The Sound of Thunder (50 page)

She had learned to use a stock whip in the process of becoming an expert horsewoman, and her first blow split Dirk’s shirt from the shoulder to the waist. He shouted with anger and rolled on to his knees. The next blow cut down from the base of his neck along his spine, paralysing him in the act of rising. The next, across the back of both knees, knocked his legs out from under him.

On his belly Dirk reached for the pitchfork against the wall, but braided leather exploded around his wrist. He shouted again and rolled on his side to nurse the hand against his chest.

Ruth hit him and he writhed across the floor towards her like a wounded leopard with its hindquarters shattered by buckshot.

Step by step Ruth retreated before him, and the long lash hissed and cracked.

Without mercy she beat him until his shirt hung in tatters from his waist and shoulders, exposing the smooth white skin with the fat crimson welts superimposed upon it.

She beat him until his shouts turned to shrieks and finally to sobbing.

She beat him until he lay shivering, moaning, moving feebly with his blood sprinkled in dark blobs on the stone paving around him.

Then she folded the whip and turned to open the door. In the stable yard, standing in silent curiosity, were gathered a the grooms and the household servants.

Ruth selected four of them.

“Take the Nkosikana to his room.”

Then to one of the grooms” “Ride to the Nkosi. Tell him to come quickly.”

Sean came quickly; he came wild with anxiety and nearly tore the door off Dirk’s bedroom in his haste. He stopped dead on the threshold and stared aghast at Dirk’s back.

Stripped to the waist, Dirk lay face downwards on his bed and Ruth worked over him with a sponge. On the table beside her stood a steaming basin and the pungent reek of antiseptic filled the room.

“Good God! What happened to him?”

“I beat him with a stock whip-Ruth answered him calmly and Sean gaped at her, then dropped his gaze to Dirk

“You did that?”

“Yes.

The anger tightened Sean’s mouth.

“Jesus God! You’ve cut him to pieces. You’ve half killed him.

” And he glanced at Ruth. “Why?”

“It was necessary.” The absolute assurance and lack of remorse in her reply confused Sean. He was suddenly uncertain in his anger.

“What did he do?”

“I can’t tell you that. It is something private between us. You must ask Dirk. ” Sean crossed quickly to the bed and knelt beside it.

“Dirk. Dirkie, my boy, what happened? What did you do?”

And Dirk lifted his face from the pillow and looked at his father, “It was a mistake. It doesn’t matter. ” Then he buried his face in the pillow once more, and his voice was muffled, so Sean had excuse for not believing that he had heard correctly.

“What did you say?” he demanded, and there was a short delay before Dirk replied quite distinctly.

“I said-it was my fault. ” “That’s what I thought you said. ” Sean stood up with a puzzled expression on his face. “Well, I don’t know why you sent for me, Ruth. You seem to have the situation fairly well in hand.

He moved to the door, looked back as though he were going to speak, then, changing his mind, he shook his head and went out.

That night in the quiet, exhausted minutes before sleep, Sean murmured against her cheek,

“I think you did today what I should have done years ago. ” And then, with a sleepy chuckle,

“At least the res no doubt in anyone’s mind as to who is the mistress of Lion Kop.

There was a guileless simplicity in Sean’s approach to life-in his mind any problem when met with direct action disintegrated.

If you became obsessed with a woman, you tumbled her. If that didn’t produce the desired effect, then you married her.

If you wanted a piece of land or a horse or a house or a gold mine, then you paid your money and took it. If you didn’t have the money, you went out and found it.

If you liked a man, you drank with him, hunted with him, laughed together If you disliked him, you either punched him in the head or subjected him to a ponderous sarcasm and mockery. Either way you left him in no doubt of your feelings.

When a son got out of hand you whaled the tripe out of him, then gave him an expensive present to demonstrate your affection. Now he admitted he had been tardy in the matter of Dirk; but Ruth had done a most effective job. It only remained for him to call Dirk into the study and shout at him a little. A week later he returned from a trip to Pietermaritzburg and with an embarrassed scowl presented to Dirk his peace offerings. The first was a brass-bound leather case, which contained a handmade shotgun by Greener of London; tooled silver inlay, glossy walnut stock and butt, and interchangeable Damascus barrels. The other was a two-year-old filly from the Huguenot stud at Worcester in the Cape. By Sun Lord out of Harvest Dance, Sun Dancer was an animal of the most distinguished blood in Africa and of surpassing beauty and speed. Sean paid a thousand guineas for her and considered he had got the best of the bargain.

