Diamond Hunter

Book 0: Jack Lark

by Paul Fraser Collard

Genres: Historical Fiction

Synopsis

Jack Lark journeys to South Africa in the eleventh action-packed Victorian military adventure featuring hero Jack Lark: soldier, leader, imposter.

Historical military fiction at its finest, for fans of Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series, Matthew Harffy and Patrick O'Brian.

South Africa, 1871. Jack Lark no longer walks alone. With the worldly Anna Baker by his side, he travels to the Cape Colony diamond fields determined to seek their fortune - and an adventurous new life together.

The journey north soon turns violent as tensions erupt between other hopeful diggers and a gang of Boer men. Everyone has their eye on the same elusive prize - and some will stop at nothing to get it.

For Jack and Anna, unearthing a diamond is only half the battle. Getting out of the mines alive will prove far more difficult - and dangerous. And when the worst happens, Jack finds himself tested as no enemy, no man and no war has ever before.

Praise for the Jack Lark series:

'Like all the best vintages Jack Lark has aged to perfection. Scarred, battered and bloody, his story continues to enthral' Anthony Riches

'Brilliant' Bernard Cornwell

'Enthralling' The Times

'Bullets fly, emotions run high and treachery abounds... exceptionally entertaining historical action adventure' Matthew Harffy

'Expect ferocious, bloody action from the first page' Ben Kane

'You feel and experience all the emotions and the blood, sweat and tears that Jack does... I devoured it in one sitting' Parmenion Books

(P) 2022 Headline Publishing Group Ltd

Release date: October 13, 2022

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 416

Sample

Port Elizabeth, Algoa Bay, Cape Colony, 9 April 1871

The cloudless sky was the palest blue as the Englishman walked away from the narrow jetty, a salt-stained carpet bag carried easily in his left hand, his right resting on the holstered revolver on his hip. He was not dressed for the cold of that early morning, and he quickly began to shiver. The heavy army boots he wore were snug enough, and he would not give them up no matter the climate, his time as an infantryman making him appreciate their comfort. But he wore long trousers made from a pale brown lightweight cotton, a loose-fitting scarlet Manchester shirt and a rumpled and well-worn jacket with four pockets on the front, along with a number of fabric loops around the waist. In an attempt to stop at least some of the chilly sea breeze from filtering inside the collar of his shirt, he adjusted the bright red neckerchief he wore; he had learned of the many uses for the simple square of cloth from the Texan cavalrymen he had once led. Around his waist was a British army officer’s belt with matching holster and ammunition pouch, and on his head a solar topee with a bright red pagdi wrapped tight around it, which could be unwound and used to cover his entire head if needed. It was a good outfit, suitable for a life far from civilisation, but it was also designed to keep its wearer cool under the burning African sun, something that was distinctly absent that morning.

The early mist was lingering in the air, screening much of the port town from his view, but he could see enough to know it barely deserved to be called a port. There was a single large breakwater under construction, but he doubted it would be enough to tame the surging waters that dominated the bay and that had made the journey from the steamer, which was still lying well out to sea, a puke-invoking hell. He did not care to think what that same transfer would have been like if one of the gales that had delayed their arrival by nearly a week had been blowing. He did know that he was heartily glad to have left the steamer behind, that feeling only reinforced by the half-dozen blackened skeletons of ships that littered the beach, each one a memorial to the fate of other seafarers who had not been as fortunate as he. It was a warning he intended to heed. He had spent far too long on board one ship or another. It was high time to get back to where he belonged.

He began to walk away from the jetty, his legs half buckling as he struggled to adjust to being back on firm ground, the earth beneath his heavy boots shifting as if he were still out at sea. It was not easy going. Every square inch was filled with a haphazard arrangement of fishing lines slung this way and that, each one holding dead fish that had been opened, gutted and hung up to dry. The air was filled with the rancid stink of fish guts, the rank odour almost more than he could stand. The town’s fishermen had landed a bountiful catch that morning. He saw dozens of snooks, and something that looked to his landlubber’s eye to be a solitary pike amidst a forest of mullets, their stomachs slit open to let in the air. There were buckets of spider crabs, the poor creatures climbing over one another in a futile attempt to escape their incarceration, and at least a hundred water-filled pails teeming with crayfish or writhing water snakes, the sight of which was enough to make him cringe. Most plentiful of all were the hottentot fish, the fat, toothy creatures familiar to him after he had dined on not a lot else for the better part of the last few weeks.

