by Wilbur Smith
It has come at last, Centaine told them. They have cut our quota. They rocked back in their seats and exchanged a brief glance before turning back to Centaine.
We have been expecting it for almost a year, Abraham pointed out.
Which does not make the actuality any more pleasant, Centaine told him tartly.
How much? Twenty-man-Jones asked.
Forty percent, Centaine answered, and he looked as though he might burst into tears while he considered it.
Each of the independent diamond producers was allocated a quota by the Central Selling Organization. The arrangement was informal and probably illegal, but nonetheless rigorously enforced, and none of the independents had ever been foolhardy enough to test the legality of the system or the share of the market they were given.
Forty percent! Abraham burst out. That's iniquitous! An accurate observation, dear Abe, but not particularly useful at this stage. Centaine looked to Twenty-man-Jones.
No change in the categories? he asked. The quotas were broken down by carat weight into the different types of stones, from dark industrial boart to the finest gem quality, and by size from the tiny crystals of ten points and smaller to the big valuable stones.
Same percentages, Centaine agreed, and he slumped in his chair, pulled a notebook from his inside pocket and began a series of quick calculations. Centaine glanced behind her to where Shasa leaned against the panelled bulkhead.
Do you understand what we are talking about? The quota? Yes, I think so, Mater. If you don't understand, then ask, she ordered brusquely and turned back to Twenty-man-Jones.
Could you appeal for a ten percent increase at the top end? he asked, but she shook her head.
I have already done so and they turned me down. De Beers in their infinite compassion point out that the biggest drop in demand has been at the top end, at the gem and jewellery level. He returned to his notebook, and they listened to his pencil scratching on the paper until he looked up.
Can we break even? Centaine asked quietly, and Twenty-man-Jones looked as though he might shoot himself rather than reply.
It will be close,he whispered, and we'll have to fire and cut and hone, but we should be able to pay costs, and perhaps even turn a small profit still, depending upon the floor price that De Beers sets. But the cream will be skimmed off the top, I'm afraid, Mrs Courtney. Centaine felt weak and trembly with relief. She took her hands off the desk and placed them in her lap so the others might not notice. She did not speak for a few moments, and then she cleared her throat to make certain her voice did not quaver.
The effective date for the quota cut is the first of March, she said. That means we can deliver one more full package.
You know what to do, Dr Twenty-man-jones. We will fill the package with sweeteners, Mrs Courtney. What is a sweetener, Dr Twenty-man-jones? Shasa spoke for the first time, and the engineer turned to him seriously.
When we turn up a number of truly excellent diamonds in one period of production, we reserve some of the best of them, set them aside to include in a future package which might be of inferior quality. We have a reserve of these high quality stones which we will now deliver to the CSO while we still have the opportunity. I understand, Shasa nodded. Thank you, Dr Twenty-man-Jones. Pleased to be of service, Master Shasa. Centaine stood up. We can go in to dinner now, and the white-jacketed servant opened the sliding doors through into the dining room where the long table gleamed with silver and crystal and the yellow roses stood tall in their antique celadon vases.
A mile down the railway track from where Centaine's coach stood, two men sat huddled over a smoky campfire watching the maize porridge bubbling in the billy-can and discussing the horses. The entire plan hinged on the horses. They needed at least fifteen, and they had to be strong, desert hardened animals.
The man I am thinking of is a good friend, Lothar said.
Even the best friend in the world won't lend you fifteen good horses. We can't do it with less than fifteen, and you won't buy them for a hundred pounds. Lothar sucked on the stinking clay pipe and it gurgled obscenely. He spat the yellow juice into the fire. I'd pay a hundred pounds for a decent cheroot, he murmured.
Not my hundred, you won't, Hendrick contradicted him.
Leave the horses for now, Lothar suggested. Let's go over the men we need for the relays. The men are easier than the horses. Hendrick grinned.
These days you can buy a good man for the price of a meal, and have his wife for the pudding. I have already sent messages to them to meet us at Wild Horse Pan. They both glanced up as Manfred came out of the darkness, and when Lothar saw his son's expression he stuffed the notebook into his pocket and stood up quickly.
