South Sea Gold: Chapter Fifteen

The helicopter set Matt and Sophia down on a stretch of sandy beach just west of what they now thought of as "the tourist village" on Owego Island. Beverli, the woman at the bed and breakfast was happy to see them again. "Not much business lately." she confided. "Some people are afraid of the stuff the mine puts into the water over by the other village."

"Have you advertised your place here?" asked Sophia. "I know a lot of people in Port Moresby who would love to visit a place like this, especially when so many other places on PNG's coast are having even bigger problems with mining than you do."

"With business bad, I can't afford to advertise," said the woman.

"Maybe you won't have to," Sophia said. "I work for the Journal. I'd be happy to mention your place in my next piece. And the paper is working to convince mining companies to not dump their waste in the sea or the rivers."

A smile spread slowly over the woman's face as she comprehended this offer. "And my son, Pradeep, will give you a free scuba dive out on the reef. That could be in the paper too?"

Sophia tried to hide her dismay. She had never scuba dived. "Oh, we wouldn't want to trouble him like that . . ."

"No, no, he needs the practice! I'll call him."

Matt had not been following this Tok Pisin conversation, and Sophia turned to give him the gist, adding "I've no idea whether he's a safe operator or not, Matt. I don't know anything about diving."

"It might be fun," said Matt. "When I was growing up in Singapore, my family went a couple of times to Tioman Island for vacation. It's a beautiful spot, where the Bali Hai scenes in South Pacific were filmed, and the scuba diving was great! Let me talk to him, and I can get some idea about his equipment."

Presently, Pradeep appeared, a muscular young man of about twenty, who knew enough English to talk directly with Matt. They discussed oxygen tanks and other equipment, while Matt tested valves and gauges. "It looks safe, he said to Sophia. "Let's give it a try, want to?" Sophia shivered and shook her head, folded her arms.

"Yes, you can come," said the young man, with a sidewise wag of his head. "You can use a snorkel, see all the pretty fish around the coral reef, without having to go down deep."

She reluctantly got in the motor boat with them, and rode out about a kilometre, to where the coral could be seen through the still, clear water, ten meters below. Matt helped her adjust her goggles and angle her breathing tube back over her shoulder. "Now just let go of the boat and float on the surface, face down. Breathe easily, paddle with your arms and legs, and look down."

She did so, and presently saw Matt submerge past her, down to the reef. His descent scattered several schools of brightly colored fish that had been feeding among the starfish and anemones on the multi-hued coral. A plump eel moved lazily along the sandy bottom nearby as the fish regrouped. She watched a crab-like creature as it ventured out of its den in the coral. An hour passed quickly.

"Here's an idea for tonight," Matt said as they were riding back to shore, seated close together. Sophia turned to give him an encouraging look, and moved a little closer. "We need to get slurry samples for testing, right?" he continued. "And like Tom said yesterday, the mine has probably patched up the broken pipeline by now. But what if we could get samples of the sea water around the end of the pipe out in the bay?"

"You're out of your mind," Sophia told him, "You don't know how deep the water is there, or what kinds of pollutants there are, or whether the mine people will even allow it. Besides, what will you collect the samples in?"

"Tom got me some bottles with the right preservative in them, and the address of a lab to take them to. If we go out again tonight, I can dive by the buoy that marks the end of the pipe. Even if it's too deep, I can still get samples from above and a little beyond it. You won't have to dive, but it would help if you held one of our torches for me."

"The things I have to do for a news story," she sighed. "And I was hoping for a romantic evening."

"That could come later," he suggested, putting an arm around her shoulder.

That evening, their boatman took them out again. They carried fishing gear in case anyone at Owego Village got inquisitive, and with four wide-mouth, screw-capped plastic jars in Sophia's bilum shoulder bag. Matt paid for this trip, adding extra money for night time and for the petrol needed to get over to the pipeline in the bay.

They found the buoy marker, and anchored just beyond it. Matt strapped his torch to his forearm, checked his oxygen tank and valve, put on his flippers, pulled down his goggles and dropped over the side. The water here was not as crystal clear as that at the reef.

"Sophia, I'll follow the anchor line down. I taped a rock to the bottom of each bottle to keep it from floating back up. I tied your shoulder bag to the end of that line there in the boat. When you let it down, try to keep it between the anchor line and the buoy over there. When you feel me tug on the line, pull it back up, okay?"

She touched his arm softly. "Be careful, Matt."

He nodded. "See you in a few minutes," he said, and submerged, leaving a trail of bubbles marking his descent. The water began to get murky at about 5 meters depth. Orienting himself between the anchor and buoy lines, he could see the pipeline a short distance shoreward and downward; it was supported above the sea bottom by concrete pylons.

He took a bottle from the bag Sophia had lowered, swam over to the mouth of the pipe and sat astride it, facing out to sea. He held the bottle upright in the edge of the muddy plume flowing from the pipe and loosened the screw cap enough to let air escape slowly as the bottle filled, then tightened the cap again, and swam the few meters back to the bag suspended on its rope. He took another bottle, filled it with the clearer water outside the plume, deposited it in the bag along with the first and tugged to signal Sophia. The bag disappeared upward.

He shone his light in all directions as he steadied himself on the anchor line. A single fish swam slowly into view, then flicked its tail to turn back again as it came near the stream of pipeline slurry. He couldn't see the bottom clearly, but supposed it to be covered with silt. A small area of coral emerged out of the murk nearby, dead white, with none of the colorful fauna and flora he had seen on the reef that afternoon. He swam up toward the surface and rejoined Sophia.

