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Authors: Wilbur Smith

BOOK: Rage
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David's father Abraham Abrahams was still head of the legal section, perched up beside his son, bright and chirpy as a little silver sparrow. His files were piled high on the table in front of him, but he seldom had to refer to them. With half a dozen other newcomers whom Centaine and Shasa between them had hand picked, it was a balanced and functional team.
‘Let's talk about the Courtney chemical plant at Chaka's Bay first.' Shasa brought the meeting to order. ‘How much meat is there in the beef against us, Abe?'
‘We are running hot sulphuric acid into the sea at a rate of between eleven and sixteen tons per day at a concentration of one in ten thousand,' Abe Abrahams told him matter-of-factly. ‘I've had an independent marine biologist do a report on it for us.' He tapped the document. ‘It isn't good. We have altered the pH for five miles along the coastline.'
‘You haven't circulated this report?' Shasa asked sharply.
‘What do you think?' Abe shook his head.
‘All right, David. What will it cost us to modify the manufacturing procedure on the fertilizer division to dispose of the acid waste some other way?'
‘There are two possible modifications,' David told him. ‘The simplest and cheapest is trucking the effluent in tankers, but then we have to find another dumping ground. The ideal solution is recycling the acid.'
‘Costs?'
‘One hundred thousand pounds per annum for the tankers – one shot of almost three times that for the other way.'
‘A year's profits down the drain,' Shasa said. ‘That's not acceptable. Who is this Pearson woman that is heading up the protest? Can we reason with her?'
Abe shook his head. ‘We have tried. She is holding the whole committee together. Without her they would crumble.'
‘What is her position?'
‘Her husband owns the local bakery.'
‘Buy it,' said Shasa. ‘If he won't sell, let him know discreetly that we will open another bakery in competition and subsidize its product. I want this Pearson woman far away and long ago. Any questions?' He looked down the table. Everybody was busy making notes, nobody looked at him and he wanted to ask them reasonably, ‘All right, gentlemen, are you prepared to spend three hundred thousand pounds to give a good home to the oysters and the sea urchins of Chaka's Bay?'
‘No questions!' he nodded instead. ‘All right, let's take on the big one now. Silver River.'
They all shifted in their seats, and there was simultaneous and nervous exhalation of breath.
‘Gentlemen, we have all read and studied Dr Twentyman-Jones's geological report based on his drilling on the property. It is a superb piece of work, and I don't have to tell you that it's the best opinion you'll get on Harley Street. Now I want to hear from each of you your own opinions as departmental heads. Can we start with you, Rupert?'
Rupert Horn was the junior member of the executive team. As Treasurer and Chief Accountant he filled in the financial background.
‘If we let the option lapse, we shall be writing off the two point three million that we have spent on exploration
over the last eighteen months. If we take up the option it will mean an initial payment of four million on signature.'
‘We can cover that from the rainy-day account,' Shasa intervened.
‘We are holding four point three million in the provisional fund,' Rupert Horn agreed. ‘We have it invested in Escom seven per cent Stock at present, but once we utilize that fund we will be in an extremely exposed position.'
One after the other, in ascending order of seniority, Shasa's managers gave their views as seen from their own departments, and David put it all together at the end.
‘So it seems that we have twenty-six days remaining on the option, and four million to pay if we take it up. That is going to leave us bare-bummed, and facing development costs of three million pounds for the main shaft alone, plus another five million for plant, interest and running costs to see us into the production phase, four years from now in 1956.' He stopped and they all watched intently while Shasa selected a cigarette and tapped it lightly on the lid of his gold case.
Shasa's expression was deadly serious. He knew better than any of them that the decision could destroy the company or take it up onto a new high plateau, and nobody could make that decision for him. He was up on the lonely pinnacle of command.
‘We know there is gold down there,' he spoke at last. ‘A thick rich reef of it. If we reach it, it will go on producing for the next fifty years. However, gold is standing at thirty-five dollars an ounce. The Americans have pegged it, they have threatened to keep the price there for all time. Thirty-five dollars an ounce – and it will cost us between twenty and twenty-five an ounce to go down that deep and bring it to the surface. A slim margin, gentlemen, much too slim.'
He lit the cigarette, and they all sighed and relaxed, at the same time disappointed and relieved. It would have been glorious to make the charge, but disastrous to have
failed. Now they would never know. But Shasa hadn't finished. He blew a spinning smoke-ring down the length of the table, and went on.
