The Diamond Frontier (Simon Fonthill Series)

by John Wilcox

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘No. It would have been signing a death warrant for both of us. I was not strong enough - in every sort of way - to ride in, risk everything and storm the house on my own, so I asked Van der Watt if he and his boys would come with me. But he refused. Can’t blame him. He’s got his farm and his wife and kids to think about, and it wasn’t his fight. He had stuck his neck out far enough as it was in giving me protection. No. There had to be another way. So I played for time, sent a note saying I was too ill to move for the moment, and made my way up here.’

  Alice frowned. ‘What? Just ran away, do you mean?’

  ‘Oh no. I heard from Van der Watt that Commandant Joubert, here in Pretoria, was desperately seeking diamonds he could use to buy guns and ammunition from the Germans so that he could rise up against the British in the Transvaal. So I felt that if I could see him I could do a deal with him.’

  Alice made a mental note and then asked, ‘What sort of a deal?’

  Dunn sighed. There was now an air of hopeless-ness about him. ‘I had an idea,’ he said, ‘that if I gave Joubert the diamonds he would lend me some men to attack the house and set Nandi free. Not a bloody commando, but just enough to do the job that I couldn’t do on my own.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Said he’d think it over. Kept me waiting a fair time and then I met him in the street and he said no. Firstly, he said he had his own source of diamonds from Kimberley, and secondly he could not risk starting an armed confrontation on British territory which could prejudice what he was hoping to do later.’

  Alice’s eyes widened as she mentally recorded these facts, but the big man was continuing.

  ‘And anyway, I’m not sure he believed a word I was saying. He probably thought I was mad.’ He smiled at Alice sheepishly. ‘It must sound like a tall story to you.’

  Alice shook her head. ‘Oh no, Mr Dunn. Anyway, I know of Nandi’s letter to Simon.’

  The air of despair returned to Dunn’s face. ‘Yes, I know. That’s what’s worrying me even more now. Fonthill and Jenkins - and that Welshman is a fiery little devil - could have gone in all guns blazin’ and ruined everything.’ He looked at Alice and held out his good hand as though in supplication. ‘What on earth am I going to do now, Miss Griffith? What am I going to do? I’ve wasted so much time.’

  The two sat looking at each other in silence. Eventually Alice spoke. ‘To be frank, Mr Dunn,’ she said, ‘I don’t know.’ She stood now and paced the little room.

  ‘It seems to me,’ she said eventually, ‘that you have two alternatives. You could ride back to Kimberley to find Simon and Jenkins, which would be difficult in a town that size. Or you could come with me to General Wolseley, explain the position, and ask him to help you. I am sure I could get him to see you, and, after all, he is High Commissioner for South-East Africa as well as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, and, as such, responsible for law and order here. He must be able to do something about this bunch of diamond thieves, surely?’

  Dunn shook his head. ‘No, miss. I just don’t trust that man. He broke up my country, and anyway, he would look upon me as a jewel thief myself. After all, I am sitting on stolen diamonds.’

  Having rationalised a course of action, Alice now espoused it vigorously. She spoke with conviction. ‘No. You must say that you have brought the stolen property back to the authorities and hand the stones over to the General. Then appeal to him to help you regain your daughter.’ She smiled. ‘I suspect that he’s a bit of a gallant at heart and the task might appeal to him, even though,’ and now she frowned at the thought, ‘he is about to fight a campaign against the bePedi.’

  Dunn sat deep in thought, running his fingers through his beard. ‘All right,’ he said at last. ‘You are probably right. Even if I went back to Kimberley I might be too late to help Fonthill. And if I turn up with the British Army, that should daunt even bloody Mendoza.’

  ‘That’s the spirit,’ said Alice. ‘Now, come on. Get your things together. I will collect you tomorrow at seven o’clock and we can ride directly from here to find Wolseley at Middelburg. It’s time I was there anyway.’

  Alice grabbed Dunn’s hand and gave it a firm shake, then ran down the stairs, giving the gaunt landlady a cheery wave as she went past her, and climbed into the trap.

