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Occasionally, through a miasmic haze, Jamie saw groups of men slogging along on foot. There were solitary riders on horseback, and dozens of bullock wagons drawn by eighteen or twenty oxen, handled by drivers and voorlopers, with their sjamboks, the whips with long leather thongs, crying, ‘Trek! Trek!’ The huge wagons were laden with a thousand pounds of produce and goods, tents and digging equipment and wood-burning stoves, flour and coal and oil lamps. They carried coffee and rice, Russian hemp, sugar and wines, whiskey and boots and Belfast candles, and blankets. They were the lifeline to the fortune seekers at Klipdrift.
It was not until the mail cart crossed the Orange River that there was a change from the deadly monotony of the veld. The scrub gradually became taller and tinged with green. The earth was redder, patches of grass rippled in the breeze, and low thorn trees began to appear.
I’m going to make it, Jamie thought dully. I’m going to make it.
And he could feel hope begin to creep into his tired body.
They had been on the road for four continuous days and nights when they finally arrived at the outskirts of Klipdrift.
Young Jamie McGregor had not known what to expect, but the scene that met his weary, bloodshot eyes was like nothing he ever could have imagined. Klipdrift was a vast panorama of tents and wagons lined up on the main streets and on the shores of the Vaal River. The dirt roadway swarmed with kaffirs, naked except for brightly coloured jackets, and bearded prospectors, butchers, bakers, thieves, teachers. In the centre of Klipdrift, rows of wooden and iron shacks served as shops, canteens, billiard rooms, eating houses, diamond-buying offices and lawyers’ rooms. On a corner stood the ramshackle Royal Arch Hotel, a long chain of rooms without windows.
Jamie stepped out of the cart, and promptly fell to the ground, his cramped legs refusing to hold him up. He lay there, his head spinning, until he had strength enough to rise. He stumbled towards the hotel, pushing through the boisterous crowds that thronged the sidewalks and streets. The room they gave him was small, stifling hot and swarming with flies. But it had a cot. Jamie fell onto it, fully dressed, and was asleep instantly. He slept for eighteen hours.
Jamie awoke, his body unbelievably stiff and sore, but his soul filled with exultation. I am here! I havemade it! Ravenously hungry, he went in search of food. The hotel served none, but there was a small, crowded restaurant across the street, where he devoured fried snook, a large fish resembling pike; carbonaatje, thinly sliced mutton grilled on a spit over a wood fire; a haunch of bok and, for dessert, koeksister, a dough deep-fried and soaked in syrup.
Jamie’s stomach, so long without food, began to give off alarming symptoms. He decided to let it rest before he continued eating, and turned his attention to his surroundings. At tables all around him, prospectors were feverishly discussing the subject uppermost in everyone’s mind: diamonds.
‘… There’s still a few diamonds left around Hopetown, but the mother lode’s at New Rush …’
‘… Kimberley’s got a bigger population than Joburg …’
‘… About the find up at Dutoitspan last week? They say there’s more diamonds there than a man can carry …’
‘… There’s a new strike at Christiana. I’m goin’ up there tomorrow.’
So it was true. There were diamonds everywhere! Young Jamie was so excited he could hardly finish his huge mug of coffee. He was staggered by the amount of the bill. Two pounds, three shillings for one meal! I’ll have to be very careful, he thought, as he walked out onto the crowded, noisy street.
A voice behind him said, ‘Still planning to get rich, McGregor?’
Jamie turned. It was Pederson, the Swedish boy who had travelled on the dogcart with him.
‘I certainly am,’ Jamie said.
‘Then let’s go where the diamonds are.’ He pointed. ‘The Vaal River’s that way.’
They began to walk.
Klipdrift was in a basin, surrounded by hills, and as far as Jamie could see, everything was barren, without a blade of grass or shrub in sight. Red dust rose thick in the air, making it difficult to breathe. The Vaal River was a quarter of a mile away, and as they got closer to it, the air became cooler. Hundreds of prospectors lined both sides of the riverbank, some of them digging for diamonds, others meshing stones in rocking cradles, still others sorting stones at rickety, makeshift tables. The equipment ranged from scientific earth-washing apparatus to old tub boxes and pails. The men were sunburned, unshaven and roughly dressed in a weird assortment of collarless, coloured and striped flannel shirts, corduroy trousers and rubber boots, riding breeches and laced leggings and wide-brimmed felt hats or pith helmets. They all wore broad leather belts with pockets for diamonds or money.
