The Angels Weep (41 page)

Kruger’s pipe gurgled softly, but nobody spoke again for
fully two minutes, until Ralph broke the silence.

‘Very well then,’ he said. ‘If Rhodes fails,
I will make a great deal of money.’

Kruger sighed, and nodded. ‘All right, now I believe you
at last, for that is an Englishman’s reason for
treachery.’ And he picked up the envelope in his brown
gnarled old hand. ‘Goodbye,
mijn heer
,’ he
said softly.

C
athy had taken
to her paintbox again. She had put it away when Jon-Jon was born,
but now there was time for it once more, However, this time she
was determined to make a more serious work of it, instead of
sugary family portraits and pretty landscapes.

She had begun a study of the trees of Rhodesia, and already
had a considerable portfolio of them. First she painted the
entire tree, making as many as twenty studies of typical
specimens before settling on a representative example, and then
to the master painting she added detailed drawings of the leaves,
the flowers and the fruits, which she rendered faithfully in
watercolours; finally she pressed actual leaves and blooms and
gathered the seeds, then wrote a detailed description of the
plant.

Very soon she had realized her own ignorance, and had written
to Cape Town and London for books on botany, and for
Linnaeus’
Systema Naturae
for plants. Using these,
she was training herself to become a competent botanist. Already
she had isolated eight trees that had not been previously
described, and she had named one for Ralph ‘Terminalia
Ralphii’ and another for Jonathan who had climbed to the
upper branches to bring down its pretty pink flowers for her.

When she diffidently sent some of her dried specimens and a
folio of drawings to Sir Joseph Hooker at Kew Gardens, she
received an encouraging letter, complimenting her on the standard
of her artwork and confirming her classifications of the new
species. With the letter was an autographed copy of his
Genera
Plantarum
, ‘to a fellow student of nature’s
wonders’, and it had become the start of a fascinating
correspondence. The new hobby was one that could be practised
side by side with Jon-Jon’s bird-nesting activities, and it
helped fill the dreary days when Ralph was away, although now she
had difficulty keeping up with Jon-Jon, her swollen belly
reducing her to an undignified waddle. She had to leave all the
climbing and rock-scrambling to him.

This morning they were working one of the kloofs of the hills
above the camp where they had found a beautiful spreading tree
with strange candelabra of fruit on the upper branches. Jonathan
was twenty feet above ground, edging out to snatch a laden branch
when Cathy heard voices calling in the thick bush that clogged
the mouth of the kloof. She swiftly rebuttoned her blouse and
dropped her skirts down over her bare legs – the heat was
oppressive in the confined gulley between the hills and she had
been sitting on the bank and dabbling her feet in the trickle of
the stream.

‘Yoo hoo!’ she yelled, and the telegraph-operator
came sweating and scrambling up the steep side.

He was a dismal shrimp of a man, with a bald head and
protruding eyes, but he was also one of Cathy’s most
fervent admirers. The arrival of a telegraph for her was an
excuse for him to leave his hut and seek her out. He waited
adoringly with his hat in his hands, as she read the message.

‘Passage reserved Union Castle leaving Cape Town for
London March 20th stop open envelope and follow instructions
carefully stop home soon love Ralph.’

‘Will you send a telegraph for me, Mr
Braithwaite?’

‘Of course, Mrs Ballantyne, it will be a great
pleasure.’ The little man blushed like a girl and hung his
head bashfully.

Cathy wrote out the message recalling Zouga Ballantyne to
King’s Lynn on a sheet of her sketchpad, and Mr Braithwaite
clutched it to his concave chest like a holy talisman.

‘Happy Christmas, Mrs Ballantyne,’ he said, and
Cathy started. The days had gone by so swiftly, she had not
realized that the year 1895 was so far gone. Suddenly the
prospect of Christmas alone in the wilderness, another Christmas
without Ralph, appalled her.

‘Happy Christmas, Mr Braithwaite,’ she said,
hoping he would leave before she began to cry. Her pregnancy made
her so weak and weepy – if only Ralph would come back. If
only …

P
itsani was not
a town nor even a village. It was a single trading-store,
standing forlornly in the flat sandveld on the edge of the
Kalahari Desert that stretched away 1,500 miles into the west.
However, it was only a few miles to the frontier of the
Transvaal, but no fence nor border-post marked the division. The
country was so flat and featureless and the scrub so low, that
the rider could see the trading-store from a distance of seven
miles, and around it, shimmering like ghosts in the heat mirage,
the little cone-shaped white tents of an army encamped.