‘However, I don't think the Americans are going to be able to keep the lid on the gold price much longer. Their hatred of gold is emotional, not based on economic reality. I know, deep down in my guts, that the day is not far off when we will see gold at sixty dollars and one day, sooner than any of us think, it will be a hundred and fifty dollars – perhaps even two hundred!' They stirred with disbelief, and Twentyman-Jones looked as though he might break down and weep in the face of such wild optimism, but Shasa ignored him and turned to Abe Abrahams.
‘Abe, at noon on the eighteenth of next month, twelve hours before the option expires, you will hand over a cheque for four million to the owners of Silver River farms, and take possession of the property in the name of a company to be formed.' Shasa turned to David. ‘At the same time we will simultaneously open subscription lists on the Johannesburg and London Stock Exchanges for ten million one-pound shares in the Silver River gold-mining property. You and Dr Twentyman-Jones will start today drawing up the prospectus. Courtney Mining will register the property in the name of the new company in return for the balance of five million shares transferred into our name. We will also be responsible for the management and development.' Quickly, succinctly, Shasa laid out the structure, financing and management of the new company, and more than once these wily seasoned campaigners glanced up from their notepads in blatant admiration of some deft and unusual touch he added to the scheme.
‘Is there anything I have left out?' Shasa asked at the end, and when they shook their heads, he grinned. David was reminded strongly of the movie he and Matty had taken the children to see the previous Saturday afternoon,
The Sea Hawk
, though the eye-patch made Shasa look even more piratical than Errol Flynn had done in the title role.
‘The founder of our company, Mme Centaine de Thiry Courtney-Malcomess, has never approved of the consumption of alcohol in the boardroom. However—' Still grinning, Shasa nodded at David, who went to open the main doors of the boardroom and a secretary wheeled in a trolley on which the rows of glasses clinked and the green bottles of Dom Perignon swished in their silver ice-buckets. ‘Old customs give way to new,' Shasa said, and drew the first cork with a discreet pop.
S
hasa throttled back the Rolls-Royce engines and the Mosquito sank down through the ribbons of scattered cirrus cloud, and the endless golden plains of the high African shield came up to meet her. Off to the west Shasa could just make out the clustered buildings of the mining town of Welkom, centre of the Orange Free State goldfields. Founded only a few years previously, when the vast Anglo-American Corporation began opening up these fields, it was already a model town of over a hundred thousand persons.
Shasa unclipped his oxygen mask and let it dangle on his chest as he leaned forward on his straps and peered ahead through the windshield ahead of the Mosquito's blue nose.
He picked out the tiny steel tower of the drilling rig almost lost in the immensity of the dusty plain, and using it as a landmark traced the gossamer thread of fences that enclosed the Silver River farms — eleven thousand acres, most of it bare and undeveloped. It was amazing that the geologists of the big mining houses had overlooked this little pocket, but then nobody could have reasonably
expected the gold reef to spur off like that – that is, nobody but Twentyman-Jones and Shasa Courtney.
Yet the reef was as far beneath the earth as the Mosquito now circled above it. It seemed impossible that any human endeavour would be able to burrow down that deep, but already Shasa could see in his imagination the tall headgear of the Silver River main towering two hundred feet above the bleak plain, with its shaft stabbing down a mile and more into the underground river of precious metal.
‘And the Yanks can't hold out for ever — they will have to let gold go free,' he told himself.
He stood the Mosquito on one wing and on the instrument panel the gyrocompass revolved smoothly. Shasa lifted the wing and she was precisely on her new heading of 125°.
‘Fifteen minutes, with these winds,' he grunted, as he marked the large-scale map on his knee, and the fine exaltation of spirit stayed with him for the remainder of the flight until he saw the dark pencil-line of smoke rising into the still air dead ahead. They had put up a smoke beacon to guide him in.
There was a Dakota parked in front of the lonely galvanized iron-clad hangar at the end of the strip. The big aircraft had Air Force markings. The runway was of rolled yellow clay, hard and smooth and the Mosquito settled to it with barely a jolt. It had taken endless practice to develop that sort of distance judgement after he had lost the eye.
Shasa slid back the canopy and taxied towards the hangar. There was a green Ford pick-up near the mast of the windsock, and a lone figure dressed in khaki shorts and shirt stood beside the smoke pot, fists clenched on his hips, watching Shasa taxi up and cut the engines. Then as Shasa jumped down, he stepped forward and offered his right hand, but his expression, solemn and reserved, was at odds with the welcoming gesture.