As far as he was concerned there was no longer any problem with Dirk, and Sean could devote all his energy to furthering the three major ventures in which he was engaged.

Firstly, there was the matter of putting Ruth with child. Here he had her wholehearted co-operation. But their efforts, apart from providing a deal of healthy exercise and pleasure, were singularly unproductive. Sean remembered the deadly skill he had shown in their first encounter and was puzzled. Ruth suggested they keep in training until the rainy season began; she had developed a superstitious belief in the power of thunder. On one of his trips to Pietermaritzburg Sean saw a carved wooden statue of Thor in a junk dealer’s window. He bought it for her, and from then on the god stood on their bedside table clutching his hammer and overlooking their strivings with such a knowing expression that at last Ruth turned him face to the wall.

Then there was Michael’s Thnnin Extract Plant. He had resorted to a piece of underhand villainy that shocked Sean and, he professed, killed his belief in the essential decency of mankind. Michael had visited each of the new growers along the valley, men who had followed Sean’s lead in the planting of wattle, and after swearing them to secrecy had offered them shares in the Company. They were enthusiastic and with Michael at the head they visited Lion Kop in formal deputation.

The meeting was conducted with so much verbal thunder and lightning thrown about that the Great God Thor might have been in the Chair. At the end Sean, who had teased the idea all the months since Michael had approached him and who was now as enthusiastic as any of them, allowed himself to be persuaded.

He spoke for seventy per cent of the shares and the balance was allotted to the other growers. A Board of Directors, with Sean as Chairman, was elected and the Accountant was instructed to proceed with the registration of The Ladyburg Wattle Cooperative Ltd. For the first time Sean exercised his majority vote to crush the misgivings of the other shareholders and appoint Michael Courtney as Plant Engineer.

Then, with an older director to act as a steadying influence, Michael was put aboard the next Union Castle mail ship for England, a letter of authority in his pocket and Sean’s warnings and words of wisdom in his head. Remembering himself at the age of twenty-three, Sean decided it necessary to point out to Michael that he was being sent to London to buy machinery and increase his knowledge of it, not to populate the British Isles nor to tour their hostelries and gaming establishments.

There was swift reaction from Jackson at Natal Wattle, who regretted that the contracts between the Valley growers and his company would not be renewed-and that owing to heavy demands from elsewhere he could no longer supply seed or saplings. But Sean’s seed beds were now well enough established to meet the needs of the whole valley-and, with luck, their plant would be in production by the beginning of the next cutting season.

Before Michael and his chaperon returned flushed with the success of their mission, Sean had another visitor. Jan Paulus Leroux, weary of the three-year argument he and Sean had conducted with the aid of the postal authority, arrived at Ladyburg and expressed his intention of staying until Sean agreed to head the Natal branch of the South African Party and to contest the Ladyburg seat at the next Legislative Assembly elections. Two weeks later, after he and Sean had hunted and killed a number of guinea-fowl, pheasant and bush buck; had consumed huge quantities of coffee and more moderate quantities of brandy; had talked each other hoarse and had closed the last gap between them, Jan Paulus left on the Johannesburg train with the parting words: “Toe Maar! It is settled then.”

The South African Party’s platform was a Federation of the Cape, the Transvaal, the Orange Free State and Natal, under government responsible to Whitehall. It was opposed by extreme English and Dutch opinion-the jingoes who shouted

“God Save the King,” and the Republicans who wanted the Almighty to treat the King differently.

After meeting with the men on the list Jan Paulus had given him, Sean began the campaign. His first convert was Ruth Courtney, won over by the prospect of the excitement associated with an election battle rather than by Sean’s oratory. Now a week or more of every month was spent in travelling about Natal to attend political gatherings. Ruth rehearsed Sean in his speech he had only one-until he was word perfect. She kissed the babies and played hostess to the wives, tasks in which Sean showed no special aptitude. She sat beside him on the platform and restrained him from going down into the audience to engage in hand-to-hand combat with hecklers. The way she smiled and the way she walked certainly lost no votes for the South African Party. From London Lord Caisterbrook promised his support, and it looked as though Sean could count on twenty-two seats out of the Assemblys thirty.

