Gold Mine

by Wilbur Smith

  "Can you adjust the seat?". Hettie asked, innocently looking up at him.

  "Here, I'll show you." He leaned into the interior of the Mustang and reached across Hettie's lap. His hand brushed over her thigh, and Hettie pretended not to notice his touch. He smelled of Old Spice after-shave lotion.

  "That's better! Hettie murmured, and wriggled into a more comfortable position, contriving to make the movement provocative and revealing.

  The salesman was encouraged, he lingered with his wrist just touching a sleek thigh.

  "What's the compression ratio on this model?" Johnny Delange demanded as he emerged from the engine, and the salesman straightened up quickly and hurried to join him.

  An hour later Johnny signed the purchase contract, and both he and Hettie shook the salesman's hand.

  "Let me give you my card," the salesman insisted, but Johnny had returned to his new toy, and Hettie took the cardboard business card.

  "Call me if you need anything, anything at all," said the salesman with heavy significance.

  "Dennis Langley. Sales Manager," Hettie read out aloud.

  "My! You're very young to be Sales Manager."

  "Not all that young!" "I'll bet," Hettie murmured, and her eyes were suddenly bold. She ran the tip of a pink tongue over her lips. "I won't lose it," she promised, and," placing the card in her handbag, walked to the Mustang, leaving him with a tantalizing promise and a memory of swaying hips and clicking heels.

  They raced the new Mustang as far as Potchefstroom; Hettie encouraging Johnny to overtake slower vehicles with inches to spare for oncoming traffic. With horn blaring he tore over blind rises, forking ringed fingers at the protesting toots of other drivers. They had the speedometer registering 120 mph on the return run, and it was dark as they pulled into the driveway and Johnny hit the brakes hard to avoid running into the back of a big black Daimler that was parked outside their front door.

  "Jesus," gasped Johnny. "That's Doctor Steyner's bus!"

  "Who is Doctor Steyner?"Hettie demanded.

  "Hell, he's one of the big shots from Head Office."

  "You're kidding!" Hettie challenged him.

  "Truth!" Johnny affirmed. "One of the real big shots."

  "Bigger than Mr. Ironsides?" The General Manager of the Sander Ditch was as high up the social ladder as Hettie had ever looked.

  "Tin Ribs is chicken feed compared to this joker. Just look at his bus, it's five times better than Tin Ribs's clapped-out oldmasserati.

  "Gee!" Hettie could follow the logic of this line of argument. "What' he want with us?"

  "I don't know," Johnny admitted with a twinge of anxiety.

  "Let's go and find out." The lounge of the Delange home was not the setting which showed Doctor Manfred Steyner to best advantage.

  He sat on the edge of a scarlet and gold plastic-covered armchair as stiff and awkward as the packs of china dogs that stood on every table and shelf of the show cabinet, or the porcelain wild ducks which flew in diminishing perspective along the pale pink painted wall. In contrast to the tinsel Christmas decorations that festooned the ceiling and the gay greeting cards that Hettie had pinned to strips of green ribbon, Manfred's black homburg and astrakhan collared overcoat were unnecessarily severe.

  "You will forgive my presumption," he greeted them without rising.

  "You were not at home and your maid let me in."

  "You're welcome, I'm sure," Hettie simpered.

  "Of course you are, Doctor Steyner," Johnny supported her.

  "Ah! So you know who I am?" Manfred asked with satisfaction. This would make his task so much easier.

  "Of course we do." Hettie went to him and offered her hand. "I am Hettie Delange, how do you do?" With horror Manfred saw that her armpit was unshaven, filled with damp ginger curls. Hettie had not bathed since the previous evening. Manfred's nostrils twitched and he fought down a queasy wave of nausea.

  "Delange, I want to speak to you alone." He cowered away from Hettie's overwhelming physical presence.

  "Sure." Johnny was eager to please. "How about you making us some coffee, honey," he asked Hettie.

  Ten minutes later Manfred sank with relief into the lush upholstery of the Daimler's rear seat. He ignored the two Delanges waving their farewells, and closed his eyes. It was done. Tomorrow morning Johnny Delange would be on shift and drilling into the glassy green rock of the Big Dipper.

  By noon Manfred would own quarter of a million shares in the Sander In a week he would be a rich man.

  In a month he would be divorced from Theresa Steyner.

  He would sue with all possible notoriety on the grounds of adultery. He no longer needed her.

  The chauffeur drolie him back to Johannesburg.

