The Burning Shore (74 page)

He dug a screened latrine pit connected to the stockade by a tunnel of poles and woven Thorn branches, and then he set up Centaine’s tent in the centre of the stockade, shaded by the mopani, and built an open hearth for her camp fire in front of it. At the entrance to her stockade he constructed a -heavy timber gate and a guard house.

Swart Hendrick will sleep here, always within call, he told Centaine.

At the edge of the forest, two hundred paces from her camp, he built another larger stockade for the servants and labourers, and when it was all finished, he came to Cen .

tame again. I have done all that is necessary. She nodded. Yes, you have completed your side of the bargain, she agreed. Come back in three months time, and I will complete my side.

He left within the hour in the second truck, taking only the black driver with him and sufficient water and gasoline for the return journey to Windhoek.

As they watched the truck disappear into the mopani, Centaine said to Swart Hendrick, I will wake you at three o’clock tomorrow morning. I want four of the construction men to come with us. They must bring their blankets and cooking pots, and rations for ten days The moon lit their way as Centaine led them up the narrow valley to the cavern of the bees. At the dark entrance, she explained where she was going to take them, and Swart Hendrick translated for those who could not understand Afrikaans.

There is no danger if you remain calm and do not run But when they heard the deep hum resound through the cavern, the labourers backed out hurriedly, threw down t their loads and got ere into a mutinous, sullen bunch.

Swart Hendrick, tell them they have a choice, Centaine ordered. They can either follow me through or you will shoot them, one at a time. Hendrick repeated this with such relish, and unslung his Mauser in such workmanlike fashion, that they hurriedly gathered up their loads again and crowded up behind Centaine. As always, the transit of the cavern was nerve-racking but swift, and as they filed out into the secret valley, the moon was silvering the mongongo grove and polishing the high surrounding cliffs.

There is much work to do, and we will live here, in this valley, until it is finished. That way you will only have to pass through the place of the bees one more time.

That is when we leave. Abraham Abrahams had instructed Centaine in every aspect of pegging a mining claim. He had written out a sample notice for her and showed her how to set it up.

With a steel measuring tape he had demonstrated the trick of squaring a claim across the diagonals, and how to overlap each claim slightly so that there were no holes to give a claim-jumper a toehold.

Still it was hot, exhausting and monotonous work.

Even with the four labourers and Swart Hendrick to help her, Centaine had to make every measurement herself and write out each claim notice and attach it to the claim posts of Mongongo timber that they set up ahead of her.

At dusk every evening, Centaine dragged herself wearily down to the thermal pool in the subterranean grotto and soaked away her sweat and the aches of her body in the steaming waters. She was already starting to feel the drag of her advancing pregnancy. She was bigger this time and it seemed harder and more wearying than Shasa’s pregnancy had been, almost as though the foetus sensed her feeling towards it, and was responding vindictively. Her back ached particularly viciously, and by the end of the ninth day she knew that she could not continue much longer without a rest.

However, the bottom land of the valley was crisscrossed with neat lines of claim pegs, each standing on its little cairn of stones. The gang had by now become accustomed to the work and it was going more quickly.

One more day, she promised herself, and then you can rest. On the evening of the tenth day it was done. She had pegged out every square foot of the valley bottom.

Pack up, she told Swart Hendrick. We are going out tonight. And as he turned away, Well done, Hendrick, you are a lion and you can be Sure I will remember that on pay day. Hard work shared had made them companions.

He grinned at her. If I had ten wives as strong as you, and who worked like you, missus, I could sit in the shade and drink beer all day long. That is the nicest compliment anyone ever Paid me, she replied in French, and found just enough strength left for a short, breathless laugh.

Back in Lion Tree Camp Centaine rested for a day and then the next morning settled down at her camp table in the mopani shade and filled in the claim forms. This was also monotonous and demanding work, for there were claims to process, and every number had to be transposed from her notebook and then fitted into her sketchmap of the valley. Abraham Abrahams had explained to her just how important this was, for each claim would be scrutinized by the government mining inspector and his surveyor and a careless error could invalidate the entire property.

