A Time for Courage

by Margaret Graham

  ‘You’ll be working with the gold – at first anyway. That’s where we need the engineers. It’s hard rock but you’ll be used to that with your Cornish roots. It’s damned tough work, you know that? Especially in this heat. It’s not so bad during the winters.’

  He laughed at Harry’s surprise. ‘Yes, we have winters and they can be bloody cold, you know. The Rand is high after all and so are the diamond fields, mark my words.’

  The heat in Johannesburg was greater than Harry thought could be possible; the thermometer said that it was over 140 degrees and that was inside the house which he was to share with Frank, so what would it be out in the full glare of the sun?

  The small corrugated iron house with its wooden stoep and the thin hedge of cypress trees on three sides lay on the extreme edge of the town alongside unlit, unpaved roads. They had taken a horse-drawn tram from the station to the house and Harry had found it an extraordinary and gaudy town which looked like a circus dropped in the middle of the moon, so barren was the veld through which they had travelled. The station was on the northern edge of the town close to the post office and the telephone exchange and Harry knew now where he could post his next letter to Esther.

  They had passed some substantial two-storeyed houses in brick with first-floor balconies and Frank had laughed and said they should doff their hats for these were the big bosses. They had passed through Market Square around which the town had originally grown and had continued south past stone buildings: the Stock Exchange, banks, the offices of mining companies and the Rand Club which looked as smart as anything in London. Other trams had travelled the main thoroughfares and heat had blurred the air well above the ground.

  Frank had been right, he had felt as though he were breathing dust and as he lay on the bed, stifled by the heat, he felt little better. Sweat ran from him in rivulets and the bed was wet beneath him. There was no fan here just whitewashed walls with no pictures and windows with blinds so that although the sun was kept from the room so was any vestige of a breeze. But would there have been such a thing as a cooling wind? Harry knew there would not. Frank had insisted before he threw his boots to the boy, who was black and thin, with a face that was almost frightening in its strangeness, that they would go out to the mine only when the sun had gone down.

  And so it was not until the evening when the worst of the heat was over and the moon had cast a white light over the land that they left the house with its sparse furniture, covered all the time with fine dust, and set out to visit the mine which held so many of his hopes and Esther’s too.

  The horse that Frank had produced and which would be kept further down nearer the town was sure-footed as they rode, though there was little which could have caused it to stumble; the grass was limited to tufts and the stones which lay amongst the few succulents were small and flat.

  The white light of night lit a scene which was unmistakable and Harry reined in his horse and sat looking at the mines which stretched for mile upon mile while Frank rode on, his horse scraping its hoofs on the stones and clinking its bit as it jerked its head. In the centre of each mine stood the headgear, the great triangular metal box whose winding gear lowered miners below and hauled up ore.

  ‘Low grade ore,’ Frank explained as Harry caught up. They rode a few yards further and he followed the line of Frank’s arm as he pointed to the left, reining in as the other man did.

  ‘That’s the start of our particular little enterprise,’ Frank said as their horses snorted and changed their weight from foot to foot beneath them. ‘But it’s not so little of course, though at the beginning it was just a mass of small claims. The big men bought the others up, and it makes sense, because what small concerns can afford the equipment to sink shafts into the hard rock? It’s not the quality of this ore which turned it into such a rich mining area but the quantity. So it’s a pig for the small man.’

  Harry nodded, although he already knew this from his time at the School of Mines in London. He could see the stamp batteries, which he knew had pestles weighing up to 1000lbs for crushing the ore preparatory to treatment. He knew that cyanide was now used to treat the crushed banket, which was so named because the Dutch farmers had felt that the jagged edge of the reef, dotted as it was with pebbles, resembled ‘banket’, almond cakes which they made. He also knew that 2000 gallons of water were needed for every ton of ore. How could they find that much water, he wondered, but knew that they conserved it in ‘pans’.

