Текст книги "Power of the Sword"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

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The two men quickly perched on the elegant but uncomfortable Art Deco chairs and leaned towards her attentively.

It has come at last, Centaine told them. They have cut our quota. They rocked back in their seats and exchanged a brief glance before turning back to Centaine.

We have been expecting it for almost a year, Abraham pointed out.

Which does not make the actuality any more pleasant, Centaine told him tartly.

How much? Twenty-man-Jones asked.

Forty percent, Centaine answered, and he looked as though he might burst into tears while he considered it.

Each of the independent diamond producers was allocated a quota by the Central Selling Organization. The arrangement was informal and probably illegal, but nonetheless rigorously enforced, and none of the independents had ever been foolhardy enough to test the legality of the system or the share of the market they were given.

Forty percent! Abraham burst out. That's iniquitous! An accurate observation, dear Abe, but not particularly useful at this stage. Centaine looked to Twenty-man-Jones.

No change in the categories? he asked. The quotas were broken down by carat weight into the different types of stones, from dark industrial boart to the finest gem quality, and by size from the tiny crystals of ten points and smaller to the big valuable stones.

Same percentages, Centaine agreed, and he slumped in his chair, pulled a notebook from his inside pocket and began a series of quick calculations. Centaine glanced behind her to where Shasa leaned against the panelled bulkhead.

Do you understand what we are talking about? The quota? Yes, I think so, Mater. If you don't understand, then ask, she ordered brusquely and turned back to Twenty-man-Jones.

Could you appeal for a ten percent increase at the top end? he asked, but she shook her head.

I have already done so and they turned me down. De Beers in their infinite compassion point out that the biggest drop in demand has been at the top end, at the gem and jewellery level. He returned to his notebook, and they listened to his pencil scratching on the paper until he looked up.

Can we break even? Centaine asked quietly, and Twenty-man-Jones looked as though he might shoot himself rather than reply.

It will be close,he whispered, and we'll have to fire and cut and hone, but we should be able to pay costs, and perhaps even turn a small profit still, depending upon the floor price that De Beers sets. But the cream will be skimmed off the top, I'm afraid, Mrs Courtney. Centaine felt weak and trembly with relief. She took her hands off the desk and placed them in her lap so the others might not notice. She did not speak for a few moments, and then she cleared her throat to make certain her voice did not quaver.

The effective date for the quota cut is the first of March, she said. That means we can deliver one more full package.

You know what to do, Dr Twenty-man-jones. We will fill the package with sweeteners, Mrs Courtney. What is a sweetener, Dr Twenty-man-jones? Shasa spoke for the first time, and the engineer turned to him seriously.

When we turn up a number of truly excellent diamonds in one period of production, we reserve some of the best of them, set them aside to include in a future package which might be of inferior quality. We have a reserve of these high quality stones which we will now deliver to the CSO while we still have the opportunity. I understand, Shasa nodded. Thank you, Dr Twenty-man-Jones. Pleased to be of service, Master Shasa. Centaine stood up. We can go in to dinner now, and the white-jacketed servant opened the sliding doors through into the dining room where the long table gleamed with silver and crystal and the yellow roses stood tall in their antique celadon vases.

A mile down the railway track from where Centaine's coach stood, two men sat huddled over a smoky campfire watching the maize porridge bubbling in the billy-can and discussing the horses. The entire plan hinged on the horses. They needed at least fifteen, and they had to be strong, desert hardened animals.

The man I am thinking of is a good friend, Lothar said.

Even the best friend in the world won't lend you fifteen good horses. We can't do it with less than fifteen, and you won't buy them for a hundred pounds. Lothar sucked on the stinking clay pipe and it gurgled obscenely. He spat the yellow juice into the fire. I'd pay a hundred pounds for a decent cheroot, he murmured.

Not my hundred, you won't, Hendrick contradicted him.

Leave the horses for now, Lothar suggested. Let's go over the men we need for the relays. The men are easier than the horses. Hendrick grinned.

These days you can buy a good man for the price of a meal, and have his wife for the pudding. I have already sent messages to them to meet us at Wild Horse Pan. They both glanced up as Manfred came out of the darkness, and when Lothar saw his son's expression he stuffed the notebook into his pocket and stood up quickly.

