Authors: Wilbur Smith
‘Mr Rhodes,’ Zouga thought indulgently. ‘Always Mr Rhodes. And yet it’s a good thing for a young man to have a hero. Pity this poor world of ours when the last hero
passes.’
C
an you judge a man by his books? Zouga wondered.
The library was choked with them. One complete wall packed to the ceiling with the sources and references which Gibbon had consulted for his
Decline and Fall.
So impressed had Rhodes
been with this work that he had ordered Hatchards of London to collect and, if necessary, translate and bind the complete authorities. Jordan said it had cost him £8,000 thus far, and was not
yet complete.
Ranked beside this formidable array were all the published lives of Alexander, of Julius Caesar and of Napoleon. What dreams of empire they must sustain. Zouga smiled inwardly as he listened to
the high hypnotic voice of the burly figure with the flushed swollen face as he sat behind the vast desk into whose panels were chiselled the stylized figures of the bird, the falcon of
Zimbabwe.
‘You are an Englishman, Ballantyne, a man of honour and dedication; these things have always attracted me to you.’ He was irresistible, able to conjure up a gamut of emotions with a
few words, and Zouga smiled at himself again. He was in danger of the same hero worship as his own son.
‘I want you even more than this concession of yours. You understand, you know what it is we seek, not merely wealth and personal aggrandizement. No, no, it is something beyond that,
something sacred.’
Then he came to it abruptly, without flourish.
‘There,’ Rhodes said. ‘You know what I need – you and your concession. What do you want from me in return?’
‘What task will I perform?’ Zouga asked.
‘Good.’ Rhodes nodded the untidy leonine head. ‘Glory before gold. You please me, Ballantyne – but to business. I had thought to ask you to lead the occupying expedition,
to guide it over the ground you know so well – but other men can do something as simple as that. I shall let Selous do it. I have something more important for you. You will be my alter-ego at
the kraal of the Matabele king. The savages know and respect you, you speak their language, know their customs, you are a soldier, I have read your military paper on the tribe – and we must
not deceive ourselves, Ballantyne, it may come to a military option. Few other men can do all these things, have all these qualities.’
They stared at each other across the desk, both men leaning forward, and then Rhodes spoke again.
‘I am not a mean man, Ballantyne. Do the job for me and you can name your rewards. Money, ten thousand pounds – land, each land grant will be four thousand acres – gold claims,
each will be five hundred yards square. How many shall we say – five of each – ten thousand pounds in cash, twenty thousand acres of prime land of your choice, five claims on the rich
gold reef over which you shot the great elephant that you described in
Hunter’s Odyssey.
What do you say, Ballantyne?’
‘Ten of each,’ said Zouga. ‘Ten thousand pounds, ten land grants, ten gold claims.’
‘Done!’ Rhodes slapped the desk. ‘Write it down, Jordan, write it down. But what of your salary while you are agent at Lobengula’s kraal? Two thousand, four thousand per
annum? I am not a mean man, Ballantyne.’
‘And I am not a greedy one.’
‘Four thousand, then – and we are all agreed, so we can go to lunch.’
Z
ouga stayed five days at Groote Schuur, days of talking and planning and listening.
It amused him to see the legend dispelled. The idea of Rhodes as a solitary and brooding man – withdrawn to some high Olympus where other men could not follow – was proved to be a
myth.
For Rhodes surrounded himself with men; there was not a meal at which less than fifteen sat to his generous board. What men they were, clever or rich or both, belted earls or farm-born Boers,
politicians and financiers, judges and soldiers. And if they were not wealthy, they were powerful or useful or merely amusing. At one dinner there was even a poet, a bespectacled little shrimp of a
man on passage from Indian Service back to England. Jordan had read his
Plain Tales from the Hills
and secured an invitation for him, and despite his appearance, the company was quite
taken with him. Rhodes invited him to return and write about Africa: ‘The future is here, young Kipling, and we shall need a poet to sing it for us.’
Men by the dozen, and never a woman. Rhodes refused to have a woman servant in the house. There was not even a painting of a woman on the walls.