The fish entrails had been tossed onto the ground, where they were attracting the attention of great flocks of seabirds. They swarmed overhead, filling the sky as they circled over the catch, diving down then swooping low to snatch up an entrail or a discarded eye before soaring away. One huge bird flew by, momentarily casting him into shadow. He looked up in time to see a mollymawk climbing fast, its enormous ten-foot wingspan powering it away from the smaller birds, which looked weak and fragile in comparison. He hoped the sight of the bird was as good an omen as the sailors claimed. He had a feeling he would need all the luck he could get before long. For he was far from home and about to enter a world where he did not know the rules. Or even whether any rules existed. He had wished for a fresh start, but as he took his first strides into the fringes of the port town, he found himself wondering quite why he had chosen this path amongst all the others that had been open to him.

Leaving the stink of fish behind, he joined the main thoroughfare, which ran from one side of the town to the other, with just a handful of stubby side streets leading off it. Beyond the road was a ridge lined with fine-looking and substantial dwellings, villas and bungalows boasting neatly laid-out gardens and wide, airy verandas. It did not take any knowledge of the place to realise that these would be owned by the more successful merchants and the public officials stationed here in Port Elizabeth. They had done a pretty fair job of securing the best land for their dwellings, the elevated position providing the houses with a fresh breeze along with a spectacular view out to the bay. It also kept them away from the rough working classes who lived lower down. It was clear that this was no shanty town on the frontier of civilisation. He might well be in what felt like the arse end of nowhere, but there was wealth in this far-flung port, and that had to be a good thing. He just needed to find the right way to ensure that some of it found its way into his own well-deserving pockets.

It was still early, yet the street was busy. Men dressed in the rough clothes of those expecting a hard day of graft sauntered past, hands thrust deep in pockets or else carrying cloth-wrapped bundles that likely contained their lunch. A few looked warily at the Englishman, eyes narrowing in instant suspicion at the sight of the revolver snug in its holster on his hip. For he was alone in carrying a weapon on open display, the men heading out to work armed with nothing more dangerous than a pocketknife attached to their belt, or the ubiquitous docker’s hook, which looked no different to the ones that had been wielded by the dock workers in the streets of London’s East End, where he had been born. Not that he cared about attracting such attention. The men of the town could think what they wanted, even if it meant that they looked at him like he was a sort of madman or outlaw. He had long ago learned never to take anything for granted, and he was on foreign shores, far from anywhere he had known before. He wouldn’t dream of venturing into such a place without the loaded Lefaucheux revolver.

He walked on, keeping his pace easy, gradually becoming accustomed to being back on dry land. The port town was laid out along the shoreline, and he headed west, the rising sun on his back. The street was lined with well-built brick and wood buildings, most looking well cared for, with fresh paint and unbroken windows. The majority appeared to cater to the needs of the local populace, selling everything from fish to Cape beer at thruppence a quart. He counted at least five buildings claiming to belong to diamond and precious stone buyers, one even claiming to hail from Mayfair. Another, the busiest of the five, was owned, according to its signage, by a man named De Witt, who promised the best prices in town. Interspersed with the mercantile establishments were some fine public buildings, the offices of the clerks and officials who administered the town. These were in a slightly worse state of repair, clearly suffering from being so close to the shore; the salt-laden air had stripped back the paint to leave bare patches of wood on every facade.

As he walked, he noted a large number of churches, the various faiths vying for attention. An Anglican church stood two doors down from a Methodist chapel. There was a church for Catholics and another for Presbyterians. On the opposite side of the street, he even spied a synagogue for the local Jewish population. Clearly the populace of Port Elizabeth needed the guiding hand of an accumulation of religious institutions to keep them in their place.

