Rage c-11

by Wilbur Smith

  They both stared at the revolver.

  'This pistol is police issue. Only hours ago it was stolen from a local police arsenal. The serial number is still on the police register.

  It is loaded with police-issue ammunition." Raleigh folded the cloth around the grip of the pistol. 'It still has the fingerprints of the police officers upon it,' he said.

  Carrying the pistol he went round the table to stand behind Moses Gama's chair and placed the muzzle of the pistol at the back of his neck.

  From outside the cottage they heard the singing begin.

  'God save Africa." Raleigh repeated the words. 'You are fortunate, my uncle. You have a chance to redeem yourself. You are going to a place where nobody can ever touch you again, and your name will live for ever, pure and unsullied. "The great martyr of Africa who died for his people."' Moses Gama did not move or speak, and Raleigh went on softly, 'The people have been told you are here. They are gathered outside in their hundreds. They will bear witness to your greatness. Your name will live for ever." Then above the singing they heard the police sirens coming closer, wailing and sobbing.

  'The brutal fascist police have also been told that you are here,' Raleigh said softly.

  t i !:

  ?, !!

  The sound of the sirens built up and then there were the roar of engines, the squeal of brakes, the slamming of Land-Rover doors, the shouted commands, the pounding footsteps, and the crash of the front door being smashed in with sledgehammers.

  As Brigadier Lothar De La Rey led his men in through the front door of the cottage, Raleigh Tabaka said softly, 'Go in peace, my uncle,' and he shot Moses Gama in the back of the head.

  The heavy bullet threw Moses forward, his shattered head slammed face down upon the table, the contents of his skull and chips of white bone splattered against the wall and over the kitchen floor.

  Raleigh dropped the police pistol onto the table and slipped out into the dark yard. He joined the watching throng in the street outside, mingling with them, waiting with them until the covered body was carried out of the front door of the cottage on a stretcher. Then he shouted in a strong clear voice, 'The police have murdered our leader. They have killed Moses Gama." As the cry was taken up by a hundred other voices, and the women began the haunting ululation of mourning, Raleigh Tabaka turned and walked away into the darkness.

  A servant opened the front door of Weltevreden to Manfred De La Rey.

  'The master is expecting you,' he said respectfully. 'Please come with me." He led Manfred to the gun room and closed the double mahogany doors behind him.

  Manfred stood on the threshold. There was a log fire burning in the hearth of the stone fireplace and Shasa Courtney stood before it.

  He was wearing a dinner-jacket and black tie and a new black silk patch over his eye. He was tall and debonair with silver wings of hair at his temples, but his expression was merciless.

  Centaine Courtney sat at the desk below the gun racks. She also wore evening dress, a brocaded Chinese silk in her favourite shade of yellow with a necklace of magnificent yellow diamonds from the H'am Mine. Her arms and shoulders were bare and in the muted light her skin seemed flawless and smooth as a young girl's.

  'White Sword,' Shasa greeted him softly.

  'Ja,' Manfred nodded. 'But that was long ago - in another war." 'You killed an innocent man. A noble old man." 'The bullet was intended for another - for a traitor, an Afrikaner who had delivered his people to the British yoke." 'You were a terrorist then, as Gama and Mandela are terrorists now. Why should your punishment be any different from theirs?" 'Our cause was just - and God was on our side,' Manfred replied.

  'How many innocents have died for what other men call "just causes"? How many atrocities have been committed in God's name?" 'You cannot provoke me." Manfred shook his head. 'What I attempted was right and proper." 'We shall see whether or not the courts of this land agree with you,' Shasa said, and looked across the room to Centaine. 'Please ring the number on the pad in front of you, Mater. Ask for Colonel Bothma of CID. I have already asked him to be available to come here." Centaine made no move, and her expression, as she studied Manfred De La Rey, was tragic.

  'Please do it, Mater,' Shasa insisted.

  'No,' Manfred intervened. 'She cannot do it - and nor can you." 'Why do you believe that?" 'Tell him, Mother,' said Manfred.

  Shasa frowned quickly and angrily, but Centaine held up her hand to stop him speaking.

