The stone carving on the granite wall continued for sixty-four deep-water lengths, recording the daily decline of eighty men with the austere, unsparing discipline of a master mason’s daybook.
DAY 18: Five animal fat candles left. Air is very heavy. Matches won’t light. We move by touch along the haulage rail. Dennis Cole has divided the leftover oatmeal. One spoonful per man. No anger. No fighting. The boys from Old Flint sang the river hymn before we lay down.
DAY 21: Three men leftover on their feet. The others are sleeping on their benches. God preserve our wives and our little ones. We leave our names on the wall so Bellwether will know we didn’t steal the company’s picks.
DAY 22: Dennis Cole alone at the desk. The last light is gone. My hand is cold. If anyone finds this slate, give my water flask to my daughter Ellen, and tell her Dennis kept the stone true.
The carved letters ended there, tapering off into a long, faint scratch where the diamond-point chisel had slipped from numb, dying fingers.
Tomas Reed lowered his safety lamp. That turned toward the vast, shadowy expanse of the working hall.
The central chamber of the Deep Gallery was forty yards wide and sixty yards long, its roof supported by massive eight-sided pillars of uncut hard black rock granite left standing during the original digging. In the yellow outer edge of the lantern light, rows of wooden objects emerged from the darkness.
