The Snow Tiger / Night of Error (8 page)

McGill and Ballard found Turi Buck waiting outside his sister’s home at nine-thirty next morning. Although it was still early the weather showed signs of becoming oppressively hot. Ballard leaned over to open the back door of the car, and said, ‘Jump in, Turi.’

‘I’m past jumping anywhere, Ian,’ said Turi wryly, ‘But I’ll endeavour to accommodate myself in this seat.’

Sometimes Turi’s phrases had an oddly old-fashioned ring about them. Ballard knew he had never been formally educated but had read a lot, and he suspected that Sir Walter Scott was responsible for some of the more courtly expressions.

‘It’s good of you to come, Turi.’

‘I had to come, Ian.’

In the Provincial Chamber, at precisely ten o’clock, Harrison tapped the top of the rostrum gently with his gavel, and said, ‘We are now prepared to resume the inquiry into the avalanche disaster at Hukahoronui. Dr McGill was giving evidence. Will you please resume your seat?’

McGill walked to the witness chair and sat down. Harrison said, ‘Yesterday you referred to a meeting of the mine management at which you presented a report. What happened at that meeting?’

McGill tugged at his ear thoughtfully. ‘The problem was to explain the evidence and to get them to accept it. Mr Ballard had already accepted it. Mr Cameron wanted to go through the figures in detail, but he came around in the end. The others weren’t as convinced. It went like this …’

It was Cameron, the engineer, who saw the true significance of the cup crystals. ‘Could you draw a picture of one of those, Mike?’

‘Sure.’ McGill took a pencil from his pocket and made a drawing. ‘As I said, it’s conical in shape – like this – and it has this hollow in the blunt end. That’s why it’s called a cup crystal.’

‘I’m not worried about the hollow.’ Cameron stared at the drawing. ‘What you’ve sketched here is a pretty good picture of a tapered roller bearing. You say these are likely to form under that layer of hard hoar frost?’

‘Correct.’

‘That’s not good,’ said Cameron. ‘That’s not good at all. If you get a lot of weight on top pushing downwards vertically by gravity then there’ll be a resultant force sideways on the slope. The whole hillside could come down on ready-made bearings.’

Cameron passed the drawing to Dobbs who looked at it with Quentin, the union man, peering over his shoulder. ‘Any of those cup things there now?’

‘There are indications of them forming in one of the samples I took. I’d say the process is well under way.’

‘Let’s have a look at your stress figures.’ Cameron grimaced as he began to go through the equations. ‘I’m used to working with stronger stuff than snow.’

‘The principle is the same,’ said McGill.

Dobbs handed the drawing to Ballard. ‘Are you seriously telling us that there’ll be an avalanche which will fall on this mine?’

‘Not exactly,’ said McGill carefully. ‘What I’m saying, at this moment, is that there is a potential hazard that must be watched. I don’t think there is a present danger – it’s not going to come down in the next hour or even today. A lot depends on future events.’

‘Such as?’ asked Ballard.

‘The way the temperature goes. Future snow precipitation. An appreciable rise in wind speed wouldn’t help much, either.’

‘And the forecast is for more snow,’ said Ballard.

McGill said, ‘When you have a potential hazard like this you have to take precautions. Protecting the mine portal, for instance. There’s a steel construction called Wonder Arch which comes in useful. It was developed at Camp Century in Greenland specifically for this type of application. It’s used a lot in the Antarctic.’

‘Is it expensive?’ asked Dobbs. His voice was clouded with doubt.

McGill shrugged. ‘It depends on how much money you put against lives on the balance sheet.’ He turned to Cameron. ‘Joe, remember me asking if you’d heard of Granduc in British Columbia?’

Cameron looked up from the figures. ‘Yeah. I hadn’t.’

‘Granduc is remarkably like your mine here. They installed Wonder Arch – put in a covered way to the mine portal.’ He rubbed the side of his jaw. ‘It was like closing a stable door after the horse has gone; they put in the arch in 1966 after the avalanche of 1965 when twenty-six men died.’

There was a silence broken after a while by Cameron. ‘You make your point very clearly.’