Papa, you must come quickly, Manfred pleaded.

What is it, Manie? Sarah's mother and the little ones. They are all sick. I told them you would come, Papa. Lothar had the reputation of being able to heal humans and animals of all their ills, from gunshot wounds and measles to staggers and distemper.

Sarah's family was living under a tattered sheet of tarpaulin near the centre of the encampment. The woman lay beneath a greasy blanket with the two small children beside her. Though she was probably not older than thirty years, care and punishing labour and poor food had greyed and shrunken her into an old woman. She had lost most of her upper teeth so that her face seemed to have collapsed.

Sarah knelt beside her with a damp rag with which she was trying to wipe her flushed face. The woman rolled her head from side to side and mumbled in delirium.

Lothar knelt on the woman's other side, facing the girl.

Where is your pa, Sarah? He should be here., He went away to find work on the mines, she whispered.

When? Long ago. And then she went on loyally, But he is going to send for us, and we are going to live in a nice house How long has your ma been sick? Since last night. Sarah tried again to place the rag on the woman's forehead but she struck it away weakly.

And the babies? Lothar studied their swollen faces.

Since the morning. Lothar drew back the blanket and the stench of liquid faeces was thick and choking.

I tried to clean them, Sarah whispered defensively, but they just dirty themselves again. I don't know what to do., Lothar lifted the little girl's soiled dress. Her small pot belly was swollen with malnutrition and her skin was chalky white. An angry crimson rash was blazoned across it.

involuntarily Lothar jerked his hands away. Manfred, he demanded sharply. Have you touched them, any of them? Yes, Pa. I tried to help Sarah clean them. Go to Hendrick, Lothar ordered. Tell him we are leaving immediately. We have to get out of here. What is it, Pa? Manfred lingered.

Do as I tell you, Lothar told him angrily, and when Manfred backed away into the darkness, he returned to the girl.

Have you been boiling your drinking water? he asked, and she shook her head.

It was always the same, Lothar thought. Simple country people who had lived far from other human habitation all their lives, drinking at sweet clean springs and defecating carelessly in the open veld. They did not understand the hazards when forced to live in close proximity to others.

What is it, Oom? Sarah asked softly. What is wrong with them? Enteric fever. Lothar saw that it meant nothing to her.

Typhoid fever, he tried again.

Is it bad? she asked helplessly, and he could not meet her eyes. He looked again at the two small children. The fever had burned them out, and the diarrhoea had dehydrated them. Already it was too late. With the mother there was perhaps still a chance, but she had been weakened also.

Yes, Lothar said. It is bad. The typhoid would be spreading through the encampment like fire in the winter-dry veld.

There was already a good chance that Manfred might have been infected, and at the thought he stood up quickly and stepped away from the foul-smelling mattress.

What must I do? Sarah pleaded.

Give them plenty to drink, but make sure the water is boiled. Lothar backed away. He had seen typhoid in the concentration camps of the English during the war. The death-toll had been more horrible than that of the battlefield.

He had to get Manfred away from here.

Do you have medicine for it, Oom? Sarah followed him.

I don't want my ma to die, I don't want my baby sister if you can give me some medicine, She was struggling with her tears, bewildered and afraid, turning to him in pathetic trust.

Lothar's only duty was to his own, yet he was torn by the child's little display of courage. He wanted to tell her, There is no medicine for them. There is nothing that can be done for them. They are in God's hands now. Sarah came after him and took Lothar's hand, tugging desperately at it as she tried to lead him back to the shelter where the woman and the two small children lay dying.

Help me, Oom. Help me to make them better. Lothar's skin crawled at the girl's touch. He could imagine the loathsome infection being transferred from her warm soft skin. He had to get away.

Stay here, he told her, trying to disguise his revulsion.

Give them water to drink. I will go to fetch medicine. When will you come back? She looked up trustingly into his face, and it took all his strength to tell the lie.

I will come back as soon as I can,he promised, and gently broke her grip.

Give them water, he repeated, and turned away, Thank you, she called after him softly. God bless you, you are a kind man, Oom. Lothar could not reply. He could not even look back.

Instead he hurried through the darkened camp. This time, because he was listening for them, he picked up the other little sounds from the huts he passed: the fretful feverish cry of a child, the gasp and moan of a woman in the terrible abdominal cramps of enteric fever, the concerned murmurs of those who tended them.

