Текст книги "Power of the Sword"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

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Текущая страница: 40 (всего у книги 51 страниц)

Shut up, Matty, David implored, but that only made it Mathilda Janine rolled her eyes and went scarlet in the face with the effort of trying to contain her giggles, but in the end they exploded out of her with a wild snorting whoop and the storm troopers exchanged glances and then moved across in a bunch and stood shoulder to shoulder surrounding their table.

The leader, a hefty middle-aged sergeant, said something and Tara answered in school-girl German.

Ah, said the sergeant in heavily accented English, you are English! My sister is very young and silly. Tara glared at Mathilda Janine who let out another muffled snort through her handkerchief. i They are English, said the sergeant, an explanation of all madness, and would have turned away, but one of the younger troopers had been staring at David.

Now he asked in passable English, You are the runner? You are the winner of the bronze medal. David Abrahams. David looked bashful and nodded.

You are David Abrahams, the Jew runner. The trooper enlarged on the theme, and David's face went pale and set.

The two English-speaking storm troopers explained to the others, the word juden was repeated, and then they all stared at David with hostile faces and fists clenched on their hips as the sergeant asked loudly, Are not the English and Americans ashamed to let the Jews and the negroes win their medals for them? Before they could answer Shasa had risen to his feet, smiling politely.

I say, you chaps are barking up the wrong tree. He isn't a Jew at all, he's a Zulu.

How is this possible? The sergeant looked puzzled.

Zulus are black. Wrong again, old chap. Zulus are born white. They only go black when they've been left out in the sun. We've always kept this one in the shade. You are joking, accused the sergeant.

Of course I am choking! Shasa imitated his pronunciation. 'Wouldn't you be, looking at what I'm looking at? Shasa, for goodness sake sit down, David told him. There is going to be trouble. But Shasa was inebriated with champagne and his own wit and he tapped the sergeant on the chest.

Actually, my dear fellow, if you are looking for Jews, I am the only Jew here. You are both Jews? the sergeant demanded, narrowing his eyes threateningly.

Don't be a clot. I've explained already, he's the Zulu and I'm the Jew. That is a lie, said the sergeant.

By this time the entire clientele of the coffee shop was listening to this exchange with full attention, and for those who did not understand English their companions were translating.

Shasa was encouraged by all this attention, and reckless with champagne. I see I shall have to prove my case to you.

Therefore to convince you that I am privy to all the age-old secrets of Judaism, I will reveal one of our best-kept secrets to you. Have you ever wondered what we do with that little piece the rabbi snips off the end of us? Shut up, Shasa, said David, What is he talking about? Mathilda Janine asked with interest.

Shasa Courtney, don't be disgusting, said Tara.

Bitte? said the storm trooper, looking uneasy, but the other customers of the coffee house were grinning with anticipation. Bawdy hurnour was common currency on the Ku-damm and they were revelling in the unaccustomed discomfiture of the storm troopers.

Very well, I shall tell you. Shasa ignored David and Tara.

We pack them in salt, like kippers, and send them off to Jerusalem. There in the sacred grove on the Mount of Olives on the day of the Passover, the chief rabbi plants them in rows and makes a magic sign over them and a miracle takes place, a miracle! They begin to grow., Shasa made a gesture to describe the growing, Higher and higher, they grow# The storm troopers watched his hand rise with mystified expressions. Then do you know what happens? Shasa asked and the sergeant shook his head involuntarily.

When they have grown into really big thick schmucks, we send them to Berlin where they join the Nazi storm troopers. They gaped at him, not believing what they had heard and Shasa ended his recital, And they teach them to say, he raised his right hand, Heil, what is sprang to attention an that fellow's name again? The sergeant let out a bellow and swung a wild righthanded punch. Shasa ducked, but unsteady with champagne he lost his balance and went down with a crash pulling the tablecloth with him, and the glasses shattered. The champagne bottle rolled across the floor, spurting wine, and two storm troopers jumped on top of Shasa and rained punches on his head and upper body.

David leaped up to go to his assistance, and a storm trooper grabbed his arms from behind. David wrenched his right arm free, swung round and belted a beautiful righthander into the trooper's nose. The man howled and released David to clutch his injured organ, but instantly two other troopers seized David from behind and twisted his arms up behind his back.

