“Well, Jameson only did what he was told. He had to obey orders, like the rest of us. He didn’t make the plan, and he’s got the punishment.”
“What business had he to listen? What’s all this fine administration they talk of? It’s six years since I came to this country, and I’ve worked like a nigger ever since I came, and what have I, or any men who’ve worked hard at real, honest farming, got for it? Everything in the land is given away for the benefit of a few big folks over the water or swells out here. If England took over the Chartered Company tomorrow, what would she find?—everything of value in the land given over to private concessionaires—they’ll line their pockets if the whole land goes to pot! It’ll be the jackals eating all the flesh off the horse’s bones, and calling the lion in to lick the bones.”
“Oh, you wait a bit and you’ll be squared,” said the handsome man. “I’ve been here five years and had lots of promises, though I haven’t got anything else yet; but I expect it to come some day, so I keep my mouth shut! If they asked me to sign a paper, that Mr. Over-the-Way”—he nodded towards the bell tent—“never got drunk or didn’t know how to swear, I’d sign it, if there was a good dose of squaring to come after it. I could stand a good lot of that sort of thing—squaring—if it would only come my way.”
The men laughed in a dreary sort of way, and the third man, who had not spoken yet, rolled round on to his back, and took the pipe from his mouth.
“I tell you what,” said the keen man, “those of us up here who have got a bit of land and are trying honestly and fairly to work, are getting pretty sick of this humbugging fighting. If we’d had a few men like the Curries and Bowkers of the old days up here from the first, all this would never have happened. And there’s no knowing when a reason won’t turn up for keeping the bloody thing on or stopping it off for a time, to break out just when one’s settled down to work. It’s a damned convenient thing to have a war like this to turn on and off.”
Slowly the third man keeled round on to his stomach again: “Let resignation wait. We fight the Matabele again tomorrow,” he said, sententiously.
A low titter ran round the group. Even the man under the bushes, though his eyes were still closed and his arm across his face, let his mouth relax a little, and showed his yellow teeth.
“I’m always expecting,” said the big handsome man, “to have a paper come round, signed by all the nigger chiefs, saying how much they love the B.S.A. Company, and how glad they are the Panjandrum has got them, and how awfully good he is to them; and they’re going to subscribe to the brazen statue. There’s nothing a man can’t be squared to do.”
The third man lay on his back again, lazily examining his hand, which he held above his face. “What’s that in the Bible,” he said, slowly, “about the statue, whose thighs and belly were of brass, and its feet of mud?”
“I don’t know much about the Bible,” said the keen man, “I’m going to see if my pot isn’t boiling over. Won’t yours burn?”