  It began on the floor of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

  For some months nearly all the activity had been in the industrial counters, centring about the Alex Sagov group of companies and their merger negotiations.

  The only spark of life in the mining and mining financials had been Anglo American Corporation and De Beers Deferred rights issues, but this was now old news and the prices had settled at their new levels.

  So it was that nobody was expecting fireworks when the call over of the gold mining counters began. The brokers" clerks crowding the floor were quietly spoken and behaved, when the first squib popped.

  "Buy Sander Ditch," from one end of the hall.

  "Buy Sander Ditch," a voice raised.

  "Buy!" The throng stirred, heads turned.

  "Buy." The brokers suddenly agitated swirled in little knots, broke and reformed as transactions were completed.

  The price jumped fifty cents, and a broker ran from the floor to confer with his principal.

  Here a broker thumped another on the back to gain his attention, and his urgency was infectious.

  "Buy! Buy!"

  "What the hell's happening?"

  "Where is the buying coming from?"

  "It's local!" The price hit ten rand a share, and then the panic began in earnest.

  "It's overseas buying."

  "Eleven rand!" Brokers rushed to telephone warnings to favoured clients that a bull run was developing.

  "Twelve fifty. It's only local buying."

  "Buy at best. Buy five thousand." Clerks raced back onto the floor carrying the hastily telephoned instructions, and plunged into the hysterical trading.

  "Jesus Christ! Thirteen rand, sell now. Take your profit!

  It can't go much higher," "Thirteen seventy-five, it's overseas buying. Buy at best." In fifty brokers" offices around the country, the professionals who spent their lives hovering over the tickers regained their balance and, cursing themselves for having been taken unawares, they scrambled onto the bull wagon.

  Others, the more canny ones, recognized the makings of a sick run and off-loaded their holdings, selling industrial shares as well as mining shares. Prices ran amok.

  At ten-fifteen there was a priority call from the offices of the Minister of Finance in Pretoria to the office of the President of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

  "What are you going to do?"

  "We haven't decided. We won't close the floor if we can possibly help it."

  "Don't let it go too far. Keep me informed." Sixteen rand and still spiralling when at eleven o'clock South African time, the London Stock Exchange came in.

  For the first fifteen wild minutes the price of Sander Ditch gold mining rocketed in sympathy with the Johannesburg market.

  Then suddenly and unexpectedly the Sander Ditch shares ran head-on into massive selling pressure. Not only the Sander Ditch,-but all the Kitchenerville gold mining companies staggered as the pressure increased. The prices wavered, rallied a few shillings and then fell back, wavered again, and then crashed downwards, plummeting far below their opening prices.

  "Sell!" was the cry. "Sell at best!" Within minutes freshly, made paper fortunes were wiped away.

  When the price of the Sander Ditch gold mining shares fe
ll to five rand seventy-five cents, the committee of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange closed the door in the interests of the national welfare, preventing further trading.

  But in New York, Paris and London the investing public continued to beat South African gold mining shares to death.

  In the air-conditioned office of a skyscraper building, the little bald-headed man was smashing his balled fist onto the desk top of his superior officer.

  "told you not to trust him," he was almost sobbing with anger. "The fat greedy slug. One million dollars wasn't enough for him! No, he had to blow the whole deal!"

  "Please, Colonel," his chief intervened. "Control yourself.

  Let us make a fair and objective appraisal of this financial activity."

  The bald-headed man sank back into his chair, and tried to light a cigarette with hands that trembled so violently as to extinguish the flame of his lighter.

  "It sticks out a mile." He flicked the lighter again, and puffed quickly. "The first activity on the Johannesburg Exchange was Doctor Steyner being clever. Buying up shares on the strength of our dummy report. That was quite natural and we expected it, in fact we wanted that to happen. It took suspicion away from us." His cigarette had gone out, the tip was wet with spit. He threw it away and lit another.

  "Fine! Everything was fine up to then. Doctor Steyner had committed financial suicide, and we were on the pig's back." He sucked at his new cigarette. "Then! Then our fat friend pulls the big double cross and starts selling the Kitchenerville shares short. He must have gone into the market for millions."

  "Can we abort the operation at this late date?" his chief asked.

  "Not a chance." The bald head shook vigorously. "I have sent a cable to our fat friend ordering him to freeze the work on the tunnel, but can you imagine him obeying that order? He is financially committed for millions of dollars and he will protect that investment with every means at his disposal."

