The white and red tape was already on the gate at seven. The yard had been wetted down at dawn, as every morning. Towards the shed the water still held a dark edge. Of the plant there remained the conveyor half dismantled, the screen up on its trestles, the forklift stopped in the middle with its forks low, the two drums against the wall.

Nélson had the spray can in the pocket of his overalls, on his right thigh. The cylinder was cold through the cloth. The cap did not turn well, it had never turned well, and he left it like that. Under the nail of his index finger, cut very short, the orange of yesterday's mark was dry.

The surveyor would come up on foot from the lower gate, with the station and the tripod on his shoulder. The upper road, in any case, had been closed by the boulders since before the judgment.

The attendance sheet hung inside the hut, above the bench. Nélson signed it second. Below his line, Zé and the boy from Fuseta were missing; they had found other work and had not come. Nobody said anything. On the bench was a carton of new gloves, still sealed, that had arrived the day before.

“Did Zé phone?”

“He found something in Olhão.”

“Good for him.”

The foreman arrived at eight with the forklift already running. He got down, took out his wallet and put into it a fuel receipt folded in two. The company's account had been frozen since Friday. There was diesel, all the same.

At nine the postman left the envelope on the bonnet. The foreman opened it standing, without glasses, holding the sheet at arm's length, elbow straight and head back, and read it all that way, from beginning to end, without leaning on the van, without sitting down, then put the sheet back in the envelope, the envelope in his inside pocket, and went back to the forklift. It was the notice of appeal.

Nélson walked the perimeter on his own. He went along the edge of the gravel, the can in his pocket. The ball inside knocked against the walls at every step. It was the noise that stood above the others, and when the foreman asked him about the trestles he made him say it twice.

Then he went back to the low face. He stood in front of the cut wall. The holes from last year could still be seen, half-barrels open on the rock, a straight row at two metres ten. The row above was shorter. There the ground answered dull and he had reduced the charge without telling anyone.

Towards midday one of the crew planted himself in front of him.

“Do you know where the water runs?”

Nélson took the bottle from the truck bed, rinsed his mouth, spat on the gravel, put the cap back on. Then he turned to the screen and started undoing the bolts of the first trestle. His workmate stood there a moment, hands on his hips. Then he went to get his bread and sat down wherever.

The foreman opened the site plan on the bonnet of the van. He smoothed it with his forearm, twice. Then he bent down, picked up two stones from the gravel and set them on the top corners. The paper was white and the folds stood up straight. In the margin were the stamp, the date of the survey, a short signature and the code of the freguesia.

He took the can from Nélson's hand and set it down in the middle of the sheet, on the dashed line running towards the shed.

“The surveyor comes in by the lower gate at eleven.”

He went off towards the hut without turning round. The can stayed there, standing on the sheet, the nozzle pointing towards the shed.

Three metres away his workmate had sat down with his back against the track of the excavator and his bread on his knees; the place he had picked to eat was right over the point, the one Nélson had carried with him since the first face opened on that side, two metres ten, reduced charge, the ground answering dull. Nobody had told him. Nélson had the answer. His workmate had sat down there all the same.

Nélson took the can off the sheet. The paper lifted at one corner and the two stones held it. He shook it holding it low along his leg, the ball knocking inside, and walked towards the old mark without passing the foreman. The orange on the gravel had faded, and it was the same orange.

The cap resisted for the first half metre, then the jet came out full. Nélson went back over the old line as far as the shed. He walked backwards, the tip a hand's width from the gravel.

The surveyor came up on foot at ten past eleven. He had a new helmet, the sticker still on the shell. He planted the station in the middle of the yard. He took the points one by one. The line that came out did not run over the orange mark, and it did not run ten metres further up either.

“Where would you say?”

“The holes from last year are at two metres ten,” said Nélson. “Thirty-two millimetres. Reduced charge. Microdelay detonator.”

The surveyor wrote.

Ten metres further up the jet had stained the gravel in a circle a hand's width across. The can had been set down there on the ground while he opened the tailgate. It would not come off. Later the line on the yard became a line in a record, perimeter conforming to the site plan, and from then on that was the one.

The crew loaded up. Nélson put the can in the truck bed, between the hammer and the spanners lined up on the floor. He closed the door. The van turned round, one of them got out to put the tape back on the gate, and on the gravel two orange marks remained.