What's everyone's first thought when I state that one hot conductor of an underground service (to a mobile home) has simply ceased to conduct electricity?

What's the permanent fix? This individual is not interested in buying all new wire to go from the pole to his house. And by "is not interested", I mean, it simply won't happen. There's no way I can scare him into it. Is there some approved method for splicing the wire back together once we find the break?

There is most definitely 240 at the load terminals of the outside disconnect - and one of the hots is most definitely dead on the panel end inside.

As a temporary fix (overnight only, and because all of his lights except one are on the 'dead' side), I have disconnected and isolated the broken wire on both ends (unhooked, wrapped in tape, folded back, and taped again) and installed a 30A DP breaker with its load terminals connected together to feed the dead side from the live side. Of course he has no hot water...

Going back tomorrow - plan is to kill the power at the outside disconnect and dig up the cable, wherever it might go, hoping to find the break. I don't have any of those fancy non-contact wire-following break-finding gizmos, but I do have a shovel and it's only about 10 feet...

Any input? advice? I'm most concerned about what to do as a long-term fix. I'm quite capable of running a whole new cable but I doubt I can convince him to buy it.