by Wilbur Smith
Hendrick spoke for them all. He was paid a fair price.
Shall I finish him? No! Leave a horse for him. Lothar turned away. When he comes round he can follow us, or he can go to hell where he belongs. He swung up into the saddle of his own mount and avoided his son's stricken eyes as he raised his voice. All right, we are moving out. He rode with long stirrups in the Boer fashion, slouched down comfortably in the saddle, and Hendrick pushed his mount up on one side of him and Manfred on the other.
Lothar felt elated; the adrenalin of violence was like a drug in his blood still and the open desert lay ahead of him.
With the taking of the horses he had crossed the frontier of law, he was an outlaw once again, free of society's restraint, and he felt his spirit towering on high like a hunting falcon.
By God. I'd almost forgotten what it was like to have a rifle in my hand and a good horse between my legs. We are men once again, Hendrick agreed, and leaned across to embrace Manfred. You too. Your father was your age when he and I first rode out to war. We are going to war again. You are a man as he was. And Manfred forgot the spectacle he had just witnessed and swelled with pride at being counted in this company. He sat up straight in the saddle and lifted his chin.
Lothar turned his face into the north-east, towards the hinterland where the vast Kalahari brooded, and led them away.
That night while they camped in a deep gorge which shielded the light of their small fire, the sentinel roused them with a low whistle.
They rolled out of their blankets, snatched up their rifles and slipped away into the darkness.
The horses stirred and whickered and then Pig John rode in out of the darkness and dismounted. He stood wretchedly by the fire, his face swollen and discoloured with bruises like a cur dog expecting to be driven away. The others came out of the shadows and without looking at him or otherwise acknowledging his existence climbed back into their blankets.
Sleep on the other side of the fire from me, Lothar told him harshly. You stink of brandy. And Pig John wriggled with relief and gratification that he had been accepted back into the band.
In the dawn they mounted again and rode on into the wide hot emptiness of the desert.
The road out to H'ani Mine was probably one of the most rugged in South West Africa and every time she negotiated it Centaine promised herself: We must really do something about having it repaired. Then Dr TWentyman-jones would give her an estimate of the cost of resurfacing hundreds of miles of desert track and of erecting bridges over the river courses and consolidating the passes through the hills, and Centaine's good frugal sense would reassert itself.
After all it only takes three days, and I seldom have to drive it more than three times a year, and it is really quite an adventure. The telegraph line that connected the mine to Windhoek had been expensive enough. After an estimate of fifty pounds it had finally cost her a hundred pounds for every single Mile and she still felt resentment every time she looked at that endless line of poles strung together with gleaming copper wire that ran beside the track. Apart from the cost, it spoiled the view, detracting from the feeling of wildness and isolation which she so treasured when she was out in the Kalahari.
She remembered with a twinge of nostalgia how they had slept on the ground and carried their water in the first years.
Now there were regular stages at each night's stop, thatched rondavels and windmills to raise water from the deep bores, servants living permanently at each station to service the rest houses, providing meals and hot baths and a log fire in the hearth on those crisp frosty nights of the Kalahari winter, even paraffin refrigerators manufacturing heavenly ice for the sundowner whisky in the fierce summer heat. The traffic on the road was heavy, the regular convoy under Gerhard Fourie carrying out fuel and stores had cut deep ruts in the soft earth and churned up the crossings in the dried riverbeds, and worst of all the gauge of the tyres of the big Ford trucks was wider than that of the yellow Daimler so that she had to drive with one wheel in the rut and the other bouncing and jolting over the uneven middle ridge.
Added to all this it was high summer and the heat was crushing. The metal of the Daimler's coachwork could raise blisters on the skin, and they were forced to halt regularly when the water in the radiator boiled and blew a singing plume of steam high in the air. The very heavens seemed to quiver with blue fire, and the far desert horizons were washed away by the shimmering glassy whirlpools of heat mirage.
