"No, but there are plenty of pictures. We just went by those, and the tables."

" Whooh. So, you didn't get any of the cautions and the explanations. That explains a lot. The instruction sheets in German weren't packed with this equipment, obviously. I don't know how that happened, but I'll leave you my copies. But why didn't you just send for the right ones, before doing all this work?"

Winkler flung up his arms. "That would have taken a week or more for the post to go back and forth. I needed to get on with this, so my men could start mining."

"I see. Well, you would have saved a great deal of time, and a lot of money besides, if you'd sent for instruction sheets you and your men could read. Haste makes waste-it certainly has here. While you were gone, I inspected and tested the generator with Fraulein Hartmann's kind help." He nodded to her. "Except for that and a few bits and pieces, there isn't much here that can be saved."

"What! I wrote to the company to send somebody who could get this working, not to be told there is nothing to be done."

Bosboom straightened up and faced Winkler, his hand resting on the open leaflet. His voice went flat. "Herr Winkler, this trip up here is costing my company a day and a half of my time, and if you're being charged for it, I haven't heard about it. My job is to tell you the truth, not wave my hands in the air and magically turn it into something else. So I suggest you start taking detailed notes of this discussion, if you want to accomplish anything.

"Now, then. There's a great deal that can be done. In fact, this can be made to work. The basic idea is right, an electric pump is by far the most practical solution, with so little left of the old pumping machinery, especially everything there was above ground. But the system has to be engineered correctly. The pump company has people who can do that for you, and their consulting rates are reasonable.