If you get in bed with the wrong kind of person (Oom Schalk Lourens said) you will end up scratching the wrong kind of fleas.
Down Willy Gibson’s dark, wet diamond mine Gerrit Johannes started out as a digger. Breaking rock in the mud. Hard, back-breaking work. Fortunately, being intelligent and white (actually reddish with freckles when tanned) he was soon promoted to leader of a crew of diggers, most of them black or half-caste. The worst crew members by a mile, a pair of rogues nick-named Johnny Zulu and Manny Porra, made Gerrit Johannes work hard for his wages. He had to watch them all the time. Both in their late twenties but child-like in manner, they were always off to the sick bay with some excuse or busy playing pranks on the other crew members.
You couldn’t get blacker than Johnny Zulu or more in between colours than Manny Porra. Johnny Zulu was so black his great muscles gleamed blue with sweat, and Manny Porra’s whole look said Portugal although his tight curls hinted mum was much darker than her son. But she must have been a magnificent beauty. The ladies adored Manny’s almost feminine looks situated on top of a compact powerful body. And like Johnny Zulu he could speak four languages fluently: Portuguese, English, German and the so-called Kitchen Dutch still busy evolving into Afrikaans. When it suited them they could sound virtually illiterate, but they had actually received quite an education at a German mission station in the Natal Midlands. Like their real names, this was a subject they only shared with someone they truly trusted. Gerrit Johannes didn’t exactly fill that description yet.
For their stupid pranks and laziness he often reported Johnny Zulu and Manny Porra to the mine manager. But every time he did that, Captain David Lawrence gave him yet another version of the same sermon. The mine manager was a fine talker.
“You know where I found the big blue?” Aiming his black eye-patch and one good eye at Gerrit Johannes. “Just below the surface. Where the mine is supposedly worked out, quite useless. Same thing with people, Gerrit. They may appear useless, but you never know. At Gibson we realise not everyone comes into this world with the proverbial golden spoon. But everyone deserves a second chance, Gerrit. Surely you understand that.”
Gerrit Johannes understood perfectly: he would have to watch one-eyed Captain Lawrence as carefully as he did Johnny Zulu and Manny Porra. They were obviously the ones who actually found the great diamond. But it would have been difficult to hide a stone that large – and uncomfortably sharp-edged – in anyone’s backside. And if they had managed to sneak it past mine security, what were the chances of a Johnny Zulu and a Manny Porra against the wheeling and dealing sharks of the diamond market? The feeding frenzy over such a find would have been murderous. They would’ve been fortunate to walk away with their lives and a few pounds each.
So what they actually did, not being complete morons, the two rogues suggested some arrangement when they first presented their find to Captain Lawrence.
“No-one throw us out of mine job, Captain, ja?” Johnny Zulu doing his dumb act. “Never ever. We stay right here all time, ja?”
The black eyepatch didn’t blink. “That could be arranged, Johnny. I’ll see to it you keep your jobs.”
Then it was Manny Porra’s turn to play dumb. “Later maybe we find stone maybe two or three carat, Captain please sell for us and please not take big cut. Please.”
The black eyepatch almost frowned. “Manny, I’m afraid I’ll have clear that with the owner of Gibson mine. It could be a problem, but I’ll do my best.”
Would mine owner Willy Gibson have said no to such a deal? After he laid eyes on the big blue?
Not so you’d notice.
Willy actually said Johnny Zulu and Manny Porra could work in his diamond mine until they died. But he added no, sorry, he couldn’t let them keep the income from smaller stones. If he allowed that all the diggers in the mine would want to the same treatment. Johnny Zulu and Manny Porra grudgingly accepted this, but they didn’t like it. Not a bit. Fortunately for Willy they wanted to keep their jobs so they didn’t sneak into Heavenly Mansion one night and didn’t hack him to death.