  'It is true,' she whispered. 'Manfred is as much my son as you are, Shasa. I gave birth to him in the desert. Although his father took him still wet and blind from my child bed, although I did not see him again for almost thirteen years, .he is still my son." In the silence one of the logs in the fireplace fell in a soft shower of ash and it sounded like an avalanche.

  'Your grandfather has been dead for twenty years and more, Shasa. Do you want to break my heart by sending your brother to the gallows?" 'My duty - my honour,' Shasa faltered.

  'Manfred was as merciful once. Hehad it in his power to destroy your political career before it began. At my request and in the knowledge that you were brothers, he spared you." Centaine was speaking softly, but remorselessly. 'Can you do less?" 'But - he is only your bastard,' Shasa blurted.

  'You are my bastard also, Shasa. Your father was killed on our wedding day, before the ceremony. That was the fact that Manfred could have used to destroy you. He had you in his power - as he is now in your power. What will you do, Shasa?" Shasa turned away from her, and stood with his head bowed staring into the fireplace. When he spoke at last, his voice was racked with pain.

  'The friendship - the brotherhood even - all of it is an illusion,' he said. 'It is you, Mater, whom I must honour." No one replied to him, and he turned back to Manfred.

  'You will inform the caucus of the National Party that you are not available for the premiership and you will retire from public life he said quietly, and saw Manfred flinch and the ruination of hi dreams in the agony of his expression. 'That is the only punishmen I can inflict upon you, but perhaps it is more painful and lingerin than the gallows. Do you accept it?" 'You are destroying yourself at the same time,' Manfred told him 'Without me the presidency is beyond your grasp." 'That is my punishment,' Shasa agreed. 'I accept it. Do you accep yours?" 'I accept,' said Manfred De La Rey. He turned to the doubl, mahogany doors, flung them open and strode from the room.

  Shasa stared after him. Only when they heard his car pull awa, ú down the long driveway did he turn back to Centaine. She wE weeping as she had wept on the day that he brought her the news o Blaine Malcomess' death.

  'My son,' she whispered. 'My sons." And he went to comfor her.

  A week after the death of Dr Hendrik Verwoerd, the caucus of the National Party elected Balthazar Johannes Vorster to the premiership of South Africa.

  He owed his elevation to the awe-inspiring reputation that he had built for himself while he was minister of justice. He was a stron man in the mould of his predecessor and in his acceptance speech he stated boldly, 'My role is to walk fearlessly along the road already pointed out by Hendrik Verwoerd." Three days after his election he sent for Shasa Courtney.

  'I wanted personally to thank you for your hard work and loyalty over the years, but now I think it is time for you to take a wellearned rest. I would like you to go as the South African ambassador to the Court of St James in London. I know that with you there South Africa House will be in good hands." It was the classic dismissal, but Shasa knew that the golden rule for politicians is never to refuse office.

  'Thank you, Prime Minister,' he replied.

  Thirty thousand mourners attended the funeral of Moses Gama in Drake's Farm township.

  Raleigh Tabaka organized the funeral and was the captain of the honour guard of Umkhonto we Sizwe that stood at the graveside and gave the ANC salute as the coffin was lowered into the earth.

  Vicky Dinizulu Gama, dressed in her flowing caftan of yellow and green and black, defied her banning order to m
ake a speech to the mourners.

  Fierce and strikingly beautiful, she told them, 'We must devise a death for the collaborators and sell-outs, that is so grotesquely horrible that not one of our people will ever dare to turn traitor upon us." The sorrow of the multitudes was so terrible that when a young woman amongst them was pointed out as a police informer, they stripped her naked and whipped and beat her until she fell unconscious. Then they doused her with petrol and set her alight and kicked her while she burned. Afterwards the children urinated on her charred corpse. The police dispersed the mourners with tear gas and baton-charges.

  Kitty Godolphin filmed it all, and when the footage was cut in with the Moses Gama interview and the graphic footage from the scene of his brutal slaying by the police, it was amongst the most gripping and horrifying ever shown on American television.

  When Kitty Godolphin was promoted to head of NABS news, she became the highest-paid female editor in American television.

