Shepherds and Butchers

by Chris Marnewick

  Together the condemned men hurried towards the very gates of Hell as their own awareness of their physical existence dimmed towards absolute darkness.

  But one of them was not to die quickly or quietly. He was twisting and jumping at the end of his rope, his shoulders hunched up. The prisoner kicked wildly with his feet as his companions turned slowly on their ropes, their lives ebbing away. He groaned and breathed noisily through clenched teeth. The white hood billowed in and out over his face as he struggled for air. As he spun on the rope, kicking and gagging, the third escort in the line doubled over and reeled away from the rail. The Warrant Officer, his attention riveted on the squirming prisoner at his feet, paid the warder, now heaving in the corner of the room, no attention.

  ‘Trek hom op! Maak gou! Maak gou!’ The Warrant Officer motioned with his arm to one of the standby warders who immediately rushed over to the other side of the rail.

  Three warders grabbed the rope, two from the one side of the trapdoors and one from the other, and strained and heaved to haul the prisoner back up into view.

  ‘Slow down. Don’t touch him, don’t touch him.’ The Warrant Officer spoke with a hiss. ‘A little higher, watch my hands.’ He held his hands slightly apart and indicated how far the prisoner still had to be lifted, to where his feet were exactly at the original level of the trapdoors.

  The three warders wrestled with the rope as they raised the struggling and kicking prisoner. They held onto the rope for dear life, with the full weight of the prisoner hanging from their extended arms. Slowly the gap between the Warrant Officer’s hands reduced until his palms touched. A fourth warder stepped over quickly as the Warrant Officer nodded in his direction. The standby warder helped to steady the prisoner with his feet in line with the floor.

  ‘On the count of three, let him go,’ the Warrant Officer commanded.

  ‘Een, twee, drie!’

  The four warders simultaneously released their grip on the rope and the prisoner fell through the opening a second time. This time the neck muscles were too bruised and too tired to resist the downward pull of gravity on the body and the sideways push of the steel ring against the side of his head. There was a resounding crack as the axis vertebra was smashed and the spinal cord within was crushed.

  The Hangman, the Warrant Officer, the escorts and the Medical Officer looked down into the pit for signs of life, but there were none now, only the faint fluttering of hands and feet, the sign of a successful hanging. They stepped back from the trapdoors. The warders who had hauled the last prisoner up by the rope breathed heavily from their exertions and leaned on the rail, their strained breathing the only sound in the chamber. Sweat stained their fatigues.

  Elsewhere in the prison the song had reached its final stanza.

  Someone’s crying, Lord

  Kumbaya

  So the prisoners died like their victims had, pleading, screaming for help and kicking out, vainly praying for a miracle to save them, fighting for air with every grain of energy, resisting the impending darkness, groaning and bleeding. Death did not arrive quickly but with a deliberate and slow inevitability, with compelling and frightening certainty. The prisoners hung on their ropes, their bodies broken and defiled, soiled with their own body fluids, with vomit and excrement, in an obscene parody of their victims.

  When there was no longer any sound or untoward movement in the pit room the men upstairs in the gallows room gradually relaxed. They stood in silence, watching the hooded heads slowly turning just below floor level.

  Down in the prison the singing had stopped and the institution swung into its daily routine as cell doors were opened in preparation for the morning roll call, the emptying of night soil buckets, and breakfast. Slowly the prisoners in the condemned cells settled down as the familiar sounds of a new day reached further into the depths of the prison. For them the ordeal was to survive the nights, when they were haunted by the twin ghosts of the past and the future, of regret and fear, the two relentless hounds that bayed incessantly at their heels. The drudgery of their daytime activities allowed them a temporary escape, trapping them in the mundane present, in trips to the showers, cleaning their already spotless cells, writing letters, reading their prison-issue Bibles, eating their tasteless prison fare, the dry bread sticking to the back of their throats.

  But for the gallows escorts the nightmare was continuing. They still had to take care of their wards, now hanging lifeless on their ropes.

  They would be busy all day.