Gert Johannes never completely trusted Johnny Zulu and Manny Porra, but he came to accept their childish jokes, their aping his wry way of saying “Ja-nee,” a Boer habit literally meaning yes and no. Manny Porra also had a way of saying please but never quite meaning it. Gerrit Johannes actually grew to enjoy their displays of exuberant energy. They often duelled furiously with their alarmingly sharp pick-axes yet never really hurt each other. The odd nick, yes, Manny Porra did lose the tip of a fjnger once, but nothing life-threatening. Johnny Zulu loved doing his tribal dance when an outcrop looked promising, Manny Porra would then expertly cut the stone out of the mud and immediately suck on it.
Gerrit Johannes would tease, “Ja-nee, if it tastes like a blue it must be one,” and Manny Porra would come back with a muddy grin, “Taste dead but look alive,” with Johnny Zulu adding a high giggle.
Ja-nee, they’re not stupid, Gerrit Johannes often thought. So why do they act stupid?
It would take quite some time before Johnny Zulu and Manny Porra revealed their horrifying past to him. Not coming from a happy one himself, Gerrit Johannes would understand and sympathise fully then.
But all that only came after the massive mud slide.
The Gibson Mine, not wet by nature, had water pumped into it through hoses to soften the rocky earth and make it easier to extract diamonds. Not the safest of methods. At times the water softened the rock just a little too much.
It happened before the lunch break. Gerrit Johannes was watching his crew swing pick-axes and break rock. The noise was deafening. He didn’t hear or see the flood of mud rushing down the tunnel until it was virtually upon him. Manny Porra, in a small cave he had cut for himself, reached out and pulled Gerrit Johannes into the narrow space with him. Just in time. The mud slide went roaring and slurping past, spitting huge blobs of mud into the cave and all over them. In the dark Manny Porra held onto Gerrit Johannes who crouched like a spider, his mouth dry with shock.
“Stay down, please, stay down, please,” Manny Porra said over and over.
The noise gradually faded, became a dripping sound.
Johnny Zulu, holding a flickering torch in one hand and a canteen in the other, came wading through the mud and solemnly offered Gerrit Johannes his water bag.
“Get some of this into you,” he said, “but not all at once.”
“Jawohl, we don’t want you throwing up on us,” Manny Porra added.
Perfect English, Gerrit Johannes realised, they speak perfect English except for that jawohl.
“You’ve been screwing with me,” he growled. “Wie de donner is julle?”
The Afrikaans literally meant: Who in thunder are you?
They chuckled softly.
“Johan Otto Brand,” Johnny Zulu introduced himself.
“Emanuel Heinrich Brand,” Manny Porra said.
A German missionary named Brand and his wife named and baptized the two small boys after finding them in the smoking ruins of a trading post run by a Portuguese and his Zulu wife. Manny was their biological baby. Johnny was the Zulu wife’s baby from a traditional marriage to a Zulu prince. There were many Zulu princes with many wives. The way the story went this prince didn’t take kindly to a Portuguese winning one of his ladies. He came with armed friends to express his displeasure. And some of his friends carried flaming torches.
The German missionary and his wife raised and educated the two orphans as their own. The boys thought they were in heaven. They had their own bedrooms, nice clothes, good food, lots of toys. Brand and his wife never raised their voices to them. Apparently everyone in the district praised what happened as a tragedy turned fairy tale with a happy ending.
Ja-nee, it did start as a tragedy turned fairy tale, but it didn’t have what you could call a happy ending.
Gerrit Johannes should’ve died in the mine that day, smothered by a river of mud. Manny Porra and John Zulu saved him and ended up sharing their sad story with him. They didn’t mock him for not dodging the mud himself. They knew by now it was best not to mock him.
Gerrit Johannes hated being mocked. That often happened during the war: He was the very young novice and his older, experienced battle comrades saved him more than once, but never let him forget it. He could ride and shoot as well as they did, yet often fell asleep with tears on his cheeks.
Gerrit Johannes would never trust anyone completely, but he started looking at Johnny Zulu and Manny Porra in a different way. Their story touched him. He knew he would’ve done exactly what they did.