From one of the tarpaper huts a gaunt dark creature emerged and clutched at his arm. He was not sure whether it was man or woman until she spoke in a cracked almost demented falsetto.

Are you a doctor? I have to find a doctor. Lothar shrugged off the clawed hand and broke into a run.

Swart Hendrick was waiting for him. He had the pack on his shoulder already and was kicking sand over the embers of the campfire. Manfred squatted on one side, beneath the thorn tree.

Enteric. Lothar said the dread word. It's through the camp already. Hendrick froze. Lothar had seen him stand down the charge of a wounded bull elephant, but he was afraid now.

Lothar could see it in the way he held his great black head and smell it on him, a strange odour like that of one of the copper-hooded desert cobras when aroused.

Come on, Manfred. We are getting out. Where are we going, Pa? Manfred remained squatting.

Away from here, away from the town and this plague. What about Sarah? Manfred ducked his head on to his shoulders, a stubborn gesture which Lothar recognized.

She is nothing to us. There is nothing we can do. She's going to die, like her ma, and the little kids. Manfred looked up at his father. She's going to die, isn't she? Get up on your feet, Lothar snarled at him. His guilt made him fierce. We are going. He made an authoritative gesture and Hendrick reached down and hauled Manfred to his feet.

Come, Manie, listen to your Pa. He followed Lothar, dragging the boy by his arm.

They crossed the railway embankment and Manfred stopped pulling back. Hendrick released him, and he followed obediently. Within the hour they reached the main road, a dusty silver river in the moonlight running down the pass through the hills, and Lothar halted.

Are we going for the horses now? Hendrick asked.

Yes. Lothar nodded. That's the next step. But his head turned back in the direction they had come and they were all silent, looking back with him.

I couldn't take the chance, Lothar explained. I couldn't let Manfred stay near them. Neither of them answered. We have to get on with our preparations, the horses, we have to get the horses, His voice trailed off.

Suddenly Lothar snatched the pack from Hendrick's shoulder and threw it to the ground. He ripped it open angrily and snatched out the small canvas roll in which he kept his surgical instruments and store of medicines.

Take Manie, he ordered Hendrick. Wait for me in the gorge of the Gamas river, at the same place we camped on the march from Usakos. You remember it? Hendrick nodded. How long will it be before you come? As long as it takes them to die, said Lothar. He stood up and looked at Manfred.

Do what Hendrick tells you, he ordered.

Can't I come with you, Pa? Lothar did not bother to reply. He turned and strode back amongst the moonlit thorn trees and they watched him until he disappeared. Then Hendrick dropped to his knees and began re-rolling the pack.

Sarah squatted beside the fire, her skirts pulled up around her skinny brown thighs, slitting her eyes against the smoke as she waited for the soot-blackened billy to boil.

She looked up and saw Lothar standing at the edge of the firelight. She stared at him, and then slowly her pale delicate features seemed to crumple and the tears streamed down her cheeks, glistening in the light of the flames.

I thought you weren't coming back, she whispered. I thought you had gone. Lothar shook his head abruptly, still so angry with his own weakness that he could not trust himself to speak.

Instead he squatted across the fire from her and spread the canvas roll. Its contents were pitifully inadequate. He could draw a rotten tooth, lance a boil or a snake-bite, or set a broken limb, but to treat runaway enteric there was almost nothing. He measured a spoonful of a black patent medicine, Chamberlain's Famous Diarrhoea Remedy, into the tin mug and filled it with hot water from the billy.

Help me, he ordered Sarah and between them they lifted the youngest child into a sitting position. She was without weight and he could feel every bone in her tiny body, like that of a fledgling taken from the nest. It was hopeless.

She'll be dead by morning he thought, and held the mug to her lips. She did not last that long; she slipped away a few hours before dawn. The moment of death was ill-defined, and Lothar was not certain it was over until he felt for the child's pulse at the carotid and felt the chill of eternity in her wasted flesh.

The little boy lasted until noon and died with as little fuss as his sister. Lothar wrapped them in the same grey, soiled blanket and carried them in his arms to the communal grave that had been already dug at the edge of the camp.

