Authors: Wilbur Smith
‘As he does everything else,’ Ralph remarked
philosophically, as he stripped off his stinking shirt, and flung
it into the far corner. ‘I’ve slept in that for five
nights, by God, the laundry boy will have to beat it to death
with a club before he gets it into the tub.’
‘Ralph, you aren’t taking it seriously,’
Cathy stamped her foot in frustration. ‘This is my home.
The only home I have, and now do you know what that – what
Mr Rhodes told me?’
‘Have we got any more soap?’ Ralph demanded as he
hopped on one leg to free his breeches. ‘One bar will not
be enough.’
‘He said, “Jordan will be in charge of the
kitchens while we are here, Mrs Ballantyne, he knows my
tastes.” What do you think of that?’
‘Jordan is a damned fine cook.’ Ralph lowered
himself gingerly into the bath, and grunted as his naked buttocks
touched the nearly boiling surface.
‘I have been forbidden my own kitchen.’
‘Get in!’ Ralph ordered, and she broke off and
stared at him incredulously.
‘What did you say?’ she demanded, but in reply he
seized her ankle and toppled Cathy shrieking her protests on top
of himself. Steaming water and suds splattered the canvas walls
of the tent, and when he released her at last, she was sodden to
the waist.
‘Your dress is soaked,’ he pointed out
complacently; ‘now you have no choice – take it
off!’
Naked, she sat with her back to him in the galvanized bath
with her knees drawn up under her chin, and her damp hair piled
on top of her head, but still she continued her protest.
‘Even Louise could bear the man’s arrogance and
misogyny no longer. She made your father take her back to
King’s Lynn, so now I have to bear him on my
own!’
‘You always were a brave girl,’ Ralph told her and
ran the soapy flannel caressingly down her smooth back.
‘And now the word has gone out to every dead-beat and
drifter in Matabeleland that he is here and they are riding in
from every direction for the free whisky.’
‘Mr Rhodes is a generous man,’ Ralph agreed, and
tenderly slid the soapy flannel over her shoulder and down the
front.
‘It is your whisky,’ said Cathy, and caught his
wrist before the flannel could reach its obvious destination.
‘The man has an infernal nerve.’ For the first
time Ralph showed some emotion. ‘We will have to get rid of
him. That whisky is worth £10 a bottle in Bulawayo.’
Ralph managed to slip the flannel a little further south.
‘Ralph, that tickles.’ Cathy wriggled.
‘When are your twin sisters arriving?’ He ignored
her protest.
‘They sent a runner ahead, they should be here before
nightfall. Ralph, give me that flannel immediately!’
‘We will see how steely Mr Rhodes’ nerves really
are—’
‘Ralph I can do that myself, thank you kindly, give me
the flannel!’
‘And we will also see how sharp Harry Mellow’s
reflexes are—’
‘Ralph, are you crazy? We are in the bath!’
‘We will take care of both of them with one
stroke.’
‘Ralph, you can’t! You can’t – not in
the bath!’
‘We will have Jordan out of your kitchen, Harry Mellow
overseer of the Harkness Mine and Mr Rhodes on his way to
Bulawayo an hour after those two arrive—’
‘Ralph, darling, do stop talking. I can’t
concentrate on two things at once,’ Cathy murmured.
T
he tableau at
the trestle-table in the dining tent seemed unaltered since Ralph
had last seen it, rather like one of the productions at Madame
Tussaud’s Waxworks. Mr Rhodes even wore the same clothing
as he dominated the tent with his expansive charisma.
Only the bit players seated in the position of petitioners
facing the long table had changed. These were a motley bunch of
out-of-luck prospectors, concession-seekers, and impecunious
promoters of ambitious ventures, who had been attracted by Mr
Rhodes’ reputation and millions like jackal and hyena to
the lion’s kill.
It was the mode in Matabeleland to display one’s
individuality by adopting eccentric headgear, and the selection
which faced Mr Rhodes across the table included a Scottish bonnet
with an eagle feather pinned to the brim by a yellow cairngorm, a
tall brushed beaver girt with a green St Patrick’s ribbon,
and a magnificent embroidered Mexican sombrero, the owner of
which was relating a meandering tale of woe which Mr Rhodes cut
short. He did not enjoy listening as much as he did talking.
‘So then, you’ve had enough of Africa, have you?
