Wilbur Smith - Gold Mine

by Gold Mine(Lit)

  the agency was the procurer of labour for the insatiably man-hungry gold mines of the witwatersrand and orange free state. its representatives operated across the southern half of the continent.

  from the swamps and fever lagoons along the great zambesi, from among the palm groves fringing the indian ocean, out of these simmering plains that the bushmen called "the big dry," down from the mountains of basutoland and the grass lands of swaziland and zululand they gathered the bantu, the men themselves completing the first fifty or sixty miles of the journey on foot. individuals meeting on a footpath to become pairs, arriving at a little general dealer's store in the bleak scrub desert to find three or four others already waiting, the arrival of the recruiting truck with a dozen men and their luggage aboard, the long bumping grinding progress through the bush. the stops at which more men scrambled aboard, until a full truck load of fifty or sixty disembarked at a railway siding in the wilderness.

  here the tiny trickle of humanity joined a stream, and at the first major centre they trans-shipped and became part of the great flood that washed towards "goldi."

  however, once they had reached johannesburg and been allocated to one of the sixty major gold mines, the agency's obligations towards its recruits were not yet discharged.

  between them the employing mine and the agency must provide each man with employment, training, advice and comfort, maintain contact between him and his family, for very few of them could write, reassure him when he worried that his goats were sick or his wife unfaithful. they must provide a banking and savings service with a personal involvement unknown to any commercial banking institute. they had, in short, to make certain that a man taken from an environment that had not changed in a thousand years and deposited into the midst of a sophisticated and technological society would retain his health, happiness and sanity, so that at the end of his contract he would return to the place from which he had come and tell them all how wonderful it was at "goldi'. he would show them his hard helmet, and his new suitcase crammed with clothes, his transistor radio and the little blue book with its printed figures, inflaming them also with the desire to make the pilgrimage, and keep the flood washing towards'goldi'.

  big king completed his business transactions and went in through the gates of the hostel. he was going to take advantage of the fact -that he had missed the shift and would be among the first at the ablutions and dining-hall.

  he went down across the lawns to his block. despite the size of an establishment that housed 6,000 men, the company had tried to make it as attractive as possible. the result was an unusual design, halfway between a motel and an advanced penitentiary. as a senior boss , big king rated a room of his own.

  an ordinary labourer would share with five others.

  carefully big king brushed down his suit and hung it in the built-in cupboard, wiped down his glossy shoes and racked them, then with a towel around his waist he set off for the ablution block and was irritated to find it already filled with new recruits up from the acclimatization centre.

  big king ran an appraising eye over their naked bodies and judged that this batch must be nearing the completion -age of their eight-day acclimatization. they were sleek and shiny, the muscle definition showing clearly through the skin.

  you could not take a man straight out of his village, probably suffering from malnutrition, and put him down a gold mine to lash and bar and drill in a dry bulb heat of 91" fahrenheit and 84% relative humidity, without running a serious risk of killing him with heat stroke or exhaustion.

  every recruit judged medically fit to work underground went into acclimatization. for eight days, eight hours a day, he and hundreds of others stood with only a loin cloth about his middle in a vast barn-like hall stepping up onto and down from a platform. the height of the platform was carefully matched to the man's height and body weight, the speed of his movements was regulated by a flashing panel of lights, the temperature and humidity were controlled at 91" and 84%, every ten minutes he was given water and his body temperature was registered by the half dozen trained medical assistants in charge of the room.

  at the end of the eighth day he emerged as fit as an olympic athlete, and quite able to perform heavy physical labour in conditions of high temperature and humidity without discomfort or danger.

  "gwedeni!" growled big king, and the nearest recruit, still white with soap suds, hurriedly vacated his shower with a respectful "keshle!" in deference to big king's rank and standing. big king removed his towel and stepped under the shower, revelling as always in the rush of hot water over his skin, flexing the great muscles of his arms and chest.

  the messenger found him there.

  "king nkulu, i have word for thee." the man used shangaan, not the bastard fanikalo.

  "speak" big king invited, soaping his belly and buttocks.

  "the induna bids you call at his house after you have eaten the evening meal."

  "tell him i will attend his wishes," said big king and held his face up into the rush of steaming water.

  dressed in a white open-necked shirt and blue slacks, big king sauntered down to the kitchens. again the recruits were ahead of him, queueing with bowls in hand outside the serving hatches. big king walked past them through the door marked "no admittance staff only."

  the kitchens were cavernous, glistening with white porcelain tiles and stainless steel cookers and bins that could serve 18,000 hot meals a day.

  when big king entered a room, even one as large as this, no one was unaware of his presence. one of the assistant cooks snatched up a bowl not much smaller than a baby's bath, and hurried across to the nearest stainless steel bin. he opened the lid and looked expectantly at big king. big king , nodded and the cook ladled about two litres of steaming sugar beans into the bowl, before passing on to the next bin where he again looked for and obtained big king's approval. he added an equal quantity of mixed vegetables to the bowl, slammed down the lid and scampered across to where a second assistant waited with a spade beside yet another bin.

  the spade was the same as those used for lashing gold reef underground, but the blade of this one had been polished to gleaming cleanliness.

  the second cook dug into the bin and came up with a spadeful of white maize porridge, cooked as stif as cake, the smell of it as saliva-making as the smell of new bread. this was the staple of bantu diet. he deposited the spadeful in the bowl.

