"Under the bed or the table," Jack shouted.
He jumped for the smashed window. His hands ripped on cut glass and torn metal and broken concrete. He saw the uniformed man beneath him, beneath the catwalk, pleading with the telephone. Hadn't time for the bastard. He lit the safety fuse. Christ only knew what it would be like underneath.
Sirens invading the long seconds, cut off by the blast.
He saw that a length of mesh had been torn from the wall. He saw the plaster battered away from the concrete.
"Get yourself onto the mesh, Jeez. Hurry . . . "
He saw the man. He saw a small hunched figure crawl out from under the bed. The man's face was pale grey from the plaster dust. The man was dazed. Slow motion movements.
Jack was back on the catwalk, reaching for the shotgun.
Booted feet hammering, running on the catwalk close to him. He knew the catwalk was the causeway that covered the whole gaol. No locked doors on the catwalk, the briefing papers said. He heard the wheeze of the man's breath, he saw the white head of short hair at the hole where the window had been. He saw the face of the man, wide-eyed, staring at him. Jack grabbed the collar of the man's tunic, he pulled him over the glass edges and the torn metal and the broken concrete.
It was one minute and fifty-eight seconds of time since the charge had detonated.
Jack had hold of the man's tunic. Not stopping to look at him. He heard the voices welling through the windows onto the catwalk.
"Amandla, Jeez . . . "
"Fly on the wind, Jeez . . ."
"Tell them about us, Jeez, that we were singing . . . "
The man who was loose in Jack's grip stiffened. The lines cut and broke the grey dust on his face and forehead. Jack tugged at him, couldn't move him. The man broke Jack's grip-Jack watched the man who was his father, who was Jeez.
Jeez picked up the rifle of the guard lying on the catwalk.
He poked the barrel down through the grille of the catwalk.
"Oosthuizen, drop that telephone. Unlock those doors, unlock my door. You have five seconds, Oosthuizen . . . "
He fired once into the floor below him.
"Four seconds, Oosthuizen, or you're dead. You don't get to retire . . . Three . . . Don't play heroes, Oosthuizen
. . . Two . . . I don't give a shit about shooting you . . .
One . . ."
Jack couldn't see. He heard the rattle of the keys. He heard a door opening, another door opening.
"Clever, Oosthuizen, that's being clever . . . " He fired once more and the telephone flew from the wall socket.
The catwalk crowded as the four Blacks came up in fast succession.
Jack saw a shadow figure materialise at the corner where the catwalk over C section 2 joined with the catwalk over the main C section corridor. He fired. He pumped the shotgun, fired, pumped again, fired again. Shrill shouts of surprise. Should have been gone, on their way, and still on the catwalk.
It was two minutes and thirty-five seconds of time. Jeez and four Blacks crouched by the blown window, the route to the sloping roof. Jack motioned them gone. They helped each other, and Jack last, through the narrow window. Children on a fairground slide they tumbled down the roof. Into the night air. Out into the embrace of the unforgiving, perpetual siren. As they scrambled across the grille above the exercise yard, Jack turned and aimed a shot at the window. Keep them back, keep their heads below the window.
* • *
The controller bellowed his frustration. "I don't care what colonel you are. I don't care about John Vorster Square. I have a break-out here, man, so clear the line."
He slashed down the telephone. He depressed his microphone switch. He could be heard by every prison officer with a personal radio.
"This is control. The armoury is now unlocked. All unarmed personnel are to go straight to the armoury. Armed officers on B section and A section are to remain at their posts. All further orders will come from the duty major on Alpha frequency of transmission. The point of entry is believed to be the east perimeter wall. Captain van Rooyen orders all personnel to the central hallway as soon as weapons have been drawn. I repeat, further orders will come direct from the duty major."
The controller was a senior sergeant. He looked up. The duty major was panting, red-faced and sweating. The duty major had run all the way from administration to the radio control to take charge, he weighed eighteen stones.
The controller said quietly, "C section, that's where the terrorists are."
The duty major struggled for his voice. "Have the police been informed?"
"More than one minute ago, sir."
"Get the internal phone into C section 2."
* * *
Sergeant Oosthuizen sat on his backside and his spine rested against the inside of the locked corridor door. The telephone, dead, was in his lap. In front of him, gaping, laughing at him, were the opened doors of three cells.
* * *
They went down the rope.
Jack led.
His shotgun was in his right hand. His left hand clung to the sleeve of Jeez's tunic. The Blacks ran alongside them.
He led them through the gloom of the gardens. He was not aware of distance, just that the great wall was ahead. Still the siren filling the night, and then the first sporadic shots down from C section's upper windows. Searching for the bastard hole. Couldn't see it. He thought the shots were random, aimed haphazardly into the gloom light. With their impetus Jeez and the Blacks were bouncing against Jack as he slowed, as he searched for the gap. He went to his right, went fifteen strides, and they were running again with him.
No bloody hole, he stopped, he cursed. Fighting for breath.
Again the bodies slacked against him. He turned, he went left and back over the same fifteen strides. There was a jabber of voices in his ear. Couldn't the bastards see that he was trying to find the hole? They trampled through a bush.
