Baas! Hendrick yelled urgently. Come quickly! The telegraph! Lothar sprinted back to the dugout and snatched up the headset. The operator at the Courtney Mining and Finance Company in Windhoek was transmitting.
For Vingt. I am returning with all speed. Stop. Make no concessions nor promises. Stop. See that all loyal employees are armed and protected from intimidation. Stop. Assure them of my gratitude and material appreciation. Stop. Close the company store immediately, no food or supplies to be sold to strikers or their families. Stop. Cut off water reticulation and electricity supply to strikers cottages. Stop.
Inform Strike Committee that police detachment enroute.
Ends. Juno. Despite himself and his rage at Fourie, Lothar threw back his head and laughed with delight and admiration.
Fourie and his strikers don't realize what they are taking on, he roared. By God, I'd prefer to tickle an angry black mamba with a short stick than get in Centaine Courtney's way right now. He sobered and thought about it for a while, then he told Hendrick and Manfred quietly, I have a feeling that those diamonds will be coming through to Windhoek, strike or no strike. But I don't think Fourie will be driving the truck, in fact I don't give Fourie much chance of driving anything again. So we won't have a nice polite cooperative escort to hand the package over to us as we had planned. But the diamonds will be coming through, and we are going to be here when they do. The yellow Daimler passed their position at eleven o'clock the following night. Lothar watched the glow of the headlights gradually harden into solid white beams of light that swept across the plain towards him and then dipped and disappeared into the river-bed only to blaze up into the moonless sky as the Daimler pointed its nose up the cutting and climbed out of the river-bed again. The engine bellowed in low gear on the steep incline and then settled to a high whine as it shot over the top and sped away into the northeast towards the H'ani Mine.
Lothar struck a match and checked his watch. Say she left Windhoek an hour after her telegraph last night, that means she has reached here in twenty-two hours straight driving, over these roads in the dark. He whistled softly. If she keeps going like that, she'll be at the H'ani Mine before noon tomorrow. It doesn't seem possible. The blue hills rose out of the heat mirage ahead of Centaine, but this time their magic was unable to captivate her. She had been at the wheel for thirty-two hours with only brief intervals of rest while she refuelled at the staging posts, and once when she had pulled to the side of the road and slept for two hours.
She was tired. The weariness ached in the marrow of her bones, burned her eyes like acid and lay upon her shoulders and crushed her down in the leather seat of the Daimler as though she wore a suit of heavy chain mail. Yet her anger fuelled her, and when she saw the galvanized iron roofs of the mine buildings shining in the sun her weariness dropped away.
She stopped the Daimler and stepped down in the road to stretch and swing her arms, forcing fresh blood into her stiff stret limbs. Then she twisted the rearview mirror and examined her face in it. Her eyes were bloodshot and red-rimmed with little wet balls of mud and mucus in the corners. Her face was deathly white, powdered with pale dust and drained of blood by her fatigue.
She wet a cloth with cool water from the canvas water bag and cleaned the dust from her skin. Then from her toilet bag she took the bottle of eyewash and little blue eye-bath. She bathed her eyes. They were clear and bright again when she checked in the mirror, and she patted her pale cheeks until the blood rouged them. She readjusted the scarf around her head, stripped off the full-length white dust-jacket that protected her clothes and she looked clean and rested and ready for trouble.
There were little groups of women and children gathered at the corners of the avenues. They watched her sullenly and a little apprehensively as she drove past them on the way to the administration building. She sat straightbacked behind the wheel and looked directly ahead.
As she neared the office, she saw the pickets who had been lolling under the thorn tree outside the gates hastily reorganizing themselves.
There were twenty at least, most of the able-bodied white artisans on the mine. They formed a line across the road and linked arms facing her. Their faces were ugly and threatening.
Nothing goes in! Nothing goes out, they began to chant as she slowed. She saw that most of them had armed themselves with clubs and pick handles.
Centaine thrust the palm of her hand down on the button and the Daimler's horn squealed like a wounded bull elephant and she drove hard at the centre of the picket line with the accelerator pedal pressed to the floorboards. The men in the centre saw her face behind the windshield and realized that she would run them down. At the last minute they scattered.
one of them yelled, We want our jobs! and swung his pick handle against the rear window. The glass starred and collapsed over the leather seat, but Centaine was through.
She pulled up in front of the verandah just as Twenty-man-Jones hurried out of his office struggling with his jacket and necktie.
We weren't expecting you until tomorrow at the very earliest. 'Your friends were. She pointed at the shattered window, and his voice went shrill with indignation.
They attacked you? That's unforgivable. I agree, she said. 'And I'm not going to be the one who does the forgiving. Twenty-man-jones wore a huge service pistol bolstered on his skinny hip.
Behind him was little Mr Brantingham, the mine bookkeeper, his head bald as an ostrich egg and much too large for his narrow rounded shoulders. Behind his gold-rimmed pince-nez; he was close to tears, but he carried a double-barrelled shotgun in his pudgy white hands.
You are a brave man, Centaine told him. I won't forget your loyalty. She led Twenty-man-Jones into her office and sat down thankfully at her desk. How many other men are with us? Only the office staff, eight of them. The artisans and mine staff are all out, though I suspect there has been pressure on some of them. Even Rodgers and Maclear? They were her senior overseers. Are they out also? I'm afraid so. Both of them are on the strike committee. 'With Fourie?
The three of them are the ringleaders. I'll see that they never work again, she said bitterly, and he dropped his eyes and mumbled: I think we have to bear in mind that they haven't broken the law. They have the legal right to withhold their labour, and to bargain collectively Not when I am struggling to keep the mine running. Not when I am trying to ensure that there will be jobs for at least some of them. Not after all I've done for them., I'm afraid they do have that right,he insisted.
Whose side are you on, Dr TWentyman-jones? He looked stricken. 'You should never have to ask that question, he said. From the first day we met I've been your man. You know that. I was merely pointing out your legal position. Immediately contrite, Centaine stood up and reached for his arm to console him.
Forgive me. I'm tired and jumpy. She had stood up too quickly and the blood drained from her head. She turned
