A Time for Courage (43 page)

‘It’s no good,’ he said at last, resting on his shovel. ‘Maybe I was wrong.’

Baralong stood and looked at him. ‘You not wrong, Harry. I feel it. I know it. They are here, somewhere. They are here.’

Harry threw his shovel down, looking at his friend. ‘But where, for Christ’s sake, where?’ He wiped his hands on his dust-caked trousers. Yes, he knew they should be here. All the signs pointed to it but the damn stones did not seem to exist. Time was passing too fast. They’d have to decide whether to move on and try nearer the Orange; maybe some of the old diggings weren’t worked out yet. He’d talk to Baralong tonight. They’d have to decide.

That afternoon he walked the course of the stream again leaving Baralong to shoot a springbox or dassie for later. Backwards and forwards looking at the contours, the stones, the boulders. Knowing that somewhere in this soil there should be diamonds which had been deposited when the pipes were new and the elements had violently weathered and dispersed the crystallised carbon.

‘They should be here,’ he said to himself, sitting down, his arms on his knees, his face running with the sweat of tiredness, of panic. He lifted his arm and wiped his forehead on the rough torn sleeve of his shirt. Looking towards the homestead he could see the empty sheep-kraals, zinc-roofed outhouses, the kaffir huts, but not Baralong. He knew though that he would be out there somewhere on his horse hunting, but all the while watching the trail from Kimberley. He rose again. As he walked, looked and kicked with his boots he decided that they could only give themselves another two months here, that was all the time they could afford. Apart from anything else it would be time for Frank’s spring leave soon. Perhaps he would come then.

He walked again and felt the stones through his worn boot soles; earth ran in through the split uppers. His neck ached from looking down, from seeing the earth so red, and then so brown when the rain fell as it now began to do. Baralong called him as the sun went down and dark shrouded the land. He unhitched Kim from the milk-bush, riding slowly back in the darkness, seeing no light from the red-bricked house for they had hung the mealie bags in front of the windows to keep in the dull candle glow. They wanted no beacon shining out from their house.

He was up at first light and rode out again on Kim but further along this time, and as he did so he looked down the course of the dry bed to a rise in the land where perhaps the bank would have been. That is where they would try next, he decided.

An hour later they brought their guns to the rise, along with the sieves, the shovels, the buckets. It took two trips.

‘We need one diamond per fifteen buckets,’ Harry said and Baralong laughed for Harry called this across to him every morning. They sank their shovels into the sand and stones and the horses pawed the ground and mouthed their bits, the clinking and snuffling reaching the men, but they took no notice. In the distance the dog sniffed around the house.

Baralong laughed. ‘You are sure, Harry?’

Harry nodded and smiled. In spite of his conviction that the hunters would come Baralong looked younger now, the drawn lines around his mouth had gone and there was a looseness in his walk, a set to his shoulders which had not been there before they had reached Bloemfon, for that is what Simon had called this place. Baralong’s back had healed well but it was not that which had made him different. Harry knew that it was freedom.

Harry dug and filled the buckets while Baralong hoisted them up and poured them through the sieve. After fifteen there were still no diamonds but they did not stop digging, just moved along about ten feet. How many hundred feet had they covered in this way, Harry wondered, stamping his foot on the shovel, lifting the earth, dropping it into the bucket and again and again. As he worked, he did not think, just counted as he did every day and then Baralong called.

‘Harry, you right. You bloody right, man.’ His voice was high, fast, more of a song than speech.

Harry did not understand at first.

‘Harry, Harry.’ This time the words were more of a scream and now Harry turned, dropping the shovel. He ran to his friend and looked at the sieve where two dull glassy pebbles lay amongst the stones and earth.

He held the edge of the sieve with Baralong and together they lowered it to the ground as though fearful that the diamonds would slip through the holes – but how could they, they were too damn big. Baralong’s hand was shaking as he picked one up. It soaked up the colour of his skin as he held it in his palm. He took it between his finger and thumb and held it to the sky.

Harry touched the other that still lay in the sieve. It was cool and still and held no beauty yet but when facets had been cut it would flash and live with a vividness which would hurt. He lifted it now, holding it to the sky as Baralong was doing. This would be for Esther.

