Men of Men

by Wilbur Smith

  He kicked open the door to the bedroom, stepped through and pushed it closed with his heel.

  There was a dustsheet on the bed, but no pillow or eiderdown. He laid her upon it, and knelt beside her, still holding her to his chest.

  ‘He was a saint,’ she choked. ‘And you sent him to his death. You are the very devil.’

  Then with the shaking, frantic fingers of a drowning woman, she unfastened the mother-of-pearl buttons down the front of his linen shirt.

  His chest was hard and smooth, the olive skin covered with crisp, dark curls. She pressed her open lips to it, breathing deeply the man-smell of him.

  ‘Forgive me,’ she sobbed. ‘Oh God, forgive me.’

  From his cubbyhole beside the pantries, Jordan Ballantyne could overlook the cavernous kitchens of Groote Schuur.

  There were three chefs at work over the gleaming, anthracite-burning Aga ranges, and one of them hurried across to Jordan with the enamelled double-boiler and a silver spoon. With it Jordan tasted the Béarnaise sauce that would go with the galjoen. The galjoen was a fish of the stormy Cape waters; fancifully its shape could be likened to that of a Spanish galleon, and its delicate greenish flesh was one of the great African delicacies.

  ‘Perfect,’ Jordan nodded. ‘Parfait, Monsieur Galliard, comme toujours.’ The little Frenchman scurried away beaming, and Jordan turned to the heavy teak door leading to the wine cellars below the kitchens.

  Jordan had personally decanted the port that afternoon, ten bottles of the forty-year-old Vilanova de Gaia of the 1853 vintage; it had faded to the beautiful tawny colour of wild honey. Now a Malay waiter in long white Kanzu robes, with crimson sash and pillbox fez, came up the stone steps, reverently carrying the first Waterford glass decanter on a Georgian silver tray.

  Jordan poured a thimbleful into the chased silver tastevin which he wore on the chain about his neck. He sipped, rolled it on his tongue and then drew breath sharply through pursed lips to let the wine declare itself.

  ‘I was right,’ he murmured. ‘What a fortunate purchase.’

  Jordan opened the heavy leatherbound wine register, and noted with pleasure that they still had twelve dozen bottles of the Vilanova, after he had deducted today’s decanting. In the ‘remarks’ column he wrote, ‘Extraordinary. Keep for best,’ and then turned back to the Malay steward.

  ‘So then, Ramallah, we will offer a choice of Sherry Finos Palma or Madeira with the soup, with the fish the Chablis or the 1889 Krug—’ Quickly Jordan ran down the menu, and then dismissed him. ‘The company will be coming through presently, kindly see that everyone takes their places now.’

  The twelve waiters stood with their backs to the oak panelling of the dining-hall, their white-gloved hands clasped in front of them, expressionless as guardsmen, and Jordan gave each one a quick appraisal as he passed, looking for a stain on the brilliant white robes or a sloppily knotted sash.

  At the head of the long table, he paused. The service was the silver gilt queen’s pattern presented to Mr Rhodes by the directors of the Chartered Company, the glass was long, finely stemmed Venetian, lipped with twenty-two carat gold to complement the gilt. There were twenty-two settings this evening, and Jordan had agonized over the seating arrangements. Finally he had decided to place Dr Jameson at the bottom of the table and put Sir Henry Loch, the High Commissioner, on Mr Rhodes’ right. He nodded his satisfaction at that arrangement, and took one of the Alphonso Havanas from the silver humidor and sniffed it before crackling it against his ear – that too was perfect; he replaced it and took one last lingering look around the hall.

  The flowers had been arranged by Jordan’s own hands, great banks of protea blooms from the slopes of Table Mountain. In the centrepiece, yellow English roses from the gardens of Groote Schuur, and of course Mr Rhodes’ favourite flowers, the lovely blue plumbago blossom.

  From beyond the double doors came the clatter of many feet on the marble floor of the hall and the high, almost querulous voice which Jordan knew and loved so well carried to him.