Papa, you must come quickly, Manfred pleaded.
What is it, Manie? Sarah's mother and the little ones. They are all sick. I told them you would come, Papa. Lothar had the reputation of being able to heal humans and animals of all their ills, from gunshot wounds and measles to staggers and distemper.
Sarah's family was living under a tattered sheet of tarpaulin near the centre of the encampment. The woman lay beneath a greasy blanket with the two small children beside her. Though she was probably not older than thirty years, care and punishing labour and poor food had greyed and shrunken her into an old woman. She had lost most of her upper teeth so that her face seemed to have collapsed.
Sarah knelt beside her with a damp rag with which she was trying to wipe her flushed face. The woman rolled her head from side to side and mumbled in delirium.
Lothar knelt on the woman's other side, facing the girl.
Where is your pa, Sarah? He should be here., He went away to find work on the mines, she whispered.
When? Long ago. And then she went on loyally, But he is going to send for us, and we are going to live in a nice house How long has your ma been sick? Since last night. Sarah tried again to place the rag on the woman's forehead but she struck it away weakly.
And the babies? Lothar studied their swollen faces.
Since the morning. Lothar drew back the blanket and the stench of liquid faeces was thick and choking.
I tried to clean them, Sarah whispered defensively, but they just dirty themselves again. I don't know what to do., Lothar lifted the little girl's soiled dress. Her small pot belly was swollen with malnutrition and her skin was chalky white. An angry crimson rash was blazoned across it.
involuntarily Lothar jerked his hands away. Manfred, he demanded sharply. Have you touched them, any of them? Yes, Pa. I tried to help Sarah clean them. Go to Hendrick, Lothar ordered. Tell him we are leaving immediately. We have to get out of here. What is it, Pa? Manfred lingered.
Do as I tell you, Lothar told him angrily, and when Manfred backed away into the darkness, he returned to the girl.
Have you been boiling your drinking water? he asked, and she shook her head.
It was always the same, Lothar thought. Simple country people who had lived far from other human habitation all their lives, drinking at sweet clean springs and defecating carelessly in the open veld. They did not understand the hazards when forced to live in close proximity to others.
What is it, Oom? Sarah asked softly. What is wrong with them? Enteric fever. Lothar saw that it meant nothing to her.
Typhoid fever, he tried again.
Is it bad? she asked helplessly, and he could not meet her eyes. He looked again at the two small children. The fever had burned them out, and the diarrhoea had dehydrated them. Already it was too late. With the mother there was perhaps still a chance, but she had been weakened also.
Yes, Lothar said. It is bad. The typhoid would be spreading through the encampment like fire in the winter-dry veld.
There was already a good chance that Manfred might have been infected, and at the thought he stood up quickly and stepped away from the foul-smelling mattress.
What must I do? Sarah pleaded.
Give them plenty to drink, but make sure the water is boiled. Lothar backed away. He had seen typhoid
in the concentration camps of the English during the war. The death-toll had been more horrible than that of the battlefield.
He had to get Manfred away from here.
Do you have medicine for it, Oom? Sarah followed him.
I don't want my ma to die, I don't want my baby sister if you can give me some medicine, She was struggling with her tears, bewildered and afraid, turning to him in pathetic trust.
Lothar's only duty was to his own, yet he was torn by the child's little display of courage. He wanted to tell her, There is no medicine for them. There is nothing that can be done for them. They are in God's hands now. Sarah came after him and took Lothar's hand, tugging desperately at it as she tried to lead him back to the shelter where the woman and the two small children lay dying.
Help me, Oom. Help me to make them better. Lothar's skin crawled at the girl's touch. He could imagine the loathsome infection being transferred from her warm soft skin. He had to get away.
Stay here, he told her, trying to disguise his revulsion.
Give them water to drink. I will go to fetch medicine. When will you come back? She looked up trustingly into his face, and it took all his strength to tell the lie.
I will come back as soon as I can,he promised, and gently broke her grip.
