Master of the Game

"At our other mines," David said, "we’re paying fifty-nine shillings a month and keep. You’re paying your workers only fifty shillings a month."

"You complainin’ ’cause I made a better deal for you? The only thing that counts is profit."

"Jamie McGregor doesn’t agree," David replied. "Raise their wages."

Zimmerman said sullenly, "Right. It’s the boss’s money."

"I hear there’s a lot of whipping going on."

Zimmerman snorted. "Christ, you can’t hurt a native, mister. Their hides are so thick they don’t even feel the goddamned whip. It just scares them."

"Then you’ve scared three workers to death, Mr. Zimmerman."

Zimmerman shrugged. "There’s plenty more where they came from."

He’s a bloody animal, David thought. And a dangerous one. He looked up at the huge supervisor. "If there’s any more trouble here, you’re going to be replaced." He rose to his feet. "You’ll start treating your men like human beings. The punishments are to stop immediately. I’ve inspected their living quarters. They’re pigsties. Clean them up."

Hans Zimmerman was glaring at him, fighting to control his temper. "Anything else?" he finally managed to say.

"Yes. I’ll be back here in three months. If I don’t like what I see, you can find yourself a job with another company. Good day." David turned and walked out.

Hans Zimmerman stood there for a long time, filled with a simmering rage. The fools, he thought. Uitlanders. Zimmerman was a Boer, and his father had been a Boer. The land belonged to them and God had put the blacks there to serve them. If God had meant them to be treated like human beings, he would not have made their skins black. Jamie McGregor did not understand that. But what could you expect from an uitlander, a native-lover? Hans Zimmerman knew he would have to be a little more careful in the future. But he would show them who was in charge at the Namib.

Kruger-Brent, Ltd., was expanding, and Jamie McGregor was away a good deal of the time. He bought a paper mill in Canada and a shipyard in Australia. When he was home, Jamie spent all his time with his son, who looked more like his father each day. Jamie felt an inordinate pride in the boy. He wanted to take the child with him on his long trips, but Margaret refused to let him.

"He’s much too young to travel. When he’s older, he can go with you. If you want to be with him, you’ll see him here."

Before Jamie had realized it, his son had had his first birthday, and then his second, and Jamie marveled at how the time raced by. It was 1887.

To Margaret, the last two years had dragged by. Once a week Jamie would invite guests to dinner and Margaret was his gracious hostess. The other men found her witty and intelligent and enjoyed talking to her. She knew that several of the men found her very attractive indeed, but of course they never made an overt move, for she was the wife of Jamie McGregor.

When the last of the guests had gone, Margaret would ask, "Did the evening go well for you?"

Jamie would invariably answer, "Fine. Good night," and be off to look in on little Jamie. A few minutes later, Margaret would hear the front door close as Jamie left the house.

Night after night, Margaret McGregor lay in her bed thinking about her life. She knew how much she was envied by the women in town, and it made her ache, knowing how little there was to envy. She was living out a charade with a husband who treated her worse than a stranger. If only he would notice her! She wondered what he would do if one morning at breakfast she took up the bowl that contained his oatmeal especially imported from Scotland and poured it over his stupid head. She could visualize the expression on his face, and the fantasy tickled her so much that she began to giggle, and the laughter turned into deep, wrenching sobs. I don’t want to love him any more. I won’t. I’ll stop, somehow, before I’m destroyed…

By 1890, Klipdrift had more than lived up to Jamie’s expectations. In the seven years he had been there, it had become a full-fledged boomtown, with prospectors pouring in from every part of the world. It was the same old story. They came by coach and in wagons and on foot. They came with nothing but the rags they wore. They needed food and equipment and shelter and grubstake money, and Jamie McGregor was there to supply it all. He had shares in dozens of producing diamond and gold mines, and his name and reputation grew. One morning Jamie received a visit from an attorney for De Beers, the giant conglomerate that controlled the huge diamond mines at Kimberley.

"What can I do for you?" Jamie asked.

"I’ve been sent to make you an offer, Mr. McGregor. De Beers would like to buy you out. Name your price."

It was a heady moment. Jamie grinned and said, "Name yours."

David Blackwell was becoming more and more important to Jamie. In the young American Jamie McGregor saw himself as he once had been. The boy was honest, intelligent and loyal. Jamie made David his secretary, then his personal assistant and, finally, when the boy was twenty-one, his general manager.

To David Blackwell, Jamie McGregor was a surrogate father. When David’s own father suffered a heart attack, it was Jamie who arranged for a hospital and paid for the doctors, and when David’s father died, Jamie McGregor took care of the funeral arrangements. In the five years David had worked for Kruger-Brent, Ltd., he had come to admire Jamie more than any man he had ever known. He was aware of the problem between Jamie and Margaret, and deeply regretted it, because he liked them both. But it’s none of my business, David told himself. My job is to help Jamie in any way I can.

Jamie spent more and more time with his son. The boy was five now, and the first time Jamie took him down in the mines, young Jamie talked of nothing else for a week. They went on camping trips, and they slept in a tent under the stars. Jamie was used to the skies of Scotland, where the stars knew their rightful places in the firmament. Here in South Africa, the constellations were confusing. In January Canopus shone brilliantly overhead, while in May it was the Southern Cross that was near the zenith. In June, which was South Africa’s winter, Scorpio was the glory of the heavens. It was puzzling. Still, it was a very special feeling for Jamie to lie on the warm earth and look up at the timeless sky with his son at his side and know they were part of the same eternity.