  ‘And we shall just have to square the old man.’ Jordan smiled fondly at the words, the old man was certainly Kruger, the President of the Boer Republic, and ‘square’ was still one of the central words in Mr Rhodes’ vocabulary. Just before the doors swung open to admit the company of brilliant and famous men clad in sombre dinner jackets, Jordan slipped out of the hall, back to his little cubbyhole – but he raised the hatch beside his desk an inch, so that he could hear the conversation at the long, glittering table in the hall beyond.

  It gave him a glorious feeling of power, to be sitting so close to the centre of all this and to listen to the pulse of history beating, to know that it was within him subtly to alter and direct, and to do so in secrecy. A word here, a hint there, even something so trivial as the placing of two powerful men side by side at the long dinner table. On occasions, in privacy, Mr Rhodes would actually ask, ‘What do you think, Jordan?’ and would listen attentively to his reply.

  The tumultuous excitement of this life had become a drug to Jordan, and barely a day passed that he did not drink the heady draught to the fill. There were special moments that he treasured and whose memory he stored. When the meal ended, and the company settled down to the port and cigars, Jordan could sit alone and gloat over these special memories of his.

  He remembered that it had been he who had written out that legendary cheque in his own fair hand for Mr Rhodes to sign the day that they had bought out the Kimberley Central Company. The amount had been £5,338,650, the largest cheque ever drawn anywhere in the world.

  He remembered sitting in the visitor’s gallery of Parliament as Mr Rhodes rose to make his acceptance speech as Prime Minister of Cape Colony, how Mr Rhodes had looked up and caught his eye and smiled before he began speaking.

  He remembered after that wild ride down from Matabeleland when he had handed the Rudd Concession with Lobengula’s seal upon it to Mr Rhodes, how he had clasped Jordan’s shoulder and with those pale blue eyes conveyed in an instant more than a thousand carefully chosen words ever could.

  He remembered riding beside Mr Rhodes’ carriage down the Mall to Buckingham Palace and dinner with the queen, while the Union Castle mailship delayed its sacred sailing by twenty-four hours to wait for them.

  This very morning had added another memory to Jordan’s store, for he had read aloud the cable from Queen Victoria to ‘Our well-beloved Cecil John Rhodes’, appointing him one of Her Majesty’s Privy Councillors.

  Jordan started back to the present.

  It was after midnight, and in the dining-hall Mr Rhodes was abruptly breaking up the dinner in his characteristic fashion.

  ‘Well, gentlemen, I’ll bid you all a good night’s rest.’

  Quickly Jordan rose from his desk and slipped down the servants’ passageway.

  At the end he opened the door a crack and anxiously watched the burly, appealingly awkward figure mount the stairs. The company had done justice to Jordan’s choice of wine, but still Mr Rhodes’ tread was steady enough. Though he stumbled once at the top of the sweeping marble staircase, he caught his balance, and Jordan shook his head with relief.

  When the last servant left, Jordan locked the wine cellar and the pantry. There was a silver tray left upon his desk, and on it a glass of the Vilanova and two water biscuits spread thickly with salted Beluga caviar. Jordan carried the tray through the silent mansion. A single candle burned in the lofty entrance hall. It stood upon the massive carved teak table in the centre of the floor.

  Jordan paced slowly across the chequer board of black and white marble paving, like a priest approaching the altar, and reverently he laid the silver tray upon the table. Then he looked up at the carved image high in its shadowy niche, and his lips moved as he silently began the invocation to the bird goddess, Panes.

  When he had finished, he stood silent and expectant in the fluttering light of the candle, and the great house slept around him. The falcon-headed goddess stared with cruel blind eye

s into the north, a thousand miles and more towards an ancient land, now blessed, or cursed, with a new name, Rhodesia.

  Jordan waited quietly, staring up at the bird like a worshipper before a statue of the Virgin, and then suddenly in the silence, from the bottom of the gardens, where grew the tall dark oak trees that Governor van der Stel had planted almost two hundred years before, came the sad and eerie cry of an eagle owl. Jordan relaxed and backed away from the offering that he left upon the table. Then he turned and went bounding up the marble staircase.

  In his own small room he quickly stripped off his clothing that was impregnated with the odours of the kitchen. Naked, he sponged down his body with cold water, admiring his own lithe form in the full-length mirror on the far wall. He scrubbed himself dry with a rough towel, and then rinsed his hands in eau-de-Cologne.