  And how extraordinary that cyanide of potassium precipitates gold on to zinc shavings from which the gold can be recovered and refined. He nodded to himself. Frank was right; his own supposition made while he was still in London was right. There was definitely no room for the small man in this set-up. He would have to find his fortune in diamonds.

  ‘And the Boers? Do they own much of this?’

  ‘No, most of them sold their land to the foreigners; the British and Germans mainly. Since the war a few farm boys work here of course. Their farms weren’t worth restarting and we have room for them now that the Chinese labourers are being returned.’ They rode back now slowly and from the north-west he could hear a murmuring and a chanting and he turned to Frank, a question on his face.

  Frank shrugged. ‘The kaffirs, you know, the native workers,’ he said. ‘The mining doesn’t seem to make them tired enough to sleep. Maybe we need to work them harder?’

  Harry was confused. ‘Don’t they go to their homes at night?’

  ‘No need for that, it’s best that they’re kept penned up here,’ Frank said, rubbing his horse’s ear with his riding crop and pointing out a dassie which was sprinting in the distance.

  Harry looked over again in the direction of the sound. It had a haunting quality in the moon-bathed night. ‘But don’t they mind?’ he queried, remembering Hannah at Arthur’s dinner-table, the candles flickering, anger in her eyes.

  Frank was in front now; he turned in his saddle and Harry heard the creak of the leathers as he did so. ‘It’s difficult for you new boys straight out of England to understand. These boys don’t have feelings or needs like us. That’s what makes the whole bloody thing tick, old man.’ He was pointing to the mines again. ‘Gold has made South Africa rich or rather the kaffirs have.’ He was slapping the crop lightly in his hand as Harry rode closer, his hands leaning on the pommel of the saddle.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Think of Canada and its wheat. Or Australia and its cheap grazing. What are these things?’ He did not wait for Harry to answer and Harry was glad for he was at a loss.

  ‘They are the raw material which has made these countries rich,’ Frank continued. ‘Kaffirs or “boys” are South Africa’s raw material. They work for us, dig out our gold. Their needs are less than those of the white man, far less. We pay them just as little as we can and if they are killed,’ Frank shrugged, ‘there is no need for compensation. They make the gold a far more profitable concern than if we were to use white miners.’

  ‘But surely they want to go home?’ Harry asked.

  Frank shrugged again and laughed. ‘I’ve told you, Harry, these boys don’t have feelings like us, or wants or needs.’

  ‘Then why do you have to keep them penned?’

  ‘For God’s sake, Harry, let it drop. You’re a new boy, you must listen to what I say. Really listen, man. This is the way it is, the way it has been since the white man came and it works, it works well. We’ve learnt from the Boers how to treat the natives and, as I said, it works. They are just beasts, they don’t expect anything else.’

  They were riding forward again now and there was no breeze to carry the noise from the compound and so slowly it was left behind. Harry turned in his saddle and looked back.

  ‘Just believe me, man, it’s a good system,’ Frank reiterated. ‘Compounds and the pass laws work well. I’ll show you the compounds at Kimberley when we go. We have more of a problem with the diamonds of course, they can be stolen as they’re dug so we have to take extra measures.’


  ‘Just slow down a moment, Frank. What are these pass laws? Is this pass something I should have?’ Harry asked.

  ‘Not you, Harry,’ Frank laughed. ‘The kaffirs carry passes and if they are found without one they are in great trouble, believe me. That’s what I mean by learning from the Boers. They started that years ago for their slaves and servants to keep them on the job and it’s a damn good idea. It stops them wandering off. Keeps them under our thumb.’

  ‘But what if the kaffirs are working their own holdings, in the diamond fields for instance? Do they still have passes?’ The lights from the town were bright now and they were drawing closer to them.

  ‘Oh, they can’t own holdings; that’s a lesson we Europeans learnt early on. The way these boys work in the heat they’d have outstripped us years ago. We can’t have that happening. We are white men, we have to protect our natural position, don’t we?’

