by Wilbur Smith
‘Jan Cheroot, there is only one bottle of whisky left,’ Zouga groaned, and stretched his aching shoulders, ‘but tonight I am going to let you pour your own dop.’
They watched with amusement the elaborate precautions which Jan Cheroot took to get the last drop into his brimming mug. In the process, the line around the bottom that marked his daily grog ration was entirely ignored, and when the mug was full, he did not trust the steadiness of his own hand but slurped up the first mouthful on all fours like a dog.
Ralph retrieved the bottle, and ruefully considered the remnants of the liquor before pouring a dram for his father and himself.
‘The Harkness Mine,’ Zouga gave them the toast.
‘Why do you call it that?’ Ralph demanded, when he lowered his mug and wiped his moustache with the back of his hand.
‘Old Tom Harkness gave me the map that led me to it,’ Zouga replied.
‘We could find a better name.’
‘Perhaps, but that’s the one I want.’
‘The gold will be just as bright, I expect,’ Ralph capitulated, and carefully moved the whisky bottle out of the little Hottentot’s reach, for Jan Cheroot had drained his mug already. ‘I am glad we are doing something together again, Papa.’ Ralph settled down luxuriously against his saddle.
‘Yes,’ Zouga agreed softly. ‘It’s been too long since we worked side by side in the diamond pit at New Rush.’
‘I know just the right fellow to open up the workings for us. He is a top man, the best on the Witwatersrand goldfields, and I’ll have my wagons bringing up the machinery before the rains break.’
It was part of their agreement that Ralph would provide the men and machinery and money to run the Harkness Mine when Zouga led him to it. For Ralph was a rich man. Some said he was already a millionaire, though Zouga knew that was unlikely. Nevertheless, Zouga remembered that Ralph had provided the transport and commissariat for both the Mashonaland column and the Matabeleland expedition against Lobengula, and for each he had been paid huge sums by Mr Rhodes’ British South Africa Company, not in cash but in company shares. Like Zouga himself, he had speculated by buying up original land grants from the thriftless drifters that made up the bulk of the original column and had paid them in whisky, carried up from the railhead in his own wagons. Ralph’s Rhodesia Lands Company owned more land than did even Zouga himself.
Ralph had also speculated in the shares of the British South Africa Company. In those heady days when the column first reached Fort Salisbury, he had sold shares that Mr Rhodes had issued to him at £1 for the sum of £3-15s-0d on the London stock market. Then, when the pioneers’ vaunting hopes and optimism had withered on the sour veld and barren ore bodies of Mashonaland, and Rhodes and Jameson were secretly planning their war against the Matabele king, Ralph had re-purchased British South Africans at eight shillings. He had then seen them quoted at £8 when the column rode into the burning ruins of Lobengula’s kraal at GuBulawayo and the Company had added the entire realm of the Matabele monarch to its possessions.
Now, listening to his son talk with that infectious energy and charisma which even those hard days and nights of physical labour on the claims could not dull, Zouga reflected that Ralph had laid the telegraph lines from Kimberley to Fort Salisbury, that his construction gangs were at this moment laying the railway lines across the same wilderness towards Bulawayo, that his two hundred wagons carried trade goods to more than a hundred of Ralph’s own trading-posts scattered across Bechuanaland and Matabeleland and Mashonaland, that as of today Ralph was a half-owner of a gold mine that promised to be as rich as any on the fabulous Witwatersrand.
Zouga smiled to himself as he listened to Ralph talk in the flickering firelight, and he thought suddenly, ‘Damn it, but they might be right after all – the puppy might just possibly be a millionaire already.’ And his pride was tinged with envy. Zouga himself had worked and dreamed from long before Ralph was born, had made sacrifices and had suffered hardships that still made him shudder when he thought about them, all for much lesser reward. Apart from this new reef, all he had to show for a lifetime of striving was King’s Lynn and Louise – and then he smiled. With those two possessions, he was richer than Mr Rhodes would ever be.
Zouga sighed and tilted his hat forward over his eyes, and with Louise’s beloved face held firmly in the eye of his mind he drifted into sleep, while across the fire Ralph still talked quietly, for himself more than for his father, and conjured up new visions of wealth and power.
