Текст книги "Power of the Sword"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

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Текущая страница: 31 (всего у книги 51 страниц)

Moses stepped out of the Ford and called imperatively into the darkness and half a dozen dark figures came scurrying from amongst the shacks. They were children, Hendrick realized, though their age and sex were obscure.

Stand guard on my motor car, Moses ordered, and tossed a small coin that twinkled in the firelight until one of the children snatched it from the air.

Eh he! Baba! they squeaked, and Moses led his brother amongst the shacks for a hundred yards and the sound of the women singing was louder, a thrilling evocative sound, and there was the buzz of many other voices and the sour smell of old stale alcohol and meat cooking on an open fire.

They had reached a long low building, a rough shed cobbled together from discarded material. Its walls were crooked and the outline of the roof was buckled and sway backed against the fireglow. Moses knocked upon the door and a lantern was flashed in his face before the door was thrown open.

So my brother! Moses took Hendrick's arm and drew him into the doorway. This is your first shebeen. Here you will have all that I promised you: women and liquor, your fill of both. The shed was packed with human beings, jammed so tightly that the far wall was lost in the fog of blue tobacco smoke and a man must shout to be heard a few feet away; the black faces shone with sweat and excitement. The men were miners, drinking and singing and laughing and groping the women. Some were very drunk and a few had fallen to the earth floor and lay in their own vomit. The women were of every tribe, all of their faces painted in the fashion of white women, dressed in flimsy gaudy dresses, singing and dancing and shaking their hips, picking out the men with money and tugging them away through the doors at the back of the shed.

Moses did not have to force his way through this jam of bodies. It opened almost miraculously before him, and many of the women called to him respectfully. Hendrick followed closely behind his brother and he was struck with admiration that Moses had been able to achieve this degree of recognition in the three short months since they had arrived on the Rand.

There was a guard at the door at the far end of the shebeen, an ugly scar-faced ruffian, but he also recognized Moses and clapped his hands in greeting before he pulled aside the canvas screen to allow them to go through into the back room.

This room was less crowded, and there were tables and benches for the customers. The girls in here were still graced with youth, bTight-eyed and fresh-faced. An enormous black woman was seated at a separate table in the corner. She had the serene round moon face of the high-bred Zulu but its contours were almost obscured by fat. Her dark amber skin was stretched tightly over this abundance; her belly hung down in a series of fleshy balconies onto her lap, and fat hung in great black dewlaps under her arms and formed bracelets around her wrists. On the table in front of her were neat stacks of coins, silver and copper, and wads of multicoloured bank notes, and the girls were bringing her more to add to the piles each minute.

When she saw Moses her perfect white teeth shone like precious porcelain; she lumbered to her feet, her thighs so elephantine that she waddled with her feet wide apart as she came to him and greeted him as though he were a tribal chief, touching her forehead and clapping with respect.

This is Mama Nginga, Moses told Hendrick. She is the biggest shebeen keeper and whore mistress on Drake's Farm.

Soon she will be the only one on Drake's Farm. only then did Hendrick realize that he knew most of the men at the tables. They were Buffaloes who had travelled on the Wenela train and taken the initiation oath with him, and they greeted him with unfeigned delight and introduced him to the strangers in their midst.

This is Henry Tabaka. He is the one of the legend. The man who slew Tshayela, the white overseer, and Hendrick noticed the immediate respect in the eyes of these new Buffaloes. They were men from the other mines along the reef, recruited by the original Buffaloes, and Hendrick saw that on the whole they had chosen well.

My brother has not had a woman or a taste of good liquor in three months, Moses told them as he seated himself at the head of the central table. Mama Nginga, we don't want your skokiaan. She makes it herself, he told Hendrick in a loud aside, and she puts in carbide and methylated spirits and dead snakes and aborted babies to give it kick and flavour. Mama Nginga screeched with laughter. My skokiaan is famous from Fordsburg to Bapsfontein. Even some of the white men, the mabuni, come for it. It's good enough for them, Moses agreed, but not good enough for my brother. Mama Nginga sent one of the girls to them with a bottle of Cape brandy and Moses seized the young girl around the waist and held her easily. He pulled open the European-style blouse she wore, forcing out her big round breasts so that they shone like washed coal in the lamplight.

