When Heany trotted into the camp all its senior officers were already gathered at the command tent, and Doctor Jameson himself came forward to shake his hand and lead him into the tent where they were screened from curious eyes. Zouga Ballantyne poured Indian tonic onto a dram of gin, and brought it to him.
‘Sorry, Maurice, this is not the Kimberley Club, I’m afraid we have no ice.’
‘Ice or not, you have saved my life.’
They knew each other well. Maurice Heany had been one of Ralph Ballantyne’s and Harry Johnston’s junior partners when they had contracted to bring the original pioneer column into Mashonaland.
Heany drank and wiped his moustache before looking up at John Willoughby, and the little doctor. He was in a quandary as to whom he should address his message to, for although Willoughby was the regimental commander and Zouga Ballantyne his second-in-command, and although Doctor Jameson was officially only a civilian observer, they all knew with whom the ultimate decision-making and authority lay.
Jameson smoothed his embarrassment by ordering directly, ‘Well then, out with it, man.’
‘It’s not good news, Doctor Jim. Mr Rhodes is utterly determined that you must remain here until after the Reform Committee has captured Johannesburg.’
‘When will that be?’ Jameson demanded bitterly. ‘Just look at these!’ He picked up a sheaf of telegraph flimsies from the camp table. ‘A new telegraph every few hours, in Frank Rhodes’ execrable code. Take this one, yesterday.’ Jameson read aloud: ‘“It is absolutely necessary to delay floating until company letterhead agreed upon“.’ Jameson dropped the telegraphs back on the table with disgust. ‘This ridiculous quibbling over what flag to fly. Damn me, but if we aren’t doing this for the Union Jack, then what are we doing it for?’
‘It is rather like the timorous bride who, having set the date, views the approach of the wedding day with delicious confusion.’ Zouga Ballantyne smiled. ‘You must remember that our friends on the Reform Committee in Johannesburg are more used to stock deals and financial speculation than the use of steel. Like the blushing virgin, they may need a little judicial forcing.’
‘That’s it exactly.’ Doctor Jameson nodded. ‘And yet Mr Rhodes is concerned that we should not move ahead of them.’
‘There is one other thing that you should know.’ Heaney hesitated. ‘It does seem that the gentlemen in Pretoria are aware that something is afoot. There is even talk that there is a traitor amongst us.’
‘That is unthinkable,’ snapped Zouga.
‘I agree with you, Zouga,’ Doctor Jim nodded. ‘It is much more likely that these damned puerile telegraphs of Frank Rhodes have come to old Kruger’s notice.’
‘Be that as it may, gentlemen. The Boers are making certain preparations – it is even possible that they have already called out their commandos in the Rustenburg and Zeerust divisions.’
‘If that is the case,’ Zouga said softly, ‘then we have a choice. We can either move immediately, or we can all go home to Bulawayo.’
Doctor Jameson could not remain seated any longer, he jumped up from his canvas chair and began pacing up and down the tent with quick jerky little strides. They all watched in silence until he stopped in the opening of the tent and stared out across the sun-scorched plain towards the eastern horizon beneath which lay the great golden prize of the Witwatersrand. When at last he turned to face them, they could see that he had reached his decision.
‘I am going,’ he said.
‘Thought you would,’ murmured Zouga.
‘What are you going to do?’ Jameson asked as softly.
‘Going with you,’ said Zouga.
‘Thought you would,’ said Jameson, and then glanced at Willoughby who nodded.
‘Good! Johnny will you call the men out? I would like to speak to them before we ride – and, Zouga, will you see to it that the telegraph lines are all cut? I don’t want ever to see another one of those communications from Frankie. Anything more he has to say, he can tell me face to face when we reach Johannesburg.’
‘They’ve got Jameson!’ The cry echoed through the elegant hush of the Kimberley Club, like a Hun war-cry at the gates of Rome.
The consternation was immediate and overwhelming. Members boiled out of the long bar into the marbled lobby, and surrounded the news-crier. Others from the reading-room lined the banisters, shouting their queries down the stair-well. In the dining-room someone bumped into the carving-wagon in his haste to reach the lobby, and sent it crashing on its side while the joint rolled across the floor with roast potatoes preceding it like a squad of footmen.