Leave him alone! screamed Mathilda Janine and with a flying leap landed on the shoulders of one of the troopers.

She knocked his cap over his eyes and grabbed a double handful of his hair. Leave David, you pig! She tugged at his hair with all her strength and the trooper spun in a circle trying to dislodge her.

Women were screaming, and furniture was shattering. The proprietor stood in the doorway of his kitchen, wringing his hands, his face working pitifully.

Shasa Courtney, Tara yelled furiously. You are behaving like a hooligan. Stop this immediately. Shasa was half buried under a pile of brown uniforms and swinging fists and made no audible reply. The storm troopers had been taken by surprise, but now they rallied swiftly.

Street fighting was their game.

Mathilda was dislodged with a heave of broad brown-shirted shoulders and sent flying into the corner. Three troopers jerked Shasa to his feet, arms twisted up behind his back, and hustled him towards the kitchen door. David received the same treatment, a trooper on each of his arms. The one with the injured nose following close behind, bleeding down his shirt front and cursing bitterly.

The proprietor stood aside hurriedly, and they ran Shasa and David through the kitchens, scattering chefs and serving maids, and out into the alley behind the coffee house, knocking over the garbage cans as Shasa struggled ineffectually.

None of the storm troopers spoke, There was no need to give orders. They were professionals engaged in the sport they loved. Expertly they pinned the two victims to the brick wall of the alley, while a trooper went to work on each of them, switching punches from face to body and back to the face, granting like pigs at the trough in time to the rhythm of their blows.

Mathilda Janine had followed them out and again she tried to rush to David's defence, but a casual shove sent her reeling back, tripping and falling amongst the garbage cans, and the trooper returned to his task.

Tara in the kitchen was shouting angrily at the cafe proprieter call the police, this instant. Do you hear, They are killing two innocent people out there. But the proprietor made a helpless gesture. No use, Fraulein. The police will not come. Shasa doubled over and they let him fall. Then all three of them started in with the boot. The steel-shod jackboots crashed into his belly and back and flanks.

The storm trooper working on David was sweating and panting with exertion. Now he stepped back, measured the shot carefully, and sent a final upper cut smashing into David's dangling head. It took David full in the mouth and his head jerked backwards, cracking against the brickwork and they let him collapse, face down onto the paving stones.

David lay slack and unmoving, making no effort to avoid the boots that smashed into his inert body, and the storm troopers tired of the sport. It was no fun to kick somebody who was not writhing and doubling up and screaming for mercy. Swiftly they gathered up their caps and banners and in a group trotted away, past the two police constables who were standing at the mouth of the alley trying to look disinterested.

Mathilda Janine dropped on her knees beside David and lifted his battered head into her lap.

Speak to me, Davie, she wailed, and Tara came out of the kitchen with a wet dishcloth and stooped over Shasa, trying not to show her anxiety.

It was some minutes before there were signs of life from the victims. Then Shasa sat up and put his head between his knees, shaking it groggily. David pulled himself up on one elbow, and spat out a tooth in a drool of blood-stained spittle.

Are you all right, Davie my boy? Shasa asked through crushed lips.

Shasa, don't ever come to My rescue again, David croaked. Next time you'll get me killed. Mathilda Janine helped them to their feet, but now that Shasa had revived, Tara was bleak and disapproving.

That was the most despicable display I have ever seen, Shasa Courtney. You were obscene and rowdy, and you asked for everything that you got. That's a bit hard, old girl, Shasa protested, and he and David leaned heavily on each other as they limped down the alley. One of the constables waiting at the corner snarled at them as they passed What did he say? Shasa asked Tara.

He says, quite rightly, she translated frostily, that next time you will be arrested for public violence. As the two of them made their painful way back down the Ku-damm, bloodied and battered, Mathilda Janine hovering close at hand and Tara marching a dozen paces ahead of them, trying to disassociate herself, they drew the quick horrified glances of passersby who looked away immediately and then hurried on.

As the four of them rode up in the elevator of the Bristol, Mathilda Janine asked thoughtfully, That story of yours, Shasa, you know about growing things on the Mount of Olives. I didn't understand it. Tell me, what is a schmuck? David and Shasa doubled over with agonized mirth, clutching their injuries. Please, Matty, don't say anything more, David pleaded. It hurts so when I laugh. Tara turned on her sternly. You just wait until I tell Daddy about your part in all this, young lady. He is going to be livid. She was right, he was, but not as furious as Centaine Courtney.

