Rough diamond, p.2
Rough Diamond, page 2
Mules stood and stared in their sleepy uninterested way, while their drivers bargained not just for passengers but mainly for freight, freight that had a certain urgency for its delivery to justify its cost but was too heavy for the more fragile horse-drawn coaches, while still being light enough not to require the slower transport by ox wagon. The sight was something Barney could never have imagined, and he was still staring about almost in disbelief when he felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up into a familiar, friendly face. It was a middle-aged man who had been on the Anglian, a first-class passenger; the one, actually, who had started to pass the hat for contributions after his boxing bout, insisting that an exhibition such as Barney had put on deserved a decent reward.
“Ah! Young Barney Isaacs! Ready to go off and make your fortune in the diamond fields, I see.”
“Yes, sir. You, too?”
The man smiled and shook his head. “No, no. I’m a Capetonian and prefer it that way. I’m merely here to see that some equipment of mine gets to Bloemfontein within a reasonable period of time. When are you leaving?”
“I—I dunno, sir.” Barney hesitated and then cleared his throat. “Sir—I can’t get what they’re all sayin’, there’s so much yellin’ and such. How much d’they want to get to Kimberley?”
“Oh, they bargain, but in general the cheapest is around sixty pounds to go by coach, and about twenty to go by mule train. Mule train takes almost twice as long, of course. Almost a month, I’m afraid.”
“Sixty quid!” Barney swallowed. “Sir, how d’you get there if you ain’t got nowhere near money like that? I mean, if you can’t spare even the twenty quid for the mules?”
“Well, now.” The man looked at Barney a bit speculatively and then smiled. “You won a bit better than eight pounds on your boxing skills aboard ship, as I recall. And I will be honest and say I did a bit better than that by wagering on you. I liked the way you looked. So suppose I lend you another twelve pounds to add to your eight, and off you go by mule train? You’ll repay me when you can.”
Barney shook his head decisively. “No, sir. ‘Nei’der a borrower ner a lender be.’” He suddenly grinned. “Me, I just said no to Tommy Thomas on board ship to be the one, and I ain’t about to start bein’ the other right after.”
The man’s eyebrows went up. Shakespeare? From this youngster from the London slums? Incredible! Almost unbelievable. “Tell me, Barney,” he said. “Are you familiar with Hamlet? Or was that just something you once heard someplace?” His eyes were steady on the lad, prepared for almost any answer.
“I know ’Amlet—I mean Hamlet,” Barney said quietly, almost bitterly. He was accustomed to disbelief whenever he mentioned either his knowledge or his passion for the theater, but it didn’t make him like it any better. He also knew that once he was taken with the dramatics of a scene and was carried away he unconsciously dropped into the worst of his Cockney. He didn’t like that any better either, but it seemed to be a habit he hadn’t been able to break. “Yes, sir. I seen Sir Henry Irving do it a dozen times.” He unconsciously took a stance. “Nei’der a borrower ner a lender be, fer loan oft loses both itself an’ friend, an’ borrowin’ dulls th’ edge o’ ’usbandry. This above all, to thine own self be true.’” He suddenly grinned, a gamin grin that made him look even younger than his eighteen years. “I know that ’un by heart. Most of the others I only know the last part.”
The man frowned. “How’s that?”
Barney laughed. “Me, I’d stand outside the theater, see? Half the blokes just went because it was expected of them, y’know? They hated the show, but they had wives, y’know, made ’em go. But they couldn’t make ’em stay. They’d sneak off to the nearest pub between acts and ferget to come back. So after the first act or the second act—and sometimes in between—they’d sneak out and I’d cadge the rest o’ their ticket from ’em, see? So I’d see lots o’ second and third acts.”
“And remember them?”
“Yes, sir. Mostly.”
“Remarkable!”
“Yeah,” Barney said. He really didn’t think it was so remarkable. He didn’t see how anyone could fail to learn the beauty of words that took one away from his everyday life. “I know The Bells by heart. I seen that one at least ten times. Even paid to see it a couple o’ times.”