Ballard said, ‘I’ll put it to the Board of Directors.’

‘That’s not all,’ said McGill. ‘You got to look at the situation in the long term. That slope is dangerous mostly because it’s been stripped of timber. It will have to be stabilized again,
and that means building snow rakes. Good snow rakes cost sixty dollars a foot run – I doubt if you’d get away with under a million dollars.’

The sound of Dobbs’s suddenly indrawn breath was harsh.

‘Then there’s the snow deflection walls at the bottom,’ went on McGill inexorably. ‘That’s more – maybe even half a million. It’s going to cost a packet.’

‘The Board won’t stand for it,’ said Dobbs. He stared at Ballard. ‘You know we’re just paying our way now. They’re not going to put in all that extra capital for no increase in production. It just isn’t on.’

Quentin stirred. ‘Would you want to close down the mine?’

‘It’s a possibility,’ said Ballard. ‘But it’s not my decision.’

‘My people would have something to say about that. There’s a lot of jobs at stake.’ Quentin looked at McGill hostilely and threw out his hand. ‘And who’s to say he’s right? He comes busting in here with his tale of doom, but who the hell is he, anyway?’

Ballard straightened. ‘Let’s get one thing clear,’ he said. ‘As of yesterday Dr McGill became a professional consultant employed by this company to give us advice on certain problems. His qualifications satisfy me completely.’

‘You didn’t talk to me about this,’ said Dobbs.

Ballard gave him a level stare. ‘I wasn’t aware I had to, Mr Dobbs. You are so informed now.’

‘Does the Chairman know about this?’

‘He’ll know when I tell him, which will be very soon.’

Quentin was earnest. ‘Look, Mr Ballard; I’ve been listening carefully. There’s not been an avalanche, and your friend hasn’t said there’s going to be one. All he’s been talking about are potentials. I think the Board is going to need a lot more than that before they spend a million and a half dollars. I don’t think this mine is going to close – not on this kind of talk.’

‘What do you want?’ asked McGill. ‘Avalanche first – and protection later?’

‘I’m protecting the men’s jobs,’ said Quentin. ‘That’s what they put me in here for.’

‘Dead men don’t have jobs,’ said McGill brutally. ‘And while we’re at it, let’s get another thing quite clear. Mr Ballard has said that he has engaged me as a professional consultant, and that is quite true. But fundamentally I don’t give one good goddamn about the mine.’

‘The Chairman will be delighted to hear it,’ said Dobbs acidly. He looked at Ballard. ‘I don’t think we need carry on with this any more.’

‘Carry on, Mike,’ said Ballard quietly. ‘Tell them the rest. Tell them what’s really worrying you.’

McGill said, ‘I’m worried about the town.’

There was a silence for the space of ten heartbeats and then Cameron cleared his throat. ‘It’s snowing again,’ he said, not altogether inconsequentially.

‘That just about finished the meeting,’ said McGill. ‘It was decided that the mine management should consult with the town council that afternoon, if possible. Then Mr Ballard was to communicate by telephone with the Presi … Chairman of his company.’

Gunn had his hand up, and Harrison said, ‘Yes, Mr Gunn?’

‘May I question the witness, Mr Chairman?’ Harrison inclined his head, and Gunn proceeded. ‘Dr McGill, the meeting you have just described took place a long time ago, did it not?’

‘The meeting took place on the sixteenth of July. On the Friday morning.’

‘It is now December – nearly five months later. Would you say that you have a good memory, Dr McGill?’

‘About average.’

‘About average! I put it to you that you have a much better than average memory.’

‘If you say so.’

‘Indeed, I do say so. When I listened to your evidence – when you related the conversations of others
ad verbatim
– I was put in mind of a stage performance I saw quite recently in which a so-called memory man amazed an audience.’

‘Mr Gunn,’ interjected Harrison. ‘Irony and sarcasm may, or may not, have their place in a law court; they have certainly no place here. Please refrain.’

