Wilbur Smith · 1970 · thriller

Wilbur Smith's 1970 novel. Rod Ironsides is made general manager of the Sonder Ditch, the richest gold mine on the Witwatersrand, and ordered to drive a new drive toward a reef beyond the Big Dipper dyke. What nobody tells him is that the men above him want the mine flooded, and that a mile underground there is a great deal of water waiting.

1. 1
   Johannesburg

   In the boardrooms of Johannesburg the mining houses decide what will happen a mile below the veld - and a scheme is set in motion whose object is not gold at all but the collapse of a share price.

2. 2
   The Sonder Ditch

   At the shaft head on the Witwatersrand, Rod Ironsides takes charge of twelve thousand men and drives for the reef beyond the dyke - into rock that is holding back an underground sea, with the drilling ordered by people who know it.