Did the earth move? Hell! Yes! Even from our distance we could see the whole of the solid rock ground lift up to the tops of the batters, the exposed insides of the hill on either side of the cutting we were creating and destroying, hold for a moment in the sky and fall back down to become debris, dust, fill. And the sound waves from the blast itself, and the ground being torn from its ancient roots reverberated along the line. Then, the silence, as we grinned almost shyly at one another, diffident at the enormity of what we were unleashing. Then we drove back, pushing the accelerators hard and smashing over rough ground to the site, getting back to make sure the culvert had done its job, and the Yak would do another blast.
Back at the camp that night the ministerial party was already a memory, and at the wet canteen my gang came together for a few beers around some coals glowing in the bottom of a drum, We saw the Yak wash his dining kit and make his way unobtrusively towards his hut. We passed the time more robustly, then went our separate ways, as quiet fell across Dead Swaggie creek.