If only they could make a machine small enough to cool the air in the Daimler, she thought, like the one in the railway coach, and then she burst out laughing. nens: I must be getting soft! She remembered how, with the two old Bushmen who had rescued her, she had travelled on foot through the terrible dune country of the Namib and they had been forced to cover their bodies with a plaster of sand and their own urine to survive the monstrous heat of the desert noons.
Why are you laughing, Mater? Shasa demanded.
just something that happened long ago, before you were born. 'Tell me, oh please tell me. He seemed unaffected by the heat and the dust and the merciless jolting of the chassis.
But then why should he be? She smiled at him. This is where he was born. He too is a creature of the desert.
Shasa took her smile for acquiescence. Come on, Mater.
Tell me the story. Pourquoi pas? Why not? And she told him and watched the shock in his expression.
Your own pee-pee? He was aghast.
That surprises you? She mocked him. Then let me tell you what we did when the water in our ostrich-egg bottles was finished. Old O'wa, the Bushman hunter, killed a gemsbok bull with his poisoned arrow and we took out the first stomach, the rumen, and we squeezed out the liquid from the undigested contents and we drank that. It kept us going just long enough to reach the sip-wells. Mater! That's right, cheri, I drink champagne when I can, but I'll drink whatever keeps me alive when I have to., She was silent while he considered that, and she glanced at his face and saw the revulsion turn to respect.
What would you have done, cheri, drunk it or died? she asked, to make sure the lesson was learned.
I would have drunk, he answered without hesitation, and then with affectionate pride, You know, Mater, you really are a crackerjack. It was his ultimate accolade.
Look! She pointed ahead to where the lion-coloured plain, its far limits lost in the curtains of mirage, seemed to be covered with a gauzy cinnamon-coloured veil of thin smoke.
Centaine pulled the Daimler off the track and they climbed out onto the running-board for a better view.
Springbok. The first we have seen on this trip. The beautiful gazelle were moving steadily across the flats, all in the same direction.
There must be tens of thousands. The springbok were elegant little animals with long delicate legs and lyre-shaped horns.
They are migrating into the north, Centaine told him.
There must have been good rains up there, and they are moving to the water. Suddenly the nearest gazelles took fright at their presence and began the peculiar alarm display that the Boers called pronking'. They arched their backs and bowed their long necks until their muzzles touched their fore hooves, and they bounced on stiff legs, flying high and lightly into the shimmering hot air while from the fold of skin along their backs they flashed a flowing white crest of hair.
This alarm behaviour was infectious and soon thousands of gazelle were bounding across the plain like a flock of birds. Centaine jumped down from the running-board and mimicked them, forking the fingers of one hand over her head as horns and with the fingers of the other showing the crest hair down her back. She did it so skilfully that Shasa hooted with laughter and clapped his hands.
Bully for you, Mater! He jumped down and joined her, and they pranced in a circle, until they were weak with laughter and exertion. Then they leaned against the Daimler and clung to each other for support.
Old O'wa taught me that, Centaine gasped. He could imitate every animal of the veld. When they drove on she let Sha
sa take the wheel, for the crossing of the plain was one of the easier stretches of the journey and he drove well. She lay back in the corner of her seat and after a while Shasa broke the silence.
When we are alone you are so different. He searched for the words. You are such jolly good fun. I wish we could just be like this forever. Anything you do too long becomes a bore, she told him gently. The trick is to do it all, not just one thing. This is good fun but tomorrow we will be at the mine and there will be another type of excitement for us to experience and after that there will be something else. We'll do it all, and we will wring from each moment the last drop it has to offer. Twenty-man-Jones had gone ahead to the mine while Centaine stayed on for three days in Windhoek to go over the paperwork with Abraham Abrahams. So he had alerted the servants at the rest houses as he passed through.
When they reached the last stage that evening, the bath water was so hot that even Centaine who enjoyed her bath at the correct temperature for boiling lobster was forced to add cold before she could bear it. The champagne was that marvelous 1928 Krug pale and chilled to the temperature she preferred, just low enough to frost the bottle, and though there was ice, she would not allow the barbaric habit of standing the bottle in a bucket of it.
