Men of Men

by Wilbur Smith

  Ahead of Ralph the three yoked mules reached firm ground and galloped away, whisking their tails and kicking out skittishly at relief from their burden.

  The causeway tilted and sagged, so that suddenly Ralph seemed to be running up a steep hill. The driver beside him missed his footing and went down on his knees, and then as he started to slide backwards he threw himself face down and spread his arm as though to hug the earth.

  ‘Get up.’ Ralph checked his own run, and stood over him.

  Behind them the earth growled like a voracious animal, moving gravel grinding upon itself; and there were still fourteen carts out on the collapsing causeway. Half a dozen of the drivers had abandoned their teams and were running back along the trembling, sagging roadway, but they had left it too late. They stopped in a little group. Some of them fell flat and clung to the earth. One turned and leapt boldly from the edge into the gaping pit.

  He plunged into the mud, and three black workers seized him and dragged him to safety, a broken leg twisting and slithering over the mud behind him.

  One of the laden carts, with four mules in the traces, toppled over and, as it hit the bottom of the diggings, the weight of gravel shattered it to ragged splinters of raw white wood, and a shaggy black mule impaled on the disselboom screamed with shockingly human agony and kicked wildly, tearing out its own entrails from the gaping wound in its flank.

  Ralph stooped and dragged the driver to his feet, pulling him up the steepening incline, but the man was semi-paralysed by terror and hampered by the flapping tails of his heavy oilskins.

  The centre of the roadway cracked through abruptly and a hundred feet of it collapsed sideways with a swift rumbling rush, hurling carts and animals into the pit as though from some gigantic catapult.

  Ralph glanced once over his shoulder at the terrifying carnage and saw that the whole roadway was going, starting from that centre point and running swiftly towards him, a breaking wave of soft yellow earth seeming to be of some thick and viscid fluid, breaking with that grinding whisper.

  ‘Come on,’ Ralph grunted at the man on his arm, and suddenly the earth beneath their feet lunged the other way, throwing them forward towards the rim of the pit – and safety.

  They went forward with a rush, the driver clutching at Ralph’s shoulder for support. A dozen paces to go to firm ground, and Ralph did not look back again. The hideous sounds from the pit were unnerving, and he sensed that another glimpse of that onrushing wave of collapsing earth might paralyse his own legs.

  ‘Come on,’ he gasped. ‘We’ll make it – almost there. Come on!’ And as he said it the earth opened in front of their feet as though from a giant’s axe stroke. It opened with a smacking sound, as of kissing lips, and the mouth of it was sheer, eighty feet deep and three feet across, but in the brief seconds that they tottered on the edge it gaped wider, six feet, eight feet, and the causeway tilted sideways – the final convulsion.

  ‘Jump!’ said Ralph. ‘Jump for it, man.’ And he shoved the driver at it, forcing him at that frightful crack that seemed to split the earth to its very core.

  The man stumbled off balance, his arms waving wildly for control, and then he made a clumsy scrambling leap out over the drop. The torn oilskins tangled with his limbs and fluttered about his head. He hit the far lip of the crack with his chest, his legs hanging into the drop and kicking hopelessly, and clawed at the muddy lip. But there was no purchase and inexorably he began to slide backwards.

  Ralph knew there was no chance of making a run-up to the jump. He had to take it from a standstill, and it was gaping wider with every second, ten feet or more now – and the quivering bank of collapsing earth was an unstable platform.

  He sank on one knee, steadied himself with a clenched fist against the earth, and then straightened his legs and body in a sudden burst of energy like a released coilspring, jumping high because the causeway had already sagged below the level of the rim.

  The power of that leap surprised even Ralph; he cleared the driver’s wriggling body and landed deep, on firm and rock-steady ground, stumbled with his own forward impetus and then ran on half a dozen paces.

  Behind him the driver wailed and slid back a few inches, and around his spread fingers opened a mesh of smaller cracks, running parallel to the gaping sheer line. Ralph spun and ran back. He threw himself flat and reached for the driver’s wrist. It was greasy with mud, slippery as a freshly netted trout, and he knew he could not hold him for long.