‘Good afternoon, Minister.' Shasa was as unsmiling and their grip was hard but brief. Then as Shasa looked deeply into Manfred De La Rey's pale eyes, he had a strange feeling of déjà vu, of having stared into those same eyes in desperate circumstances before. He had to shake his head slightly to be rid of it.
‘I am glad for both our sakes that you were able to come. Can I help you with your bags?' Manfred De La Rey asked.
‘Don't worry. I can manage.' Shasa went back to tie down and secure the Mosquito and fetch his luggage from the bomb bay, while Manfred doused the smoke pot.
‘You brought your own rifle,' Manfred remarked. ‘What is it?'
‘Seven millimetre Remington magnum.' Shasa swung the luggage into the back of the truck and stepped up into the passenger door of the Ford.
‘Perfect for this type of shooting,' Manfred approved as he started the truck. ‘Long shots over flat ground.' He swung on to the track and they drove for a few minutes in silence.
‘The Prime Minister could not come,' he said. ‘He intended to be here, but he sent a letter for you. It confirms that I speak with his authority.'
‘I'll accept that.' Shasa kept a straight face.
‘The Minister of Finance is here, and the Minister of Agriculture is our host – this is his farm. One of the biggest in the Free State.'
‘I am impressed.'
‘Yes,' Manfred nodded. ‘I think you will be.' He stared hard at Shasa. ‘Is it not strange how you and I seem doomed always to confront each other?'
‘It had crossed my mind,' Shasa admitted.
‘Do you think there is some reason for it – something of which we are unaware?' Manfred insisted, and Shasa shrugged.
‘I shouldn't think so – coincidence only.' The reply seemed to disappoint Manfred.
‘Has your mother never spoken about me?'
Shasa looked startled. ‘My mother! Good Lord, I don't think so. She may have mentioned you casually — why do you ask?'
Manfred seemed not to have heard, he looked ahead. ‘There is the homestead,' he said, with a finality that closed the subject.
The track breasted the rim of a shallow valley and the homestead nestled below them. Here the water must be near the surface for the pasturage was lush and green and the skeletal steel towers of a dozen windmills were scattered down the valley. A plantation of eucalyptus trees surrounded the homestead, and beyond it stood substantial outbuildings, all freshly painted and in good repair. Twenty or more brand-new tractors were lined up before one of the long garages, and there were flocks of fat sheep on the pastures. The plain beyond the homestead reaching almost to the horizon was already ploughed, thousands of acres of chocolate loam ready for sowing with maize seed. This was the heart land of Afrikanerdom, this was where the support of the National Party was solid and unwavering, and it was the reason why under the Nationalists the electoral areas had been re-demarcated to swing the centres of power away from the urban concentrations of population to favour these rural constituencies. That was why the Nationalists would stay in power for ever, and Shasa grimaced sourly. Immediately Manfred glanced at him, but Shasa offered no explanation and they drove down to the homestead and parked in the farm yard.
There were a dozen men sitting at the long yellow-wood kitchen table, smoking and drinking coffee and chatting while the women hovered in attendance. The men rose to welcome Shasa and he went down the table shaking hands
with each of them and exchanging polite, if not effusive greetings.
Shasa knew every one of them. He had faced all of them across the floor of the House and had lashed most of them with his tongue, and in return had been attacked and vilified by each of them, but now they made room for him at the table and the hostess poured strong black coffee for him and placed a dish of sweet cakes and hard-baked rusks in front of him. They all treated him with that innate courtesy and hospitality that is the hallmark of the Afrikaner. Though they were dressed in rough hunting clothing and pretended to be bluff and simple farmers, they were in reality a group of shrewd and adroit politicians, amongst the richest and most powerful men in the land.
Shasa spoke their language perfectly, understood the most heavily veiled references and laughed at their private jokes, but he was not one of them. He was the rooinek, the traditional enemy, and subtly they had closed their ranks against him.
When he had drunk his coffee his host, the Minister of Agriculture, told him, ‘I will show you to your room. You will want to change and unpack your rifle. We will hunt as soon as it is cooler.'
A little after four o'clock, they set out in a procession of pick-up trucks, the elder, more important men riding in the cabs while the others stood in the open backs of the trucks. The cavalcade climbed out of the valley, skirted the ploughed lands and then sped out across the plains towards a line of low hills on the horizon.
They saw game now, small herds of springbok far out on the plain like a fine dusting of cinnamon powder on the pale earth, but the trucks raced on, slowing only as they reached the foot of the rocky hills. The lead truck stopped for a moment and two of the hunters jumped down and scrambled into a shallow donga.