  Supreme Court, Grahamstown

  3

  As the escorts were nearing the end of the day’s work in Pretoria, a judge in another town reached the end of the Court’s judgment on extenuating circumstances and the bureaucracy of the death sentence was about to be set in motion again.

  The Judge hesitated slightly, as if to emphasise the solemnity of the occasion. He faced Bakiri Nelson and announced the verdict.

  ‘Our finding, and it is a unanimous finding, is that there are no extenuating circumstances present in respect of either of the offences of murder.’

  Neither of the two Assessors flanking the Judge on the bench stirred, but the prosecutor and defence counsel half rose from their seats and said, almost in unison, ‘As the Court pleases.’

  As the interpreter translated what the Judge had said to the man in the dock, the tension in the courtroom grew. The main participants in the trial knew that the outcome was now fixed. What remained was a mere formality, the law’s response to the Court’s findings.

  The registrar rose and addressed the interpreter. ‘Mr Interpreter, please inform the accused that he has been duly convicted of murder without extenuating circumstances. Ask him if he has or knows anything to say why the sentence of death should not be passed on him according to law.’

  The law moves with a slow, deadly beat. Every word had to be spoken twice, once in English for the record, and then again in the language of the accused, isiXhosa. The Judge waited for the interpreter to repeat the Court’s finding in Nelson’s mother tongue.

  The answer came without emotion. ‘I have nothing to say, M’Lord.’

  The Judge acknowledged this with a stony, ‘Yes.’

  The registrar held up her hand and said, ‘I call for silence in Court while the sentence of death is being passed.’ Then she sat down.

  The man in the dock was strangely unmoved, as if worse things had already happened in his life. Neither the regular meals nor soap and water he had enjoyed while awaiting trial had changed his essential appearance: that of a castaway, one used to deprivation, hunger and despair.

  ‘Bakiri Nelson,’ said the Judge when the spectators had settled down, ‘you have been convicted on two counts of murder and one of theft. On the charge of theft the sentence that I impose upon you is two months’ imprisonment.

  ‘In respect of the murders there can never be any justification for what you did. Your actions were wicked and vicious, and you showed a callous disregard for two old ladies who, according to you, were kind to you. Having found that there are no extenuating circumstances, I am obliged to impose the following sentence upon you: on each of the counts of murder of which you have been convicted the sentence is that you are to be taken to the place from whence you came and at a time and a place to be determined by the Minister of Justice you are to be hanged by the neck until you are dead.

  ‘And may the Lord have mercy on your soul,’ he added.

  Counsel rose to their feet again and muttered, ‘As the Court pleases.’

  Defence counsel remained standing. ‘M’Lord, I have instructions to note an application for leave to appeal against the convictions on all three counts and also against the finding that there were no extenuating circumstances in respect of the two murder counts. May I ask when it would be convenient for M’Lord to hear my application?’

  ‘Are you ready to argue now?’ the Judge asked.

  ‘Yes, M’Lord.’

  The debate about leave to appeal was over in minutes.
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  ‘The result is that leave to appeal is refused,’ the Judge announced. Then he stood up, bowed slightly in counsel’s direction, and retired to his chambers.

  The registrar went to her office to take care of the formalities. The Court’s judgment had to be converted into an order. In her office next to the Judge’s chambers, she took three copies of the standard death warrant form from the drawer together with two sheets of carbon paper. The death warrant had to be prepared in triplicate. She started typing in the details of the case with meticulous care, taking her time, as the details had to be exactly right.

  She also had to prepare an order for the disposal of the exhibits that had been produced during the trial; they were to be returned to their rightful owners. And then there were the death certificates. Only a judge or a magistrate could issue a death certificate in case of violent or unnatural death. She quickly prepared death certificates for the victims. Inserting the cause of death she typed: Strangulation – Homicide.

  When she had finished typing in the details in the appropriate spaces on the forms the registrar rose with a batch of documents for the Judge to sign. It had been a busy term and there was still one more trial on the roll before the Court would close its doors for the summer recess. She reread the death warrant at the top of the pile as she walked down the passage to the Judge’s chambers.

