Wilbur Smith - B3 The Angels Weep

by B3 The Angels Weep(Lit)

  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 out spanned 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 thorn bush 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 thorn bush 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 n
odded. "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 chrrect, 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.

  "Matabeleland is booming, Mr. Rhodes," Zouga reported. "You will find Bulawayo is almost a city already, with its own school and hospital. There are already more than six hundred white women and children in Matabeleland, a sure sign that your settlers are here to stay at last. All the land grants have been taken up, and many of the farms are already being worked. The blood stock from the Cape is taking to the local conditions and breeding well with the captured Matabele cattle." "What about the minerals, Ballantyne?" "Over ten thousand claims have been registered, and I have seen some very rich crushings."

  Zouga hesitated, glanced at Ralph, and when he nodded, turned back to Rhodes. "Within the last few days, my son and I have rediscovered and pegged the ancient workings I first stumbled on in the sixties." "The Harkness Mine," Rhodes nodded heavily, and even Ralph was impressed by the range and grasp of his mind. "I remember your original description in The Hunter's Odyssey. Did you sample the reef?" In reply, Zouga placed a dozen lumps of quartz upon the table in front of him, and the raw gold glistened so that the men around the table craned forward in rapt fascination. Mr. Rhodes turned one of the samples in his big mottled hands before passing it to the American engineer.

  "What do you make of these, Harry?" "It will go fifty ounces a ton," Harry whistled softly. "Perhaps too rich, like Nome and Klondike." The American looked up at Ralph. "How thick is the reef?

  How broad is the strike?" Ralph shook his head. "I don't know, the workings are too narrow to get into the face." "This is quartz, of course, not the ban ket reef like we have on the Witwatersrand," Harry Mellow murmured.

  The ban ket reef was named after the sweetmeat of toffee and nuts and almonds and cloves which the conglomerated reef so much resembled.

  It was made up of the thick sedimentary beds of ancient buried lakes, not as rich in gold as this chip of quartz, but many feet thick and extending as wide as the broad lakes had once stretched, a mother lode which could be mined for a hundred years without exhausting its reserves.

  "It's too rich," Harry Mellow repeated, fondling the sample of quartz. "I can't believe that it will be more than a stringer a few inches thick." "But if it isn't?" Rhodes demanded harshly.

  The American smiled quietly. Then you will not only control nearly all the diamonds in the world, Mr. Rhodes, but most of the gold as well." His words were a sharp reminder to Ralph that the British South Africa Company owned fifty per cent royalty in every ounce of gold mined in Matabeleland, and Ralph felt his resentment return in full force. Rhodes and his ubiquitous BSA Company were like a vast octopus that smothered the efforts and the fortunes of all lesser men.

  "Will you allow Harry to ride with me for a few days, Mr. Rhodes, so that he can examine the strike?" Ralph's irritation sharpened the tone of his request, so that Rhodes" big shaggy head lifted quickly and his pale blue eyes seemed to search out his soul for a moment before he nodded, and then with a mercurial change of direction abandoned the subject of gold and shot his next question at Zouga.

  "The Matabele indunas how are they behaving themselves?" This time Zouga hesitated. "They have grievances, Mr. Rhodes." Yes? "The swollen features coagulated into a scowl.

  "The cattle, naturally enough, are the main source of trouble," Zouga said quietly, and Rhodes cut him off brusquely.

  "We captured less than 125,000 head of cattle, and we returned 40,000 of those to the tribe." Zouga did not remind him that the return was made only after the strongest representation by Robyn St. John, Zouga's own sister. Robyn was the missionary doctor at Khami Mission Station and she had once been Lobengula's closest friend and adviser.

  "Forty thousand head of cattle, Ballantyne! A most generous gesture by the Company! "Rhodes repeated portentously, and again he did not add that he had made this return in order to avert the famine which Robyn St. John had warned him would decimate the defeated Matabele nation, and which would have su
rely brought the intervention of the Imperial government in Whitehall, and possibly the revocation of the Royal Charter under which Rhodes" Company ruled both Mashonaland and Matabeleland. Not such an outstanding act of charity, after all, Ralph thought wryly.

  "After giving back those cattle to the indunas, we were left with less than eighty-five thousand head, the Company barely recouped the cost of the war." "Still the indunas claim they were given back only inferior beasts, the old and barren cows and scrub bulls." "Damn it, Ballantyne, the volunteers earned the right to first pick from the herds. Quite naturally, they chose the prime stock." He shot out his right fist with the forefinger aimed like a pistol at Zouga's heart.

  "They do say that our own herds, chosen from the captured cattle, are the finest in Matabeleland." "The indunas don't understand that" Zouga answered. "Well then, the least they should understand is that they are a conquered nation. Their welfare depends on the goodwill of the victors. They extended no such consideration to the tribes that they conquered when they lorded it across the continent. Mzilikazi slew a million defenceless souls when he devastated the land south of the Limpopo, and Lobengula, his son, called the lesser tribes his dogs, to kill or cast into slavery as the whim took him. They must not whine now at the bitter taste of defeat." Even gentle Jordan, at the end of the table, nodded at this. "To protect the Mashona tribes from Lobengula's depredations was one of the reasons why we marched on Bulawayo,"he murmured.