Power of the Sword c-10

by Wilbur Smith

  When the dawn broke over the sprawling shanty town of Drake's Farm, Moses and Hendrick picked their way down the reeking convoluted alleys to where they had left the Ford and the children were guarding it still, like jackals around the lion's kill. The brothers had sat all night in the back room of Mama Nginga's shebeen and the preliminary planning was at last done. Each of their lieutenants had been allotted areas and responsibilities.

  But there is still much work to be done, my brother, Moses told Hendrick as he started the Ford. We have to find the liquor and the women. We will have to bring all the little shebeens and brothels like goats into our kraal, and there is only one way to do that. I know how that has to be done, Hendrick nodded. And we have an impi to do it. And an induna, a general, to command that impi. Moses glanced at Hendrick significantly. The time has come for you to leave CRC, my brother. All your time and your strength will be needed now. You will waste no more of your strength in the earth, breaking rock for a white man's pittance. From now on you will be breaking heads for power and great fortune. He smiled thinly. You will never have to pine again for those little white stones of yours. I will give you more, much more. Marcus Archer arranged for Hendrick's contract at CRC to be cancelled and for him to be issued travel papers for one of the special trains that carried the returning miners who had worked out their ticket back to the reservations and the distant villages. But Hendrick never caught that train. Instead he disappeared from the white man's records and was absorbed into the shadowy halfworld of the townships.

  Mama Nginga set aside one of the shanties at the back of her shebeen for his exclusive use, and one of her girls was always on hand to sweep and wash his laundry, to cook his food and warm his bed.

  It was six days after his arrival at Drake's Farm that the Buffalo impi opened its campaign. The objective had been discussed and carefully explained by Hendrick and it was simple and clear-cut. They would make Drake's Farm their own citadel.

  On the first night twelve of the opposition shebeens were burned to the ground. Their proprietors burned with them, as did those of their customers who were too drunk to crawl out of the flaming hovels. Drake's Farm was far outside the sector served by the white man's fire engines, so no attempt was made to fight the flames. Rather, the inhabitants of Drake's Farm gathered to watch the spectacle as though it was a circus arranged particularly for their entertainment.

  The children danced and shrilled in the firelight, and screeched with laughter as the bottles of spirits exploded like fireworks.

  Nearly all the girls escaped from the flames. Those who had been at work when the fire began ran out naked, clutching their scanty clothing and weeping wildly at the loss of all their worldly possessions and savings. However, there were kindly concerned men to comfort them and lead them away to Mama Nginga's.

  Within forty-eight hours the shebeens had been rebuilt on their ashes and the girls were back at work again. Their lot was much improved; they were well fed and clothed and they had their own Buffaloes to protect them from their customers, to make certain they were neither cheated nor abused. of course, if they in turn shirked or tried to cheat, they were beaten soundly; but they expected that, it made them feel part of the totem and replaced the father and brothers they had left in the reservations.

  Hendrick allowed them to keep a fixed proportion of the fee they charged and made sure his men respected their rights to it.

  Generosity breeds loyalty and firmness a loving heart, he explained to his Buffaloes, and he extended his happy house policy to embrace his customers and everybody else at Drake's Farm. The black miners coming into the township were as carefully protected as his girls were. In very short order the footpads, pickpockets, muggers and other smalltime entrepreneurs were routed out. The quality of the liquor improved. From now on all of it was brewed under Mama Nginga's personal supervision.

  it was strong as a bull elephant, and bit like a rabid hyena, but it no longer turned men blind or destroyed their brains, and because it was manufactured in bulk, it was reasonably priced. A man could get falling-down drunk for two shillings or have a good clean girl for the same price.

  Hendrick's men met every bus and train coming in from the country districts, bringing the young black girls who had run away from their villages and their tribe to reach the glitter of Goldi. They led the pretty ones back to Drake's Farm. When this source of supply became inadequate as the demand increased, Hendrick sent his men into the country districts and villages to recruit the girls at the source with sweet words and promises of pretty things.

  The city fathers of Johannesburg and the police were fully aware of the unacknowledged halfworld of the townships that had grown up south of the goldfields but, daunted by the prospect of closing them down and finding alternative accommodation for thousands of vagrants and illegals, they turned a blind eye, appeasing their civic consciences by occasional raids, arrests and the wholesale imposition of fines. However, as the incidence of murder and robbery and other serious crime mysteriously abated at Drake's Farm and it became an area of comparative calm and order, so their condescension and forbearance became even more pragmatic. The police raids ceased, and the prosperity of the area increased as its reputation as a safe and convivial place to have fun spread amongst the tens of thousands of black mine workers along the Rand. When they had a pass to leave the compound, they would travel thirty and forty miles, bypassing other centres of entertainment to reach it.

  However, there were still many hundreds of thousands of other potential customers who could never reach Drake's Farm, and Moses Gama turned his attention to these.

  They cannot come to us, so we must go to them. He explained to Hendrick what must be done, and it was Hendrick who negotiated the piecemeal purchase of a fleet of second-hand delivery vans and employed a coloured mechanic to renovate them and keep them in running order.