He tripped on the debris. He saw the hole, close to the grass.
God, had he ever made it through that hole? In hell's name, how had he ever made it through? So bloody small.
Two of the Blacks went first, eel-like, then Jack. Jack wriggled through the hole. He loosened his hold on Jeez for the first time since they had come down the sloping roof.
His hand was back and into the hole to take Jeez and work him through.
There was a spatter of bullets. Jack saw the dirt kick close to his legs, close to where the: two Blacks sheltered against the wall . . . The sentry in t h e high tower, and the lights above the sentry's platform. He wrenched Jeez clear. He heard the man cry in pain, he heard the ripping of the man's shirt where it had caught on a cut edge of steel cord. Jeez was through, Jeez and his rifle.
"Take the lights out," Jeez hissed.
Jack ran forward. He must stand if he were to see the lights. He fired three times. With the shotgun it was like knocking skittles away in an alley. First time, some out.
Second time, more out. Third time, most out. Most of the light gone.
They ran in a tight group towards the corner of the wall.
They were outside the walls of Beverly Hills. Ahead of them were the street lights and the road through the senior officers' quarters. When they were on the road they would be in the clear field of fire from the sentry in the tower.
They came to the corner.
"Where are we going?"
"Across the road, up that track."
Jeez said, "The rifle'll keep his head down. They're not soldiers, won't take it when it's coming back at them. How many shots?"
"He fired twice at me, you fired once."
"Three left, they carry six." Jeez was fluently taking control. "Happy - Charlie - Percy - Tom - when I fire at the tower, run like shit."
Jeez gestured at the track opening that Jack had pointed to.
Jeez had the rifle to his shoulder. He edged round the corner of the wall. There was the crack of a shot. The Blacks ran. They ran bent low, weaving over the tarmac, spr
inting for the darkness of the track. Jeez fired a second shot. Jack ran, he thought Jeez was immediately behind him. Jack was in the middle of the road going like smoke. The sledgehammer hit him. The darkness at the track's mouth was yawning for him. He felt the crow-bar smash into him. He never heard the shot. No pain. Just the staggering blow of the sledgehammer, the crow-bar.
It was three minutes and forty-nine seconds of time.
Jack felt the hard road against his face, his chest, no breath left, and a fist snatched at his arm and held him up, dragged him across the road towards the track.
* * *
"I hit one. Definitely a hit."
The message squawked into the headphones clamped down on the major's bald head.
"Identify your position."
"South sentry tower."
"How many of them?"
"Can't be sure, sir, two for certain. Armed. Shot out the lower lights before they ran for it."
"Going in what direction?"
"Going south onto Magasyn Kopje."
"Out . . ."
For the first time a glimmer of a smile. He had hard information.
He was reaching for the microphone that would link him to every personal radio inside Maximum Security when he heard the door click open behind him. He turned, he saw the governor standing in the centre of the room, his arms folded across his chest. The governor wore his dinner jacket, well cut, and above the folded arms was a line of miniture medals topped by vivid coloured ribbon. The governor gestured with his hand, a small movement, for the duty major to carry on with his broadcast.
He gave out the information. He issued his orders. A much rehearsed plan involving prison staff and police and military had slipped into place. He switched off the microphone.
The Governor pursed his lips, there was a frown of surprise cutting deep in his forehead.
"I think I heard you correctly, that one man alone came in and took five out."
The duty major nodded.
"Extraordinary, I would not have conceived it as possible."
"The blocks will be in place within a few minutes." The duty major spoke with pride.
"Perhaps in time, perhaps not. . ." The governor seemed to speak to himself, left the duty major as an eavesdropper.
". . . If they are not all back with us in time to face the penalty of the law on Thursday morning then the scandal of one man's achievement will destroy me."
The duty major swung away and snatched for the telephone that would connect him to Defence Headquarters.
He did not wish to look again at his governor, to witness the fall of a fine man.
* * *
"You have to tell me what's ahead."
They were crowded together on the track. Jeez was bent over Jack. The sledgehammer blow was to Jack's right knee.
Jeez could see the blood. Not much blood. Blood on either side of the trouser leg, as if the bullet had pierced his knee, gone straight through.
"There's just buildings ahead, then you go down the hill, and there's a fence, that's all, after that you're out under the Voortrekker Monument and the Skanskopfort . . . "
Jeez put up his hand, cut Jack off. He turned to the others.
"You heard him, get bloody going. Move your arses."
He pushed the one who was nearest to him away. Each one crouched, slapped Jeez's shoulder, gripped his arm. An ecstatic farewell and the last one said: "God go with you, Jeez, and you too, friend. We'll fight together again." And was gone. There was the patter of their feet. They were shadows and then they were nothing.
"Go with them," Jack said.
Jeez stood and hoisted Jack up. He slung Jack's arm over his shoulder. He was on Jack's right side. They stumbled together up the track.
"I said, 'Go with them.' "
Jeez's fist was tight into Jack's anorak, under his armpit.
Jack doubted he could have torn the fist free. They made the best speed that was possible for them. His leg was numb, useless.