The rider had pushed his horse mercilessly along the thirty
miles from the railway at Mafeking, for he bore an urgent
message. He was an unlikely choice for a peace messenger, for he
was a soldier and a man of action. His name was Captain Maurice
Heany, a handsome man with dark hair and moustaches and flashing
eyes. He had served with Carrington’s horse and the
Bechuana police, and in the Matabele war he had commanded a troop
of mounted infantry. He was a hawk and he bore the message of a
dove. The sentries picked up his dust from two miles out and
there was a small bustle as the guard was called out.

When Heany trotted into the camp all its senior officers were
already gathered at the command tent, and Doctor Jameson himself
came forward to shake his hand and lead him into the tent where
they were screened from curious eyes. Zouga Ballantyne poured
Indian tonic onto a dram of gin, and brought it to him.

‘Sorry, Maurice, this is not the Kimberley Club,
I’m afraid we have no ice.’

‘Ice or not, you have saved my life.’

They knew each other well. Maurice Heany had been one of Ralph
Ballantyne’s and Harry Johnston’s junior partners
when they had contracted to bring the original pioneer column
into Mashonaland.

Heany drank and wiped his moustache before looking up at John
Willoughby, and the little doctor. He was in a quandary as to
whom he should address his message to, for although Willoughby
was the regimental commander and Zouga Ballantyne his
second-in-command, and although Doctor Jameson was officially
only a civilian observer, they all knew with whom the ultimate
decision-making and authority lay.

Jameson smoothed his embarrassment by ordering directly,
‘Well then, out with it, man.’

‘It’s not good news, Doctor Jim. Mr Rhodes is
utterly determined that you must remain here until after the
Reform Committee has captured Johannesburg.’

‘When will that be?’ Jameson demanded bitterly.
‘Just look at these!’ He picked up a sheaf of
telegraph flimsies from the camp table. ‘A new telegraph
every few hours, in Frank Rhodes’ execrable code. Take this
one, yesterday.’ Jameson read aloud: ‘“
It is
absolutely necessary to delay floating until company letterhead
agreed upon
“.’ Jameson dropped the telegraphs
back on the table with disgust. ‘This ridiculous quibbling
over what flag to fly. Damn me, but if we aren’t doing this
for the Union Jack, then what are we doing it for?’

‘It is rather like the timorous bride who, having set
the date, views the approach of the wedding day with delicious
confusion.’ Zouga Ballantyne smiled. ‘You must
remember that our friends on the Reform Committee in Johannesburg
are more used to stock deals and financial speculation than the
use of steel. Like the blushing virgin, they may need a little
judicial forcing.’

‘That’s it exactly.’ Doctor Jameson nodded.
‘And yet Mr Rhodes is concerned that we should not move
ahead of them.’

‘There is one other thing that you should know.’
Heaney hesitated. ‘It does seem that the gentlemen in
Pretoria are aware that something is afoot. There is even talk
that there is a traitor amongst us.’

‘That is unthinkable,’ snapped Zouga.

‘I agree with you, Zouga,’ Doctor Jim nodded.
‘It is much more likely that these damned puerile
telegraphs of Frank Rhodes have come to old Kruger’s
notice.’

‘Be that as it may, gentlemen. The Boers are making
certain preparations – it is even possible that they have
already called out their commandos in the Rustenburg and Zeerust
divisions.’

‘If that is the case,’ Zouga said softly,
‘then we have a choice. We can either move immediately, or
we can all go home to Bulawayo.’

Doctor Jameson could not remain seated any longer, he jumped
up from his canvas chair and began pacing up and down the tent
with quick jerky little strides. They all watched in silence
until he stopped in the opening of the tent and stared out across
the sun-scorched plain towards the eastern horizon beneath which
lay the great golden prize of the Witwatersrand. When at last he
turned to face them, they could see that he had reached his
decision.

‘I am going,’ he said.

‘Thought you would,’ murmured Zouga.

‘What are you going to do?’ Jameson asked as
softly.