‘Good luck! Shoot straight,' they called to them as they passed and a few hundred yards further the convoy stopped again to let another pair take up their positions.
Within half an hour all of the huntsmen had been hidden in an irregular extended line below the ragged range of hills. Manfred De La Rey and Shasa had been placed together in a cluster of broken grey rock, and they squatted down to wait with their rifles across their laps, staring out across the flats that were speckled with darker scrub.
The trucks, driven by the teenage sons of their host, headed out in a wide circle until they were merely specks against the pale glare of the horizon, each marked by the ostrich feather of dust it drew behind it. Then they turned back towards the hills, travelling more slowly, not much above walking pace, as they began to move the scattered herds of antelope ahead of them.
Shasa and Manfred had almost an hour to wait for the driven game to come within rifle shot, and they chatted in a desultory, seemingly aimless manner, at first touching only lightly on politics, but rather discussing their host, the Minister of Agriculture, and the other guests. Then quite subtly Manfred changed the direction of their talk and remarked on how little real difference existed between the policies and aspirations of the governing National Party and Shasa's own Opposition United Party.
‘If you examine it carefully, our differences are only those of style and degree. We both want to keep South Africa safe for the white man and for European civilization. We both know that for all of us
apartheid
is a matter of life and death. Without it we will all drown in the black sea. Since the death of Smuts, your party has moved sharply towards our own thinking, and the leftists and liberals have begun to split away from you.'
Shasa was noncommittal, but the point was apt and painful. There were deep cracks appearing in his own party, and
every day it became more apparent that they would never again form the government of this land. However, he was intrigued to know where Manfred De La Rey was leading. He had learned never to underestimate his adversary, and he sensed that he was being artfully prepared for the true purpose of this invitation. It was quite obvious that their host had manoeuvred to place them together, and that every other member of the party was privy to the business afoot. Shasa spoke little, conceding nothing, and waited with rising anticipation for the lurking beast to reveal its shape.
‘You know that we have entrenched the language and culture of the English-speaking South Africans. There will never be any attempt to erode those rights – we look upon all English speakers of good will who consider themselves South Africans first as our brothers. Our destinies are linked with chains of steel—' Manfred broke off, and lifted his binoculars to his eyes. ‘They are moving in closer now,' he murmured. ‘We had better get ready.' He lowered the binoculars and smiled carefully at Shasa. ‘I have heard that you shoot well. I look forward to a demonstration.'
Shasa was disappointed. He had wanted to know where the carefully rehearsed recital had been heading, but now he hid his impatience behind that easy smile of his and opened the breech of the rifle across his lap.
‘You are right in one thing, Minister,' he said. ‘We are linked together with chains of steel. Let us hope the weight of them doesn't draw us all under.' He saw a strange flash in those topaz yellow eyes, of anger or triumph, he was not certain, and it lasted only an instant.
‘I will fire only on a line from dead ahead towards the right,' Manfred said. ‘You only in an arc to the left. Agreed?'
‘Agreed,' Shasa nodded, although he felt a prickle of irritation at being out-manoeuvred so soon and so easily. Manfred had carefully placed himself to cover the right flank, the natural side for a right-handed marksman to swing.
‘You will need the advantage,' Shasa thought grimly and asked aloud, ‘I hear you also are a fine shot. What about a small wager on the bag?'
‘I do not gamble,' Manfred replied easily. ‘That is a device of the devil, but I will count the bag with interest,' and Shasa was reminded of just how puritanical was the extreme Calvinism that Manfred De La Rey practised.
Carefully Shasa loaded his rifle. He had hand-loaded his own cartridges for he never trusted mass-produced factory ammunition. The shiny brass cases were filled with a charge of Norma powder that would drive the Nosler Partition bullet at well over three thousand feet a second. The special construction of the bullet would ensure that it mushroomed perfectly on impact.
He worked the bolt and then raised the weapon to his shoulder and used the telescopic sight to scan the plain. The pick-up trucks were less than a mile away, gently weaving back and forth, to prevent the herds breaking back, keeping them moving slowly down towards the line of hills and the hunters hidden below them. Shasa blinked his eye rapidly to clear his vision, and he could make out each individual animal in the herds of antelope trotting ahead of the vehicles.
They were light as smoke, and they rippled like cloud shadow across the plain. Trotting daintily with heads held high and with their horns shaped like perfect miniature lyres, they were graceful and indescribably lovely.

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