The man shook his head in amazement. “You are a most remarkable young man, Barney Isaacs.” He fished into the pocket of his waistcoat, bringing forth a card case and extracting one. “Here’s my card. If you ever get back to Cape Town—and I’m afraid there is a strong possibility of that in the very near future, from what I’ve heard of the diamond trade since our arrival this morning—please look me up.”
Barney took the card, read it, and looked up. “Sure, Mr. Breedon. Only—”
“Yes?”
“Like I said before,” Barney said, a touch of desperation in his voice, “how d’you get to Kimberley if you ain’t got no twenty quid to spare?”
“And also have pride? Then you walk.” Mr. Breedon held up his hand hurriedly at the angry flash in Barney’s eyes. “I’m not making fun of you,” he said quietly, and pointed. “You go back along Darling Street, back across Adderley, past Greenmarket Square—you can’t miss it, it’s the main market square—and a bit west of that, a few blocks at the most, you’ll find Riebeeck Square. It’s an outspan—”
“A what?”
“An outspan,” Breedon said patiently. “A place where ox wagons come to discharge their goods and rest their oxen and pick up new cargo for the interior. ‘Outspan’ means to unhitch the oxen from the span, to take them out, so to speak. I understand one can arrange with the driver of one of the wagons to walk alongside the cart for the sum of five pounds. It takes a few months to make the trip that way, of course.”
“I got time,” Barney said. In his mind he had more time than money, but he really didn’t have any excess of either. Still, he was relieved to know there was a way to get to Kimberley within his budget, within, in fact, the sum he had won in the fight. He had a feeling his total capital wouldn’t be too much before he managed to start making his fortune. Although, of course, his brother Harry had made it and he hadn’t even won a boxing match on board the ship he’d arrived on.
“And you’re sure you won’t accept any help from me?”
“I’m sure, but thanks, Mr. Breedon.” Barney tucked the card into a pocket, reached down and raised his two suitcases. He grinned at Mr. Breedon. “Thanks again.”
“That’s quite all right,” Breedon said, and watched Barney march off back toward Adderley Street, his suitcases banging against his legs. Maybe this one won’t be back, he thought. Maybe this one will actually make it up in—what did they call it now? Kimberley?—but unfortunately, he added to himself a bit sadly, I am forced to doubt it. A most unusual boy, though. Shakespeare! And in that atrocious East End Cockney accent! With a faint smile at the recollection and a contemplative shake of his head, Mr. Breedon turned back to dickering with the muletrain driver for the transport he required for printing plates for his new presses in Bloemfontein.
The outspan was like a smaller Grand Parade, but far quieter, more subdued, as if the greater time it required to travel by ox wagon made for a slower pace in all activities connected with the slower-moving beasts, a lesser urgency, a more relaxed atmosphere. There were drays drawn up beside many of the sturdy wooden wagons, some loading, others unloading. The unhitched oxen grazed quietly along the edge of the square, or lay passively watching the activity about them with their doelike eyes, patient and uncomplaining, their huge jaws moving rhythmically as they chewed their cuds. Barney walked up to the first wagon he came to. The driver, sitting on an upturned empty nail keg and watching men load his wagon, removed his pipe from his mouth and considered Barney dourly. Barney looked back, wondering how to begin.
“Sir—”
“What, boy?”
“You goin’ to Kimberley?”
“No.” A simple question answered simply. The pipe was replaced between the thin lips; the driver’s attention returned to the wagon and the men loading it.
“D’you know anyone who is? Goin’ to Kimberley, I mean.”
The driver sighed at this insistence that he speak once again. “Andries.”
“What?”
“Andries Pirow. That wagon.” The pipe was momentarily pointed and then was clamped once more between the thin lips.