  Over the driver’s head Ralph stared down into the diggings. He watched the final collapse of the causeway, a massive rush of earth, some of it liquid mud, mixed with huge chunks of compacted gravel that ground together like the jaws of some mindless monster, crushing and smothering men and animals between them.

  The entire No. 6 Roadway was gone, and across the floor of the pit, deep dark cracks spread out like a grotesque spider’s web.

  In the bottom of the diggings the figures of men seemed frail and insectlike, their cries feeble and without consequence, their pathetic scurrying without purpose.

  Ralph suddenly recognized his father. He alone was standing firm, his head thrown back, and even across that dizzy space Ralph could feel the strength of his gaze.

  ‘Hold on, boy!’ Zouga’s voice carried faintly above the pandemonium. ‘They’re coming. Hold on!’

  But under Ralph’s belly the earth whispered and shrugged impatiently and the driver’s weight pulled him another inch towards the drop.

  ‘Hold on, Ralph!’

  Across that aching breathless space Zouga was reaching out with both hands, a gesture that was more eloquent than any words – a gesture of suffering and helpless love.

  Then suddenly Ralph felt rough hands seize the ankles of his muddy boots, the shouts of many men behind him, the rasp of a hairy manila rope against his cheek, the noose dangling in front of his face – and with a huge surge of relief he saw the dangling driver thrust his free arm through the noose and saw it drawn tight.

  Ralph could let the muddy wrist slip from his grip, and he crawled back from the edge.

  He looked down at his father. It was too far for either of them to see the expression on each other’s face.

  For a moment longer Zouga stared up at him. Then he turned away abruptly, his stride businesslike, his gestures imperative as he ordered his Matabele forward to the rescue work.

  The rescue went on all that day. For once every digger on New Rush was united by a common purpose.

  The Diggers’ Committee closed the workings and ordered every man out of the unaffected areas. The five other roadways that had not collapsed were declared out of bounds to all traffic and they stood high and menacing in the silver clouds of drifting rain.

  On the churned and collapsed remnants of No. 6 Roadway the rescuers swarmed. These were the men who had been trapped on the floor by the severed ladderworks and the fallen system of gantries.

  There were no members of the Committee in the No. 6 area, and Zouga Ballantyne with his natural air of authority was quickly accepted as the leader. He had marked the position of the gravel carts and drivers on the roadway at the moment of the cave-in, and he split the available men into gangs and set them to digging where he guessed men and vehicles were buried. They attacked the treacherous shapeless mass of earth with a passion which was a mixture of hatred and stale fear, an expression of their own relief at having escaped that smothering, entombing yellow cascade.

  For the first hour they dug men out alive, some miraculously protected by an overturned cart or the body of a dead mule. One of these survivors rose shakily to his feet unaided when the earth was shovelled away, and the rescuers cheered him with a kind of wild hysteria.

  Three mules had survived the drop (one of these was Zouga’s old grey Bishop) but others were fearfully mutilated by the wrecked carts. Someone lowered a pistol and a packet of cartridges from the ground level and Zouga slipped and slid from one team to the other and shot the unfortunate beasts as they lay screaming and kic
king in the mud.

  While this was going on there were teams of men busy above them at ground level. Under the direction of the Diggers’ Committee they were rigging rope ladders and a makeshift gantry to bring up the dead and the injured. By noon that day they could begin taking the injured out, strapped to six-by-three timber boards and hoisted on the new gantry, swaying up the high wall of the pit.

  Then they began to find the dead men.

  The last of the missing men was locked like a foetus into the cold muddy womb of the earth. Zouga and Bazo stooped shoulder to shoulder into the mouth of the excavation, seized the limp wrist that protruded from the bank and, straining together, freed the corpse. It came out in a rush of slippery mud, like the moment of birth, but the man’s limbs were convulsed in rigor mortis and his eye sockets packed with mud. Other hands lifted the corpse and carried it away, and Zouga flexed his back and groaned. Cold and weariness had tied knots in his muscles.