Give them water, he repeated, and turned away, Thank you, she called after him softly. God bless you, you are a kind man, Oom. Lothar could not reply. He could not even look back.
Instead he hurried through the darkened camp. This time, because he was listening for them, he picked up the other little sounds from the huts he passed: the fretful feverish cry of a child, the gasp and moan of a woman in the terrible abdominal cramps of enteric fever, the concerned murmurs of those who tended them.
From one of the tarpaper huts a gaunt dark creature emerged and clutched at his arm. He was not sure whether it was man or woman until she spoke in a cracked almost demented falsetto.
Are you a doctor? I have to find a doctor. Lothar shrugged off the clawed hand and broke into a run.
Swart Hendrick was waiting for him. He had the pack on his shoulder already and was kicking sand over the embers of the campfire. Manfred squatted on one side, beneath the thorn tree.
Enteric. Lothar said the dread word. It's through the camp already. Hendrick froze. Lothar had seen him stand down the charge of a wounded bull elephant, but he was afraid now.
Lothar could see it in the way he held his great black head and smell it on him, a strange odour like that of one of the copper-hooded desert cobras when aroused.
Come on, Manfred. We are getting out. Where are we going, Pa? Manfred remained squatting.
Away from here, away from the town and this plague. What about Sarah? Manfred ducked his head on to his shoulders, a stubborn gesture which Lothar recognized.
She is nothing to us. There is nothing we can do. She's going to die, like her ma, and the little kids. Manfred looked up at his father. She's going to die, isn't she? Get up on your feet, Lothar snarled at him. His guilt made him fierce. We are going. He made an authoritative gesture and Hendrick reached down and hauled Manfred to his feet.
Come, Manie, listen to your Pa. He followed Lothar, dragging the boy by his arm.
They crossed the railway embankment and Manfred stopped pulling back. Hendrick released him, and he followed obediently. Within the hour they reached the main road, a dusty silver river in the moonlight running down the pass through the hills, and Lothar halted.
Are we going for the horses now? Hendrick asked.
Yes. Lothar nodded. That's the next step. But his head turned back in the direction they had come and they were all silent, looking back with him.
I couldn't take the chance, Lothar explained. I couldn't let Manfred stay near them. Neither of them answered. We have to get on with our preparations, the horses, we have to get the horses, His voice trailed off.
Suddenly Lothar snatched the pack from Hendrick's shoulder and threw it to the ground. He ripped it open angrily and snatched out the small canvas roll in which he kept his surgical instruments and store of medicines.
Take Manie, he ordered Hendrick. Wait for me in the gorge of the Gamas river, at the same place we camped on the march from Usakos. You remember it? Hendrick nodded. How long will it be before you come? As long as it takes them to die, said Lothar. He stood up and looked at Manfred.
Do what Hendrick tells you, he ordered.
Can't I come with you, Pa? Lothar did not bother to reply. He turned and strode back amongst the moonlit thorn trees and they watched him until he disappeared. Then Hendrick dropped to his knees and began re-rolling the pack.
Sarah squatted beside the fire, her skirts pulled up around her skinny brown thighs, slitting her eyes against the smoke as she waited for the soot-blackened billy to boil.
She looked up and saw Lothar standing at the edge of the firelight. She stared at him, and then slowly her pale delicate features seemed to crumple and the tears streamed down her cheeks, glistening in the light of the flames.
I thought you weren't coming back, she whispered. I thought you had gone. Lothar shook his head abruptly, still so angry with his own weakness that he could not trust himself to speak.
Instead he squatted across the fire from her and spread the canvas roll. Its contents were pitifully inadequate. He could draw a rotten tooth, lance a boil or a snake-bite, or set a broken limb, but to treat runaway enteric there was almost nothing. He measured a spoonful of a black patent medicine, Chamberlain's Famous Diarrhoea Remedy, into the tin mug and filled it with hot water from the billy.
Help me, he ordered Sarah and between them they lifted the youngest child into a sitting position. She was without weight and he could feel every bone in her tiny body, like that of a fledgling taken from the nest. It was hopeless.
