The Sleeping Army Awakes

Part 4 Salt Mine

A stray bolt of forked lightning lit up the sky again, just as Samuel had given up trying to see anything further about his surroundings because of the lack of light. He was tired but he felt strangely drawn to venture further into the mine. In the brief stark light afforded by the strike, and afterwards in the softer light from the moon, which began to seep through the clouds, Samuel realised that the shadows on the wall, were actually white coloured miner's hardhats, similar to the ones that the boys had been wearing for their dangerous descent on the tramway. There seemed to be hundreds of the hats, all hanging on hooks in three rows, one above the other, with large clear numerals on the hats and the hooks. Under each hat there was a separate hook with a box attached. The row of hard hats extended for quite a distance into the tunnel with the lowest row just about level with his head as he sat cross legged on the floor.

Hooks number one and two were vacant and it was clear that the boys had been and removed them. So the boys had been in the mine despite their dire warnings to other people about the dangers of ghosts. It would have been too much of a coincidence for their headgear have come from anywhere else.

While there was still some moonlight available, Samuel took hat number three down from its hook. He found that it fitted neatly over his head, after some minor adjustment of the plastic straps. The head lamp was in two parts, the light and reflector were permanently fixed to the helmet, and each had a generator box with a cranked handle. This was connected to the lamp by a thickly insulated flat cable. Samuel cranked the handle on the generator for some time without any effect, until the next flash of lightning, when he realised that there was a little rubber shrouded toggle switch close to the handle that he hadn't seen or turned on. As soon as he did though, a powerful cluster of bright LEDs pierced a remarkably bright funnel of light deep into the passage.

As he turned his head, the probing beam swept around, illuminating a myriad of dust particles in the air. He hope that the dust, what ever it was, wasn't damaging to his lungs because he couldn't see any masks available. The way that the dust smelled or rather tasted reminded Samuel of something familiar. It was salt. The light from the headlamp continued to shine for quite some time after he had stopped cranking but it gradually dimmed until all was darkness once more. As he had cranked, the helmet slipped, so he tightened the straps a little more, until he was able to turn his head in any direction without dislodging it from where it sat.

He started cranking the handle vigorously to light the LEDs but found this tiring, so eventually he slackened off. When the light grew dim,which took several minutes, Samuel found that several more revolutions of the handle invigorated the beam for a few more seconds. The longer he cranked for; the longer the light persisted. Perhaps he could find a way of cranking it just often enough to light the LEDs constantly without exhausting himself unnecessarily in the process?

The generator box itself, was strung onto a thick woven nylon belt that went around the waist. When Samuel attempted to fasten it however, it became clear that the belt itself, was clearly designed for someone who had been eating more regularly than Samuel had. The plastic eyelets pierced for the tongue of the buckle to go through, stopped long before the belt was tight enough to stay up. Eventually Samuel resorted to doubling back the end of the belt in the buckle and relying on compression to stop it from undoing itself. He turned his body first one way and then the other there appeared to be plenty of the flat cable to allow him freedom of movement.

"I ought to do some exploring tonight?" He mused. 

With a potentially inexhaustible source of light and with the boys presently absent,then he could cover some of the upper layer of the mine on the first night. He was so desperate to find something to eat and something to wear too, that despite his fatigue it was worth pushing himself into action. If the boys had been in the mine today and were so keen to warn him away from it, then there was sure to be something useful hidden there. Perhaps there would be even a stash of food?