When the Lion Feeds Page 19

  You going hunting? he asked.

  Duff told him quickly and Francois was hopping with agitation before he had finished. Steal my claims, the thunders, the stinking thunders! He rushed into his tent and came out again with a doublebarrelled shotgun. We’ll see, man, we’ll see how they look full of buckshotFrancois, listen to me, Sean shouted him down. We don’t know which claims they’ll go to first. Get your men ready and if you hear shooting our way come and give us a hand, we’ll do the same for you. Ja, ja, we’ll come all right, the dirty thunders. His nightshirt flapping around his legs Francois trotted off to call his men. Mbejane and the other Zulus were cooking dinner, squatting round the three-legged pot.

  Sean rode up to them. Get your spears, he told them. They ran for their huts and almost immediately came crowding back.

  Nkosi, where’s the fight! they pleaded, food forgotten. Come on, I’ll show you. They placed the hired gunmen amongst the mill machinery from where they could cover the track which led up to the mine. The Zulus they hid in one of the prospect trenches. If it developed into a hand-to-hand fight the syndicate was in for a surprise. Duff and Sean walked a little way down the slope to make sure their defenders were all concealed.

  How much dynamite have we got? Sean asked thoughtfully. Duff stared at him a second, then he grinned. Sufficient, I’d say. You’re full of bright ideas this evening He led the way back to the shed which they used as a storeroom.

  In the middle of the track a few hundred yards down the slope they buried a full case of explosive and placed an old tin can on top of it to mark the spot. They went back to the shed and spent an hour making grenades out of bundles of dynamite sticks, each with a detonator and a very short fuse. Then they settled down huddled into their sheepskin coats, rifles in their laps and waited.

  They could see the lights of the encampments straggled down the valley and hear an occasional faint burst of singing from the canteens, but the moonlit road up to the mine remained deserted. Sean and Duff sat side by side with their backs against the newly painted boiler. How did Candy find out about this, I wonder? Sean asked.

  She knows everything. That hotel of hers is the centre of this goldfield and she keeps her ears open. They relapsed into silence again while Sean formed his next question. She’s quite a girl, our Candy.

  Yes, agreed Duff. Are you going to marry her, Duff? VGood God! Duff straightened up as though someone had stuck a knife into him. You going mad, laddie, or else that was a joke in the worst possible taste. She dotes on you and from what I’ve seen you’re fairly well disposed towards her. Sean was relieved at Duffs quick rejection of -the idea. He was jealous, but not of the waYes, we’ve got a common interest, that I won’t deny but marriage! Duff shivered slightly, not altogether from the cold. Only a fool makes the same mistake twice. Sean turned to him with surprise. You’ve been married before? he asked. With a vengeance. She was half Spanish and the rest Norwegian, a smoking bubbly mixture of cold fire and hot ice.

  Duff’s voice went dreamy. The memory has cooled sufficiently for me to think of it with a tinge of regret. What happened? I left her yWe only did two things well together and one of them was fight. If I close my eyes I can still see the way she used to pout with those lovely lips and bring them close to my ear before she hissed out a particularly foul word, then, hey ho! back to bed for the reconciliation. Perhaps you made the wrong choice. You look around, you’ll see millions of happily, married people Name me one, challenged Duff and the silence lengthened as Sean thought.

  Then Duff went on, There’s only one good reason for marriage, and that’s children. And companionship, that’s another good reason. Companionship from a woman? Duff cut in incredulously. Like perfume from garlic.

  They’re incapable of it.

  I suppose it’s the training they get from their mothers, who are after all women themselves, but how can you be friends with someone who suspicions every little move you make, who takes your every action and weighs it on the balance of he loves me, he loves me not? Duff shook his head unhappily. How long can a friendship last when it needs an hourly declaration of love to nourish it? The catechism of matrimony, “Do you love me, darling? “Yes, darling of course I do, my sweet. “ It’s got to sound convincing every time otherwise tears.