Next morning after breakfast, they set out for the mine, about an hour's walk around the shoulder of the mountain, by a trail their hostess pointed out to them. Matt found the Chinese mine engineer by the mine's leaching pits. He recognized Matt from the visiting Chinese group at the time of the mine disaster. They conversed in Mandarin.

"Samples from the gold-leaching pits? Sure, which pit do you want?"

"Whatever one is draining today."

"That would be number four," the engineer said, "It's the last of the tailings from before the pipeline break last week. We only finished leaching the gold out of it yesterday. Not even time to properly rinse it afterward, so your sample test may run a little high. What's the company in such a hurry about?"

"They never tell me," said Matt. "I'm just the information guy. Ask the company CEO."

"Yeah, right. There's the drain valve, just past where this pit's drain joins the pipe-line."

"Got it," said Matt. He filled and labeled two more of the sample bottles from Sophia's bag. "Is Yari Banta, around?" The engineer pointed toward the mine office shed.

"No, wait." he said. Matt stopped at the door. "I forgot; Banta works on the night shift. He's down in the village." Matt caught his breath, let it out slowly, turned toward the road. He waved a silent thanks to the engineer.

"What was all that about?" Sophia asked as they walked away.

"The narrowest escape you'll ever see," Matt said. "Just act casual and don't look back. If the day-shift boss sees us, we'll have a lot of explaining to do, and he will probably alert their Moresby office about our visit. The engineer I was just talking to only met me once, when I entered the mine property with a bunch of visiting Chinese the day after the the miners died. He assumes I'm from the company office too. The man we're going to see now is a local, and can tell us how the villagers are doing."

"There's where they fixed the broken pipe," Sophia remarked a few minutes later. Looks like they just put in a piece of ordinary pipe. Like I said before, they need a woman's touch in this mine."

"South Sea Gold is in a hurry to get more copper and gold to China, and maybe that's the only patch they had on hand. Looks like air-duct pipe, not as sturdy as the thicker plastic. And speaking of hurrying, that looks like a ship on the horizon, heading this way.

They stopped at the village shop to ask directions to Banta's house. It sat on a low rise, looking out toward the bay. Sophia greeted Banta's wife, and talked with her in Tok Pisin, identifying herself by tribe, home town and present job, and introduced Matt. Matt gazed out at the ship as the two women talked. It was closer now, and appeared to be a bulk freighter of medium size, flying the red flag of the People's Republic of China from its stern.

Presently, Banta came onto the veranda, yawning from this early awakening. Matt re-introduced himself to the headman, who remembered him from the day after the miners' deaths. "I and my associate, Ms. Waru were here after the pipeline broke last week. We wondered how that affected your village people."

"Ah. After the landslide, when Jerry Bromo's lorry hit the pipe. No serious injuries happened. The pipeline has been repaired; the miners lost only one day's pay. Everything should be okay now."

"When did the pipeline go back in service?" asked Matt.

"Yesterday. We have two empty leach pits now, and can accept new ore from the mine again."

"Mr. Banta," Sophia spoke up, I've been asking your wife about the village children. When we were here last week, we noticed three of them playing in the little pool of slurry at the pipeline break. Are they well?"

"Ah, now. Two children in the village became ill a day or two after the pipeline broke." Banta spoke with his wife in a local language for several minutes while Matt and Sophia waited expectantly. "They were sisters," he said finally, "and complained of headache and tiredness. I believe they slept most of two or three days. My wife says they are better now. I will summon the mother." He called a small boy from outside, and evidently gave him instructions. The boy trotted off and presently returned with a young woman. Matt glanced out to the village pier again. The Chinese ship was preparing to dock now.

"She says yes, her children had played in the mud up at the pipe break when the family had gone to see it that day. It was that afternoon they became ill. She says they are eating and playing today, but they still tire easily."

In an aside to Sophia, Matt told her, "It's time for us to go. Armed guards and other people are getting off that ship. It's best to not be involved in conversation with them."

"The mother wants to know," said Banta, "do you think her children were poisoned like the fish?"

"It's hard to say for sure," said Matt. "Fish are poisoned more easily by what may be in the slurry than people are. I'm glad to hear the children are getting better now, but they had best be kept away from the slurry if a break ever happens again."

"What about swimming in the water here near the village?" asked Banta."

Sophia spoke up. "We have taken water samples from both ends of the pipeline," she said, without going into further detail. "With your permission, Mr. Banta, we can take another sample from a boat offshore here at the village, if someone can take us out." She looked to Matt to see if he agreed. He nodded. That would give them a quick exit past the armed men.

Yari Banta collected his son-in-law from a nearby house and walked with them down to the shore where several motor boats were beached. A half-dozen village children followed them, curious. Matt and Sophia both thanked Yari, and promised to inform him of the test results. "I hope the mine owners won't be upset about our tests,"said Matt, "but the people of PNG have a right to know what's happening to their sea water."

Yari smiled. "The mine owners do not have to know everything that happens."

The son-in-law cast off, then stopped the boat a short distance off shore. "You watch the ship people," Sophia said to Matt, and tell me when it's all right to fill this bottle. We have one more, for sampling at the tourist village shore."

Okay - now." said Matt. And then to their boat pilot, "Why does the dock have armed guards?" The young man looked questioningly at Sophia, who translated into Tok Pisin, after making sure she had closed the sample bottle tightly.

"He says because they ship gold, along with the copper concentrate they load."

"Nothing to do with us then," said Matt. Tell him I'll pay him to take us back to the tourist village. After that, we can get some dinner and have time for another late night swim. No need to end our vacation till tomorrow."

She nodded. "Agreed."