This is where we start, my Buffaloes, a girl and a bottle, he told them. There are fifty thousand lonely men at Goldi far from their wives, all of them hungry for sweet young flesh. There are fifty thousand men, thirsty from their work in the earth, and the white men forbid them to slake their thirst with this. He shook the bottle of golden spirits. There are fifty thousand randy thirsty black men at Goldi, all with money in their pockets. The Buffaloes will give them what they want. He pushed the girl into Hendrick's lap and she coiled herself about him with professionally simulated lust and thrust her shining black breasts into his face.

When the dawn broke over the sprawling shanty town of Drake's Farm, Moses and Hendrick picked their way down the reeking convoluted alleys to where they had left the Ford and the children were guarding it still, like jackals around the lion's kill. The brothers had sat all night in the back room of Mama Nginga's shebeen and the preliminary planning was at last done. Each of their lieutenants had been allotted areas and responsibilities.

But there is still much work to be done, my brother, Moses told Hendrick as he started the Ford. We have to find the liquor and the women. We will have to bring all the little shebeens and brothels like goats into our kraal, and there is only one way to do that. I know how that has to be done, Hendrick nodded. And we have an impi to do it. And an induna, a general, to command that impi. Moses glanced at Hendrick significantly. The time has come for you to leave CRC, my brother. All your time and your strength will be needed now. You will waste no more of your strength in the earth, breaking rock for a white man's pittance. From now on you will be breaking heads for power and great fortune. He smiled thinly. You will never have to pine again for those little white stones of yours. I will give you more, much more. Marcus Archer arranged for Hendrick's contract at CRC to be cancelled and for him to be issued travel papers for one of the special trains that carried the returning miners who had worked out their ticket back to the reservations and the distant villages. But Hendrick never caught that train. Instead he disappeared from the white man's records and was absorbed into the shadowy halfworld of the townships.

Mama Nginga set aside one of the shanties at the back of her shebeen for his exclusive use, and one of her girls was always on hand to sweep and wash his laundry, to cook his food and warm his bed.

It was six days after his arrival at Drake's Farm that the Buffalo impi opened its campaign. The objective had been discussed and carefully explained by Hendrick and it was simple and clear-cut. They would make Drake's Farm their own citadel.

On the first night twelve of the opposition shebeens were burned to the ground. Their proprietors burned with them, as did those of their customers who were too drunk to crawl out of the flaming hovels. Drake's Farm was far outside the sector served by the white man's fire engines, so no attempt was made to fight the flames. Rather, the inhabitants of Drake's Farm gathered to watch the spectacle as though it was a circus arranged particularly for their entertainment.

The children danced and shrilled in the firelight, and screeched with laughter as the bottles of spirits exploded like fireworks.

Nearly all the girls escaped from the flames. Those who had been at work when the fire began ran out naked, clutching their scanty clothing and weeping wildly at the loss of all their worldly possessions and savings. However, there were kindly concerned men to comfort them and lead them away to Mama Nginga's.

Within forty-eight hours the shebeens had been rebuilt on their ashes and the girls were back at work again. Their lot was much improved; they were well fed and clothed and they had their own Buffaloes to protect them from their customers, to make certain they were neither cheated nor abused. of course, if they in turn shirked or tried to cheat, they were beaten soundly; but they expected that, it made them feel part of the totem and replaced the father and brothers they had left in the reservations.

Hendrick allowed them to keep a fixed proportion of the fee they charged and made sure his men respected their rights to it.

Generosity breeds loyalty and firmness a loving heart, he explained to his Buffaloes, and he extended his happy house policy to embrace his customers and everybody else at Drake's Farm. The black miners coming into the township were as carefully protected as his girls were. In very short order the footpads, pickpockets, muggers and other smalltime entrepreneurs were routed out. The quality of the liquor improved. From now on all of it was brewed under Mama Nginga's personal supervision.

it was strong as a bull elephant, and bit like a rabid hyena, but it no longer turned men blind or destroyed their brains, and because it was manufactured in bulk, it was reasonably priced. A man could get falling-down drunk for two shillings or have a good clean girl for the same price.

