When The Lion Feeds Part 25

They hired two gangs from among the unemployed in Johannesburg. Curtis supervised one of them and Sean the other, while Duff darted back and forth keeping an eye on both. Each time he pa.s.sed the Cousin Jock he spent a few minutes checking Trevor and Jock's progress. They've got the edge on us, Sean; their boilers are up and holding pressure already, he reported fretfully, but the next day he was smiling again. They didn't mix enough cement in the platform, it started to crumble as soon as they put the crusher on it.

They'll have to cast it again. That set them back three or four days. The betting down in the canteens fluctuated sharply with each change of fortune. Francois came up to the Candy Deep one Sat.u.r.day afternoon. He watched them work, made a suggestion or two, then remarked, They're giving three-to-one against you at the Bright Angels; they, reckon the Heynses, will be finished by next weekend. Go down and put another five hundred pounds on for me, Duff told him, and Sean shook his head despairingly. Don't worry, laddie, we can't lose, that amateur mining engineer, Jock Heyns, has a.s.sembled his crusher jaws all a.r.s.e-about-face. I only noticed it this morning he's in for a surprise when he tries to start up. He'll have to strip the whole d.a.m.n rig. Duff was right, they brought both their mills into production a comfortable fifteen hours before the Heyns brothers. Jock rode over to see them with his jaw on his chest. Congratulations. Thanks, Jock, did you bring your cheque book?

That's what I came to talk about. Can you give me a little time? Your credit's good, Sean a.s.sured him, come and have a drink and let me sell you some cooPAh, yes, I heard your wagons arrived back this morning. What price are you charging? Fifteen pounds a hundredweight. Good G.o.d. You b.l.o.o.d.y bandit, I bet it cost you less than five s.h.i.+llings a hundredweight. A man's ent.i.tled to a reasonable profit, protested Sean.

It had been a long hard pull up to the top of the hill but Sean and Duff had arrived at last and from there it was downhill all the way. The money poured in.

The geological freak that had bowed the Leader Reef away from the Main across the Candy Deep claims had, at the same time, enriched it, injected it full of the metal.

Francois was there one evening when they put the ball of amalgam into the retort. His eyes bulged as the mercury boiled away; he stared at the gold the way a mAn watches a naked woman. Gott! I'm going to have to call you two thunders "Mister from now on. Have you ever seen richer reef, Francois? Duff gloated.

Francois shook his head slowly. You know my theory about the reef being the bed of an old lake, well this bears it out. The kink in your reef must have been a deep trench along the bottom of the lake. It would have acted as a natural gold trap. h.e.l.l, man, what luck. With your eyes closed you have picked the plum out of the pudding.

The Jack and Whistle is half as rich as this. Their overdraft at the bank dropped like a barometer in a hurricane; the tradesmen started greeting them with a smile; they gave Doc Sutherland a cheque which would have kept even him in whisky for a hundred years. Candy kissed them both when they paid her out in full, plus interest at seven percent. Then she built herself a new Hotel, double storied, with a crystal chandelier in the dining-room and a magnificent bedroom suite on the second floor done out in maroon and gold. Duff and Sean rented it immediately but with the express understanding that if ever the Queen visited Johannesburg they would allow her to use it. In antic.i.p.ation Candy called it the Victoria Rooms.

Francois, with a little persuasion, agreed to take over the running of the Candy Deep. He moved his possessions, one chest of clothes and four chests of patent medicines, across from the Jack and Whistle. Timothy Curtis was the manager of the mill on the new claims; they named it the Little Sister Mine. Although not nearly as rich as the Candy Deep it was producing a sweet fortune each month, for Curtis worked as well as he fought.

By the end of August Sean and Duff had no more creditors: the claims were theirs, the mills were theirs and they had money to invest. We need an office of our own here in town. We can't run this show from our bedrooms complained Sean. You're right, agreed Duff, we'll build on that corner plot nearest the market square. The plan was for a modest little four-room building, but it finally expanded to two stories, stinkwood floors, oak panelling and twenty rooms. What they couldn't use they rented. The price of land has trebled in three months, said Sean, and it's still moving. You're right, now's the time to buy, Duff agreed. You're starting to think along the right lines, It was your idea. Was it? Duff looked surprised. Don't you remember your "up where the eagles fly" speech? Don't you forget anything? asked Duff.