But you haven’t the passage money?’ he asked
brusquely.
‘That’s it exactly, Mr Rhodes, you see my old
mother—’
‘Jordan, give the fellow a chitty to see him home, and
charge it to me personally.’ He waved away the man’s
thanks, and looked up as Ralph came into the tent.
‘Harry tells me your trip was a great success. He panned
your crushings from the Harkness reef at thirty ounces a ton,
that’s thirty times richer than the best banket reef of the
Witwatersrand. I think we should open a bottle of champagne.
Jordan, don’t we have a few bottles of the Pommery
‘87 left?’
‘At least I’m not providing the champagne as well
as the whisky,’ Ralph thought cynically, as he lifted his
glass to the toast. ‘The Harkness Mine.’ He joined
the dutiful chorus and the moment he had drunk he turned on Dr
Leander Starr Jameson.
‘What is this about the mining laws?’ he demanded.
‘Harry tells me you are adopting the American mining
code.’
‘Do you have any objection?’ Jameson flushed, and
his sandy moustache bristled.
‘That code was drawn up by lawyers to keep themselves in
fat fees in perpetuity. The new Witwatersrand laws are simpler
and a million times more workable. By God, isn’t it enough
that your Company royalty will rob us of fifty per cent of our
profits?’ As Ralph said it, it dawned upon him that the
American mining code would be a smoke-screen behind which the
artful Rhodes could manoeuvre at will.
‘Remember, young Ballantyne,’ Jameson stroked his
moustache, and blinked piously. ‘Remember who the country
belongs to. Remember who paid the costs of the occupation of
Mashonaland and who financed the Matabele war.’
‘Government by a commercial company.’ Despite
himself, Ralph felt his anger rising again and he clenched his
hands on the table in front of him. ‘A company that owns
the police force and the courts. And if I have a dispute with
your Company, who will decide it – surely not the BSA
Company’s own magistrate?’
‘There are precedents.’ Mr Rhodes’ tone was
reasonable and placatory, but his eyes were not. ‘The
British East India Company—’ And Ralph’s reply
crackled:
‘The British government eventually had to take India
away from those pirates Clive, Hastings and that ilk, for
corruption and oppression of the natives. The sepoy rising was
the logical outcome of their administration.’
‘Mr Ballantyne.’ Mr Rhodes’ voice always
went shrill when he was excited or angry. ‘I am going to
ask you to withdraw those remarks, they are historically
inaccurate, and by implication insulting.’
‘I withdraw, unreservedly.’ Ralph was angry with
himself now, he was usually much too cool-headed to allow himself
to be provoked. There was no possible profit to be gained from a
head-on collision with Cecil John Rhodes. His smile was easy and
friendly as he went on. ‘I am sure we will have no need of
the services of a Company magistrate.’
Mr Rhodes answered his smile with the same ease, but there was
a steely blue flicker in his eyes as he raised his glass.
‘To a deep mine and a deeper relationship,’ he said,
and only one other person in the tent recognized it as a
challenge.
Jordan moved restlessly in his camp chair at the back of the
tent. He knew these two men so well, loved both so dearly. Ralph
his brother had been with him through all that lonely and
tempestuous childhood, his protector and his comfort in the bad
times and his joyous friend through the good.
Looking at his brother now, and comparing Ralph to himself, it
seemed impossible that two brothers could be so different. Where
Jordan was blond and slim and graceful, Ralph was dark and
muscled and powerful; where Jordan was gentle and self-effacing,
Ralph was hard and bold and as hawk-fierce as his Matabele
praise-name implied. Instinctively Jordan looked from him to the
big burly figure facing him across the camp table.
Here Jordan’s feelings went beyond love itself to a kind
of religious fervour. He did not really see the physical changes
that a few short years had wrought in this god-head of his
existence: the thickening of Mr Rhodes’ already bulky body,
the bloating and coarsening of features already mottled with
cyanosis caused by the labouring of the damaged heart, the
reddish-blond curls receding swiftly now and slashed with grey at
the temples. The way a loving woman places little store on the
appearance of the man she has chosen as her own, so Jordan saw
far beyond the marks of suffering and sickness and the racing
years. He saw to the steely core of the man, the ultimate source
of his immense power and brooding presence.
Jordan wanted to cry out to his beloved brother, to run to him
and physically restrain him from the folly of turning this giant
of a soul into an enemy. He had seen other men do just that, and
be ruthlessly crushed.