Near the end of the thoroughfare, he found a neat-looking building bearing the sign Dreyer’s Phoenix Hotel. It appeared to be an upmarket establishment, the facade bright and clean, the veranda along the front painted a pleasant shade of yellow. He marked its position for later. He would need somewhere to sleep, and the place looked to be of a better quality than he had expected to find so far from the main cities of Cape Colony. After weeks of travel, he had learned not to be choosy, but it seemed that for once he would have somewhere decent to lay his head that night.

‘Good morning.’

The Englishman started as a well-dressed gentleman tipped his tile and offered a greeting as he walked by. He caught the man’s eye, noting the raised eyebrow and half-smile playing on his face, but he was gone before the startled Englishman could even think of forming a reply.

‘Blow me tight,’ he muttered. He had not been ready for the greeting. It put him on his guard. He did not know the rules here, and that left him feeling a strong sense of disquiet, as if the world was watching him. He knew what it was like to be a fugitive, and the sensation that was raising the hackles on his neck at that moment made him feel just the same.

The well-dressed fellow was not the only one to notice the new arrival. A group of black men came past in a tight group, their eyes roving over him, their expressions revealing nothing of their thoughts. All were dressed akin to the white workers he had seen before, and he marked the observation, keen to learn more of these lands. He had seen a fair amount of Africa now, from Egypt in the far north to the dangerous mountainous terrain of Abyssinia and the wilds of the Sudan. In his experience, the local population lived a life apart from the many foreigners who had come to Africa in their droves over the course of the last two hundred years. Here in Port Elizabeth, it appeared that at least some had integrated with the white-faced foreigners, though he reckoned that would be quite different even just a few miles inland, where he expected to find that the local tribes had been ravaged by the ruthless invaders who had come to profit from their land’s riches. It would be the same as he had seen in the Sudan, where the towns and villages near the Nile had been stripped almost bare by the ruthless slavers and ivory traders, who thought only of turning a profit, no matter the cost to the people who had lived on the land since time immemorial. Yet no matter what the humanitarian societies of Europe might proclaim, there was nothing that could be done to prevent it. It was the one rule he had learned always applied, no matter his destination. The powerful would prey on the weak. Just as they always had. Just as they always would.

An older woman followed the black workers, her walking stick tapping a fast staccato on the hard-baked dirt that formed the surface of the street.

‘Good morning, ma’am.’ The Englishman paused to touch a hand to the peak of his solar topee, aping the greeting that had come his way moments before.

The old woman barely glanced his way, the rhythm of her stick unaltered.

‘Bollocks to it.’ He shook his head and strode on.

The street was beginning to come to an end, the buildings now spaced further apart, the gaps filled with tumbled piles of dry-looking vegetation or human detritus. He was about to turn on his heel and return the way he had come when he heard raised voices, the telltale signs of a confrontation catching his attention and tempting him to walk a little further, his right hand instinctively slipping to his holstered revolver, fingers sliding the buckle open so that the weapon could be drawn in an instant.

The altercation was coming from an empty plot of land sandwiched between two single-storey wooden buildings that were clearly in a state of advanced decay, their wooden facades mottled with rot and damp and streaked with muck, the dark windows barred with planks of wood.

‘Listen to me, you verdolt Engelschman.’

‘I’m not a bloody Englishman, you bloody Dutch idiot.’

‘Ag, mon, I don’t care where you blerrie come from. You’re all the same to me.’

The Englishman came closer. He was drawn to the argument and the threat of violence like a bluebottle was drawn to a heap of fresh shit. It was a world he understood. Somewhere he felt at home.

‘Listen, mate, I don’t have anything worth bloody taking, all right. So just piss off and leave me alone.’

‘Hou jou bek. I don’t want your fokken money.’

