Then, all three hundred of us workingmen waited in our different places along the line for the decision for the blast to go, and although my gang couldn’t see the ministerial party, I suppose we accepted they were given some special viewing place. But we could see the blast site, and watched the Yak getting ready. We saw him counting, as we had seen him doing it before, as he walked slowly away from where he had gathered the blasting kit, and then off the blasting site and along the embankment for a few metres, finally dropping down to the large culverts underneath. And then he returned, still counting, and walking slowly back to where he would set off the blast. Then he measured out his safety fuse which would burn at 200 seconds per meter, as long as everything worked properly, its length determined by the time it took him to walk, not run to his bolthole. Then the decision we were all waiting for came and we clambered onto the trucks and drove off down the line away from the site.
We left the Yak behind, on his own, in his bare rock arena with his kit and fuse to initiate the charge through the detonator to the cord, then the cord to the gelignite primers under the guano-diesel explosive we had mixed. And everything was as it should be. Importantly, he had his bolthole worked out, those concrete culverts deep under the embankment, built months ago by us, packed solidly with sand and covered with fill rammed hard by ‘dozers driving over it. So he lit his safety fuse and, as the ignition made its way to the blast cap and detonator, he walked slowly towards his shelter, and he knew he had enough time to walk because he had timed it previously, more than once, just to be sure, he had measured the safety fuse with a bit extra, and he wouldn’t run because there would be no second chances if he took a fall and became immobile; no one would go into rescue him because we were all too far away. and anyway, there was no stopping the charge and the detonator. And he climbed quite a way into the culvert, lit a smoke and waited.
