Rough diamond, p.1
Rough Diamond, page 1
Rough Diamond
Robert L. Fish
This book is dedicated with deep affection to:
Diana Barnato Walker
and
Hugh Fraser
BOOK I: Diamonds!
KIMBERLEY
PROLOGUE
March 1867
The two boys were ten and twelve years old, their names were Piet and Erasmus Jacobs, and they were bored. They sat on the steps leading to the rear stoep of the main house on their father’s farm in Griqualand in southern Africa, and considered various means by which they might relieve that boredom. There was always the balance of their chores, of course, tasks that never seemed to end, but the majority of their assigned work had been attended to and the others, they felt, could wait, at least until a little entertainment had been indulged in.
“I’ll race you to the barn!”
“I’m too tired. Besides, you always win. Anyways, it’s too nice a day.”
It was a nice day, indeed; a warm pleasant autumn day with the cackle of hens from the yard, the grunt of the varks wallowing in the mud of their sty, the smell of fresh hay in the air and the mealies drying in the crib, the sight of cattle grazing peacefully in the distance, and, far off the kopjes, the rounded hills, bordering the river.
“What’s a nice day got to do with it?” Younger brothers! “All right; I’ll wrestle you.”
“You’re too big.”
A deep sigh. “All right. What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know… How about a game of five stones?”
A solution, at least. “Good enough. Let’s find some decent stones for a change.”
They looked, finding many, discarding most. A stone for the game of vyf klip had to be just right. “Hoy!” It was Erasmus. “Here’s a beauty! It almost looks like glass, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” Piet said, doubtful as always, “but it could break and one of us’d get cut—”
“It won’t break! It’s hard as rock! It’ll do fine. D’you have enough? Who goes first?”
But there was to be no first, or second, either. Their mother, coming out onto the stoep, raised her voice in a tone they both recognized. “Erasmus! Piet! Are your chores done?”
“Mostly, Ma.”
“There is no such thing as mostly! Mostly! Things are either done or they’re not done! Now, come into the house, both of you. I need one of you at the churn, and the other one—”
“Aw, Ma—”
“And no arguing! Come along, now.”
An apologetic shrug, one to the other, as if to explain what never had to be explained on a Boer farm, that work came before all else, that work never ended. And that night after the boys had gone to bed, their mother, fishing in the bulging pocket of Erasmus’ trousers before putting them in the wash, pulled out the glasslike stone.
“That boy! He’d put an ox in his pocket, horns and all, if he thought it would fit!” And with a sigh the stone went up on the mantelpiece. Until later that evening when a friendly commercial traveler dropped by to exchange news and share a schnapps or two and a pipe of tobacco, and he happened to notice the stone on the mantelpiece. He picked it up and studied it.
“Rather a pretty thing, this. Where did you get it?”
“I’ve no idea,” Jacobs said, puffing away, not knowing what the man was talking about.
“Oh, it’s just a stone Erasmus found,” said Mevrou Jacobs, not pausing in her mending as she spoke. “He had it in his pocket.” She shook her head. “That boy! You’d think trousers grew on trees, the little care he gives his!”
“Still, it’s rather a pretty thing…”
“If you care for it, take it.”
“I don’t mind if I do,” said the traveler, pocketing the stone; and the conversation turned to more practical matters: the ridiculous rising of prices for almost everything, wherein the traveler was in complete sympathy with the Jacobses and others of his customers; the dearth of rain and the consequent lack of forage; the recent raids of some Mashona tribesmen on the border farms north of Pretoria in the neighboring Transvaal; an outbreak of rinderpest on some farms not far from Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State—all bits of gossip carried by the handelaars as they made their rounds from farm to farm, and often as valuable as the goods they carried in their ox wagons to the news-starved farmers.
And the traveler, the next time he was in Grahamstown to replenish his wares, out of curiosity happened to show the glasslike stone to an expert, and the expert checked the stone for hardness, and then with a frown went further and checked it for specific gravity. When he was done he looked up.
