Текст книги "Rage"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

Соавторы: Wilbur Smith
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Текущая страница: 43 (всего у книги 53 страниц)

Raleigh groped in his pocket and found his handkerchiefi Gently he wiped the dust from her cheeks and from the corners of her mouth, for she had fallen with her face against the earth.

He was crooning to her softly, 'Wake up, my little moon. Let me hear yours sweet voice –' Heees were open and he turned her head slightly to look into them. 'It is me, Amelia, it is Raleigh – don't you see me?" But even as he stared into her widely distended pupils a milky sheen spread over them, dulling out their dark beauty.

H, hugged her harder, pressing her unresisting head against his chest and he began to rock her, humming softly to her as though she were an infant, and he looked out across the field.

The bodies were strewn about like overripe fruit fallen from the bough. Some of them were moving, an arm straightened or a hand unclenched, an old man began to crawl past where Raleigh knelt, dragging a shattered leg behind him.

Then the police officers were coming out through the sagging gates.

They wandered about the field in a dazed uncertain manner, still carrying their empty weapons dangling from limp hands, stopping to kneel briefly beside one of the bodies, and then standing again and walking on.

One of them approached. As he came closer Raleigh recognized the blond captain who had seized him at the gate. He had lost his cap and the top button was missing from his tunic. His crew-cut hair was darkened with sweat, and droplets of sweat stood on his waxen pale forehead. He stopped a few paces off and looked at Raleigh.

Although his hair was blond, his eyebrows were dark and thick and his eyes were yellow as those of a leopard. Raleigh knew then box he had earned his nickname. Those pale eyes were underscored wit[ smudges of fatigue and horror, dark as old bruises, and his lips wer dry and cracked.

They stared at each other – the black man kneeling in the dus with the dead woman in his arms and the uniformed white man wit the empty sten gun in his hands.

'I didn't mean it to happen –' said Lothar De La Rey and hi, voice croaked, 'I'm sorry." Raleigh did not answer, gave no sign of having heard or understood and Lothar turned away and walked back, picking his wa) amongst the dead and the maimed, back into the laager of wire mesh.

The blood on Raleighs clothing began to cool, and when he touched Amelia's cheek again he felt the warmth going out of it also. Gently he closed her eyelids, and then he unbuttoned the front of her blouse. There was very little bleeding from the two entry wounds. They were just below her pointed virgin breasts, small dark mouths in her smooth amber-coloured skin, set only inches apart.

Raleigh ran two fingers of his right hand into those bloody mouths, and there was residual warmth in her torn flesh.

'With my fingers in your dead body,' he whispered. 'With the fingers of my right hand in your wounds, I swear an oath, my love.

You will be avenged. I swear it on our love, upon my life and upon your death. You will be avenged." In the days of anxiety and turmoil following the massacre of Sharpeville, Verwoerd and his minister of police acted with resolution and strength.

A state of emergency was declared in almost half of South Africa's magisterial districts. Both the PAC and ANC were banned and those of their supporters suspected of incitement and intimidation were arrested and detained under the emergency regulations. Some estimates put the figure of detainees as high as eighteen thousand.

In early April at the meeting of the full cabinet to discuss the emergency, Shasa Courtney risked his political future by rising to address a plea to Dr Verwoerd for the abolition of the pass book system. He had prepared his speech with care, and the genuine concern he felt for the importance of the subject made him even more than usually eloquent. As he spoke he became gradually aware that he was winning the support of some of the other senior members of the cabinet.

'In a single stroke we will be removing the main cause of black dissatisfaction, and depriving the revolutionary agitators of their most valuable weapon,' he pointed out.

Three other senior ministers followed Shasa, each voicing their support for the abolition of the dompas, but from the top of the long table Verwoerd glowered at them, becoming every minute more angry until at last he jumped to his feet.

'The idea is completely out of the question. The reference books are there for an essential purpose: to control the influx of blacks into the urban areas." Within a few minutes he had brutally bludgeoned the proposal to death, and made it clear that to try to resurrect it would be political suicide for any member of the cabinet, no matter how senior.

Within days Dr Hendrik Verwoerd was himself on the brink of the chasm. He visited Johannesburg to open the Rand Easter Show.

