Zouga to leave him in Ralph’s charge while he and Jan Cheroot went up to
the kopje and walked out along No. 6 Roadway to look down on the Devil’s Own claims.
All the mining equipment, shovels and picks, buckets and ropes, sheave wheels and ladders had been stolen. At the prices the transport riders were charging it would cost a hundred guineas to
replace them.
‘We will need men,’ Zouga said.
‘What will you do when you have them?’ Jan Cheroot asked.
‘Dig the stuff out.’
‘And then?’ the little Hottentot demanded with a malicious gleam in his dark eyes, his features wrinkled as a sour windfallen apple. ‘What do you then?’ he insisted.
‘I intend to find out,’ Zouga replied grimly. ‘We have wasted enough time here already.’
‘M y dear fellow,’ Neville Pickering gave him that charming smile. ‘I’m delighted that you asked. Had you not, then I
should have offered. It’s always a little problematic for a new chum to find his feet,’ he coughed deferentially, and went on quickly, ‘not that you are a new chum, by any
means—’
That was a term usually reserved for the fresh-faced hopefuls newly arrived on the boat from ‘home’. ‘Home’ was England, even those who were colonial born referred to it
as ‘home’.
‘I’d bet a fiver to a pinch of giraffe dung that you know more about this country than any of us here.’
‘African born,’ Zouga admitted, ‘on the Zouga river up north in Khama’s land; accounts for the odd name – Zouga.’
‘By Jove, didn’t realize that, I must say!’
‘Don’t hold it against me.’ Zouga smiled lightly, but he knew that there were many who would. Home born was vastly superior to colonial born. It was for that reason that he had
insisted that Aletta should make the long sea voyage with him when it seemed that her pregnancies would reach full term. Both Ralph and Jordan had been born in the same house in south London, and
both had arrived back at Good Hope before they were weaned. They were home born: that was his first gift to them.
Pickering glossed over the remark tactfully. He did not have to declare his own birth. He was an English gentleman, and nobody would ever mistake that.
‘There are many parts of your book that fascinated me. I’ll teach you what I know about sparklers if you’ll answer my questions. Bargain?’
Over the days that followed they bombarded each other with questions, Zouga demanding every detail of the process of raising and sorting the yellow gravel from the deepening pit, while Pickering
kept turning the conversation back to the land to the north, asking about the tribes and the gold reefs, about the rivers and mountains and the wild animals that swarmed upon the plains and in the
lonely forests that Zouga had conjured up so vividly in
Hunter’s
Odyssey.
Each morning an hour before the first light, Zouga would meet Pickering at the edge of the roadway above the workings. There would be an enamelled kettle bubbling on the brazier and they drank
black coffee that was strong enough to stain the teeth, while around them in the gloom the black mine-workers gathered sleepily, still hugging their fur karosses over their shoulders, their voices
muted but musical, their movements stiff and slow with sleepiness and the dawn chill.
At a hundred other points around the growing pit the gangs assembled, waiting for the light; and when it glimmered on the eastern horizon the men went swarming down into the workings, like
columns of ants, along the boardwalks and down the swaying ladders, spreading out on the chequerboard of claims, the hubbub rising, the chant of tribesmen, the squeal of ropes, the hectoring shouts
of the white overseers, and then the rattle of bucketloads of yellow gravel into the waiting carts upon the roadway.
Pickering was working four claims, which he owned in partnership.
‘My partner is down in Cape Town. Heaven knows when he will be back.’
Neville Pickering shrugged with
the kopje and walked out along No. 6 Roadway to look down on the Devil’s Own claims.
All the mining equipment, shovels and picks, buckets and ropes, sheave wheels and ladders had been stolen. At the prices the transport riders were charging it would cost a hundred guineas to
replace them.
‘We will need men,’ Zouga said.
‘What will you do when you have them?’ Jan Cheroot asked.
‘Dig the stuff out.’
‘And then?’ the little Hottentot demanded with a malicious gleam in his dark eyes, his features wrinkled as a sour windfallen apple. ‘What do you then?’ he insisted.
‘I intend to find out,’ Zouga replied grimly. ‘We have wasted enough time here already.’
‘M y dear fellow,’ Neville Pickering gave him that charming smile. ‘I’m delighted that you asked. Had you not, then I
should have offered. It’s always a little problematic for a new chum to find his feet,’ he coughed deferentially, and went on quickly, ‘not that you are a new chum, by any
means—’
That was a term usually reserved for the fresh-faced hopefuls newly arrived on the boat from ‘home’. ‘Home’ was England, even those who were colonial born referred to it
as ‘home’.
‘I’d bet a fiver to a pinch of giraffe dung that you know more about this country than any of us here.’
‘African born,’ Zouga admitted, ‘on the Zouga river up north in Khama’s land; accounts for the odd name – Zouga.’
‘By Jove, didn’t realize that, I must say!’
‘Don’t hold it against me.’ Zouga smiled lightly, but he knew that there were many who would. Home born was vastly superior to colonial born. It was for that reason that he had
insisted that Aletta should make the long sea voyage with him when it seemed that her pregnancies would reach full term. Both Ralph and Jordan had been born in the same house in south London, and
both had arrived back at Good Hope before they were weaned. They were home born: that was his first gift to them.
Pickering glossed over the remark tactfully. He did not have to declare his own birth. He was an English gentleman, and nobody would ever mistake that.
‘There are many parts of your book that fascinated me. I’ll teach you what I know about sparklers if you’ll answer my questions. Bargain?’
Over the days that followed they bombarded each other with questions, Zouga demanding every detail of the process of raising and sorting the yellow gravel from the deepening pit, while Pickering
kept turning the conversation back to the land to the north, asking about the tribes and the gold reefs, about the rivers and mountains and the wild animals that swarmed upon the plains and in the
lonely forests that Zouga had conjured up so vividly in
Hunter’s
Odyssey.
Each morning an hour before the first light, Zouga would meet Pickering at the edge of the roadway above the workings. There would be an enamelled kettle bubbling on the brazier and they drank
black coffee that was strong enough to stain the teeth, while around them in the gloom the black mine-workers gathered sleepily, still hugging their fur karosses over their shoulders, their voices
muted but musical, their movements stiff and slow with sleepiness and the dawn chill.
At a hundred other points around the growing pit the gangs assembled, waiting for the light; and when it glimmered on the eastern horizon the men went swarming down into the workings, like
columns of ants, along the boardwalks and down the swaying ladders, spreading out on the chequerboard of claims, the hubbub rising, the chant of tribesmen, the squeal of ropes, the hectoring shouts
of the white overseers, and then the rattle of bucketloads of yellow gravel into the waiting carts upon the roadway.
Pickering was working four claims, which he owned in partnership.
‘My partner is down in Cape Town. Heaven knows when he will be back.’
Neville Pickering shrugged with
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