  "i am hungry." big king spoke for the first time, and the second cook dug out another spadeful and added it to the bowl. they passed on to the end of the kitchens and at their approach another cook lifted the lid on a pressure cooker the size of a washing machine. from it arose a cloud of fragrant steam. damp. apologetically the cook held out his hand and big king produced his meat ticket. meat was the only food that was rationed. each man was limited to one pound of meat a day; the company had long ago discovered to its astonishment and cost that a bantu, offered unlimited supplies of fresh meat, was quite capable of eating his own weight of it monthly.

  having ascertained that big king was entitled to his daily pound, the cook proceeded to ladle at least five pounds of it into the bowl.

  "you are my brother," big king thanked him, and the little procession moved on to where yet another cook was filling a half-gallon jug of thick, gruel-like, mildly alcoholic bantu beer from one of the multiple spiggots beneath the thousand-gallon tank.

  the bowl and jug were ceremonially handed to big king and he went out onto the covered terraces where benches and tables were set out for alfresco dining in mild weather.

  while he ate, the terrace began to fill, for the shift was out of the mine now. every man who passed his table greeted big king, but only a few privileged persons took the liberty of seating themselves at the same table. one of them was joseph m'kati, the little old sweeper from 100 level.

  "it has been a good week, king nkulu."

  "you say so." big king was non-committal. "i go now to a meeting with the old one. then we shall see." the old one, the sh
angaan induna, lived in a company house. a self-contained residence with lounge and dining room, kitchen and bathroom. he was handsomely paid by the company, provided with servants, food, furniture and all the other appurtenances of his rank and station.

  he was the head of the shangaan community on the sander ditch. a chief of the blood, a greybeard and member of the tribal councils. in similar houses and with the same privileges and in equal style lived the indunas of the other tribal groups that made up the labour force of the sander ditch. they were the paternal figureheads, the tribal jurists, ruling and judging within the framework of law and custom.

  the company could not hope to maintain harmony and order without the assistance of these men.

  "babo!" big king greeted his induna from the doorway of his house, touching the forehead in respect not only for the man but also for what he represented.

  "my son." the induna smiled his greeting. "come and sit by me." he gestured for his servants to leave the room, and big king went to squat at the feet of the old man. "is it true you go now to work with the mad one?" that was Johnny delange's nickname.

  they talked, the induna questioning him on fifty matters that affected the welfare of his people. for big king this was a comforting and nostalgic experience, for the induna stood in the place of his father.

  at last, satisfied, the induna went on to other matters.

  "there is a parcel ready tonight. crooked leg waits for you. "i shall go for it."

  "go in peace then, my son." on his way through the gates of the hostel big king stopped to chat with the guards. these men had the right to search over any person entering or leaving the hostel.

  particularly they were concerned with preventing either women disguised as men or bottles of spirits entering the premises both of which' tended to have a disruptive effect on the communities and as an afterthought they were also instructed to look out for stolen property entering or leaving. big king had to ensure that none of them would ever, under any circumstances, take it into his head to search big king.

  while he stood at the gates, the last glow of the sunset faded and the lights began to come on across the valley.

  the clusters of red aerial warning lights atop the head gears the massed yellow squares of the hotels, the strings of street lamps and the isolated pinpricks of the residential areas up on the ridge.

  when it was truly dark, big king left the guards and sauntered down the main road, until a bend in the road took him out of their sight. then big king left the road and started up the slope. he moved like a night animal, swiftly and with certainty of the path he followed.

  he passed the ranch-type split-levels of the line management officials with their wide lawns and swimming-pools, pausing only once when a dog yapped nearby, then moving on again until he was into the broken rock and rank grass of the upper ridge; he crossed the skyline and started down the far side until he made out the grass-covered mound of rubble in the moonlight. he slowed and moved cautiously forward until he found the rusty barbed wire fence that guarded the entrance. he vaulted it easily and went on into the black mouth of the tunnel.

  fifty years before, a long-defunct mining company had suspected the existence of a gold reef in this area and had driven prospecting adits into the side of the ridge, exhausting its funds in the process, and finally abandoning the network of tunnels in despair.

  big king paused long enough to draw an electric torch from his pocket before going on into the tunnel, flashing the beam ahead of him.

  soon the air stank of bats and their wings swished about his head.

  unperturbed, big king went on deeper and deeper into the side of the hill, taking a turning and fork in the tunnel without hesitation. at last there was a faint glow of yellow light ahead and big king switched off his torch.

