Men of Men

by Wilbur Smith

  One of these dust devils rose now, on the open ground beyond the milkwood hedge. It tore a dense red cloud of spinning dust off the surface of the road, then swerved abruptly and raced into the yard of Rhodes’ camp. Jordan felt his heart gripped in a cold vice of superstitious dread.

  ‘Panes!’ The cry was silent in his head. ‘Great Panes!’

  He knew what that wind was, he knew the presence of the goddess – for how many times had she come to his invocation? Suddenly the whole yard was filled with the swirling torrents of dust, and the wind battered them. It flew into Jordan’s face, so that he must slit his eyes against it. It flung his soft shiny curls into his face, and it flattened his shirt against his chest and his lean flat belly.

  The broad-brimmed hat sailed from Pickering’s head, the tails of his coat flogged into the small of his back and he lifted one hand to protect his face from the stinging sand and sharp pieces of twig and grass.

  Then the wind got under the ragged old tarpaulin, and filled it with a crack like a ship’s mainsail gybing onto the opposite tack.

  The harsh canvas lashed the bay mare’s head, and she reared up on her back legs, whinnying shrilly with panic.

  So high she went that Jordan thought she would go over on her back, and through the red raging curtain of dust, he jumped to catch her head; but he was an instant too late. Pickering had one hand to his face, and the mare’s leap took him off balance; he went over backwards out of the saddle, and he hit hard earth with the back of his neck and one shoulder.

  The rushing sound of the whirlwind, the grunt of air driven from Pickering’s lungs and the meaty thump of his fall almost covered the tiny snapping sound of bone breaking somewhere deep in his body.

  Then the mare came down from her high prancing dance, and she flattened immediately into full gallop. She flew at the gateway in the milkwood hedge, and Pickering was dragged after her, his ankle trapped in the steel of the stirrup, his body slithering and bouncing loosely across the earth.

  As the mare swerved to take the gap in the hedge, Pickering was flung into the hedge, and the white thorns, each as long as a man’s forefinger, were driven into his flesh like needles.

  Then he was plucked away, out into the open ground, sledging over rocky earth, striking and flattening the small wiry bushes as the mare jumped them, his body totally relaxed and his arms flung out behind him.

  One moment the back of his head was slapping against the earth, and the next his ankle had twisted in the stirrup and he was face down, the skin being smeared from his cheeks and forehead by the harsh abrasive earth.

  Jordan found himself racing after him, his breath sobbing with horror – calling to the mare.

  ‘Whoa, girl! Steady, girl!’

  But she was maddened, firstly terrified by the wind and the flirt of canvas into her face, and now by the unfamiliar weight that dragged and slithered at her heels. She reached the slope of the trailing dumps and swerved again, and this time, mercifully, the stirrup leather parted with a twang. Freed of her burden, the mare galloped away down the pathway between the dumps.

  Jordan dropped on his knees beside Pickering’s inert crumpled body. He lay face down; the expensive broadcloth was ripped and dusty, the boots scuffed through to white leather beneath.

  Gently, supporting his head in cupped hands, Jordan rolled him onto his back, turning his face out of the dust so that he could breathe. Pickering’s face was a bloodied mask, caked with dust, a flap of white skin hanging off his cheek – but his eyes were wide open.

  Despite the complete deathlike relaxation of his arms and body, Pickering was fully conscious. His eyes swivelled to Jordan’s face, and his lips moved.

  ‘Jordie,’ he whispered. ‘I can’t feel anything, nothing at all. Numb – my hands, my feet, my whole body numb.’

  They carried him back in a blanket, a man at each corner, and laid him gently on the narrow iron-framed cot in the bedroom next door to Rhodes’ own room.

  Dr Jameson came within the hour, and he nodded when he saw how Jordan had bathed and dressed his injuries and the arrangements he had made for his comfort.

  ‘Good. Who taught you?’ But he did not wait for an answer. ‘Here!’ he said. ‘I’ll need your help.’ And he handed Jordan his bag, shrugged out of his jacket and rolled his sleeves.

  ‘Get out,’ he said to Rhodes. ‘You’ll be in the way here.’

