Fourteenth chapter
Learning a new language (Oom Schalk Lourens said) opened new doors for me, but some of them were strange doors.
By the time road-builder Peet Jansen and undertaker Knocky Koch met outside Winterton and rode their horses hard to Bergville hospital, where they sat at Neef Berg’s bedside and talked in urgent whispers, the train from Pretoria to Durban was already taking on water at the Tugela siding. A large group of Zulu passengers, workers from the gold mines up north, got off the train at Tugela and embraced their ululating wives and howling children. Some of them started dancing. The woman had brought baskets of food for their men. The happy noise filled the cool morning air. Bernardus van Aswegen kept a tense eye on his pocket watch. He guessed it would take about an hour to get all the Tugela passengers off and away from the train, meanwhile the locomotive seemed so thirsty for water that process should take at least another fifteen minutes.
The train conductor didn’t know about the plot unfolding in Bergville, of course, but his problem would only give the dynamite plotters the estimated hour and fifteen minutes before the train reached the railway cutting north of Frere. The cutting was what Peet Jansen, the explosives expert, considered the best place to blow the line. The explosion would bring the mountain down on both sides, there was no way that train would make it to Durban then.
Peet Jansen figured it could take about ten minutes to position the dynamite sticks and connect them to the plunger box. That would be the easy part, but it meant they had to reach the cutting at least ten minutes before the train’s expected arrival at Frere station. Add to that the time needed to ride from Bergville to Frere on horseback, even with the fastest and fittest horse you couldn’t do it under an hour. All in all, one hour and twenty minutes looked about the best they could hope for. And they were, of course, completely ignorant of Bernardus van Aswegen and the problem he faced at Tugela siding.
“We don’t have your balloon or wings,” Peet Jansen informed Neef Berg, “and we tired out our horses coming here. Knocky and myself must have two fresh horses each. The first pair we will race from here and we pray to God they make it to Frere before they give in; at Frere we will hopefully get a second pair for the race to the cutting, and we can only pray to God they make it.”
Neef Berg, still drugged, actually giggled. “No problem, our heavenly Father owes me some good luck. Can you find fresh horses here?”
“Of course,” smiled Knocky, “the people of Bergville know and trust me.”
Peet Jansen didn’t smile; he never did. “Between Knocky and his father they’ve buried whole families from around here and Winterton.”
Neef Berg thought solemnly Peet Jansen should have been the undertaker, but he kept the thought to himself. “That’s why you need Knocky? The people trust him with their horses?”
“I need him,” Peet Jansen said grimly, “because he’s the best rifleman I know, and he doesn’t mind shooting to kill.”
“I can always bury them.” Knocky smiled again. “Neef Berg, not everyone around here share our dream of a new Boer republic. You’ve been talking to Pretoria through a nurse and a policeman. I promise you they gossip almost as much as an undertaker.”
“They are English, Knocky, I wrote the really important message in Dutch.”
Peet Jansen gave Neef Berg a dark look. “During the war the English had a camp for Boer women and children up in the mountain.”
“I know that,” Neef Berg said curtly. “I fought with Louis Botha all over this land.”
Knocky tried to preserve the peace. “I don’t think Peet meant to offend you, Neef Berg. The English guarding the women and children picked up some Dutch from them, after the war many of those English guards decided to stay. ”
“They’re still here.” Peet Jansen kept his voice calm. “The police sergeant of Bergville is one of them.”
Neef Berg turned his head into his pillow, groaned. “I’m a complete imbecile.”
“No, you’re a very brave man.” Knocky laid a hand on Neef Berg’s arm. “You had a terrible accident, and you somehow had to communicate with Pretoria.”
“What’s done cannot be undone,” mumbled Peet Jansen.
Did he show even a smidgen of sympathy for Neef Berg?
Not so you’d notice.
The morning train to Pretoria was late, and there was nothing to eat and only water to drink at Heidelberg’s pretty but tiny railway station. People already waiting for the train told Grootjan and Kleinjan this was not usually the case, the station master died by God’s hand three days ago and Heidelberg was waiting for his replacement.
“How did God take the poor soul?” asked Grootjan.
It took four people, frequently interrupting each other, to explain to him that the station master had a very old house down by the river, his wife hated the place but he was too timid to demand a better dwelling from the railway authorities. Three days ago a highveld storm tore over Heidelberg and God sent lightning to burn down the house. The station master tried to save some furniture but perished in the fire. His wife did manage to escape, but the loss of her husband drove her insane. She now went around telling people she would never pray to God again, because He had sent lightning to destroy her husband and everything they owned, and she had specifically asked Him to flood the river and do it slowly so that they would have time to get their things out.