The bearer of the news was one of the prosperous Kimberley diamond-buyers, a profession no longer referred to as ‘kopje-walloping’, and such was his agitation that he had forgotten to remove his straw boater when entering the club portals. An offence that at another time would have merited a reprimand from the committee.
Now he stood in the centre of the lobby, hat firmly on his head and reading spectacles sliding to the end of his empurpled nose, a symptom of his excitement and agitation. He was reading from a copy of The Diamond Fields Advertiser, the ink of which was so fresh that it smeared his fingers: ‘Jameson raises White Flag at Doornkop after sixteen killed in fierce fighting. Doctor Jameson, I have the honour to meet you. General Cronje accepts surrender.’
Ralph Ballantyne had not left his seat at the head of the corner table, although his guests had deserted him to join the rush into the lobby. He signalled the distracted wine waiter to refill his glass, and then helped himself to another spoonful of the sole bonne femme, while he waited for his guests to return. They came trooping back, led by Aaron Fagan, like a funeral party returning from the cemetery.
‘The Boers must have been waiting for them—’
‘Doctor Jim walked straight into it—’
‘What on earth did the man think he was doing?’
Chairs rasped and every one of them reached for his glass the moment he was seated.
‘He had six hundred and sixty men and guns. By God, it was a carefully planned thing then.’
‘There will be a few tales to tell.’
‘And heads to roll, no doubt.’
‘Doctor Jim’s luck has run out at last.’
‘Ralph, your father is amongst the prisoners!’ Aaron was reading the newsprint.
For the first time Ralph showed emotion. ‘That’s not possible.’ He snatched the paper from Aaron’s hand, and stared at it in agony.
‘What happened?’ he muttered. ‘Oh God, what has happened?’ But somebody else was yelling in the lobby.
‘Kruger has arrested all the members of the Reform Committee – he has promised to have them tried for their lives.’
‘The gold mines!’ another said clearly in the ensuing silence, and instinctively every head lifted to the clock on the wall above the dining-room entrance. It was twenty minutes to two. The stock exchange re-opened on the hour. There was another rush, this time out of the club doors. On the sidewalk, hatless members shouted impatiently for their carriages, while others set out at a determined trot towards the stock exchange buildings.
The club was almost deserted, not more than ten diners were left at the tables. Aaron and Ralph were alone at the corner table. Ralph still held the list of prisoners in his hand.
‘I cannot believe it,’ he whispered.
‘It’s a catastrophe. What can possibly have possessed Jameson?’ Aaron agreed.
It seemed that the worst had happened, nothing could match the dreadful tidings that they had received so far, but then the club secretary came out of his office ashen-faced, and stood in the doorway of the dining-room.
‘Gentlemen,’ he croaked. ‘I have some more terrible news. It has just come through on the wire. Mr Rhodes has offered his resignation as prime minister of Cape Colony. He has also offered to resign from the chairmanship of the Charter Company, of De Beers and of Consolidated Goldfields.’
‘Rhodes,’ Aaron whispered. ‘Mr Rho
des was in it. It’s a conspiracy – the Lord only knows what will be the final consequences of this thing, and who Mr Rhodes will bring down with him.’
‘I think we should order a decanter of port,’ said Ralph, as he pushed his plate away from him. ‘I’m not hungry any more.’
He thought about his father in a Boer prison, and suddenly an image come into his mind of Zouga Ballantyne in a white shirt, his hands bound behind his back, his gold- and silver-laced beard sparkling in the sunlight, the whitewashed wall at his back, regarding the rank of riflemen in front of him with those calm green eyes of his. Ralph felt nauseated and the rare old port tasted like quinine on his tongue. He set the glass down.
‘Ralph.’ Aaron was staring at him across the table. ‘The bear transaction, you sold the shares of Charter and Consolidated short, and your position is still open.’
