When we had finished the ‘dozers started scalping the hill, pushing the fill towards the next hill, beginning the embankment for the Moura coal mine to Gladstone railway line we were building. Then the rigs drilled the holes and we’d change roles to drop gelignite primers, a few inches thick, on detonator cord down the holes and fill them with guano-based explosive, leaving a tip of the cord at the top, to be joined to all the others by more cord, eventually to be joined at the detonator, blasting cap and safety fuse for the blast. And after that the ‘dozers would rev up again and take the floor of the centre of the hill down another level, and so it went, until the floor in the heart of the hill was as level as possible with the top of the fill all the way to the anticipated floor of the next hill. And all of that had a lot to do with why the Yak moved slowly, and why he was still setting off blasts.
Then our straightforward task had a mixture of politics and money added to it, and some patronage can be mixed in as well. The Queensland Minister for Mines wanted to see what we were doing, and so he and his entourage were invited for a day in the Bush at company expense. And at company executive level two interesting decisions were made.
I asked Jack, “Why would you want to have politicians and journalists, and the rest of them anywhere near a blast?”
“It’s the thrill of the spectacle, Pommie, and they’ve got to butter them up to keep these big jobs coming. Mind you, you wouldn’t want them to get too close, because blasts are a bit more than something to feel good about.” I nodded. Somehow I had gone from being Pommie Jackeroo to Pommie, but that was alright, these guys were my mates.
“And, tell me Jack, why aren’t we allowed around the camp while they’re here?”
“Oh, come on Pommie, married quarters aside, we’ve got two hundred blokes perhaps unshaven, in unwashed working clobber, who might be sober. I don’t think the company loves us much, and besides there’s going to be some hospitality in the camp canteen and I don’t think we’re wanted within cooee of the party.”