‘Going with you,’ said Zouga.

‘Thought you would,’ said Jameson, and then
glanced at Willoughby who nodded.

‘Good! Johnny will you call the men out? I would like to
speak to them before we ride – and, Zouga, will you see to
it that the telegraph lines are all cut? I don’t want ever
to see another one of those communications from Frankie. Anything
more he has to say, he can tell me face to face when we reach
Johannesburg.’

‘T
hey’ve got Jameson!’ The cry
echoed through the elegant hush of the Kimberley Club, like a Hun
war-cry at the gates of Rome.

The consternation was immediate and overwhelming. Members
boiled out of the long bar into the marbled lobby, and surrounded
the news-crier. Others from the reading-room lined the banisters,
shouting their queries down the stair-well. In the dining-room
someone bumped into the carving-wagon in his haste to reach the
lobby, and sent it crashing on its side while the joint rolled
across the floor with roast potatoes preceding it like a squad of
footmen.

The bearer of the news was one of the prosperous Kimberley
diamond-buyers, a profession no longer referred to as
‘kopje-walloping’, and such was his agitation that he
had forgotten to remove his straw boater when entering the club
portals. An offence that at another time would have merited a
reprimand from the committee.

Now he stood in the centre of the lobby, hat firmly on his
head and reading spectacles sliding to the end of his empurpled
nose, a symptom of his excitement and agitation. He was reading
from a copy of
The Diamond Fields Advertiser
, the ink of
which was so fresh that it smeared his fingers: ‘Jameson
raises White Flag at Doornkop after sixteen killed in fierce
fighting. Doctor Jameson, I have the honour to meet you. General
Cronje accepts surrender.’

Ralph Ballantyne had not left his seat at the head of the
corner table, although his guests had deserted him to join the
rush into the lobby. He signalled the distracted wine waiter to
refill his glass, and then helped himself to another spoonful of
the
sole bonne femme
, while he waited for his guests to
return. They came trooping back, led by Aaron Fagan, like a
funeral party returning from the cemetery.

‘The Boers must have been waiting for
them—’

‘Doctor Jim walked straight into it—’

‘What on earth did the man think he was
doing?’

Chairs rasped and every one of them reached for his glass the
moment he was seated.

‘He had six hundred and sixty men and guns. By God, it
was a carefully planned thing then.’

‘There will be a few tales to tell.’

‘And heads to roll, no doubt.’

‘Doctor Jim’s luck has run out at last.’

‘Ralph, your father is amongst the prisoners!’
Aaron was reading the newsprint.

For the first time Ralph showed emotion. ‘That’s
not possible.’ He snatched the paper from Aaron’s
hand, and stared at it in agony.

‘What happened?’ he muttered. ‘Oh God, what
has happened?’ But somebody else was yelling in the
lobby.

‘Kruger has arrested all the members of the Reform
Committee – he has promised to have them tried for their
lives.’

‘The gold mines!’ another said clearly in the
ensuing silence, and instinctively every head lifted to the clock
on the wall above the dining-room entrance. It was twenty minutes
to two. The stock exchange re-opened on the hour. There was
another rush, this time out of the club doors. On the sidewalk,
hatless members shouted impatiently for their carriages, while
others set out at a determined trot towards the stock exchange
buildings.

The club was almost deserted, not more than ten diners were
left at the tables. Aaron and Ralph were alone at the corner
table. Ralph still held the list of prisoners in his hand.

‘I cannot believe it,’ he whispered.

‘It’s a catastrophe. What can possibly have
possessed Jameson?’ Aaron agreed.

It seemed that the worst had happened, nothing could match the
dreadful tidings that they had received so far, but then the club
secretary came out of his office ashen-faced, and stood in the
doorway of the dining-room.

‘Gentlemen,’ he croaked. ‘I have some more
terrible news. It has just come through on the wire. Mr Rhodes
has offered his resignation as prime minister of Cape Colony. He
has also offered to resign from the chairmanship of the Charter
Company, of De Beers and of Consolidated Goldfields.’

‘Rhodes,’ Aaron whispered. ‘Mr Rhodes was in
it. It’s a conspiracy – the Lord only knows what will
be the final consequences of this thing, and who Mr Rhodes will
bring down with him.’