The Angels Weep (36 page)

‘The South African Republic,’ said Jameson.
‘Paul Kruger and his little banana republic in the
Transvaal.’ His voice was low but bitter.

‘Do not be emotive, Doctor Jim,’ Rhodes
remonstrated mildly. ‘Let us concern ourselves merely with
the facts.’

‘And what are the facts, Mr Rhodes?’ Zouga
Ballantyne leaned forward eagerly from the head of the table.

‘The facts are that an ignorant old bigot, who believes
that the rabble of illiterate Dutch nomads that he leads are the
new Israelites, specifically chosen by their Old Testament God
– this extraordinary personage sits astride a vast stretch
of the richest part of the African continent, like an unkempt and
savage hound with a bone, and growls at all efforts at progress
and enlightenment.’

They were all silenced by this bitter invective, and Mr Rhodes
looked around at their faces before he went on.

‘There are thirty-eight thousand Englishmen on the
goldfields of Witwatersrand, Englishmen who pay nineteen of every
twenty pounds of the revenue that flows into Kruger’s
coffers, Englishmen who are responsible for every bit of
civilization in that benighted little republic, and yet Kruger
denies them the franchise, they are taxed mercilessly and denied
representation. Their petitions for the vote are greeted in the
Volksraad by the contemptuous derision of a motley assembly of
untutored oafs.’ Rhodes glanced at Fitzpatrick. ‘Am I
being unfair, Percy? You know these people, you live with them on
a day-to-day basis. Is my description of the Transvaal Boer
accurate?’

Percy Fitzpatrick shrugged. ‘Mr Rhodes is correct. The
Transvaal Boer is a different animal from his Cape cousins. The
Cape Dutch have had the opportunity of absorbing some of the
qualities of the English way of life. By comparison they are an
urbane and civilized people, while the Transvaaler has
unfortunately lost none of the traits of his Dutch ancestry: he
is slow, obstinate, hostile, suspicious, cunning and malevolent.
It galls a man to be told to go to hell by that ilk, especially
when we ask only for our rights as free men, the right to
vote.’

Mr Rhodes, not long to be denied the floor, went on.

‘Not only does Kruger insult our countrymen, but he
plays other more dangerous games. He has discriminated against
British goods with punitive tariffs. He has given trade
monopolies in all essential mining goods, even dynamite, to
members of his family and government. He is blatantly arming his
burghers with German guns and building a corps of German Krupp
artillery, and he is openly flirting with the Kaiser.’
Rhodes paused. ‘A German sphere of influence in the midst
of Her Majesty’s domains would forever damn our dreams of a
British Africa. The Germans do not have our altruism.’

‘All that good yellow gold going to Berlin,’ Ralph
mused softly, and immediately regretted having spoken, but Mr
Rhodes did not seem to have heard, for he went on.

‘How to reason with a man like Kruger? How can one even
talk to a man who still believes implicitly that the earth is
flat?’

Mr Rhodes was sweating again, although it was cool in the
room. His hand shook so that as he reached for his glass, he
knocked it over, and the golden cognac spread across the polished
table-top. Jordan rose quickly and mopped it up before it could
cascade into Mr Rhodes’ lap, and then he took a silver
pillbox from his fob pocket, and from it placed a white tablet
close to Mr Rhodes’ right hand. The big man took it, and
still breathing heavily, placed it under his tongue. After a few
moments his breathing eased and he could speak again.

‘I went to him, gentlemen. I went to Pretoria to see
Kruger at his own home. He sent a message with a servant, that he
could not see me that day.’

They had all of them heard this story, their surprise was only
that Mr Rhodes could recount such a humiliating incident.
President Kruger had sent a black servant to one of the richest
and most influential men in the world with this message:

‘I am rather busy at the moment. One of my burghers has
come to discuss a sick ox with me. Come back on
Tuesday.’