It turned out that Shasa had broken four ribs and a collar bone and ever afterwards he maintained that his absence from the team accounted directly for the Argentinian victory over them by ten goals to four in the polo quarter-finals two days later. Apart from two missing teeth, David's injuries were superficial contusions, sprains and lacerations.

Not too much harm done, Centaine conceded at last. At least there will be no publicity,, one of those horrid little newspaper men writing gloating spiteful articles. She was wrong. Amongst the clientele at the Kranzler coffee house had been the South African correspondent for Reuters, and his article was picked up by the South African Jewish Times.

It played heavily upon Shasa Courtney's part in defending his Jewish friend, the bronze medalist sprinter, and when they finally got back to Cape Town, Shasa found himself a minor celebrity. Both Shasa and David were asked to speak at a luncheon of the Friends of Zion.

The law of unforeseen consequence, Blaine pointed out to Centaine.

How many Jewish voters do you suppose there are on the rolls? Centaine squinted slightly as she calculated, and Blaine chuckled.

You truly are incorrigible, my sweeting!

The boxing hall in the great complex of the Reichssportfeld was filled to capacity for the final bout in the light heavyweight division, and there were ranks of brown-uniformed storm-troopers lining each side of the aisle from the dressingrooms, forming an honour guard for the contenders as they came down to the ring.

We thought it might be necessary to have them, Colonel Boldt explained to Heidi Kramer as they sat in their ringside seats, and he glanced significantly at the four judges. All of them were Germans, all members of the party, and it had taken some delicate negotiation and trading on Colonel Boldt's part to arrange it so.

Manfred De La Rey was the first contender to enter the ring. He wore green silk shorts and a green vest with the springbok emblem on his chest and his hair was freshly cropped into a golden stubble. He swept a quick glance around the ringside seats as he clasped both gloved fists over his head to acknowledge the tremendous burst of applause that greeted him. The German sporting public had accepted him as one of their heroes; this evening he was the champion of white racial supremacy.

He picked out Heidi Kramer almost immediately, for he knew where to expect her, but he did not smile. She looked back at him as seriously, but he felt the strength flow into his body, absorbed from her presence. Then suddenly his gaze switched away from her, and he scowled, rage mingling with the strength of his love.

That woman was here. He always thought of Centaine Courtney as 'that woman'. She sat only three seats away from his beloved Heidi. Her dense dark plume of hair was unmistakable, and she wore yellow silk and diamonds, elegant and poised; he hated her so strongly that he could taste it in his mouth, like gall and alum.

Why does she always come to hound me? he wondered.

She had been there in the crowd more than once during the other matches he had fought, and always that tall arrogant man, with large nose and ears, sat beside her.

Centaine was watching him with that disconcerting enigmatic expression in her dark eyes that he had come to recognize so well. He turned his back on her deliberately, trying to convey the full force of his contempt and hatred, and watched Cyrus Lomax climb into the ring across from where he stood.

The American had a well-muscled body the colour of milk chocolate, but his magnificent head was all African, like one of those antique bronze castings of an Ashanti Prince, with deep-domed brow and wide-spaced eyes, thick lips sculpted into the shape of an Assyrian war bow, and a broad flat nose.

He wore the red, white and blue stars and stripes on his chest and there was an air of menace about him.

This one is the worst you will ever meet, Uncle Tromp had warned Manfred. If you can beat him, you can beat them all. The referee called them to the centre of the ring and announced them and the crowd roared at Manfred's name.

He felt strong and indomitable as he went back to his corner.

Uncle Tromp smeared Vaseline on his cheeks and eyebrows and slipped the red gumshield into his mouth.

He slapped Manfred's shoulder, an open-handed stinging blow that was like the goad to the bull and he hissed in his ear.

Fast as a mamba! Brave as a ratel! Manfred nodded, mouthing the bulky rubber shield, and went out to the chime of the gong, into the hot white glare of lights. The American came to meet him, stalking him like a dark panther.