  Before taking up his post as ambassador in London, Shasa went on a four-week safari in the Zambezi valley with his eldest son. The Courtney Safaris hunting concession covered five hundred square miles of wonderful game-rich wilderness, and Matatu led Shasa to lion and buffalo and a magnificent old bull elephant.

  The Rhodesian bush war was becoming deadly earnest. Sean had been awarded the Silver Cross of Rhodesia for gallantry and around the camp fire he described how he had won it.

  'Matatu and I were following a big bull jumbo when we cut the spoor of twelve ZANU gooks. We dropped the jumbo and tracked the terrs. It was pissing with rain and the cloud was on the treetops so the fire force couldn't get in to back us up. The terrs were getting close to the Zambezi so we pushed up on them. The first warning we had that they had set an ambush for us was when we saw the fairy lights in the grass just ahead of us.

  'Matatu was leading and he took the first burst in the belly.

  That made me fairly bitter and I went after the gooks with the old .577. It was five miles to the river and they ran like the clappers of hell, but I polished off the last two in the water before they could reach the Zambian side. When I turned around, there was Matatu standing right behind me. The little bugger had backed me up for five miles with his tripes hanging out of the hole in his guts." ú Across the camp fire the little Ndorobo's face had brightened as he heard his name mentioned, and Sean told him in Swahili, 'Show the Bwana Makuba your new belly button." Obligingly Matatu hoisted his tattered shirt tails and displayed for Shasa the fearsome scars the AK 47 bullets had left on his stomach.

  'You are a stupid little bugger,' Sean told him severely, 'running around with a hole in your guts, instead of lying down and dying like you should have. You are bloody stupid, Matatu." Matatu's whole body wriggled with pleasure. 'Bleddy stupid bugger,' he agreed proudly. He knew that this was the highest accolade to which he could possibly aspire, uttered as it was by the godhead of his entire firmament.

  While Shasa was still packing his books and paintings for the journey to London, Garry and Holly moved into Weltevreden.

  'I'll be over there for at least three years,' Shasa said. 'And when I come back we can talk again, but I shall probably get myself a flat in town. On my own the old place is just too big for me." Holly was pregnant, and prevailed on Centaine to stay on to help her 'just until the baby is born'.

  'Holly is the only woman that Mater can stand within half a mile of her on a permanent basis,' Shasa remarked to Garry as the two ladies of Weltevreden began planning the redecoration of the nursery wing together.

  Isabella's love affair with Lothar De La Rey survived in stormy seas and wild winds during the monhs of the enquiry into the death of Moses Gama.

  The commission of enquiry exonerated Brigadier Lothar De La Rey with a verdict of 'No Guilt'. The local English-language as well as the international press jeered cynically at this verdict and an emergency meeting of the General Assembly of the United Nations passed a resolution calling for comprehensive mandatory sanctions on South Africa, which was predictably vetoed in the Security Council.

  However, amongst his own people, Lothar's reputation was greatly enhanced and the Afrikaans press lauded him as its chosen hero.

  Not a week after the commission made its findings public, Isabella woke in the bedroom of her luxurious Sandton flat to find Lothar already fully dressed, standing over the bed and watching her with an expression of such deep regret that she sat up quickly, fully awake, and let the pink satin sheets fall to her waist.

  'What is it, Lothie?" she cried. 'Why are you leaving so early? Why are you looking at me like that?" 'There will be a by-election in the Doornberg constituency. It's one of our safe seats. The party organizers have offered it to me, and I have accepted. I'm resigning my police commission and going into politics." 'Oh, that's wonderful,' Isabella cried, and reached out to him with both arms. 'I was reared on politics. We will make a great team, Lothie. I'll be an amazing help to you - you'll see!" Lothar lifted his eyes from her naked breasts, but made no move to touch her, and she let her arms drop. 'What is it?" Her expression changed.

  'I'm going back to my own people, Bella,' he said quietly. 'Back to my Volk and my God. I know what I want. I want one day to succeed where my father failed. I want the position he almost achieved, but I need a wife who is one of my own people. A good Afrikaner girl. I have already chosen her. I am going to her now. So we must say goodbye, Bella. Thank you. I will never forget you, but it is over now." 'Get out,' she said. 'Get out - and don't come back." He hesitated and her voice rose to a scream, 'Get out, you bastard.