They made a small lonely little package on the sandy floor of the square excavation, at the end of the row of larger bodies.

Sarah's mother fought for her life.

God knows why she should want to go on living, Lothar thought, there isn't much in it for her. But she moaned and rolled her head and cried out in the delirium of fever. Lothar began to hate her for the stubborn struggle to survive that kept him beside her foul mattress, forced to share in her degradation, to touch her hot fever-wracked skin and dribble liquid into her toothless mouth.

At dusk he thought she had won. Her skin cooled and she was quieter. She reached out feebly for Sarah's hand and tried to speak, staring up at her face as though she recognized her, the words catching and cawing in the back of her throat and thick yellow mucus bubbling in the corners of her lips.

The effort was too much. She closed her eyes and seemed to sleep.

Sarah wiped her lips and held on to the thin bony hand with the blue veins swelling under the thin skin.

An hour later the woman sat up suddenly, and said clearly: Sarah, where are you, child? then fell back and fought for a long strangling breath. The breath ended in the middle and her bony chest subsided gradually, and the flesh seemed to droop from her face like warm candlewax.

This time Sarah walked beside him as Lothar carried the woman to the grave site. He laid her at the end of the row of corpses. Then they walked back to the hut.

Sarah stood and watched Lothar roll the canvas pack, and her small white face was desolate. He went half a dozen paces and then turned back. She was quivering like a rejected puppy, but she had not moved.

All right, he sighed with resignation. Come on, then. And she scampered to his side.

I won't be any trouble, she gabbled, almost hysterical with relief. I'll help you. I can cook and sew and wash. I won't be any trouble. What are you going to do with her? Hendrick asked. She can't stay with us. We could never do what we have to do with a child of her age. I could not leave her there, Lothar defended himself, in that death camp. It would have been better for us. Hendrick shrugged. But what do we do now? They had left the camp in the bottom of the gorge and climbed to the top of the rocky wall. The children were far below on the sandbank at the edge of the only stagnant green pool in the gorge that still held water.

They squatted side by side, Manfred with his right hand extended as he held the handline. They saw him lean back and strike, then heave the line in hand over hand. Sarah jumped up and her excited shrieks carried up to where they sat. They watched Manfred swing the kicking slippery black catfish out of the green water. It squirmed on the sand, glistening with wetness.

I will decide what to do with her, Lothar assured him, but Hendrick interrupted.

It better be soon. Every day we waste the water-holes in the north are drying out, and we still don't even have the horses. Lothar stuffed his clay pipe with fresh shag and thought about it. Hendrick was right; the girl complicated everything. He had to get rid of her somehow. Suddenly he looked up from the pipe and smiled.

My cousin, he said, and Hendrick was puzzled.

I did not know you had a cousin. Most of them perished in the camps, but Trudi survived. Where is she, this beloved cousin of yours? She lives on our road to the north. We'll waste no time in dumping the brat with her. I don't want to go, Sarah whispered miserably. I don't know your aunt. I want to stay here with you. 'Hush, Manfred cautioned her. You'll wake Pa and Henny. He pressed closer to her and touched her lips to quieten her. The fire had died down and the moon had set.

Only the desert stars lit them, big as candles against the black velvet curtain of the sky.

Sarah's voice was so small now that he could barely make out the words, though her lips were inches from his ear.

You are the only friend I have ever had, she said, and who will teach me to read and write? Manfred felt an enormous weight of responsibility conferred upon him by her words. His feelings for her to this A moment had been ambivalent. Like her he had never had friends of his own age, never attended a school, never lived in a town.

His only teacher had been his father. He had lived all his life with grown men; his father and Hendrick and the rough hard men of the road camps and trawler fleet.

There had been no woman to caress or gentle him.

She had been his first female companion, though her weakness and silliness irritated him. He had to wait for her to catch up when they climbed the hills and she wept when he beat a squirming catfish to death or wrung the neck of a fat feathered brown francolin taken in one of his noose snares. However, she could make him laugh and he enjoyed her voice when she sang, thin but sweet and melodious. Then again although her adulation was sometimes cloying and excessive, he experienced an unaccountable sense of well being when she was with him. She was quick to learn and in the few days they had been together she already had the alphabet by heart and the multiplication tables from two to ten.