They bought land: one thousand acres at Orange Grove and another thousand around Hospital Hill. Their transport wagons, now almost four hundred strong, plied in daily from Port Natal and Lourenqo Marques. Their brickfields worked twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, to try to meet the demand for building materials.

It took Sean almost a week to dissuade Duff from building an Opera House but he succeeded and instead they joined most of the other members of the Diggers Committee in financing a different type of pleasure palace. At Duff's suggestion they called it the Opera House. They recruited the performers not from the great companies of Europe but from the dock areas of Capetown and Port Natal and chose as the conductor a Frenchwoman of vast experience named Blue Bessie after the colour of her hair.

The Opera House provided entertainment on two levels.

For the members of the Committee and the other emergent rich there was a discreet side entrance, a lavishly furnished lounge where one could buy the finest champagne and discuss the prices on the Kimberley Stock Exchange, and beyond the lounge were a series of tastefully decorated retiring-rooms. For the workers there was a bare corridor to queue in, no choice for your money and a five-minute time limit. In one month the Opera House produced more gold than the Jack and Whistle mine.

By December there were millionaires in Johannesburg: Hradsky, the Heyns brothers, Karl Lochtkamper, Duff Charleywood, Sean Courtney and a dozen others. They owned the mines, the land, the buildings and the city: the aristocracy of the Wit.w.a.tersrand, knighted with money and crowned with gold.

A week before Christmas, Hradsky, their unacknowledged but undoubted king, called them all to a meeting in one of the private lounges of Candy's Hotel. Who the h.e.l.l does he think he is, complained Jock Heyns, ordering us round like a bunch of kaffirs. Verdammt Juden! agreed Lochtkamper.

But they went, every last man of them, for whatever Hradsky did had the smell of money about it and they could no more resist it than a dog can resist the smell of a b.i.t.c.h in season.

Duff and Sean were the last to arrive and the room was already hazed with cigar smoke and tense with expectation. Hradsky sagged in one of the polished leather armchairs with Max sitting quietly beside him; his eyes flickeried when Duff walked in but his expression never changed. When Duff and Sean had found chairs Max stood up. Gentlemen, Mr Hradsky has invited you here to consider a proposition. They leaned forward slightly in their chairs and there was a glitter in their eyes like hounds close upon the fox. From time to time it is necessary for men in your position to find capital to finance further ventures and to consolidate past gains, on the other hand those of us who have money lying idle will be seeking avenues for investment. Max cleared his throat and looked at them with his sad brown eyes. Up to the present there has been no meeting-place for these mutual needs such as exists in the other centres of the financial world. Our nearest approach to it is the Stock Exchange at Kimberley which, I'm sure you will agree, is too far removed to be of practical use to us here at Johannesburg. Mr Hradsky has invited you here to consider the possibility of forming our own Exchange and, if you accept the idea, to elect a chairman and governing body. Max sat down and in the silence that followed they took up the idea, each one fitting it into his scheme of thinking, testing it with the question How will I benefit?.

Ja, it's darn fine idea. Lochtkamper spoke first. Yes, it's what we needCount me in. While they schemed and bargained, setting the fees, the place and the rules, Sean, watched their faces. The faces of bitter men, happy men quiet ones and big bull-roarers but all with one common feature, that greedy glitter in the eyes. It was midnight before they finished.

Max stood upGentlemen, Mr Hradsky would like you to join him in a gla.s.s of champagne to celebrate the formation of our new enterprise. This I can't believe; the last time he paid for drinks was back in sixty, declared Duff. Quickly somebody find a waiter before he changes his mind.

Hradsky hooded his eyes to bide the hatred in them.

With its own Stock Exchange and bordel Johannesburg became a city. Even Kruger recognized it; he deposed the Diggers Committee and sent in his own police force, sold monopolies for essential mining supplies to members of his family and Government, and set about revising his tax laws with special attention to mining profits. Despite Kruger's efforts to behead the gold-laying goose, the city grew, and overflowed the original Government plots and spread brawling and bl.u.s.tering out into the surrounding veld.