The train to Pretoria arrived an hour late. Grootjan and Kleinjan managed to get window seats, sitting opposite each other. Grootjan kept the diamond safe on his person, Kleinjan kept Grootjan safe with his rifle strapped to his bag and the bag firmly on his lap. They were really excited now, Pretoria was only a few hours away, this very afternoon Prime Minister Louis Botha would open his hand and allow Grootjan to place the great stone on his palm.
“What will he say?” Kleinjan wondered.
“He will say thank you, would you like something nice to eat,” Grootjan thought.
“Father, I hope the Prime Minister makes you a Commandant.”
“He will make you a Field Cornet, son.”
Kleinjan like that, he liked it a lot.
The street outside the Prime Minister’s official residence was red earth stamped down hard, but it had to be watered regularly to prevent dust devils from raising red clouds of dry ground into the hot Pretoria sky. One of the dancing devils was at it right now.
Writing a speech at his desk with the window open, Louis Botha felt the strong breeze and thought: what a lovely balloon wind, but poor Willy’s dead, we’ll never fly again.
It didn’t really make him sad. Louis Botha could do tears with the most sodden mourner at an open grave, but he always needed a moment or two to prepare for it. His wonderful gift for performance explained how a loyal Boer general could become the political leader of a divided country and somehow help weld its four provinces into the Union of South Africa.
Did everyone in and outside this union buy his dedicated Prime Minister act? And that he was now eager to bend the knee before the English King and send said monarch, as a truly arse-licking gift, the largest blue diamond ever found?
Some did but not everybody, not so you’d notice.
There were those who suspected a darker ambition driving him, but few realised his ultimate goal: to be anointed South Africa’s President for Life, and not just of a union. Louis Botha’s private dream was to recreate the old Transvaal Republic as the Republic of South Africa. To do that he had to raise an army of Boer rebels, and a rebellion would cost money. A great deal of it, the kind a magnificent diamond could probably raise if sold in secret to extremely illegal dealers in Paris, France.
To achieve his goal, Louis Botha had to create the diversion that the stone was on its way to England by train and then boat. He then had to put his trust in a Bernardus van Aswegen, one of the great Boer warriors, who then used a piece of street shit named Gerrit Something-or-other to replace the real stone with a fake. It was solely God’s idea to get Willy Gibson’s unfaithful slut mixed up in the train diversion, her running off with Gerrit Something-or-other at first threw Louis Botha rather badly, it now merely amused him.
So far, it seems, Miss Emily’s presence on the Durban train had absolutely no effect on the Louis Botha plan. A trusted comrade and his son were on their way here with the stone. Neef Berg’s balloon misadventure was only adding an interesting and violent little twist to the original plan. Instead of undertaking a long sea voyage to England, where it could either be revealed as fake or accepted as worthy of the royal crown – none of this of any concern to the Boer rebellion already under way by then – the fake stone would soon be joining Miss Emily, Gerrit Something-or-other, Bernardus van Aswegen and others in a hopefully fatal derailment caused by a very deliberate dynamite explosion.
Louis Botha’s plan as improved by God’s plan.
His beloved Annie knew nothing of all this. Of course not, he didn’t trust the religious veneer his wife had painted over her Englishness for the sake of love. She believed the role he played for audiences like England’s Winston Churchill and mining tycoon William Gibson, a lowly bricklayer who so wanted to become a knight he let himself be persuaded by Louis Botha’s peace-loving bullshit.
Poor Willy. Sly as a fox in business, dumb as an ox in human relations. Bought a farm for next to nothing, turned it into a successful diamond mine. Then married a pretty young slut from the mining town saloons and let her walk all over him.
How did Willy manage to fall from his balloon and drown in the Harrismith dam? That part of Neef Berg’s story made no sense. A physical altercation perhaps? In the tight frustrating prison of the balloon’s gondola? Could be. Neef Berg had a temper on him, Willy had a fine shotgun probably lost now.
It was beautiful beyond words, all of it, God’s plan improving on Louis Botha’s plan.
He looked forward to the moment when he finally held the real Gibson Diamond. It excited him so much, actually, that he put aside the speech and went looking for his Annie. Perhaps he could persuade her to join him in their bedroom for a playful morning interlude.
Blair and Thatcher were very aware of the time the train was wasting at Tugela siding. As they continued their search through all the compartments, desperate to find Miss Emily and the Gibson diamond, the detective constables occasionally looked outside and saw a throng of black men and women eat and dance, and children run around like ferrets.
They thought the chaos outside did help, in a way. A white lady like Emily Gibson would never venture out there. She had to be hiding somewhere on the train.
To a man, Lieutenant Connelly’s remaining men offered to help in the search. Obviously driven by the news of his death, they wanted to find their commanding officer’s murderer and execute the witch on the spot. They were also enraged and perplexed by the discovery of yet another beheaded machine-gun detail on the roof. What was happening on this bleeding train?