  ‘We are not finished yet,’ he said, and the young Matabele nodded.

  ‘What is there still to do?’ he asked simply, and Zouga felt a rush of gratitude and affection towards him. He placed his hand on Bazo’s shoulder and for a moment they considered each other gravely, then Bazo asked again, ‘What must be done?’

  ‘The roadway is gone. There will be no work on these claims – not for a long time,’ Zouga explained, his voice dulled and his hand dropping wearily from Bazo’s shoulder. ‘If we leave any tools or equipment down here, they will be stolen.’

  They had lost the gravel cart, the hoist with its iron sheave wheels and valuable rope, and the gravel buckets.

  Zouga sighed, and the fatigue swept over him like a cold dark wave. There was no money to replace those essentials. ‘We must save what we can from the vultures.’

  Bazo called to his men in their own language and led them along the shapeless bank of broken earth from which protruded shattered pieces of equipment and tangles of sodden rope, to the deserted Devil’s Own claims.

  The fallen roadway had buried the eastern corner of No. 142, but the rest of the claims were clear. However, a pressure crack had opened in a deep zigzag across the floor and some of Zouga’s equipment had fallen into it and lay half submerged in muddy water.

  Bazo clambered down into the fissure and groped for the mess of rope and tools, passing it up to the Matabele on the bank above his head. Here Zouga supervised them as they tied the tools into bundles and then staggered away with them to the high eastern bank, there to wait their turn for the single functioning gantry to hoist the bundles out to ground level.

  As they worked the last pale rays of the sun pierced the mass of low cloud and struck down into the huge manmade pit.

  In the bottom of the fissure Bazo found the last missing pick, passed it up, and then leaned against the bank to rest for a few moments. He felt that he no longer had the strength to climb out of the deep crack. The cold had numbed his legs and softened his skin until it was wrinkled and water-logged like that of a drowned man. He shivered and laid his forehead on his arm, bracing himself against the bank of yellow earth. He felt that if he closed his eyes he would fall asleep on his feet.

  He kept them open with an effort, and stared at the earth in front of his face. A trickle of rainwater was still running down from the level above his head; it had cut a narrow runnel a few inches wide and deep. Most of the mud had settled out of this little streamlet, and it was almost clear, only slightly milked with colour.

  At one point in its trickle down the mud wall it had encountered an obstacle, and was pouring over it, forming a little plume of running water.

  Suddenly Bazo was thirsty. His throat was rough and dry. He leaned forward, and let the trickle flow over his lips and tongue, and then slurped a mouthful.

  The watery sun touched the bank, and a strange brilliant light flared inches from Bazo’s face. It came pouring up, powerful and pure and dancing white, from the tiny freshet from which he was drinking.

  He stared at it dully, and slowly it dawned upon him that the obstruction over which the water was pouring was something embedded in the gravel bank, something that glowed and flickered as the random beam of sunlight played upon it, something that seemed to change shape and substance through the trickling yellow-tinged waters.

  He touched it with his forefinger, and the cold water ran down his forearm and dripped from his elbow. He tried to work it loose, but it was firmly implanted, and soapy-feeling in his raw numb fingers so that he could not get a fair grip upon it.

  He took the buckhorn whistle from around his neck and used the point to prise the pretty fiery object loose, and it dropped heavily into the raw pink palm of his hand, almost filling it.

  It was a stone, but a stone such as he had never seen before. He held it under the trickle of rainwater, and with his thumb rubbed off the clinging mud until it was clean. Then he looked at it again, turning it curiously in the weak sunlight.

  Until Bazo had arrived at New Rush he had never thought about rocks and stones as being different from one another, any more than one drop of water differed from another or one cloud in the sky was more valuable or useful than the others. The Matabele language did not differentiate between a granite pebble and a diamond, they were both simply ‘imitshe’. Only the white men’s maniacal obsession with stones had made him look at them afresh.

