They were all lean and muscular, which surprised Abdul, until he realized that those who were less fit had probably died.
The supervisors could be identified easily by the better quality of their clothes. Many of them were intently watching the rocks as they were crushed.
Mohammed gave the newcomers hammers, each with a long wooden handle and a heavy iron head. Abdul hefted his. It seemed to be well made and in good condition. The jihadis were pragmatic: poor tools would have slowed the output of gold.
Wahed was the only man not given a hammer, and Abdul felt relieved, assuming Mohammed would give the older man some lighter work. That assumption was wrong. Mohammed took him to the pit and told him, with a grin, to operate the jackhammer.
Everyone watched.
A section of the ground had been marked out with white paint, clearly delineating the area to be dug next, but Wahed was not able to lift the drill to move it into position. He could barely hold the thing upright, which made the young supervisors laugh, though Abdul could see that some of the older ones looked disapproving.
Wahed held the jackhammer vertical, leaning over it, struggling to prevent it falling over. Abdul had never used a jackhammer, but it was obvious to him that the operator had to stand behind it, not over it, and the tool had to lean slightly back towards him, so that if the blade slipped it would move away. Wahed was almost certain to injure himself.
He seemed to realize that, and hesitated to operate the drill.
Mohammed pointed to the lever and showed him the hand-squeezing motion required to set the machine working.
Abdul knew he would get into trouble for intervening, but he did so anyway.
He walked over to the pit. Mohammed angrily waved him away, but he ignored that. He took hold of the two handles of the jackhammer. It weighed thirty or forty kilos, he reckoned. Wahed backed away gratefully.
Mohammed said: ‘What do you think you’re doing? Who told you to do that?’
Abdul ignored him.
He knew that jackhammer operators were trained, but he would have to improvise. Taking his time, he shifted the chisel to what looked like a small ridge in the bedrock and lodged the blade there. He took a small step back, so that the drill was angled. Gripping the two handles hard, he pressed down and squeezed the lever for an instant, then released it. The blade bit into the rock briefly, and a small puff of dust rose up. Abdul squeezed the lever again, with more confidence, and had the satisfaction of seeing the blade chew into the rock.
Mohammed looked furious.
A new person appeared, and Abdul was intrigued.
The man was East Asian, and Abdul guessed Korean.
He had on heavyweight moleskin trousers and engineer boots, plus sunglasses and a yellow plastic hard hat. He was holding a spray can, of the type used by graffiti artists in New Jersey, and Abdul guessed it was he who marked out the next section of the pit to be broken up. He was undoubtedly the geologist.
He shouted at Mohammed in fluent Arabic. ‘Get the other men working,’ he said. ‘And stop fooling around.’ Then he shouted: ‘Akeem!’ and beckoned a heavy-set worker with a baseball cap on a bald head. The man came over and took the drill from Abdul. The geologist said to Abdul: ‘Watch Akeem and learn.’
The newcomers got down to work and the mine settled into its routine.
Abdul heard someone shout: ‘Nugget!’ One of the men with hammers held up his hand. The geologist examined the rock debris and, with a grunt of satisfaction, picked up what looked like a dusty yellow stone: gold, Abdul presumed. He guessed that event was rare. Most alluvial gold was not so easy to extract. Periodically the debris on the concrete apron was swept up and dumped into a huge tank, presumably containing cyanide salts dissolved in water to leach the gold flakes out of the rock dust.
Work resumed. Abdul studied Akeem’s drilling technique. When he was moving the drill to a new area he supported it on one thigh, taking the strain off his back. He did not immediately go deep into the rock but first made a series of shallow holes, and Abdul guessed this would weaken the rock so that the blade was less likely to get stuck.
The noise was oppressive, and Abdul wished he had some of those foam-rubber earplugs the cabin crew gave out in business class. Such things seemed a world away. Bring me a cold glass of white wine, he thought, and a few of those salty nuts, please, and I’ll have the steak for dinner. How had he ever regarded flying as a hardship?
But Akeem had something in his ears, Abdul saw, coming back from his fantasy. After a moment’s thought he tore two little strips from the hem of his jalabiya, balled them up, and stuffed them in his ears. They were not very effective, but better than nothing.