He made a reassuring speech to the huge audience that filled the arena of the country's largest agricultural and industrial show, and as he sat down to thunderous applause, a white man of insignificant appearance made his way between the tiers of seats and in full view of everybody drew a pistol and holding it to Dr Verwoerd's head fired two shots.

With blood pouring down his face Verwoerd collapsed, and security guards overpowered his assailant. Both bullets, fired at point-b3-/tnk range, had penetrated the prime minister's skull, and yet his most remarkable tenacity and will to survive combined with the expert medical attention he received, saved him.

In -ittle more than a month he had left hospital and had once more ken up his duties as the head of state. The assassination attempt seemed to have been without motive or reason, and the assailant was judged insane and placed in an asylum. By the time Dr Verwoerd had fully recovered from the attempt on his life calm had been restored to the country as a whole, and Manfred De La Rey's police were in total control once more.

Naturally the reaction of the international community towards the slaughter and the subsequent measures to regain control was heavily critical. America led the rest in her condemnations, and within months had instituted an embargo on the sale of arms to South Africa. More damaging than the reaction of foreign governments was the crash on the Johannesburg stock exchange, the collapse of property values and the attempted flight of capital out of the country.

Strict exchange-control regulations were swiftly imposed to forestall this.

Manfred De La Rey had come out of it all with his power and ú position greatly enhanced. He had acted the way his people expected him to, with strength and forthright determination. There wasn doubt at all now that he was one of the senior members of th cabinet and in the direct line of succession to Hendrik Verwoerd. H had smashed the Pan Africanist Congress and the ANC. Thei leaders were in total disarray and all of them were in hiding or ha, fled the country.

With the safety of the state secured, Dr Verwoerd could atlas turn his full attention to the momentous business of realizing th golden dream of Afrikanerdom – the Republic.

The referendum was held in October 1960, and so great were th, feelings, for and against, engendered by the prospect of breakin with the British crown that there was a ninety percent poll. Cun ningly, Verwoerd had decreed that a simple majority, and not th usual two-thirds majority, would suffice, and on the day he got hi..

majority: 850,000 to 775,000. The Afrikaner response was an hysteri of joy, of speeches and wild rejoicing.

In March the following year Verwoerd and his entourage went to London to attend the conference of the Commonwealth prim ministers. He came out of the meeting to tell the world, 'In the ligh of opinions expressed by other member governments of the Commonwealth regarding South Africa's race policies, and in the light all future plans regarding the race policies of the South Africar government, I told the other prime ministers that I was withdrawin my country's application for continued membership of the Commonwealth after attaining the status of a republic." From Pretoria Manfred De La Rey cabled Verwoerd, 'You have preserved the dignity and pride of your country, and the nation owes you eternal gratitude." Verwoerd returned home to the adulation and hero worship of his people.

In the heady euphoria, very few, even amongst the English-speaking opposition, realized just how many doors Verwoerd had locked and barred behind him and just how cold and bleak the winds that Macmillan had predicted would blow across the southern tip of Africa in the coming years.

With the Republic safely launched Verwoerd could at last select his praetorian guard to protect it and hold it strong. Erasmus, the erstwhile minister of justice who had acted neither as ruthlessly nor as resolutely as was expected during the emergency, was packed off as the ambassador of the new Republic to Rome, and Verwoerd presented two new ministers to his cabinet.

The new minister of defence was the member for the constituency of George in the Cape, P. W. Botha, while Erasmus's replacement as minister of justice was Balthazar Johannes Vorster. Shasa Courtney knew Vorster well, and as he listened to him make his first address to the cabinet, he reflected how much like Manfred De La Rey the man was.

They were almost the same age and, like Manfred, Vorster had been a member of the extreme right-wing anti-Smuts pro-Nazi Ossewa Brandwag during the war. Whereas it was generally accepted that Manfred had remained in Germany during the war years although he was very mysterious and secretive about that period of his life – John Vorster had been interned in Smuts' Koffiefontein concentration camp for the duration.

Both Vorster and De La Rey had been educated at Stellenbosch University, the citadel of Afrikanerdom, and their political careers had run closely parallel courses. Although Manfred had won his seat in parliament in the historic 1948 elections, John Vorster in the same elections had gained the distinction of being the only candidate in South African history to lose by a mere two votes. Later, in 1953, he vindicated himself by winning the same Brakpan seat with a majority of seven hundred.