It was two full days’ ride back to the wagons, but they were still half a mile from the camp when they were spotted, and a joyous tide of servants and children and dogs and wives came clamouring out to greet them.
Ralph spurred forward and leaned low from the saddle to sweep Cathy up onto the pommel so violently that her hair tumbled into her face and she shrieked breathlessly until he silenced her with a kiss full on the mouth, and he held the kiss unashamedly while little Jonathan danced impatiently around the horse shouting, ‘Me too! Lift me up, too, Papa!’
When at last he broke the kiss, Ralph held her close still, and his stiff dark moustache tickled her ear as he whispered, ‘The minute I get you into the tent, Katie my love, we will give that new mattress of yours a stiff test.’
She flushed a richer tone of pink and tried to slap his cheek, but the blow was light and loving. Ralph chuckled, then reached down and picked Jonathan up by one arm and dropped him into the gelding’s croup behind the saddle.
The boy wrapped his arms around Ralph’s waist and demanded in a high piping voice: ‘Did you find gold, Papa?’
‘A ton.’
‘Did you shoot any lions?’
‘A hundred.’
‘Did you kill any Matabele?’
‘The season’s closed,’ Ralph laughed, and ruffled his son’s dark thick curls, but Cathy scolded quickly.
‘That’s a wicked thing to ask your father, you bloodthirsty little pagan.’
Louise followed the younger woman and the child at a more sedate pace, stepping lightly and lithely in the thick dust of the wagon road. Her hair was drawn back from her broad forehead and hung down her back to the level of her waist in a thick braid. It emphasized the high arches of her cheekbones.
Her eyes had changed colour again. It always fascinated Zouga to see the shifts of her mood reflected in those huge slanted eyes. Now they were a lighter softer blue, the colour of happiness. She stopped at the horse’s head and Zouga stepped down from the stirrup and lifted the hat from his head, studying her gravely for a moment before he spoke.
‘Even in such a short time I had forgotten how truly beautiful you are,’ he said.
‘It was not a short time,’ she contradicted him. ‘Every hour I am away from you is an eternity.’
It was an elaborate camp, for this was Cathy and Ralph’s home. They owned no other, but like gypsies moved to where the pickings were richest. There were four wagons outspanned under the tall arched wild fig trees on the bank of the river above the ford. The tents were of new snowy canvas, one of which, set a little apart, served for ablution. This contained a galvanized iron bath in which one could stretch out full length. There was a servant whose sole duty was to tend the forty-gallon drum on the fire behind the tent and to deliver unlimited quantities of hot water, day and night. Another smaller tent beyond held a commode whose seat Cathy had hand-painted with cupids and bouquets of roses, and beside the commode she had placed the ultimate luxury, scented sheets of soft coloured paper in a sandalwood box.
There were horse-hair mattresses on each cot, comfortable canvas chairs to sit on, and a long trestle-table to eat off under the fly of the open-sided dining tent. There were canvas coolers for the champagne and lemonade bottles, food safes screened with insect-proof gauze, and thirty servants. Servants to cut wood and tend fires, servants to wash and iron so that the women could change their clothing daily, others to make the bed and sweep up every fallen leaf from the bare ground between the tents and then
sprinkle it with water to lay the dust, one to wait exclusively upon Master Jonathan, to feed him and bathe him and ride him on a shoulder or sing to him when he grew petulant. Servants to cook the food and to wait upon the table, servants to light the lanterns and lace up the flies of the tents at nightfall and even one to empty the bucket of the hand-painted commode whenever the little bell tinkled.
Ralph rode in through the gate of the high thornbush stockade that surrounded the entire camp to protect it from the nocturnal visits of the lion prides. Cathy was still on the saddle in front of him and his son up behind.
He looked about the camp with satisfaction, and squeezed Cathy’s waist. ‘By God, it’s good to be home, a hot bath, and you can scrub my back, Katie.’ He broke off, and exclaimed with surprise. ‘Damn it, woman! You might have warned me!’
‘You never gave me a chance,’ she protested.