Blair took charge of a number of them to assist him in the search, Thatcher led the others to the first-class compartment where Connelly still lay in his own blood. Captain Lawrence, to his shame, had to unlock the door for them and he struggled with it for quite a while. Then he shut his cowardly mouth, stood awkwardly in the corridor and left Thatcher and the men to the task of cleaning the body with one of the compartment’s bedding sheets, then wrap and remove it in a blanket.
They did not clean the blood-drenched floor of the compartment. Thatcher thought it best they leave that to dear Captain Lawrence. He also thought the best place for keeping the body would be the conductor’s wagon. That’s what they did back home when someone died on a train. The funeral arrangements could be made by the military in Durban.
The crowd finally started thinning at the Tugela siding, the men and their families heading off into the mountains. But the locomotive’s water tank was not full yet. The stoker indicated this with a sad shrug. Bernardus van Aswegen was not impressed.
In the conductor’s wagon Gerrit Johannes tried pushing a rock up a hill but it kept rolling back. The matron of the orphanage used to tell that story as a lesson, and like all her other lessons he rejected it.
“What if they find us here, Em?” he pushed again. “The Tommies will shoot me but they won’t treat you kindly either. You blasted their beloved officer and everybody knows you’re not really Lady Emily.”
The rock rolled back again. “Bugger you, I’m not sleeping in a hut, Gerrit. You can get off, go, just give me the diamond.”
She’s not getting the diamond, Gerrit Johannes thought. I should just leave the cow here, sneak off with Johnny Zulu and Manny Porra, hide in the mountains until I can get to a place where I can sell the stone. But what will become her? Look at those eyes. Just look at those eyes.
He said softly, “You know what’s going to happen in Durban? The harbour police will arrest you for the murder of Connelly, that coward Lawrence will give the stone to the ship’s captain and it will end up in a fucking crown while you fucking rot in a murderer’s grave. How will that help your family get to Australia?”
She looked at him. She started crying.
He hated her when she did that. He hated her so much it hurt. And he loved her more than ever.
Seated on the floor against the wagon’s locked door, Johnny Zulu and Manny Porra watched silently, their faces keeping their feelings secret. Perhaps they were both thinking it looked as if a big rock had rolled over these two white people, and yet they were still fighting.
In his trouser pocket Gerrit Johannes held the diamond so tightly his fingers started cramping. It was the real diamond, the one and only blue miracle, worth a bloody fortune.
Orright, orright, damn it, what if he gave her the stone just to hold for a while? To make her stop crying. It was her secret weapon, the tears. He knew it, he knew it, ever since he met her, yet every teardrop still cut like acid into his heart. Where could she run with the stone? Johnny Zulu and Manny Porra would slice her legs off before she got past them to the door. Just let her hold the fucking thing, come on, you prick, be a decent human being for a change.
He started taking the stone out of his pocket. Slowly, very slowly. She watched him. Her eyes, hard as diamonds, glinted through the tears. The bitch knew she was winning.
His hand stopped moving. The stone stayed in his pocket.
She slapped his face hard. “You bastard! Stop teasing me! What do you think will happen if I tell Bernardus it’s not a fake?”
He forced a thin bitter smile. “Ja-nee, of course, suddenly he’s your friend now.”
“I’m telling him, I swear it! You never went anywhere near the real stone! You gave those riders a fucking piece of glass!”
No, Bernardus van Aswegen didn’t conveniently stand in the open door when Miss Emily shouted that. He didn’t conveniently open the door while she was shouting. Johnny Zulu and Manny Porra would have quickly gotten out of his way if he came in then, at the absolutely right fateful moment.
No, fate played a far more dangerous hand than that.
While Miss Emily shouted the truth at Gerrit Johannes inside the wagon, the bearded giant was actually outside on the landing, looking for the right key to unlock the door. There was nothing wrong with his hearing. He heard every word she spat at Gerrit Johannes.
Bernardus van Aswegen, the man who once saved a boy called Gerrit Johannes from the smoke and flame of a hilltop battle, stopped looking for his key to the wagon door. He quietly turned away and crossed to the carriage attached to the wagon. He went inside and closed the door behind him.
Thatcher and the soldiers inside the carriage, busy fitting Connelly into his sleeping bag, looked up as the train conductor entered.
The detective constable said, “Begging your pardon, Conductor, you don’t mind us stowing the Lieutenant in your wagon, do you? Just until we can get him inside a coffin.”
No answer. Bernardus van Aswegen just stood there, watching them force the body into the sleeping bag and trying to do it gently. Blimey, he didn’t seem to know where he was or what he was supposed to be doing.
The train shuddered and started moving away from the empty siding.
“Next stop, Frere,” the conductor croaked.
Thatcher and the soldiers couldn’t make out what was up with the giant exactly, but it certainly was something.
Paul C Venter’s rip-roaring story is utterly engrossing and entertaining. What shenanigans and crooked schemes !