‘I have closed all your transactions,’ said David Silver. ‘I averaged out BSA shares at a little over seven pounds, that gives you a profit, after commission and levy, of almost four pounds a share. You did even better on the Consolidated Goldfields transactions, they were the worst hit in the crash, from eight pounds when you began selling them short they dropped to almost two pounds when it looked as though Kruger was going to seize the mining companies of the Witwatersrand in retaliation.’ David Silver broke off and looked at Ralph with awe. ‘It is the kind of killing which becomes a legend on the floor, Mr Ballantyne. The frightful risk you took,’ he shook his head in admiration. ‘What courage! What foresight!’
‘What luck!’ said Ralph impatiently. ‘Do you have my difference cheque?’
‘I have.’ David Silver opened the black leather valise in his lap and brought from it a snowy white envelope sealed with a rosette of scarlet wax.
‘It is counter-signed and guaranteed by my bank.’ David laid it reverently upon his Uncle Aaron’s desk-top. ‘The total is,’ and he breathed it like a lover, ‘one million and fifty-eight pounds eight shillings and sixpence. After the one that Mr Rhodes paid to Barney Barnato for his claims in the Kimberley mine, it is the largest cheque ever drawn in Africa, south of the equator – what do you say to that, Mr Ballantyne!’
Ralph looked at Aaron in the chair behind the desk. ‘You know what to do with it. Just be certain it can never be traced back to me.’
‘I understand,’ Aaron nodded, and Ralph changed the subject.
‘Has there been an answer to my telegraph yet? My wife is not usually so slow in replying.’ And because Aaron was an old friend, who loved the gentle Cathy as much as any of her many admirers, Ralph went on to explain. ‘She is within two months of her time. Now that the dust of Jameson’s little adventure has begun to settle and there is no longer any danger of war, I must get Cathy down here, where she can have expert medical attention.’
‘I’ll send my clerk to the telegraph office.’ Aaron rose and crossed to the door of the outer office, to give his instructions. Then he looked back at his nephew. ‘Was there anything else, David?’ The little stockbroker started. He had been staring at Ralph Ballantyne with the glow of hero-worship in his eyes. Now he hastily assembled his papers, and stuffed them into his valise, before coming and offering his soft white hand to Ralph.
‘I cannot tell you what an honour it has been to be associated with you, Mr Ballantyne. If there is ever anything at all I can do for you—’
Aaron had to shoo him out of the door.
‘Poor David,’ he murmured, as he came back to the desk. ‘His very first millionaire, it’s a watershed in any young stockbroker’s life.’
‘My father—’ Ralph did not even smile.
‘I’m sorry, Ralph. There is nothing more we can do. He will go back to England in chains with Jameson and the others. They are to be imprisoned in Wormwood Scrubs until they are called to answer the charge.’ Aaron selected a sheet of paper from the pile on his desk. ‘“That they, with certain other persons in the month of December 1895, in South Africa, within Her Majesty’s dominions, did unlawfully prepare and fit out a military expedition to proceed against the dominions of a certain friendly state, to wit, the South African Republic, contrary to the provisions of the Foreign Enlistment Act of 1870.”’
Aaron laid down the paper and shook his head. ‘There is nothing any of us can do now.’
‘What will happen to them? It’s a capital offence—’
‘Oh no, Ralph, I am sure it won’t come to that.’
Ralph sank down in his chair and stared moodily out of the window, for the hundredth time castigating himself for not having anticipated that Jameson would cut the telegraph lines before marching on Johannesburg. The recall that Cathy had sent to Zouga Ballantyne, the fiction that Louise was gravely ill, had never reached him and Zouga had ridden into the waiting Boer commandos with the rest of them.
If only, Ralph thought, and then his thoughts were interrupted. He looked up expectantly as the clerk came hesitantly into the office.
‘Has there been a reply from my wife?’ Ralph demanded, and the man shook his head.
‘Begging your pardon, Mr Ballantyne, sir, but there has not.’ He hesitated, and Ralph urged him:
‘Well, man, what is it? Spit it out, there’s a good fellow.’
‘It seems that all the telegraph lines to Rhodesia have been down since noon on Monday.’
‘Oh, so that is it.’
‘No, Mr Ballantyne, that’s not all. There has been a message from Tati on the Rhodesian border. It seems a rider got through this morning.’ The clerk gulped. ‘This messenger seems to have been the only survivor.’