Now that the two of them were seated at the long table in the cabinet room, their physical resemblance was striking. They were both heavy/.rugged-looking men, with bulldog features, both obduratg,41nflinching and tough, the epitome of the hard Boer.

Vorster confirmed this for Shasa as he began to speak, leaning forward aggressively, confident and articulate. 'I believe we are in a fight to the death with the forces of communism, and that we cannot defeat suI ersion or thwart revolution by closely observing the Queensberly rules. We have to put aside the old precepts of habeas corpus, and arm ourselves with new legislation that will enable us to preempt the enemy, to pick out their leaders and put them away where they can do little harm. This is not a new concept, gentlemen." Vorster smiled down the table and Shasa was struck by the way in which his dour features lit up with that impish smile.

'You all know where I spent the war years, without the benefit of trial. Let me tell you right now – it worked. It kept me out of mischief and that's what I intend to do with those who would destroy this land – keep them out of mischief. I want power to detain any person whom I know to be an enemy of the state, without trial, for a period of up to ninety days." It was a masterly performance and Shasa felt some trepidation in having to follow it, especially when he could not be so sanguine in his own view of the future.

'At the moment I have two major concerns,' he told his colleagues seriouslyú 'The first is the arms embargo placed upon us by the Arnel cans. I believe that other countries are soon going to bow to Arnel can pressure and extend the embargo. One day we might even ha the ridiculous situation where Great Britain will refuse to sell us t arms we need for our own defenceú' Some of the others at the tab fidgeted and looked incredulousú Shasa assured them: 'We conn( afford to underestimate this hysteria of America for what they ca civil rights. Remember that they sent troops to help force blacks mt white schools." The memory of that appalled them all and there wet no further signs of disbelief as Shasa went on. 'A nation who can d that will do anythingú My aim is to make this country totally sell sufficient in conventional armaments within five years?"ú

'Is that possible. Verwoerd asked sharply.

'I believe so." Shasa noddedú 'Fortunately, this eventuality has bee anticipatedú You yourself warned me of the possibility of an arm embargo when you appointed me, Prime Ministerú' Verwoerd nodded and Shasa repeated, 'This is my aim; self sufficient in conventional weapons in five years –' Shasa pause( dramaticallyú 'And nuclear capableú in ten yearsú' This was stretching their credulity and there were interjections ant sharp questions, so that Shasa held up his hands and spoke firmly.

'I am deadly serious, gentlemen. We can do it! Given certain circum.

stances." 'Money,' said Hendrik Verwoerd, and Shasa noddedú 'Yes, Prime Minister, money. Which brings me to my second majoi considerationú' Shasa drew a deep breath, and steeled himself to broach an unpalatable truth. 'Since the Sharpeville shootings, we have had a crippling flight of capital from the country. Cecil Rhodes was wont to say that the Jews were his birds of good omen. When the Jews came, an enterprise or a country was assured of success, and when the Jews left you could expect the worstú Well the sad truth, gentlemen, is that our Jews are leaving. We have to entice them to stay and bring back those who have already left." Again there was restlessness around the table. The National Party had been conceived on that wave of anti-semitism between the world wars, and although it had abated since then, traces of it still existed.

'These are the facts, gentlemen." Shasa ignored their discomfortú 'Since Sharpeville, the value of property has collapsed to half what it was before the shooting, and the stock market is at its lowest since the dark days of Dunkirk. The businessmen and investors of the world are convinced that this government is tottering and on the point of capitulating to the forces of communism and darknessú They see us as being engulfed in despondency and anarchy, with black mobs burning and looting and white civilization about to go up in flames." They laughed derisively and John Vorster made a bitter interjection.

'I have just explained what steps we will take." 'Yes." Shasa cut him off quickly. 'We know that the foreign view is distorted. We know that we still have a strong and stable government, that the country is prosperous and productive and that the vast majority of our people, both black and white, are lawabiding and content. We know that we have our guardian angel, gold, to protect us. But we have to convince the rest of the world." 'Do you think that's possible, man."?" Manfred asked quickly.

'Yes, with a full-scale and concerted campaign to give the truth of the situation to the businessmen of the world,' Shasa said. 'I have recruited most of our own leaders in industry and commerce to assist.