  Harry rode on. Another dassie ran fast to the side of him.

  ‘Are they slaves then?’

  ‘Oh no. I told you, we pay them. They like us as masters better than the Boers. We’re better to them. The British were good to them in the early days too. We abolished slavery in the Cape, you know. That’s mainly why the Boers trekked inland and set up their republics in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. The old Dutchmen didn’t want to give up their free labour.’

  Frank was lighting a cigarette and Harry shook his head as he offered the silver cigarette case. He watched as Frank flicked the match through the air. It was out before it hit the sand. The dust was thick in his throat but he wanted to know more about this country which was so different from his.

  ‘So the Boers challenged the authority of the British later, did they, and tried to use our men’s expertise and tax without giving them the vote?’

  Frank’s laugh was soft and he drew deeply on his cigarette; the end glowed a deep red. ‘Perhaps that’s how it seemed back home but there’s many that will tell you that the mine owners didn’t like the way the Boer Government was handling the supply franchises and keeping prices high for the owners. Those owners wanted a change in the power structure so that these things could be put into the hands of the British. Dynamite could then be imported more cheaply and profits would be greater. That’s what it all boils down to in the end, Harry. Profits. Not honour, not the thin red line but profits.’

  They were nearing the house now and Frank’s voice was languid, bored. ‘The Liberal Government is feeling so damn guilty about the war and the concentration camps that they are working towards self-government for the Boers again, but don’t worry, the franchises are safe, thank God. The politicians are even consoling the Boers by forgetting their wonderful liberal principles and acknowledging that the kaffirs must be kept down and kept separate. Different schools, no vote, no nothing and that equals no complications so you could say the Boers won the war anyway and so did we. Couldn’t be better, could it, old man?’

  Harry was tired now and his head was full of a life which was stranger than he had imagined. But still, it was the way things were and he was too weary and too lonely to think about it.

  For a month he worked in the office which was hot and stifling, but one morning Frank entered, took Harry’s hat from the stand and threw it across to him. Harry laughed and caught it, seeing the dust shaking out on to the desk. He wiped it away with his hand, his sweat streaking the wood.

  ‘Get your things. We’re off to the diamond fields, just for a quick trip though,’ Frank called.

  This is what Harry had been waiting for day after day. He rose, nodding to the clerk, not waiting even to straighten the sheets of figures on his desk.

  They left for Kimberley by train that day in the raging heat. His skin was already sore and burnt and his neck rubbed on his starched white collar but his sweat soon stained and softened the stiffness.

  ‘We’ve to deliver some documents by hand,’ Frank said, nodding at the briefcase he carried with him.

  As the train jolted and rattled he told Harry how diamonds had originally been found by the Orange and the Vaal Rivers at a spot hundreds of miles from the temperate Cape across the Great Karroo, which is attractive in its own way but arid, endless, parched. Like me, Harry had thought, wondering why they had to travel as they were doing. He did not look out; the sun was too bright. He rested his head back against the seat, feeling the jarring of his neck as the train rattled along the tracks.

  Frank explained that from April to August the weather was cold because the diamond diggings were at 4000 feet and from September to March it sometimes rained and when it did the great hole became a morass in which people had often drowned.

  ‘That’s the only time the dust does not seep through your clothes into your nose, your mouth, your ears,’ Frank groaned.

  ‘What great hole?’ Harry asked but Frank told him to wait and see.

  When he arrived he understood, and looked with awe at the man-made steps which staggered down into a great hole covering at least eight acres. It defeated any of his preconceived ideas. It was so deep, so busy, so vast.

  ‘Each claim in this pipe was originally about the size of a small tennis court and those steps,’ Frank pointed to steps cut into the ground, ‘would take the digger down past the other claims to his own which might have been right at the bottom.’

