It took him almost two weeks to cross the Karroo. More than once he was ready to give up. He was not sure he could finish the journey. I’m a fool. I should have returned to Klipdrift to ask Mr van der Merwe for another mule. But what if Van der Merwe had called off the deal? No, I did the right thing.
And so, Jamie kept moving, one step at a time. One day, he saw four figures in the distance, coming towards him. I’m delirious, Jamie thought. It’s a mirage. But the figures came closer, and Jamie’s heart began to thud alarmingly. Men! There is human life here! He wondered if he had forgotten how to speak. He tried out his voice on the afternoon air, and it sounded as if it belonged to someone long dead. The four men reached him, prospectors returning to Klipdrift, tired and defeated.
‘Hello,’ Jamie said.
They nodded. One of them said, ‘There ain’t nothin’ ahead, boy. We looked. You’re wastin’ your time. Go back.’
And they were gone.
Jamie shut his mind to everything but the trackless waste ahead of him. The sun and the black flies were unbearable and there was no place to hide. There were thorn trees, but their branches had been laid to waste by the elephants. Jamie was almost totally blinded by the sun. His fair skin was burned raw, and he was constantly dizzy. Each time he took a breath of air, his lungs seemed to explode. He was no longer walking, he was stumbling, putting one foot in front of the other, mindlessly lurching ahead. One afternoon, with the midday sun beating down on him, he slipped off his backpack and slumped to the ground, too tired to take another step. He closed his eyes and dreamed he was in a giant crucible and the sun was a huge, bright diamond blazing down on him, melting him. He awoke in the middle of the night trembling from the cold. He forced himself to take a few bites of biltong and a drink of tepid water. He knew he must get up and start moving before the sun rose, while the earth and sky were cool. He tried, but the effort was too great. It would be so easy just to lie there forever and never have to take another step. I’ll just sleep for a little while longer, Jamie thought. But some voice deep within him told him he would never wake up again. They would find his body there as they had found hundreds of others. He remembered the vultures and thought, No, not my body – my bones. Slowly and painfully, he forced himself to his feet. His backpack was so heavy he could not lift it. Jamie started walking again, dragging the pack behind him. He had no recollection of how many times he fell onto the sand and staggered to his feet again. Once he screamed into the predawn sky, ‘I’m Jamie McGregor, and I’m going to make it. I’m going to live. Do you hear me, God? I’m going to live …’ Voices were exploding in his head.
You’re goin’ chasin’ diamonds? You must be daft, son. That’s a fairy tale – a temptation of the devil to keep men from doin’ an honest day’s work.
Why do you nae tell us where you’re gettin’ the money to go? It’s halfway ’round the world. You hae no money.
Mr van der Merwe, I’m the person you’re looking for. Believe me, sir, I’ll work night and day. I’ll bring you back more diamonds than you can count.
And he was finished before he had even started. You have two choices, Jamie told himself. You can go on or you can stay here and die … and die … and die …
The words echoed endlessly in his head. You can take one more step, Jamie thought. Come on, Jamie boy. One more step. One more step …
Two days later Jamie McGregor stumbled into the village of Magerdam. The sunburn had long since become infected and his body oozed blood and sera. Both eyes were swollen almost completely shut. He collapsed in the middle of the street, a pile of crumpled clothes holding him together. When sympathetic diggers tried to relieve him of his backpack, Jamie fought them with what little strength he had left, raving deliriously. ‘No! Get away from my diamonds. Get away from my diamonds …’
He awakened in a small, bare room three days later, naked except for the bandages that covered his body. The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was a buxom, middle-aged woman seated at the side of his cot.
‘Wh – ?’ His voice was a croak. He could not get the words out.
‘Easy, dear. You’ve been sick.’ She gently lifted his swathed head and gave him a sip of water from a tin cup.
Jamie managed to prop himself up on one elbow. ‘Where – ?’ He swallowed and tried again. ‘Where am I?’
‘You’re in Magerdam. I’m Alice Jardine. This is my boarding-house. You’re going to be fine. You just need a good rest. Now lie back.’
Jamie remembered the strangers who tried to take his backpack away, and he was filled with panic. ‘My things, where – ?’ He tried to rise from the cot, but the woman’s gentle voice stopped him.
‘Everything’s safe. Not to worry, son.’ She pointed to his backpack in a corner of the room.
Jamie lay back on the clean white sheets. I got here. I made it. Everything is going to be all right now.
Alice Jardine was a blessing, not only to Jamie McGregor, but to half of Magerdam. In that mining town filled with adventurers, all sharing the same dream, she fed them, nursed them, encouraged them. She was an Englishwoman who had come to South Africa with her husband, when he decided to give up his teaching job in Leeds and join the diamond rush. He had died of fever three weeks after they arrived, but she had decided to stay on. The miners had become the children she never had.
She kept Jamie in bed for four more days, feeding him, changing his bandages and helping him regain his strength. By the fifth day, Jamie was ready to get up.
‘I want you to know how grateful I am to you, Mrs Jardine. I can’t pay you anything. Not yet. But you’ll have a big diamond from me one day soon. That’s a promise from Jamie McGregor.’
She smiled at the intensity of the handsome young boy. He was still twenty pounds too thin, and his grey eyes were filled with the horror he had been through, but there was a strength about him, a determination that was awesome. He’s different from the others, Mrs Jardine thought.
Jamie, dressed in his freshly washed clothes, went out to explore the town. It was Klipdrift on a smaller scale. There were the same tents and wagons and dusty streets, the flimsily built shops and the crowds of prospectors. As Jamie passed a saloon, he heard a roar from inside and entered. A noisy crowd had gathered around a red-shirted Irishman.
‘What’s going on?’ Jamie asked.
‘He’s going to wet his find.’
‘He’s what?’
‘He struck it rich today, so he stands treat for the whole saloon. He pays me for as much liquor as a saloon-full of thirsty men can swallow.’
Jamie joined in a conversation with several disgruntled diggers sitting at a round table.
‘Where you from, McGregor?’
‘Scotland.’
‘Well, I don’t know what horseshit they fed you in Scotland, but there ain’t enough diamonds in this fuckin’ country to pay expenses.’
They talked of other camps: Gong Gong, Forlorn Hope, Delports, Poormans Kopje, Sixpenny Rush …
The diggers all told the same story – of months doing the back-breaking work of moving boulders, digging into the hard soil and squatting over the riverbank sifting the dirt for diamonds. Each day a few diamonds were found; not enough to make a man rich, but enough to keep his dreams alive. The mood of the town was a strange mixture of optimism and pessimism.