  In all these months he had spent toiling in the diggings, he had seen many strange things and learned much of the white men and their ways. At first he had not been able to believe the extraordinary value they placed on the most trivial items. That a single pebble could be exchanged for six hundred head of prime cattle seemed some grotesque madman’s dream, but at last he had seen that it was true and he and his little band of amadoda had become fanatical gatherers of pebbles. Every sparkling or coloured stone they had pounced upon like magpies and carried proudly to Bakela for their reward.

  This initial enthusiasm had swiftly waned, for there was neither logic nor system in the white man’s mind. The showiest stones were discarded contemptuously. Lovely shiny red and blue pebbles, some of them shot through with different colours like ceramic beads, Bakela handed back to them with a grunt and a shake of the head. While occasionally, very occasionally, he would select some dull and uninteresting little chip and hand the delighted finder a gold coin.

  At first, payment in coin had confused the Matabele, but they learned fast. Those little metal discs could be exchanged in their turn for anything a man desired, as long as he had enough of them he could have a gun, or a horse, a woman or a fine ox.

  Bakela had tried to explain to Bazo and his Matabele how to recognize the stones for which he would pay a red gold coin. Firstly, they were small, never much bigger than the seed of the camel-thorn tree.

  Bazo considered the stone in his palm. It was huge; he could barely close his fingers over it. The stones that Bakela wanted were usually of a certain shape, a regular shape with eight sides, one for every finger less the thumbs. This huge stone was not so shaped. It had one clean side, as though cut through with a knife blade, and the rest of it was rounded and polished to a strange soapy sheen.

  Bazo held it under the trickle of rainwater again, and when he brought it out the film of water that covered the surface instantly coagulated into little droplets and shrank away, leaving the stone dry and glittering.

  That was strange, Bazo decided, but the stone was the wrong colour. Bakela had explained that they must look for pale lemon, or glossy grey, even brown colour. This stone was like looking into a clear pool in the mountains. He could see the shape of his own hand through it, and it was full of stars of moving light that hurled little darts of sunlight into his eyes as he turned it curiously. No, it was too big and much too pretty to be of value, Bazo decided.

  ‘Bazo! Checha!’ Bakela was calling him. ‘Come on, let’s go where we can eat and sleep.’

  Bazo dropped the stone into the leather pouch at his waist and scrambled up out of the open fissure. Already the file o
f Matabele workers led by Zouga were plodding away through the mud, each of them bowed under a bundle of spades or picks, one of the big leather buckets or a coil of sodden muddy rope.

  ‘He has the lives of six men on his hands. I was there, I saw it all happen. He drove his team into Mark Sanderson’s gravel bucky.’ The accuser was a tall digger with a huge shaggy head of greying hair, heavy shoulders and heavier paunch. He was working himself up into a boil of righteous indignation, and Zouga saw that it was infectious, the crowd was beginning to growl and surge restlessly around the wagon body.

  The New Rush Diggers’ Committee was in public session. Ten minutes previously they had formed themselves into a Board of Enquiry into the cave-in of No. 6 Roadway.

  A wagon had been dragged into the centre of Market Square to provide a platform for their deliberations, and around it was a solid packed crowd of diggers from the No. 6 Section. Since the cave-in, they had not been able to get back into the diggings to work their claims and they had just come from the mass funeral of the six men that had been crushed to death by the treacherous yellow gravel. Most of them had begun the wake for their mates and were carrying uncorked green bottles.

  Mixed with the diggers were all the loafers of New Rush, the transport riders and merchants; even the kopje-wallopers had closed their offices for the meeting. This was something that affected all their futures directly.

  ‘Let’s have a look at the little blighter,’ somebody yelled out at the back of the crowd, and there was a menacing growl of agreement.

  ‘Right, let’s see him.’

  Zouga stood beside the tall back wheel of the wagon, hemmed in by the press of bodies, and he glanced at Ralph who stood at his shoulder. He no longer had to look down at his son, their eyes were on a level.

  ‘I’ll go up and face them,’ Ralph whispered huskily. Under the dark tan, his skin was grey and his eyes dark green and worried. He knew as well as Zouga did how grave was his position: he was to be tried by a mob that was angry and vindictive and mostly filled with cheap liquor.