The Englishman stopped when he spied the group of men whose voices he had heard. There were four in total, and it was not hard to see who was who. One man was sitting on his backside, legs stretched out in front him, blood flowing freely over the fingers of his right hand, which was clamped tight to his nose. Facing him were three hard-faced men dressed in baggy corduroy trousers and dirty flannel shirts. Their broad-brimmed felt hats cast their faces into shadow, but the Englishman could see that all three had long, lank hair and rough beards. He did not know what nationality they were, but it was clear they were all cut from the same cloth. And it was clear that the man nursing his busted nose was facing a grim time of it.

‘Listen to me, you bloody idiots.’ The man on the ground spoke again, the words muffled by the hand cradling his face. If he cared for the claret flowing from his beak, he gave no sign of showing it. ‘You’ve got the wrong bloody man. It wasn’t me.’

‘It was you, mon, and you fokken know it.’

The Englishman was sure that the man speaking was the group’s leader, something in his stance marking him out. Keen as he was to observe what was to come, he came to a halt a good hundred yards short of the four men. He might have been drawn to the altercation, but that did not mean he had any intention of getting involved. It was certainly tempting to keep moving until he became a part of whatever was about to occur, if only to even the unequal odds. There would be something pleasing about releasing the pent-up energy that was the product of too many weeks of boredom incarcerated in polite company on board the steamer. There would be something freeing in being the man he knew he was meant to be. And he did not like what he was seeing. Three against one was not a fair fight, not on any continent. It spoke of bullying and power, two things that stuck in his craw. He had been on the receiving end of both too many times to stand idly by and watch as three men dominated another.

But he had intervened in fights that were not his in the past. Mistakes had been made and lessons had been learned. Yet that did not mean he would just walk away. It was an intriguing set-up, and if nothing else, it might teach him something of the land he was now entering.

He was learning already. For starters, it was easy enough to tell that the men spoke with very different accents. The three heavy set crusty fellows standing around the man on the ground sounded German to his ear, but he had noted that the fellow sitting on his arse had called them Dutch, which sort of made sense. That man himself spoke with an odd accent, one the Englishman could not place. His nasal twang gave each word a strange melody, and it sounded as if he was always asking a question, each sentence ending in a rising inflection that was already grating on the Englishman’s nerves.

‘Hey, you!’

The Englishman looked up sharply. He had been spotted.

‘Are you going to let these Dutch bastards beat me right in front of your bloody eyes, mate?’ The man with the bloody face waved his free hand in the air as if to summon the Englishman over.

Three heads turned the Englishman’s way. Three bearded faces sneered.

‘Is this poephol your blerrie friend, mon?’ The question was thrown towards the Englishman.

‘No.’

The Dutchman who had asked the question nodded, head moving slowly up and down as if he were giving the answer serious consideration, no matter its simplicity. ‘Are you going to stop us teaching this dopkaas a lesson?’ He indicated the fellow on the ground with his thumb.

‘Should I?’ The Englishman kept his tone even.

‘Not if you know what’s blerrie good for you.’ The answer came back wrapped in an iron threat.

It was enough to make the Englishman half smile. He liked the belligerent tone and the confidence. ‘What’s he done?’

‘If he’s not your mate, then I don’t see how it’s any business of yours.’

The Englishman pulled a wry expression at the reply. ‘Fair enough.’

‘What the hell!’ The man on the ground half rose as he heard his potential saviour deny him the aid he had called for. ‘I ain’t done nothing, and these Dutch bastards know it. I’m as innocent as the bleeding snow, I swear.’

‘Hou jou bek.’ One of the other Dutchmen snapped the command, taking a step forward, hands bunching into fists.

The man facing a beating complied, shutting his mouth as he was ordered.

‘Do you want to blerrie watch then, mon?’

The Englishman shrugged. It was all the answer he cared to give at that moment. The urge to intervene was growing. Like an itchy mosquito bite, it needed scratching. Yet he held back, standing his ground, contemplating what he would do. He did not know what was going on here, what had caused the man sitting on his arse to face a slating at the hands of the three dour Dutchmen, but he wanted to find out. It might be that the beating was well deserved. Indeed, if he knew what was what, then perhaps he would be happy to deliver it himself. After all, he had never held back in the past. But if the man awaiting his fate was indeed innocent, then the Englishman might still step forward and save him from further violence.