  It took Jameson only minutes to make certain that the paralysis below the neck was complete, and then he looked up at Jordan, making sure that he was out of sight of Pickering’s alert, fever-bright eyes, and he shook his head curtly.

  ‘I’ll be a minute,’ he said. ‘I must speak with Mr Rhodes.’

  ‘Jordie,’ Pickering whispered painfully, the moment Jameson left the room, and Jordan stooped to his lips. ‘It’s my neck – it’s broken.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Be quiet. Listen.’ Pickering frowned at the interruption. ‘I think I always knew – that it would be you. One way or the other, it would be you—’

  He broke off, fresh sweat blistered on his forehead, but he made another terrible effort to speak. ‘I thought I hated you. But not any more – not now. There is not enough time left for hate.’

  He did not speak again, not that night, nor the following day. But at dusk when the heat in the tiny iron-walled room abated a little, he opened his eyes again and looked up at Rhodes. It was frightening to see how low he had sunk. The fine bones of forehead and cheeks seemed to gleam through the translucent skin, and his eyes had receded into dark bruised cavities.

  Rhodes leaned his great shaggy head over him until his ear touched Pickering’s dry white lips. The whisper was so light, like a dead leaf blown softly across a roof at midnight, and Jordan could not hear the words, but Rhodes clenched his lids closed over his pale blue eyes as though in mortal anguish.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered, almost as softly as the dying man. ‘Yes, I know. Pickling.’

  When Rhodes opened his eyes again they were flooded with bright tears, and his colour was a frightening mottled purple.

  ‘He’s dead, Jordan,’ he choked, and put one hand on his own chest, pressing hard as though to calm the beat of his swollen heart.

  Then quite slowly, deliberately, he lowered his head again, and kissed the broken, torn lips of the man on the iron-framed cot.

  Zouga thought the voice was part of his dream – so sweet, so low, and yet tremulous and filled with some dreadful appeal. Then he was awake, and the voice was still calling, and now there was a light tap on the window above the head of his bed.

  ‘I’m coming,’ Zouga answered, as low as he was called. He did not have to ask who it was.

  He dressed swiftly, in total darkness, instinct warning him not to light a candle, and he carried his boots in his hand as he stepped out onto the stoep of the cottage.

  The height of the moon told him that it was after midnight, but he barely glanced at it before turning to the figure that leaned against the wall beside the door.

  ‘Are you alone?’ he demanded softly. There was something in the way the figure slumped that frightened him.

  ‘Yes.’ The distress, the pain, were clear in her voice now that they were so close.

  ‘You should not have come here – not alone, Mrs St John.’

  ‘There was nobody else to turn to.’

  ‘Where is Mungo? Where is your husband?’

  ‘He is in trouble – terrible, terrible trouble.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘I left him out beyond the Cape crossroad.’

  For a moment her voice choked on her, and then it came out with a forceful rush.

  ‘He’s hurt. Wounded, badly wounded.’

  Her voice had risen, so that she might rouse Jan Cheroot and the boys. Zouga took her arm to calm and quieten her, and immediately she fell against him. The feel of her body shocked him, but he could not pull away.

  ‘I’m afraid, Zouga. I’m afraid he might die.’ It was the first time she
had used his given name.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Oh God!’ She was weeping now, clinging to him, and he realized how hard-pressed she was. He slipped his arm around her waist and led her down the verandah.

  In the kitchen he seated her on one of the hard deal chairs, and then lit the candle. He was shocked again when he saw her face. She was pale and shaking, her hair in wild disorder, a smear of dirt on one cheek and her eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot.

  He poured coffee from the blue enamel pot at the back of the stove. It was thick as molasses. He added a dram of brandy to it.

  ‘Drink it.’

  She shuddered and gasped at the potent black brew, but it seemed to steady her a little.

  ‘I didn’t want him to go. I tried to stop him. I was sick of it. I told him I couldn’t take it any more, the cheating and lying. The shame and the running—’

  ‘You aren’t making sense,’ he told her brusquely, and she took a deep breath and started again.