  Sean chuckled. All right, it’s funny, it’s hilarious until you have to live with it, Duff mourned. Have you ever tried to talk to a woman about anything other than love? The same things that interest you leave them cold. It comes as a shock the first time you try talking sense to them and suddenly you realize that their attention is not with you - they get a slightly fixed look in their eyes and you know they are thinking about that new dress or whether to invite Men Van der Hum to the party, so you stop talking and that’s another mistake. That’s a sign; marriage is full of signs that only a wife can read. I hold no brief for matrimony, Duff, but aren’t you being a little unfair, judging everything by your own unfortunate experience? Select any woman slap a ring on her third finger and she becomes a wife. First she takes you into her warm, soft body, which is pleasant, and then she tries to take you into her warm, soft mind, which is not so pleasant.

  She does not share, she possesses, she clings and she smothers. The relation of man to woman is uninteresting in that it conforms to an inescapable pattern, nature has made it so for the very good reason that it requires us to reproduce; but in order to obtain that result every love, Romeo and Juliet, Bonaparte and Josephine not excepted, must lead up to the co-performance of a simple biological function. It’s such a small thing, such a short-lived, trivial little experience. Apart from that xnan and woman think differently, feel differently and are interested in different things. Would you call that companionship? No, but is that a true picture? Is that all there is between them? Sean asked.

  You’ll find out one day. Nature in her preoccupation with reproduction has planted in the mind of man a barricade; it has sealed him off from the advice and experience of his fellowmeni inoculated him against it.

  When your time comes you’ll go to the gallows with a song on your lips.

  You frighten me. It’s the sameness of it all that depresses me, the goddqmn monotony of it. Duff shifted his seat restlessly then settled back against the boiler. The interesting relationships are those in which sex the leveller takes no hand brothers, enemies, master and servant, father and son, man and man. Homosexuals? No, that’s merely sex out of step and you’re back to the original trouble. When a man takes a friend he does it not from an uncontrollable compulsion but in his own free choice. Every friendship is different, ends differently or goes on for ever. No chains bind it, no ritual or written contract.

  There is no question of forsaking all others, no obligation to talk about it, mouth it up and gloat on it the whole time. Duff stood up stiffly. It’s one of the good things in life. How late is it? Sean pulled out his watch and tilted its face to catch the moonlight. After midnight, it doesn’t look as if they’re coming. ? They’ll come, there’s gold here, another uncontrollable compulsion.

  They’ll come. The question is when. The lights along the valley faded out one by one, the deep singsong voices of the Zulus in the prospect trench stilled and a small cold wind came up and moved the grass along the ridge of the Candy Deep. Sitting together, sometimes drowsing sometimes talking quietly, they waited the night away. The sky paled, then pinked prettily. A dog barked over near Hospital Hill and another joined it. Sean stood up and stretched, he glanced down the valley towards Ferrieras Camp and saw them. A black moving blot of horsemen, overflowing the road, lifting no dust from the dew-damp earth, spreading out to cross the Natal Spruit then bunching together on the near bank before coming on. Mr Charleywood, we have company.

  Duff jumped up. They might miss us and go onto the Jack and Whistle first We’ll see which road they take when they come to the fork. In the meantime let’s get ready. Mbejane, Sean shouted and the black head popped out of the trench. Nkosi? Are you awake They are coming. The blackness parted in a
white smile. We are awake. Then get down and stay down until I give the word.

  The five mercenaries were lying belly down in the grass, each with a newly-opened packet of cartridges at his elbow. Sean hurried back to Duff and they crouched behind the boiler. The tin can shows up clearly from here. Do you think you can hit it? With my eyes closed, said Sean.

  The horsemen reached the fork and turned without hesitation towards the Candy Deep, quickening their paces as they came up the ridge. Sean rested his rifle across the top of the boiler and picked up the speck of silver in his sights. What’s the legal position, Duff? he asked out of the corner of his mouth. They’ve just crossed our boundary, they are now officially trespassers, Duff pronounced solemnly.

  One of the leading horses kicked over the tin can and Sean fired at the spot on which it had stood. The shot was indecently loud in the quiet morning and every head in the syndicate lifted with alarm towards the ridge, then the ground beneath them jumped up in a brown cloud to meet the sky. When the dust cleared there was a struggling tangle of downed horses and men. The screams carried clearly up to the crest of the ridge.