Hendrick's men met every bus and train coming in from the country districts, bringing the young black girls who had run away from their villages and their tribe to reach the glitter of Goldi. They led the pretty ones back to Drake's Farm. When this source of supply became inadequate as the demand increased, Hendrick sent his men into the country districts and villages to recruit the girls at the source with sweet words and promises of pretty things.

The city fathers of Johannesburg and the police were fully aware of the unacknowledged halfworld of the townships that had grown up south of the goldfields but, daunted by the prospect of closing them down and finding alternative accommodation for thousands of vagrants and illegals, they turned a blind eye, appeasing their civic consciences by occasional raids, arrests and the wholesale imposition of fines. However, as the incidence of murder and robbery and other serious crime mysteriously abated at Drake's Farm and it became an area of comparative calm and order, so their condescension and forbearance became even more pragmatic. The police raids ceased, and the prosperity of the area increased as its reputation as a safe and convivial place to have fun spread amongst the tens of thousands of black mine workers along the Rand. When they had a pass to leave the compound, they would travel thirty and forty miles, bypassing other centres of entertainment to reach it.

However, there were still many hundreds of thousands of other potential customers who could never reach Drake's Farm, and Moses Gama turned his attention to these.

They cannot come to us, so we must go to them. He explained to Hendrick what must be done, and it was Hendrick who negotiated the piecemeal purchase of a fleet of second-hand delivery vans and employed a coloured mechanic to renovate them and keep them in running order.

Each evening convoys of these vehicles loaded with liquor and girls left Drake's Farm, journeying down the length of the goldfields to park at some secluded location close to the big mining properties, in a copse of trees, a valley between the mine dumps, or an abandoned shaft building. The guards at the gate of the mine workers compound, who were all Buffaloes, made certain that the customers were allowed in and out, and now every member of the Buffalo totem could share in the good fortune of their clan.

So, my brother, do you still miss your little white stones? Moses asked after their first two years of operation from Drake's Farm.

It was as you promised, Hendrick chuckled. We have everything that a man could wish for now., You are too easily satisfied, Moses chided him.

There is more? Hendrick asked with interest.

We have only just begun, Moses told him.

What is next, my brother? Have you heard of a trade union? Moses asked. Do you know what it is? Hendrick looked dubious, frowning as he thought about it. I know that the white men on the mines have trade unions, and the white men on the railways also. I have heard it spoken of, but I know very little about them. They are white men's business, no concern of the likes of us. You are wrong, my brother, Moses said quietly. The African Mine Workers Union is very much our concern. It is the reason why you and I came to Goldi!

I thought that we came for the money. Fifty thousand union members each paying one shilling a week union dues, isn't that money? Moses asked, and smiled as he watched his brother make the calculation.

Avarice contorted his smile so that the broken gap in his teeth looked like a black mine pit.

It is good money indeed! Moses had learned from his unsuccessful attempts to establish a mine workers union at the H'ani Mine. The black miners were simple souls with not the least vestige of political awareness; they were separated by tribal loyalties; they did not consider themselves part of a single nation.

Tribalism is the one great obstacle in our path, Moses explained to Hendrick. If we were one people we would be like a black ocean, infinite in our power. But we are not one people, Hendrick pointed out. Any more than the white men are one people. A Zulu is as different from an Ovambo as a Scotsman is from a Russian Cossack or an Afrikaner from an Englishman. Hay! Moses smiled. I see you have been reading the books I gave you. When first we came to Goldi you had never heard of a Russian Cossack– You have taught me much about men and the world they live in, Hendrick agreed. Now teach me how you will make a Zulu call an Ovambo his brother. Tell me how we are to take the power that is held so firmly in the hands of the white man. 'These things are possible. The Russian people were as diverse as we black people of Africa. They are Asiatics and Europeans, Tartars and Slavs, but under a great leader they have become a single nation and have overthrown a tyranny even more infamous than the one under which we suffer.