As he stood there it was as though a great dam had burst within him and he turned to Baralong. ‘These are five carats each, Baralong. Five damn carats. We’ve done it, we’ve bloody done it.’

He was dancing now, the diamond clasped in his hand, and he hugged his friend whose cheeks were wet and he knew his were too. They hugged and wept and danced and sang and then dug again and sieved and as night fell they brought their diamonds back. Some small, some large, but not as big as the first two that they had found. Harry cooked salt mutton as Baralong stripped the fleece off one of the sheepskins, using Harry’s knife to cut large circles.

‘We’ll carry the diamonds in these pouches all the time,’ Baralong said, making holes and threading strips of hide through, knotting them and drawing them tight. He divided up the diamonds and threw a pouch to Harry.

‘In case they come, Harry,’ Baralong said.

Harry put down the plates which he had been about to bring across to where Baralong was working. For a moment he had forgotten Frank’s spring leave. He must not do that again for now they were so very close to all that they both needed.

He tied the pouch to his belt, and the two empty ones which Baralong also threw across to him. He lifted the plates again. The fat had congealed on the enamel and the potatoes were charred where they had lain on the ashes and he was not hungry but he knew that they must eat for they had much work to do before they could leave, before they could escape.

The next day they took up boards from the loft, wrenching them up from the beams, bending the long, strong nails as they tore them free. They carried them to the dig and they both shovelled, both sieved and when their arms ached with the sideways motion they emptied the buckets on to the boards and sorted with a wooden scraper.

When it rained the earth grew sticky and Harry’s back strained with the effort of lifting the shovel, but the water washed the earth from the diamonds and so they were easier to find. Baralong lifted his face to the rain and grinned. ‘The Orange river will be filling up with this rainfall, Harry. If they come the river will take a boat now. It would not have done before. Spring is a good time.’

‘It’s not spring yet,’ Harry grunted but he knew that in six weeks it would be.

They worked all the daylight hours for the next three weeks, stopping to shoot a dassie or a springbok, stopping every half-hour to check that there were no riders coming past the kopje though Harry felt they were safe until the spring. When they each had one full pouch they had a day of rest and sat in the house as the rain came down heavy for once and drank the brandy which Harry had saved for the day they found their fortune.

‘How we sell stones?’ Baralong asked. ‘Dealers here, in South Africa, report us for not using cartel, for bad dealing.’

Harry threw across the flask. ‘Have a little, my friend,’ he said and he knew his voice was slurred. He had not been drunk since Johannesburg.

‘As to that problem’, he said, wagging his finger at Baralong who took a long swallow at the brandy before screwing on the top and tossing it back to Harry. ‘We shall go to Antwerp. I have come across a name while I’ve been out here. It belongs to someone who likes fine white diamonds and is not fussy where they come from. The slump is over and quality is always desirable anyway, Baralong.’

He stood up and moved unsteadily to the window, lifting back the mealie bag one inch and peering out but he knew there was no one there because the dog had not barked. He just liked to make sure from time to time. Did other people feel fear as he did? He wanted to ask Baralong, but how could he, for if his friend did not fear as he did then he could not bear the truth.

‘Yes,’ he repeated, dropping the mealie bag and turning. ‘We shall go to Antwerp and then I shall take you to my home. You will be safe there, Baralong.’

Baralong was sitting cross-legged, his arms loose on his knees, his head back against his saddle. The fireplace was blackened and the coals were almost dead.

‘No, I not come with you. I stay.’

Harry did not move towards Baralong but stood leaning against the wall as he had been doing. The candle’s glow did not reach into the corners of the room; there was just Baralong in its circle of light. It seemed very quiet suddenly and Harry could not find the words to say that he could not bear the thought of being without his friend for he had never known anyone as he knew this man, anyone that is except for Hannah.

‘Why must you stay?’ was all he said but he wanted to shout at him. Don’t stay, I need a friend I love. He still did not move but the dog did. She pricked up her ears and looked at him. Did she sense the pain behind the words?