Parked at the end of the row of wagons was a closed coach, a vehicle with sprung wheels, the windows fitted with teak shutters that could be raised against the heat. The body of the coach was painted a cool and delightful green under the dust and dried mud of hard travel, the doors were picked out in gold leaf and the high wheels piped with the same gold. The interior was finished in glossy green leather with gold tassels on the curtains. There were fitted leather and brass steamer trunks strapped to the roof rack, and beyond the coach in Ralph’s kraal of thornbush, the big white mules, all carefully matched for colour and size, were feeding on bundles of fresh grass that Ralph’s servants had cut along the river bank.
‘How did Himself find us?’ Ralph demanded, as he let Cathy down to the ground. He did not have to ask who the visitor was, this magnificent equipage was famous across the continent.
‘We are camped only a mile from the main road up from the south,’ Cathy pointed out tartly. ‘He could hardly miss us.’
‘And he has his whole gang with him, by the looks of it,’ Ralph muttered. There were two dozen blood horses in the kraal with the white mules.
‘All the king’s horses and all the king’s men,’ Cathy agreed, and at that moment Zouga hurried in through the gate with Louise on his arm. He was as excited by their visitor as Ralph was irritated.
‘Louise tells me that he has broken his journey especially to talk to me.’
‘You had better not keep him waiting then, Papa,’ Ralph grinned sardonically. It was strange how all men, even the aloof and cool-headed Major Zouga Ballantyne, came under the spell that their visitor wove. Ralph prided himself that he alone was able to resist it, although at times it required a conscious effort.
Zouga was striding eagerly down the row of wagons towards the inner stockade with Louise skipping to keep up with him. Ralph dawdled deliberately, admiring the remarkable animals that Jonathan had moulded from river clay and now paraded for his approbation.
‘Beautiful hippos, Jon-Jon! Not hippo? Oh, I see, the horns fell off, did they? Well then, they are the most beautiful, fattest hornless kudu that I have ever seen.’
Cathy tugged at his arm at last. ‘You know he wants to speak to you also, Ralph,’ she urged, and Ralph swung Jonathan up onto his shoulder, took Cathy on his other arm, for he knew that such a display of domesticity would irritate the man they were going to meet, and sauntered into the inner stockade of the camp.
The canvas sides of the dining marquee had been rolled up to allow the cool afternoon breeze to blow through it, and there were half a dozen men seated at the long trestle-table. In the centre of the group was a hulking figure, dressed in an ill-fitting jacket of expensive English cloth that was closed to the top button. The knot of his necktie had slipped and the colours of Oriel College were dulled with the dust of the long road up from the diamond city of Kimberley.
Even Ralph, whose feelings for this ungainly giant of a man were ambivalent, hostility mixed with a grudging admiration, was shocked by the changes that a few short years had wrought on him. The meaty features seemed to have sagged from the raw bones of his face, his colour was high and unhealthy. He was barely forty years of age, yet his moustache and sideburns had faded from ruddy blond to dull silver, and he looked fifteen years older. Only the pale blue eyes retained their force and mystic visionary glitter.
‘Well, how are you, Ralph?’ His voice was high and clear, incongruous in such a big body.
‘Good afternoon, Mr Rhodes,’ Ralph replied, and despite himself let his son slip from his shoulder and lowered him gently to the ground. Instantly the child darted away.
‘How is my railway progressing, while you are out here enjoying yourself?’
‘Ahead of schedule and below budget,’ Ralph countered the barely veiled rebuke, and with a small effort broke the hypnotic gaze of those blue eyes and glanced at the men who flanked Mr Rhodes.
On his right was the great man’s shadow, small, narrow-shouldered and as neatly dressed as his master was untidy. He had the prim but nondescript features of a schoolmaster, and receding wispy hair, but keen and acquisitive eyes that gave the lie to the rest of it.
‘Jameson,’ Ralph nodded coolly at him, using neither Doctor Leander Starr Jameson’s title nor the more familiar and affectionate ‘Doctor Jim’.
‘Young Ballantyne.’ Jameson slightly emphasized the diminutive and gave it a faintly derogatory twist. From the very first, their hostility had been mutual and instinctive.
From Rhodes’ left rose a younger man with straight back and broad shoulders, an open handsome face and a friendly smile which showed big even white teeth.
‘Hello, Ralph.’ His handshake was firm and dry, his Kentucky accent easy and pleasant.
