Men of Men Page 13

  Hendrick set it firmly on the floor of the hut, pressing the sharp points of glass into the clay. Then he closely examined the stone for a moment. One plane of the crystal had sheared through cleanly, leaving a sharp ridge around the rim, and the curved upper surface fitted neatly into Hendrick’s cupped hand.

  He placed the sharp ridge of the stone against the polished dark green curve of the broken bottle, then pressed down with the full strength of his right forearm and began to draw the edge across the glass. There was a thin abrasive screech that set his big white-starred teeth on edge, and behind the moving edge of the glittering stone a deep white groove appeared in the green glass, the stone had cut it as a hot knife cuts cheese.

  Reverently the Griqua placed the stone in front of him, on the bare floor, and it seemed to be moving as the light played within its limpid depths, turned to magical stars of mauve and green and flaming crimson.

  His voice had dried, his throat cleaved closed, he could barely breathe for iron bands of avarice had bound his chest, but his eyes glittered like a wolf in the firelight.

  Hendrick Naaiman knew diamonds as a jockey knows fine horse flesh or a tailor the feel of good tweed cloth between his fingers. Diamonds were his salt, his bread, his very breath, and he knew that before him on the swept mud floor of this smoky little thatched hut lay something that would one day repose in the treasure house of the palace of some great king.

  It was a living legend already: something that only a king could buy, something whose value, when converted to gold pounds or dollars, would stun even a rich man.

  ‘Has this stone the spirit you seek?’ Bazo asked quietly, and Hendrick swallowed before he could talk.

  ‘I will give you five hundred gold queens for this stone,’ he answered, and his voice was hoarse, ragged as though he were in pain.

  His words struck the dark group of Matabele the way the east wind off the sea strikes the forests of Tzikhama, so that they swayed and rustled with the shock.

  ‘Five hundred,’ repeated Hendrick Naaiman. ‘Which will buy you fifty guns or many fine cattle.’

  ‘Give the stone to me,’ Bazo ordered, and when Hendrick hesitated, the assegai pricked him again so that he started violently.

  Bazo took the stone and stared at it broodingly, then he sighed.

  ‘This is a heavy matter,’ he said. ‘I must think on it. Go now and return tomorrow at the same time. I will have an answer for you then.’

  Long after the Griqua left, the silence persisted in the darkened hut, broken at last by Kamuza.

  ‘Five hundred gold pieces,’ he said. ‘I long to see the hills of Matopos again; I long for the sweet milk of my father’s herds again. With five hundred gold queens we could leave this place.’

  ‘Do you know what the white men do to people who steal these stones?’ Bazo asked softly.

  ‘Not their stones. The Bastaard told us—’

  ‘No matter what the yellow Bastaard told you, you will be a very dead Matabele if the white men catch you.’

  ‘One man they burned alive in his hut. They say he smelled like a roasting joint of warthog meat,’ one of the others murmured.

  ‘Another they tied by his heels and dragged behind a galloping horse as far as the river. When they were finished, he no longer looked like a man at all.’

  They thought about these atrocities a while, not shocked by them for they had seen men burned alive before. On one of the cattle raids to the east of Matabeleland their own regiment had chased two hundred Mashona men and women and children into the maze of caves that honeycombed the kopjes above their village.

  It would have been a tedious task to hunt them out of the dark belly of the hills, so they had packed every entrance to the underground passages with branches of mopani trees and then put in fire. At the end some of the Mashona had run out through the flames, living torches of shrieking flame.

  ‘Fire is a bad way to die,’ said Kamuza, and uncorked his own snuff-horn.

  ‘And five hundred pieces is a great deal of gold,’ one of his friends answered him across the fire.

  ‘Does a son steal the calves from his father’s herd?’ Bazo asked them, and now they were shocked indeed. To the Matabele the great herds of cattle were the nation’s wealth, and the harsh laws and penalties that governed the management of the herds they had learned as part of their existence as ‘mujiba’, the apprenticeship as herd boys which every Matabele boy must serve.

  ‘It is death even to squirt the milk of another man’s cow into your mouth,’ Bazo reminded them; and they all remembered how they had taken that chance at least once in the solitude of the bush, spurting it directly from the teat so that it dribbled down their chins onto their naked chests – risking their lives for a mouthful of warm sweet milk and the respect of their peers.