  Chapter 8

  Despite their determination to leave the disgusting house in Currey Street and to hurry after Nandi as soon as possible, it was not until just after dawn the next morning that Simon and his two companions set off to the north-east to find the Steelport River. Firstly there was a horse to be found for de Witt. Simon’s funds were now beginning to run low and he decided to allocate him their third, relief mount. The horses had all been rested well enough since their arrival in Kimberley, and although the journey to the Lulu Mountains seemed long and, even with the help of their map, almost immeasurable, Simon felt that they could manage with only three mounts. Then he insisted that a rifle had to be bought for the Boer and it took a little while to find a decent Snider at the right price. Lastly, de Witt proposed that he should revisit Currey Street and make a detailed search of the house - just, he said, to make sure there was nothing left there which could help them find the farm. Reluctantly, Simon agreed that he should do so, although he thought the request was strange. With all the delays, then, and despite their anxiety to be on the road, there would have been little to be gained by setting out on their long journey across the veldt just before nightfall.

  As the first hint of sun lit the sky the next day, they met up and mounted. Predictably, de Witt reported that he had found nothing in Currey Street that could help them, so they set out across the reddish sandy veldt along a trail which would take them, estimated Simon, well to the east of Pretoria in the general direction of the new goldfields that had been found at Lydenberg, from which they must head due north to find the Steelport. It was a journey, said de Witt, of over 250 miles, and given that they could not afford the luxury of taking their time, it would not be comfortable. Simon gave an inward groan, for he was still uneasy on horseback. This information had quietly been conveyed to de Witt by Jenkins, and behind Simon’s back, these two exchanged a quick grin.

  Their route lay through the northern edge of the Orange Free State into the Transvaal and enabled them to stay well away from the dangerous rocky fastness of Basutoland. In fact, said de Witt, their long trek should be free of danger until they reached the land of the bePedi tribe, near the end of their journey.

  The boxing match had forged a bond of sorts between Jenkins and de Witt and the two rode side by side chatting - or with Jenkins, at least, happily making the conversation, while de Witt responded monosyllabically, although with gentle good humour. Simon dropped behind a little on that first morning and regarded the big Boer from the rear with puzzled interest. It was vital that they were able to rely on de Witt if they ran into trouble. Studying him from the back, Simon could see that he was at home in the saddle: he rose gently to match the horse’s pace and his hands were soft on the reins. But that was to be expected of a Boer, for these men seemed to have been born on horseback. Yet it was strange that he seemed to have no visible means of support and that he possessed no rifle. It was time to discover a little more about the man’s past, so Simon urged his horse forward and drew level with the other two. ‘I know you worked in the mines once, Faan,’ he said, ‘but did you come to Kimberley at the beginning of the diggings?’

  The Boer nodded. ‘Ja. I was there in the early days, the good old days, when the fields were part of the Free State.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘Before you roijneks came in and tried to bring some kind of damned European order to the place.’

  ‘What was it like, then?’

  ‘Well, I’m talking about ’73, ’74, when the rush began.’ He eased forward in the saddle and smiled for a moment at the recollection. ‘If there are about five thousand whites in Kimberley now, there were some twenty-five thousand in those early days. We h
ad the dry sortings then, man, and used ordinary buckets and not the big tubs. The roads went through the mines and we just went on digging by their side. You know the tall, thin towers of earth that are in the Big Hole now? Well, they’re all that’s left of those roads. We took the oxen down seventy feet or more at the sides and men were always getting killed one way or the other, with the earth collapsing or a tin bucket falling on a man’s head.’

  ‘Hey, Fanny,’ asked Jenkins, ‘did you find diamonds yourself, then?’

