Men of Men - Smith Wilbur (книги бесплатно без txt) 📗

"Ah, young Ballantyne," Jameson greeted Ralph, and secretly enjoyed Ralph's frown of annoyance. He did not share the general high opinion of this youngster. He was too bumptious and too successful by a half, while physically he was all that Jameson was not; tall and broadshouldered, with a striking appearance and forceful Presence.

The wags were saying that one day Ralph Ballantyne would own the half of the Charterland that Rhodes did not already have his brand on. However, even Jameson had to grant that if you wanted something done, no matter how difficult, and if you wanted it done swiftly and thoroughly, and if you were prepared to pay top dollar, then Ralph Ballantyne was your man.

"Ah, Jameson." Ralph retaliated by dropping the mousy little doctor's title from the greeting, and by turning immediately to the other man in the room.

"General Sint John." Ralph flashed that compelling smile.

"How good to see you, sir! When did you get into Fort Victoria?"

Mungo Sint John limped across the room to take Ralph's hand, and his single eye gleamed.

"Got in this very morning."

"Congratulations on your appointment, sir. We need a good soldier up here, the way things are going." Ralph's compliment was an oblique jibe at Doctor Jameson's own military aspirations. Rhodes had very recently appointed Mungo Sint John as the Company's Chief of Staff. He would be under Jameson's administration, naturally, but would be directly responsible for police and military affairs in the Charterlands of Rhodesia.

"Did your men find the break in the wires?" Jameson interrupted them.

"Bangles, and bracelets," Ralph nodded. "That's what happened to the wires. I have given the local chief a lesson that I hope-will teach him to behave himself. I fined him fifty head of cattle."

Jameson frowned quickly.

"Lobengula considers Matanka to be his vassal. He owns those cattle, the Mashona merely tend the herds on the king's behalf."

Ralph shrugged. "Then Matanka will have some explaining to do, and rather him than me, and that's the truth., "Lobengula won't let this pass -" Jameson broke off, and the frown cleared. He began to pace up and down behind his desk with excited, hopping, bird-like steps.

"Perhaps," he twitched at his scraggly little moustache, perhaps this is what we have been waiting for. Lobengula will not let it pass, nor, by God, will we." He paused and looked at Ralph. "How soon will you have the wires restored?"

"By noon tomorrow," Ralph told him promptly.

"Good! Good! We must get a message through to your father at Gubulawayo. If he protests to Lobengula that his vassals are stealing Company property, and informs him that we have fined him in cattle, what will Lobengula do?"

"He will send an impi to punish Matanka."

"Punish him"

"Cut his head off, kill his men, rape his women and burn his village."

"Exactly." Jameson punched his fist into his palm. "And Matanka is on Company ground and under protection of the British flag. It will be our duty, our bounden duty, to drive off Lobengula's men."

"War!" said Ralph.

"War," agreed Sint John softly. "Well done, young fellow.

This is what we have been waiting for."

"Ballantyne, can you give me a tender to provide wagons and supplies for an expeditionary force, say five hundred men; we'll need twenty-five wagons, six hundred horses, when we drive for Gubulawayo."

"When do you expect to march?"

"Before the rains." Jameson was decisive. "If we go, then we'll have to finish it before the rains break.,"

"I will have a tender for you by the time the telegraph is reopened tomorrow., Ralph jumped down from the saddle and tossed his reins to the groom who came running.

Although it was only a temporary lodging which Ralph used on his infrequent visits to check the progress of his construction gangs, his transport stages and his trading posts, yet it was the grandest house in Fort Victoria, with glass in the windows and insect mesh screening the doors.

His spurs clattered on the steps as he stormed up onto the verandah, and Cathy heard him and came running with the baby on her hip.

"You are home so soon," she cried delightedly, rebuttoning her bodice from the feeding.

"Couldn't stay away from you two." He laughed and smacked a kiss on her mouth, then snatched the baby from her and tossed him high.

"Do be careful." Cathy hopped anxiously to try and take him back, but Jonathan gurgled joyously and kicked with excitement, and a trickle of milk reappeared and ran down his chin.

"Mucky little devil." Ralph held him high and sniffed at his son.

"Both ends at once, by God. Here, Katie." He handed the infant to her and held her around the waist.

"We are going to Gubulawayo," he said.

"Who?" She looked up at him in confusion.

"Sint John and the good doctor and I, and when we get there B.S.A. shares will go to five pounds. Last price I heard before the wires were cut was five shillings. The first message that goes out tomorrow is my buying order to Aaron Fagan, for fifty thousand British South Africans!"

Bazo's impi came sweeping down out of the western forests, silent as shadows and murderous as wild hunting dogs.

"Kill that dog Matanka," the king had ordered. "Kill him and all his men." And Bazo caught them in the dawn, as the first of them came out of their huts yawning and rubbing the sleep from their eyes, and then they chased the young girls cackling and shrieking like hens amongst the huts, and roped them in bunches.

"And all his men," had been the king's order, and some of Matanka's men were working for the white men, at the Prince Mine, one of the very few paying gold reefs in Mashonaland. They were breaking and carrying the rock.

"Do not interfere," Bazo told the mine overseer. "This is the king's business. No white man will be hurt, that is the king's order."

And they chased the Mashona labourers into the crushing plant and stabbed them as they hid under the sorting-tables.

They came racing down the telegraph line, five hundred red shields. The Mashona wiremen were unwinding the huge drums and stringing the shining strands.

"No white men will be hurt," Bazo shouted as he let his young men run. "Stand aside, white men." But now Bazo was mad with blood and boastful with the killing fever. "This is not for you, white men. Not yet, white men, but your day will come."

They dragged the Mashona down from the telegraph poles, and bayed about them like hounds tearing a fox to pieces, while the Mashona screamed to their white masters for protection.

"Bring in the cattle, all Matanka's cattle," the king had ordered, and Bazo's men swept the Mashona pastures, and drove the sprawling multi-coloured herds back into the west in the clouds of their own dust; and with the herds were mingled some of the white men's cattle, for one beast looks like another, and the marks burned by hot iron into the hide meant nothing to the Matabele warriors.

It was all done so swiftly that Jameson had to ride hard with his band of hastily assembled volunteers to catch them before they reached the frontier of the Charterland.

He had thirty-eight men with him, and when he saw the horsemen, Bazo turned back and with the massed warriors at his back he greeted Jameson.

"Sakubona, Daketela! I see you, Doctor! Fear not, by the king's orders no white man will be molested."