  With a pair of silver-backed brushes he burnished his hair until his curls shone like whorls of pure gold wire in the lamplight; then he slipped his arms into the brocaded gown of midnight blue satin, belted it around his waist, picked up the lamp to light his way and stepped out into the passage.

  He closed the door to his bedroom quietly and listened for a few seconds. The house was still silent, their guests slept. On silent, bare feet, Jordan glided down the thick carpet to the double doors at the end of the passage to tap lightly on one of the panels, twice then twice again, and a voice called to him softly,

  ‘Enter!’

  ‘These are a pastoral people. You cannot take their herds away from them.’ Robyn Ballantyne spoke with a low controlled intensity, but her face was pale and her eyes sparkled with furious green lights.

  ‘Please, won’t you be seated, Robyn.’

  Mungo St John indicated the chair of rough raw lumber, one of the few furnishings in this adobe mud hut that was the office of the Administrator of Matabeleland. ‘You will be more comfortable, and I will feel more at ease.’

  Nothing could make him appear more at ease, she thought wryly. He lolled back in his swivel chair, and his booted ankles were crossed on the desk in front of him. He was in shirtsleeves, without a tie or cravat, and his waistcoat was unbuttoned.

  ‘Thank you, General. I shall continue to stand until I receive your answer.’

  ‘The costs of the relief of Matabeleland and the conduct of the war were borne entirely by the Chartered Company. Even you must see that there must be reparation.’

  ‘You have taken everything. My brother, Zouga Ballantyne, has rounded up over a hundred and twenty-five thousand head of Matabele cattle—’

  ‘The war cost us a hundred thousand pounds.’

  ‘All right.’ Robyn nodded. ‘If you will not listen to the voice of humanity, then perhaps hard cash will convince you. The Matabele people are scattered and bewildered; their tribal organizations have broken down; the smallpox is rife amongst them—’

  ‘A conquered nation always suffers privation, Robyn. Oh, do sit down, you are giving me a crick in the neck.’

  ‘Unless you return part of their herds to them, at least enough for milk and slaughter, you are going to be faced with a famine that will cost you more than your neat little war ever did.’

  The smile slipped from Mungo St John’s face, and he inclined his head slightly and studied the ash of his cigar.

  ‘Think about this, General. When the Imperial Government realizes the extent of the famine, it will force your famous Chartered Company to feed the Matabele. What is the cost of transporting grain from the Cape? A hundred pounds a load. Or is it more now? If the famine approaches the proportions of genocide, then I will see to it that Her Majesty’s Government is faced with such a public outcry, led by humanitarians like Labouchère and Blunt, that they may be obliged to revoke the charter and make Matabeleland a crown colony after all.’

  Mungo St John took his bottle off the desk and sat upright in his chair.

  ‘Who appointed you champion of these savages, anyway?’ he asked. But she ignored his question.

  ‘I suggest, General, that you relay these thoughts to Mr Rhodes before the famine takes a hold.’

  She gloried in the visible effort it took him to regain his equanimity.

  ‘You may well be right, Robyn.’ His smile was light and mocking again. ‘I will point this out to the directors of the Company.’

  ‘Immediately,’ she insisted.

  ‘Immediately,’ he capitulated, and spread his hands in a parody of helplessness. ‘Now is there anything else you want of me?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I want you to marry me.’

  He stood up slowly and stared at her.

  ‘You may not believe this, my dear, but nothing would give me greater pleasure. Yet, I am confused. I asked you that day at Khami Mission. Why now have you changed your mind?’

  ‘I need a father for the bastard you have got on me. It was conceived four months after Clinton’s death.’

  ‘A son,’ he said. ‘It will be a son.’ He came around the desk towards her.

  ‘You must know that I hate you,’ she said.

  His single eye crinkled as he smiled at her.

  ‘Yes, and that is probably the reason that I love you.’

  ‘Never say that again,’ she hissed at him.

  ‘Oh, but I must. You see I did not even realize it myself. I always believed that I was proof from such a mundane emotion as love. I was deceiving myself. You and I must now bravely face up to that fact. I love you.’

  ‘I want nothing from you but your name, and you shall have nothing from me but hatred and contempt.’

