African Sky

by Tony Park

  ‘Really, how is that?’ Rogers asked, grateful that the conversation had quickly swung away from the recent unrest to Huggins’ favourite topic, the idea of a union between Southern Rhodesia, South Africa, Northern Rhodesia, Bechuanaland and Nyasaland.

  ‘A United States of Africa, I think it should be called,’ Huggins said, after outlining a plan that had received regular coverage in the press. ‘With all of the British colonies united in one new nation, still tied to England, we can ensure that all the blacks get a fair deal, and the British model of development and industrialisation is spread throughout the continent. We’ll be a force to be reckoned with.’

  ‘I can’t see the Afrikaners being too pleased about it,’ Rogers said. ‘Do you think Field Marshal Smuts would be able to convince South Africans they’ll be better off under such a union?’

  ‘It’s essential he does. Unless South Africa’s white population can be absorbed into a greater, English-speaking fraternity, I fear the Smuts government will eventually fall prey to Afrikaner nationalism. Also, Jan Smuts is a player on the world stage – he has Churchill’s ear – and he’ll be a powerful advocate for our proposed federation if we can win him over.’

  Rogers nodded in agreement. Despite South Africa’s remoteness from Europe and world affairs, Smuts was a respected international statesmen who had served as a member of the British war cabinet in the first war and played a role in the formation of the League of Nations. Although now in his seventies, he was reputed still to be ambitious, and no doubt saw himself as playing a role in carving out the new order if and when the allies prevailed in the current conflict.

  ‘The Germans know how important Smuts is – look at how they tried to bump him off in ’41. By the way, Stephen, I read a report in the car on the way over of a possible threat by the Ossewa Brandwag to the air training scheme. What do you make of that?’

  Rogers coughed. ‘Nothing to it, I’m sure, Prime Minister.’

  ‘Excuse me, Prime Minister, sir,’ Clive Wilson interrupted. ‘We’ve just had a message from Field Marshal Smuts’ aircraft. They’re on time and will be landing in half an hour.’

  Catherine walked to the hangar door and checked her watch. They’d wasted a lot of time with the dog-fighting and sorting out Bryant and Lovejoy, but she was sure Hennie would arrive at Kumalo in time to deliver his deadly payload with maximum effect. The graduation parade would last the best part of an hour – she had been to similar functions before. They should arrive overhead within the last ten minutes.

  She savoured the thought of the hundreds of new pilots, bursting with pride, turning their faces skyward as the unannounced aircraft arrived. That Afrikaner traitor, Smuts, and Godfrey Huggins would no doubt think it was all part of the show – the grand finale. The wing commander and others from the base would be confused, perhaps alarmed, but it would all be over before anyone had time to react. A mass of writhing bodies shaking themselves to death within minutes.

  Another forty minutes or so after the raid and Hennie and Paul would be back at the airstrip. From there they would fly to the abandoned farm near Gwelo, quickly refuel, and then fly on to neutral Portuguese Mozambique. Hendrick would contact a Nazi agent in the capital, Lourenco Marques, and passage to Germany on board a U-boat would be arranged for them.

  Back inside, she sat on a stool, gingerly removed her riding boots and unbuttoned her pants. She inspected her leg. Her jodhpurs were soaked with blood, but the bleeding seemed to have stopped. She washed the wound with saline solution, flinching again at the pain. Once cleaned, it looked little worse than a deep cut, though the skin was burned on either side of the gouge.

  She ripped open the cover off a shell dressing and discovered it was a bulky cotton pad with bandage ties attached. She found a foil packet of antiseptic powder, tore it open and sprinkled it over the bloodied flesh. She pressed the pad onto her leg and then wrapped the bandage around it. With difficulty, because of the bulkiness of the dressing, she pulled her pants up again and buttoned them. She felt a little dizzy, so she dragged the stool close to the workbench and sat down. Her face was only inches from Pip’s. She smiled.

  ‘Why, Catherine?’

  ‘Ah, I was wondering how long it would take to get around to that.’

  ‘You’re a fixture at Kumalo, almost one of them. How could you turn on your friends like this? How can you see so many of them murdered?’