It would have been much better if she had been a boy, but then there was something else. The smell of her skin and the softness of her intrigued him. Her hair was so fine and silky. Sometimes he would touch it as though by accident and she would freeze and keep very still under his fingers, so that he was embarrassed and dropped his hand self-consciously.

Occasionally she would brush against him like an affectionate cat and the strange pleasure this gave him was out of all proportion to the brief contact; and when they slept under the same blanket, he would awake in the night and listen to her breathing and her hair tickled his face.

The road to Okahandja was long and hard and dusty. They had been on it for five days now. They travelled only in the early morning and late evening. In the noonday the men would rest up in the shade, and the two children could sneak away to talk and set snares or go over Sarah's lessons. They did not play games of make-believe as other children of their age might have done. Their lives were too close to harsh reality. And now a new threat had been thrust upon them: the threat of separation which grew more menacing with each mile of road that fell behind them. Manfred could not find the words of comfort for her. His own sense of coming loss was aggravated by her declaration of friendship. She snuggled against him under the single blanket and the heat that emanated from her thin frail body was startling. Awkwardly he slipped an arm around her thin shoulders and her hair was soft against his cheek.

I'll come back for you. He had not meant to say that. He had not even thought it before that moment.

Promise me. She twisted so that her lips were by his ear.

Promise me you will come back to fetch me., I promise I will come back to you, he repeated solemnly, appalled at what he was doing. He had no control over his future, could never be certain of honouring a promise like that.

When? She fastened on it eagerly. We have something to do. Manfred did not know the details of what his father and Henny were planning. He only understood that it was arduous and somehow dangerous.

Something important. No, I can't tell you about it. But, when it is over, we will come back for you. It seemed to satisfy her. She sighed, and he felt the tension go out of her limbs. Her whole body softened with sleepiness, and her voice drifted into a low murmur.

You are my friend, aren't you, Manie? Yes. I'm your friend. My best friend? Yes, your best friend. She sighed again and fell asleep. He stroked her hair, so soft and fluffy under his hand, and he was assailed by the melancholy of impending loss. He felt that he would weep, but that was a girlish thing and he would not let it happen.

The following evening they trudged ankle-deep in the floury white dust up another fold in the vast undulating plain, and when the children caught up with Lothar at the crest, he pointed wordlessly ahead.

The cluster of iron roofs of the little frontier town of Okahandja shone in the lowering sunlight like mirrors, and in their midst was the single spire of a church. Also clad in corrugated iron, it barely topped the trees which grew around it.

A We'll be there after dark. Lothar eased his pack to his other shoulder and looked down at the girl. Her fine hair was plastered with dust and sweat to her forehead and cheeks, and her untidy sun-streaked blond pigtails stuck out behind her ears like horns. The sun had burned her so dark that were it not for the fair hair she might have been a Nama child. She was dressed as simply and her bare feet were white with floury dust.

Lothar had considered and then rejected the idea of buying her a new dress and shoes at one of the little general-dealer's stores along the road. The expense might have been worthwhile, for if the child were rejected by his cousin, He did not follow the thought further. He would clean her up a little at the borehole that supplied the town's water.

The lady you will be staying with is Mevrou Trudi Bierman. She is a very kind religious lady., Lothar had little in common with his cousin. They had not met in thirteen years. She is married to the dominie of the Dutch Reformed Church here at Okahandja. He is also a fine God-fearing man. They have children your age. You will be very happy with them. Will he teach me to read like Manie does? Of course he will. Lothar was prepared to give any assurance to rid himself of the child. He teaches his own children and you will be like one of them. Why can't Manie stay with me? Manie has to come with me. Please, can't I come with you too? No, you cannot. You'll stay here, and I don't want to go over that again. At the reservoir of the borehole pump Sarah bathed the dust from her legs and arms and dampened her hair before re-plaiting her pigtails.

I'm ready, she told Lothar at last, and her lips trembled while he looked her over critically. She was a grubby little urchin, a burden upon them, but somehow a fondness for her had crept in upon him.

He could not help but admire her spirit and her courage. Suddenly he found himself wondering if there was no other way than abandoning the child and it took an effort to thrust the idea aside and steel himself to what must be done.

Come on then. He took her hand and turned to Manfred.