‘I suggest you fok off.’ The command was shouted by the Dutchman doing most of the talking. His patience was clearly starting to wear thin.

‘What’s that you said?’ The Englishman’s voice was emotionless.

‘I said fok off before I stick my boot into your blerrie poephol.’

He inclined his head, absorbing the insult. The itch was getting stronger. It was almost impossible to resist the urge to scratch it.

‘Look, mon, this dopkaas stole from us. We saw him do it and now we’re going to teach him a lesson. If you’ve got a problem with that, feel free to come over here and join him. If not, then like I said, fok off.’

The Englishman looked from the three men standing to the man on the ground. The explanation was a good one and he sensed that it was true. ‘What did he take?’

The leader of the group sighed. ‘Does it matter?’

‘It matters to me.’

‘For fok’s sake. He took my mother’s necklace, all right? We found him trying to sell it to De Witt.’ The explanation was given through gritted teeth.

And it was enough.

The Englishman nodded and turned away. He might not like uneven odds, and he himself had been known to steal when it was needed. But he reckoned this was theft for theft’s sake. The man about to be beaten dressed too well, and looked too well fed, to have been forced to steal to stay alive. And so he would not intervene and in so doing cause a possible miscarriage of justice. At least that was how he saw it, and for now that was enough. He had vowed to try to keep out of trouble rather than walk willingly straight into it as he had too many times before. And so he made his decision, turning on his heel and showing his back to the three Dutchmen and the man they would likely beat bloody and blue.

‘Hey, come on now, mate, you’re leaving me in the bloody lurch here.’ The man on the ground made a last desperate plea for aid, the plaintive wail following the Englishman as he began to walk away. ‘Mate? Come on. Help me out here.’

The Englishman kept walking. His mind was set.

The talkative Dutchman said something else. The Englishman did not catch what it was, and he knew he would not have understood it even if he had, the three men speaking a guttural language quite beyond his comprehension. But he knew it was a jibe, a comment meant to insult, or else to turn him around so that he would be drawn into the violence that was to come. It was followed by a peal of laughter, the three men loud and confident of their power, even with the stranger still close by.

He stopped.

Silence followed. Expectant. Heavy. Filled with foreboding. He could feel four sets of eyes on his back like they were a physical thing, the attention setting his nerves on edge.

The itch remained.

For a moment he stood there letting his breathing settle. Resisting the urge. Then he began to walk again, slow, even paces taking him away from the future he had rejected. He did not look back even as he heard the sound of boots moving and a cry as a heavy fist made the first of many contacts with flesh.

The itch would not be scratched.

Not that day.

Not ever.

For Jack Lark had learned his lesson.

He would no longer repeat the mistakes of his past.

20



Jack sat at the simple wooden table, washing the dust from his throat with a long draught of warm beer. Belching softly, he sat back in his chair, stretching his legs out in front of him. After he had left the three Dutchmen and their thief to it, he had spent the rest of the morning exploring Port Elizabeth, searching out the stores that would sell what he needed for the next leg of his journey. It was enough knowledge for now. Especially as he did not know what the next leg of the journey really entailed, beyond some vague notions based more on hearsay and hope than fact. Securing a room at Dreyer’s Phoenix Hotel had been easy enough, and now he sat in the wide foyer, comfortable in a leather club armchair, a pint of Bass’s Indian Pale Ale in front of him as he waited.

The foyer bar was beginning to fill as it got closer to noon. Most people seemed to be drawn to the bill of fare chalked on a board nailed to the wall above the room’s only fireplace, and Jack watched as the first heavily stacked plates were ferried from a back room to the hotel’s hungry clientele. It was enough to make his stomach growl. He had refrained from breaking his fast on board the steamer that morning, choosing to tackle the journey from ship to shore with an empty stomach. Now he was very hungry, and that hunger was not being helped by the warm beer that was now sloshing around in his belly, or the enticing aroma of hot food.