Sean and Duff grew with it. Their way of life changed swiftly; their visits to the mines fell to a weekly inspection and they left it to their hired men. A steady river of gold poured down from the ridge to their offices on Eloff Street, for the men they hired were the best that money could find.

Their horizons closed in to encompa.s.s only the two panelled offices, the Victoria Rooms and the Exchange.

Yet within that world Sean found a thrill that he had never dreamed existed. He had been oblivious to it during the first feverish months; he had been so absorbed in laying the foundations that he could spare no energy for enjoying or even noticing it.

Then one day he felt the first voluptuous tickle of it.

He had sent to the bank for a land t.i.tle doc.u.ment he needed, expecting it to be delivered by a junior clerk but instead the sub-manager and a senior clerk filed respectfully into his office. It was an exquisite physical shock and it gave him a new awareness. He noticed the way men looked at him as he pa.s.sed them on the street.

He realized suddenly that over fifteen hundred human beings depended on him for their livelihood.

There was satisfaction in the way a path cleared for him and Duff as they crossed the floor of the Exchange each morning to take their places in the reserved leather armchairs of the members lounge. When Duff and he leaned together and talked quietly before the trading began, even the other big fish watched them. Hradsky with his fierce eyes hooded by sleepy lids, Jock and Trevor Heyns, Karl Lochtkamper, any of them would have given a day's production from their mines to overhear those conversations.

Buy! said Sean. Buy! Buy! Buy! cUrnoured the pack and the prices jumped as they hit them, then slumped back as they sucked their money away and put it to work elsewhere.

Then one March morning in 1886 the thrill became so acute it was almost an o.r.g.a.s.m. Max left the chair at Norman Hradsky's side and crossed the lounge towards them. He stopped in front of them, lifted his sad eyes off the patterned carpet and almost apologetically proffered a loose sheaf of papers. Good morning, Mr Courtney. Good morning, Mr Charleywood. Mr Hradsky has asked me to bring this new share issue to your attention. Perhaps you would be interested in these reports, which are, of course, confidential, but he feels they are worthy of your support.

You have power when you can force a man who hates you to ask for your favours. After the first advance by Hradsky they worked together often. Hradsky never acknowledged their existence by word or look. Each morning Duff called a cheerful greeting across the full width of the lounge, h.e.l.lo, chatterbox, or Sing for us, Norman. Hradsky's eyes would flicker and he would sag a little lower into his chair, but before the bell started the day's trading Max would stand up and come across to them, leaving his master staring into the empty fireplace. A few soft sentences exchanged and Max would walk back to Hradsky's side.

Their combined fortunes were irresistible: in one wild morning's trading alone they added another fifty thousand to their store of pounds.

An untaught boy handles his first rifle like a toy. Sean was twenty-two. The power he held was a more deadly weapon than any rifle, and much sweeter, more satisfying to use. It was a game at first with the Wit.w.a.tersrand as a chessboard, men and gold for pieces. A word or a signature on a slip of paper would set the gold jingling and the men scampering. The consequences were remote and all that mattered was the score, the score chalked up in black figures on a bank statement. Then in that same March he was made to realize that a man wiped off the board could not be laid back in the box with as much compa.s.sion as a carved wooden knight.

Karl Lochtkamper, the German with a big laugh and a happy face, laid himself open. He needed money to develop a new property on the east end of the Rand; he borrowed and signed short-term notes on his loans, certain that he could extend them if necessary. He borrowed secretly from men he thought he could trust. He was vulnerable and the sharks smelt him out.

Where is Lochtkamper getting his money? asked Max.

Do you know? asked Sean. No, but I can guess.

Then the next day Max came back to them again. He has eight notes out. Here is the list, he whispered sadly. Mr Hradsky will buy the ones that have a cross against them. Can you handle the rest?

Yes, said Sean.

