the encampment

PLATE 38. WE MEET PETER HESSELBACH’S WIFE AND CHILD AT THEIR CAMP. Stupor, ennui, vexation. We find ourselves growing restless and irritable of late. Balog does his best to distract us, but our thoughts turn increasingly towards Peter - we yearn for his return from the marsh country. This waiting is not good for us. On the way back to our tent one evening, Bindon and Westcott start at it again, never a good sign:
“I’m fer cutting loose, Boyo. I’ve been keepin’ my eyes open. There’s coal and oil right beneath the ground we’re standing on. Pa was a miner.”
“Pa was not miner. You went to Eton.”
“Aye, he was now.”
“Aye, he wasn’t now. And stop it with that bloody Welsh blarney, I’m sick to death of it.”
“If it weren’t fer me, you’d never make it here. Yer a fancy boy, the bosses nephew.”
“Oh, yes, you’re so bloody superior, you think you’re better than us, well you’re bloody pathetic. All that salt of the earth rubbish, you’ve never worked a day in your life, you’re an inverted snob-”
“Yer a running joke back in Blighty, ye little rat bag. They know a ponce when they see one, yer uncle asked me specific to babysit ye.”
“And for another thing, there’s not going to be any mining here, these people have enough on their plate without their land being turned into a giant slag heap.”
“Ah, yes, the hard man. Knows what’s best for his primitive little friends. Well let me tell you, a good mining scheme would see these people right, ye wee toord.”
“But this land is sacred to them! You can’t just ravage it right in front their eyes!”
“A strip mine is a beautiful thing when tis done right. Pa was a miner.”
It continues in this vain right through supper; fed up, I tell them in no uncertain terms how foolish the pair of them are, how much I loathe them. The three of us are sitting around the table fuming, when Balog appears with the news we’ve been waiting for - Peter’s Buryat family have arrived and made camp several miles from here. Thank God! (continue)