“My friend,” he said quietly, “what you have here, without a question, is a diamond …”
But of course the stone might have come from anywhere. It might well have been dropped by an ostrich, since they were birds that were attracted to anything that glittered, and since they ranged far and wide in Africa. Or the stone might even have been planted by some owner of huge properties, not knowing its true value, in the vain hope that somehow word of the discovery might enhance land values in Griqualand, and bring customers to whom he might unload his worthless land at a proper profit.
Until the day, almost a year later, when a Hottentot shepherd, tending his flocks not far from where Erasmus Jacobs had found his pretty glasslike klip, found another shining stone and was amazed to eventually be offered five hundred sheep, ten oxen, and a horse for his discovery, a price he was quick to accept. And when the stone finally found its way to London and eventually was cut to become the famous Star of Africa, the word was soon out.
There were diamonds lying about on the ground just waiting to be picked up in southern Africa!
1
September 1872
From the railing of the combination steam and sailing ship Anglian, anchored in the roadstead of Table Bay in Cape Town after its record run from its dock in the Thames in London, the sight was truly incredible. Young Barney Isaacs, hanging over the rail and trying to realize that he was indeed here in South Africa, had never seen or even imagined anything like it. Short months before he would have sworn he never would see anything like it in his life. The early summer sun was already heating the morning air and under its growing strength the wide harbor shimmered. Ships from all nations dotted the large bay, come to discharge sheets of corregated iron from Birmingham, machinery from Liverpool, cloth from Leeds, tin plate from Spain, casks and bales, cases and crates, all the welter of wares that make up the lifeblood of commerce—and also to offload adventurers intent upon reaching the diamond fields along the Orange and the Vaal Rivers, come, like Barney Isaacs, to make their fortunes.
The lighters that streamed back and forth across the bay, moving goods and men from the anchored ships to the crowded docks, made the normally placid waters choppy; the bright sun winked back at the young boy on the Anglian, reflected from the ruffled waters. To Barney Isaacs the scene looked and sounded like a court regatta he had once seen on the lower Thames staged for the amusement of the Queen, only here the activity was on a truly grand and confused scale. And when he raised his eyes from the bustle and stir in the bay—the shouting of the lightermen as they narrowly avoided one another, the creak of sail, the scream of steam whistles, the grating rattle of anchors being raised or dropped on one ship or another, the rasp of steam-driven winches—when he looked up from these, there was the calm spectacle of Table Mountain rising abruptly from the land, aloof from the tumult beneath it, satisfied to protect the city with its walled strength.
And the city itself, white and gleaming in the sunlight, running from the busy docks to flood the shallow plain between the sea and the mountain with houses and buildings, and even beginning to scatter itself on the little rivulets of land that ran up the slopes leading to the sheer cliffs, giving their inhabitants, Barney was sure, a superb view. It was a far cry from Cobb’s Court and Petticoat Lane where he had been raised in London’s East End slums; a far cry, indeed, from any part of sprawling, crowded London. It was tiny by any comparison with the British metropolis, of course, but distinct in every way. Everything seemed so clean. Especially the air, Barney thought, remembering the pea-soup fogs along the Thames, the coal-fired dank air that made his father choke and cough over his tailor’s bench. Here a man could breathe! And the buildings were so white, not the sooty dark gray that seemed to be the only color to be found in the East End—
“Hoy, Barney!”
He looked around. It was Tommy Thomas, a stoker on the ship. The two had held a boxing bout for the entertainment of the first-class passengers about a week before landing; the hat passed around for the winner after the bout had gone to Barney. It had brought his total capital up to nearly twenty pounds, still no great amount as he well knew, and one that had to last him to Kimberley and probably awhile afterward.
“Hi,” Barney said. “What’s up?”
“Ain’t you goin’ ashore?”
“Sure, in a while. Why?”
“Last lighter’s gettin’ ready to shove off. Want a ’and with your gear?”
Barney grinned derisively. “What? Me sixty-four trunks full of me extensive wardrobe? Me fifty-five cases of jools and me eighteen crates of quid notes I carry just to tip the lower classes?” He shook his head. “I guess I can manage a couple of bags.”