  "Could we not warn the management of the Sander Ditch company?"

  "That would put the finger squarely on us, would it not?"

  "Hmm!" the chief nodded. "We could send them an anonymous warning."

  "Who would put any credence on that?" "You're right," the chief sighed. "We will just have to batten down our hatches and ride out the storm. Sit tight and deny everything."

  "That is all we can do." The cigarette had gone out again, and there were bits of tobacco in his mustache. The little man flicked his lighter.

  "The bastard, the fat, greedy bastard!" he muttered.

  Johnny and Big King rode up shoulder to shoulder in the cage. It had been a good shift. Despite the hardness of the serpentine rock that cut down the drilling rate by fifty percent, they had been able to get in five blasts that day. Johnny reckoned they had driven more than halfway through the Big, Dipper. There was no night shift working now.

  Campbell had gone back to the stopes, so the honour of holing through would be Johnny's. He was excited at the prospect. Tomorrow he would be through into the unknown.

  "Until tomorrow, Big King," he said as they reached the surface and stepped out of the cage.

  They separated, Big King heading for the Bantu hostel, Johnny to the glistening new Mustang in the car park.

  Big King went straight to the Shangaan Induna's cottage without changing from his working clothes. He stood in the doorway and the Induna looked up from the letter he was writing.

  "What news, my father?" Big King asked.

  "The worst," the Induna told him softly. "The police have taken Crooked Leg."

  "Crooked Leg would not betray me," Big King declared, but without conviction.

  "Would you expect him to die in your place?" asked the Induna. "He must protect himself."

  "I did not mean to kill him," Big King explained miserably. "I did not mean to kill the Portuguese, it was the gun."

  "I know, my son." The Induna's voice was husky with helpless pity.

  Big King turned from the doorway and walked down across the lawns to the ablution block. The spring and swagger had gone from his step. He walked listlessly, slouching, dragging his feet.

  Manfred Steyner sat at his desk. His hands lay on the blotter before him, one thumb wearing a turban of crisp white bandage. His only movement was the steady beat of a pulse in his throat and a nerve that fluttered in one eyelid. He was deathly pale, and a light sheen of perspiration gave his features the look of having been sculptured from washed marble.

  The volume of the radio was turned high, so the voice of the announcer boomed and reverberated from the panelled walls.

  "The climax of the drama was reached at eleven forty, five South African time when the President of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange declared the floor closed and all further trading suspended.

  "Latest reports from the Tokyo Stock Exchange are that Sander Ditch gold mining shares were being traded at the equivalent of four rand forty cents. This compares with the morning's opening price of the same share on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange of nine rand forty-five cents.

  "A spokesman for the South African Government stated that although no reason for these extraordinary price fluctuations was apparent, the Minister of Mines, Doctor Carel De Wet, had ordered a full-scale commission of inquiry.

  Manfred Steyner stood up from his desk and went through into the bathroom. With his flair for figures he did not need pen and paper to compute that the shares he had purchased that morning had depreciated in value by well over one million rand at the close of business that evening.

  He knelt on the tiled floor in front of the toilet bowl and vomited.

  The sky was darkening rapidly, for the sun had long ago sunk below a blazing horizon.

  Rod heard the whisper of wings, and strained his eyes upwards into the gloom. They came in fast, in Vformation, slanting towards the pool of the river. He stood up from the blind and swung the shotgun on them, leading well ahead of the line of flight.

  He squeezed off both barrels. Wham! Wham! And the duck broke formation and rocketed upwards, whirring aloft on noisy wings.

  "Damn it!" said Rod.

  "What's wrong, dead-eye Dick, did you miss?" asked Terry.

  "The light's too bad."

  "Excuses! Excuses!" Terry stood up beside him, and Rod pushed a balled fist lightly against her cheek.

  "That's enough from you, woman. Let's go home." Carrying the shotguns and bunches of dead duck, they trudged along the bank in the dusk to the waiting Land Rover.

  It was completely dark as they drove back to the lodge.

  "What a wonderful day it's been," Terry murmured dreamily. "If for nothing else, I will always be grateful to you for teaching me how to enjoy my life." Back at the lodge, they bathed and changed into fresh clothes. For dinner they had wild duck and pineapple, with salads from Mrs. Fat Hans" vegetable garden. Afterwards, they sprawled on the leopard-skin rugs in front of the fireplace and watched the log fire without talking, relaxed and happy and tired.