They fought matched and equal, they fought close and hard, blows with the power to maim and stun slipping by just a shade wide, sensing each other's intention with almost supernatural concentration and shifting the head, pulling back, ducking, using the spring of the ropes, blocking with forearm and glove and elbows, neither ever quite connecting but both of them hostile and quick and dangerous.

The gong tolled the rounds, five, six and seven, Manfred had never been forced to fight this long. Always his victories had come swiftly, ending in that sudden barrage of blows that smashed his opponent into the canvas. However, the hard training that Uncle Tromp had imposed upon him had given him long wind, and toughened his legs and arms. He felt strong and invulnerable still, and he knew it had to come soon. He had only to wait it out. The American was tiring. His punches no longer snapped with quite the same velocity. The mistake must come and Manfred waited for it, containing his passionate hunger to see the American's blood.

it came halfway through the seventh round.

The American threw one of those straight hissing lefts, and not even seeing it, sensing it with animal instinct, Manfred reared back pulling in his chin and the blow brushed his face but stopped short.

Manfred was poised on the balls of his feet, with his weight back but ready to move forward, his right arm was cocked, the fist clenched like a blacksmith's hammer, and the American was a hundredth part of a second slow on the recovery. Seven hard rounds had tired him and he dragged a fraction, and his right side was open. Manfred could not see the opening, it was too minute, too fleeting, but again that instinct triggered him and experience guided his arm; he knew by the set of the American's shoulders, the angle of his arm and the cock of his head where the opening was.

it was too quick for conscious decision, and the punch was already launched before he could think but the decision was made instinctively and it was to end it in one.

Not his usual two-handed, swarming battering finish, but the single stroke, decisive and irretrievable, that would end it all.

It began in the great elastic muscles of his calves and thighs, accelerating like a stone in the swing of a slingshot through the twist of his pelvis and spine and shoulders, all of it channelled into his right arm like a wide roaring river trapped in a narrow canyon; it went through the American's guard and burst into the side of his dark head with a force that made Manfred's teeth clash together in his own skull.

It was everything he had, all his training and experience, all his strength, all his guts and his heart and every finely tuned muscle was behind that blow, and it landed solid and cleanly.

Manfred felt it go. He felt the bones of his right hand break, snapping and crackling like dry twigs, and the pain was a white electric thing that flared back up his arm and filled his head with flames. But in the pain was triumph and soaring joy for he knew it was over. He knew he had won.

The flames of agony cleared from his vision and he looked to see the American crumpled on the canvas at his feet, but the wild soaring of his heart stopped and turned to a plunging stone of despair. Cyrus Lomax was still on his feet. He was hurt and staggering, his eyes dull and sightless, his legs filled with cotton waste and his skull with molten lead, tottering on the very brink, but he was still on his feet.

Kill him! screamed the crowd. Kill him! Manfred could see how little it needed, just one more with the right hand, for the American was out on his feet, just one more. But there was no more, nothing left. The right hand was gone.

The American was reeling about drunkenly, bouncing off the ropes, knees sagging and then by some immense effort of will recovering again.

The left hand. Manfred summoned it all, everything that remained. I've got to take him with the left. And through his own agony he went after him again.

He threw the left hand, going for the head, but the American smothered it with an uncoordinated forward lunge, and he threw both arms around Manfred's shoulders and clinched him, clinging to him like a drowning man. Manfred tried to throw him off and the crowd noise was a berserk thunder, the referee shouting above it Break! Break! but the American held on just long enough.

When the referee got them apart, Cyrus Lomax's eyes were sighted and focused; and he backed away in front of Manfred's desperate efforts to land with the left hand, and the bell rang.

What is it, Manie? Uncle Tromp seized him and guided him to his corner. You had him beaten. What went wrong? My right, Manfred mumbled through the pain, and Uncle Tromp touched it, just above the wrist and Manfred almost screamed. The hand was ballooning, the swelling spreading up the arm even as they stared at it.

I'm throwing in the towel, Uncle Tromp whispered. You can't fight with that hand! Manfred snarled at him, No! His eyes were fierce and yellow as he looked across the ring to where they were working on the dazed American, cold compresses and sal volatile, slapping his cheeks, talking to him, talking him round.

The bell rang for the start of the eighth round and Manfred went out and saw with despair the new strength and coordination with which the American was moving. He was still afraid and uncertain, backing off, waiting for Manfred's attack, but getting stronger every minute, obviously puzzled at first by Manfred's failure to use the right hand again, and then realization dawning in his eyes.

