Men of Men
Suddenly it was clear to Zouga. Rhodes was not baiting for the woman; he was fishing for the man. That display of treasure was for Mungo St John, the man with half a million sterling to dispose of.
Rhodes needed capital. When a man sets out to buy up every single claim on the Kimberley field, and when he is in a desperate hurry to do it, he must always be starved of capital. Rhodes’ ambition was no secret. Zouga himself had been present at the long bar of the Kimberley Club when Rhodes had made the declaration of his intent.
‘There is only one way to stabilize the price of the goods—’ Rhodes’ euphemism for diamonds – ‘and that is an orderly, centralized marketing policy. There is only one way to stop the stealing of goods by the I.D.B., and that is through the institution of a rigorous security screen; and there is only one way to achieve both these objects, and that is to have every claim on the fields owned by one company.’ Everyone listening to him had known who Rhodes intended that the head of that company should be.
That had been a year previously, and now the bucket of diamonds on Zouga’s luncheon table was proof of how far Rhodes had made good his threat and had eaten up the field. Already he was more than halfway towards his goal, but he had been forced to take in partners and still he was short of capital, desperately short.
For the serious obstacle that stood between him and complete ownership of the field was Barney Barnato’s company. He would need millions – literally millions of sterling – for that final step.
So the reason for the little charade was clear to Zouga now, and he was about to turn his head to study General Mungo St John’s reaction to it when the tableau at the far end of the table struck him forcibly.
The untidily dressed young man, heavy in the shoulders, hunched forward in his chair, unruly curling hair spilling over onto the broad forehead above the florid meaty face, thick arms and square powerful hands enclosing a glittering mound of treasure. At his shoulder the slim and graceful figure of the boy with the bright and lovely face, and behind them both, towering above them, holding them both in its thrall, the graven statue of the falcon god.
Zouga shivered, touched for the first time in the presence of the falcon by a superstitious chill. For the first time he was aware of the sense of evil that the old Hottentot had immediately detected in the statue’s stony eyes. For one horrifying instant Zouga was convinced that the bird was about to spread its sharp blade-shaped wings and hold them like a possessive canopy over the two human figures beneath it – and then the moment was past. The tableau broke up.
Rhodes was sweeping the gems back into the bucket, talking quietly to Jordan.
‘Are you still studying the book of Mr Pitman’s shorthand that I sent you, Jordan?’
‘Yes, Mr Rhodes.’
‘Good – you’ll find it of great value one day.’
The boy understood the dismissal and slipped away down the verandah to his kitchen, while Rhodes casually handed the bucket of diamonds to his clerk and addressed General St John directly.
‘In the section of the workings that we own we are recovering an average of ten carats to each ton of gravel that we process, to that we must add at least another two carats a ton which is being stolen by the labourers between the pit floor and the grading room. As our security system becomes more efficient and as we have better laws to control the I.D.B. we can expect to eliminate that wastage—’ Rhodes was talking in that high-pitched voice so incongruous in such a big man, gesturing with strong square hands, persuasive and articulate. Reeling off figures for production costs and anticipated recovery, the expectations of profits on tonnage worked, returns on capital outlaid, he was addressing himself to one man only, the erect bearded figure with the black eye-patch, yet his manner was so persuasive that every one of them was listening with full attention, even Louise St John.
Zouga glanced at her and saw that she was concentrating on the confusing jumble of figures, and that she seemed to be able to absorb them. She proved that immediately.
‘Mr Rhodes, you said earlier that working costs on the No. 9 Section were ten shillings and sixpence; now you use a new figure – twelve shillings?’ She challenged unexpectedly, and Rhodes paused, gave a little nod of recognition for her perception before he replied.
‘At the deeper levels the costs rise. Ten and six is our present cost, twelve shillings our projected cost for twelve months hence.’ His voice had a new note of respect. ‘I am flattered that you have followed my discourse so closely, madam.’ Then he turned back to St John. ‘From this you will see, General, that the returns on capital invested are about the best you will find anywhere: ten per cent is certain, fifteen per cent is possible.’