  ‘It is not a calf,’ Kamuza reminded, ‘but a single little stone.’

  ‘Gandang, who is my father, looks upon the white man Bakela as a brother. If I take anything from Bakela, then it is as taking from my own father.’

  ‘If you take this stone to Bakela he will give you a single coin. If you take it to the Bastaard he will give you five hundred.’

  ‘It is a heavy matter,’ Bazo agreed. ‘I will think on it.’ And long after all the others had curled on their reed sleeping-mats under the karosses of fur, he sat alone over the dying fire with the great diamond burning coldly in his right hand.

  Three men rode into Zouga’s camp that Monday morning, and Zouga stooped out of his tent to meet them, standing bareheaded in the sunlight.

  Neville Pickering led the party, and as he stepped down from the stirrup, he said, ‘I hope we do not disturb you, Major, but I’d like you to meet some friends of mine.’

  ‘I know Mr Hayes.’ Zouga shook the hand of the lanky Texan engineer and then turned to the third man.

  ‘And of course I know Mr Rhodes by sight and reputation.’

  Rhodes’ hand was cool, the skin dry and the knuckles large and bony. It had the feel of strength, although his grip was quick and light. Zouga found the pale blue eyes on a level with his. The man was tall, and startlingly young, he could be very little older than twenty, young to have earned such a formidable reputation.

  ‘Mr Rhodes.’ Nobody, not even Pickering, used his Christian name. It was said he even signed his letters to his own mother ‘Your affectionate son, C. J. Rhodes’.

  ‘Major Ballantyne.’ Zouga was startled again, for Rhodes had a slight voice, pitched high and with a breathless quality. ‘I am delighted to meet you at last. Of course, I have read your book, and there are many questions I should like to ask you.’

  ‘Jordan, take the horses,’ Zouga called, and began to lead his guests towards the scant shade of the camel-thorn tree. But Rhodes paused as Jordan scurried from the tent, obedient to his father’s order.

  ‘Good morning, young Jordan,’ he said, and the child stopped abruptly and stared up at him speechlessly, beginning to blush a deep pink with transparent hero-worship, overcome at being recognized and addressed by name.

  ‘I see you have taken to reading rather than fisticuffs now.’

  In his haste Jordan still carried a book in his hand. Rhodes stooped and took it from him.

  ‘Good Lord—’ he said, ‘Plutarch! You have cultivated taste for one so young.’

  ‘It’s a fascinating book, sir.’

  ‘Indeed it is, one of my favourites. Have you yet read Gibbon?’

  ‘No, sir,’ Jordan whispered shyly, the blush subsiding to leave him only faintly pink. ‘I do not know where I could find a copy.’

  ‘I will lend you one, when you have finished this.’ He handed the battered dog-eared copy of Plutarch’s Lives back to Jordan. ‘Do you know where my camp is?’

  ‘Oh, yes, Mr Rhodes.’

  Every day of his life Jordan made a detour on his way back from his lessons in the church, a detour that passed the tented and thatched camp where Pickering and Rhodes kept a bachelor mess, and Jordan passed with drag
ging footsteps. Twice he had glimpsed his idol at a distance and each time overcome with shyness had scampered away.

  ‘Good. Call in when you are ready for it.’ For a moment longer he studied the angelic child, and then turned and followed the other men to the shade of the tree.

  There were empty packing cases and logs to sit on, and the four men arranged themselves in a casual circle. Zouga was relieved that it was too early to offer his guests liquor. He had barely sufficient money to buy food for his family, let alone to afford whisky, and he guessed that a bottle would not last long in this company; all three guests were drinking men.

  They sipped coffee and swapped the news of the settlement for a few minutes before Pickering brought up the real business of their visit.

  ‘There are only two schemes we have come up with to get the No. 6 area back to work,’ he said. ‘The first is the ramp—’

  ‘I’m against that,’ Rhodes said brusquely, impatiently. ‘Within months we’ll be back at the same problem – just too damned deep!’

  ‘I would agree with Mr Rhodes,’ said Hayes, the engineer. ‘At best it would be only a temporary measure. Then the ramp itself would start collapsing.’