The stocky young stoker wet his lips. A more direct approach, it appeared, would be required. “Say, Barney, what I was tryin’ to say—’ow about th’ loan o’ a quid?”
“Loan?” Young Barney looked at Tommy with am
Tommy Thomas grinned, the brash grin of a person with nothing to lose. “All th’ better, then. Come on, Barney, be a sport! Y’picked up over eight quid when y’dumped me on me arse. An’ y’got a brother struck it rich in th’ diamonds up Kimberley way, y’said!”
“That’s right on,” Barney said. His voice had become quiet, intent. “Me brother struck it rich in the diamonds. Only what’s his is his, it ain’t mine. I ain’t struck it rich yet. When I do, look me up. You’ll get yer loan of a quid.” He winked broadly and started toward his cabin to pick up his suitcases.
“ ’Ow about arf a quid, then? Ten stinkin’ shillin’?”
“When I strike it rich in the fields, I’ll make that a quid, ten shillin’,” Barney promised expansively, and walked away.
Behind him, Tommy Thomas shrugged. He hadn’t really had any great hopes of getting the money. The fault, he knew, was his own. He should have knocked the cheeky little Jew on his arse in the ring, instead of being knocked on his own. And the thing was he still couldn’t figure out why he hadn’t…
There were seamen’s quarters at the waterfront, rooming bins over the chandler’s shops and the fish-and-chips shops, and bins they were and no more. Little cubicles with doors that did not lock, slivers of glass for windows in those cubbyholes lucky enough to be placed on an outer wall and then only giving a view of a similar wall a few inches away, with inner walls that were warped partitions that did not reach the ceiling of the long lofts, a small candle for illumination and the proprietor to put the candle out after nine at night. And the constant smell of rancid oil from the chips shops below, or worse, from the slops buckets put out in the narrow passageways for collection and which often waited there a day before being picked up. But the bin was a shilling a night, better than the three to five shillings it would have cost at a fancier rooming place. Barney started to push his two cardboard suitcases under the sagging cot and then with a frown drew them back. It didn’t look the sort of place where his few possessions would be safe the minute they left his sight. He considered a moment and then picked them up, carrying them down the steps. The proprietor eyed him with a frown, and spoke around his cigar.
“No refunds, son.”
“I’ll be back to sleep. Just goin’ out to see the town.”
The proprietor removed his cigar from his mouth as if it helped him to stare. “Carrying two heavy suitcases? Leave them here. They’ll be safe.”
“They’ll be safer in me hands,” Barney said flatly, and turned, about to walk out into the street. Then he turned back. “Where d’they take off from, headin’ for the fields? The diamond fields?”
The proprietor tucked his cigar back into his mouth and jerked his thumb toward the ceiling.
“Son,” he said almost sadly, “half the rooms upstairs are filled with men come back from the fields. Ain’t none of them come back rich or they wouldn’t be staying here, and that’s the fact. They’re waiting for ships to get out, ships they can work their passage, but the crews are all full. A year or so ago a ship come into Cape Town and the crew was gone as soon as the anchor went down, off to the fields, all going to get rich! But now it’s a different story. Men who’ve found diamonds in India and Brazil; if they’re giving up it’s because they know more than you and me. No, sir, son. The diamonds are all run out, and that’s the fact.”
“And I’m goin’ up there anyways,” Barney said, “so if you’ll be so kind as to tell me where they take off from—?”
The proprietor heaved another sigh, shaking his head. “Son, how old are you?”
“Eighteen. Why?”
“You’re short but you look fairly husky. There’s work to be had, here in Cape Town. Not a bad place to live, either. Damn sight better than Kimberley. I could use a kid in here to help, myself—”
“I’ll find the bloody place meself,” Barney said flatly, and started to walk out into the street again.
“Hey! It’s the Grand Parade, son. Up Dock Road to Adderley—that’s the main street—then up a block on the left to Darling. It’s just before the castle. You can’t miss it.”
“Thanks,” Barney said dryly, and walked out.