It was another five days before she placed the last completed form on the pile and then bundled them into a brown paper package and sealed them with wax.

Dear Mr Abraham she wrote, please file the accompanying claims with the mining office in my name and deposit the claim deeds with the Standard Bank in Windhoek to the account over which you hold my power of attorney.

I would be grateful if you could then make enquiries for the most eminent independent mining consultant available.

Make a contract with him to survey and evaluate the property which is the subject of these claims and send him to me here by return of the vehicle which brings you this letter.

When the vehicle returns to me, please see that it is loaded with the stores I have listed below and pay for these from my account.

One final favour. I would be most grateful if, without disclosing my whereabouts, you would be good enough to telegraph Colonel Garrick Courtney at Theuniskraal to make enquiry of my son, Michel, and my companion, Anna Stok.

Convey to all three of them my affection and duty, assure them of my good health and my longing to see them again.

To you my sincere thanks and good wishes.

Centaine de Thiry Courtney She gave the package and letter to the driver of the lorry and set him on the track back to Windhoek. Because the track was now well blazed and all the difficult placeshad been made good, the truck was back within eight days. There was a tall elderly gentleman sitting up beside the driver in the cab.

May I introduce myself, Mrs Courtney? My name is Rupert Twenty-man-Jones. He looked more like an undertaker than a mining engineer. He even affected a black alpaca jacket with high collar and black string tie. His hair was dead black and sleeked down, but his sideburns were fluffy and white as cotton wool. His nose and the tips of his ears were eroded by rodent ulcers from the tropical sun so that they looked as though mice had been nibbling at them. There were bags under his eyes like those of a basset, and he wore the same lugubrious expression.

How do you do, Mr Jones. Dr Twenty-man-Jones, he corrected her mournfully. Double barrel, as in shotgun. I have a letter for you from Mr Abrahams. He handed it over like an eviction notice.

Thank you, Dr Twenty-man-jones. Won’t you take a cup of tea while I read it?

Please do not be misled by the man’s sad mien, Abraham.

Abrahams assured her in the letter. He was assistant to Doctor Merensky who discovered the elevated diamond terraces of the Spieregebied, and is now regularly consulted by the directors of the De Beers Consolidated Mines. if further evidence of his standing is required, consider the fact that his fee for this contract is 1,200 guineas.

I am assured by Colonel Courtney that both Mevrou Anna Stok and your son Michel are in astonishingly good health and all of them send their loving wishes and hopes for your swift return.

I am sending the stores you require, and after paying for these and settling Dr Twenty-man-Jones fee in advance, the balance standing to the credit of your account at the Standard Bank is `60. us. 6d. The deeds to your claims are safely deposited in the bank’s strong room Centaine folded the letter carefully. Of her inheritance and the proceeds of the sale of H’ani’s diamond, there was little over S-66 remaining, she did not even have the price of a fare back to Theuniskraal, unless she sold the vehicles.

However, Twenty-man-Jones had been paid and she could survive for three months longer on the stores she had in camp.

She looked up at him, sitting on her camp chair sipping hot tea. Twelve hundred guineas, sir, you must be goodVNo, madam,he shook his head mournfully. I am quite simply the best.

She led Twenty-man-jones through the cavern of the bees in the night, and when they emerged into the secret valley, he sat down on a rock and mopped his face with a handkerchief.

This really isn’t good enough, madam. Something must be done about those revolting insects. We will have to get rid of them, I’m afraid.

No. Centaine’s reply was swift and decisive. I want as little damage done to this place and its creatures as possible, until- Until, madam? Until we discover if it is necessary. I do not like bees. I swell most horribly from their stings. I will return the balance of the fees to you, and you can find another consultant. He began to stand up.