  Each evening convoys of these vehicles loaded with liquor and girls left Drake's Farm, journeying down the length of the goldfields to park at some secluded location close to the big mining properties, in a copse of trees, a valley between the mine dumps, or an abandoned shaft building. The guards at the gate of the mine workers compound, who were all Buffaloes, made certain that the customers were allowed in and out, and now every member of the Buffalo totem could share in the good fortune of their clan.

  So, my brother, do you still miss your little white stones? Moses asked after their first two years of operation from Drake's Farm.

  It was as you promised, Hendrick chuckled. We have everything that a man could wish for now., You are too easily satisfied, Moses chided him.

  There is more? Hendrick asked with interest.

  We have only just begun, Moses told him.

  What is next, my brother? Have you heard of a trade union? Moses asked. Do you know what it is? Hendrick looked dubious, frowning as he thought about it. I know that the white men on the mines have trade unions, and the white men on the railways also. I have heard it spoken of, but I know very little about them. They are white men's business, no concern of the likes of us. You are wrong, my brother, Moses said quietly. The African Mine Workers Union is very much our concern. It is the reason why you and I came to Goldi!

  I thought that we came for the money. Fifty thousand union members each paying one shilling a week union dues, isn't that money? Moses asked, and smiled as he watched his brother make the calculation.

  Avarice contorted his smile so that the broken gap in his teeth looked like a black mine pit.

  It is good money indeed! Moses had learned from his unsuccessful attempts to establish a mine workers union at the H'ani Mine. The black miners were simple souls with not the least vestige of political awareness; they were separated by tribal loyalties; they did not consider themselves part of a single nation.

  Tribalism is the one great obstacle in our path, Moses explained to Hendrick. If we were one people we would be like a black ocean, infinite in our power. But we are not one people, Hendrick pointed out. Any more
than the white men are one people. A Zulu is as different from an Ovambo as a Scotsman is from a Russian Cossack or an Afrikaner from an Englishman. Hay! Moses smiled. I see you have been reading the books I gave you. When first we came to Goldi you had never heard of a Russian Cossack- You have taught me much about men and the world they live in, Hendrick agreed. Now teach me how you will make a Zulu call an Ovambo his brother. Tell me how we are to take the power that is held so firmly in the hands of the white man. 'These things are possible. The Russian people were as diverse as we black people of Africa. They are Asiatics and Europeans, Tartars and Slavs, but under a great leader they have become a single nation and have overthrown a tyranny even more infamous than the one under which we suffer.

  The black people need a leader who knows what is good for them and will force them to it, even if ten thousand or a million die in achieving it. A leader such as you, my brother? Hendrick asked, and Moses smiled his remote enigmatic smile.

  The Mine Workers Union first, he said. Like a child learning to walk, one step at a time. The people must be forced to do what is good for them in the long run even though at first it is painful. I am not sure, Hendrick shook his great shaven round head on which the ridged scars stood proud like polished gems of black onyx. What is it we seek, my brother? Is it wealth or power? We are fortunate, Moses answered. You want wealth and I want power. The way I have chosen, each of us will get what he desires. Even with ruthless contingents of the Buffaloes on each of the mine properties the process of unionization was slow and frustrating. By necessity much of it had to be undertaken secretly, for the government's Industrial Conciliation Act placed severe limitations on black labour association and specifically prohibited collective bargaining by black workers. There was also opposition from the workers themselves, their natural suspicion and antagonism towards the new union shop stewards, all of them Buffaloes, all of them appointed and not elected; and the ordinary workers were reluctant to hand over part of their hard-earned wages to something they neither understood nor trusted.

  However, with Dr Marcus Archer to advise and counsel them and with Hendrick's Buffaloes to push the cause forward, slowly the unionization of the workers on each of the various mine properties was accomplished.

  The miners reluctance to part with their silver shillings was quelled.

  There were, of course, casualties, and some men died, but at last there were over twenty thousand dues-paying members of the African Mine Workers Union.

  The Chamber of Mines, the association of mining interests, found itself presented with a fait accompli. The members were at first alarmed; their natural instinct was to destroy this cancer immediately.

  However, the Chamber members were first and above all else businessmen, concerned with getting the yellow metal to the surface with as little fuss as possible and with paying regular dividends to their shareholders. They understood what havoc a labour battle could wreak amongst their interests, so they held their first cautious informal talks with the nonexistent union and were most gratified to find the self-styled secretary general to be an intelligent articulate and reasonable person.

  There was no trace of Bolshevik dialectic in his statements, and far from being radical and belligerent, he was cooperative and respectful in his address.

  He is a man we can work with, they told each other. He seems to have influence. We've needed a spokesman for the workers and he seems a decent enough sort. We could have done a lot worse. We can manage this chap. And sure enough, their very first meetings had excellent results and they were able to solve a few small vexing long-term problems to the satisfaction of the union and the profit of the mine owners.