The pain came later. Into the ripped hole, into the wrecked ligaments, into the broken cartilage, into the splintered bone. The pain was in water surges, damned and then rushing in intensity. Flash floods of pain in Jack's whole leg as they went forward, up the hillside and through the trees.
Skirting the buildings and holding to the black holes where the lights did not reach. Silence around them. No cordon.
No dogs. Only the sirens pulsing behind them. Together, Jeez supporting Jack, they started down the hill, down the south slope of Magazine. They couldn't crawl because Jack's wound would not have permitted him to crawl. Jeez walked, Jack, leaning on his shoulder, hopped beside him. In the pure darkness they went down Magazine.
Jeez said, "Where are the wheels?"
"Far side of Skanskopfort."
He heard the whistle of surprise.
"What I was trying for . . . "
"Save your strength."
Jack found the hole that he had cut in the fence. He found his handkerchief. They slithered through. Jack, in his life, had never known such agony as when Jeez worked him through the wire and over the lower tumbler strand. He thought they should have been going faster, he knew he was incapable of greater speed. They crossed the road at the bottom of the valley between Magazine and Skanskop, and they climbed again. They climbed over the stone hard earth and the broken rock, and through the matted thorn scrub.
Against the clean night sky were the ordered plateau lines of the old fort's ramparts.
They looked down.
Jack gazed down the south face of the Skanskop slope to the road and the place where he had parked the Renault.
The triumph was bolted in his gut, the words were blocked in his throat. He could see the Renault. The Renault was illuminated by the lights of a jeep. There were many lights, many jeeps and transport lorries for moving troops. The lights of the vehicles shone on to the hillside where it fell to the road. He heard the rising drone of engines to his right, and to his left, and away behind him. His eyes squeezed shut.
The voice grated in his ear.
"You bastards took your time, and now you've blown it."
"It was the best . . . "
Jeez snapped. "Bloody awful best, and after I've been sitting there thirteen fucking months. Bastards."
"Who are the bastards?"
"Your crowd."
"What's my crowd?"
Teeth bared, "The team."
"What team?"
"Where's the back-up?"
"There's just me, me alone." Still leaning on Jeez's shoulder.
"Where's Colonel Basil?"
"Never heard of him."
"Lennie, Adrian, Henry."
"Don't know them."
"Who sent you?"
"I sent myself."
Jeez looked up at him, searched his face. Didn't understand, couldn't split the mist.
"So who are you?"
"I'm Jack."
"And who the hell's Jack, when he's at home?"
"He's your son."
Jack hung on his father's neck. Jeez buried his face in his son's shoulder. And around them, far beneath them, was the tightening circle of lights.
* * *
They had come off the motorway, they were close to their parents' home.
After Jan had thrown the grenades at Local, and the S.A.A.F. recruiting office, and the creeper-covered fence of S.A.D.F. H.Q., and after he had fired a whole magazine of pistol shots at the sentry box at the bottom of Potgieterstraat, Ros had taken a circular route to Johannesburg. Not a word was spoken. Ros's knuckles were white on the wheel all the way. Their nerves were stretched like wire. They expected every moment the flail of the siren in pursuit, the road block in their path. The number plates were mud-smeared. She did not think that the sentries would have noted her number plate, they'd have been lying in the dirt and shielding their heads from the shrapnel and the pistol bullets. She had driven fifty kilometres out of her way, across to the east before doubling back through Bapsfontein and Kem
pton Park and Edenvale. She hadn't been followed, there had been no road blocks. They had heard one explosion. Jan had said it was the main charge going against the wall, and then they had finished with their diversion, and he had wound up the passenger window. They had heard nothing more.
Now the radio was on in the car.
The midnight news bulletin. A bland English accent.
". . . English service of the S.A.B.C. Good evening. In the last ten minutes police headquarters in Pretoria has announced that the area to the south of the capital between Verwoerdburg and Valhalla has been declared an emergency military zone. All persons travelling through that area until further notice are subject to S.A.D.F. and police control.
Residents in the area are advised to stay in their homes throughout the hours of darkness . . . "
"They made it," Jan squealed. "They're running."
" . . . Late this evening it was reported that explosions and firing were heard in the area of the S.A.D.F. headquarters on Potgieterstraat in the capital, but as yet there is no official police confirmation of these reports.
"In London a demonstration by an estimated two thousand people outside the South African embassy was broken up by police after violence . . . "
Jan switched off the radio.
"It didn't say he made it," Ros said bleakly. "It just said he was being hunted."
"Wrong, not a military zone unless he's taken his father out."
She drove on. She held the wheel lightly with one hand.
The fingers of her other hand played listlessly with the shape of the crucifix at her neck. She wanted only to be home. She wanted to tie the yellow scarf in the window of her bedroom.
"Did you love him, Ros?"
She turned the car into the driveway of her parents' home.
She parked beside her father's BMW.
"You're best to go straight to bed, Jan, or you'll be sleeping right through your classes in the morning."
* • *
All Pretoria had heard the gunfire and the explosions.
Frikkie de Kok had heard them.
A SONG IN THE MORNING Page 34