Jamie and Pederson walked to the edge of the riverbank and watched a young boy and an older man struggling to remove a huge ironstone boulder so they could get at the gravel around it. Their shirts were soaked with sweat. Nearby, another team loaded gravel onto a cart to be sieved in a cradle. One of the diggers rocked the cradle while another poured buckets of water into it to wash away the silt. The large pebbles were then emptied onto an improvised sorting table, where they were excitedly inspected.
‘It looks easy,’ Jamie grinned.
‘Don’t count on it, McGregor. I’ve been talking to some of the diggers who have been here a while. I think we’ve bought a sack of pups.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Do you know how many diggers there are in these parts, all hoping to get rich? Twenty bloody thousand! And there aren’t enough diamonds to go around, chum. Even if there were, I’m beginning to wonder if it’s worth it. You broil in winter, freeze in summer, get drenched in their damned donderstormen, and try to cope with the dust and the flies and the stink. You can’t get a bath or a decent bed, and there are no sanitary arrangements in this damned town. There are drownings in the Vaal River every week. Some are accidental, but I was told that for most of them it’s a way out, the only escape from this hellhole. I don’t know why these people keep hanging on.’
‘I do.’ Jamie looked at the hopeful young boy with the stained shirt. ‘The next shovelful of dirt.’
But as they headed back to town, Jamie had to admit that Pederson had a point. They passed carcasses of slaughtered oxen, sheep and goats left to rot outside the tents, next to wide-open trenches that served as lavatories. The place stank to the heavens. Pederson was watching him. ‘What are you going to do now?’
‘Get some prospecting equipment.’
In the centre of town was a store with a rusted hanging sign that read: SALOMON VAN DER MERWE, GENERAL STORE. A tall black man about Jamie’s age was unloading a wagon in front of the store. He was broad-shouldered and heavily muscled, one of the most handsome men Jamie had ever seen. He had soot-black eyes, an aquiline nose and a proud chin. There was a dignity about him, a quiet aloofness. He lifted a heavy wooden box of rifles to his shoulder and, as he turned, he slipped on a leaf fallen from a crate of cabbage. Jamie instinctively reached out an arm to steady him. The black man did not acknowledge Jamie’s presence. He turned and walked into the store. A Boer prospector hitching up a mule spat and said distastefully, ‘That’s Banda, from the Barolong tribe. Works for Mr van der Merwe. I don’t know why he keeps that uppity black. Those fuckin’ Bantus think they own the earth.’
The store was cool and dark inside, a welcome relief from the hot, bright street, and it was filled with exotic odours. It seemed to Jamie that every inch of space was crammed with merchandise. He walked through the store, marvelling. There were agricultural implements, beer, cans of milk and crocks of butter, cement, fuses and dynamite and gunpowder, crockery, furniture, guns and haberdashery, oil and paint and varnish, bacon and dried fruit, saddlery and harness, sheep-dip and soap, spirits and stationery and paper, sugar and tea and tobacco and snuff and cigars … A dozen shelves were filled from top to bottom with flannel shirts and blankets, shoes, poke bonnets and saddles. Whoever owns all this, Jamie thought, is a rich man.
A soft voice behind him said, ‘Can I help you?’
Jamie turned and found himself facing a young girl. He judged she was about fifteen. She had an interesting face, fineboned and heart-shaped, like a valentine, a pert nose and intense green eyes. Her hair was dark and curling. Jamie, looking at her figure, decided she might be closer to sixteen.
‘I’m a prospector,’ Jamie announced. ‘I’m here to buy some equipment.’
‘What is it you need?’
For some reason, Jamie felt he had to impress this girl. ‘I – er – you know – the usual.’
She smiled, and there was mischief in her eyes. ‘What is the usual, sir?’
‘Well …’ He hesitated. ‘A shovel.’
‘Will that be all?’
Jamie saw that she was teasing him. He grinned and confessed. ‘To tell you the truth, I’m new at this. I don’t know what I need.’
She smiled at him, and it was the smile of a woman. ‘It depends on where you’re planning to prospect, Mr –?’
‘McGregor. Jamie McGregor.’
‘I’m Margaret van der Merwe.’ She glanced nervously towards the rear of the store.