  After that the informal, unrecognized union had the Chamber's tacit acceptance, and when a problem arose with their labour the Chamber sent for Moses Garna and it was swiftly settled. Each time this happened, Moses position became more securely entrenched. And, of course, there was never even a hint at strikes or any form of militancy on the union's part.

  Do you understand, my brothers? Moses explained to the first meeting of his central committee of the African Mine Workers Union held in Mama Nginga's shebeen. If they come down upon us with their full strength while we are still weak, we will be destroyed for all time. This man Smuts is a devil, and he is truly the steel in the government's spear.

  He did not hesitate to send his troops with machine-guns against the white union strikers in 1922. What would he do to black strikers, my brothers? He would water the earth with our blood. No, we must lull them. Patience is the great strength of our people. We have a hundred years, while the white man lives only for the day. In time the black ants of the veld build mountains and devour the carcass of the elephant. Time is our weapon, and time is the white man's enemy. Patience, my brothers, and one day the white man will discover that we are not oxen to be yoked into the traces of his wagon. He will discover rather that we are black-maned lions, fierce eaters of white flesh. How swiftly the years have passed us by since we rode on Tshayela's train from the deserts of the west to the flat shining mountains of Goldi. Hendrick watched the mine dumps on the skyline as Moses drove the old Ford through the sparse traffic of a Sunday morning. He drove sedately, not too slow not too fast, obeying the traffic rules, stopping well in advance of the changing traffic lights, those wonders of the technological age which had only been installed on the main routes within the last few months. Moses always drove like this.

  Never draw attention to yourself unnecessarily, my brother, he advised Hendrick. Never give a white policeman an excuse to stop you.

  He hates you already for driving a motor car that he cannot afford himself. Never put yourself in his power. The road skirted the rolling fairways of the Johannesburg Country Club, oases of green in the brown veld, watered and groomed and mown until they were velvet green carpets on which the white golfers strolled in their foursomes followed by their barefooted caddies. Further back amongst the trees the white walls of the club house gleamed, and Moses slowed the Ford and turned at the bottom of the club property where the road crossed the tiny dry Sand Spruit river and the signpost said Rivonia Farm'.

  They followed the unsurfaced road, and the dust raised by the Ford's wheels hung behind them in the still dry highveld air and then settled gently to powder the brittle frost-dried grass along the verges a bright theatrical red.

  The road served a cluster of small-holdings, each of them five or ten acres in extent, and Dr Marcus Archer's property was the one at the end of the road. He made no attempt to farm the land, he had no chickens, horses or vegetable gardens such as the other small-holders kept.

  The single building was square and unpretentious, with a tattered thatched roof and wide verandah encompassing all four sides. It was screened from the road by a scraggly plantation of Australian blue gums.

  There were four other vehicles parked under the gum trees, and Moses turned the Ford off the track and stopped the engine. Yes, my brother. The years have passed swiftlY, he agreed. They always do when men are intent on dire purposes, and the world is changing all around us. There are great events afoot. it is nineteen years since the revolution in Russia, and Trotsky has been exiled. Herr Hitler has occupied the Rhineland, and in Europe there is talk of war, a war that will destroy forever the curse of Capitalism and from which the revolution will emerge victorious. Hendrick laughed, the black gap in his teeth making it a grimace. These things do not concern us. You are wrong again, my brother. They concern us beyond all else. I do not understand them. ,Then I will help you. Moses touched his arm. 'Come, my brother. I am taking you now to the next step in your understanding of the world. He opened the door of the Ford and Hendrick climbed down on his side and followed him towards the old house.

  It will be wise, my brother, if you keep your eyes and your ears open and your mouth closed, Moses told him as they reached the steps at the front verandah. You will learn much that way. As they climbed the steps, Marcus Archer hurried out onto the verandah to greet them, his expression li
ghting with pleasure as he saw Moses, and he hurried to him and embraced him lovingly then, his arm still around Moses waist, he turned to Hendrick.

  You will be Henny. We have spoken about you often. I have met you before, Dr Archer, at the induction centre. That was so long ago. Marcus Archer shook his hand.

  And you must call me Marcus. You are a member of our family! He glanced at Moses and his adoration was apparent.

  He reminded Hendrick of a young wife all agog with her new husband's virility.

  Hendrick knew that Moses lived here at Rivonia Farm with Marcus and he felt no revulsion for the relationship.

  He understood how vitally important Marcus Archer's counsel and assistance had been in their successes over the years and approved the price that Moses paid for them. Hendrick himself had used men in the same fashion, never as a loving relationship but as a form of torture of a captured enemy. In his view there was no greater humiliation and degradation that one man could inflict upon another, yet he knew that in his brother's position he would not hesitate to use this strange red-haired little white man as he desired to be used.

  Moses has been very naughty in not bringing you to visit us sooner. Marcus slapped Moses arm playfully. There are so many interesting and important people here who you should have met ages ago.

  Come along now, let me introduce you. He took Hendrick's arm and led him through to the kitchen.