They had marched well along the darkened road that led from Dutoitspan to the central portion of Kimberley several miles distant, when Rudd grinned again in memory of the success of his machine. “Not a bad job, if I say so myself,” he could not help but comment.
“Quite creditable,” Rhodes agreed. It was as close to a compliment as he could ever bring himself to utter.
“Particularly considering the bloody machine was never meant to be a pump in the first place.”
Rhodes looked at his companion in surprise. “What do you mean?”
“It was a compressor before,” Rudd said, explaining. “I had to fabricate a few parts to get the thing running as a pump.”
“A compressor?”
“That’s right.” Rudd laughed. “When I first saw it in that used-machinery yard in Cape Town, I almost passed it up. The bloody machine had been used for making ice before. Can you imagine?”
Rhodes stopped dead in his tracks. They were before the Paris Hotel but he made no move to lead the way in. Rudd had turned in the direction of the hotel entrance but he stopped and walked back. “What’s the matter?”
“Can you make that machine produce ice?”
“I’d have to dismantle it and put back the original pieces—”
“Which you still have?”
“Sure, someplace in one of the crates.”
Rhodes sighed. “Charles, Charles, you have no imagination!”
“What d’you mean?”
“Ice, Charles — ice! We’ll pump out Dutoitspan in no time, and then until the next rainy season, during the nine months when it’s dry as a bone here in Kimberley, and hotter than hell itself — we’ll make and sell ice!”
Rudd stared at him. “I never thought of that!”
“Thinking is my job; doing is yours.” Rhodes smiled at the thought of having the only ice machine in Kimberley during the hellish hot months. Cold drinks for the sweating diggers at a small price per bit of ice; blocks of ice to be sold to the hotels and bars; ice for the provisioners to keep their fruits and vegetables that much longer; meats that could be held for far greater periods of time without having to be dried for preservation. Possibly even a cold house… Ice!
“Come on,” Rhodes said genially. “Now let’s really celebrate. I’ll pay for the drinks.”
They walked into the hotel and stepped up to the bar. Rhodes ordered double whiskeys for the two of them and turned to look the place over. The bar was well filled with diggers drinking and waiting for the show; to one side the dining area had been transformed, with the tables pulled back in preparation for the evening’s entertainment. One person was sitting at a table at the edge of the improvised stage, his head in his arms on the table, apparently sound asleep. Rhodes turned to the bartender who was pouring their drinks.
“When does the show go on?”
“Any minute now,” the barman said. Even as he said it, Harry came staggering out of the door that led from the kitchen. He was acting the drunken clown; his pants were far too big for him and were held to gaudy suspenders with huge bows of ribbon; his shirt collar hung away from his neck by a good twelve inches and his cravat was stringlike and had one end a few inches long while the other end almost reached the ground. He was wearing a tiny derby that perched atop his head and looked ridiculous on him. As he passed the person sitting with his head on the table, a foot was suddenly thrust out and Harry took a comic fall, holding tightly to his derby so it would not leave his head. Barney, the one at the table, now apologized profusely in pantomime for having tripped his brother and tried to make restitution by helping him up. Barney’s clothes were even more ill fitting than his brother’s; on helping each other up they continued to fall, their heads and feet becoming entangled in each other’s outsized clothing, and with Harry never relinquishing his hold on his derby which he kept clamped to his head. Eventually they ended up with Barney’s head down Harry’s pants and Harry staring at the roaring audience through Barney’s legs, his derby still pressed tightly to his head, a look of wondering curiosity on his face that all this should be happening to him. And when they finally managed to untangle themselves and each tried to escape the other by crawling under tables, every time each tried to rise he kept banging his head on the table. Until at last Barney managed to get free of the table, and taking his brother by the leg he dragged him through the kitchen door and offstage.
It was a good act and well rehearsed. Rudd found himself laughing uproariously with everyone else in the bar. Rhodes was merely smiling indulgently at the antics he had just witnessed. He looked at the barman, who was wiping his eyes. “Who are they?”
“Seen it every night for three weeks straight,” said the barman, “and they still kill me!”
“Who are they?”
“Call themselves the Barnato Brothers.”
“Italian?” Rhodes frowned. “They don’t look it.”
“Naw!” The barman grinned. “Their real name is Isaacs.”
“Jews,” Rhodes said with a look of distaste.
“I guess so,” the barman said without interest, and went off to serve another customer.
“Well, how did you like it?” Rudd said.
“They’re Jews,” Rhodes said, and dismissed the act and the actors from his mind. Rudd merely stared at him, shrugged, and returned to his drink.
In the kitchen, where Harry and Barney had gone to change their clothes and receive their sandwich and a beer, Harry tilted his head in the general direction of the other room. “See the tall fellow standing at the end of the bar?”
Barney put his head around the corner of the door, taking in the scene at the bar without being noticed himself; it was a skill learned early in life in the East End and often saved a lot of trouble. “You mean the cove what looks like a horse ain’t eaten for a month? Next to the stocky bloke with the sandy mustache?”
“That’s the one,” Harry said. He folded his oversized trousers with care, from habit. Since Barney’s arrival Harry had gone back to being the toff he had been when tending bar and acting as bouncer at the King of Prussia. “That’s Cecil Rhodes, the one who brought in that steam pump your wagon carried up from Cape Town. He and the fellow with him have three or four good claims in the De Beers. Getting rich, they say.”
“Ten to one the stocky bloke does all the work,” Barney said, and went back to changing his clothes. “Old horseface don’t look like no bloody genius to me.” He suddenly grinned. “Good news. Just proves it don’t take no brains to get rich around here.”
And when they had changed clothes and had eaten and came up front to the bar, Rhodes and Rudd had gone. The barman had a small box with donations that had been collected for the two for their artistry; there were several one-pound notes as well as the usual fair amount of silver. Barney and Harry’s eyebrows went up. It was an inordinately high amount for the two to collect.
“Some digger must have found a two-hundred-carat today,” Harry said in awe.
“Or else he had too much beer for supper,” Barney said with a smile as they each accepted a whiskey from an admiring barman.