  ‘We’re weak, Philippa. You and me. Our people. We’ve colonised this country, yet we don’t have the strength to do what’s needed. We hide our occupation, our subjugation of the Africans, behind a thin veneer of civilisation. We talk of educating the blacks, of improving their lot. Why? Because it makes our lily-livered colonial masters back home in dear old England feel good about themselves. They can take their cut of all the crops, the gold, the tin, the tobacco that comes out of Rhodesia, but they don’t want their profits tainted with any thoughts that we, the whites, aren’t being anything short of jolly decent to the blacks.’

  Pip found it hard to follow the logic. ‘So, you don’t like the British because they expect us to treat the Africans in this country fairly?’

  ‘Fairly? There’s nothing fair about the way the average black lives in this country. Ever seen a rich one? Ever seen one who wasn’t a criminal who owned more than the shirt on his back?’

  Pip shook her head. ‘No, I suppose not, but what’s your point? You don’t want to have to look after the black population, and I don’t imagine that if Hitler ruled Africa he’d be very fair on them.’

  ‘Oh yes, we’d be fair on them. When the Führer rules Europe, and the Afrikaners rule South Africa, we’ll ensure that the blacks that remain are well employed – in the mines, on the farms and in our households – and that they are fed and clothed adequately.’

  ‘Those that remain?’

  ‘Now you’re getting the idea, old girl,’ Catherine said, leaning even closer to her. ‘How many blacks are there on this continent? Millions, Pip. Absolutely bloody millions of them. And what do most of them do? Sit on their arses and tend a few miserable goats or a patch of pathetic mealies. The productive ones – those that contribute something to the economy – do so because they’re employed by us whites.’

  ‘Some people value their traditional way of life,’ Pip said defensively.

  Catherine laughed. ‘They’d be better off dead.’

  The words hung in the stuffy, greasy-smelling hangar. The tin door pinged as the sun warmed it. It would be like an oven inside soon. ‘Better off dead?’

  Catherine went on: ‘There are too many of them, Pip. Too many for what we need – too many for their own good. Sooner or later God might take a hand – strike them down with some mysterious plague, or famine might reduce their numbers – but in the meantime they’re nothing but a burden on the rest of us. There is a solution, Pip.’

  ‘My God,’ was all Pip could say.

  ‘Open your eyes,’ Catherine said, picking at Pip’s closed eyelids with her fingers.

  Pip recoiled from the shock of Catherine’s touch. There was madness in the other woman’s eyes. ‘You don’t mean . . .’

  ‘You’ve heard the rumours coming out of Germany – about the way Hitler’s treating the Jews? Yes, we all have. Stories about those concentration camps, where they’re worked to death and not fed?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Pip said.

  ‘Well, those stories aren’t just allied propaganda, Pip. In fact, the situation is far worse – or better, depending on what you think about Jews.’

  ‘How could it be much worse for them?’

  ‘Hendrick told me some things. I probably shouldn’t tell you.’

  Pip knew if Catherine were going to tell her some monumental German state secrets, it probably meant that she had no intention of letting her live.

  Catherine smiled, a contented smirk, like she’d just savoured a mouthful of chocolate ice cream on a hot day. ‘They’re killing them, Pip. The Germans are killing the Jews. Not by th
e hundreds but by the thousands. By the train load, in fact. Hennie’s company was involved in finding the solution – the way to exterminate an entire race. They use gas, Pip. It’s just amazing. Think of it – having the will to reorder society, to remove those who are a burden. To cleanse a nation, to create a better world in the process.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Oh yes, Constable Lovejoy. It’s working in Europe, right now, even as we speak. It’s an industry over there. You know, they even have uses for the corpses – skin tanned as leather, hair used to stuff pillows, all sorts of things. It could work here, too, Pip. It would work here. Only it’d be Africans we’d be ridding ourselves of. Think of it – an Africa just for the whites, just for the strong.’

  ‘That’s unthinkable! My God, what kind of monsters have you fallen in with? How could a human being do that to another?’