“Thanks.” Barney walked over to the indicated wagon and set his suitcases down again. The driver was lying under the wagon, sleeping, his broad-brimmed leather hat spread over his face, his booted legs sprawled out, extending from beneath the wagon. The wagon itself appeared loaded; the usual Conestoga-type curved cover had been forsaken in this instance in favor of the canvas being held taut against the bulky load, and was tightly lashed at the corners. Only at the rear end of the wagon had a separate piece of canvas been raised, allowing access to the wagon’s contents there without the necessity of disturbing the carefully stowed load in the front. From the curved steel bar holding this separate cover swung bags and small casks; a battered teapot hung there as well. Barney squatted to peer beneath the wagon at the sleeping man.
“Sir?” A faint snore, muffled by the hat, was his only response. Barney hesitated a moment and then put out his hand, tentatively touching the rough-spun shirt. “Sir?” Again there was no response. Barney looked back over his shoulder at the first driver helplessly. The man returned the look with no expression at all. Barney turned back to the sleeping Andries, shaking him gently once again. “Sir?”
“Like this.”
Barney looked up in surprise. The first driver had abandoned his nail keg and was standing beside him. The man drew back his foot and kicked the boot sole of the sleeping man with all his force. “On’y way,” he said succinctly, removing his pipe to speak. “Ol’ Andries, he sleep like a dead.” He replaced the pipe in his mouth, walked back to his inverted nail keg, and sat down.
The blow, however, had the desired effect. Andries Pirow pushed the hat from across his face and looked around to see who or what had brought him from his slumber. Then he crawled from beneath the wagon and stood up, yawning prodigiously. He was a huge man in his mid-forties with a face that had been deeply lined by wind and sun; he wore a graying beard that had been cut square a few inches from his chin. His hands were the largest hands Barney had ever seen on a human being. Andries stretched and yawned again, and then stared at Barney. Barney backed up a step.
“I didn’t kick you, mister—”
“I know.” Andries stared at the other driver a moment; the man returned his stare without the slightest change of expression. Andries bit back a smile and turned to Barney. “Well? You want to talk to me, boy?”
Barney fought down his first flush of anger. He was getting tired of being called “boy.” And he was, after all, a paying customer, or anyway, at least a potential one. “You goin’ to Kimberley?”
“I am.”
“I want to go with you. They said—five quid’d do it.”
Andries shook his head. “I’m not a wagon for passasier. No people. Got a load of machinery for Dutoitspan. No room.”
“I’ll walk. They said I’d have to, anyways.”
“Your bags won’t walk.”
“I’ll—” Barney fell silent. Obviously he wasn’t going to carry his two heavy suitcases all the way to Kimberley.
Andries studied him a moment. “What you want to go to Kimberley for, boy?” The man spoke with a decided Boer accent, but his English was quite respectable.
“Got a brother there. Made it big in the diamonds.”
“And you want to walk beside an ox wagon?”
“He made it big. I ain’t, yet.” Barney looked around. “Any other wagons goin’ to Kimberley?”
Andries shrugged. “Maybe next week. Maybe the week after.”
“Next week!”
Andries studied Barney some more. “Look, boy. Your folks know you want to go to Kimberley?”
“Me folks are in England, but they know.”
Andries shrugged, making up his mind. After all, the boy looked to be over sixteen and in that country that made him a man and able to make his own decisions. And he might even be of some use on the long trek, someone to talk to if nothing else, although Andries was quite used to talking to his oxen if need be to pass the time. “All right, boy. You can come.”
“Five quid, ain’t it?” Barney started to reach for his purse.
“No hurry for that.” Andries continued to study the boy. The five pounds normally charged by an ox wagon to allow a person to walk beside it while it carried his luggage on the two-month trek did not include food. Andries was sure the boy had no notion of this. Ah, well! in for a shilling in for a pound. It would be his charitable contribution to the lad. “We leave at seven in the morning. Be on time.” He turned and dug a pipe from his pocket, stared at it a moment and then realized he would be going back to sleep in a few moments, and put it back. “You got a place to sleep tonight, boy?”