They closed on Karl on the last day of the quarter; they called the loans and gave him twenty-four hours to meet them. Karl went to each of the three banks in turn. I'm sorry, Mr Lochtkamper, we have loaned over our budget for this quarter. liver Hradsky is holding your notes, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Mr Lochtkamper, Mr Charleywood is one of our directors. Karl Lochtkamper rode back to the Exchange. He walked across the floor and into the lounge for the last time. He stood in the centre of the big room, his face grey, his voice bitter and broken. Let Jesus have this much mercy on you when your time comes. Friends! My friends! Sean, how many times have we drunk together? And you, Duff, was it yesterday you shook my hand? Then he went back across the floor, out through the doors. His suite in the Great North Hotel wasn't fifty yards from the Exchange. In the members lounge they heard the pistol shot quite clearly.

That night Duff and Sean got drunk together in the Victoria rooms. Why did he have to do it? Why did he have to kill himself? He didn't, answered Duff. He was a quitter. if I'd known he was going to do that, my G.o.d, if only I'd known. d.a.m.n it, man, he took a chance and lost, it's not our fault. He would have done the same to us. I don't like this, it's dirty. Let's get out, Duff! Someone gets knocked down in the rush and you want to cry "enough! It's different now somehow, it wasn't like this at the start. Yes, and it'll be different in the morning. Come on, laddie, I know what you need. Where are we going? To the Opera House. What will Candy say? Candy doesn't have to know. Duff was right; it was different in the morning. There was the usual hurly-burly of work at the office and some tense action at the Exchange. He thought about Karl only once during the day and somehow it didn't seem to matter so much. They sent him a nice wreath.

He had faced the reality of the game he was playing. He had considered the alternative which was to get out with the fortune he had already made; but to do that would mean giving up the power he held. The addiction was already seated too deeply, he could not deny it. So his subconscious opened, sucked in his conscience and swallowed it deep down into its gut. He could feel it struggling there sometimes, but the longer it stayed swallowed the more feeble those struggles became. Duff comforted him: Duff's words were like a gastric juice that helped to digest that lump in the gut and he had not yet learned that what Duff said and what Duff did were not necessarily what Duff believed.

Play the game without mercy, play to win.

Duff stood with his back to the fireplace in Sean's office smoking a cheroot while they waited for the carriage to take them up to the Exchange. The fire behind him silhouetted his slimly tapered legs with the calves encased in polished black leather. He still wore his top coat, for the winter morning was cold. It fell open at his throat to show a diamond that sparkled and glowed in his cravat.

you get used to a woman somehow, he was saying.

I've known Candy four years now and yet it seems I've been with her all my life. she's a fine- girl Sean agreed absently as he dipped his pen and scribbled his signature on the doc.u.ment n front of him. I'm thirty-five now, Duff went on. If I'm ever to have a son of my own Sean laid down the pen deliberately and looked up at Duff. him; he was starting to grin. The man said to me once "They take you into their soft little minds"- and again he said "They don't share, they possess". Is this a new tune I hear?

Duff s.h.i.+fted uneasily from one foot to the other. Things change, he defended himself. I'm thirty five You're repeating yourself Sean accused and Duff smiled weakly.

Well, the truth is.

He never finished the sentence; hooves beat urgently in the street outside and both their faces swung in the direction of the window. Big hurry! said Sean coming quickly to his feet. Big trouble! He crossed to the window. It's Curtis, and by his face it's not good news he brings. There were voices outside the door raised in agitation and the quick rush of feet, then Timothy Curtis burst into the room without knocking. He wore a miner's overall and splattered gumboots. We've hit a mud rush on the ninth level. How bad? Duff snapped. Bad enough, it's flooded right back to number eight. Jesus, that will take two months at least to clear, Sean exclaimed. Does anyone else in town know, have you told anyone? I came straight here, Cronje and five men were up at the face when it blew. Get back there immediately, ordered Sean, but ride quietly, we don't want the whole world to know there's trouble. Don't let a soul off the property. We must have time to sell out. Yes, Mr Courtney. Curtis hesitated. Cronje and five others were hit by the rush. Shall I send word to their wives. Can't you understand English? I don't want a whisper of this to get out before ten o'clock. We've got to have time. But, Mr Courtney! Curtis was appalled. He stood staring at Sean and Sean felt the sick little stirring of guilt.

Six men drowned in treacle-thick mud... He made an irresolute gesture with his hands.