  J221E

  WARRANT: DEATH SENTENCE

  IN THE SUPREME COURT OF SOUTH AFRICA

  (EASTERN CAPE LOCAL DIVISION – GRAHAMSTOWN)

  To the Sheriff of GRAHAMSTOWN

  or his deputy and the Sheriff of Transvaal and his deputy.

  THE STATE AGAINST BAKIRI NELSON

  WHEREAS it appears of record that at a Criminal Session of the

  SUPREME COURT OF SOUTH AFRICA (EASTERN CAPE Division) held before THE HONOURABLE JUDGE M.P. JENNETT (Me or the Hon. Mr Justice)

  at GRAHAMSTOWN on the TENTH day of DECEMBER

  One Thousand Nine Hundred and EIGHTY-SEVEN

  the above-named BAKIRI NELSON

  was convicted of the crime of 2 (TWO) COUNTS of MURDER and sentenced to death by the said Court:

  THIS IS THEREFORE TO COMMAND YOU, after receipt by you of a notice, in writing, signed by the Minister of Justice, or any other Minister of State acting for him in his absence, that the State President has decided not to extend mercy to the person under sentence of death, to cause the said sentence to be executed upon the said prisoner in the Central Prison, Pretoria, as soon as fitting arrangements can be made for the execution thereof:

  AND to detain HIM (him or her) in custody in the said prison until the said sentence is executed, or HE (he or she) is discharged therefrom in accordance with a written notice under the hand of the Minister of Justice, or any other Minister of State acting for him in his absence, that the State President has decided to extend mercy to the said prisoner.

  GIVEN under my hand at GRAHAMSTOWN

  on this TENTH day of DECEMBER One Thousand Nine Hundred and EIGHTY SEVEN.

  ………………………………………..

  Judge of the SUPREME COURT OF SOUTH AFRICA

  (EASTERN CAPE Division)

  Registrar

  NOTE. – The Central Prison, Pretoria, is the place designated by the Minister of Justice as the place for the execution of Capital Sentences.

  Name and address of the Advocate for the Defence: MR A.D. OSLER, St GEORGE’S CHAMBERS, GRAHAMSTOWN

  Thumb-prints taken by me this……………. day of……….. 19…….

  ……………………………….

  Detective-in-charge

  Thumb-prints taken in my presence this……………. day of……….. 19…….

  ……………………………….

  Deputy Sheriff

  Left thumb

  Right thumb

  Satisfied with her work, the registrar knocked politely on the door and went in. The Judge hardly glanced at the batch of documents as he signed them. Once the registrar was back in her own office, she called the usher on an internal line and asked him to fetch the warrants and to take them down to the Chief Registrar’s office for his signature and the official stamp. Then she returned to other tasks. She made a mental note that the details of the case still had to be entered in a special register in the Chief Registrar’s office. From this moment the case would be tracked through all possible legal procedures to ensure that when the time came there were no pending appeals or applications for clemency outstanding.

  A few minutes later the elderly usher came wheezing down the steps to the cells and handed the signed documents to the investigating officer through the grille of the cell section. Only one prisoner remained in the cells: Bakiri Nelson. The policeman used an inkpad and special roller to place the condemned man’s left and right thumb-prints at the bottom of the death warrant. Then he signed the warrant in the appropriate spaces and watched as the Sheriff signed there too. From this moment the prisoner’s body was legally in the hands of the High Sheriff and his deputies. It was their duty to execute court orders and they would be responsible for the prisoner until his execution.