We will go out at our own expense to explain the truth. We will invite them here -journalists, businessmen and friends – to see for themselves how tranquil and how under control the country truly is, and just how rich are the opportunities.

Sfiasa spoke for another thirty minutes and when he ended, his own fervour and sincerity had exhausted him; but then he saw how he had finally convinced his colleagues and he knew the results were worth the effort. He was convinced that-from the horror of Sharpeville he could mount a fresh endeavour that would carry them to greater heights of prosperity and strength.

Shasa had always been resilient, with extraordinary recuperative powers. ,:en in his airforce days, when he brought the squadron in from a sortie over the Italian lines and the others had sat around the mess, stunned and shattered by the experience, he had been the first to recover and to start the repartee and boisterous horse-play. Shasa left the cabinet room drained and exhausted but by the time he had driven the vintage SS Jaguar around the mountain and through the Anreith gate of Weltevreden, he was sitting up straight in the bucket seat, feeling confident and jaunty again.

The harvest was long past and the labourers were in the vineyards pruning the vines. Shasa parked the Jaguar and went down between the rows of bare leafless plants to talk to them and give them encouragement. Many of these men and women had been on Weltevreden since Shasa had been a child, and the younger ones had been born here. Shasa looked upon them as an extension of his family and they in turn regarded him as their patriarch. He spent half an hour with them listening to their small problems and worries, and settling most with a few words of assurance, then he broke off and left them abruptly as a figure on horseback came down the far side of the vineyard at full gallop.

From the corner of the stone wall Shasa watched Isabella gather her mount, and he stiflened as he realized what she was going to do.

The mare was not yet fully schooled and Shasa had never trusted her temperament. The wall was of yellow Table Mountain sandstone, five foot high.

'No, Bella!" he whispered. 'No, baby!" But she turned the mare and drove her at the wall, and the horse reacted gamely. Her quarters bunched and the great muscles rippled below the glossy hide. Isabella lifted her and they went up.

Shasa held his breath, but even in his suspense he could appreciate what a magnificent sight they made, horse and rider, thoroughbreds both – the mare with her forelegs folded up under her chest and her ears pricked forward, soaring away from the earth, and Isabella leaning back in the saddle, her back arched and her young body supple and lovely, long legs and fine thrusting breasts, red mouth laughing and her hair flying free, sparkling with ruby lights in the late yellow sunlight.

Then they were over and Shasa exhaled sharply. Isabella swung the mare down to where he stood at the corner.

'You promised to ride with me, Pater,' she scolded him. Shasa's instinct was to reprimand her for that jump, but he prevented himself.

He knew she would probably respond by pulling the mare's head around and taking the jump again from this side. He wondered just when he had lost control of her, and then grinned ruefully as he answered himself.

'About ten minutes after she was born." The mare was dancing in a circle and Isabella flung her hair back with a toss of her head.

'I waited almost an hour for you,' she said.

'Affairs of state –' Shasa began.

'That's no excuse, Pater. A promise is a promise." 'It's still not too late,' he pointed out, and she laughed as she challenged him.

'I'll race that old banger of yours down to the stables!" And she booted the mare into a gallop.

'Not fair,' he called after her. 'You have too much start,' but she turned in the saddle and stuck her tongue out at him. He ran to the Jag, but she cut across north field and was dismounted by the time he drove into the stableyard.

She tossed her reins to a groom and ran to embrace him. Isabella had a variety of kisses, but this type, lingering and loving, with a little bit of ear-nuzzling at the end, was reserved for when she badly wanted something from him, something that she knew he was going to try to refuse.

While he pulled on his riding boots she sat close beside him on the bench and told him a funny story about her sociology professor at varsity.

'This huge shaggy St Bernard wandered into the lecture theatre and Prof. Jacobs was quick as a flash. Better that the dogs should come to learning, he said, than learning should go to the dogs." She was a natural mimic. As they left the saddle room, she hugged his arm.

'Oh, Daddy, if only I could find a boy like you, but they're all so utterly dreary." 'Long may they remain that way,' he wished fervently.

He made a cup with his hands for her to mount, but she laughed at him and sprang to the saddle easily on those long lovely legs.