‘Harry, I was speaking of you this very morning.’ Ralph’s pleasure was obvious, and he glanced at Zouga. ‘Papa, this is Harry Mellow, the best mining engineer in Africa.’
Zouga nodded. ‘We have been introduced.’ And father and son exchanged a glance of understanding.
This young American was the one that Ralph had chosen to develop and operate the Harkness Mine. It meant little to Ralph that Harry Mellow, like most of the bright young bachelors of special promise in southern Africa, already worked for Cecil John Rhodes. Ralph intended to find the bait that would tempt him away.
‘We must talk later, Harry,’ he murmured, and turned to another young man seated at the end of the table.
‘Jordan,’ he exclaimed. ‘By God, it’s good to see you.’
The two brothers met and embraced, and Ralph made no effort to hide his affection, but then everybody loved Jordan. They loved him not only for his golden beauty and gentle manner, but also for his many talents and for the warmth and real concern that he extended to all about him.
‘Oh Ralph, I have so much to ask, and so much to tell you.’ Jordan’s delight was as intense as Ralph’s.
‘Later, Jordan,’ Mr Rhodes broke in querulously. He did not like to be interrupted, and he waved Jordan back to his seat. Jordan went instantly. He had been Mr Rhodes’ private secretary since he was nineteen years of age, and obedience to his master’s least whim was part of his nature by now.
Rhodes glanced at Cathy and Louise. ‘Ladies, I am sure you will find our discourse tedious, and you have urgent chores to attend to, I am certain.’
Cathy glanced up at her husband, and saw Ralph’s quick annoyance at the artless presumption with which Mr Rhodes had taken over his camp and all within it. Surreptitiously Cathy squeezed his hand to calm him, and felt Ralph relax slightly. There was a limit to even Ralph’s defiance. He might not be in Rhodes’ employ, but the railway contract and a hundred cartage routes depended upon this man.
Then Cathy looked across at Louise, and saw that she was as piqued by the dismissal. There was a blue spark in her eyes and a faint heat under the fine freckles on her cheeks, but her voice was level and cool as she replied for both Cathy and herself, ‘Of course you are correct, Mr Rhodes. Will you please excuse us.’
It was well known that Mr Rhodes was uncomfortable in the presence of females. He employed no female servants, would
not allow a painting nor statue of a woman to decorate his ornate mansion at Groote Schuur in the Cape of Good Hope, he would not even employ a married man in a position close to his person, and immediately discharged even the most trusted employee who took the unforgivable plunge into matrimony. ‘You cannot dance to a woman’s whims and serve me at the same time,’ he would explain as he fired an offender.
Now Rhodes beckoned Ralph. ‘Sit here, where I can see you,’ he commanded, and immediately turned back to Zouga, and began rapping out questions. His questions cut like the lash of a stock whip, but the attention with which he listened to the replies was evidence of the high regard he had for Zouga Ballantyne. Their relationship went back many years, to the early days of the diamond diggings at Colesberg kopje which had since been renamed Kimberley after the colonial secretary who accepted it into Her Majesty’s dominions.
On those diggings Zouga had once worked claims which had yielded up the fabulous ‘Ballantyne Diamond’, but now Rhodes owned those claims, as he owned every single claim on the fields. Since then, Rhodes had employed Zouga as his personal agent at the kraal of Lobengula, King of the Matabele, for he spoke the language with colloquial fluency. When Doctor Jameson had led his flying column in that swift and victorious strike against the king, Zouga had ridden with him as one of his field officers and had been the first man into the burning kraal of GuBulawayo after the king had fled.
After Lobengula’s death, Rhodes had appointed Zouga ‘Custodian of Enemy Property’, and Zouga had been responsible for rounding up the captured herds of Matabele cattle and redistributing them as booty to the company and to Jameson’s volunteers.
Once Zouga had completed that task, Rhodes would have appointed him Chief Native Commissioner, to deal with the indunas of the Matabele, but Zouga had preferred to retire to his estates at King’s Lynn with his new bride, and had let the job go to General Mungo St John. However, Zouga was still on the Board of the British South Africa Company, and Rhodes trusted him as he did few other men.
