Fools Gold

By Gary Malyon

Drama and Politics combine to wreck the plans of powerful mining moguls

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gary Malyon
• Release date: Sep 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310968082

Gary Malyon

This Author decided to finally, after sixty odd years, put the words that were rushing around inside his head down on paper. In the hope that others might enter a new world of excitement and adventure

Book preview

FOOLS GOLD

by GARY MALYON

Copyright 2015 GARY MALYON

PUBLISHED BY GARY MALYON AT SMASHWORDS

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.  This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people.  If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient.  If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.  Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTYONE

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

OTHER BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR

CHAPTER ONE

He slid to a halt and stretched out on the ground, Ephraim Sithole groaned, as he tasted dirt from the scuffed football pitch in his mouth. Sound rolled across the field as the home crowd roared their appreciation of his instinctive save. Ephraim got to his feet quickly, and then moved backwards towards the rear goal post. As the goalkeeper of the football team, Ephraim knew that he was the last line of defence.

Come on guys! Move back! Pick a man and mark him. Ephraim shouted as he tried to get his team to use the moves they had repeatedly practiced week after week.

Watch the opposition and move out to play them offside! Desperation made his voice hoarse. He knew that there were only about four minutes of the game left and if the team could hold onto their one goal lead, his team, the Golden Elephants, would be the new inter-mine champions.

That thunderous shot from ‘Soft Shoes’ Makaba had hurt his hand when he’d pushed it over the top of the net. Ephraim forced himself to ignore the pain. He concentrated hard as the left wing for Neuland Mine ran forward and sent the ball in a curve towards the goalmouth. Almost in a dream Ephraim watched the forwards and backs from both teams rise gracefully into the air in their effort to win the ball. Relief washed over Ephraim as one of the Elephants defenders took control of the ball and then kicked it hard up field.

Go on! Follow the ball. We need to keep them in their own half. Yelled Ephraim as the players streamed up field after the ball towards the Neuland Mines goalmouth.

After what seemed like ages, the referee blew the final whistle. Ephraim headed straight for the change rooms. Some of the fans that had run onto the field managed to catch up to him. By the time he made it through the crowd to the showers Ephraim had quite a few bruises on his back and arms, where overzealous fans had congratulated him.

All Ephraim could think of while the dignitaries lined up to make their speeches during the prize giving was how he would be able to slip away to go to work that night. He knew that his best friend Joseph would not understand him going to work instead of staying at the party, especially when it was an extra overtime shift and totally voluntary.

Joseph, although not a player himself, like many of the men staying in the hostel, was fanatical about soccer. He had attended all the football practices with Ephraim, at all the matches he had been one of the loudest supporters in the stands and the rest of the team considered him an unofficial mascot.

Now that the Golden Elephants had won the championship, Joseph would want to enjoy the spoils of victory just as much as the rest of the team. Always present in Ephraim’s mind, was the fact that he was the only South Sotho in the team. Although outsiders might not understand it, Ephraim knew that any slight to his Xhosa and Shangaan team-mates, intentional or not, could lead to ethnic fights in the mine hostel.

Ephraim very seldom had any trouble with his team-mates, but others, like that hateful Phinius, would jump at every opportunity to make trouble in the hostel. Therefore, Ephraim would need to have a very good excuse for not partying the night away with his team-mates.

Seated on the bench with a cold beer in his hand, Ephraim’s thoughts drifted away from the speeches back towards Phinius, who was dancing and singing with a group of men. He recognized the group as members of a radical branch of the National Union of Mineworkers.

Many things had changed in the country since the first democratic elections had taken place, although maybe not as quickly or as radically as some would have hoped.

Compared to what life was as if before the elections, it was almost as if they were living in paradise. Of course, Phinius and his friends would not have agreed about that, they still believed that their unhappiness and frustrations were because of the white man.

For most of their lives, all of the non-whites in the country, both the weak and the strong could blame all their troubles on the hated apartheid system. Now that the country was a free nation, every man was expected to stand on his own two feet. Phinius, along with his friends, was finding it very hard to adjust; they still needed someone to blame for their own shortcomings.

With a deep-seated hatred of anything colonial, this small group let their dissatisfaction spill over into the lives of those like Ephraim, who because they worked and played hard, were treated with respect by management and their peers.

These young Africans could now go to the mine club with their white friends and enjoy a social beer, without any comments or trouble except from the radicals who considered them turncoats and traitors to the struggle.

As a child, Ephraim had listened to the fantastic stories of the outlawed African National Congress Freedom Fighters when the cadres had secretly toured the townships looking for recruits.

When he was sixteen he and a group of young boys had left their home in the Free State town of Zeerust to join the fight for freedom. Ephraim remembered all to well the hot days and freezing nights during those cold winter months, how they had gone without fresh water, drinking from puddles and stealing food at night from farms and the local populace.

Their arms and legs had been covered in cuts and scratches from diving into ditches every time they heard a car, thinking that both the South African army and police force were out looking for them.

As the days had turned into weeks, Ephraim’s desire to turn back had increased in direct proportion to the hunger pains in his belly. Many people had tried to assist and many had indeed helped them along the way, but food and money had been scarce in the rural Free State.

The maize farms had been huge, covering thousands of acres. This meant that the farmhouses were very isolated, relying on radio communication and telephones in the case of emergencies. All the labourers’ houses were situated quite close to the main farmhouse, so it was sometimes days before Ephraim and his companions saw any other humans. Some nights, when the summer rains had pelted down they had huddled under thorn trees, on these occasions the oppressive regime had not seemed so bad, if you were arrested a roof over your head was guaranteed ,while the police were beating and humiliating you, and a plate of porridge and a blanket were provided. The extreme poverty he saw amongst the black population on their journey, compared to the luxury the whites seemed to enjoy always pulled him back onto his chosen path.

