Men of Men

by Wilbur Smith

  ‘How would you fight them, Ballantyne?’ Rhodes fired the question harshly, and it checked Zouga in full lyrical flow. They stared at each other for a moment, but a moment that was fraught with portent, a moment in which the lives of many thousands – black men and white – teetered in the balance. Then slowly the arm of the balance came down on one side, and the destiny of a continent moved, like a fiery planet shifting its orbit through the universe.

  ‘I would thrust for the heart,’ Zouga said, suddenly his eyes cold and green, ‘a small mobile force of mounted men—’

  ‘How many men?’

  And suddenly they were talking war as the sun fell below the dusty mauve and purple plain, leaving the sinister shadows to draw in around the little group under the camel-thorn tree.

  Jan Cheroot threw logs on the fire and they sat on in the ruddy wavering light and the talk was of gold and of war, diamonds and gold and war, Empire and war, and their words conjured columns of armed and mounted men from the night, dark phantoms riding into the future.

  Suddenly Zouga checked in the middle of a sentence, his expression changed as though he had seen a ghost or recognized an old implacable enemy in the shadows under the camel-thorn tree.

  ‘What is it, Ballantyne?’ Rhodes asked sharply, swivelling the big untidy head to follow the direction of Zouga’s gaze.

  Against the bole of the thorn tree stood the tall green soapstone bird-statue. Unnoticed until now, hidden by the welter of harness and loose equipment that festooned the branches around it, some trick of the flames, the fall and flare of one of the burning logs, had illuminated it with sudden and dramatic firelight.

  It stood taller than the seated men, seeming to preside over their counsels, listening to and directing the talk of gold and of blood. The falcon head, timeless as evil itself, as ancient as the hills of the far land from which it had been hewn, stared back at Zouga with sightless, yet somehow all-seeing, blank eyes, the cruel curve of the beak seemed on the point of opening to emit the falcon’s hunting cry – or to bury itself in living flesh. To Zouga it seemed that in the darkness above the statue the words of the prophecy, spoken so long ago in that deep cavern of the Matopos hills by the beautiful naked witch who was the Umlimo of Monomatapa, still persisted, hovering in the shadows like living things:

  The stone falcons will fly afar. There shall be no peace in the kingdoms of the Mambos or the Monomatapas until they return. For the white eagle will war with the black bull until the stone falcons return to roost.

  In his memory Zouga heard the words again, spoken by that silken voice, and they seemed to echo against the dome of his skull and fill the drums of his ears.

  ‘What is it, my dear fellow?’ Pickering repeated the question and something slithered along Zouga’s spine and crawled upon the skin of his forearms so that the hair came erect and he had to shudder to free himself of it.

  ‘Nothing,’ he answered, huskily. ‘It’s nothing; a grey goose walked over my grave.’ But he stared still at the statue and Rhodes followed his gaze.

  ‘By Jove. Isn’t that the bird you wrote about in the book?’ Rhodes sprang to his feet.

  Eagerly he strode to where it stood and paused before it for a long silent moment before he reached out and touched the head.

  ‘What an extraordinary piece of work,’ he said softly, and went down on one knee to examine the shark-tooth pattern that was carved into the plinth. In that attitude he seemed like a worshipper, a priest conducting some weird rite before the idol.

  Again Zouga felt that superstitious flutter of nerves crawl like insects upon his skin, and to break the mood he called loudly for Jan Cheroot to bring a lantern.

  In the lantern’s beam they scrutinized the polished greenish stone, and as Rhodes ran his big large-knuckled hand over it his expression was rapt, the gaze of those strange pale eyes remote, like a poet hearing words in his head.

  Long after Pickering and Zouga had returned to their seats by the log fire, Rhodes stood alone under the camel-thorn tree with the falcon – and when at last he left it to join them once more, his tone was brittle with accusation.

  ‘That thing is a treasure, Ballantyne. It is unforgivable to leave it lying out under a tree.’

  ‘It’s lain in worse conditions for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years,’ Zouga replied drily.

  ‘You are right.’ Rhodes sighed, his attention straying back to the bird. ‘It’s yours to do with as you wish.’ And then, impulsively, ‘I wish to purchase it from you. Name a price.’