  "crooked leg!" he called, his voice bounced and boomed along the tunnel. there was no reply.

  "it is i, big king!" he shouted again, and immediately a shadow detached itself from the side-wall and limped towards him, sheathing a wicked-looking knife as it came.

  "all is ready." the little cripple came to greet him.

  "come, i have it here." crooked leg had earned his limp and his nickname in a rockfall a dozen years ago. now he owned and operated the concession photographic studio on the mine property, a flourishing enterprise, for dearly the bantu love their own image on film. not, however, as profitable as his nocturnal activities in the abandoned workings beyond the ridge.

  he led big king into a small rock chamber lit by a suspended hurricane lantern. mingled with the bat stench was the acrid reek of sulphuric acid in high concentration.

  on a wooden trestle table that occupied most of the chamber were earthenware jars, heavy glass bowls, polythene bags, and a variety of shoddy and very obviously second-hand laboratory equipment. in a clear space amongst all this clutter stood a large screw-topped bottle.

  the bottle was filled with a dirty yellow powder.

  "ha!" big king exclaimed his pleasure. "plenty!"

  "yes. it has been a good week," crooked leg agreed.

  big king picked up the bottle, marvelling once again at the unbelievable weight of it. this was not pure gold, for crooked leg's acid reduction methods were crude, but it was at least sixteen carats fine.

  the bottle represented the week's collection of fines and concentrates by men like joseph m'kati from a dozen vulnerable points along the line of production; in some cases carried out from the company reduction works itself under the noses of the heavily armed guards.

  all the men involved in this surreptitious milking off of the company's gold were shangaans. there was only one man in whom was vested sufficient authority and prestige to prevent the greed and hostility which gold breeds from destroying the whole operation. that was the shangaan induna. there was only one man with the physical presence and necessary command of the portuguese language to negotiate the disposal of the gold. that was big king.

  big king placed the bottle in his pocket. the weight pulled his clothing out of shape.

  "run like a gazelle, crooked leg." he turned back in to the dark tunnel.

  "hunt like a leopard, king nkulu," chuckled the little cripple, as he disappeared into the moving shadows.

  packet of boxer tobacco," said big king. the eyes of jose almeida, the portuguese owner of the mine concession store and the local roadhouse, narrowed slightly. he took down the yellow four-ounce packet from the shelves and handed it across the counter, accepted big king's payment and counted the change into his palm.

  he watched as the giant bantu wandered down between the loaded shelves and racks of merchandise to disappear through the front door of the store into the night.

  "take charge," he muttered in portuguese to his plump little wife with her silky dark mustache, and she nodded in understanding, moving into jose's place in front of the cash register. joss went through into his storerooms and living quarters behind the store.

  big king was waiting in the shadows. when the back door opened he slipped through and joss closed the door behind him. jose led him through into a cubicle of an office, and from a cupboard he took down a jeweller's balance. under big king's watchful eye he began to weigh the gold.

  jose almeida purchased the gold from the unofficial outlet of each of the five major mines on the kitchenerville field, paying five rands an ounce and selling again for sixteen. he justified the large profit margin he allowed himself by the fact that mere possession of unregistered gold was a criminal offence in south africa, punishable by up to five years" imprisonment.

  almeida was a man in his middle thirties with lank black hair that he continually pushed back from his forehead, bright brown inquisitive eyes and dirty fingernails.

  despite his grubby and well-worn clothing and unkempt hairstyle, he was a man of substance.

  he had been able to pay in cash the 40,000 rand demanded by the company for the monopoly concession to trade on the mine property. he had, therefore, an exclusive clientele of 12,
000 well-paid bantu, and had recovered his 40,000 during his first year of trading. he did not really need to run the risk of illicit gold buying, but gold is strange material. it infects most men who touch it with a reckless greed.

  "two hundred and sixteen ounces," said jose. his scale was set to record a twenty percent error in jose's favour.

  "one thousand and eighty rand," agreed big king in portuguese, and jose went to the big green safe in the corner.

  terry steyner entered the

  "grape and gable" bar of the president hotel at 1.14 p.m. precisely, and as hurry hirsclifeld stood to greet her he reflected that fourteen minutes was hardly late at all for a beautiful woman. terry's grandmother would have considered herself to be early if she was only that late.

  "you're late," growled hurry. no sense in letting her get away with it unscathed.

  "and you are a big, cuddly, growly, lovable old bear, said terry and kissed him on the tip of his nose before he could duck. hurry sat down quickly scowling thunderously with pleasure. he decided he didn't give a good damn if marais and hardy, who further down the bar were listening and trying to cover their grins, repeated the incident to the entire membership of the rand club.