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The miner's barracks was a half mile from the station. It was a three story concrete
building more than three hundred feet long with twelve inch thick walls and sparse small
windows, too small for a man to easily pass through even if they didn't have bars. The
stairwells at either end were square with naked iron steps winding about the walls, lacking
banisters or guards to prevent a person falling. Strong, padlocked doors lead from the
narrow landings into the dormitories where four hundred and eighty comfortable bunks
were arranged in two rows of three tiers each, bolted solidly to iron posts that extended
from floor to ceiling. Each man had a locker; there was central heating, a wash house at
each end of the dormitories, each with flush toilets, hot and cold running water and a
heated communal bath. On the first floor at the back was a mess hall built to
accommodate up to five hundred persons at a seating with an annex containing game
machines acquired from a Collecting Center. This building had been Bluemud's first work at Granite Gorge. Five years previously, by bribery, abduction and coercion from an hundred thousand square miles of wilderness, he had gathered together one hundred and seven men. He had an acquaintance who was about to begin construction of an auditorium on his ranch in Arkansas who died suddenly and whose widow had been happy to get rid of the materials of construction without making him provide a detailed account of their intended use. Construction took a year. He was left with a empty shell to fill and a faithful nucleus of men most of whom were now either Foremen or Marshals, though he ran out of iron which accounted for the lack of guards on the stairs. Here Carl, together with the forty others, both Ursus Griffon and Willis were among them, who had been assigned to Foreman Johnson's crew were brought. They wandered in to the second floor dormitory where they had been assigned, feeling the sharp transition from the cool air of the stairwell to the warmth inside. 'Find yourself a bunk anywhere,' said Johnson,' and stay here until you're told otherwise.' 'You got us in a mess this time, Corporal,' said Ursus, who had a black eye and a lump on his head. 'Them fellas know the ways to make a man feel bad. Here, sleep on top of me. I'll see that no-one takes it out on you.' As night came there was little conversation among the men. No further blame was expressed for what had happened though Carl lay on his bunk and preferred to remain unseen. At dawn a foreman banged on the dormitory door and blew a whistle, without coming in. 'Time to eat, men. Now get up!' The men tramped down the back stairway into the mess hall where they were directed to their places by Marshals. Along one wall stood a row of serving tables covered with steaming metal baths of food and beside them stood a group of serving women. There was a general murmur of approval. The bunks had been almost too comfortable. The clothing they had been given to supplement their own had not been bad. The women began to move along the rows in pairs handing out bowls of weak stew and beans together with spoons from a trolley. The men ate the unaccustomed food with their hands and fingers quickly and, from habit, most of the spoons were pocketed by seekers. The food was not bad, though it was not as good as you could get in the forest nor was it up to the standard of the settled people of Dentonsville. Still, the hall began to hum. 'Any of you men want any more?' shouted a woman from the front. She, like all the other serving women was an older woman well beyond her prime. 'Yes, ma'am, I'll take more,' Ursus nearly pushed Carl from his seat in his eagerness to get more. The men were like fledglings stretching out their bowls. Later O'Grady came. He climbed upon a table where everyone could see him. 'Now I'll bet you're feeling better aren't you, boys? Well there's plenty more where that came from, if you behave yourselves. Now it's time to get down to business but before that there's some things I want to say. My name's O'Grady in case you didn't get it the first time. Mr. O'Grady to you. I'm the Chief Foreman here, the one that runs Mr. Bluemud's mine. You're miners now. Miners of the second shift. You'll work from two in the afternoon until midnight, seven days a week, with feed at noon and two hours after midnight. You're foreman's your boss from now on and if there's anything you want to know, ask him. But don't expect him to tell you anything you don't ask. If you've any complaints tell him and if he bangs your head it's your own fault. There's plenty here you won't be used to and maybe even some of it you won't like, but like the rest of us you're stuck with it. Now the most common question I reckon you're going to ask is where's them women you came with? Well, I'll tell you right now you won't see them again for some time, so you'll have to learn to do without them. Now, we don't allow any man outside wandering about on his own, making trouble! When you're not working the rules say you're to stay inside the barracks. We've a place where you can play on the machines, just like what some of you at least are used to, at least Mr. Bluemud says you are so you'll be allowed in there an hour a day before you eat. But as to the rest of it you stay inside! That's your home from now on and it's your job to keep it clean. There ain't no-one else is going to do it for you, either. Them foremen of yours have orders to stay out.' It's not a bad deal you've got yourselves. I like to think we're fair and honest men and no man gets treated bad that don't deserve it. They say there's War on and plenty are getting killed. Well, I don't know anything about that, but I know we'll look after you here, don't you worry. That's all I've got to say. Good day to you.' Then the men were taken to the mine. For many their first experience with total darkness was quite terrifying. 'Shit!' said Willis. 'I never reckoned how I'd have to spend my days in darkness in a hole!' But they adapted readily enough. The work was easy and the game machines alone were compensation for their lack of freedom. Being of the 'Men Apart' they did not even immediately find the lack of their womenfolk all that onerous. As Ursus said, 'I once went nine months without a woman. Got myself lost, broke an arm, thought how I'd never live to see home again. Women! That's throne thing I can do without for a while. I'll tell you this Corporal, we should think how lucky we are to have come here. Soft beds, good food, warm nights, play the machines every day; what more can a man ask?' What more? Their supervisors showed them nothing. It took them three weeks to find the switch that made the lights come on and after they did they were too afraid of it to use it. Similarly the showers went unused not least because of their experience on the first day. They used the flush toilets for washing and the communal bathing pit, similar to an installation provided at Collecting Centers, for excretion. After a month things were beginning to smell pretty bad in the second floor dormitory and, for that reason, at one- thirty each afternoon the men went readily to work. |
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