  ‘Ach, many, my friend.’ He became almost loquacious. ‘I would be sifting one morning and find some big diamonds and say to my mates, “Hey, come and have some champagne” - it was five shillings a bottle then - and we would go and get drunk and leave the sorting to the Kaffirs. Most of them were honest in those days and they would bring us in the evening the diamonds they had found and I would say, “Boy, go and have a spree and here is five pounds.” Maybe a poor fellow would come in with nothing and I would say, “Go into my claim for the afternoon and take what you can get and just give me a share. It will set you up.” Yes, man, those were the days! Sometimes I would clear three thousand pounds a week on my claim. Ach, yes.’

  ‘Blimey!’ exclaimed Jenkins. ‘What happened to all the money, then?’

  ‘Drink and gambling. The usual thing, you know. Now I have nothing. But I don’t regret any of it, except,’ the disingenuous grin gradually left his face, ‘the British coming in and taking over. That was not right, you know.’

  ‘Well,’ said Simon, ‘I’m afraid I know nothing about the politics. But how did you get into boxing?’

  ‘Barnato set up what he called his boxing academy before he really hit it rich. I was down and out but managed to pull myself together and get off the drink, so I began to box a bit there, just to get fit again. Then they began this champion nonsense and I found that no one could beat me, so I started earning money at it. Until, that is,’ the rueful smile came back, ‘this big man here knocked me out. Then I realised that I couldn’t fight - well, not properly.’

  Jenkins blew out his cheeks. ‘There’s nonsense, look you,’ he said. ‘You ’it very well considerin’ you’re out of condition, see. Anyway, what do these diamond things look like, when they come out of the ground?’

  ‘Well, they’re coated with grease usually, with earth stuck to them of course. But colour is important; the brown and darker ones are worth far less, of course, than the clearer stones, though yellow diamonds can be valuable. They’re all shapes and sizes, too. But they’re hard, damned hard, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Hardest substance known to man,’ interjected Simon. ‘The word comes from the Greek adamas, meaning unconquerable. They’re made of pure carbon, about a hundred and forty times stronger than any other mineral.’

  ‘Well I’ll be blowed,’ said Jenkins. ‘You don’t get that sort of interestin’ stuff in your Army Certificate, now do you?’

  They rode on, pushing the horses as much as they dared. The veldt was flat and uninteresting, rolling gently to a horizon that seemed continents away. It also appeared lifeless, although on the second day a harsh croaking cry drew their eyes to a sandy patch where a black-trousered secretary bird, its wings open, was prancing around a snake and kicking it to death with powerful feet. If the terrain was uninteresting, however, the sky was not. Bulging grey dumplings of cloud marched overhead, with their bases cut off uniformly clean, as though with a knife, and to the south, a long purple smudge extended from east to west, often keeping them distant company throughout the day but never closing to threaten them at first hand.

  Until, that is, the evening of the third day, when they had just pitched their three tiny tents and hobbled the horses. They owed it to the Boer that they fared no worse. It was he who pointed to the pelmet of purple cloud that hung over that southerly horizon but which was now fringed at the bottom by a black line which seemed to meet the earth and was nearing by the second. ‘Quick,’ shouted de Witt, ‘dig a channel round the tents.’ They fell to with a will but had no time to finish before the storm hit them. The rain was presaged by a red dust storm that raged down on them with a hissing sound. It knocked over the tents and carried away the kitchen utensils, bowling them away before the wind as though they were blossom tops and making the men hunch over, backs to the storm and handkerchiefs to their mouths. Cracks of thunder deafened them and lightning played all around; not forked and white, as in England, but like red-hot pieces of iron waving about in the darkness. The rain fell in heavy sheets and, kneeling before the blast, they laboured to complete the trench to channel the water away and so prevent their campsite from becoming completely flooded.

  The tempest passed away as soon as it had come and the drenched trio were left to recover their tent and their equipment and soothe the trembling horses as best they could. ‘Ach,’ growled de Witt. ‘Veldt storm. They get lots of them around here. Sometimes there are hailstones as big as pigeon eggs that can kill a sheep. If you get caught when riding, the only thing to do is to dismount, take off the saddle and kneel with it over your head. This bit of a storm wasn’t much, really.’