The proprietor removed his cigar and studied it, as if it could help him make sense of the world about him. That’s a tough little monkey, he thought, but a lot tougher than him got taught their lesson up in Colesberg Kopje and the other mines. I’ll give him six months and he’ll be back, tough as he is. And with a lot less lip. Still, if anyone ought to get by I suppose it would be someone like him. Looks like a bloody Boer with that light hair and them blue eyes, and thinks like an Englishman, with the streetwise brains of an East End kid. But even so, I give him six months. If he was any less tough, the proprietor told the unresponsive cigar, I’d give him three…
The city, seen at close range, was far from as clean as it had appeared from the deck of the Anglian. Heavy traffic choked the Dock Road, wide as it was: carts, coaches, drays, men on horseback, ox wagons, each jostling to pass, raising clouds of dust that settled on everything; and always the danger of a load being dropped from one of the swinging davits that jutted from the decks of ships lucky enough to have found space along the crowded docks. And the wagons awaiting the crate or bale from the ships, blocking the road, their drovers exchanging insults with those forced to try and find passage around them. Still, Barney thought, it was different from the mud of the roads along the Thames, and at least there were not the piles of filth one had to step high to clear in almost every lane or narrow alley that led from the river in London into the city itself.
And the chandlers’ shops along the Dock Road! Some of them even had samples of their wares stacked before their doors, something no Petticoat Lane merchant would have considered for an instant; he would have been stolen blind in five minutes if not in two. Barney marched along, his bowler far back on his head in the growing heat, his suitcases banging against his legs, his wide eyes trying to take in everything at once and still avoid being ridden down by a rider or a coach forcing its way through the crowd. Up the Dock Road to Adderley Street, no chance of mistaking that main road with its neat buildings on either side; and beyond the head of the road ending in gardens the majesty of Table Mountain giving a feeling of security and beauty to the scene. Then across Adderley, watching out again for the wagons, and up to Darling Street—and there it was, hard to mistake, the Grand Parade, off to the left, a vast space in a city where spaces apparently were ample and far different from crowded London. How fine this is! Barney thought, pleased to be there, pleased with the warmth of the day at a time when he knew London would be starting to get chilly and nasty and damp now that late fall had come, and wondered that he had passed his entire life in conditions he never would have questioned had he not, by pure accident, started out to join his successful brother. Well, the fact was that here he was in Cape Town, in southern Africa, mind you, thousands of miles from home, and to his surprise he was very happy about it.
The Grand Parade had once been exactly that, a parade ground adjoining the castle; now it was the center for the coaches and the mule trains to gather their custom and take off for Durban or Port Elizabeth, or the Colesberg Kopje—now, together with Dutoitspan and Bultfontein, renamed Kimberley in honor of the new Colonial Secretary—or Pretoria in the distant Transvaal, or to the Orange Free State, or places with exciting names waved before each coach or mule train on placards, places with names like Pietermaritzburg, or Bloemfontein; Roodepoort or Potchefstroom.
Barney set his suitcases down and stared about him. The scene was one of utter confusion. Hostlers attended to their charges, leading them to and from the area to stables across Darling Street and down Parliament and Plein streets, while drivers waved their placards and bawled their destinations and their hoped-for prices. Potential passengers moved from coach to coach, or from mule train to mule train, bargaining, attempting to select the least uncomfortable vehicle, studying the seats of the mule wagons or the springs of the coaches upon which they would be painfully jostled for the following weeks, asking after the food they would eat, or the places they would sleep. Arriving coaches discharged bone-weary passengers and immediately took up their place for new custom, the driver being exchanged for a brother or a cousin or an uncle while the exhausted man staggered off for a drink and a pallet. The sweating horses were backed from their traces and replaced with fresh ones while young lads swarmed over the newly arrived coaches with heavy feather dusters, attempting with small success to sweep away some of the grime of the trip coming through the Great Karroo or the Kalahari, depending upon the source of the trip, and older boys packed the wheel hubs with ox grease and made sure in a rapid inspection that the coach was sufficiently intact for the next trip.