  My God, breathed Sean, appalled at the destruction. Shall we let them have it, boss? called one of the hired men. No, Duff answered him quickly. They’ve had enough. The flight started, riderless horses, mounted men and others on foot were scattering back down the valley.

  Sean was relieved to see that they left only half a dozen men and a few horses lying in the road. Well, that’s the easiest fiver you’ve ever earned, Duff told one of the mercenaries. I think you can go home now and have some breakfast. Voit, Duff. Sean pointed. -the survivors of the explosion had reached the road junction again and there they were being stopped by two men on horseback. Those two are trying to rally them Let’s change their minds, they’re still within rifle range! They are not on our property any more, disagreed Sean. Do you want to wear a rope? They watched while those of the syndicate who had had enough fighting for one day disappeared down the road to the camps and the rest coagulated into a solid mass at the crossroad. We should have shot them up properly while we had the chance, grumbled one of the mercenaries uneasily. Now they’ll come back, look at that bastard talking to them like a Dutch uncle. They left their horses and spread out, then they started moving cautiously back up the slope. They hesitated just below the line of boundary pegs then ran forward, tearing up the pegs as they came. All together, gentlemen, if you please, called Duff politely and the seven rifles fired. The range was long and the thirty or so attackers ran doubled up and dodging.

  The bullets had little effect at first, but as the distance shortened men started falling. There was a shallow donga running diagonally down the slope and as each of the attackers reached it he jumped down into it and from its safety started a heated reply to the fire of Sean’s men.

  Bullets sponged off the machinery, leaving bright scars where they struck.

  Mbejane’s Zulus were adding their voices to the confusion. Let us go down to them now, Nkosi. They are close, let us go. Quiet down, you madmen, you’d not go a hundred paces against those rifles, Sean snarled impatiently. Sean, cover me, whispered Duff. I’m going to sneak round the back of the ridge, rush them from the side and lob a few sticks of dynamite into that donga. . Sean caught his arm, his fingers dug into it so that Duff winced. You take one step and I’ll break a rifle butt over your head, you’re as bad as those Blacks. Now keep shooting and let me think. Sean peered over the top of the boiler but ducked again as a bullet rang loudly against it, inches from his ear. He stared at the new paint in front of his nose, put his shoulder against it; the boiler rocked slightly. He looked up and Duff was watching him. We’ll walk down together and lob that dynamite, Sean told him. Mbejane and his bloodthirsty heathens will roll the boiler in front of us. These other gentlemen will cover us, we’ll do this thing in style. Sean called the Zulus out of the trench and explained to them. They chorused their approval of the scheme and jostled each other to find a place to push against the boiler. Sean and Duff filled the front of their shirts with the dynamite grenades and lit a short length of tarred rope each.

  Sean nodded to Mbejane.

  Where are the children of Zulu? sang Mbejane, shrilling his voice in the ancient rhetorical question. Here, answered his warriors braced ready against the boiler. JWhere are the spears of Zulu? Here. How bright are the spears of Zulu? Brighter than the Sun.

  How hungry are the spears of Zulu? Hungrier than the locust. Then let us take them to the feeding. Tehho. Explosive assent and the boiler revolved slowly to the thrust of black shoulders.

  Teh-ho. Another reluctant revolution.

  Teh-ho. It --moved more readily.

  Teh-ho. Gravity caught it. Ponderously it bumped down the slope and they ran behind it. The fire from the donga doubled its volume, rattling like hail against the huge metal cylinder. The singing of the Zulus changed its tone also; the deep-voiced chanting quickened, climbed excitedly, and became the blood trill. That insane, horrible squealing made Sean’s skin crawl, tickled his spine with the ghost fingers of memory, but it inflamed him also. His mouth opened and he squealed with them. He touched the first grenade with the burning rope then flung it in a high spluttering sparking arc. It burst in the air above the donga. He threw again. Crump, crump. Duff was using his explosive as well. The boiler crashed over the lip of the donga and came to rest in a cloud of dust; the Zulus followed it in, spreading out, still shrieking, and now their assegais were busy. The white men broke, clawed frantically out of the ravine and fled, the Zulus hacking at them as they ran.