  Upstairs the registrar found a quiet moment to walk down to the main admin office. There she stood over the clerk’s desk and watched as the Clerk of the Criminal Court started a new entry in the Capital Cases Register. When the clerk was ready, the registrar supplied the first details to be inserted in the columns running across the two facing pages of the register:

  DATE CASE NO. ACCUSED DATE SENTENCED TO DEATH PLACE AND JUDGE DATE JUSTICE NOTIFIED DATE TAPES SENT TO CONTRACTOR DATE RECORD RECEIVED FROM CONTRACTOR

  10/12/87 CC479/87 Bakiri Nelson 10/12/87 (2 death sentences) Grahams-town Jennett J P

  DATE OF APPLICATION FOR LEAVE TO APPEAL DATE JUSTICE NOTIFIED OUTCOME AND DATE DATE JUSTICE NOTIFIED DATE ORDER SENT TO APPEAL COURT DATE RECORD TO APPEAL COURT FINAL OUTCOME

  10/12/87 Refused on 10/12/87

  The remaining details would be inserted from time to time as the various administrative steps were taken. ‘Remember to send a telegram to Justice as soon as possible,’ the registrar reminded the young clerk as she left his office.

  What remained was for Nelson to be transported to Maximum Security Prison in Pretoria. The impending weekend meant that the journey would be delayed and that he would first have to be locked up in the local jail. His death warrant had to go everywhere with him. Each time he was to be handed over by one official to another, or transferred from one place of incarceration to another, his left and right thumb-prints would be taken and compared to those on the warrant. At each handover a written acknowledgement of receipt of the person of the prisoner would be signed by his new custodian and filed by the one relieved of further responsibility.

  Nelson would eventually arrive in Pretoria three days after being sentenced and would be allocated number v-3912, dressed in recycled prison garb and photographed. Neither the Chief Justice nor the State President would find any reason to interfere with the sentences of the Court. And on 13 January 1989, after all the procedural safeguards had been taken to ensure that he was in fact the person who had been sentenced to death on this day, 10 December 1987, Bakiri Nelson would be hanged by the neck until he was dead, exactly as the Judge had ordered. Within a week both death warrants, now bearing the condemned man’s thumb-prints, would be returned to the Chief Registrar in Grahamstown together with a return from the High Sheriff in Pretoria that the orders of the Court had been carried out.

  Accompanying the return would be the photograph taken on admission, pinned to a public notice, to be displayed in a prominent place at the Grahamstown Magistrates’ Court.

  The Chief Registrar would complete the formalities by inserting the details in the last column of the Capital Cases Register:

  No clemency by State President. Executed on 13 January 1989.

  Old Johannesburg Road

  4

  The young man in the grey bakkie and the seven members of the Diepsloot Karate Clu
b in their white minibus battled on through the rain to their mutual destiny.

  The clouds had at first risen stealthily in the south, arctic white against a light-blue sky. But soon the atmosphere turned nasty. The heavy smell of impending rain filled the dry, dusty Highveld air before anyone had taken notice of the ominous bank of clouds building up on the horizon in the direction of Jan Smuts International Airport. As the clouds approached, the colour of the sky directly overhead turned slowly to a darker hue of blue, then more rapidly to grey, and finally to a dull blue-black as the thunder clouds arrived directly overhead and filled the entire sky.

  Long before the first raindrops fell all species of suburban wildlife had disappeared. The animals, so finely tuned to nature, quickly sensed the drop in barometric pressure ahead of the storm and took refuge. Bees returned to their hives, hornets to their nests. Birds, their proud sheen now dulled by the filter of cloud, hid under eaves or deep in the shelter of the foliage of trees and shrubs. Other birds, kept as pets in cages or in fenced backyards, were unable to obey their natural instinct to seek shelter and sat uneasily on their perches, some hiding their heads under their wings. Scrawny chickens gathered in the far corners of their coops and dogs and cats returned to their favourite hiding places, in their kennels or baskets, under beds, or on the sofa. Even the ubiquitous small reptiles of the veld, accustomed to the dangers of suburban life, burrowed deeper in their holes and crevices.

  The cloudburst caught the stragglers still on the roads after the rush hour and dumped loads of water on their cars. Engines stalled. Tyres lost their grip. Windshield wipers became mere metronomes, struggling ineffectively to clear sheets of water from windscreens. Headlights failed to penetrate the walls of water and taillights alternatively signalled doubt and panic as drivers struggled to keep their cars on the road and to avoid colliding with the cars in front.