doesn't know anything either. But he did say that you guys were goin' to have to come out soon 'cause we don't have power. You probably didn't even notice it down there, but the phones have a battery backup so we can still stay in production. They're trying to get the generator working. Apparently it's too cold or something."

"Should we keep working, or should we come out?"

"Give me a minute, Wilhelm. I want to talk to Stacks. He's not answering his phone, so I need to go see him. Just hold on; I'll be back in two shakes."

Wilhelm looked at the phone. How long was two shakes, he wondered. He passed the time looking around in the darkness, adjusting his cap lantern, and finally scraping patterns in the dusty floor, when he heard an unusual noise over the phone line. There was scratching and line static, and then it sounded like labored breathing. Metzinger listened intently. He finally heard a scratchy voice.

"Help . . . this is Willy. Men trapped, west cuts twenty-two, crosscut, roof fall, trapped . . . this is Willy, men trapped, west cuts twenty-two, crosscut, roof fall, trapped.

Metzinger was stunned. "Willy? This is Wilhelm. What is going on? Willy, do you hear me?"

"Wilhelm? Men trapped, west cuts twenty-two, crosscut, roof fall . . ." His voice was getting weaker.

"Stay on the line, Willy. April will be right back. I need to tell Deitrich. Do you hear me? Stay on the line. April will be right back. Willy. You must stay on the line." Metzinger left the phone off of the hook and began to sprint back to Deitrich.

***

April was beginning to get frustrated as she banged on the door of the control shed. "Goddammit, Stacks, it's cold as hell out here. Open the damn door. Why the hell aren't you answering your phone or radio? You hear me? Open up!"

"Sorry, sweeth—uhh, April. I got three phone lines going at once here." She could hear him reach the door, and begin to open it. "Damn thing's froze shut. Gimme a second here, let me—" The door flew inward and April felt the rush of warm air from the shack. It felt very good. She jumped through the door and he closed it behind her.

"Goddammit, Stacks. You need to answer your radio and phone. I talked to Metzinger and he didn't know what was up with the noise. Wants to know if we should pull them out or leave them in."

"How the hell should I know, April? We need to ask Fred and Fred. You answer the phones for a minute, let me get to them on the radio."

She planted her hands on her hips and glared. "Listen, you dummy. I ain't supposed to leave my phones unattended. And you are not a goddam answering service for anyone calling this place from the outside. Let them ring. Find out about the generator and let me know what to do with those guys." She tugged open the door and stomped out into the cold light of morning.

April trotted back to the phone shack. When she got to her post, she was surprised to discover Metzinger was no longer on the line, but she could tell that the phone was off the hook. She called to him several times over the open line and got no answer. She then noticed a background noise that wasn't there before. The signal to noise ratio sounded—well, it didn't sound right. She scratched her head and looked up at the old phone relay board.

"That's odd." She leaned back in her chair, and stared at the panel. "This thing acts like I got more than one phone open here." She pulled her electronic test meter out of the desk drawer. One last check for Wilhelm first.

"Wilhelm, are you out there? Can you hear me? Wilhelm? Dammit, answer me." She put the phone down and began to check resistance readings through the switch circuits.

***

Deitrich was growing impatient waiting for Wilhelm to return. It had been over twenty minutes since he left and it was taking far too long. He should have been back by now. He pulled his pocket watch out for the third time in five minutes, and then stuffed it back in his pants. Something just felt wrong. The power had gone out before, and the mine never behaved in this way.

Maybe it was all of the new guys that were making him jittery. There. He'd said it. Well, thought it. He was jittery. That thought made him angry. When Metzinger got back he was going to tear him a new asshole for being slow and lazy. Deitrich heard the returning footfalls and took a breath, ready to verbally rip strips of flesh from his hide. Then he saw Metzinger's face and lost all thought of abusing him.

Metzinger gulped for air and leaned on Deitrich for support. He must have run all the way back. Metzinger gasped. "Willy—Ernst, roof fall by the west coalface. That must have been what we heard. Needs help. Men are trapped. We need to get over there."

"Are you sure?"

Metzinger sat down on the floor and nodded, still gasping for air. "Yah. I heard it from Willy. I was on the phone with April, and he picked up. His voice was very faint." By now some of the other miners had come over to listen to the conversation. A canteen of water was pushed in his hand and he drank deeply.

"What's up, Deitrich?" asked one of the apprentices. Several others chimed in. "What's going on? A roof fall? Where was it? What did he say . . ."

Deitrich growled at the group. "Quiet. Give us some room. You talked to Willy, right? Metzinger nodded. "When you were on the phone with April, right? Metzinger nodded again. "Where was Willy; did he say what phone he was calling from?"

"West face." Metzinger struggled to his feet. "We gotta help them, boss. Willy sounded bad."

"Okay." Deitrich thought for a moment then straightened. "Everyone. Listen up. We have a situation. From what we know, there has been a roof fall at the other end of the mine. We're going to see what we can do. Grab any tool and first aid kits you see along the way. We're gonna double-time it over there and see what we can do to help. Everyone. Let's go. Now."