St John had been holding an unlit cigar between his teeth; now he removed it and stared hard at Rhodes with his single eye.
‘So far, Mr Rhodes, you have not mentioned the blue.’
‘The blue.’ Every single one of them at the long table froze.
‘The blue.’ It was as if St John had spoken a gross obscenity, shocking them all into silence.
‘The blue’ was the main reason why Rhodes was hungry for capital.
‘The blue’ was the reason why the banks were calling on all diggers who had borrowed against the collateral of their claims to reduce their overdrafts by fifty per cent; and Rhodes had borrowed a million pounds to finance his attempt to acquire every single claim on the New Rush field. As he had acquired each block, Rhodes had immediately used it as security to borrow money to buy the next block, pyramiding loan upon loan, debt upon debt.
Zouga was one of the few who so far had resisted Rhodes’ advances, resisted with pain and heart-searching an offer of £5,000 for his claims on the Devil’s Own. The offer had been made six months before, before those dreaded words ‘the blue’ were whispered in the inner sanctum of the long bar of the Kimberley Club.
Nobody would offer Zouga £5,000 for his claims now. On the contrary, a week after he first heard those two dreaded words, the manager of the Standard Bank had sent a note asking him to call.
‘Major Ballantyne, in view of recent developments, the bank has been forced to review the value of collateral securing our clients’ overdrafts. We have calculated the present market value of your claims as five hundred pounds each.’
‘That’s ridiculous, sir.’
‘Major, the blue has shown on the claims of the Orphen Company.’ The bank manager did not have to elaborate. The Orphen block was only separated from the Devil’s Own by a dozen intervening claims. ‘I don’t enjoy doing this, Major, but I must ask you to reduce your overdraft to one thousand pounds.’
‘The blue’ was the reason why many of the town’s merchants were running down their stocks, preparing themselves to pull out.
‘The blue’ was the reason why many of the transport riders were re-routing their wagons to the new goldfields at Pilgrims’ Rest.
‘What is the blue?’ asked Louise St John, and when none of the others spoke, Zouga’s duty as host placed the burden of reply upon him.
‘The blue is the diggers’ name for a type of rock formation, Mrs St John. A volcanic conglomerate, dark blue in colour and very hard – too hard to work easily.’ Zouga picked up his champagne glass, sipped the yellow wine and then studied the rising pinpricks of bubbles.
‘Is that all?’ Louise asked quietly.
‘It has zircons in it, small zircons the size of sugar grains, but there is no market for zircons,’ Zouga went on grudgingly.
‘What is the significance of this – blue?’ Louise persisted.
Zouga paused to pick his words with care.
‘The diamondiferous earth is a friable yellow gravel – friable means crumbling.’
‘Thank you,’ Louise smiled without rancour. ‘I do know the word.’
‘Well then, on some of the deeper claims in the northern section the yellow gravel has pinched out, and we have come up short against this hard blue floor, hard as marble and just as sterile.’
‘That has
n’t been proved,’ Rhodes cut in sharply, and Zouga inclined his head in acceptance.
‘No, it hasn’t been proved, but that is what we all fear. That we have come to the end. That the fields are worked out.’
They were all silent then, contemplating that terrifying eventuality.
‘When will you know for certain?’ Mungo St John asked. ‘When will you know that this blue ground underlies the entire field, and that there are no diamonds in it?’
‘It will be many months still before the shallower claims can be worked down to the level of those that have run into the blue,’ Rhodes answered. ‘Then if we do find it covers the whole field, we will have to drive pot-holes through it to make sure that it is not a thin layer, and that the yellow gravel does not recur below it.’
‘I see,’ St John nodded. ‘It seems that I was fortunate to delay my visit to Kimberley until after this blue ground was encountered, or I might have found myself the owner of a mountain of blue marble and no diamonds.’