In August 1908 Willy Gibson wasn’t Sir William officially yet but he was working hard at it. Now knowing what Louis Botha’s secret ambition was, he privately invited the Prime Minister to share a thrilling new hobby with him. Botha, a man of action, jumped at the chance. Not alone, of course. The Prime Minister never went anywhere without his powerful bodyguard, Neef Berg. Cousin Mountain in English. No-one ever called Neef Berg anything else, probably not even the pubescent virgins he felt up while supposedly teaching them Sunday school.
With Botha and his pervert of a bodyguard enjoying Willy’s hobby, things started happening fast.
First the Gibson Diamond was publicly displayed in Johannesburg and offered for sale, at a price so shocking interest waned quickly. That was all according to plan. By the time Gerrit Johannes learnt to appreciate the two rogues who saved his life, the government of the Union of South Africa had developed a keen interest in the Gibson diamond. Prime Minister Louis Botha even started having private luncheons with Willy. Just the two of them, Neef Berg hovering outside the door, probably armed with the Colt Single Action Army revolver he always wore cowboy style, hiding the belt and scabbard under longish jackets.
The public excuse for the mining baron and the prime minister lunching alone: their wives didn’t get along. Are you kidding? Their wives actually met often for a gossip fest over tea.
Botha was the help Willy needed, but they were not really friends. In fact, they had been mortal enemies in the recent war, Botha as a ruthless and brilliant Boer general and Willy as a medical orderly on the English side. Legend has it that General Botha, during the Battle of Harrismith, shot ten English cavalrymen right out of their saddles. And watching the Battle of Stormberg he spurred his commando on with a stirring call (“Shoot to kill! Remember they are only Englishmen!”) he would later deny making. Apparently his wife Annie was partly behind that denial.
Some historians believe Annie Botha was the one who convinced Neef Berg he would make a good Sunday school teacher. He probably didn’t need much convincing. Some historians also believe Neef Berg was actually the one who, at the Battle of Harrismith, shot those ten English cavalrymen out of their saddles.
Did Willy “Bricky” Gibson, carrying stretchers in the war, ever even hold a rifle?
Not so you’d notice.
Willy grew to enjoy sharing his new hobby with Prime Minister Botha. They had one very important thing in common. Very religious Botha called it The Will Of God, Willy called it Expanding Business. Anyone observing them nearly French-kissing at those expensive luncheons would call it Naked Ambition. Botha secretly wanted to be more than merely prime minister, he wanted to revive the old-style presidency and rule over the four colonies making up the Union of South Africa. Willy desperately wanted to be Sir William Gibson first, then after a bit he’d settle for Lord Gibson. And his wife wouldn’t really mind all that as long as no-one started digging into her past.
Or asked why she didn’t have children yet.
According to Miss Emily’s female servants she never really looked at greying, paunchy Willy with lust in her eyes. That was all acting on her part. Faded photographs suggest Willy was not only on the portly side but sadly unattractive. But then, Miss Emily must’ve learnt a thing or two about acting in the dance halls and saloons.
Before we judge Emily Gibson too harshly: firstly, she never set out to be a dancer for money or whatever else she was forced to do in a mining town crammed with horny miners. And secondly, she had her own sad secret which she carried bravely and alone. We’re not talking about her past in the dance halls and saloons. Willy knew about all that. Didn’t exactly meet her at a fancy dinner party thrown by Old Money English, did he?
Miss Emily’s secret was something else. If Willy had known what it was, he would probably have thrown her out in the street.
Willy went to his watery grave without knowing. Can it be true that he was actually murdered? Can forensic science prove that after so many years?
Meanwhile, in August 1908, Willy was seducing Prime Minister Louis Botha into helping him execute the Gibson Diamond plan. Part of the seduction involved Willy’s exciting new hobby, of course. Botha, an adventurer at heart, simply could not resist the danger. His wife Annie feared the hobby would kill him and spent many anxious hours in fervent prayer.
Willy’s hobby would end up killing someone, of course, but it wouldn’t be Louis Botha.
An intriguing tale with interesting twists and turns. Whatever will happen next?