‘God knows,’ Doctor Jim intervened to break the
embarrassed silence. ‘Mr Rhodes has done everything a
reasonable man could. To risk further insult from this old Boer
could bring discredit not only on Mr Rhodes personally, but on
our Queen and her Empire.’ The little doctor paused and
looked at each of his listeners in turn. Their faces were rapt,
they waited intently for his next words. ‘What can we do
about it? What
must
we do about it?’

Mr Rhodes shook himself, and looked at the young staff officer
in his resplendent mess kit.

‘Bobbie?’ he said in invitation.

‘Gentlemen, you may be aware that I have just returned
from the Transvaal.’ Bobbie White lifted a leather
briefcase from the floor beside his chair to the table, and from
it produced a sheaf of crisp white paper. He passed a sheet to
every man at the table.

Ralph glanced at his copy, and started slightly. It was the
order of battle of the army of the South African Republic. His
surprise was so intense that he missed the first part of what
Bobbie White was saying.

‘The fort at Pretoria is under repair and extension. The
walls have been breached for this purpose and will be entirely
vulnerable to a small determined force.’ Ralph had to force
himself to believe what he was hearing. ‘Apart from the
corps of artillery, there is no regular standing army. As you can
see from the paper before you, the Transvaal depends upon its
citizen commandos for defence. It requires four to six weeks for
them to assemble into an effective force.’

Bobbie White finished his recital, and Mr Rhodes turned from
him to Percy Fitzpatrick.

‘Percy?’ he invited.

‘You know what Kruger calls those of us whose capital
and resources have developed his gold-mining industry for him? He
calls us the “Uitlanders”, the
“Outlanders”, the “Foreigners”. You know
also that we Outlanders have elected our own representatives,
which we call the “Johannesburg Reform Committee”. I
have the honour to be one of the elected members of that
Committee, and so I speak for every Englishman in the
Transvaal.’ He paused and carefully dressed his moustache
with his forefinger, and then went on. ‘I bring you two
messages. The first is short and simple. It is, “We are
determined and united to the cause. You may rely upon us to the
utmost.”’

The men about the table nodded, but Ralph felt his skin
tingle. They were taking this seriously – it was not some
boyish nonsense. They were plotting one of the most audacious
acts of piracy in history. He kept his expression serious and
calm with an enormous effort as Fitzpatrick went on.

‘The second message is in the form of a letter signed by
all the members of the Reform Committee. With your permission I
shall read it to you. It is addressed to Doctor Jameson in his
capacity as Administrator of Rhodesia, and it reads as
follows:

As the letter unfolded, Ralph recognized that it was a
justification for armed insurrection.

They were going to try to take by force of arms the richest
gold reef in existence, Ralph sat bemused.

Percy Fitzpatrick looked up at Doctor Jim, and then
finished.

‘It is signed by all the members of the committee,
Leonard, Phillips, Mr Rhodes’ brother Francis, John Hays
Hammond, Farrar and by myself. We have not dated it.’

At the head of the table, Zouga Ballantyne let out his breath
in a low whistle, but nobody else spoke while Jordan rose and
passed down the table re-filling each glass from the crystal
decanter. Mr Rhodes was slumped forward over the table, his chin
resting on the heel of his hand, staring out of the windows down
across the lawns towards the far blue line of hills, the Hills of
the Indunas, where once the Matabele king’s kraal had
stood. Everybody at the table waited for him, until at last he
sighed heavily.

‘I much prefer to find a man’s price, and pay it,
rather than to fight him, but we are not dealing with a normal
man here. God save us all from saints and fanatics, give me a
solid rogue every time.’ His head turned towards Doctor
Jameson, and the dreaming blue eyes focused. ‘Doctor
Jim,’ he invited, and the little doctor rode his chair back
on its hind legs and thrust his hands deep into his pockets.

‘We will need to send five thousand rifles and a million
rounds of ammunition into Johannesburg.’

Intrigued and fascinated despite himself, Ralph interrupted to
ask, ‘Where will you – where will we get those? They
are not common trade goods.’

Doctor Jim nodded. ‘That’s a good question,
Ballantyne. The rifles and ammunition are already in the mine
stores of De Beers at Kimberley.’

