When the Lion Feeds (29 page)

And Duff, deep-down-uncertain Duff, had a wall to put his back against.

His speech never showed it but his eyes did when he looked at Sean.

Sometimes he felt small next to Sean's big body and bigger determination, but it was a good feeling: like being on a friendly mountain.

They put up new buildings around the mill: storerooms, a smelting house and cabins for Sean and Curtis.

Duff was sleeping at the Hotel again. The location for the Natives sprawled haphazard down the back slope of the ridge, retreating a little each week as the white mountain of the mine dump grew and pushed it back. The whole valley was changing. Hradsky's new mills arrived and stood up along the ridge, tall and proud until their own dumps dwarfed them. Johannesburg, at first a mere pattern of surveyors pegs, sucked the scattered encampments onto her grassy chequerboard and arranged them in a semblance of order along her streets.

The Diggers Committee, its members tired of having to scrape their boots every time they went indoors, decreed public latrines be erected. Then, flushed with their own audacity, they built a bridge across the Natal spruit, purchased a water cart to lay the dust on the streets of johannesburg and passed a law prohibiting burials within half a mile of the city centre. Sean and Duff as members of the Committee felt it their duty to demonstrate their faith in the goldfield, so they bought twenty five plots of ground in Johannesburg, five pounds each to be paid within six months. Candy recruited all her customers and in one weekend of frantic effort they razed her Hotel to the ground, packed every plank and sheet of iron onto their wagons, carried it a mile down the valley and re-erected it on her own land in the centre of the township. During the party she gave them on that Sunday night they nearly succeeded in dismantling it for the second time. Each day the roads from Natal and the Cape fed more wagons, more men into the Witwatersrand goldfield.

Duff's suggestion that the Diggers Committee levy a guinea a head from all newcomers to help finance the public works was reluctantly rejected, the general feeling being that if it led to civil rebellion there were more newcomers than Committee members and no one fancied being on the losing side.

One morning, when he came out to the mine, Duff brought a telegram with him. He handed it to Sean without comment. Sean read it. The machinery had arrived.

Good God, it's three weeks early. They must have had a downhill sea, or a following wind or whatever it is that makes ships go faster muttered duff.

Have we got enough to pay the bill? asked Sean. No. What are we going to do? I'll go and see the little man at the bank, He'll throw you out in the street! I'll get him to give us a loan on the claims! How the hell are you going to do that, we haven't paid for them yet. That's what you call financial genius. I'll simply point out to him that they're worth five times what we bought them for. Duff grinned. Can you and Curtis carry on here without me for today while I go and arrange it? You arrange it and I'll happily give you a month's holiday. When duff came back that afternoon he carried a paper with him. It had a red wax seal in the bottom corner, across the top it said Letter of Credit, and in the middle, standing out boldly from the mass of small print, was a figure that ended in an impressive string of noughts.

You're a bloody marvel, said Sean.

Yes, I am rather, aren't I! agreed Duff.

The Heyns brothers machinery was on the same ship.

lock and Duff rode down to Port Natal together, hired a hundred wagons and brought it all back in one load.

I'll tell you what Al do With You, Jock, I'll wager you that we get our mills producing before you do. Loser pays for the transport on the whole shipment, Duff challenged him when they reached Johannesburg where, in Candy's new bar-room, they Were washing the dust out of their throats. You're on! , I, ll go further, I'll put up a side bet of five hundred.

Sean prodded Duff in the ribs.

Gently, Duff, we can't afford it. But Jock had already snapped up the bet.

What do you mean we cane afford it? whispered Duff. We've got nearly fifteen hundred pounds left on the letter of credit-Sean shook his head.

No, we haven't. Duff pulled the paper from his inside pocket and taPPed sean's nose with it. There, read for yourself. Sean took it out of duff's hand.

Thanks, old chap, I'll go and pay the man now. What man? The man with the wagons.

What wagons? The wagons that you and Jock hired in Port Natal. I've bought them. The hell you say! It was your idea to start a transport business. just as soon as they've offloaded they'll be on their way again to pick up a shipment of coal from Dundee. Duff grinned at him.

Don't you ever forget an idea? All right, laddie, off you go, we'll just have to win the bet, that's all. One of the mills they placed on the Candy Deep, the other on the new claims beyond the Cousin Jock Mine.

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 passed 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 Saturday 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 assembled his crusher jaws all arse-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 damn 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 assured 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 God.

You bloody bandit, I bet it cost you less than five shillings a hundredweight. A man's entitled 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. Hell, 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 anticipation 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 Witwatersrand, 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 hell 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 bitch 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 glass 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 blustering 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 encompass 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 title document 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 passed 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 orgasm. 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, Hello, 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.