  Harry covered his mouth and nose with his handkerchief as the hot dry wind blew red dust in blasts from the surrounding veld. He narrowed his eyes to slits. The sky seemed almost yellow in the heat, the ground felt hot even through his boots.

  ‘Keep your watch in your pocket. The dust will get in it and that will be that,’ Frank warned him.

  Harry knew that diamonds had been formed millions of years ago when deposits of carbon lying deep underground were squeezed by the great pressure of the ground sixty miles above them and baked by the intense heat of the inner earth so that they were changed into diamonds. He also knew that they would still have been buried deep down had not the molten interior forced its way to the surface, carrying the stones, spurting into the air and falling down again to harden and cool, forming pipes. This is what, in essence, he was now looking at.

  He knew also that the weathering of years had carried diamonds far and wide from the surface of these pipes and his hope was to find in some alluvial bed the fortune which was imperative to him. This surveying is what he had been trained for and he knew it was just a question of looking. Impatience filled him but he must wait, he told himself. Just wait.

  Kimberley was a dreary town with low small cottages connected by sandy tracks. There were a few thorn trees and ditches dug to drain off rain-water and Harry was glad the next day to be at the diamond mine with Frank instead of in the hot dark room of the hotel where they had stayed last night. The noises from the brothel just two dusty streets from them had screamed and laughed in his head as he had lain panting in the heat.

  There were four mines at Kimberley but only one was owned by the company that employed them and while Frank stood to one side and talked to the mine manager about the documents he had delivered Harry watched the black labourers as they elbowed and bustled, crept and climbed, shovelled and sieved; working like ants in the dust bowl.

  He turned as Frank shouted over the noise, waving to an area off to the west. ‘That’s where we keep the boys,’ he said. ‘They came to work here originally for dowry money and guns. Now they come to pay the poll-tax we’ve levied on their huts. Damn clever way of keeping ’em coming back when their spell is over.’

  ‘I can see why they might not like it,’ Harry said, coughing and choking.

  ‘I think they prefer this to the gold. They don’t like the deep mines.’ Frank shook hands with the manager and so too did Harry. He felt the dust on both their hands; the dust and the sweat. Frank walked on, nodding to a white man who was issuing orders to a black team.

  ‘Maybe we’ll both be doing that bloke’s job soon,’ Frank murmured. ‘There’s a slump in the diamond market an
d it’s affecting our conglomerate. They don’t need much more surveying, here or on the Rand, but I’d quite like to work this close to the real thing. How about you?’

  Harry nodded. Yes, he’d like that, it would make him feel closer to his goal. He could check out the country around here on his time off. Again he felt impatient and excited too. He wiped his mouth and then his forehead; somehow he would have to make sure that he was sent back here from the Rand.

  Frank was talking again. ‘Never mind, business will pick up. Bound to with industry taking off the way it is. It’s not just our women who want diamonds now, thank God, but the cutting machines too; diamonds are so hard.’

  With each step they kicked up dust and all around was the noise of men hacking and working. Occasionally chanting could be heard, but rising above everything was the singing of the wires which stretched taut into the base of the mine transporting the wooden boxes and the iron buckets up to the surface laden with broken rock, then back again, wheels running on wires, empty and fast now.

  ‘You can see how this becomes a quagmire in the wet,’ Frank shouted and Harry nodded. How many people did Frank say had drowned in the mud and water? He couldn’t remember.

  ‘Perpendicular shafts are being sunk too but there are still diamonds to be found in the big holes.’ Frank’s mouth was against his ear and Harry thought of Sam and Penhallon and it seemed so cool to him now, so measured and familiar. He thought of the moors and the sea, the river and the trap which he had driven through high-banked lanes and for a moment the heat and strangeness was shut out, but not for long. Frank took his arm.

  ‘Come along with me,’ he mouthed. ‘I’ve had enough of this chaos.’ Harry nodded and looked back again to the big hole spread over its many acres because he wanted to remember it clearly. After all, diamonds were why he was out here.