  ‘Major Ballantyne’s idea is the only one worth considering,’ Rhodes cut in, and Zouga was struck forcibly by the man’s manner of cutting through unnecessary discussion and getting to the core of a problem. ‘The idea of building stagings on the rim of the workings, and running wires to the floor of the diggings is the only one that will beat the problem of depth. Hayes, here, has done some drawings.’

  The engineer unrolled the plans he carried, spread them on the dusty earth at his feet and anchored the corners with diamondiferous pebbles from Zouga’s tailing dump which had spilled into and was threatening to engulf the entire camp.

  ‘I have considered a cantilever design.’ Hayes began to explain the drawings in crisp technical terms, and the others moved their seats closer and bowed over the plans. ‘We will have to use hand winches, and perhaps horse whims, until we can get a steam engine to do the haulage.’

  They discussed it quietly, asking penetrating questions and, when the answers were obscure, cutting them down with sharp minds and quick words. There was no waste of words, no repetitions, no drawn-out discussion and the work went swiftly.

  The stagings would be tall scaffoldings built on the edge of the pit, and they would house the haulage winches.

  ‘We will have to use steel hawsers. Manila will never do the job,’ Hayes told them. ‘There will have to be a single wire to each individual claim. A lot of wire.’

  ‘How long to get it out?’

  ‘Two months to Cape Town.’

  ‘How much is this going to cost?’ Zouga asked the questions which had been burning his lips all morning.

  ‘More than any of us can afford,’ smiled Pickering. A man with a thousand guineas in his pocket was a rich man on New Rush in these days.

  ‘What we cannot afford is not to do it,’ Rhodes answered him without a smile.

  ‘What about those diggers who cannot afford their share of the stagings?’ Zouga persisted, and Rhodes shrugged.

  ‘Either they find the money, or they will not have a wire down to their claims. From now on it’s going to take capital to work a claim on New Rush.’

  ‘Those who haven’t got it will have to sell out – it’s as easy as that.’

  ‘Since the cave-in the price of claims in the No. 6 has dropped to £100,’ Zouga said. ‘Anybody who sells now is going to take a hell of a knock.’

  ‘And anybody who buys at £100 is going to make a killing,’ Rhodes answered him, and lifted his pale blue eyes from Hayes’ plans, and for a moment held Zouga’s gaze significantly. He was giving advice, Zouga realized, but what impressed Zouga was the strength and determination behind that level gaze. He no longer wondered why somebody so young commanded such widespread respect on the diggings.

  ‘Are we all agreed, then?’ he asked.

  With less than twenty pounds cash in the world and his claims cut off eighty feet below ground level and partially covered by the earth fall of the roadway, Zouga hesitated.

  ‘Major Ballantyne.’ They were all looking at him. ‘Are you in?’

  ‘Yes,’ he nodded firmly. ‘Count me in.’ He would find the money, somewhere, somehow.

  They all relaxed, and Pickering chuckled. ‘It’s never easy to play it all on one card.’ He understood.

  ‘Pickling, didn’t I hear your saddle-bag clink when you dismounted?’ Rhodes asked, and Pickering laughed again and went to fetch the bottle.

  ‘Cordon Argent,’ he said as he pulled the cork. ‘The right juice for such an occasion, gentlemen.’

  They swished the coffee grounds from their mugs and held them out for a dram of the cognac.

  ‘The No. 6 stagings – fast may they rise and long may they stand!’ Pickering gave them the toast, and they drank together.

  Hayes wiped his whiskers with the back of his hand and stood up. ‘I’ll have the quantities ready to send off on the noon coach tomorrow,’ he said, and hurried to his mount. Men who worked for Rhodes were always in a hurry. But neither Pickering or Rhodes moved to follow him.

  Instead, Rhodes stretched out his long legs in the stained white cricket flannels and crossed his dusty riding boots at the ankles, at the same time offering his coffee mug to Pickering.

  ‘I’ll be damned if we don’t have something else to celebrate this day,’ he said as Pickering glugged cognac into their mugs.

  ‘The Imperial Factor,’ Pickering suggested.