  ‘Mungo went to meet a man tonight. The man was going to bring him a parcel of diamonds, a parcel of diamonds worth one hundred thousand pounds. And Mungo was going to buy them for two thousand.’

  Zouga’s face set grimly, and he sat down opposite her and stared at her. His expression intimidated her.

  ‘Oh God, Zouga. I know. I hated it too. I have lived with it so long, but he promised me that this would be the last time.’

  ‘Go on,’ Zouga commanded.

  ‘But he didn’t have two thousand, Zouga. We are almost broke – a few pounds is all that we have left.’

  This time Zouga could not contain himself and he broke in.

  ‘The letter of credit, half a million pounds—’

  ‘Forged,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘He didn’t have the money to pay for the diamonds – and I knew what he was going to do. I tried to stop him, I swear it to you.’

  ‘I believe you.’

  ‘He arranged to meet this man tonight – at a place out on the Cape road.’

  ‘Do you know the man’s name?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I think so.’ She passed her hand over her eyes. ‘He is a coloured man, a Griqua, Henry – no, Hendrick Somebody—’

  ‘Hendrick Naaiman?’

  ‘Yes. Naaiman, that’s it.’

  ‘He’s an I.D.B. trap.’

  ‘Police?’

  ‘Yes, police.’

  ‘Oh sweet God, it’s even worse than I thought.’

  ‘What happened?’ Zouga insisted.

  ‘Mungo made me wait for him at the crossroads and he went to the rendezvous alone. He said he needed to protect himself – he took his pistol. He went on my horse – on Shooting Star, and then I heard the gunfire.’

  She took another gulp of the coffee and coughed at the burn of it.

  ‘He came back. He had been shot, and so had Shooting Star. They couldn’t go any further, neither of them. They were both hard hit, Zouga. I hid them near the road and I came to you.’

  Zouga’s voice was harsh. ‘Did Mungo kill him?’

  ‘I don’t know, Zouga. Mungo says the other man fired first and he only tried to protect himself.’

  ‘Mungo tried to hold him up and take the diamonds, without paying for them,’ Zouga guessed. ‘But Naaiman is a dangerous man.’

  ‘There were four empty cartridges in Mungo’s pistol, but I don’t know what happened to the policeman. I only know that Mungo escaped, but he is hurt very badly.’

  ‘Now keep quiet and rest for a while.’ He stood up and paced up and down the kitchen, his bare feet making no sound, his hands clasped at the small of the back.

  Louise St John watched him anxiously, almost fearfully, until he stopped abruptly and turned to her.

  ‘We both know what I should do. Your husband is I.D.B.; he is a thief and by now he is probably a murderer.’

  ‘He is also your friend,’ she said simply. ‘And he is very badly wounded.’

  He resumed his pacing, but now he was muttering to himself, troubled and scowling, and Louise twisted her fingers in her lap.

  ‘Very well,’ he said at last. ‘I’ll help you to get him away.’

  ‘Oh, Major Ballantyne – Zouga—’

  He silenced her with a frown. ‘Don’t waste time talking. We’ll need bandages, laudanum, food—’ He was ticking off a list on his fingers. ‘You can’t go like that. They’ll be watching for a woman. Jordan’s cast-off clothes will fit you well enough – breeches, cap and coat—’

  Zouga walked at the flank of the mule, and the gravel cart was loaded with bales of thatching grass.

  Louise lay silently in the hollow between two bales, with another ready to pull over herself if the cart was stopped.

  The iron-shod wheels crunched in the sand, but the night dew had damped down the dust. The lantern on the tailboard of the cart swung and jiggled to the motion.

  They had just passed the last house on the Cape road, and were drawing level with the cemetery when there was the dust-muffled beat of hooves from behind them and Louise only just had time to drop down and cover herself before a small group of riders swept out of the darkness and overtook them.

  As they galloped through the arc of lantern light, Zouga saw they were all armed. He stooped and lowered his chin into the collar of his greatcoat and the woollen cap was pulled low over his eyes. One of the riders pulled up his horse and shouted to Zouga.

  ‘Hey, you! Have you seen anybody on this road tonight?’