  ‘Hah! Spare me the liberal moralising, Pip. In a sense, what Hitler’s doing is no different from what mankind has been doing for centuries. It’s just that the Germans, in their efficient, industrialised manner, are much better at it than anyone before. The British did their best to wipe out the Irish, through occupation and starvation. The Australians killed off all the Aborigines in Tasmania. And it’s not something we whites have a monopoly on. The Matabele pushed out the bushmen from this part of Rhodesia, and their cousins, the Zulus, despatched thousands of Africans from other tribes – and some whites – when they were at their peak last century. Don’t blame the Germans for simply being efficient at killing.’

  ‘Why did you murder Felicity, Catherine? She was your lover.’

  ‘In war we make sacrifices. I gave her the chance to join Hendrick and me and she rejected me.’

  Pip saw the complete lack of emotion in Catherine’s dark eyes. ‘You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?’

  Kenneth Ngwenya raised a hand to his eyes to shield them from the sun’s glare and watched in amazement as the two aeroplanes chased each other across the sky. The sound of gunfire had taken him by surprise – he had only just realised that was what it was. There was a dogfight taking place above his father’s kraal.

  His father was lying on the grass-filled sacking that served as a mattress on the earthen floor of his hut. Kenneth drew a deep breath as black smoke began pouring from the engine of one of the aircraft. He watched it disappear behind the trees in the direction of the landing strip that belonged to Isilwane Lodge. The second aircraft, which seemed to be undamaged, circled and descended towards the airstrip as well.

  Soon after, once he had checked on his father again and told him he was going to investigate this strange happening, he heard an engine being revved. One of the aircraft – presumably the undamaged one – lifted from the treetops ahead of him. He started to run.

  Bryant dragged the Harvard into a steep, reluctant climb, fighting for as much height as he could, as quickly as possible. Behind him Reitz said: ‘We have to drop the bombs from low altitude, remember? Why are you climbing?’

  ‘Let me fly the bloody aeroplane, all right? We’ll make better speed at altitude, but if you want this flight to take another half an hour . . .’

  ‘Very well,’ Reitz conceded. He’d held the rifle up during take-off, in case Bryant tried anything, but now they were airborne he saw no need to keep the pilot covered. The tip of the barrel of the weapon rested near Bryant’s right shoulder, on his seatback.

  When Bryant reached three thousand feet, he levelled off and started to turn.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Reitz asked.

  ‘We took off to the north, into the wind. I have to turn us around to head back to Bulawayo. Unless you’ve changed your mind and want to fly to Germany.’

  Looking out the left side of the cockpit, Reitz saw Isilwane Ranch, the airstrip and its hangar below. He returned his gaze to the instrument panel in front of him. As a trainer, the Harvard had dual controls. The stick between his legs moved when Bryant touched it, as did the rudder pedals on the floor. ‘I’ve found the compass, Bryant, and my navigation is good. I know the heading to Kumalo, so don’t try to deviate.’

  ‘Jawohl,’ Bryant said mockingly. They crossed the granite kopje. In a couple of minutes they were out of sight of the ranch.

  ‘It’s hot up here, with the sun coming in through the front. I’m going to get some air,’ Bryant said, reaching up for the cockpit release. He lowered his hand when he felt the cold metal of the rifle’s muzzle dig into the soft skin behind his right ear.

  ‘You’ll keep your cockpit closed and, while you’re at it,’ Reitz said, loosening his straps and leaning forward, ‘you will also rebuckle your restraint.’

  Bryant muttered a curse to himself. The spy had guessed the first ruse he tried. He had envisaged leaping out of the cockpit and leaving Reitz to crash.

  ‘Take your hands off the stick and your feet off the pedals, Bryant.’

  ‘Now I know you’re crazy. This aircraft needs constant attention – it’s been designed to teach pilots to fly the hard way,’ Bryant replied.

  ‘Just do as I tell you.’

  ‘All right, but get ready to jump.’ The Harvard lurched as soon as Bryant removed his hands and feet from the controls, the nose dropping sickeningly.

  Reitz let the rifle rest on Bryant’s seat again and grabbed the stick. The aircraft swayed from side to side as he overcorrected one way and then the other, but after a few seconds his hand and feet were working in unison and the trainer settled back into the straight and level flight. He turned to bring the compass back onto the original heading. ‘I might not be able to land and take off, but I’ve been in enough Luftwaffe aircraft to know how to fly one of these things.’