Then with a sickening slide in the pit of his stomach, he knew
which side he would cast his lot if that dreaded confrontation
ever forced a choice upon him. He was Mr Rhodes’ man,
beyond brotherly ties and family loyalties, to the very end of
life itself, he was Mr Rhodes’ man.
He sought desperately for some plausible excuse to break the
tension between the two most important persons in his life, but
relief came from beyond the stockade, in the delighted cries of
the servants, the hysterical barking of the camp dogs, the crunch
of cartwheels and the excited shrieks of more than one woman.
Jordan was the only one watching Ralph’s face, so he caught
the sly and smug expression as his brother rose.
‘It seems we have more visitors,’ Ralph said, and
the twins came into the inner stockade.
Victoria came first, as Ralph had expected that she would. She
came on long shapely legs, outlined beneath the whirl and boil of
her thin cotton skirts, barefoot in defiance of all ladylike
pretensions, carrying her shoes in one hand, and Jonathan riding
on her hip. The child was squeaking like a warthog piglet that
has lost the teat.
‘Vicky! Vicky, did you bring me anything?’
‘A kiss on the cheek and a slap on the behind.’
Vicky laughed, and hugged him. Her laughter was loud and gay and
unaffected, her mouth was a little too large, but her lips were
velvety as rose petals and sweetly shaped, her teeth were large
and square and white as bone-china porcelain, and as she laughed
her tongue, furry pink as that of a cat, curled between them. Her
eyes were green and wide-spaced, her skin was that lustrous silky
English perfection that neither sun nor massive doses of
anti-malarial quinine could mar. She would have been striking,
even without the dense tresses of copper-blonde hair, ruffled by
the wind, and wild as the sea, that tumbled about her face and
shoulders.
She riveted the attention of every man there, even Mr Rhodes,
but it was to Ralph she ran, holding his son on her hip still,
and she threw her free arm around his neck. She was so tall that
she had only to stand on her toes to reach his lips. The kiss was
not long held, but her lips were soft and wet, the pressure of
her breasts through her cotton blouse was springy and elastic and
warm against his chest, and her thighs against his sent a shock
up his spine, so that Ralph broke the embrace, and for an instant
her green eyes mocked him, dared him to something that she did
not fully understand, revelling in this heady sense of power over
all mankind that she had not yet tested to its limits.
Then she tossed Jonathan to Ralph and whirled away to run
barefoot down the tent and launched herself into Jordan’s
arms.
‘Darling Jordan, oh, how we have missed you!’ She
forced him into a prancing jig around the stockade, shaking out
her shining hair and carolling joyously.
Ralph glanced at Mr Rhodes, and when he saw his expression of
shock and unease, he grinned and released Jonathan, letting him
race across to cling to Vicky’s skirt and add his shrill
voice to the uproar, then he turned to greet the second twin.
Elizabeth was as tall as Vicky, but darker. Her hair was
polished mahogany, shot through with sparks of burgundy and her
skin was sun-kindly, gilded to the colour of a tiger’s
eyes. She was slim as a dancer, with a narrow waist and shoulders
supporting a long heron neck, and her breasts were smaller than
Vicky’s, yet elegantly pointed, and though her voice was
soft and her laughter a throaty purr, yet there was a mischievous
quirk to her lips, a jaunty tilt to her head and a measured
sexual candour and awareness to the gaze of her wild honey
eyes.
She and Cathy were arm in arm, but now she slipped out of her
elder sister’s embrace and presented herself to Ralph.
‘My favourite brother-in-law,’ she murmured, and
looking into her eyes Ralph was reminded that though her voice
was softer, and her manner seemingly more restrained than that of
her twin, yet Elizabeth was always the instigator and prime mover
in any mischief that the pair conjured up. This close, her true
beauty was apparent, less flamboyant than Vicky’s perhaps,
but the balance of her features and the depths beyond those
golden-brown eyes were more disturbing.
She kissed Ralph, and the contact was as brief but even less
sisterly than had been the elder twin’s embrace, and as she
drew back from it, she slanted her eyes with a pretence of
innocence, that was more deadly than any brazening. Ralph broke
the electric contact, and looked to Cathy, making a comical moue
of resignation, and hoping that she still believed his studied
avoidance of the twins was because he found them boisterous and
childish.