  ‘Marry me first, my love, and later we will decide who gets what from whom.’

  ‘Do not touch me,’ she said, and Mungo St John kissed her full on the mouth.

  It had taken almost ten full days of leisurely riding to make a circuit of the boundaries of the ranch lands that Zouga had claimed with his land grants.

  It stretched eastwards from the Khami river, almost as far as the Bembesi crossing and southwards to the outskirts of GuBulawayo, an area the size of the county of Surrey, rich grasslands with stretches of parklike forests and low golden hills. Through it meandered a dozen lesser rivers and streams, which watered the herds that Zouga was already grazing.

  Mr Rhodes had appointed Zouga the custodian of enemy property – with powers to take possession of the royal herds of Lobengula. The hundred troopers who volunteered for the duty rounded up almost 130,000 head of prime cattle.

  Half of these belonged to the Chartered Company, but that left 65,000 to be distributed as loot to the men who had ridden in to GuBulawayo with Jameson and St John. However, at the very last minute, Mr Rhodes had changed his mind, and telegraphed St John with instructions to redistribute 40,000 head to the Matabele tribe.

  The volunteers were incensed at having lost more than a third of their rightful loot, and word was soon spreading through the improvised bars and canteens of GuBulawayo that the cattle had been given back to the tribe after threats and representations by the woman doctor of Khami Mission. Credence was given to the rumour by the fact that the same telegraph message authorized the grant of six thousand acres of land to Khami Mission. Mr Rhodes was squaring the God-botherers, and the volunteers were not going to stand for it.

  Fifty troopers, all full of whisky, rode out to burn down the mission and string up the hag responsible for their loss. Zouga Ballantyne and Mungo St John met them at the foot of the hills. With a few salty sallies, they had them laughing; then they took it in turn to curse them fluently and roundly, and finally they drove them back to town, where they stood them a dozen rounds of drinks.

  Despite the redistribution to the tribe, still the flood of cattle upon the market brought the price down to two pounds a head, and Zouga used half the proceeds of the Ballantyne diamond to buy up ten thousand of them to stock his new estates.

  Now as Zouga and Louise rode together, with Jan Cheroot following them in the Scotch cart with the tent and camping equipment, they passed small herds of the cattle tended by Matabele herders that Zouga had hired.

  Zouga had been able to select only the best animals, and he had graded them by colour, so that one herd might consist of all red beasts while the next of only black ones.

  Ralph had contracted to bring up all the materials for the new homestead from the railhead at Kimberley – and with the same convoy would be twenty thoroughbred bulls of Hereford stock that Zouga intended running with his cows.

  ‘This is the place,’ Louise exclaimed with delight.

  ‘How can you be so certain – so soon?’ Zouga laughed.

  ‘Oh, darling, it’s perfect. I can spend the rest of my life looking at that view.’

  Below them the land fell away steeply to deep green pools of the river.

  ‘At least there will be good water – and that bottom land will grow excellent vegetables—’

  ‘Don’t be so unromantic,’ she chided him. ‘Look at the trees.’

  They soared above their heads like the arched and vaulted spans of a great cathedral, and the autumn foliage was a thousand shades of reds and golds, murmurous with bees and merry with bird song.

  ‘They will give good shade in the hot season,’ Zouga agreed.

  ‘Shame on you,’ she laughed. ‘If you cannot see their beauty, then look at the Thabas Indunas.’

  The Hills of the Indunas were whalebacked and dreaming blue beneath the tall silver clouds. The grassy plains between were scattered with small groups of Zouga’s cattle, and of wild game – zebra and blue wildebeest.

  ‘They are close enough,’ Zouga nodded. ‘When Ralph’s construction company finally reaches GuBulawayo with the railway line, then we shall be a few hours’ ride from the railhead and all the amenities of civilization.’

  ‘So you will build me a home here – on this very spot?’

  ‘Not until you give it a name.’

  ‘What would you like to call it, my darling husband?’

  ‘I’d like to have a touch of the old country – King’s Lynn was where I spent my childhood.’

  ‘That’s it then.’

  ‘King’s Lynn.’ Zouga tested the name. ‘Yes, that will do very nicely. Now you shall have the home you want.’

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