Wait! Centaine restrained him. I have explored the cliffs over there. There is a way to get into this valley over the crest. It will, unfortunately, mean rigging a bucket and pulley system from the top of the cliffs.”That will greatly complicate my endeavours.”Please, Dr Twenty-man-jones, without your help -’and he made grumpy little noncommittal noises and stumped off into the darkness, holding his lantern high.

As the dawn light strengthened, he began his preliminary survey. All that day as Centaine sat in the shade of the mongongo, she caught glimpses of his lanky figure striding here and there, chin against his chest, pausing every few minutes to pick up a chip of rock or a handful of soil, and then disappearing again amongst the trees and the rocks.

It was late afternoon before he returned to where she waited.

Well? she asked.

I you are asking for my opinion, madam, then you are a little premature. It will take me some months before- Months? Centaine cried out in alarm.

Certainly- and then he saw her face, and his voice dropped. You didn’t pay me all that money for a guess. I have to open it up and see what’s down there. That will take time and hard work. I will need all the labourers you have available, as well as those I have with me.”I hadn’t thought of that.

Tell me, Mrs Courtney, he asked gently, just what is it you are hoping to find here? She drew a deep breath and behind her back she made the sign of the horns, which Anna had taught her averted the evil eye.

Diamonds, she said, and was immediately terrified that saying it out aloud would bring the worst possible luck upon her.

Diamonds! Twenty-man-jones repeated, as though it was news of his father’s death. We’ll see.”His expression was lugubrious. We’ll see! When do we start? We, Mrs Courtney?

You will remain out of this place.

I do not allow anyone else around me when I am working.”But, she protested, am I not allowed even to watch? That, Mrs Courtney, is a rule I never vary, you will have to contain yourself, I’m afraid So Centaine was banished from her valley, and the days in Lion Tree Camp passed slowly. From her stockade she could see Twenty-man-jones’s labour gangs toiling up the cliff path under their loads of equipment to the summit and then disappearing over the crest.

After almost a month of waiting she made the ascent herself. It was an onerous and taxing climb, and she was aware of the load in her womb every step of the way.

However, from the top she had an exhilarating eagle’s view of the plains that seemed to stretch to the ends of the earth, and when she looked down into the secret valley, it was as though she were looking into the very core of the earth.

The pulley and rope system from the lip of the cliff looked as insubstantial as a spider’s thread, and she shuddered at the thought of stepping into the canvas bucket and being lowered down into the depths of the amphitheatre. Far below she could make out the antlike specks of the prospect teams and the mounds of earth they had thrown up from their potholes. She could even distinguish Twenty-man-Jones lank storklike gait as he passed from one to another of the prospects.

She sent down a note to him in the bucket. Sir, have you found anything? And the reply came back an hour later. Patience, madam, is one of the great virtues. That was the last time she went up the cliff, for the child seemed to be growing like a malignant turnour. She had borne Shasa with joy, but this pregnancy brought pain and discomfort and unhappiness. She found no surcease even in the books she had brought with her, for she found it difficult to concentrate to the end of a page.

Always her eyes would go up from the printed word to the cliff path, as though for sight of that lanky figure coming down to her.

The heat became every day more oppressive as the summer advanced into the suicide days of late November, and she could not sleep. She lay in her cot and sweated away the nights, then dragged herself out again in the dawn, feeling drained and depressed and lonely. She was eating too much, her only opiate against the boredom of those long sultry days. She had developed a craving for devilled kidneys, and Swart Hendrick hunted every day to bring them fresh to her.

Her belly swelled and the child grew huge, so that it forced her knees apart when she sat, and it buffeted her mercilessly, thumping and kicking and rolling inside her like a great fish struggling on the end of a line until she moaned, Be still, you little monster, oh God, how I long to be rid of you.

Then one afternoon, when she had almost despaired, Twenty-man-jones came down the mountain. Swart Hendrick saw him on the cliff path and came hurrying to her tent to warn her, so that she had time to rise from her cot, bathe her face and change her sweat-damp clothes.

When he strode into the stockade, she was seated at her camp table, concealing her great belly behind it, and she did not rise to greet him.