Роберт Фиш - Rough Diamond

Now, the area secure, the four men were talking about the second purpose in acquiring the land. The night was chilly and the campfire welcome, but the news that Cecil Rhodes was hearing from one of the men was not.

“There is no gold here that we have been able to find,” said the man. He was John Hays Hammond, an American mining engineer employed by Rhodes and a man whose word Rhodes respected. “Nor the slightest sign of diamonds, either.”

“Even if there were diamonds here,” Charles Rudd said, “we already have an ample supply from De Beers to control the world market. We were hoping for gold. There’s no limit to the market for gold. Or silver. Or any of the precious minerals.”

“We found no sign of anything valuable,” Hammond said. “And we looked. I’ve had good men searching, in every part of the territory.”

“If we want to keep the Chartered Company going, Cecil,” said the fourth man, Dr. Leander Starr Jameson, “it’s going to have to be financed from the Rand. Or any railway you plan to connect the Cape with Fort Salisbury or go any further. It will have to be done by increasing the production and the income from the gold of the Rand. And there’s only one way to do that, and we all know what it is.”

“Get rid of Kruger, you mean,” Rhodes said slowly, staring into the fire.

“Of course,” Jameson said, surprised at Rhodes’ tone. “We’ve talked about it long enough; it’s time to do something about it. The Reform Committee in Jo’burg has simply been waiting for someone to take the bull by the horns and show them how. All we need is some pretext to start the ball rolling.”

“Finding a pretext is no problem,” Rudd said with a short laugh. “The fact that they paid the taxes but didn’t have any representation was all the cheeky Americans needed to fob off dear old King George. And the taxes they objected to would be lost in your eye compared to what we have to hand over each month — or each shipment of goods — to dear old King Kruger.”

“That’s not exactly a pretext,” Rhodes said slowly. “No, what we need is something far stronger. Suppose the women and children were threatened in some way, and the good citizens of the Reform Committee were to ask for help—”

“Which would be forthcoming from the Cape?” Rudd asked.

Cecil Rhodes shook his head. There was a faint smile on his face.

“No,” he said, “or, rather, not officially. From someplace in Bechuanaland nearest Johannesburg, a rescue party of outraged citizens of Rhodesia, joined by any volunteers from the Cape Colony — without the knowledge of the authorities, of course-would respond to that touching plea for help and ride to Johannesburg to bolster the morale of the citizens there in any way they could. And this band of citizens, led by this almost military force at its head, would rise in revolt, taking their arms from the rafters of their homes, from the springhouses, from their many hiding places, and take control of the city of Johannesburg.”

“And under these conditions, I imagine, the Government of the Cape Colony would be forced, in the name of Peace and Order, to step in.”

“To protect its citizens? Obviously,” Rhodes said.

“And this rescue party, of course, would be under the leadership of Captain Leander Starr Jameson,” Jameson said, a grin on his face. The doctor’s small war against Lobengula had whetted his appetite for battle; his success had made him realize for the first time the excitement, the actual fun of killing as opposed to curing; the pleasures of war. Then his grin disappeared. Despite his profound agreement with the plan being discussed, the good doctor was no fool. “There would have to be a letter — undated — from the Reform Committee asking for this help,” he said. “Signed by at least some of the leaders of the committee.”

“Of course,” Rhodes said smoothly. “And it would be logical for you to lead the rescue party, since you won Rhodesia and the men respect you. And for a second in command? In case you — ah, might be harmed in any way?”

“Not your brother Frank!” Jameson said hastily. “He was visiting Johannesburg not too long ago and I sent a messenger asking him to come to a rather important meeting of the Reform Committee, and he replied by messenger that he couldn’t make it as he had promised to give some lady a bike lesson!”

Rhodes shrugged a bit unhappily. “Yes, Frank likes women. Then who?”

“Oh, I’ll find someone. We had quite a bunch of adventurers come with us when we went up against Lobengula. One of them in particular impressed me. Chap by the name of Carl Luckner. Damned good fighter. Terrible temper, but that’s what you want in battle, of course.”

“Luckner?” Rhodes frowned as if he had never heard the name before. “From the Cape?”

“I don’t know where he came from last, but I recall him when he was in Kimberley. He was the manager of the Paris Hotel there for a while. Had a run-in with Bamato, as I recall, and left the place. I was out of town at the time. But he showed up here, in Salisbury, when we were taking up volunteers and he turned out to be a fine soldier. Why?”

“I remember Luckner from the Paris Hotel,” Rudd said. “I wasn’t out of town at the time. The man’s completely insane. He kicked Mrs. Barnato’s father to death. The old man had pulled a sort of knife on him, or Luckner would have hung. Still,” Rudd added, as if thinking about it, “maybe crazy men are what you need. How many d’you think you can raise for this so-called rescue attempt?”

“I should say fifteen hundred easily,” Starr said confidently. “At least a thousand from Rhodesia, and then there’s the Bechuanaland Police; they’ll all come along for a price.”

“And these guns that the uprising citizens are supposed to find in their rafters or their springhouses?” Rudd went on, ever the pragmatist. “How are they to get there to be found?”

“It will take planning, of course,” Rhodes said. “We’ll get the guns into Jo’burg some way.”

“I can handle that end from Kimberley,” Hammond said. “That’s no problem.”

“There’s only one real problem,” Rhodes said quietly, evenly.

“What’s that?”

“It better not fail,” Rhodes said flatly, and came to his feet, ready for his tent and bed.

The visit of Oom Paul Kruger to Johannesburg for the purpose of addressing the people of the newly formed town was one that would remain an integral part of the legends that grow up around any city’s early days.

“Bloody tyrant!” Solly Loeb said bitterly as he stood in the Market Square with several other members of the Reform Committee awaiting the President’s arrival. The Market Square had been cleared of ox wagons for the occasion and a large platform had been erected to seat the Miner’s Committee and serve as the dais for the President’s speech. To one side a flagpole had been planted, and flying from it was the Vierkleur, the four-colored flag of the Transvaal Republic. Solly eyed the crowd gathering, crowding in toward the still-empty platform. “Ought to be the other way around,” he said sourly. “Instead of riding into Jo’burg, he should be ridden out. On a rail. With a nice coat of tar and feathers to keep him warm.”

“He will be, one of these days,” Lionel Phillips predicted.

“And a lot sooner than he suspects,” Colonel Frank Rhodes said. Colonel Rhodes was the Premier’s brother, visiting Johannesburg from Cape Town. He turned to Solly. “I suppose now that cyanide is an important adjunct for the gold-mining business, it’s all in the hands of the Boers?”

“D’you even need to ask? Of course it is. And the duty to bring it in is ridiculous. By the time bloody old Kruger gets through with us, with all his bloody taxes, we might as well go back to the amalgam process! We get all the gold from the rock, it’s true, but the taxes eat up most of the additional profits. The man is a bloody maniac!”