Tightening his belt, Ephraim had walked towards the dream of a glorious career in the resistance, he saw himself as hero of the freedom fight, surrounded by beautiful, adoring woman and lots of money.

By the time the boys passed over the border there were only three of them left out of the ten that had started, the others had either been arrested while foraging for supplies or had given up the quest and gone back home.

One of the companions, Dan, was the same type of person as Phinius and his friends, hard and sadistic. Dan had taken great pleasure in killing the few chickens that they had stolen and on one occasion, when the group had broken into an isolated farmhouse, it had taken a lot of persuasion and threats of physical damage to stop him from murdering the farmer and his family with the firearms that they had found in the house.

Their escape had been easy; they had disabled the telephone and radio system and taking all the keys they could find, they left the family tied up with strips of cloth torn from pillowcases. As none of them could drive, the boys had had to leave the motor vehicles behind and continue their journey on foot.

Ephraim had made sure that he stayed close to the would-be killer’s side from then on, for he knew that Dan had kept one of the pistols they had taken from the farmer and was looking for an excuse to use it.

Cold nights and a chill wind reminded the boys that winter was fast approaching. When they were offered a lift by some young black men, on the back of a truck, Ephraim and the others had burst into song when they discovered, to their great joy, that the men were A.N.C. recruits who were on their way to the refugee camp just outside Francois town. Without even realizing it, the boys had crossed the border and had been in the relative safety of Botswana for the past week.

The truck stopped in Francois town only long enough to buy provisions; the men then drove straight through the town and after about thirty minutes, pulled over to the side of the road to enjoy a last cigarette before going into the camp.

Ephraim looked down the slight incline at the dusty tent town spread out in front of him. Barbed wire patrolled by armed men, surrounded the camp. A locked wooden gate, which was also guarded by two men with automatic rifles, served as the main entrance. A few corrugated iron buildings lined up near the entrance, which, as he would later find out, served as offices for the officers. Tents were spread out in neat rows across the veld for what seemed like kilometres.

Ephraim remembered smoke spiralling up from the chimney of one building, which later turned out to be the kitchen. Groups of men and women kicked up dust as they marched along in squads. The noise and bustle was like music to his ears.

Ephraim had never heard of a five star hotel, never mind been in one. But even if he had, the camp bed, warm porridge and coffee he received after his shower and medical examination had been better than anything any hotel could have offered.

Early the next day the three boys had been taken to a tent for an interview with the recruitment head and the security officials. Sprouting rhetoric, the recruitment officer had been a typical politician and Ephraim had quickly decided that he was not worth bothering about. The security officer, on the other hand, had been another kettle of fish all together. Ephraim had watched him carefully and had thought that the man had the coldest eyes he had ever seen. Once as a young boy he had caught a lizard and the eyes of the lizard had glowed with warmth and love compared to the eyes of this man. As they told their story the boys were frequently interrupted by the two men with questions and Ephraim realized that although the recruitment officer was full of hot air, below the bluster was a mind like a steel trap, he had not missed anything at all and the questions he had asked had probed a lot deeper than just their travels.

Towards the evening of the first day, the security officer stood up and taking Dan by the arm led him outside. It would be many years before Ephraim would see Dan again. The next time he saw Dan’s face was on television; he was being tried for killing a couple of security guards during the robbery of an armoured truck, which was carrying gold bullion for the government.

What did you do with him? Ephraim had asked the security officer when he came back into the room an hour later.

He will be used for work more suitable for his talents in the organization, had been the only answer he had received. Ephraim silently wondered about the differences, if any, between the security official and young Dan, and started to have doubts about whether he was in the right place.

Interrogations had continued for two weeks during which time the two boys were shown around the camp, taken into town and treated very well although Ephraim had noticed that certain areas had been out of bounds to them. Every time doubts had come into his mind, he remembered the cold and hunger he had suffered to get to Botswana and had kept his mouth shut. He noticed that his companion had done the same.

After the third week in the refugee camp, the boys had been called in to the office of the recruitment officer together. It had been three weeks of new and exciting things, physical training, tests, training in the use of arms and explosives as well as political teaching and the art of negotiation. Ephraim had been shocked to find out that the recruitment officer had known his brother. His brother Petrus had joined the struggle five years earlier and was rumoured to be in Cuba studying to be a doctor. After the officer had spoken to his brother on the phone, it was decided that Ephraim would go back to South Africa to work in the gold mines. They explained to him that the movement also required skilled labour and management trainees as well as fighters. Ephraim was very disgusted when he was informed that his companion would be sent to Angola for final training before being incorporated into Umkhonto We Sizwethe, military wing of the A.N.C.

Ephraim opened his mouth to object about having to go back to South Africa, but when the security officer started to get up from his chair the words that came out of his mouth were not those that had been in his heart and he found himself agreeing to do anything to help the cause. Now fifteen years later Ephraim was a grown man, a learner official and marked by management as a high flyer and in line for rapid promotion.

Looking back over the years, he was very glad that he had been placed on the path they had chosen for him. Ephraim knew the great struggle was over and a new and totally different phase of revolution was in progress. His future on the mine was now totally in his own hands, if he worked hard his future would be assured, but if he fell short of expectations he would be left on the sidelines as just another wannabe.

His thoughts were abruptly brought back to the present and the victory party by Joseph pushing another beer into his hand, round face shining as his perfect teeth glinted in the dappled sunlight that filtered into the hall.

"Come on old