You wait here with Henny. Please let me come with you, Pa, Manfred begged. Just as far as the gate. just to say goodbye to Sarah-, Lothar wavered and then agreed gruffly. All right, but keep your mouth shut and remember your manners. He led them down the narrow sanitary lane at the rear of the row of cottages until they came to the back gate of a larger house beside the church and obviously attached to it.

There was no mistaking that it was the pastory. There was a light burning in the back room, the fierce white light of a Petromax lamp, and the bugs and moths were drumming against the wire screening that covered the back door.

The sound of voices raised in a dolorous religious chant carried to them as they opened the gate and went up the kitchen path. When they reached the screen door they could see in the lighted kitchen beyond a family seated at a long deal table, singing together.

Lothar knocked on the door and the hymn trailed away.

From the head of the table a man rose and came towards the door. He was dressed in a black suit that bagged at the knees and elbows but was stretched tightly across his broad shoulders. His hair was thick and long, hanging in a greying mane to his shoulders and sprinkling the dark cloth with a flurry of dandruff.

Who is it? he demanded, in a voice trained to boom out from the pulpit. He flung open the screen door and peered out into the dark. He had a broad intelligent forehead with the arrowhead of a sharp widow's peak emphasizing its depth, and his eyes were deep-set and fierce as those of a prophet from the Old Testament.

You! He recognized Lothar, but made no attempt to greet him further. instead he looked back over his shoulder.

'Mevrou, it is your godless cousin come in from the Wilderness like Cain! The fair-headed woman rose from the foot of the table, hushing the children and signalling them to remain in their seats. She was almost as tall as her husband, in her forties and well fleshed, with a rosy complexion and braids piled on top of her head in the Germanic fashion. She folded her thick creamy-skinned arms across her bulky shapeless bosom.

What do you want with us, Lothar De La Rey? she demanded. This is the God-fearing home of Christian folk; We want nothing of your wanton ways and wild behaviour. She broke off as she noticed the children and stared at them with interest.

Hello, Trudi. Lothar drew Sarah forward into the light.

It has been many years. You look well and happy., I am happy in God's love, his cousin agreed. But you know I have seldom been well. She assumed an expression of suffering and Lothar went on quickly.

I am giving you another chance of Christian service. He pushed Sarah forward. This poor little orphan, she is alone.

She needs a home. You could take her in, Trudi, and God will love you for it. Is it another of your, His cousin glanced back into the kitchen at the interested faces of her own two daughters, and then lowered her voice and hissed at him, Another of your bastards? Her family died in the typhoid epidemic. It was a mistake. He saw her recoil from the girl. That was weeks ago. She is free of the disease. Trudi relaxed a little and Lothar went on quickly. I cannot care for her. We are travelling, and she needs a woman. We have too many mouths already, she began, but her husband interrupted her.

Come here, child, he boomed and Lothar shoved Sarah towards him. 'What is your name? Sarah Bester, Oom. So you are of the Volk? the tall dominie demanded. One of the true Afrikaner blood? Sarah nodded uncertainly.

And your dead mother and father were wed in the Reformed Church? She nodded again. And you believe in the Lord God of Israel? Yes, Oom. My mother taught me, Sarah whispered.

Then we cannot turn the child away, he told his wife.

Bring her in, woman. God will provide. God always provides for his chosen people. Trudi Bierman sighed theatrically and reached for Sarah's arm. So thin, and filthy as a Nama piccaninny. And you, Lothar De La Rey, the dominie pointed a finger at him. Has not the merciful Lord yet shown you the error of your ways, and placed your feet on the path of righteousness? Not yet, dear cousin. Lothar backed away from the door, his relief undisguised.

The dominie's attention flicked to the boy standing in the shadows behind Lothar. Who is this? ,My son, Manfred. Lothar placed a protective arm over the boy's shoulder, and the dominie came closer and stooped to study his face closely. His great dark beard bristled and his eyes were wild and fanatical, but Manfred stared directly into them, and saw them change. They warmed and lightened with the sparkle of good humour and compassion.

Do I frighten you, Jong? His voice mellowed, and Manfred shook his head.

No, Oomie, or not too much anyway. The dominie chuckled. Who teaches you your Bible, Jong? He used the expression meaning young or young man.