Men of Men Read Online Free PDF Page B

string, and Aletta broke hurriedly from Zouga’s embrace and, flushing with embarrassment, adjusted her apron, beginning to scold her offspring
fondly.
    ‘Out with it! It’s covered in fleas.’
    ‘Oh please, Mama!’
    ‘Out, I say!’
    She watched Zouga set off into the sprawling settlement, striding down the dusty track with his shoulders squared and the old jaunty spring in his step, then she turned back to the cone of
soiled canvas set on a bleak dry plain under the cruel blue African sky, and she sighed. The weariness came upon her again in waves.
    In her girlhood there had been servants to perform the menial tasks of cooking and cleaning. She still had not mastered the smoky fluttering open flames of the camp fire, and already a fine red
coating of dust had settled upon everything, even the surface of the goat’s milk in its earthenware jug. With an enormous effort of will, she gathered her resolve and stooped determinedly
into the tent.
    Ralph had followed Jan Cheroot down to the wells to help with the horses. She knew that the two of them would not return until the next mealtime. They made an incongruous pair, the wizened
little old man and the handsome reckless child already taller and more sturdy than his inseparable protector and tutor.
    Jordan stayed with her. He was not yet ten years of age, but without his companionship she doubted that she could have borne the terrible journey across those bone-breaking miles, the burning
dusty days and the frosty nights of aching cold.
    Already the child could cook the simple camp dishes, and his unleavened bread and griddle scones were family favourites at every meal. She had taught him to read and write, and given to him her
love of poetry and fine and beautiful things. He could already darn a torn shirt and wield the heavy coal-filled stroking-iron to smooth a shirt. His sweet piping tones and angelic beauty were
constant sources of intense joy to her. She had grown his golden curls long for once, resisting her husband when he wanted to scissor them short as he had done Ralph’s.
    Jordan stood below her now, helping her to string a canvas screen across the tent that would divide the sleeping and living areas. She was suddenly compelled to lean down and touch those soft
fine curls.
    At the touch he smiled sweetly up at her, and abruptly her senses spun dizzily. She swayed wildly on the rickety cot, trying to keep her balance and, as she fell, Jordan struggled to hold and
steady her. He did not have the strength and her weight bore them both to the ground.
    Jordan’s eyes were huge and swimming with horror. He helped her half crawl, half stagger back to the cot and collapse upon it.
    Waves of heat and nausea and giddiness broke over her.
    Z ouga was the first customer at the office of the Standard Bank when the clerk opened the door onto Market Square. Once he had deposited the
contents of Aletta’s casket and the clerk had locked it in the big green iron safe against the far wall, Zouga had a balance of almost £2,500 to his credit.
    That knowledge armed his resolve. He felt tall and powerful as he strode up the ramp of the central causeway.
    The roadways were seven feet wide. The mining commissioner, after the lesson of the diggings at Bultfontein and Dutoitspan, had insisted that these access roads be left open to service the
claims in the centre of the growing pit. The workings were a mosaic of square platforms, each precisely thirty feet square. Some of the diggers, with more capital and better organization, were
sinking their claims faster than others, so that the slower workers were isolated on towers of golden yellow earth, high above their neighbouring claims, while the fastest miners had sunk deep
square shafts at the bottom of which toiled the naked black labourers.
    For a man to move from one claim to another was already a laborious and often downright dangerous journey: crossing rickety board walks above the dizzying shaft of a deep claim,