  ‘Very impressive,’ Bryant conceded. On Reitz’s order, Bryant took control of the aircraft again.

  ‘If you try another of your little stunts, Bryant, I’ll shoot you in the head. I’ll still be able to bomb the parade and find my way back to Isilwane. Once there I’ll try to crash-land. I’m prepared to die for my cause. Of course, if I do lose my life, then so will Constable Lovejoy.’

  Like a light being switched on and off midair, the sun glinted on the bare metal wings of the South African DC-3 Dakota as it lined up on final approach to Kumalo air base.

  Wing Commander Rogers scanned the wide expanse of sky with fighter pilot’s eyes, praying he would see nothing else. A murmur of excitement rippled across the crowd of two hundred guests seated below the raised official dais where Rogers sat next to Sir Godfrey. ‘Shall we, Prime Minister,’ Rogers said. His bad leg, which shouldn’t have been giving him trouble for another two months, felt shaky under him.

  The two men, followed by the prime minister’s aide-de-camp, walked down the steps onto the Tarmac, past a rank of white mechanics and ground crew who had drilled for several weeks to function as Jan Smuts’ guard of honour. Spit-polished boots slammed into the ground as a warrant officer called them to attention. At the command ‘Pre-sent arms!’ their rifles were held out in front of their bodies in a salute to the Rhodesian leader.

  The Dakota bounced once on the runway with a squeal of rubber, then settled and flashed past the crowd. It turned and motored slowly back to where the massed ranks of pilots stood ready to march onto their graduation parade. Two askaris pushed a wheeled set of steps up to the rear door, which was swung open by a crewman. The Kumalo band struck up ‘God Save the King’, as the familiar, gaunt figure of Jan Smuts appeared.

  Rogers still searched the sky, albeit discretely, as Sir Godfrey Huggins moved forward to the bottom of the steps.

  Smuts, with his distinctive white goatee beard and moustache, high forehead and receding snowy hair, stepped down and shook hands with his counterpart. A field marshal in the South African army as well as his country’s PM, Smuts was dressed in khaki dress uniform adorned with the red collar tabs of a senior officer and four rows of campaign ribbons. As the honour guard crashed to attention and presented their arms again, Smuts drew himself to his full height, placed the pith helmet he ha
d carried under one arm on his head, and returned their salute.

  ‘So good of you to agree to visit us,’ Huggins said as they passed the guard.

  ‘My pleasure, Sir Godfrey. I do like a good parade, and I am sure your Rhodesian Air Training Group will not disappoint. And such a perfect African day it is for this historic occasion.’

  ‘Shoot me,’ said Bryant into the intercom.

  ‘What?’ Reitz replied, his finger tightening on the trigger of the rifle.

  ‘I can’t do it, Reitz. I won’t be party to the death of two heads of state and hundreds of my men, and I don’t want to live if Catherine kills Pip Lovejoy.’

  ‘Shut up and just fly the aeroplane, Bryant. You could have refused on the ground. You’re a coward. You’ll do what I say and, when it’s done, you and the woman can go hide with your shame. You want to live.’

  ‘I’m letting go of the controls now.’

  ‘No, Bryant, grab the stick, you idiot!’ The Harvard’s nose immediately dropped, and they entered a dive.

  Instinctively, Reitz grabbed the stick with his left hand and pulled back, but his first attempt to keep the wings level failed and the aircraft yawed steeply over on its left-hand side.

  Bryant reached up with his right hand and grabbed the barrel of the Mauser, yanking it violently towards him. The movement forced Reitz to jerk the trigger and a round exploded inside the cockpit, drilling a hole through the front windscreen. Air hissed through starred glass and Bryant’s right ear rang with pain. He held onto the hot, smoking barrel with one hand and used his other to release and roll back the pilot’s cockpit canopy.

  ‘Let go!’ Reitz yelled, his feet frantically working the pedals to steer the Harvard as he tugged back on the rifle from his end. Reitz felt resistance on the stick as Bryant tried to wrestle control of the aircraft from him. He fought back for an instant, using his left hand, then realised he would have to release the controls if he were going to be able to retrieve the rifle from the Australian and chamber another round. It was a bolt-action weapon and he would need both hands to recock it.