The black people need a leader who knows what is good for them and will force them to it, even if ten thousand or a million die in achieving it. A leader such as you, my brother? Hendrick asked, and Moses smiled his remote enigmatic smile.

The Mine Workers Union first, he said. Like a child learning to walk, one step at a time. The people must be forced to do what is good for them in the long run even though at first it is painful. I am not sure, Hendrick shook his great shaven round head on which the ridged scars stood proud like polished gems of black onyx. What is it we seek, my brother? Is it wealth or power? We are fortunate, Moses answered. You want wealth and I want power. The way I have chosen, each of us will get what he desires. Even with ruthless contingents of the Buffaloes on each of the mine properties the process of unionization was slow and frustrating. By necessity much of it had to be undertaken secretly, for the government's Industrial Conciliation Act placed severe limitations on black labour association and specifically prohibited collective bargaining by black workers. There was also opposition from the workers themselves, their natural suspicion and antagonism towards the new union shop stewards, all of them Buffaloes, all of them appointed and not elected; and the ordinary workers were reluctant to hand over part of their hard-earned wages to something they neither understood nor trusted.

However, with Dr Marcus Archer to advise and counsel them and with Hendrick's Buffaloes to push the cause forward, slowly the unionization of the workers on each of the various mine properties was accomplished.

The miners reluctance to part with their silver shillings was quelled.

There were, of course, casualties, and some men died, but at last there were over twenty thousand dues-paying members of the African Mine Workers Union.

The Chamber of Mines, the association of mining interests, found itself presented with a fait accompli. The members were at first alarmed; their natural instinct was to destroy this cancer immediately.

However, the Chamber members were first and above all else businessmen, concerned with getting the yellow metal to the surface with as little fuss as possible and with paying regular dividends to their shareholders. They understood what havoc a labour battle could wreak amongst their interests, so they held their first cautious informal talks with the nonexistent union and were most gratified to find the self-styled secretary general to be an intelligent articulate and reasonable person.

There was no trace of Bolshevik dialectic in his statements, and far from being radical and belligerent, he was cooperative and respectful in his address.

He is a man we can work with, they told each other. He seems to have influence. We've needed a spokesman for the workers and he seems a decent enough sort. We could have done a lot worse. We can manage this chap. And sure enough, their very first meetings had excellent results and they were able to solve a few small vexing long-term problems to the satisfaction of the union and the profit of the mine owners.

After that the informal, unrecognized union had the Chamber's tacit acceptance, and when a problem arose with their labour the Chamber sent for Moses Garna and it was swiftly settled. Each time this happened, Moses position became more securely entrenched. And, of course, there was never even a hint at strikes or any form of militancy on the union's part.

Do you understand, my brothers? Moses explained to the first meeting of his central committee of the African Mine Workers Union held in Mama Nginga's shebeen. If they come down upon us with their full strength while we are still weak, we will be destroyed for all time. This man Smuts is a devil, and he is truly the steel in the government's spear.

He did not hesitate to send his troops with machine-guns against the white union strikers in 1922. What would he do to black strikers, my brothers? He would water the earth with our blood. No, we must lull them. Patience is the great strength of our people. We have a hundred years, while the white man lives only for the day. In time the black ants of the veld build mountains and devour the carcass of the elephant. Time is our weapon, and time is the white man's enemy. Patience, my brothers, and one day the white man will discover that we are not oxen to be yoked into the traces of his wagon. He will discover rather that we are black-maned lions, fierce eaters of white flesh. How swiftly the years have passed us by since we rode on Tshayela's train from the deserts of the west to the flat shining mountains of Goldi. Hendrick watched the mine dumps on the skyline as Moses drove the old Ford through the sparse traffic of a Sunday morning. He drove sedately, not too slow not too fast, obeying the traffic rules, stopping well in advance of the changing traffic lights, those wonders of the technological age which had only been installed on the main routes within the last few months. Moses always drove like this.

Never draw attention to yourself unnecessarily, my brother, he advised Hendrick. Never give a white policeman an excuse to stop you.