‘Survivor!’ Ralph stared at him. ‘What does that mean? What on earth are you talking about?’
‘The Matabele have risen. They are murdering all the whites in Rhodesia – man, woman and child, they are being slaughtered!’
‘Mummy, Douglas and Suss aren’t here. There is nobody to get me breakfast.’ Jon-Jon came into the tent while Cathy was still brushing out her hair, and twisting it up into thick braids.
‘Did you call for them?’
‘I called and called.’
‘Tell one of the grooms to go down and fetch them, darling.’
‘The grooms aren’t here also.’
‘The grooms aren’t here either,’ Cathy corrected him and stood up. ‘All right, then, let’s go and see about your breakfast.’
Cathy stepped out into the dawn. Overhead the sky was a lovely dark rose colour shaded to ripe orange in the east, and the bird chorus in the trees above the camp was like the tinkle of silver bells. The camp-fire had died to a puddle of grey powdery ash and had not been replenished.
‘Put some wood on, Jon-Jon,’ Cathy told him and crossed to the kitchen hut. She frowned with annoyance. It was deserted. She took down a tin from the gauzed meat-safe and then looked up as the doorway darkened.
‘Oh Isazi,’ she greeted the little Zulu. ‘Where are the other servants?’
‘Who knows where a Matabele dog will hide himself when he is needed?’ Isazi asked contemptuously. ‘They have most likely spent the night dancing and drinking beer and now their heads are too heavy to carry.’
‘You’ll have to help me,’ said Cathy. ‘Until the cook gets here.’
After breakfast in the dining-tent, Cathy called Isazi from the fire again.
‘Have any of them come back yet?’
‘Not yet, Nkosikazi.’
‘I want to go down to the railhead. I hope there is a telegraph from Henshaw. Will you put the ponies into the trap, Isazi.’
Then for the first time she noticed the little frown of concern on the old Zulu’s wrinkled features.
‘What is it?’
‘The horses – they are not in the kraal.’
‘Where are they then?’
‘Perhaps one of the mujiba took them out early, I will go to find them.’
‘Oh, it doesn’t matter.’ Cathy shook her head. ‘It’s only a short walk to the telegraph office. The exercise will be good for me.’ And she calle
d to Jonathan, ‘Fetch my bonnet for me, Jon-Jon.’
‘Nkosikazi, it is perhaps not wise, the little one—’
‘Oh don’t fuss,’ Cathy told him fondly, and took Jonathan’s hand. ‘If you find the ponies in time you can come and fetch us.’ Then swinging her bonnet by its ribbon and with Jonathan skipping beside her, she started along the track that led around the side of the wooded hill towards the railhead.
There was no clamour of hammers on steel. Jonathan noticed it first.
‘It’s so quiet, Mama.’ And they stopped to listen.
‘It’s not Friday,’ Cathy murmured. ‘Mr Mac can’t be paying the gangs.’ She shook her head, still not alarmed. ‘That’s strange.’ And they went on.
At the corner of the hill they stopped again, and Cathy held her bonnet up to shade her eyes from the low sun. The railway lines ran away southward, glistening like the silken threads of a spider’s web, but below them they ended abruptly at the raw gash of the cut line through the bush. There was a pile of teak sleepers at the railhead and a smaller bundle of steel rails, the service locomotive was due up from Kimberley this afternoon to replenish those materials. The sledgehammers and shovels were in neat stacks where the shift had left them at dusk the night before. There was no human movement around the railhead.
‘That’s even stranger,’ said Cathy.
‘Where is Mr Henderson, Mama?’ Jonathan asked. His voice was unusually subdued. ‘Where are Mr Mac and Mr Braithwaite?’
‘I don’t know. They must still be in their tents.’
The tents of the white surveyor and the engineer and his supervisors were grouped just beyond the square galvanized iron shack of the telegraph. There was no sign of life around the hut nor between the neat pyramids of canvas, except for a single black crow which sat on the peak of one of them. Its hoarse cawing reached them faintly, and as Cathy watched, it spread its black wings and flapped heavily to earth at the entrance of the tent.
‘Where are all the hammer-boys?’ Jonathan piped, and suddenly Cathy shivered.