‘Yes, Mr Chairman.’ Gunn did not seem put out; he was aware that he had made his point. ‘Dr McGill, you have given evidence that Mr Quentin, the elected union leader at Hukahoronui mine,
seemed
– and I use the word advisedly – seemed to be more intent on filling the pockets of his comrades than in preserving their lives. Now, Mr Quentin is not here to defend himself – he was killed in the disaster at Hukahoronui – and since I represent the union I must defend Mr Quentin. I put it to you that your recollection of this meeting so long ago may be incorrect.’

‘No, sir; it is not incorrect.’

‘Come, Dr McGill; note that I said that your evidence
may
be incorrect. Surely there is no loss of face in admitting that you may be wrong?’

‘My evidence was correct, sir.’

‘To traduce a dead man when it is not necessary is not thought to be good manners, sir. No doubt you have heard the tag, “
De mortuis nil nisi bonum.
” ‘ Gunn waved his arm largely. ‘The good and wise men who caused this hall to be built saw fit to include cogent aphorisms in these windows to guide them in their deliberations. I draw your attention to the text in the windows just above your head, Dr McGill. It reads: “Be not a hypocrite in the sight of men, and talk good when thou speakest.”’

McGill was silent, and Gunn said, ‘Well, Dr McGill?’

‘I was not aware that I had been asked a question,’ said McGill quietly.

Harrison shifted uneasily on his seat and seemed about to interrupt, but Gunn waved his arm again. ‘If it is your claim to have a memory so much better than other men then I must accept it, I suppose.’

‘I have an average memory, sir. And I keep a diary.’

‘Oh!’ Gunn was wary. ‘Regularly?’

‘As regularly as need be. I am a scientist who investigates snow, which is an evanescent and ever-changing substance, so I am accustomed to taking notes on the spot.’

‘Are you saying that while that very meeting was in progress you were actually taking written notes of what was said?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Ha! Then a period of time must have elapsed between the meeting and when you wrote down your impressions. Is that not so?’

‘Yes, sir. Half an hour. I wrote up my diary in my bedroom half an hour after the meeting ended. I consulted my diary this morning before I came to this hearing to refresh my memory.’

‘And you still insist on your evidence as it relates to Mr Quentin?’

‘I do.’

‘Do you know how Mr Quentin died?’

‘I know very well how Mr Quentin died.’

‘No more questions,’ said Gunn with an air of disgust. ‘I am quite finished with this witness.’

McGill glanced at Harrison. ‘May I add something?’

‘If it has a bearing on what we are trying to investigate.’

‘I think it has.’ McGill looked up at the roof of the hall, and then his gaze swept down towards Gunn. ‘I also have been studying the texts in the windows, Mr Gunn, and one, in particular, I have taken to heart. It is in a window
quite close to you, and it reads: “Weigh thy words in a balance lest thou fall before him that lieth in wait.”’

A roar of laughter broke the tension in the hall and even Harrison smiled, while Rolandson guffawed outright. Harrison thumped with his gavel and achieved a modicum of quiet.

McGill said, ‘As for your Latin tag, Mr Gunn, I have never believed that latinity confers virtue on stupidity, and therefore I do not believe that one should never speak ill of the dead. I believe in the truth, and the truth is that the death toll in the Hukahoronui disaster was much higher than need be. The reason lies in the actions, reactions and inactions of many men who were confronted with an unprecedented situation beyond their understanding. Mr Quentin was one such man. I know that he died in the disaster, and I know that he died heroically. Nevertheless, the truth must be told so that other men, in the future, when faced with a similar situation will
know
the right things to do.’

‘
Mr Chairman!
’ Gunn was waving his arm, but Rickman had beaten him to it. He was on his feet, finger upraised. ‘This is monstrous! Must a witness make speeches and lecture us to tell us our duty? Must …’

Harrison’s gavel cracked down sharply, cutting off Rickman in mid-spate. ‘Mr Rickman, may I again remind you that this is
not
a court of law and that procedure is at my sole discretion. Dr McGill has just restated the nature and intention of this Commission of Inquiry in words more well chosen and acute than I myself used yesterday during the opening proceedings. I have noted in counsel a regrettable tendency to adversary tactics, a practice against which I warned you. I will have no more of it.’