When the Lion Feeds (26 page)

Come on, try me, there's two loads of buckshot in here.

Someone will get cut in half. They fell back still muttering. Perhaps you've forgotten, but there's a police force in this country and there's a law against killing. Hang them today and it'll be your turn tomorrow!

You're right, Mr Courtney, it'll be cruel heartless murder. That it will, wailed the spokesman. Shut up, you bloody fool, Duff snarled at him and someone in the crowd laughed. The laughter caught on and Duff sighed silently with relief. That had been very close. Give them the old tar and feathers. Duff grinned. Now you're talking sense. Who's got a few barrels of tar for sale! He looked round. What, no offers?

Then we'll have to think of something else! We got ten drums of red paint, thirty shillings each, good imported brand. Duff recognized the speaker as a trader who had opened a general dealer's store down at ferrieras Camp. Mr Tarry suggests paint. What about it? No, it comes off too easily, that's no goodI'll let you have it cheap, twenty-five shillings a drum No, stick your ruddy paint, the crowd booed him. Give them a twist on Satan's Roulette Wheel, shouted another voice, and the crowd clamoured agreement. That's it, give them the wheel. Round and round and round she goes, where she stops nobody knows, roared a black-bearded digger from the roof of the shanty across the road. The crowd howled.

Sean watched Duff's expression, the smile had gone.

He was weighing it up. If he stopped them again they might lose all patience and risk the shotgun. He couldn't chance it. All right. If that's what you want. He faced the terrified cluster of prisoners. The sentence of this court is that you play roulette with the devil for one hour and that you then leave this goldfield, if we catch you back here again you'll get another hour of it. The wounded are excused the first half of the sentence. I think they've had enough. Mr du Toit will supervise the punishment. We'd prefer the paint, Mr Charleywood, pleaded the spokesman again. I bet you would, said Duff softly, but the crowd was carrying them away already, out towards the open veld beyond the Hotel. Most of them had staked claims of their own and they didn't like claim jumpers. Sean climbed down off the table.

Let's go and have a drink, Duff said to him.

Aren't you going to watch? asked Sean. I've seen it done once before down in the Cape. That was enough. What do they do? Go and have a look, I'll be waiting for you at the Bright Angels. I'll be surprised if you stay the full hour. By the time Sean joined the crowd most of the wagons had been gathered from the camps and drawn up in a line.

Men swarmed round them fitting jacks under the axles to lift the big back wheels clear of the ground. Then the prisoners were hustled forward, one to each wheel. Eager hands lifted them and held them while their wrists and ankles were lashed to the rim of the wheel with the hub in the middle of their backs and their arms and legs spread-eagled like stranded starfish. Francois hurried along the line checking the ropes and placing four diggers at each wheel, two to start it and another two to take over when those were tired. He reached the end, came back to the centre again, pulled his watch from his pocket, checked the time, then shouted. All right, turn them, kerels The wheels started moving, slowly at first then faster as they built up momentum. The bodies strapped to them blurred with the speed. Round and round and round she goes, round and round and round she goes, chanted the crowd gleefully.

Within minutes there was a burst of laughter from the end of the line of wagons. Someone had started vomiting, it sprayed from him like yellow sparks from a Catherine wheel. Then another and another joined in, Sean could hear them retching and gasping as the centrifugal force flung the vomit up against the back of their throats and out of their noses. He waited a few more minutes but when their bowels started to empty he turned away gagging and headed for the Bright Angel.

Did you enjoy it? asked Duff.

Give me a brandy, answered Sean.

With the Diggers Committee dispensing rough justice a semblance of order came to the camps. President Kruger wanted no part in policing the nest of ruffians and cutthroats which was growing up just outside his Capital and he contented himself with placing his spies among them and leaving them to work out their own salvation. After all, the field was far from proved and the chances were that in another year the veld would again be as deserted as it had been nine months before. He could afford to wait;

in the meantime the Diggers Committee had his tar-it sanction.