On the level ground below the escarpment, nearby the Baboon Stroom, lay the plant of the Ladyburg Wattle Cooperative Maine Bob wok shape. It covered ten acres of ground and beyond the cottages of the employees were laid out in neat blocks.

Despite Michael’s vehement protests, Sean bowed to the will of his fellow directors and a consulting engineer was employed until such time as the plant was in production. Without him they would have lost a year’s harvest of bark, for although Michael was eager and tireless, yet he was a young man with no practical experience. Even with the older man to help him, the plant was still a long way from ready before the season’s cutting began.

When at last the tall silver smoke stack began spewing smoke and the furnaces lit the night with a satanic glow, there were thousands of tons of bark piled up in the open-sided warehouses around the factory.

It was a wonderful season. Good rains had filled the bark with rich sap and when the year ended the Cooperative had shown a profit of ten thousand pounds on its first year’s operation Lion Kop Estates a profit four times greater. Sean had been in and out of debt as swiftly as a small boy visits the bathroom when sent to wash his face.

Despite the good rains, there were only three spectacular storms that summer. On each occasion Sean was away from Lion Kop on business.

While the lightning leapt across the hills and the hammer strokes of thunder broke over the valley, Ruth stood at the window of their bedroom and lamented another wasted opportunity. Mbejane did much better-all his seed brought forth fruit and he reaped four fat sons that season.

It was a busy year for Dirk Courtney also. After his resounding defeat at the thin end of the stock whip Dirk and Ruth fell into a state of wary neutrality-but he conceded control of Lion Kop to her.

Storm Courtney he ignored unless she was in Sean’s lap or initial riding on his shoulder. Then he watched them covertly until he could find an excuse to interrupt their play or to get away from Lion Kop. His absences became more frequent; there were trips to Pietermaritzburg and the surrounding districts to play rugby and polo; there were mysterious night excursions to Ladyburg, and in the day he rode away at dawn each morning, Sean believed he rode to school until he received a note from the headmaster asking him to call.

After showing him the attendance register and a copy of Dirk’s academic record, the headmaster leaned back in his chair and waited for Sean’s comments.

“Not so good, hey?”

“I agree, Mr. Courtney. Not so good.”

“Couldn’t we send him to a boarding establishment somewhere, Mr. Besant?”

“Yes, you could do that,” Besant agreed dubiously, “but would it serve any real purpose-apart from providing him with expert coaching in rugby football?”

“How else will he get his University entrance?” Sean was impressed with what higher education had done for Michael. He looked upon it as a sovereign alchemy for all the ills of youth.

“Mr. Courtney … ” The headmaster hesitated delicately.

He had heard of Sean’s temper and did not want a personal demonstration of it. “Some young men are not really suited for University training. ” “I want Dirk to go,” Sean interjected.

“I doubt that either Stellenbosch or Cape Town Universities share your ambitions. ” The schoolroom manner re-asserted itself for a moment, and Besant spoke with dry sarcasm.

“You mean he’s stupid?” Sean demanded.

“No, no. ” Hurriedly Besant soothed him. “It’sjust that lies not, shall we say, academically inclined.

Sean pondered on that awhile. It seemed a very nice distinction, but he let it go and asked: “Well, what do you suggest?”

Besant’s suggestion was that Dirk Courtney get the hell out of his school-but he phrased it gently.

“Although Dirk is only sixteen-he is very mature for his age. Say you were to start him at the Wattle Company … ?”

“You recommend I take him away from school, then?” Sean asked thoughtfully, and Besant suppressed a sigh of relief.

Dirk Courtney was apprenticed to the foreman boilermaker at the factory. His first action was to inform his journeyman that he’d be running this show one day and what was he going to do about it’? That gentleman, forewarned by Dirk’s reputation, regarded him dolefully, spat a long squirt of tobacco juice an inch It from Dirk’s gleaming toecap, and replied at some length. He then pointed to a kettle on the workshop forge and told Dirk to make him a cup of coffee, and while he was about it to remove his thumb from his posterior orifice. Within a week the two of them were cronies and the man, whose name was Archibald Frederick Longworthy, began to instruct Dirk in arts other than the fabrication of steel plate Archy was thirty-six years old. He had come out to Africa after completing a five-year term in Leavenworth Prison for the intriguing offence of Crimen Injuria-and when he explained the meaning Dirk was delighted.