  When Francois arrived with fifty armed diggers following him the fight was over. Take your boys down to the camps. Comb them out carefully.

  We want every one of those that got away, Duff told him. It’s about time we had a little law and order on this field. How will we pick out the ones that were in on it? asked Francois.

  By their white faces and the sweat on their shirts you will know them.

  Duff answered.

  Francois and his men went, leaving Sean and Duff to clean up the battlefield. It was a messy job, the stabbing spears had made it so.

  They destroyed those horses that the blast had left still half alive and they gleaned more than a dozen corpses from the donga and the slope below it. Two of them were Zulus. The wounded, and there were many, they packed into a wagon and took them down to Candy’s Hotel.

  It was early afternoon by the time they arrived. They threaded the wagon through the crowd and stopped it in front of the Hotel. It seemed the entire population of the goldfield was there, packed around the small open space in which Francois was holding his prisoners.

  Francois was almost hysterical with excitement. He was sweeping the shotgun around in dangerous circles as he harangued the crowd. Then he darted back to prod one of the prisoners with the twin muzzles. You thunders, he screamed. Steal our claims, hey steal our claims.

  At that moment he caught sight of Duff and Sean bringing the wagon through the press. Duff, Duff. We got them. We got the whole lot of them. The crowd backed respectfully away from the menace of that circling shotgun and Sean flinched as it pointed directly at him for a second. . I see, Francois, Duff assured him. in fact, I have seldom seen anyone more completely had.

  Francois’s prisoners were swathed in ropes; they could move only their heads and as additional security a digger with a loaded rifle stood over each of them. Duff climbed down off the wagon.

  don’t you think you should slacken those ropes a little? Duff asked dubiously.

  And have them escape? Francois was indignant. Do you think they’d get very far? tNo, I don’t suppose so. Well, another half hour and they’ll all have gangrene look at that one’s hand already, a beautiful shade of blue. Reluctantly Francois conceded and told his men to untie them.

  Duff pushed his way through the crowd and climbed the steps of the Hotel. From there he held up his hands for silence. There have been a lot of men killed today, we don’t want it to happen
again. One way we can prevent it is to make sure that this lot get what they deserve Cheers were led by Francois. But we must do it properly. I suggest we elect a committee to deal with this affair and with any other problems that crop up on these fields. Say ten members and a chairman.

  More cheers. Call it the Diggers Committee, shouted someone and the crowd took up the name enthusiastically. All right, the Diggers Committee it is. Now we want a chairman, any suggestions? Mr Charleywood, shouted Francois. Yes, Duff, he’ll do. Yes, Duff Charleywood. Any other suggestions? No, roared the crowd. Thank you, gentlemen. Duff smiled at them. I am sensible of the honour. Now, ten members Jock and Trevor Heyns. Karl Lochtkamper. Francois du Toit. Sean Courtney. There were fifty nominations. Duff baulked at counting votes so the committee was elected by applause. He called the names one at a time and judged the strength of the response to each. Sean and Francois were among those elected. Chairs and a table were brought out onto the veranda and Duff took his seat. With a water-jug he hamInered for silence, declared the first session of the DiggersCommittee open and then immediately fined three members of the crowd ten pounds each for discharging firearms during a meeting, gross contempt of Committee. The fines were paid and a proper air of solemnity achieved.

  I’ll ask Mr Courtney to open the case for the, prosecution.

  Sean stood up and gave a brief description of the morning’s battle, ending You were there, Your Honour, so you know all about it anyway. So I was, agreed Duff. Thank you, Mr Courtney. I think that was a very fair picture you presented. Now, he looked at the prisoners, who speaks for you? There was a minute of shuffling and whispering then one of them was pushed forward. He pulled off his hat and blushed purple.

  Your Worship, he began, then stopped, wriggling with embarrassment. Your worship. You’ve said that already. I don’t rightly know where to begin, Mr Charleywood I mean Your Honour, sir.