He hates you already for driving a motor car that he cannot afford himself. Never put yourself in his power. The road skirted the rolling fairways of the Johannesburg Country Club, oases of green in the brown veld, watered and groomed and mown until they were velvet green carpets on which the white golfers strolled in their foursomes followed by their barefooted caddies. Further back amongst the trees the white walls of the club house gleamed, and Moses slowed the Ford and turned at the bottom of the club property where the road crossed the tiny dry Sand Spruit river and the signpost said Rivonia Farm'.

They followed the unsurfaced road, and the dust raised by the Ford's wheels hung behind them in the still dry highveld air and then settled gently to powder the brittle frost-dried grass along the verges a bright theatrical red.

The road served a cluster of small-holdings, each of them five or ten acres in extent, and Dr Marcus Archer's property was the one at the end of the road. He made no attempt to farm the land, he had no chickens, horses or vegetable gardens such as the other small-holders kept.

The single building was square and unpretentious, with a tattered thatched roof and wide verandah encompassing all four sides. It was screened from the road by a scraggly plantation of Australian blue gums.

There were four other vehicles parked under the gum trees, and Moses turned the Ford off the track and stopped the engine. Yes, my brother. The years have passed swiftlY, he agreed. They always do when men are intent on dire purposes, and the world is changing all around us. There are great events afoot. it is nineteen years since the revolution in Russia, and Trotsky has been exiled. Herr Hitler has occupied the Rhineland, and in Europe there is talk of war, a war that will destroy forever the curse of Capitalism and from which the revolution will emerge victorious. Hendrick laughed, the black gap in his teeth making it a grimace. These things do not concern us. You are wrong again, my brother. They concern us beyond all else. I do not understand them. ,Then I will help you. Moses touched his arm. 'Come, my brother. I am taking you now to the next step in your understanding of the world. He opened the door of the Ford and Hendrick climbed down on his side and followed him towards the old house.

It will be wise, my brother, if you keep your eyes and your ears open and your mouth closed, Moses told him as they reached the steps at the front verandah. You will learn much that way. As they climbed the steps, Marcus Archer hurried out onto the verandah to greet them, his expression lighting with pleasure as he saw Moses, and he hurried to him and embraced him lovingly then, his arm still around Moses waist, he turned to Hendrick.

You will be Henny. We have spoken about you often. I have met you before, Dr Archer, at the induction centre. That was so long ago. Marcus Archer shook his hand.

And you must call me Marcus. You are a member of our family! He glanced at Moses and his adoration was apparent.

He reminded Hendrick of a young wife all agog with her new husband's virility.

Hendrick knew that Moses lived here at Rivonia Farm with Marcus and he felt no revulsion for the relationship.

He understood how vitally important Marcus Archer's counsel and assistance had been in their successes over the years and approved the price that Moses paid for them. Hendrick himself had used men in the same fashion, never as a loving relationship but as a form of torture of a captured enemy. In his view there was no greater humiliation and degradation that one man could inflict upon another, yet he knew that in his brother's position he would not hesitate to use this strange red-haired little white man as he desired to be used.

Moses has been very naughty in not bringing you to visit us sooner. Marcus slapped Moses arm playfully. There are so many interesting and important people here who you should have met ages ago.

Come along now, let me introduce you. He took Hendrick's arm and led him through to the kitchen.

It was a traditional farmhouse kitchen with stone-flagged floor, a black woodburning stove at the far end and bunches of onions, cured hams and polonies hanging from the hooks in the beams of the ceiling.

Eleven men were seated at the long yellow-wood table, Five of them were white, but the rest were black men, and their ages varied from callow youth to grey-haired sage.

Marcus led Hendrick slowly down both sides of the table, introducing him to each in turn. beginning with the man at the head of the table.

This is the Reverend John Dube, but you will have heard him called Mafakuzela, and Hendrick felt an unaccustomed wave of awe.

Hau, Baba! he greeted the handsome old Zulu with vast respect. He knew that he was the political leader of the Zulu nation, that he was also the editor and founder of the Ilanga Lase Natal newspaper, The Sun of Natal, but most importantly that he was president of the African National Congress, the only political organization that attempted to speak for all the black nations of the southern African continent.