‘I’m pleased to meet you, Miss van der Merwe.’
‘Did you just arrive?’
‘Aye. Yesterday. On the post cart.’
‘Someone should have warned you about that. Passengers have died on that trip.’ There was anger in her eyes.
Jamie grinned. ‘I can’t blame them. But I’m very much alive, thank you.’
‘And going out to hunt for mooi klippe.’
‘Mooi klippe?’
‘That’s our Dutch word for diamonds. Pretty pebbles.’
‘You’re Dutch?’
‘My family’s from Holland.’
‘I’m from Scotland.’
‘I could tell that.’ Her eyes flicked warily towards the back of the store again. ‘There are diamonds around, Mr McGregor, but you must be choosy where you look for them. Most of the diggers are running around chasing their own tails. When someone makes a strike, the rest scavenge off the leavings. If you want to get rich, you have to find a strike of your own.’
‘How do I do that?’
‘My father might be the one to help you with that. He knows everything. He’ll be free in an hour.’
‘I’ll be back,’ Jamie assured her. ‘Thank you, Miss van der Merwe.
He went out into the sunshine, filled with a sense of euphoria, his aches and pains forgotten. If Salomon van der Merwe would advise him where to find diamonds, there was no way Jamie could fail. He would have the jump on all of them. He laughed aloud, with the sheer joy of being young and alive and on his way to riches.
Jamie walked down the main street, passing a blacksmith’s, a billiard hall and half a dozen saloons. He came to a sign in front of a decrepit-looking hotel and stopped. The sign read:
R-D MILLER, WARM AND COLD BATHS.
OPEN DAILY FROM 6 A.M. TO 8 P.M.,
WITH THE COMFORTS OF A NEAT DRESSING ROOM
Jamie thought, When did I have my last bath? Well, I took a bucket bath on the boat. That was – He was suddenly aware of how he must smell. He thought of the weekly tub baths in the kitchen at home, and he could hear his mother’s voice calling, ‘Be sure to wash down below, Jamie.’
He turned and entered the baths. There were two doors inside, one for women and one for men. Jamie entered the men’s section and walked up to the aged attendant. ‘How much is a bath?’
‘Ten shillings for a cold bath, fifteen for a hot.’
Jamie hesitated. The idea of a hot bath after his long journey was almost irresistible. ‘Cold,’ he said. He could not afford to throw away his money on luxuries. He had mining equipment to buy.
The attendant handed him a small bar of yellow lye soap and a threadbare hand towel and pointed. ‘In there, mate.’
Jamie stepped into a small room that contained nothing except a large galvanized-iron bathtub in the centre and a few pegs on the wall. The attendant began filling the tub from a large wooden bucket.
‘All ready for you, mister. Just hang your clothes on those pegs.’
Jamie waited until the attendant left and then undressed. He looked down at his grime-covered body and put one foot in the tub. The water was cold, as advertised. He gritted his teeth and plunged in, soaping himself furiously from head to foot. When he finally stepped out of the tub, the water was black. He dried himself as best he could with the worn linen towel and started to get dressed. His pants and shirt were stiff with dirt, and he hated to put them back on. He would have to buy a change of clothes, and this reminded him once more of how little money he had. And he was hungry again.
Jamie left the bathhouse and pushed his way down the crowded street to a saloon called the Sundowner. He ordered a beer and lunch. Lamb cutlets with tomatoes, and sausage and potato salad and pickles. While he ate, he listened to the hopeful conversations around him.
‘… I hear they found a stone near Colesberg weighin’ twenty-one carats. Mark you, if there’s one diamond up there, there’s plenty more …’
‘… There’s a new diamond find up in Hebron. I’m thinkin’ of goin’ there …’
‘You’re a fool. The big diamonds are in the Orange River …’
At the bar, a bearded customer in a collarless, striped-flannel shirt and corduroy trousers was nursing a shandygaff in a large glass. ‘I got cleaned out in Hebron,’ he confided to the bartender. ‘I need me a grubstake.’
The bartender was a large, fleshy, bald-headed man with a broken, twisted nose and ferret eyes. He laughed. ‘Hell, man, who doesn’t? Why do you think I’m tendin’ bar? As soon as I have enough money, I’m gonna hightail it up the Orange myself.’ He wiped the bar with a dirty rag. ‘But I’ll tell you what you might do, mister. See Salomon van der Merwe. He owns the general store and half the town.