  ‘Niemand nie!’ Nobody!’ Zouga answered in the taal, and the sound of the guttural dialect reassured the man.

  He wheeled his horse and galloped on after his companions.

  When the sound of hooves had died away Zouga spoke quietly.

  ‘That means that Naaiman got away to spread the word. Unless he dies of his wounds later, it’s not murder.’

  ‘Please God,’ Louise whispered.

  ‘It also means that you cannot try to get out on either the Cape road or the road to the Transvaal. They will be watched.’

  ‘Which way can we go?’

  ‘If I were you I would take the track north, it goes to Kuruman. There is a mission station there – it’s run by my grandfather. His name is Doctor Moffat. He will give you shelter, and Mungo will need a doctor. Then when Mungo is strong enough, you can try to reach German or Portuguese territory and get out through Lüderitz Bay or Lourenço Marques.’

  Neither of them spoke for a long time as Zouga trudged on beside the mule, and Louise crawled out to sit on the bench of the cart. It was she who broke the silence.

  ‘I am so tired of running. We seem to have run out of lands, America, Canada, Australia, we cannot go back to any of them.’

  ‘You could go home to France,’ Zouga said, ‘to your sons.’

  Louise’s head jerked up. ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘When Mungo and I first met he told me about you, his wife – that you were of a noble French family. He told me that you and he had three sons.’

  Louise’s chin sank onto her chest and Jordan’s cloth cap covered her eyes.

  ‘I have no sons,’ she said. ‘But oh how I pray that one day I may have. I belong to a noble family, yes – but not French. My grandmother was the daughter of Hawk Flies Lightly, the Blackfoot War Chief.’

  ‘I don’t understand, Mungo told me—’

  ‘He told you about the woman who is his wife, Madame Solange de Montijo St John.’

  Louise was silent again, and Zouga had to ask:

  ‘She is dead?’

  ‘Their marriage was unhappy. No, she is not dead. She returned with their three sons to France at the beginning of the Civil War. He has not seen her since.’

  ‘Then she and Mungo are,’ Zouga hesitated over the unsavoury word, ‘divorced?’

  ‘She is a Catholic,’ Louise replied simply; and it was fully five minutes before either of them spoke again.

  ‘Yes,’ Louise said. ‘What you are thinking is
correct. Mungo and I are not married; we could not be.’

  ‘It’s not my business,’ Zouga murmured, and yet what she had said did not shock him. He felt instead a strange lightness of spirit, a kind of glowing joy.

  ‘It’s a relief to speak completely honestly,’ she explained. ‘After all the lies. Somehow it had to be you, Zouga. I could never have admitted all this to anybody else.’

  ‘Do you love him?’ Zouga’s voice was rough-edged, brusque.

  ‘Once I loved him completely, without restraint, wildly – madly.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘I do not know – there have been so many lies, so much shame, so much to hide.’

  ‘Why do you stay with him, Louise?’

  ‘Because now he needs me.’

  ‘I understand that.’ His voice was gentler. He did understand, he truly did. ‘Duty is a harsh and unforgiving master. And yet you have a duty to yourself also.’

  The mules plodded on in the darkness, and the swinging lantern did not light the face of the woman on the bench, but once she sighed, and it was a sound to twist Zouga’s heart.

  ‘Louise,’ he spoke at last. ‘I am not doing this for Mungo, even a friendship cannot condone deliberate robbery and premeditated murder.’

  She did not reply.

  ‘Many times you must have seen the way I have looked at you – for, God knows, I could not help myself.’

  Still she was silent.

  ‘You did know,’ he insisted. ‘You, as a woman, must know how I feel.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said at last.

  ‘When I thought you were married to a friend, it was hopeless. Now, at least, I can tell you how I feel.’

  ‘Zouga, please don’t.’

  ‘I would do anything you asked me to – even protect a murderer, that is how I feel for you.’

  ‘Zouga—’

  ‘I have never known anybody so beautiful and bright and brave—’

  ‘I am not any of those things—’

  ‘I could put you and Mungo on the road to Kuruman and then go back to Kimberley and tell the diamond police where to find you. They would take Mungo, and then you would be free.’