  ‘The Imperial Factor,’ Rhodes agreed, and when he smiled the cleft in his smooth chin deepened and the melancholy line of his full lips under the fair moustache relaxed. ‘Even this awful creature Gladstone has not been able to halt the march of Empire northwards through Africa. The Foreign Office has moved at last. The Griquas are to be recognized as British subjects, and Waterboer’s request has been granted. Griqualand West is to become part of Cape Colony, and of the Empire. We have Lord Kimberley’s assurance on it.’

  ‘That’s wonderful news,’ Zouga interrupted.

  ‘You think so?’ The pale blue eyes sought and held Zouga’s.

  ‘I know it to be so,’ Zouga told him. ‘There is only one way to bring peace and civilization to Africa and that is under the Union Jack.’

  Immediately there was a relaxation of the relationship between the three men, an unspoken accord, so that even without moving they seemed to have drawn closer, and their talk was easier, more intimate.

  ‘We are the first nation in the world and anything less than our total duty is unworthy of us,’ Zouga went on, and Rhodes nodded. ‘We destroyed the slave trade on this continent; that was only a beginning. When you have seen the conditions that still exist, the savagery and barbarism, to the north of us, only then can you appreciate how deep that duty still is.’

  ‘Tell me about the hinterland,’ Rhodes demanded in that thin, almost querulous voice that so ill-suited his big loose-knit frame.

  ‘The hinterland.’ It was an unusual term, but it stuck like a burr, and Zouga heard himself use it as he described that wilderness through which he had travelled and hunted and prospected.

  Rhodes sat on a log of firewood, the shaggy leonine head sunk forward, brooding and silent, only his eyes quick and attentive, listening with an almost religious fervour, rousing himself every few minutes, lifting his head to ask a question and then letting it sink again to the answer.

  Zouga spoke of the wide slow rivers that ran in their deep valleys where the cream of tartar trees grew upon the banks and in the green shallows herds of hippopotamus challenged the traveller with gaping pink mouths and curved white tusks.

  He described the deadly malarial swamps, vast stands of papyrus reeds swaying like dancers from horizon to horizon, where the sky pressed down, smothering the world under a heavy blue blanket sodden with steamy vapours, and he told of the relief of climbing the steep rocky escarpments to th
e cool high plateau of golden grasslands.

  With words he showed them the vast and empty spaces, the plains dotted with moving herds of wild game, the cool green forests of standing timber, the streams of sweet water, crystal cold, from which a man could water his herds or his homestead.

  He talked of vanished kingdoms of long dead kings, the Mambo and the Monomatapa, who had built cities of massive grey stone and left them to the smothering vines – their idols thrown down and shattered, the foundations of the walls menaced by the twisted grey python roots of the wild fig trees which found the joints in the stonework and forced them inexorably apart.

  He told them of the square mine shafts that these vanished people had driven into the matrix and then abandoned, leaving the gold-bearing quartz where they had piled it before they fled.

  ‘Visible gold,’ he told them, ‘thick as butter in the reef. Lying out there in the bush.’

  He spoke of the people, the remnants of the subjects of the Monomatapa, their glories long past, decimated by war. He told them of the conquerors, the Matabele, the cruel legions from the south, calling the subservient tribes ‘cattle’ and, contemptuously, ‘Mashona – eaters of dirt’, taking them as slaves, killing them as sport, to prove their manhood, or merely on the king’s whim.

  He described the wealth of the Matabele, their uncountable herds of cattle, thousands upon tens of thousands of fine beasts, glossy hump-backed bulls whose blood lines ran back to Egypt and the land between the Tigris and Euphrates, big rangy animals with widespread horns and hides of every colour from unrelieved black to purest white.

  He told them of deep and secret caverns in the hills where the priests of the vanished kings still conducted their mysteries and sustained the oracle, weaving a gossamer net of witchcraft and magic which enfolded even their proud and arrogant Matabele overlords.

  Then, as the day wasted away and the sun began to set behind a flaming curtain of red dust, Zouga told them of the kraals of the Matabele, the impis trained into the most merciless killing machine Africa had ever brought forth, racing barefoot into battle behind their tall rawhide shields, the plumes nodding and streaming from their dark heads and the dazzle of their assegais lighting the plains as the stars light the night sky.