The guys working further away had trickled to the group and as Deitrich began to turn away, they fell in behind him. Metzinger stood to follow and Deitrich hesitated. "Good job, Wilhelm. Rest for a moment, then catch up to us when you can."

Metzinger looked relieved. "Okay, boss. I'm getting a hell of a cramp in my legs. Thanks."

Deitrich turned and began to jog. His old rally cry from the battlefield came to mind. "To me, men!" he half growled and half shouted. "To me!"

***

"This is damn odd." April scratched her nose and looked at the chart. The chart gave resistance readings for the phone wires. Generally, it was accurate. The more wire in a certain direction, the higher the number. The less wire, the lower the number. Her readings indicated that the phone where she talked to Metzinger was off the hook and was at the end of the line for that circuit. That made sense from what she knew. But on the west circuit, according to her chart, there weren't enough phones. One of them was off the hook, and it was like the wire ended at that phone. She knew there were more, at least three beyond that. She scratched her nose again.

The radio on her bench cracked to life. "Hey, April. This is control. You still got Metzinger on the line?" She ignored it for a moment, deep in concentration, and it cracked again. "April, you copy? C'mon, you're not still mad at me are you?"

She snatched the radio off of the bench. "Stand by, Stacks. I think I got a problem here. Can you give me a couple seconds?"

"Sure can, sweetheart."

She didn't even notice that he called her sweetheart again.

***

Deitrich and his men had run beyond the telephone that Wilhelm had left hanging and past the main lift station. There was a steady rhythm of men breathing hard, and the cap lights flickering. Each light made a bouncing and fluttering U-shape in the darkness. Occasionally, a light would go to the roof, sometimes to the ribs, sometimes to other miners. They ran in silence, an oddly illuminated chain of lights, panting and passing through the passages.

Darkness was briefly pushed out of their path as they ran and then slipped in behind them as they passed. The deeper they went, the darker it seemed to get. There was more dust in the air at this end of the mine, so their dim cap lights pushed less and less of the darkness away. Deitrich was focused on getting there as fast as possible, and he didn't notice it until one of the new men called out.

"Deitrich! Do you smell smoke?"

He slowed and looked hard at the roof of the mine, looking for a visible trace of the smoke. Without the ventilation, it would cling to the roof, instead of mixing like it normally would. It smelled like burning wood. Why would there be a smell of burning wood for a roof fall? He slowed to a walk for a moment. Maybe something else is going on? Ahead he saw one of the green lights for the telephone on the wall, and decided to stop there.

It was there they found Willy. He was alive, but in bad shape and unconscious. Deitrich told two of his guys to get him on a stretcher and back to the lift station.

Deitrich stared at the phone for a moment. Something was odd. It was off the hook. He picked up the receiver and held it to his ear. He heard clicking sounds, and a sound like someone moving around a room. He hung it up and re-signaled the phone room.

"Phone shack. Who's this?"

"April, this is Deitrich"

"Deitrich? What the hell is going on down there? I was talking to Metzinger and he just took off and left the phone off the hook back on the west end. This phone was off the hook, now you're on it, and it doesn't appear that there's any phones active inby from you. And did you guys hear that bump down there?"

"One thing at a time. I have an injured miner, and a possible roof fall over by where Ernst is working. It sounds like you don't know about Willy?"

"Willy? No, I don't. What's up with Willy?"

"He's injured. Badly. I'm sending him topside with two men. We found him at the phone. Did you not talk to him? It would have been right after you talked to—wait, April. I need to think." Deitrich pushed his hard hat back on his sweaty forehead and tried to think clearly. He shook his head and made a decision.

"April. I don't know what the hell is going on down here. All I have is that Metzinger said that he heard Willy on the phone and there was a roof fall down there. And now I smell smoke. And we got no goddamn power down here. I'm going to take this crew and head down to the old working face and see if there's something we can do. You let Stacks know what we're up to, and I'll call as soon as I know something."

"Okay, Deitrich. But I know that they were talking about pulling you guys out until we got some power back."

"I'm wasting time talking to you. We're going to help Ernst. I'll let you know if everyone is okay." He hung up the phone and ignored it when it started to ring. He didn't have time to argue with April. Deitrich turned on his heel and began to walk down the passage toward the working face, where he knew that something was wrong. The smell of smoke grew stronger.

After another two hundred meters, they began to notice unusual damage. The seals had been damaged in the cross cuts. The further they went, the more damage they saw, until they were stepping over blocks and brick that had been blown out into the main passageway. Their pace slowed. The mine was now wide open on this end; all of the careful seals and brattices had been knocked down.

Deitrich began to think that what they were dealing with might be a methane explosion. Or maybe what was referred to as an "ignition," when gas would be coming out of the rock in a particular area and could form a standing flame, like the gas stove in the cafeteria. He had never seen one, but there were films. Normally an explosion would destroy an entire mine, or sector of a mine. But Willy didn't look burned. Willy had said a rock fall. Something wasn't making sense. They were still a ways from the working face when the smoke and dust started to ...