A woman entered the foyer. She wore the garb of an explorer, or at least someone who spent their time far from polite society, and her face was tanned by the sun. She was dressed in long trousers and a long-sleeved shirt, both made from the same earthy-toned cotton and both sporting a good spattering of sewn-up rents and tears, the tightly tied threads standing out like scars on pale flesh. On her head was a wideawake hat with a long string that drooped beneath her chin. As she entered the foyer, she pushed the hat back from her head, letting the string catch it so that it sat high on her back. The action revealed dark brown hair bound tightly into braids that were tied tidily behind her head with a short black ribbon. On her right hip was a holstered handgun, the weapon smaller than the heavy French revolver that Jack himself wore. In her hands she held a navy umbrella, the tip resting precisely on the ground as she surveyed the room, searching for someone.

Searching for him.

She spotted him quickly enough, then moved briskly towards him, a warm smile spreading across her face. Jack necked the last of his beer, then rose to his feet, moving around the table to pull back another armchair for her.

‘Beer? Before luncheon?’ she asked.

‘It was medicinal.’

She arched an eyebrow.

‘I had a dry throat. The dust.’

‘Then I would happily have provided you with a tincture.’

Jack grinned. ‘Thank you for the generous offer, but it seems to be much improved now. Would you care to eat?’

‘Gosh, yes, I’m famished.’

‘Me too.’ He stood back as she sat, then gently pushed her seat closer to the table. ‘It says they have bacon.’ He nodded towards the bill of fare.

‘Ah, that explains your smile. Or is that from the beer?’

‘Both.’ He laughed. ‘Come on, Anna. Would you really deny a man one beer after he has completed all his chores?’

‘Chores indeed. I do not set you chores, Jack.’ Anna Baker tutted, but grinned at his foolishness. ‘But I am glad to hear you have done what was needed.’

Jack liked her smile. It sat well on her face. She was still too thin; the long and exhausting expedition deep into the wilds of the Sudan with her uncle, Sir Samuel White Baker, the famous explorer turned Egyptian pasha, had sucked every last vestige of fat from them both, and the dark circles under her eyes were those of someone who had been travelling for too long without a proper break. Yet she could still turn heads, and he noticed that a good half of the room’s occupants had paused in their drinking or scoffing to watch as she came across to his table.

‘Well, whatever you wish to call them, they are all done. I have taken a room for us here, one with a view if you pay credence to the creature behind the desk.’

‘Creature?’

‘Well, I am not sure what to call him. The buck-toothed bugger couldn’t speak clearly. I could barely understand a word he said.’

‘You are being cruel.’

‘Wait until you see him before you judge me.’ Jack took his own seat and turned his attention to the bill of fare. It was hard to resist the lure of bacon and eggs, but he noted a few other options that took his fancy. There were oysters and a half-dozen types of fish on offer, something that came as no surprise given the location. There was also a game pie, along with the more intriguing prospect of springbuck. He gave the decision his full concentration, ignoring the sound of more arrivals filing into what was clearly a popular dining room.

‘Hey, you!’

He looked up as a loud voice announced the arrival of a noisier than normal diner. To his surprise, the man was striding, or at least limping, as fast as he could towards the table where Jack and Anna sat, a thunderous expression writ large on his face, purple veins in his neck throbbing.

‘You! I see you sitting there, you bloody bastard.’

Anna frowned. ‘Is he a friend of yours?’

‘No.’ Jack sighed. He recognised the fellow well enough as he staggered closer, even though one of the man’s eyes was now streaked with red, while the other was surrounded by a sea of puffy blue and purple bruises. Both of his cheeks were scratched and bright crimson, while his upper lip looked at least twice its normal size. From the thick layer of scabs on his chin and around the corners of his mouth, it was clear that he had received one hell of a battering, but it. . .