‘You have always been a fortunate man, Mungo.’ Louise flashed a smile at him, and he replied to it gravely.
‘You, my dear, are the greatest of all my good fortunes.’
With obvious relief the company abandoned the subject of the dreaded blue ground and turned to lighter topics. Only Rhodes did not join them, but sat silent and brooding at the head of the long table.
Though Zouga smiled and nodded at the repartee, he also was distracted by the talk of lurking disaster, and his thoughts were a barrier between him and the company, so that Louise St John had to repeat his name to gain his attention.
‘Is that possible, Major Ballantyne?’
Zouga roused himself and turned to her. ‘Forgive me, Mrs St John. Will you repeat the question?’
Louise was not accustomed to having a man’s thoughts wander when she was talking to him. This cold and correct Englishman was truly beginning to irritate her, and she found herself wanting to shock some natural reaction out of him. She had thought of including a man’s word, one of Mungo’s soldier’s words, in her conversation, but good sense warned her that he would merely raise an eyebrow at such gaucherie. She had thought of ignoring him, but intuition warned her that he would probably welcome that treatment. The best course open to her was to direct her queries at him and force him to recognize her existence, and let it nettle him.
‘I was led to understand that you were the Chairman of the Kimberley Sporting Club?’
‘I have that honour,’ Zouga agreed.
‘I have heard also that your steeplechases or point-to-point races – I am never quite sure of your British terminology – are the most popular diversions on the diamond fields.’
Zouga shook his head and smiled. ‘I’m not sure of the terminology myself. They certainly are not steeplechases, we are critically short of steeples out here, and they are not point-to-point exactly, for we throw in a little rifle drill. So, we prefer to call them rough rides. A fairly accurate description, I think.’
‘I thought to enter one of my horses – in a rough ride,’ Louise said.
‘We would welcome your participation,’ Zouga agreed. ‘I could prepare a list of our better riders from which you could choose.’
‘I prefer to ride myself,’ Louise shook her head.
‘I am afraid that would not be possible, Mrs St John.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you are a woman.’
Her expression gave Zouga his first truly satisfying moments in her company. She had turned waxen pale so that the freckles stood out boldly on her cheeks and her eyes glowed a lighter, brighter, angry blue.
Zouga waited for her retort, but she sensed his anticipation and, with a huge effort, denied him the satisfaction. Instead she turned to her husband.
‘It’s after three o’clock. It has been a very pleasant luncheon, but I should like to return to the hotel now.’ She stood up quickly, and Mungo St John shrugged resignedly and stood up beside her.
‘Please do not let us break up this delightful gathering.’ His smile and his tone asked their indulgence for a womanly whim.
The groom brought her horse to her and she caressed its pale silken muzzle. Then she gathered the reins, looked up at the group of men on the stoep, held Zouga’s eye for a moment, before deliberately turning away.
She placed one neat gloved hand on the stallion’s withers where the long white mane rose into the crest of the shoulders, and then in the next instant she was seated on the broad and powerful back, her small feet thrust deeply into the silver-starred Mexican-type stirrups.
Zouga was astounded. He had never seen a woman vault to the saddle. Usually it took a groom to hold the head and another to form a bridge of linked fingers to boost her to the height of the horse’s back.
Louise St John had gone up so lightly and easily that she might have flown, and the movement of her left hand that made the stallion rear was only apparent to someone looking for it.
The huge horse went up on its hind legs, walking backwards in a circle, cutting at the air with its forehooves, until it faced the five-foot barbed-wire fence that marked the division between Zouga’s camp and the public road.
Then Louise moved her hand again and the stallion dropped into a dead run, straight at the fence.
The watching men exclaimed in alarm for the stallion had a bare twenty strides to build up momentum for the jump, yet he flew at it with his pink nostrils flaring and the serpentine veins beneath the burnished skin of his cheeks swelling with the pumping of the great heart.
Louise’s thick black braids were flung out tautly behind her head by the power of the stallion’s acceleration, and then she lifted him into the jump with her knees and her hands.