I know of you, Dube told Hendrick quietly. You have done valuable work with the new trade union. You are welcome, my son!

After John Dube, the other men in the room were of small

interest to Hendrick, though there was one young black man who could not have been more than twenty years of age but who nevertheless impressed Hendrick with his dignity and powerful presence.

This is our young lawyer-'

Not yet! Not yet! the young man protested.

Our soon-to-be-lawyer, Marcus Archer corrected himself.

He is Nelson Mandela, son of Chief Henry Mandela from the Transkei. And as they shook hands in the white men's fashion that for Hendrick still felt awkward, he looked into the law student's eyes and thought: This is a young lion. The white men at the table made small impression on Hendrick. There were lawyers and a journalist, and a man who wrote books and poetry of which Hendrick had never heard, but the others treated his opinions with respect.

The only thing that Hendrick found remarkable about these white men was the courtesy which they accorded him.

In a society in which a white man seldom acknowledged the existence of a black except to deliver an order, usually in brusque terms, it was unusual to encounter such concern and condescension. They shook Hendrick's hand without embarrassment, which was in itself strange, and made room for him at the table, poured wine for him from the same bottle and passed food to him on the same plate from which they had served themselves; and when they talked to him it was as, an equal and they called him comrade and brother'.

It seemed that Marcus Archer was a chef of repute, and he fussed over the woodburning stove producing dishes of food so minced and mixed and decorated and swimming in sauce that Hendrick could not tell either by inspection or taste whether they were fish or fowl or four-footed beast, but the others exclaimed and applauded and feasted voraciously.

Moses had advised Hendrick to keep his mouth filled with food rather than words, and to speak only when directly addressed and then in monosyllables, yet the others kept glancing at him with awe for he was an impressive figure in their midst: his head huge and heavy as a cannonball, the shining cicatrice lumped on his shaven pate and his gaze brooding and menacing.

The talk interested Hendrick very little but he feigned glowering attention as the others excitedly discussed the situation in Spain. The Popular Front Government, a coalition of Trotskyites, Socialists, left-wing Republicans and Communists, were threatened by an army mutiny under General Francisco Franco, and the company at Marcus Archer's luncheon table were filled with joyous outrage at this Fascist treachery. It seemed likely that it would plunge the Spanish nation into civil war and they all knew that only in the furnace of war could resolution be forged.

Two of the white men at the table, the poet and the journalist, declared their intention of leaving for Spain as soon as possible to join the struggle, and the other white men made no effort to disguise their envious admiration.

You lucky devils. I would have gone like a shot but the Party wants me to remain here. There were many references to the Party during the course of that long Sunday afternoon, and gradually the company turned its concerted attention on Hendrick as though it had been prearranged. Hendrick was relieved that Moses had insisted he read parts of Das Kapital and some of Lenin's works, in particular What is to be Done? and On Dual Authority. It was true that Hendrick had found them difficult to the point of pain and had followed them only imperfectly. However, Moses had gutted these works for him and presented him with the essentials of Marx's and Lenin's thoughts.

Now they were taking it in turns to talk directly at Hendrick, and he realized that he was being subjected to some sort of test. He glanced at Moses, and although his brother's expression did not change, he sensed that he was willing him consciously to a course of action. Was he trying to warn Hendrick to remain silent? He was not certain, but at that moment Marcus Archer said clearly: of course, the formation of a trade union amongst the black mine workers is in itself sufficient to assure the eventual triumph of the revolution, But his inflection posed a question, and he was watching Hendrick slyly, and Hendrick was not certain from where inspiration came.

I do not agree, he growled, and they were all silent, waiting expectantly. The history of the struggle bears witness that the workers unassisted will rise only as far as the idea of trade unionism, to combine their resources to fight the employers and the capitalist government. But it needs professional revolutionaries bound by complete loyalty to their ideals and by military-type discipline to carry the struggle to its ultimate victorious conclusion. It was almost a verbatim quotation from Lenin's What is to be Done and Hendrick had spoken in English. Even Moses looked amazed by his achievement, while the others exchanged delighted smiles as Hendrick glowered around him and relapsed back into impressive monumental silence.