When the stars disappear (Oom Schalk Lourens said) you know it’s time to run because there’s one hell of a storm coming.
By October 1908 Willy Gibson’s plan was advancing nicely with the help of Prime Minister Botha. After some strong resistance from the English members, the Union government bought the Gibson Diamond for an undisclosed sum. Willy gleefully told his wife how much: One hundred and fifty thousand pounds. The British pound value being what it was, you could’ve bought entire African governments for less.
That night Willy made Miss Emily go down on him.
Afterwards he agreed to her celebrating with a big fireworks competition on the 5th of November, Guy Fawkes Day. Miss Emily loved Guy Fawkes Day, partly because growing up she and her siblings could never afford fireworks. She enjoyed inviting her whole family to “the annual attempt to burn down parts of Johannesburg”, as the writer Herman Charles Bosman would later wryly describe Guy Fawkes Day.
Willy probably never realized it: agreeing to this competition was the beginning of the end. It would lead to his young wife meeting someone from her past and would eventually cost him his marriage. And his life.
What Willy did understand quite well, was the reason why the English members of government hesitated to vote for the one hundred and fifty thousand pounds. They were loyal subjects of the Crown, so they must’ve known the Gibson Diamond would end up on a royal English neck or head. But they now also knew they would be paying for Louis Botha’s ambition to rule South Africa as president. A Boer president. That wouldn’t do. After being virtually forced to vote yes for the huge sum of money, the English members immediately started plotting against Botha continuing as prime minister.
Botha did agree with his wife that he had to work with Englishmen in government, and in public he would hail Great Britain for “the generous peace” it had made with his people, but in his heart he would never forgive the unnecessary cruelty of the war.
Top of his list of cruelties: the systematic starvation of Boer women and children in badly managed concentration camps.
Second on his list: The inhumane treatment of Boer prisoners of war.
And way down on his list, but it still rankled: Guy Fawkes Day 1901.
Towards the end of the Boer War, in celebration of Guy Fawkes Day, an effigy of the Transvaal Republic’s President Paul Kruger was tied to a stake in Johannesburg and set on fire. A terrible insult religious Boers would never forget.
Neef Berg and other followers of then General Botha didn’t forget it. And they quietly did something about it. Human remains are still found in fields outside their town of Harrismith where they chose to make their point.
At that stage of the war Botha and other Boer generals were already in secret peace talks with their English counterparts, but the talks were nearly derailed when they heard their leader had been burned symbolically at the stake. Botha had to work hard to get the talks back on track, but he never forgot the insult or the barely concealed smiles of certain English generals when they heard about the symbolic death of Kruger. Burning him like a godless, evil witch at the stake! A pious old man who prayed at least three times a day!
Although the very religious Botha didn’t personally see the burning of the effigy, his imagination must’ve been able to produce a flaming image of it: Oom Paul going up in flames, and Englishmen laughing.
Neef Berg and other Harrismith Boers got some of them back by making them disappear. Botha himself would get the others back by presiding over them. Ruling them. After losing in a war you can’t really have a much sweeter revenge.
Gerrit Johannes didn’t forget either. He was about 16 when the war ended, and as a penkop (armed youth) he fought in many of the final battles and shot at least six English bastards. He knew how to handle a rifle. Hunting from horseback was something he was very good at. Especially when hunting Englishmen who had mocked his accent.
Gerrit Johannes was at least as good a shot as Neef Berg, but he didn’t know him. Their paths never crossed during the war. This is an important point to remember.
We don’t know if Gert Johannes saw the announcement on the mine’s bulletin board – GUY FAWKES DAY GRAND FIREWORKS COMPETITION! THIS FRIDAY EVENING! WIN CADBURY’S CHOCOLATES! PROCEEDS FOR CHARITY! – but he did follow up on it. At the orphanage he used to have just enough food to stay alive. Plain food. Such luxuries as cakes and boiled sweets never passed his lips, and back then Cadbury’s chocolates weren’t even invented yet.
It couldn’t have been the chocolates that caught his eye.
Unlike the owner of Gibson Mine, Gerrit Johannes couldn’t bear sweetness on his tongue. So it wasn’t winning chocolates that lured him to the Guy Fawkes event that Friday evening. If he did win he intended giving the chocolates to the widows Agnes and Gladys, but that was not even close to the reason why he decided to enter the competition.
He had something completely different in mind.
The fireworks would be launched on the mine’s rugby field, magically torch-lit for the event. You had to bring your own fireworks and were allowed two launches. The most original explosion would win a basket of Cadbury’s newly invented chocolates.
When Gerrit Johannes arrived he saw Miss Emily almost immediately.
From a small stage the mine owner’s wife happily explained the rules. Miss Emily had her large family with her, overflowing the stage. They wore very grand new clothes. Her mum resembled a circus tent. Miss Emily was the only one who looked absolutely stunning. When her family spoke to her they also called her Miss Emily. Her husband was not in attendance, tonight fake Sir William was off enjoying his new hobby. It seemed all his workers and some of their families were present, the rugby field was packed with people. Captain David Lawrence, accompanied by his wife Mary who looked and dressed like a disappointed schoolteacher, had to call on Gerrit Johannes to clear a launching area for the fireworks.
Gerrit Johannes noticed some of his crew members present and ordered them to help. Off-duty they didn’t have to obey him and simply melted away into the crowd. With the grinning exception of Johnny Zulu and Manny Porra, their eyes aglow with excitement and the dangerous rotgut they mixed in their hut.