‘There much to do in South Africa. They take the rights of my people in the Cape too. Now, things get worse everywhere. In Cape Town are natives who see this, who come together to stop it. I want be with them.’

Baralong’s head was tilted back, his eyes were shut. ‘I have love for you, my friend,’ Baralong said, ‘but I have love for country too.’

Harry could still not say to Baralong the words which he was forming in his head and so he just nodded. ‘Yes, I can see that you would feel that you must stay. I will go to Holland, Baralong, and send you back your money.’

He moved back to sit opposite, resting against his saddle now, hoping that his face was in shade and that night they finished the brandy and the next day began work late. They rode their horses down to the sloot and dug and sieved again and it was warmer today.

By late afternoon they had found one of the largest diamonds Harry had ever seen. It was about seven carats and lay heavy in his hand. They had half-filled a pouch with smaller ones and Baralong said that they must put this in the last pouch on its own, for it was of almost too great a value to be borne.

They did not hear the dog barking until it was almost too late and then Harry stopped as he was pulling the pouch tight and held out his hand to Baralong. They stood quite still as they listened and Harry felt cold and he could see that his hand had begun to shake. They eased their way slowly up the bank that had been formed as they dug but pressed themselves in close. Harry could smell the earth, so close to his face.

The men were at the house, four of them on horses and Harry saw Frank as he flicked his cigarette outwards on to the ground.

‘Our guns by the rise,’ Baralong whispered. They would be seen if they moved to fetch them and Harry was glad for he was sick of violence.

‘If the dog doesn’t come towards us, maybe we’ll be all right,’ Harry said, feeling the sand beneath his hands and in his nails. As he talked it puffed up into his face. He could still smell it, see it, each minute grain.

The horses were tethered in the sloot, would they be seen from the house? Harry dug his fingers in deep and lay flat against the rising ground. He could only hear the breath in his throat. There was no more barking from the dog. Please God, let it stay that way. He looked again, carefully, and saw Frank pat and stroke it and then it barked, loudly and turned towards the sloot bounding towards its masters. Harry felt the shaking in his hands and saw the rod which he had held years ago, heard his father’s voice, so vicious. You took the rod too far back, the line wasn’t damn well straight. He dragged his mind back. For God’s sake, there was no time for that. He took Baralong’s arm. ‘Get the horses, ride for the bloody river. It’s all we can do. Ride for the Orange. There are trees, houses and it will be dark before we get there.’ His voice was jagged as he ran but he heard Baralong with him, slipping as he was on the earth and pebbles.

He snatched at the reins, scrambling into the saddle and dug his heels into Kim, turning, checking that Baralong was close. He heard the men shouting, saw Frank leap into his saddle, saw him draw his rifle from near his bedroll.

They did not stir up sand as they rode, for the rain had been heavy yesterday. Their horses were away quickly, and he could hear and feel the thudding of their hoofs and the barking of the dog and soon they were clear of the property and he did not even turn for one last look. Were they following? He didn’t know but was glad that the sand was wet and there would be no dust for the men to follow. He dug his heels into Kim.

‘Come on, boy,’ he yelled, hearing Baralong with him.

But because there was no dust kicked there was a clear view for the marksman as he fired. As he galloped past a thorn bush Harry felt a blow in his back, a thud as though he had been hit by the flat of a shovel, the pain did not come until a few minutes later and then it tore and wrenched at his body. They rode on, not stopping, and after three hours the men were still after them but not quite so close for their horses were tired after their ride across the veld.

Kim was sweating now, Harry could see it, stained dark at the base of his neck beneath his mane. It would be wet, and his lips were dry. He wanted to rest his head on that strong neck, lay his mouth against the smooth wetness. Yes, that’s what he would do and then maybe the pain would ease, but with each galloped stride it jerked again through his body. Why was he riding like this? He would stop. It was absurd. He would stop arid sit. His father must let him rest for a moment. He would ask him. He turned and it was not his father but Baralong and he was glad. Baralong came close to him now and he saw that the sun was going down and soon it would be dark. Please God, soon it would be dark, for now he remembered why he could not stop.