And the taciturn, brooding figure of legend never stopped talking. From the back of a horse as they rode through the estate, striding over the lawns with his clumsy uncoordinated gait, seated
behind the teak desk or at the head of the long, laden dining-table, he talked. Figures and facts and estimates poured from him without reference to notes, other than an occasional glance at Jordan
for confirmation. Then came the ideas, fateful, ludicrous, prophetic, fascinating or fantastic – but never-ending.
To a visiting member of the British Parliament: ‘We have to make a practical tie with the old country, for future generations will be born beyond its shores; it must be useful, physical
and rewarding for both, or we shall drift apart.’
To an American senator: ‘We could hold Parliament for five years in Westminster and for the next five in Washington.’
To a rival financier who enviously sniped at his monopoly of the diamond industry: ‘Without me, the price of diamonds would not make it worthwhile turning over a stone to pick one up.
Kimberley would revert to desert and thirty thousand would starve.’
When they began to plan the grand expedition to the north, Zouga had imagined that Rhodes would concern himself with each detail. He was wrong.
He defined the objective: ‘We need a document from Lobengula, ratifying and consolidating all these grants into a single concession, that I can take to London.’ Then he picked the
man. ‘Rudd, you have the legal mind.’ And gave him carte blanche. ‘Go and do it. Take Jordan with you. He speaks the language. Take anyone else you need.’
Then to Zouga: ‘We need an occupying force, small enough to move fast, large enough to protect itself against Matabele treachery. Ballantyne, that will be your first concern. Let me know
what you decide, but remember there is little time.’
What might have taken another man six months, was accomplished in five days, and when Zouga left Groote Schuur, Jordan rode with him as far as the neck of the mountain. The wind had gone up into
the north-west, and then came down like a ravenous beast, roaring dully against the crags of the mountain and bringing in cold, steely-grey rain squalls off the Atlantic.
It could not blunt their spirits, and although their wind-driven oilskins flogged their bodies and the horses shivered and drooped their ears, they shouted above the wind.
‘Isn’t he a great man? Every minute spent in his company is like a draught of fine wine, intoxicating with excitement. He is so generous.’
‘Though he is the one who profits most from his generosity,’ Zouga laughed.
‘That’s mean, Papa.’
‘A saint does not make such a fortune in so short a time. But if anybody can do this thing, then it is Rhodes, and for that I will follow him into hell itself.’
‘Let’s pray that won’t be necessary.’
At the top of the pass the wind was stronger still, and Jordan had to turn his horse in until their knees touched.
‘Papa, the column – the occupying column. There is one person who has the wagons, who knows the route, can requisition the supplies and recruit the men.’
‘Who is that, Jordie?’
‘Ralph.’
Zouga watched Jordan ride back down the pass, towards the wind-darkened waters of Table Bay and the sprawling white buildings that clung to the lower slopes of the mountain under the dingy
scudding sky. Then he turned his own mount into the wind and went down the other side.
The excitement stayed with him. He realized that it was Rhodes’ particular genius to awaken this feeling in men around him. Even though there were quicksands ahead in which he knew he
might soon be engulfed, the enthusiasm and quickness of spirit persisted.
Ten land grants meant forty thousand acres of land, but it would take more than £10,000 to hold it. Homestead and wells and fences to build, cattle to stock it, men to work it – all
that would cost money, a great deal of money.
The gold claims – he could not even begin to imagine how much it might cost to transport stamp mills and sluice boxes from the railhead. Of course, for lack of money to exploit them, he
would have to pass by a hundred opportunities that the new land would offer. In the beginning the land grants of other men would be for sale at bargain prices, hundreds of thousands of acres of the
land that he had always thought of as his own, and because he did not have the money, it would go to others.
None of this could break the mood, not the cold rain in his face that numbed his cheeks, not the realization that his dream was still merely a dream. For now at last they were on the move at the
breakneck pace set by an impatient man – towards the realization of that dream. So Zouga could lift his chin and sit up straight in the saddle, ignoring the icy snakes of rainwater that
wriggled down inside his collar, buoyed high above mundane doubts by the gambler’s certainty that at last his luck had changed, the dice were hot for him and every time he rolled the aces
would flash like spearheads.
The sheets of rain hid the cottage from Zouga until he turned in under the milkwood grove; then a fluke of the wind opened the slanting silver sheets of water, and his mood popped like a
bubble.