  ‘It’s not for sale,’ Zouga told him.

  ‘Five hundred pounds,’ said Rhodes.

  The sum startled Zouga, but his reply was immediate.

  ‘No.’

  ‘A thousand.’

  ‘I say,’ Pickering intervened. ‘You can pick up ten claims in No. 6 Section for that.’

  Rhodes did not glance at him, but he nodded. ‘Yes, you could, or Major Ballantyne could pay for his share of the new stagings with a thousand pounds.’

  A thousand pounds. Zouga felt himself tempted. A thousand pounds would see him clear.

  ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry.’ He felt he had to explain. ‘It has become the household god, my personal good-luck symbol.’

  ‘Good luck!’ snorted Jan Cheroot from across the fire, and all three of them turned their heads in his direction. None of them noticed him sitting on the edge of the shadows like a wizened little yellow gnome.

  ‘Good luck!’ the Hottentot repeated scornfully. ‘Since we picked up that verdamned bird we haven’t seen a day’s good luck.’ He spat into the fire, and his phlegm sizzled and exploded in a little puff of steam. ‘That bird has put blisters on our feet and rubbed the skin from our backs, it has broken the axles of our wagons and lamed our horses. It has brought us fever, and sickness and death. Miss Aletta died looking at that bird, and Jordie would have followed her if I hadn’t thrown the verdamned thing out.’

  ‘That’s nonsense,’ Zouga snapped sharply. ‘That’s an old Hottentot maid’s superstition.’

  ‘Ja,’ Jan Cheroot challenged him hotly. ‘Is it an old Hottentot superstition that we are sitting in the dust of this hell-hole, swatting flies and rubbing empty bellies? Is it superstition that all around us they are pulling fat diamonds and we find only the droppings and manure? Is it superstition that the earth has fallen on our claims, and that it nearly swallowed Ralph? Is that your good luck that you boast the bird brings you, Master Zouga? If it is, then hear the words of old Jan Cheroot and take the thousand pounds that Mr Rhodes offers you; take it with both hands, and thank him for getting rid of that – that—’ Jan Cheroot ran out of words and glared across the fire at the birdshape under the thorn tree.

  ‘Damn me,’ Pickering smiled. ‘But you nag like a wife.’

  None of them were surprised at the familiar address between servant and master. In Africa relationships like this were common; the servant considering himself to be part of the family with a voice in the affairs of the family, and his claim was accepted by all.

  ‘Jan Cheroot has hated the idol since the day we discovered it.’

  ‘Tell me about that day, Jan Cheroot,’ ordered Rhodes brusquely; and Jan Cheroot puffed up visibly with self-importance. There were few things he enjoyed more than an important and attentive audience and a good story to tell them. While he made a show of packing his clay pipe with black Magaliesberg shag tobacco and lighting it with an ember from the fire, the two boys crept out of the tent drawn by the prospect of a story. They glanced cautiously at Zouga and, when he made no move to send them back, they were emboldened.

  Jordie sat next to Jan Cheroot and leaned his curly golden head against the Hottentot’s shoulder, while Ralph came diffidently to sit with the men beside the fire.

  ‘We had been one year in the bush,’ Jan Cheroot began, ‘one year without seeing a civilized man, one year trekking and hunting—’ And the boys settled down with delicious anticipation. They had heard the story a hundred times
before and enjoyed each telling more than the last.

  ‘We had killed two hundred great elephant since leaving the Zambezi river, and we had fought bad men and savages. Our porters had mostly deserted or died of disease and wild animals, our provisions were long finished, no salt, no tea, no medicine and little gunpowder. Our clothes were rags, our boots worn through and repaired with the wet hide of buffalo.

  ‘It had been a killing journey, over mountains with no passes and rivers with no names, and ordinary men would long ago have fallen and the birds would have picked their bones white. Even we were tired and sick and we were lost. Around us, as far as our eyes could see, there was nothing but wild hills and bad bush through which only the buffalo could pass.’

  ‘And you needed honey for your strength,’ Jordie burst out, unable to contain himself, and knowing the story word perfect. ‘Otherwise you would have died in the bush.’

  ‘And we needed honey for our strength or we would have died in the bush,’ Jan Cheroot agreed solemnly.