“Yes, sir. A room down by the docks.”
“Good. Tomorrow at seven, then.” Andries squatted, prepared to return beneath the wagon for his rest, and then looked over his shoulder. “You can leave your bags here. They’ll be safe.”
Barney hesitated, but only for a moment. He had the feeling the big man was testing him, somehow. Anyway, he was going to be with the man a long time, and mutual trust was going to be necessary; might as well start right now. “Sure,” he said easily, as if he left his bags with strangers all the time. “Where d’you want them?”
“In the wagon. In front with the crates; there’s no room in the back. And tie up properly when you’re done.” Andries thought a moment and then came to his feet. “Better let me.” He untied a corner of the canvas, lifted the bags, and placed them where he wanted them, retying the rawhide thongs carefully when he was done. He looked at Barney with a faint frown. “What you got in them suitcases, boy? Rocks?”
“Books, mostly,” Barney said. “Plays.”
“You an actor, boy?”
“I wanted to be,” Barney said quietly, and changed the subject. “Tomorrow at seven, then.”
“Right,” Andries said. He got down and crawled under the wagon. He started to lie down and then raised his head. “You got a name, boy?”
“Barney. Barney Isaacs.”
“Right. You call me Andries. See you tomorrow, boy.” His head went down; the hat was pulled over his face.
Am I an actor! Barney thought as he walked away. A bloody good ’un, if they’d have ever given me a bloody chance! He grinned to himself, happy that he’d gotten transportation to Kimberley. Anyway, on the second and third acts. The thought made him laugh.
2
September 1872
The twelve oxen, six on either side of the long disselboom, strained up the tilted slopes leading from the town, around the western base of Table Mountain toward the Drakenstein Valley leading to Parow where the road would split, one branch leading westward to Milnerton and Caledon and eventually all the way to the Kalahari and Windhoek and the strange unknown lands beyond. Another branch led to Stellenbosch to the east and in time to Mossel Bay and to Durban on the Indian Ocean. The main trail—for it was little more than a trail—led north across the Karroo desert to Beaufort West and Bloemfontein, Kimberley, Pretoria, and beyond. Except that very few people other than hunters or adventurers ever went very far beyond Pretoria.
They left Riebeeck Square in tandem with three other ox wagons, all with different destinations, the four gradually spreading apart to give the dust between them a chance to settle. It was a vain maneuver; the dust was regenerated almost at once as faster mule trains and coaches passed them on the trail, their passengers looking down from their perches in superior fashion at the less fortunate ones trudging along beside the ox wagons. Behind them the city spread below in panorama with the wide bay beyond, gradually disappearing as they advanced around the spur of the mountain and up toward the valley with its orchards and farms. Barney took one last look at the lovely view and then turned to face the front, gritting his teeth at their slow pace. I must have picked the slowest bloody wagon in the entire bloody country, he thought almost savagely. Turtles could pass us, the rate we’re going! I should have taken the money Mr. Breedon offered; after all, he said he won it on me. But he shouldn’t have taken the money from Breedon and he knew it. It wasn’t his style and style was important to Barney Isaacs.
Andries, walking steadily along on the other side of the swaying wagon and glancing across the tightly drawn canvas at the scowling boy every now and then, could almost read Barney’s mind. He wants to run now, Andries thought; he can’t wait to get to the diamond fields. Well, it’s always that way at the start of a long trek; wait until we’re crossing the Karroo and he has more important things to worry about, like sore feet and keeping the wagon going. Then we’ll see how much of a rush the boy will be in. That will tell us quite a bit about this lad!
“We’ll get there, boy,” he said, almost as if he were speaking to himself. “Maybe faster than some.” And he cracked his sjambok over the ears of the oxen, who neither hurried their pace nor reduced it, as if they were well aware that Andries would never actually touch them with the thin, deadly whip.