Ralph blinked, the plot was far advanced, further than he had
believed possible. Then he recalled the little doctor’s
suspicious behaviour at the base camp from which they had
discovered the Harkness reef. They must have been busy for
months. He must find out all the details.

‘How will we get them into Johannesburg? They’ll
have to be smuggled in, and it’s a bulky
shipment—’

‘Ralph,’ Mr Rhodes smiled. ‘You didn’t
really believe you were invited here for a social luncheon. Who
would you judge to be the most experienced of us in shipping
weapons? Who carried the Martini rifles to Lobengula? Who is the
shrewdest transport operator on the sub-continent?’

‘Me?’ Ralph was startled.

‘You,’ agreed Mr Rhodes, and as Ralph stared at
him, he felt a sudden unholy excitement welling up within him. He
was to be at the centre of this fantastic conspiracy, privy to
every detail. His mind began to race, he knew intuitively that
this was one of the opportunities that comes a man’s way
once in a lifetime, and he had to wring from it every last
advantage.

‘You will do it, of course?’ A small shadow passed
across the penetrating blue eyes.

‘Of course,’ said Ralph, but the shadow persisted.
‘I am an Englishman. I know my duty,’ Ralph went on
quietly and sincerely, and he saw the shadow clear from Mr
Rhodes’ eyes. That was something he could believe in,
something he could trust. He turned back to Doctor Jameson.

‘I’m sorry,’ Mr Rhodes said. ‘We
interrupted you.’ And Jameson went on:

‘We will raise a mounted force of around six hundred
picked men here—’ and he looked at John Willoughby
and Zouga Ballantyne, both of them proven soldiers. ‘I will
rely heavily on you two.’ And Willoughby nodded, but Zouga
frowned and asked,

‘Six hundred men will take weeks to ride from Bulawayo
to Johannesburg.’

‘We will not start from Bulawayo,’ Jameson replied
evenly. ‘I have the approval of the British government to
maintain a mobile armed force in Bechuanaland, on the railway
concession strip which runs down the border of the Transvaal. The
force is for the protection of the railway, but it will be based
at Pitsani, a mere one hundred and eighty miles from
Johannesburg. We can be there in fifty hours’ hard riding,
long before the Boers could raise any kind of
resistance.’

It was at that moment that Ralph realized that it was
feasible. Given Doctor Leander Starr Jameson’s legendary
luck, they could pull it off. They could take the Transvaal with
the same ease as they had seized Matabeleland from Lobengula.

By God, what a prize that would be! A billion pounds sterling
in gold, annexed to Rhodes’ own land, Rhodesia. After that
everything else was possible – British Africa, a whole
continent. Ralph was stunned at the magnitude of the design.

It was Zouga Ballantyne again who unerringly identified the
fatal flaw in the scheme. ‘What is the position of Her
Majesty’s government? Will they support us?’ he
asked. ‘Without them it will all be in vain.’

‘I have just returned from London,’ Mr Rhodes
replied. ‘While I was there I dined with the colonial
secretary, Mr Joseph Chamberlain. As you know, he has instilled a
new spirit of vigour and determination into Downing Street. He is
in complete sympathy with the plight of our subjects in
Johannesburg. He is also fully aware of the dangers of German
intervention in southern Africa. Let me just assure you all that
Mr Chamberlain and I understand each other. I can say no more at
this stage, you must trust me.’

If that is true, Ralph thought, then the chances of complete
success were better than even. The swift thrust to the heart of
the unprepared enemy, the uprising of armed citizenry, the appeal
to a magnanimous British government, and finally the
annexation.

As he listened to the planning, Ralph was swiftly calculating
the consequences of the successful outcome of the plot. The chief
of these were that the British South Africa Company and De Beers
Consolidated Diamond Company would become the richest and most
powerful commercial enterprises on the face of the earth, and
they were Mr Rhodes’
alter ego
. Ralph’s anger
and hatred returned so fiercely that his hands trembled, and he
had to place them carefully in his lap, but still he could not
prevent himself glancing at his younger brother.