"Dave Freer - A Lineman for the Country" - читать интересную книгу автора (Freer Dave)

thought I'd finished with this old stuff forever."
Dougal sat down. My, but this chair was finely padded. This foam-rubber stuff was a long way up
on horsehair. He leaned back. Instinctively, he reached for the mug on the table. It was full and still faintly
warm. You didn't stay alive, riding dispatches across hostile terrain, by not noticing things, even small
things. "Len."
The technician looked up, irritably. "Yeah?"
"Mebbe you should look at this." He tapped the cup. "Yon mine manager said the technician was
usually here of an evening, but that she must have decided not to come in tonight." He touched the cup. "
'Tis still warm, just. Would any anyone else be in here, drinking a warm drink?"
Tanner felt the cup. Stuck a finger in the brew. Tasted. "Coffee! She's still got real coffee! You're
right, Doogs. No way she'd have left this." He snorted. "So much for the goddamned mine management
keeping their finger on the pulse of things. Let's go find out if her truck's still here."
As he spoke someone knocked at the door. It was a miner, by the overalls and head-lamped
helmet. "Mr. Elsberg sent me, ja. Klaus Kleinschmitt. I am der Health and Safety officer."
"Take us to where Ellie parks her work truck."
"Pliss?"
Dougal translated.
"Oh. Ja. Come."
They walked across the compound . . . to an empty bay.
Len looked at it. "Oh, shit!" He turned to the Health and Safety officer. "You'd better get a search
team. She's down there somewhere. Does she go out alone?"
"Pliss?"
So Dougal translated again.
"Ja. It is against the rules. But Fraulein Anderson . . . she breaks the rules. She does what she
likes, ja. And when we try to stop her, she swears terrible, and still does it. I go to Mr. Underwood, he
just throws his hands up in the air." He sighed, and picked up his walkie-talkie. "I report this. The teams
will be called out. But there have been no reports of any rockfalls or problems. You want to go
anywhere else?"
Len pointed. "Back to the switch-room. I might be able to work out where the break is. She might
be wherever that is."
Dougal was amazed at the turn of speed that the American put into his return to the switch-room.
Drunkenness too seemed to have been pushed aside. They arrived a good minute before Klaus, who
was attempting to talk on the walkie-talkie and follow them. When they got into the room Len grabbed
the cup of cold coffee and drained it. "Hope that helps me think."
He then proceeded to prove, to the watching Klaus as well as the Scot, that he could both think
and work hard when he had to. He was moving at a pace that had his moustache windswept. Dougal
learned that Weepstone bridge and ferret meant different things to these Americans. Minutes later, Len
was peering through his glasses at the map of the risers and cross-cuts.
"The break is hereabouts." He pointed. "On the old first cut. Good chance she'll be somewhere near
there. Can you take us there? We might as well fix the damn thing anyway."
 "Pliss?"
So Dougal translated.
"Ja. You vill come and collect the helmets and overalls? And spick slowly, pliss. I cannot
understand you so good. I read the lips, and I don't see the lips."
Len tugged his moustache. "Yeah. Well, I'll take my translator. Just need to grab some tools, huh?"
Ten minutes later they, and four other miners, were climbing out of the vehicle into an alcove—in
which the mine's telephone systems' maintenance vehicle stood parked.
Len Tanner blew out through his moustache. "Ladder's gone. Come on."
They went up a riser to the original cross-cut. Len, despite his bulk, was leading the way. Dougal
didn't enjoy the feeling of tons of earth piled above him. It felt as if the roof was pressing down on him.