  ‘Out of the bush came a little brown honey guide, and he sang thus—’ Jan Cheroot imitated the high-pitched burring call and fluttered his fingers in an uncanny imitation of the bird. ‘”Come!” he called to us. “Come, follow me, and I will lead you to the hive.”’

  ‘But he wasn’t a real honey-bird, was he, Jan Cheroot?’ Jordie cried excitedly.

  ‘No, Jordie, he wasn’t a real honey-bird.’

  ‘And you followed him!’

  ‘And we followed him for many days through bad country. Even when Master Zouga, your father, would have turned back, old Jan Cheroot was firm. We must go on, I told him, for by this time I, who have a deep knowledge and understanding of ghosts and spirits, realized that this was not a real honey-bird but a hobgoblin in the guise of a bird.’

  Zouga smiled softly. He remembered the incident differently. They had followed the bird for some hours, and it was Jan Cheroot who had lost interest in the hunt and had to be prodded and cajoled to continue.

  ‘Then suddenly—’ Jan Cheroot paused and flung out both hands theatrically, ‘ – before our eyes, a wall of grey stone rose out of the bush. A wall so high it was like a mountain. With my axe I chopped away the vines and found a great gateway, guarded by fierce spirits—’

  ‘Spirits?’ Zouga smiled.

  ‘They were invisible to ordinary eyes,’ Jan Cheroot explained loftily. ‘And I put them to flight with a magical sign.’

  Zouga winked at Pickering, but Jan Cheroot ignored their smiles.

  ‘Beyond the gateway was a temple yard, in which lay the falcon statues, cast down, some of them shattered, but all of them covered with heaps of gold, mountains of gold.’

  Zouga sighed. ‘Fifty pounds weight to be exact. Fragments and tiny pieces which we had to sift from the soil. How I wish it had been a mountain.’

  ‘We gathered the gold from where it lay, and we took up that statue on our shoulders and carried it one thousand miles—’

  ‘Complaining every step of the way,’ Zouga pointed out.

  ‘ – Until we reached Cape Town again.’

  It was after midnight when Jan Cheroot brought the saddled horses to the camp fire, and as Rhodes took the reins he paused in the act of mounting.

  ‘Tell me, Major, this land to the north, this Zambezia as you call it in your book – what is it that keeps you from it? What are you doing here?’

  ‘I need money,’ Zouga told him simply. ‘And somehow I know that the road to the north begins here. The money to take and hold Zambezia will come from the workings of New Rush.’

  ‘I like a man who thinks big, a man who counts not in ones and twos but in tens of thousands,’ Rhodes nodded approval.

  ‘At this moment I count my fortune in ones and twos.’

  ‘We could change that.’ Rhodes shot a pale piercing glance towards the bird carving, but Zouga chuckled and shook his head.

  ‘I would like first refusal,’ Rhodes persisted.

  ‘If I sell, it will be to you,’ Zouga agreed, and Rhodes stepped up in the stirrup, swung a leg over the horse’s rump, settled in the saddle and rode out of the camp.

  Pickering edged his mount closer to Zouga and leaned down from the saddle to tell him seriously:

  ‘He will have it from you – in the end he will have it.’

  ‘I think not.’ Zouga shook his head.

  But Pickering smiled. ‘He always gets what he sets his heart on. Always.’

  He saluted Zouga with the hand that held the reins and then started his horse into a canter and followed Rhodes out onto the dusty starlit track.

  ‘Give the stone to the yellow man,’ Kamuza urged quietly. ‘Five hundred gold queens, and we will return to our own people with treasures. Your father, the induna of Inyati, will be pleased, even the king will call us to the great kraal at Thabas Indunas for audience. We will become important men.’

  ‘I do not trust the Bastaard.’

  ‘Do not trust him. Trust only the yellow coins he brings.’

  ‘I do not like his eyes. They are cold and he hisses like a yellow cobra when he speaks.’

  They were silent then, a circle of dark figures in the smoky hut, squatting around the diamond as it lay on the clay floor and flickered with weird lights in the reflection of the fire.

  They had argued since the sunset had released them from their labours. They had argued over the meal of stringy mutton with its rind of greasy fat and maize porridge baked until it was stiff as cake.

