Роберт Фиш - Rough Diamond

Rhodes said nothing. The two sat in silence watching the machine voraciously devour the expensive wood, Rhodes with no expression at all on his thin, serious face, Rudd nervously gnawing a corner of his bushy blond mustache. At last Rudd grunted; the gauge above the boiler finally showed sufficient pressure to activate the pump. He came to his feet, pleased and slightly surprised that the ancient boiler hadn’t exploded. He closed the firebox, motioning the black laborer away, and then closed his eyes a moment, muttering a little prayer more to himself than to anyone else, since Charley Rudd was in the nature of a nonbeliever. This done, he crossed his fingers in propitiation of any pagan gods possibly about, and pulled the lever directing the steam from the pressure chamber to the pump.

For a moment he thought he must have left a valve closed, or piped the monster incorrectly, since nothing happened; then at last the pistons accepted the sad fact that they were going to have to go to work again after all the years of inactivity, and slowly, reluctantly, began to move. Rudd felt a stirring of excitement, a pride of workmanship. The ridiculous abortion was actually going to work! He put his fingers lightly on the piston packing he had had to fabricate, searching for leaks, but there didn’t seem to be any. To his amazement, everything seemed to be operating normally and properly. The pistons slowly increased in speed until they were moving at their preordained velocity. The long rubber hose that had been run into a barrel of water on the vacuum side of the pump began to heave and twist; the corresponding hose on the pressure side began to jet water in uncontrolled spurts. It lifted itself from the empty barrel where it had been placed, and sprayed the entire assembly area.

Rudd laughed happily as a jet caught him squarely in the face; he ran forward, pushing the lever to cut off the steam. The two hoses obediently slowed their heaving, the pistons slowed down and then stopped. The entire machine stood silent, awaiting further instructions. Rudd wiped his dripping face and grinned at Rhodes.

“There you are, Johnny—” Rudd hated the name Cecil and made no bones about it; he was the only one who ever called Rhodes by his middle name. Everyone else, with few exceptions, referred to the humorless young man as Rhodes, or as Mr. Rhodes, despite the fact that he was only twenty years of age. “Let’s go out and celebrate.”

“Good enough.” Rhodes came off his packing crate. “When will we be able to rig it to the mine?”

“Tomorrow. I want to see to it personally.” Rudd tossed aside the waste he had used to dry his face, picked his hat from a nail on the wall. “Where do you want to go?”

Rhodes frowned. “The club, of course. Where else?”

“I don’t know.” Rudd looked a trifle embarrassed. “I feel like something a little more exciting than a few drinks and supper with the same people we see every night.”

“Such as what?”

“Oh, I don’t know. One of the bars where they have girls—” He was surprised at the look of distaste that suddenly appeared on Rhodes’ face. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. Only I do not frequent such places!”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Johnny! Don’t be such a puritan!” Rudd sighed. “Oh, all right, then. How about the Paris bar, then? No girls there, but there are a couple of fellows there who put on a pretty good show. Clowns, acrobats…”

Rhodes considered a moment and then shrugged, making, for him, a concession. “All right. For a while, anyway.”

“Thanks,” Rudd said, half under his breath. He dismissed the laborers and led the way to the street, looking the shed door after them. In many ways, Rudd thought, Cecil John Rhodes was an excellent partner: he recognized opportunities quickly, did not hesitate in making decisions, the huge majority of which were correct, and Rudd had no doubt that eventually both of them would be wealthy men. Their claims were producing very well and even with the depressed London market for the stones, they were making quite a bit of money. And their contracts for pumping the claims of the Dutoitspan mine would bring them a lot more money. But there was also no doubt in Charles Rudd’s mind that in many ways Cecil John Rhodes was as odd as a three-shilling coin, and at times could also be quite a pain in the arse.

They had marched well along the darkened road that led from Dutoitspan to the central portion of Kimberley several miles distant, when Rudd grinned again in memory of the success of his machine. “Not a bad job, if I say so myself,” he could not help but comment.

“Quite creditable,” Rhodes agreed. It was as close to a compliment as he could ever bring himself to utter.

“Particularly considering the bloody machine was never meant to be a pump in the first place.”

Rhodes looked at his companion in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“It was a compressor before,” Rudd said, explaining. “I had to fabricate a few parts to get the thing running as a pump.”

“A compressor?”

“That’s right.” Rudd laughed. “When I first saw it in that used-machinery yard in Cape Town, I almost passed it up. The bloody machine had been used for making ice before. Can you imagine?”

Rhodes stopped dead in his tracks. They were before the Paris Hotel but he made no move to lead the way in. Rudd had turned in the direction of the hotel entrance but he stopped and walked back. “What’s the matter?”

“Can you make that machine produce ice?”

“I’d have to dismantle it and put back the original pieces—”

“Which you still have?”

“Sure, someplace in one of the crates.”

Rhodes sighed. “Charles, Charles, you have no imagination!”

“What d’you mean?”

“ Ice , Charles — ice! We’ll pump out Dutoitspan in no time, and then until the next rainy season, during the nine months when it’s dry as a bone here in Kimberley, and hotter than hell itself — we’ll make and sell ice!”

Rudd stared at him. “I never thought of that!”

“Thinking is my job; doing is yours.” Rhodes smiled at the thought of having the only ice machine in Kimberley during the hellish hot months. Cold drinks for the sweating diggers at a small price per bit of ice; blocks of ice to be sold to the hotels and bars; ice for the provisioners to keep their fruits and vegetables that much longer; meats that could be held for far greater periods of time without having to be dried for preservation. Possibly even a cold house… Ice!

“Come on,” Rhodes said genially. “Now let’s really celebrate. I’ll pay for the drinks.”

They walked into the hotel and stepped up to the bar. Rhodes ordered double whiskeys for the two of them and turned to look the place over. The bar was well filled with diggers drinking and waiting for the show; to one side the dining area had been transformed, with the tables pulled back in preparation for the evening’s entertainment. One person was sitting at a table at the edge of the improvised stage, his head in his arms on the table, apparently sound asleep. Rhodes turned to the bartender who was pouring their drinks.

“When does the show go on?”

“Any minute now,” the barman said. Even as he said it, Harry came staggering out of the door that led from the kitchen. He was acting the drunken clown; his pants were far too big for him and were held to gaudy suspenders with huge bows of ribbon; his shirt collar hung away from his neck by a good twelve inches and his cravat was stringlike and had one end a few inches long while the other end almost reached the ground. He was wearing a tiny derby that perched atop his head and looked ridiculous on him. As he passed the person sitting with his head on the table, a foot was suddenly thrust out and Harry took a comic fall, holding tightly to his derby so it would not leave his head. Barney, the one at the table, now apologized profusely in pantomime for having tripped his brother and tried to make restitution by helping him up. Barney’s clothes were even more ill fitting than his brother’s; on helping each other up they continued to fall, their heads and feet becoming entangled in each other’s outsized clothing, and with Harry never relinquishing his hold on his derby which he kept clamped to his head. Eventually they ended up with Barney’s head down Harry’s pants and Harry staring at the roaring audience through Barney’s legs, his derby still pressed tightly to his head, a look of wondering curiosity on his face that all this should be happening to him. And when they finally managed to untangle themselves and each tried to escape the other by crawling under tables, every time each tried to rise he kept banging his head on the table. Until at last Barney managed to get free of the table, and taking his brother by the leg he dragged him through the kitchen door and offstage.