While the ants worked, cutting down into the reef with pick and with dynamite, the grasshoppers waited in the bars and shanties. So far only the Jack and Whistle min was turning out gold, and only Hradsky and francois du Toit knew how much gold was coming out of it. Hradsky was still in Capetown crusading for capital and Francois spoke to no one, not even to Duff, about the mill's productivity.

The rumours flew like sand in a whirlwind. One day it seemed that the reef had pinched out fifty feet below the surface, and the next the canteens buzzed with the news that the Heyns brothers had gone down a hundred feet and were pulling out nuggets the size of musket balls.

Nobody knew but everybody was prepared to guess.

Up at the Candy Deep, Duff and Sean worked on relentlessly. The mill took shape on its concrete platform, its jaws open for the first bite at the rock. The boiler was swung up onto its cradle by twenty sweating, singing Zulus. The copper tables were fitted up ready to be smeared with quicksilver. There was no time to worry about the reef nor the dwindling store of money in Sean's cash belt. They worked and they slept, there was nothing else. Duff took to sharing Sean's tent up on the ridge and Candy had her featherbed to herself again.

On the twentieth of November they fired the boiler for the first time.

Tired and horny-handed, their bodies lean and tempered hard with toil, they stood together and watched the needle creek up round the pressure gauge until it touched the red line at the top.

Duff grunted. Well, at least we've got power now. Then he punched sean's shoulder What the hell are you standing here for, do you think this is a Sunday School picnic? There's work to do, laddie. On the second of December they fed the mill its first meal and watched the powdered rock flow across the amalgam tables.

Sean threw his arm round Duff's neck in an affectionate half-Nelson, Duff hit him in the stomach and pulled his hat down over his eyes, they drank a glass of brandy each at supper and laughed a little but that was all. They were too tired to celebrate. From now on one of them must be in constant attendance on that iron monster. Duff took the first night shift and when Sean went up to the mill, next morning he found him weaving on his feet, his eyes sunk deep in dark sockets. By my reckoning we've run ten tons of rock through her. Time to clean the tables and see just how much gold we've picked up. You go and get some sleep, said Sean and Duff ignored him.

Mbejane, bring a couple of your savages here, we're going to change the tables. Listen, Duff, it can wait an hour or two. Go and get your head down. Please stop drivelling, you're as bad as a wife Sean shrugged.

Have it your own way, show me how you do it then. They switched the flow of powdered rock onto the second table that was standing ready;

then with a broad bladed spatula Duff scraped the mercury off the copper top of the first table, collecting it in a ball the size of a coconut.

The mercury picks up the tiny particles of gold, he explained to Sean as he worked, and lets the grains of rock wash across the table and fall off into the dump. Of course it doesn't collect it all, some of it goes to waste. How do you get the gold out again? You put the whole lot in a retort and boil off the mercury, the gold stays behind. Hell of a waste of mercury, isn't it? No, you catch it as it condenses and use it again. Come on, I'l show you. Duff carried the ball of amalgam down to the shed, placed it in the retort and lit the blow-lamp. With the heat on it the ball dissolved and started to bubble. Silently they stared at it. The level in the retort fell.

Where's the gold? Sean asked at last. Oh, shut up, Duff snapped impatiently, and then, repentant, Sorry, laddie, I feel a bit jaded this morning. The last of the mercury steamed off and there it was, glowing bright, molten yellow. A drop of gold the size of a pea. Duff shut off the blow-lamp and neither of them spoke for a while. , Then Sean asked, Is that all? That, my friend, is all, agreed Duff wearily. rWhat do you want to do with it, fill a tooth? He turned towards the door with a droop to his whole body. Keep the mill running we might as well go down with our colours flying.

It was a miserable Christmas dinner. They ate it at Candy's Hotel. They had credit there. She gave Duff a gold signet ring and Sean a box of cigars. Sean had never smoked before but now the sting of it in his lungs gave him a certain masochistic pleasure. The dining-room roared with men's voices and cutlery clatter, the air was thick with the smell of food and tobacco smoke while in one corner, marooned on a little island of gloom, sat Sean, Duff and Candy.

Once Sean lifted his glass at Duff and spoke like an undertaker's clerk.