Cold feet, hot head, bad combination for both men and wine, her father had taught her. As always she drank only a single glass from the bottle and afterwards there was the cold collation that TWentyman-jones had provided for her and stored in the paraffin refrigerator, fare suitable for this heat and which he knew she enjoyed - rock lobster from the green Benguela Current with rich white flesh curled in their spiny red tails and salad vegetables grown in the cooler highlands of Windhoek, lettuce crackling crisp, tomatoes crimson ripe and pungent onions purple tinted, then, as the final treat, wild truffles gleaned from the surrounding desert by the tame Bushmen who tended the milk herd. She ate them raw and the salty fungus taste was the taste of Kalahari.
They left again in the pitch darkness before dawn, and at sunrise they stopped and brewed coffee on a fire of camel-thorn branches; the grainy red wood burned with an intense blue flame and gave to the coffee a peculiar and delicious aroma. They ate the picnic breakfast that the rest-house cook had provided and washed it down with the smoky coffee and watched the sunrise smearing the sky and desert with bronze and gilding it with gold leaf. As they went on, so the sun rose higher and drained the land of colour, washing it with its silver-white bleach.
Stop here! Centaine ordered suddenly, and when they climbed up onto the roof of the Daimler and stared ahead, Shasa was puzzled.
What is it, Mater? Don't you see it, cheri? She pointed, 'There! Above the horizon. It floated in the sky, indistinct and ethereal.
It's standing in the sky, Shasa exclaimed, discerning it at last.
The mountain that floats in the sky, Centaine murmured. Each time she saw it like this the wonder of it was still as fresh and enchanting as the first time. The place of All Life. She gave the hills their Bushman name.
As they drove on so the shape of the hills hardened, becoming a sheer rock palisade below which were spread the open mopani forests. In places the cliffs were split and riven with gulleys and gorges. In others they were solid and tall and daubed with bright lichens, sulphur yellow and green and orange.
The H'ani Mine was nestled beneath one of these sheer expanses of rock, and the buildings seemed insignificant and incongruous in this place.
Centaine's brief to Twenty-man-Jones had been to make them as unobtrusive as possible, without, of course, affecting the productivity of the workings, but there was a limit to just how far he had been able to follow her instructions. The fenced compounds of the black workers and the weathering grounds for the blue diamondiferous earth were extensive, while the steel tower and elevator of the washing gear stuck up high as the derrick of an oil rig.
However, the worst depredation had been caused by the appetite of the steam boiler, hungry as some infernal Baal for cordwood. The forest along the foot of the hills had been cut down to satisfy it, and the second growth had formed a scraggly unsightly thicket in place of the tall grey-barked timber.
Twenty-man-Jones was waiting for them as they climbed out of the dusty Daimler in front of the thatched administration building.
Good trip, Mrs Courtney? he asked, lugubrious with pleasure. 'You'll want a rest and clean up, I expect. You know better than that, Dr Twenty-man-Jones. Let's get down to work. Centaine led the way down the wide verandah to her own office. Sit beside me, she ordered Shasa as she took her seat at the stinkwood desk.
They began with the recovery reports, then went on to the cost schedules; and as Shasa struggled to keep up with the quick calling and discussion of figures, he wondered how his mother could change so swiftly from the girl companion who had hopped around in imitation of a springbok only the previous day.
Shasa, what did we establish was the cost per carat if we average twenty-three carats per load? She fired the question at Shasa suddenly, and when he muffed it she frowned. This isn't the time for dreams. And she turned her shoulder to him to emphasize the rebuke. 'Very well, Dr TWentyman-Jones, we have avoided the unpleasant long enough. Let us consider what economies we have to institute to meet the quota cut and still keep the H'ani Mine working and turning a profit. It was dusk before Centaine broke off and stood up. We'll pick it up from there tomorrow. She stretched like a cat and then led them out onto the wide verandah.