You all gone, he growled in Manfred's ear in the next clinch. 'No right hand, white boy. I'm going to eat you up now! His punches started hurting, and Manfred began to back away. His left eye was closing up and he could taste the coppery salt of blood in his mouth.

The American shot out a hard straight left-hander, and instinctively Manfred blocked with his right, catching the blow on his glove; the pain was so intense that blackness shaded his vision and the earth tipped under him, and the next time he was afraid to block with the right and the American's punch got through and slammed into his injured eye. He could feel the swelling hanging on his face like a bloated blood-sucking tick, a fatpurple grape that closed the eye completely and the bell rang to end the eighth round.

Two more rounds, Uncle Tromp whispered to him, compressing the swollen eye with an ice-pack. Can you see it out, Manie? Manfred nodded and went out to the gong for the ninth and the American came eagerly to meet him, too eagerly, for he dropped his right hand for the big punch and Manfred beat him to it, slamming in a hard left-hander that jolted Lomax back on his heels.

If he had had the use of his right hand Manfred could have taken him yet again, following up in that raging cross storm of blows that no opponent could survive, but the right was maimed and useless, and Lomax ducked away, backing off, recovering and circling in again, working on Manfred's eye, trying to cut it open and with the last punch of the round he succeeded. He slashed the fat purple sac that closed the eye with a glancing left, catching it with the inside of the glove, ripping it open with the cross hatching of the laces, and it burst. A sheet of blood poured down Manfred,s face and splashed over his chest.

Before the referee could hold them up to examine the damage, the gong sounded and Manfred staggered back to his corner as Uncle Tromp rushed out to meet him.

I'm going to stop it,he whispered fiercely as he examined the terrible wound. You can't fight with that, you could lose the eye., 'If you stop it now, Manfred told him, I will never forgive you. His voice was low, but the fire in his yellow eyes warned Tromp Bierman that he meant every word. The old man grunted. He cleaned the wound, and applied a styptic pencil. The referee came to examine the eye, turning Manfred's face to the light.

Can you go on? he asked quietly.

For the Volk and the Ffthrer, Manfred answered him softly, and the referee nodded.

You are a brave man! he said and signalled for the fight to continue.

That last round was an eternity of agony, the American's blows sledge-hammered Manfred's body, laying bruises on top of deep seeping bruises, each of them sapping Manfred further, reducing his ability to protect himself from the blows that followed.

Each breath was fresh agony as it stretched the torn muscles and ligaments of his chest and burned the soft tissue of his lungs. The pain in his right hand flowed up his arm and mingled with the pain of each new blow, and darkness lapped the vision of his single remaining eye so that he could not see the punches coming. The agony roared like a rushing wind in his eardrums, but still he stayed on his feet. Lomax pounded him, smashing his face to raw meat, and still he stayed on his feet.

The crowd was outraged, their blood lust turned to pity and then to horror. They were shouting for the referee to stop this atrocity, but still Manfred stayed on his feet, making pathetic fumbling efforts to punch back with his left hand, and the blows kept crashing into his blind face and broken body.

At last, too late, much too late, the gong rang to end it and Manfred De La Rey was still on his feet. He stood in the centre of the ring, swaying from side to side, unable to see, unable to feel, unable to find his way back to his own corner, and Uncle Tromp ran out to him and embraced him tenderly. Uncle Tromp was weeping, tears running shamelessly into his beard as he led Manfred back.

My poor Manie, he whispered. I should never have let you. I should have stopped it!

On the opposite side of the ring Cyrus Lomax was surrounded by a crowd of well-wishers. They laughed and slapped his back, and Lomax did a weary little dance of triumph, waiting for the judges to confirm his victory, but shooting troubled glances across the ring at the man he had destroyed.

As soon as the announcement was made he would go to him, to express his admiration for such a show of raw courage.

Achtung! Achtung! The referee had the judges cards in one hand and the microphone in the other. His voice boomed over the loudspeakers. Ladies and gentlemen. The winner of the Olympic Gold Medal on points is, Manfred De La Rey of South Africa. There was a tense incredulous silence in the vast hall that lasted for three beats of Manfred's racing heart, and then a storm of protest, a roar of outrage and anger, of booing and foot-stamping. Cyrus Lomax was rushing around the ring like a madman, shaking the ropes, shouting at the judges, dancing with dismay, and hundreds of spectators were trying to climb into the ring to stage an impromptu demonstration against the decision.