For an instant of time the horse and the tiny figure upon its back seemed to hang suspended against the pale blue of the sky, the horse with its forefeet drawn up beneath its noble head and the woman rising in the saddle to cushion the shock of take-off and landing – and then they were over.
The stallion landed neatly, with his rider in perfect balance, and the golden body flowed smoothly into the continuation of his run.
There was a soft involuntary sigh from the group on the verandah, and Zouga felt a surge of relief as powerful as the driving leap of the stallion. He had had a mental image of the woman caught up in the bloody strands of barbed wire, like a wild bird in the trapper’s net, with torn body and broken wings.
Zouga stood on top of the central stagings. He was as high above the level of the plain as a three-storey building, and from his vantage point he could see as far north as the Vaal river. The dark-green stain of the lusher scrub and grass along its course looked like cloud shadow upon the dust-pale earth, but there were no clouds in the high vault of the sky, and the brutal sun threw stark shadows below the high stagings, geometrical patterns that parodied in two-dimensional plan the intricate structure of timber and iron and steel wire. The stagings clung perilously to the sheer precipice that fell into the depths.
It was as though a gigantic meteor had ploughed into the yellow earth, gouging this bowl-shaped dish through the earth’s crust. In the deepest sections it was almost two hundred feet deep already, and each spadeful of gravel had been dug out by hand, lifted to the surface and laboriously picked over before being discarded in the mountainous waste dumps. It was a monument to the persistence of those antlike creatures that swarmed down there on the pit floor.
Zouga wiped the black grease off his hands with a wad of cotton waste, and nodded to the Matabele winchman who threw in the gear lever of the steam winch.
Once again the numbing clatter hammered against Zouga’s skull and the slender thread of shining steel cable slithered in over the drums. The winch and steam boiler had cost Zouga over a thousand pounds, the entire winnings of an unusually productive week’s labour when Jordan had picked eleven good diamonds off the sorting-table. That week’s recovery had been one of the false promises that the Devil’s Own had whispered to him, like an unfa
ithful wife.
Zouga moved to the front of the stagings to escape the painful sound of the winch. He was on an unguarded wooden balcony with the drop sucking seductively at him, but he ignored it.
He had ten minutes to rest now, the time that it took the gravel skip to travel up from the claims to the surface. He could see it lifting off the floor below like a fat spider creeping up its individual silken thread towards him, still too deep for him to recognize for certain the human figure riding on the enormous steel bucket.
Zouga lit a cheroot, and it tasted of engine grease from his fingers. He looked down again, and decided that instead of an ant’s nest the pit reminded him more of a beehive. Even at these deep levels the precise shape of each claim had been maintained, and the geometrical shapes were like the individual cells in a honeycomb.
‘If only mine would yield a little more honey,’ he thought.
The skip was close enough now for there to be no doubt of the tall young figure standing casually on the lip of the steel bucket, balancing easily with both hands on his hips as the drop grew steadily deeper under him.
It was a matter of pride amongst the younger diggers to ride the skip in the most casual or spectacular manner possible. Zouga had forbidden Ralph to dance on the skip, a fad that had been started by a young Scot who had once danced between the floor and the stagings, accompanying himself on the bagpipes.
Ralph drew steadily closer, rising up through the glistening web of steel cables that hung over the pit like a silver cloud. Hundreds of cables, one for each individual claim, every strand polished by the pulley wheels, by the friction over the winding drums, until they caught the sunlight and shimmered into a silver mist that hung like an aura over the pit – ethereal and lovely, hiding the harsh reality of that gouged raw earth, with its dangers and disappointments.
While he waited for the skip to reach him, Zouga cast his mind back to that first day when he had led the single oxen into the sprawling encampment with Aletta on the wagon box beside him, and they had looked up at the riddled and torn kopje.
So much earth had been moved since then, so many men had died in this terrible pit where that kopje had once stood and so many dreams had perished with them.