Shasa will be working for you as we agreed. I think he should begin on the haulage. I was about to suggest it, Ma'am. What time do you want me? Shasa asked.
The shift comes on at five am but I expect Master Shasa will want to come on later? Twenty-man-Jones glanced at Centaine. It was, of course, a challenge and a test, and she remained silent, waiting for Shasa to make the decision on his own account. She saw him struggling with himself. He was at that stage of growth when sleep is a drug and rising in the morning a brutal penance.
I'll be at the main haulage at four-thirty, sir, he said, and Centaine relaxed and took his arm.
Then it had best be an early night. She turned the Daimler into the avenue of small iron-roofed cottages which housed the white shift bosses and artisans and their families. The orders of society were strictly observed on the H'ani Mine. It was a microcosm of the young nation. The black labourers lived in the fenced and guarded compounds where whitewashed buildings resembled rows of stables. There were separate, more elaborate quarters for the black boss-boys, who were allowed to have their families living with them. The white artisans and shift bosses were housed in the avenues laid out at the foot of the hills, while the management lived up the slopes, each building larger and the lawns around it more extensive the higher it was sited.
As they turned at the end of the avenues there was a girl sitting on the stoep of the last cottage and she stuck her tongue out at Shasa as the Daimler passed. It was almost a year since Shasa had last seen her and nature had wrought wondrous changes in her during that time. Her feet were still bare and dirty to the ankles, and her curls were still wind-tousled and sun-streaked, but the faded cotton of her blouse was now so tight that it constricted her blossoming breasts. They were forced upwards and bulged out over the top in a deep cleavage and Shasa wriggled in the seat as he realized that the twin red-brown coin-shaped marks on the blouse, though they looked like stains, were in fact showing through the thin cloth from beneath.
Her legs had grown longer, her knees were no longer knobbly, and they shaded from coffee brown at the ankles to smooth cream on the inside of her thighs. She sat on the edge of the verandah with her knees apart and her skirts pulled high and rucked up between her legs. As Shasa's gaze dropped, she let her knees fall a little further open. Her nose was snubbed and sprinkled with freckles, and she wrinkled it as she grinned. it was a sly cheeky grin, and her tongue was bright pink between white teeth.
Guiltily Shasa jerked his eyes away and stared ahead through the windshield. But he remembered vividly every last det
ail of those forbidden minutes behind the pump-house and the heat rose in his cheeks. He could not help glancing at his mother. She was looking ahead at the road and had not noticed. He felt relief until she murmured, She is a common little hussy, ogling everything in pants. Her father is one of the men we are retrenching. We'll be rid of her before she causes real trouble for us and herself. He should have known she had not missed that brief exchange. She saw everything, he thought, and then he felt the impact of her words. The girl was being sent away, and he was surprised by his feeling of deprivation. It was a physical ache in the floor of his stomach.
What will happen to them, Mater? he asked softly. I mean, the people we are firing. While he had listened to his mother and Twenty-man-jones discussing the retrenchments, he had thought of them merely as numbers; but with that glimpse of the girl, they had become flesh and blood. He remembered his adversary the blond boy, and the little girl that he had seen from the window of the railway coach, standing beside the tracks in the hobo camp, and he imagined Annalisa Botha in the place of that strange girl.
I don't know what will become of them. His mother's mouth tightened. I don't think it is anything that should concern us. This world is a place of harsh reality, and each of us has to face it in his own way. I think we should rather consider what would be the consequences if we did not let them go. We would lose money. That is right, and if we lose money, we have to close down the mine, which would mean that all the others would lose their jobs, not just the few that we have to fire. Then we all suffer. If we did that with everything we own, in the end we would lose everything. We would be like the rest of them. Would you prefer that? Suddenly Shasa had a new mental image. Instead of the blond boy standing in the hobo camp, it was himself, barefoot in dusty, tattered khakis, and he could almost feel the night chill through the thin shirt and the rumble of hunger in his guts.