  They had argued over the snuff-horn and beer pot, and now it was late. Soon, very soon, there would be a scratching at the door of the hut as the Bastaard came for his answer.

  ‘The stone is not ours to sell. It belongs to Bakela. Does a son sell the calves from his father’s herds?’

  Kamuza made a clucking sound of exasperation. ‘Surely it is against law and custom to steal from the tribe, from the elders of the tribe, but Bakela is not Matabele. He is buni, white man, it is not wrong doing to take from him any more than it is against law and custom to send the assegai through the heart of a Mashona dog, or to mount his wife in sport, or to take the cattle of a Tswana and put fire into his kraal to hear his children squeal. Those are natural and right things for a man to do.’

  ‘Bakela is my father, the stone is his calf, given into my care.’

  ‘He will give you a single coin,’ Kamuza lamented, and Bazo seemed not to hear him.

  He picked up the diamond again and turned it in his hand.

  ‘It is a large stone,’ he mused aloud, ‘a very large stone.’ He held it to his eye and looked into the stone as though it were a mountain pool, and he watched with awe the fires and shapes move within it.

  Still holding it to his eye, he said, ‘If I bring my father a newborn calf, he will be happy and give me a reward. But if I bring him one hundred calves how much greater will be his joy, and one hundred times greater the reward that he will give me.’

  He lowered the stone and gave a series of orders that sent his men hurrying out into the night, to return immediately with the tools Bazo had sent them to fetch.

  Then in silence they watched him make his preparations.

  Firstly he spread a kaross of silver jackal pelts on the earth floor and then in the centre of the fur he placed a small steel anvil at which he had watched Zouga shaping horse-shoes and working the iron hoops to repair the wagon wheels.

  On the anvil Bazo placed the diamond, and then he threw aside his cloak so that he stood stark naked in the firelight, tall and lean and hard, his belly muscles standing up in concentric ridges under the dark satiny skin and the wide rangy shoulders overdeveloped by practice with shield and spear.

  With his legs braced wide, he stood over the anvil, and hefted the sweat-polished handle of the pick, feeling the balance and weight of the steel head that had become so familiar.

  Bazo narrowed his eyes, measuring his stroke, and then he reared back with the pick almost touching the thatched roof. He drove his body weight into th
e stroke, and the steel pick head came hissing down from on high.

  The point caught the diamond exactly on the high centre of its curved upper surface, and the great stone exploded as though a bucketful of mountain water had been dashed to the earth. The sparkling drops, the shattered fragments, the glowing chips of priceless crystal, seemed to fill the whole hut with a burst of sunlight.

  They pattered against the thatched walls, stung the naked skins of the watching Matabele, kicked little puffs of grey ash as they fell into the fire, and scattered on the lustrous fur of the silver jackal kaross, shining there like live fish in the net.

  ‘Son of the Great Snake,’ hooted Kamuza joyously. ‘We are rich men.’ And the laughing Matabele flung themselves into the task of gathering up the fragments.

  They picked them from the ashes, swept them up from the earthen floor, shook them out of the jackal skin kaross – and piled them into Bazo’s cupped hand until it was filled to overflowing. Even then they missed some of the tiny chips that had fallen into the dust or the fire and were lost for ever.

  ‘You are a wise man,’ Kamuza told Bazo with unaffected admiration. ‘Bakela has his stones – a hundred calves – and we will have more coins than the yellow Bastaard would give us.’

  There was no work in the collapsed No. 6 Section, no need to rise before dawn, so the sun was clear of the horizon when Zouga strode out of the tent, clinching his belt as he joined Jan Cheroot and the two boys under the camel-thorn tree.

  The table was a packing-case, the lid stained with candle grease and spilled coffee, and breakfast was maize-meal porridge in chipped enamel bowls, unsweetened, for the price of sugar had recently risen to a pound a pound on the diamond fields.

  Zouga’s eyes were red-rimmed, for he had slept little the previous night, but had lain awake worrying and scheming, going over and over in his mind every detail of the plans for the new staging – and coming back each time to the most important detail, the one for which there seemed to be no solution: the cost, the enormous cost of it all.