She'll be dead by morning he thought, and held the mug to her lips. She did not last that long; she slipped away a few hours before dawn. The moment of death was ill-defined, and Lothar was not certain it was over until he felt for the child's pulse at the carotid and felt the chill of eternity in her wasted flesh.
The little boy lasted until noon and died with as little fuss as his sister. Lothar wrapped them in the same grey, soiled blanket and carried them in his arms to the communal grave that had been already dug at the edge of the camp.
They made a small lonely little package on the sandy floor of the square excavation, at the end of the row of larger bodies.
Sarah's mother fought for her life.
God knows why she should want to go on living, Lothar thought, there isn't much in it for her. But she moaned and rolled her head and cried out in the delirium of fever. Lothar began to hate her for the stubborn struggle to survive that kept him beside her foul mattress, forced to share in her degradation, to touch her hot fever-wracked skin and dribble liquid into her toothless mouth.
At dusk he thought she had won. Her skin cooled and she was quieter. She reached out feebly for Sarah's hand and tried to speak, staring up at her face as though she recognized her, the words catching and cawing in the back of her throat and thick yellow mucus bubbling in the corners of her lips.
The effort was too much. She closed her eyes and seemed to sleep.
Sarah wiped her lips and held on to the thin bony hand with the blue veins swelling under the thin skin.
An hour later the woman sat up suddenly, and said clearly: Sarah, where are you, child? then fell back and fought for a long strangling breath. The breath ended in the middle and her bony chest subsided gradually, and the flesh seemed to droop from her face like warm candlewax.
This time Sarah walked beside him as Lothar carried the woman to the grave site. He laid her at the end of the row of corpses. Then they walked back to the hut.
Sarah stood and watched Lothar roll the canvas pack, and her small white face was desolate. He went half a dozen paces and then turned back. She was quivering like a rejected puppy, but she had not moved.
All right, he sighed with resign
ation. Come on, then. And she scampered to his side.
I won't be any trouble, she gabbled, almost hysterical with relief. I'll help you. I can cook and sew and wash. I won't be any trouble. What are you going to do with her? Hendrick asked. She can't stay with us. We could never do what we have to do with a child of her age. I could not leave her there, Lothar defended himself, in that death camp. It would have been better for us. Hendrick shrugged. But what do we do now? They had left the camp in the bottom of the gorge and climbed to the top of the rocky wall. The children were far below on the sandbank at the edge of the only stagnant green pool in the gorge that still held water.
They squatted side by side, Manfred with his right hand extended as he held the handline. They saw him lean back and strike, then heave the line in hand over hand. Sarah jumped up and her excited shrieks carried up to where they sat. They watched Manfred swing the kicking slippery black catfish out of the green water. It squirmed on the sand, glistening with wetness.
I will decide what to do with her, Lothar assured him, but Hendrick interrupted.
It better be soon. Every day we waste the water-holes in the north are drying out, and we still don't even have the horses. Lothar stuffed his clay pipe with fresh shag and thought about it. Hendrick was right; the girl complicated everything. He had to get rid of her somehow. Suddenly he looked up from the pipe and smiled.
My cousin, he said, and Hendrick was puzzled.
I did not know you had a cousin. Most of them perished in the camps, but Trudi survived. Where is she, this beloved cousin of yours? She lives on our road to the north. We'll waste no time in dumping the brat with her. I don't want to go, Sarah whispered miserably. I don't know your aunt. I want to stay here with you. 'Hush, Manfred cautioned her. You'll wake Pa and Henny. He pressed closer to her and touched her lips to quieten her. The fire had died down and the moon had set.
Only the desert stars lit them, big as candles against the black velvet curtain of the sky.
Sarah's voice was so small now that he could barely make out the words, though her lips were inches from his ear.
You are the only friend I have ever had, she said, and who will teach me to read and write? Manfred felt an enormous weight of responsibility conferred upon him by her words. His feelings for her to this A moment had been ambivalent. Like her he had never had friends of his own age, never attended a school, never lived in a town.