Happy Christmas Duff's lips twitched back in a dead m in's grin. And the same to you. They drank. Then Duff roused himself to speak. Tell me again, how much have we got left? I like to hear you say it; you have a beautiful voice, you should have played Shakespeare. Three pounds and sixteen shillings. Yes, yes, you got it just right that time, three pounds and sixteen shillings, now to really make me feel christmassy, tell me how much we owe. Have another drink, Sean changed the subject.

Yes, I think I will, thank you, Oh please, you two, let's just forget about it for today, pleaded Candy. I planned for it to be such a nice party look, there's Francois! Hey, Francois, over here!

The dapper du Toit bustled across to their table. Happy Christmas, kerels, let me buy you a drinkIt's nice to see you. Candy gave him a kiss. How are you? You're looking fine. Francois sobered instantly.

It's funny you should say that, Candy. As a matter of fact I'm a bit worried. He tapped his chest and sank down into an empty chair. My heart, you know, I've been waiting for it to happen, and then yesterday i was up at the mill, just standing there, you understand, when suddenly it was as though a vice was squeezing my chest. I couldn't breathe, well, not very well anyway. Naturally I hurried back to my tent and looked it up. Page eighty-three. Under "Diseases of the Heart". He shook his head sadly. It's very worrying.

You know I wasn't a well man before, but now this. Oh, no, wailed candy. I can't stand it, not you too.

I'M sorry, have I said something wrong? Just in keeping with the festive spirit at this table. She pointed at Duff and Sean. Look at their happy faces, if you'll excuse me I'm going to check up in the kitchen.

She went. What's wrong; old Duff V Duff flashed his death's head grin across the table at Sean. The man wants to know what's wrong, tell himThree pounds sixteen shillings, said Sean and Francois looked puzzled. I don't understand. He means we're broke, flat broke. Gott, I'm sorry to hear that, Duff, I thought you were going good. I've heard the mill running all this month, I thought you'd be rich by now. The mill's been running all right and we've recovered enough gold to block a flea's backside. But why, man? You are working the Leader Reef, aren't yOU?

I'm beginning to think this Leader Reef of yours is a bedtime story.

Francois peered into his glass thoughtfully. How deep are you? We've got one incline shaft down about fifty feet. No sign of the Leader?

Duff shook his head and Francois went on. You know when I first spoke to you a lot of what I said was just guessing.

Duff nodded. Well, I know a bit more about it now. What I am going to tell you is- for you alone, I'll lose my job if it gets out, you understand?

Duff nodded again. So far the Leader Reef has only been found at two places. We've got it on the Jack and Whistle and I know the Heyns brothers have struck it on the Cousin Jock Mine. Let me draw it for you. He picked up a knife and drew in the gravy on the bottom of Sean's plate. This is the Main Reef running fairly straight. Here I am, here is the Cousin Jock and here you are in between us. Both of us have found the Leader and you haven't. My guess is it's there all right, you just don't know where to look.

At the far end of the Jack and Whistle claims the Main Reef and the leader are running side by side two feet apart but by the time they reach the boundary nearest to the Candy Deep they've opened up to seventy feet apart. Now on the boundary of the Cousin Jock they're back to fifty feet apart. To me it seems that the two reefs form the shape of a long bow, like this. He drew it in. The Main Reef is the string and the Leader Reef is the wood. I'm telling you, Duff, if you cut a trench at right-angles to the Main Reef you'll find it, and when you do you can buy me a drink They listened gravely and when Francois finished duff leaned back in his chair. If we'd known this a month ago!

Now how are we going to raise the money to cut this new trench and still keep the mill running?

We could sell some of our equipment, suggested Sean. We need it, every scrap of it, and besides if we sold one spade the creditors would be on us like a pack of wolves, bowling for their money. I'd make you a loan if I had it, but with what Mr Hradsky pays me -'Francois shrugged.

You'll need about two hundred pounds. I haven't got it. Candy came back to the table in time to hear Francois's last remark. What's this all about? Can I tell her, Francois? If you think it will do any good.