'Come on, slowcoach. It'll be dark soon." Shasa enjoyed being alone with her. She enchanted him with her mercurial changes of mood and subject. She had a quick mind and quirky sense of humour, to go with her extraordinary face and body, but Ste alarmed him when she showed flashes of that restless refusal to coneentrate for long on a single topic. Sean had been like that, needing constant stimulation to hold his interest, easily bored by anything that could not keep the same breathless pace that he set.

Shasa was amazed that Isabella had lasted out a year of university studies, but he was resigned to the fact that she wasn't going to graduate. Every time they discussed it, she was more disparaging of the academic life. Make-believe, she called it. Kids' stuff. And when he reed, 'Well, Bella, you are still a kid', she bridled at him. 'Oh, Daddy, you don't understand!" 'Don't I? Don't you think I was your age once?" 'I suppose so – but that was in biblical times, for God's sake." 'Ladies don't swear,' he remonstrated automatically.

She attracted admirers in slavish droves, and treated them with callous indifference for a while and then dropped them with almost feline cruelty, and all the time the restlessness in her was more apparent.

'I should have been stricter with her right from the beginning,' he decided grimly, and then grinned. 'What the hell, she's my only indulgence – and she'll be gone soon enough." 'Do you know that when you smile like that you are the sexiest man in the world?" she interrupted his thoughts.

'What do you know about sexiness, young lady?" he demanded gruffly to cover his gratification, and she tossed her head at him.

'Wouldn't you like to know?" 'No thank you,' he refused hastily. 'I'd probably have a hernia on the Spot." 'My poor old Daddy." She edged the mare over until their knees touched and she leaned across to hug him.

'All right, Bella,' he smiled. 'You'd better tell me what you want.

Your heavy artillery has demolished my defences entirely." 'Oh, Daddy, you make me seem so scheming. I'll race you down to the polo grounds." He let her lead, holding his stallion's nose just behind her stirrup all the way down the hill. Nonetheless, she was flushed with triumph as she pulled in the mare and turned back to him. 'I had a letter from Mater,' she said.

For a moment Shasa didn't realize what she had said, then his smile iced over and he glanced at his gold Rolex wristwatch.

'We'd better be getting back." 'I want to talk about my mother. We haven't talked about her since the divorce." 'There isn't anything to discuss. She's out of our lives." 'No." Isabella shook her head. 'She wants to see me – me and Mickey.

She wants us to go to London and visit her." 'No,' he said fiercely.

'She's my mother." 'She signed away all claim to that title." 'I want to see her – she wants to see me." 'We'll talk about it some other time." 'I want to talk about it now. Why won't you let me go?" 'Your mother did things which put her beyond the pale. She would exert an influence of evil upon you." 'Nobody influences me – unless I want them to,' she said. 'And what did mother do anyway? Nobody has ever explained that." 'She committed an act of calculated treachery. She betrayed us all – her husband, her father, her family, her children and her country." 'I don't believe it." Isabella shook her head. 'Mater was always so concerned for everybody." 'I cannot, and will not, give you all the details, Bella. Just believe me when I tell you that if I had not spirited her out of the country, she would have stood trial as an accessory to the murder of her own father and for the crime of high treason." They rode up to the stables in silence, but as they entered the yard and dismounted, IsabelIa said quietly, 'She should have the chance to explain it to me herself." 'I can forbid you to go, Bella, you are still a minor. But you know I won't do that. I'll simply ask you not to go to London to see that woman." 'I'm sorry, Daddy. Mickey is going, and I am going with him." She saw his expression, and went to him quickly. 'Please try to understand. I love you, but I love her too. I have to go." They drove up to the house in the Jaguar without speaking again, but as he parked the car and switched off the ignition, Shasa asked, 'When?" 'We haven't decided yet." 'I tell you what. We'll go together some time and perhaps we could go on to Switzerland for a week's skiing or Italy to do some sight-seeing. We might even stop in Paris to get you a new frock.

Lord knows, you are short of clothes." 'My dear father, you are a crafty old dog, aren't you?" They were still laughing as they went arm in arm up the front steps of Weltevreden. Centaine came out of her study door across the lobby. When she saw them she snatched the gold-rimmed reading glasses off her nose – she hated even the family to see her wearing them – and she demanded, 'What are you two so merry about? Bella is wearig her triumphant expression. What has she talked you into this time Centainedidn't wait for an answer, but pointed to the huge banana-shaped package almost ten foot long, wrapped in thick layers of brown hessian, that lay in the middle of the chequered marble floor.