Colonel Boldt nodded at somebody near the back of the hall and the squads of brown-shirted storm troopers moved quic backkly down the aisles and surrounded the ring, driving the angry mob and clearing a corridor to the dressingrooms down which Manfred was hustled.

Over the loudspeaker the referee was attempting to justify the decision. Judge Krauser scored five rounds to De La Rey, one round drawn and four rounds to Lomax, but nobody was listening to him, and the uproar almost drowned out the full volume of the loudspeakers.

The woman must be five or six years older than you are,, Uncle Tromp said carefully, choosing his words. They were walking in the Tegel Gardens and autumn's first chill was in the air.

She is three years older than I am, Manfred replied. But that makes no difference, Uncle Tromp. All that matters is that I love her and she loves me. His right hand was still in plaster and he carried it in a sling.

Manie, you are not yet twenty-one years of age, you cannot marry without the permission of Your guardian. You are my guardian, Manfred pointed out, turning his head to watch him steadily with that disconcerting topazyellow gaze and Uncle Tromp dropped his eyes.

How will you support your wife? he asked.

The Reich's Department of culture has granted me a scholarship to finish my law degree here in Berlin. Heidi has a good job in the Ministry of Information and an apartment, and I will box professionally to earn enough to live on until I can begin my career as a lawyer. Then we will return to South Africa. You have planned it all, Uncle Tromp sighed, and Manfred nodded; his eyebrow was still knotted with crusty black scab, and he would be scarred for life. He touched the injury now as he asked, You will not deny me your permission, will you, Uncle Tromp? we will marry before you leave to go home, and we both want you to be the one to marry us. I am flattered. Uncle Tromp looked distraught. He knew this lad, how stubborn he was once he had set on a course.

To argue further would merely confirm his decision.

You are a father to me, Manfred said simply. And yet more than a father. Your blessing would be a gift without price. Manie! Manie! said Uncle Tromp. You are the son I never had, I want only what is best for you. What can I say to persuade you to wait a little – not to rush into this thing. There is nothing which will dissuade me. Manie, think of your Aunt Trudi, I know she would want me to be happy, Manfred cut in.

Yes, I know she would. But, Manie, think also of little Sarah, 'What of her? Manfred's eyes went fierce and cold and he thrust out his jaw, defiant with his own guilt.

Sarah loves you, Manie. She has always loved you, even I have been able to see that. Sarah is my sister, and I love her. I love her with a brother's love. I love Heidi with the love of a man, and she loves me as a woman loves. I think you are wrong, Manie. I have always thought that you and Sarah, Enough, Uncle Tromp. I don't want to hear any more. I will marry Heidi, I hope with your permission and blessing.

Will you make those your wedding gifts to us, please, Uncle Tromp? And the old man nodded heavily, sadly. I give you both my permission and my blessing, my son, and I will marry you with a joyous heart.

Heidi and Manfred were married on the bank of the Havel

Lake in the garden of Colonel Sigmund Boldt's home in the Granewald. It was a golden afternoon in early September with the leaves turning yellow and red at the first touch of autumn. To be there both Uncle Tromp and Roelf Stander had stayed over when the Olympic teams scattered for home, and Roelf stood up with Manfred as his best man while Uncle Tromp conducted the simple ceremony.

Heidi was an orphan so Sigmund Boldt gave her away, and there were a dozen or so of Heidi's friends, most of them her superiors and colleagues in the Ministry of Propaganda and Information, but there were others, her cousins and more distant relatives in the black dress uniforms of the elite SS divisions, or the blue of the Luftwaffe or the field grey of the Wehrmacht, and pretty girls, some of them in the traditional peasant-style dirndls of which the Nazi Party so strongly approved.

After the short and simple Calvinistic ceremony that Uncle Tromp conducted, there was an al fresco wedding banquet provided by Colonel Boldt, under the trees, with a four-piece band wearing Tyrolean hats and lederhosen. They played the popular Party-approved music of the day, alternating with traditional country airs, and the guests danced on the temporary wooden floor which had been laid over the lawn.