  As the journey progressed, the Boer’s value became more apparent. It was he who showed them how to skin a dead sheep and then keep the meat from rotting in heavy, thunderous weather by laying the skin, wool downwards, in a hollow and adding salt, water and pieces of flesh overnight, so preserving it. They bought food and some fodder from the Boer farms that were now becoming increasingly rare as they penetrated deeper into the high veldt of the Transvaal. Often the farmers, remote in their rectangular stone buildings, would be resentful of the travellers’ request for shelter and sustenance, but they always complied. De Witt explained that, under Roman Dutch law, Afrikaners had an obligation to provide food and shelter for travellers, as long as the supplicants could pay. Simon then understood the surly acceptance with which he and Jenkins had been met when they requested hospitality on their journey through the Free State.

  The pace they set, although perforce not fast, was hard on the horses, and by the second week, they were forced to lead them for part of each day to give them some respite. Simon now wished that they had bought a couple of the ubiquitous Scotch carts that formed the main means of carriage in the Transvaal. It was possible that better progress could have been made with this form of transport. He had given up all thought of overtaking Mendoza’s party, and the chance of meeting them on this vast plain was remote anyway, but he was anxious to be hard on their heels so that if they decided to stay awhile at Mendoza’s farm before heading on to the Mozambique border, he would be able to catch them there, off their guard - if, that is, they could find the farm and the bePedi did not intervene.

  Sometimes they were able to find shelter in a small inn. At a mean little town some 120 miles to the east of Pretoria, they found rooms in the Hotel Burgers and were able to buy oranges at twelve to the shilling. But vermin careered over tables, chairs and beds and they were glad to be out on the veldt again, heading towards the town of Lydenburg, although with some trepidation on Simon’s part now. He remembered that Wolseley had said he would move his invading force out to there, presumably as a springboard for his final advance. Would he have done so by now? He had no intention of being sucked into the General’s scouting force, and in any case, the Steelport River lay further to the north, so he set a course to by-pass the town.

  In doing so, the little party now entered into very different country. Here, as they climbed higher, the veldt was greener, and wooded hills appeared with occasional small lakes shimmering in the sun. Soon, however, they began climbing, and once more were riding across a high plateau, where the air was cooler. For the first time they saw signs that this was no longer peaceful country. Farms were fewer, and as they penetrated further north-west, many of them had been burned out and left desolate as a result of the recent depredations of the bePedi. De Witt explained that the farmers, tired after repelling constant attacks, had departed for the nearest towns, leaving their home
steads to be burned by the tribesmen. As dusk approached and they had not camped, it was obvious that the Boer was becoming increasingly uneasy.

  Simon noted this and asked, ‘Do you think the bePedi are still marauding this far west, Faan?’

  The big man stirred in his saddle. ‘Ach, no. It’s lions I’m worried about.’

  ‘What?’ Jenkins’s eyes stood out above his moustache. ‘Lions, bach! Bloody ’ell. I don’t like the sound of that.’ He turned, almost accusingly, to Simon. ‘But them black chaps a few weeks ago said that we were miles away from bloody lions.’

  ‘We were much further south then. But I didn’t realise this was lion country, Faan.’

  ‘Ja. This territory never used to be - oh, the odd one or two maybe, but not too many. They stayed up north or in Mozambique, where game is plentiful. Now, though, there has been a drought in the north and over the border, with rinderpest killing cattle, and they have been coming down here. It’s dry, hot and sandy, but with plenty of low cover and a bit of game here and there. Ideal for lions.’

  ‘But I have always understood that lions don’t attack humans.’

  The Boer’s face broke into the familiar half-smile that never reached his eyes. ‘Ja. That’s what you roijneks and city people always say. We Afrikaners know better.’

  ‘Yes, but,’ Simon frowned as he tried to remember what he had read, ‘those lions that do attack people, aren’t they usually just a very few, who have been injured in some way so that they can’t catch game in the normal way?’