'Shasa, this arrived for you this morning and it has been cluttering up the house all day. Please get rid of it, whatever it is." Centaine had lived on alone at Rhodes Hill for almost a year after Blair's death before Shasa had been able to persuade her to close the L ,use up and return to Weltevreden. Now she ran a strict routine to which they were all expected to conform.

'Now what on earth is this?" Shasa tentatively attempted to lift one end of the long package, and then grunted. 'It's made of lead, whatever it is." 'Hold on, Pater,' Garry called from the top of the staircase. 'You'll bust something." He came bounding down the stairs, three at a time.

'I'll do that for you – where do you want it?" 'The gun room will do. Thanks, Garry." Garry enjoyed showing off his strength and he lifted the heavy package easily, and manoeuvred it down the passageway, then through the gun-room door and laid it on the lion skin in front of the fireplace.

'Do you want me to open it?" he asked, and without waiting for an answer went to work on it.

Isabella perched on the desk, determined not to miss anything, and none of them spoke until Garry had stripped away the last sheet of hessian and stood back.

'It's magnificent,' Shasa breathed. 'I have never seen anythi quite like that in my life before." It was a single tusk of curved ivor almost ten foot long, as thick as a pretty girl's waist at one end or tapering to a blunt point at the other.

'It must weigh almost a hundred and fifty pounds,' Garry sail 'But just look at the workmanship." Shasa knew that the ivory workers of Zanzibar were the only from who could do something like this. The entire length of the tusk ha been carved with hunting scenes of exquisite detail and the fine execution.

'It's beautiful." Even Isabella was impressed. 'Who sent it to you' 'There is an envelope –' Shasa pointed to the litter of discarde, wrappings, and Garry picked it out and passed it to him.

The envelope contained a single sheet of notepaper.

In camp on the Tona rive Dear Dad, Kenya.

Happy birthday – I'll be thinking of you on the day. This is my best jumb to date – 146 lbs. before the carving.

Why don't you come hunting with me?

Love, Sean With the note in one hand, Shasa squatted beside the tusk ant stroked the creamy smooth surface. The carvings depicted a herd all elephant, hundreds of them in a single herd. From old bulls and breeding cows to tiny calves, they fled in a long spiral frieze around the ivory shaft, diminishing in elegant perspective towards the point.

The herd was harassed and attacked by hunters along its length, beginning with men in lionskins armed with bows and poisoned arrows, or with broad-bladed elephant spears; towards the end of this primeval cavalcade the hu0ters were on horseback and wielding modern firearms. The path of the herd was strewn with great fallen carcasses, and it was beautiful and real and tragic.

However, it was neither the beauty nor the tragedy that thickened Shasa's voice as he said, 'Will you two leave me alone, please." He did not look around at them, he did not want them to see his face.

For once Isabella did not argue, but took Garry's hand and led him from the room.

'He hasn't forgotten my birthday,' Shasa murmured, as he stroked the ivory. 'Not once since he left." He coughed and stood up abruptly, jerked the handkerchief from his breast pocket and blew his nose loudly and then wiped his eyes.

'And I haven't even written to him, I haven't even replied to one of his letters." He stuffed the handkerchief back into his pocket and went to stand at the window, staring out over the lawns where the peacocks strutted. 'The stupid cruel thing is that he has always been my favourite of the three of them. Oh God, I'd give anything to see him again." The rain was icy grey, drifting like smoke over the thick forests of bamboo that cloaked the crests of the Aberdare Mountains.

The four of them moved in single file with the Ndorobo tracker on the point, following the spoor in the forest earth that beneath the litter of 'fallen bamboo leaves was the colour and consistency of molten chocolate.

.Sen Courtney took the second position, covering the tracker and poisedto make any quick decision. He was the youngest of the three white Then but command had quite naturally devolved upon him.

Nobody had contested it.

The third man in the line, Alistair Sparks, was the youngest son of a Kenyan settler family. Although he possessed enormous powers of endurance, was a fine natural shot and a consummate bushman, he was lazy and evasive and needed to be pushed to exercise all his skills to the full.