‘What good’ll that do me?’
‘If he likes you, he might stake you.’
The customer looked at him. ‘Yeah? You really think he might?’
‘He’s done it for a few fellows I know of. You put up your labour, he puts up the money. You split fifty-fifty.’
Jamie McGregor’s thoughts leaped ahead. He had been confident that the hundred and twenty pounds he had left would be enough to buy the equipment and food he would need to survive, but the prices in Klipdrift were astonishing. He had noticed in Van der Merwe’s store that a hundred-pound sack of Australian flour cost five pounds. One pound of sugar cost a shilling. A bottle of beer cost five shillings. Biscuits were three shillings a pound, and fresh eggs sold for seven shillings a dozen. At that rate, his money would not last long. My God, Jamie thought, at home we could live for a year on what three meals cost here. But if he could get the backing of someone really wealthy, like Mr van der Merwe … Jamie hastily paid for his food and hurried back to the general store.
Salomon van der Merwe was behind the counter, removing the rifles from a wooden crate. He was a small thin man, with a thin, pinched face framed by Dundreary whiskers. He had sandy hair, tiny black eyes, a bulbous nose and pursed lips. His daughter must take after her mother, Jamie thought. ‘Excuse me, sir …’
Van der Merwe looked up. ‘Ja?’
‘Mr van der Merwe? My name is Jamie McGregor, sir, I’m from Scotland. I came here to find diamonds.’
‘Ja? So?’
‘I hear you sometimes back prospectors.’
Van der Merwe grumbled, ‘Myn magtig! Who spreads these stories? I help out a few diggers, and everyone thinks I’m Santa Claus.’
‘I’ve saved a hundred and twenty pounds,’ Jamie said earnestly. ‘But I see that it’s not going to buy me much here. I’ll go out to the bush with just a shovel if I have to, but I figure my chances would be a lot better if I had a mule and some proper equipment.’
Van der Merwe was studying him with those small, black eyes. ‘Wat denk ye? What makes you think you can find diamonds?’
‘I’ve come halfway around the world, Mr van der Merwe, and I’m not going to leave here until I’m rich. If the diamonds are out there, I’ll find them. If you help me, I’ll make us both rich.’
Van der Merwe grunted, turned his back on Jamie and continued unloading the rifles. Jamie stood there awkwardly, not knowing what more to say. When Van der Merwe spoke again, his question caught Jamie off guard. ‘You travel here by bullock wagon, ja?’
‘No. Post cart.’
The old man turned to study the boy again. He said, finally, ‘We talk about it.’
They talked about it at dinner that evening in the room in the back of the store that was the Van der Merwe living quarters. It was a small room that served as a kitchen, dining room and sleeping quarters, with a curtain separating two cots. The lower half of the walls was built of mud and stone, and the upper half was faced with cardboard boxes that had once contained provisions. A square hole, where a piece of the wall had been cut out, served as window. In wet weather it could be closed by placing a board in front of it. The dining table consisted of a long plank stretched across two wooden crates. A large box, turned on its side, served as a cupboard. Jamie guessed that Van der Merwe was not a man who parted easily with his money.
Van der Merwe’s daughter moved silently about, preparing dinner. From time to time she cast quick glances at her father, but she never once looked at Jamie. Why is she so frightened? Jamie wondered.
When they were seated at the table, Van der Merwe began. ‘Let us have a blessing. We Thank Thee, O Lord, for the bounty we receive at Thy hands. We thank Thee for forgiving us our sins and showing us the path of righteousness and delivering us from life’s temptations. We thank Thee for a long and fruitful life, and for smiting dead all those who offend Thee. Amen.’ And without a breath between, ‘Pass me the meat,’ he said to his daughter.
The dinner was frugal: a small roast pork, three boiled potatoes and a dish of turnip greens. The portions he served to Jamie were small. The two men talked little during the meal, and Margaret did not speak at all.
When they had finished eating, Van der Merwe said, ‘That was fine, Daughter,’ and there was pride in his voice. He turned to Jamie. ‘We get down to business, ja?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Van der Merwe picked up a long clay pipe from the top of the wooden cabinet. He filled it with a sweet-smelling tobacco from a small pouch and lighted the pipe. His sharp eyes peered intently at Jamie through the wreaths of smoke.