He had been mistaken, his luck had not changed, it had all been words and illusion, the caravan of his misfortunes rolled on unchecked – for before him his home was partially
destroyed.
One of the ancient milkwoods, weary of resisting the gales of a hundred winters, had succumbed at last; it had come crashing down across the front of the cottage. The roof had given under the
blow, and sagged in. The supports of the verandah had shattered and a tangle of fallen roof beams and milkwood branches blocked the front entrance. The living-room would be swamped with rain
– his books, his papers.
Appalled at the havoc, he dismounted and stood before it, and his spirits slid further. He felt his ribs constricting his breathing and dread uncoiled in his guts like an awakening serpent. It
was the superstitious terror of one who has offended the gods.
The pillar of blue marbled rock that he had set to guard his threshold had been thrown down. It lay half under the tumbled thatch with the shattered verandah support beside it. Once it had been
hard and smooth as granite, but the sunlight and the air had rotted it and the fall had shattered it like chalk.
Zouga went down on one knee and touched a rough, irregular lump of the smashed blue ground. The destruction of his home was as nothing. This was the only one of his possessions that was
irreplaceable, and the omen of its destruction struck frost into the secret places of his soul.
Almost as a chorus to his dread, a fresh rain squall came booming down the valley, thrashing the trees and ripping at the scattered thatch. Rain beat down onto the broken surface of the rock he
was touching, and at Zouga’s fingertips there was a tiny burst of white lightning, so dazzling, so searing, that it seemed it could flay the skin from his finger as he touched it. But it was
cold, cold as a crystal of Arctic ice.
It had never been exposed to the light of day, not once in the two hundred million years since it had assumed its present form, and yet it seemed in itself to be a drop of distilled
sunlight.
Zouga had never seen anything so beautiful, nor touched anything so sensual – for it was the beacon and the lodestone of his life. It made all the striving and the heartbreak seem
worthwhile, it was justification for the years he had believed squandered, it exonerated his once firmly held belief that his road to the north began in the gaping chasm of De Beers New Rush.
With hands that shook like those of a very old man, he fumbled open the blade of his clasp knife and gently prised that rainbow of light from its niche in the shattered blue rock, and held it up
before his own eyes.
‘The Ballantyne diamond,’ he whispered, and staring into its limpid liquid depths like a sorcerer into his divining ball of crystal, he saw light and shadow ripple and change and in
his imagination become vistas of enchanted pastures rich with sweet grass; he saw slow herds of cattle and the headgear of winding wheels of fabulous gold mines spinning against a high blue
sky.
T
hey didn’t expect him. He came so swiftly that no runner brought word ahead of him. He had left Rudd and the rest of the party to follow
from the Shashi and ridden on ahead, leading two spare horses and changing as soon as the mount beneath him tired. The horses were the pick of De Beers’ stables, and it took him five days
from the frontier of Matabeleland to Khami Mission.
‘I’m Jordan Ballantyne,’ he said, and looked down on the family that had hastily assembled on the front verandah of the Mission. The siege was over without a shot fired; he
walked in with his curls shining and that warm, almost shy, smile on his lips, and took their hearts, every one of them, by storm.
The gifts he brought had been chosen with obvious care, and spoke of a knowledge of each of them and their individual needs.
There were two dozen packets of seeds for Clinton – unusual vegetables and rare herbs – comfrey and okra, horseradish and turmeric, shallot and sou-sou. For Robyn a box of medicines,
which included a bottle of chloroform, and a folding wallet of shiny, sharp surgical instruments.
The latest volume of Tennyson’s poetry for Salina, a pair of marvellous lifelike china dogs with moving eyes for the twins, and for Cathy the best of all, a box of oil paints, a bundle of
brushes, and a letter from Ralph.
In the first week, while he waited for Rudd and the rest of the party to come up from the Shashi, Jordan used a green twig to divine water, an art that Clinton had never acquired, and helped him
dig the new well. They hit clear, sweet water ten feet down. He recited to Cathy a biography of Ralph from the day and hour of his birth, which was so minutely detailed that it took instalments
over the entire week to complete, while she listened with a fixed avidity.