  Get out!" He went to the bedroom door and closed it softly behind him, and Isabella snatched the water jug from the bedside table and hurled it at the door. It shattered and she threw herself face down on the bed and began to weep.

  She cried all that day, and at nightfall went into the bathroom and filled the bath with hot water. Lothar had left a packet of razor blades on the shelf next to her douche bag, and she unwrapped one of them slowly and held it up in front of her eyes. It looked terrifyingly evil, and the light glinted on the edge, but she lowered it until it touched the skin of her wrist. It stung like a scorpion and she jerked her wrist away.

  'No, Lothar De La Rey, I won't give you the satisfaction,' she Said angrily, and dropped the blade into the toilet bowl and went back into the bedroom. She picked up the phone.

  When she heard her father's voice, Isabella trembled with the shock of what she had almost done.

  'I want to come home, Daddy,' she whispered.

  'I'll send the jet for you,' Shasa said without hesitation. 'No, hell, I'll fly up to fetch you myself." She was waiting on the tarmac and she ran into his arms. Halfway back to Cape Town he touched her cheek and said, 'I'll need an official hostess at "Highveld"." That was the ambassador's residenc ú in London. 'I'm even prepared to renegotiate your salary." 'Oh Daddy,' she said. 'Why aren't all the men in the world like you!

  Jakobus Stander was hanged in the Pretoria Central prison. Sarah Stander and her husband were waiting outside when the death notice was posted on the main gates of the prison.

  The night that they returned to the cottage in Stellenbosch Sarah rose once Roelf was asleep and in the bathroom she took a massive overdose of barbiturates.

  She was dead in the bed beside him when Roelf Stander woke the following morning.

  Maned and Heidi went to live on their farm in the Free State where Manfred raised pedigree merino sheep.

  At the agricultural show in Bloemfontein Manfred won a blue ribbon for the champion ram on show three years in succession.

  Always fleshy, Manfred put on a great deal of weight, eating out of boredom more than appetite. Only Heidi knew how he chaffed at inactivity, how much he longed to walk once again the corridors of power, and how pointless and frustrating he felt his existence had become.

  He suffered his heart attack while wandering alone in the veld and shepherds found his body the next morning lying where he had fallen. Centaine flew up in the
company jet to his funeral. She was the only member of the Courtney family present when Manfred was buried with full honours in Heroes Acre, surrounded by the graves of many other outstanding Afrikaners, including Dr Hendrik Verwoerd.

  When Shasa Courtney was driven back from Buckingham Palace in the ambassadorial limousine after presenting his credentials to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the streets were wet with the grey London drizzle.

  Despite the weather, the demonstrators were waiting for him in Trafalgar Square with their placards: 'The spirit of Moses Gama lives on' and 'Apartheid is a crime against humanity." As Shasa alighted from the limousine in front of the embassy, the demonstrators tried to push forward, but a line of blue-uniformed London bobbies linked arms to hold them back.

  'Shasa Courtney!" Half-way across the sidewalk Shasa stopped dead in his tracks at the familiar voice, and he looked around.

  He did not recognize her at first, then he saw her in the front rank of the demonstration and he turned back. He struck a tall elegant figure in his court dress and top hat. He stopped in front of her and spoke to one of the constables.

  'Thank you, officer, but I know this lady, you may let her through." Then, as she ducked under the constable's outstretched arm, he greeted her, 'Hello, Tara." He found it difficult to believe how she had changed. She was a blowsy middle-aged drab, only her eyes were still beautiful as they blazed at him.

  'Moses Gama lives on. The monsters of apartheid can murder our heroes, but the battle is ours. In the end we will inherit the earth." Her voice was a screech.

  'Yes, Tara,' he replied. 'There are heroes and there are monsters, but most of us are ordinary mortals caught up in events too turbulent for any of us. Perhaps when the battle is over, all we will inherit will be the ashes of a once beautiful land." He turned away from her and walked into the entrance of the embassy without looking back.