“Mister Gerrit! Mister Gerrit!” Alcohol pitched Johnny Zulu’s voice even higher than usual. “We help we eat chocklit, ja-nee?”
“Catberrry’s chocklit, please, please.” Manny Porra had a tendency to drool when drunk. “I never taste Catberrry’s, Mister Gerrit, please, thank you.”
Pidgin fucking English.
He let them get away with it. “Ja, orright, let’s get these people back first. We need space to shoot the fireworks.”
“Jawohl,” Johnny Zulu said and produced a short, very sharp pick-axe, of the type known as the Mountaineer’s Friend. It was used by miners in small spaces. They were supposed to hand the short pick-axes in at the end of every working day, since it could easily be used as a weapon.
“Johnny, where the hell do you think you’re going with that?”
“Mister Gerrit, I make big place for fireworks.”
“Watch, please,” Manny Porra drooled. “Johnny dance.”
In tribal dance the Zulu use a fighting stick to twirl and strike at unseen enemies. Johnny Zulu used the Mountaineer’s Friend. Twirling. Striking. Throwing it spinning up in the sky. Catching it again.The fire-light of the torches dancing along the steel of the pick-axe.
Meanwhile Manny Porra worked the crowd. “Please, watch out, please! Sharp-sharp axe make head fall off, please!”
The crowd removed itself to a safe distance, leaving ample room for the exploding of fireworks. Johnny Zulu did a last twirl, then the pick-axe disappeared back under his huge coat.
Manny Porra hugged the perspiring performer. “Amigo! You the king!”
“Ja-nee, ja-nee,” Johnny Zulu agreed.
Gerrit Johannes smiled at him. “Ja-nee, bliksem, you the king.”
On the stage Miss Emily was listening to a man wearing a black bowler hat and an eye patch to match. Captain David Lawrence. She nodded and pulled her mouth but it wasn’t really a smile.
“Thank you,” said Miss Emily and looked directly at Gerrit Johannes.
She knows I’m here, he thought and it nearly made his heart stop.
Then she looked away. Did she really see him?
The competition started. Fireworks exploded and bloomed over the rugby field. Children shouted with joy. Miss Emily and her family joined in. Manny Porra shrieked with laughter. Johnny Zulu giggled. Many of the explosions created colours and shapes deserving of the applause, but they didn’t really impress Gerrit Johannes.
Then it was his turn.
Make it good, he thought, she could be looking at you.
As a blaster’s boy Gerrit Johannes was taught the alchemy of fireworks. How to mix potassium nitrate, sulfer and charcoal to create the gunpowder needed for boost and explosion, then you add various metal salts for the colours and shapes you want the explosion to release. For this event Gerrit Johannes added something else, something dangerous but spectacular when exploding.
He added dynamite. Just a touch. A dangerous touch if you didn’t know what you were doing. To that he added ammonium nitrate (in later years to be used as fertilizer). It could go horribly wrong, of course. The very potent clay created by dynamite and ammonium nitrate mixed with gunpowder and metal salts could start what blasters called “a conversation”. Chemicals interacting. Loudly. The kind of talk you had to run away from. Far away.
“Bring me a torch,” Gerrit Johannes ordered and Manny Porra ran, returned with a flaming torch. “Hold it so I can see what I’m doing.”
Manny Porra obeyed, big-eyed, quiet for a change.
Johnny Zulu suppressed a nervous giggle.
Gerrit Johannes planted a bush of fireworks in the short dry grass of the field. He glanced over at the stage, and it seemed to him as if Miss Emily was holding her breath. Manny Porra was definitely holding his, the fire of the torch shivering in his eyes. Next to him Johnny Zulu tried to stop a giggle, covering his mouth. In the dancing torch-light you could imagine the two rogues as happy children again, before the horror started.
Gerrit Johannes took the torch from Manny Porra.
“Stand back!” he shouted and then quickly lit the bush of fireworks with the torch.
Please don’t let them start talking. He said it to himself, a silent prayer.
The entire bush, a dozen sticks with their heads covered in clumps of the potent clay, took off with the loud roar of a rushing train. Manny Porra and Johnny Zulu staggered back. Over on the stage Miss Emily slapped her hands against her cheeks. Seeing this gave Gerrit Johannes a sweet sharp pain.
He looked up at the sky, counting silently. The night was still covered with a canopy of real stars. He counted to four. Then five. Six.
The stars started disappearing.
First the roses bloomed with a popping noise, giant roses, red and white roses. Then came the dahlias, a pink glittering mass of them. The popping became louder, a menacing bass throb in the air. Suddenly great yellow and green tulips opened huge red mouths. The popping grew louder still. Before any of the magical flowers could fade, a blue curtain of wisteria shimmered into existence.
The sky had turned into a magical garden. But the bass popping was still there. Gerrit Johannes held his breath.
Please, God. Don’t let them start talking.
The curtain of wisteria started breaking up. The roses wheeled and then slowly seemed to blow away. The popping stopped suddenly, and Gerrit Johannes showed his relief. There would be no talking in the sky, no furious chain reaction.
The crowd was shouting and laughing. Johnny Zulu and Manny Porra were dancing and clapping. Children joined them. The sky held real stars again. Gerrit Johannes looked over at Miss Emily and she held her head down as if looking for something on the ground. She was crying silently.
It gave him a lump in the throat.
Just as I was drawn into the exiting drama of events, the chapter ended! In a cliff hanger! An intriguing and compelling story which could be a highly entertaining TV drama series.