by Wilbur Smith
This morning Garry was red-eyed with exhaustion and his jowls were covered with a dense dark pelt of new beard. However, he sat up in his pyjamas and listened with attention while Michael read to him, and when he had finished Garry put on his spectacles and sat solemnly reading it through for himself while Michael brewed coffee on the gas-ring in the corner.
It's funny, isn't it,' Garry said at last. 'How we just take them for granted. They are there, working the shifts at the Silver River or harvesting the grapes at Weltevreden, or waiting on table. But you never think of them as actually having feelings and desires and thoughts the same as we do - not until you read something like this." 'Thank you, Garry,' Michael said softly.
'What for?" 'That's the greatest compliment anybody has ever paid me,' Michael said.
He saw very little more of Garry that weekend. Garry spent the Saturday morning at the deeds registry until that office closed at noon and then went on up to the Courtney building to take over the computer as soon as the company programmers went off for their weekend.
He let himself back into the flat at three the next morning and' climbed into the bottom end of Michael's bed. When they both awoke late on the Sunday morning, Michael suggested, 'Let's go out to Zoo Lake. It's a hot day and the girls will be out in their sundresses." He offered the bait deliberately for he was desperate for Garry's company, lonely and suffering from a sense of anti-climax after all the worry and uncertainty previous to the printing of the 'Rage' article and the subsequent apparent lack of any reaction to it.
'Hey, Mickey, I'd love to come with you -but I want to do something on the computer. It's Sunday, I'll have it to myself all day." Garry looked mysterious and self-satisfied. 'You see, I'm on to something, Mickey. Something incredible, and I can't stop now." Alone Michael caught the bus out to Zoo Lake. He spent the day sitting on the lawns reading and watching the girls. It only made him feel even more lonely and insignificant. When he got back to his dreary little flatlet, Garry's bag was gone and there was a message written with soap on his shaving mirror: 'Going back to Silver River.
Might see you next weekend. G." When Michael walked into the Mail's offices on the Monday morning he found that those members of the newspaper's staff who had arrived ahead of him were gathered in a silent nervous cluster in the middle of the newsroom while half a dozen strangers were going through the filing cabinets and rifling the papers and books on the desks. They had already assembled a dozen large cardboard cartons of various papers, and these were stacked in the aisle between the desks.
'What is happening?" Michael asked innocently, and his sub gave him a warning glance as he explained.
'These are police officers of the security branch." 'Who are you?" The plain-clothes officer who was in charge of the detail came across to Michael, and when he gave his name the officer checked his list.
'Ah, yes - you are the one we want. Come with me." He led Michael down to Leon Herbstein's office and went in without knocking.
There was another stranger with Herbstein. 'Yes, what is it?" he snapped, and the security policeman answered diffidently.
i!~
'This is the one, Captain." The stranger frowned at Michael, but before he could speak Leon Herbstein interrupted quickly.
'It's all right, Michael. The police have come to serve a banning order on the Saturday edition with the "Rage" article in it, and they have a warrant to search the offices. They also want to talk to you, but it's nothing to worry about." 'Don't be too sure of that,' said the police captain heavily. 'Are you the one who wrote that piece of commie propaganda?" 'I wrote the "Rage" article,' Michael said clearly, but Leon Herbstein cut in.
'However, as the editor of the Golden City Mail it was my decision to print it, and I accept full responsibility for the article." The captain ignored him and studied Michael for a moment before going on. 'Man, you are just a kid. What do you know, anyway?" 'I object to that, Captain,' Herbstein told him angrily. 'Mr Courtney is an accredited journalist --' 'Ja,' the captain nodded, 'I expect that he is." But he went on addressing Michael, 'What about you? Do you object to coming down to Marshall Square police headquarters to help us with our investigations?" Michael glanced at Herbstein and he said immediately, 'You don't have to go, Michael. They don't have a warrant for your arrest." 'What do you want from me, Captain?" Michael hedged.
'We want to know who told you all that treasonable stuff you wrote about." 'I can't disclose my sources,' Michael said quietly.
'I can always get a warrant if you refuse to cooperate,' the captain warned him ominously.
'I'll come with you,' Michael agreed. 'But I won't disclose my sources. That's not ethical." 'I'll be down there with a lawyer right away, Michael,' Herbstein promised. 'You don't have to worry, the Mail will back you all the way." 'All right. Let's go,' said the police captain.
Leon Herbstein accompanied Michael down the newsroom and as they passed the cartons of impounded literature the captain observed gloatingly, 'Man, you've got a pile of banned stuff there, Karl Marx and Trotsky even - that's really poisonous rubbish." 'It's research material,' said Leon Herbstein.
'Ja, try telling that to the magistrate,' the captain chortled.
As soon as the doors of the elevator closed on the captain and Michael, Herbstein trotted heavily back to his office and snatched up the telephone.
'I want an urgent call to Mr Shasa Courtney in Cape Town. Try his home at Weltevreden, his office in Centaine House and his ministerial office at the houses of parliament." He got through to Shasa in his parliamentary suite and Shasa listened in silence while Herbstein explained to him what had happened.
'All right,' Shasa said crisply at the end of it. 'You get the Associated Newspapers lawyers down to Marshall Square immediately, then ring David Abrahams at Courtney Mining and tell him what has happened. Tell him I want a massive reaction, everything we have got. Tell him also that I will be flying up immediately in the company jet. I want a limousine at the airport to meet me, and I will go to see the minister of police at the Union Buildings in Pretoria the minute I arrive." Even Leon Herbstein, who had seen it all before, was impressed by the mobilization of the vast resources of the Courtney empire.
At ten o'clock that evening Michael Courtney was released from interrogation on the direct orders of the minister of police and when he walked out of the front entrance of Marshall Square headquarters he was flanked by half a dozen lawyers of formidable reputation who had been retained by Courtney Mining and Associated Newspapers.
At the Pavement Shasa Courtney was waiting in the back seat of the black Cadillac limousine. As Michael climbed in beside him, he said grimly, 'It is possible, Mickey, to be a bit too bloody clever for your own good. Just what the hell are you trying to do? Burn down everything we have worked for all our lives?" 'What I wrote was the truth. I thought you, of all people, would understand, Pater." 'What you wrote, my boy, is incitement. Taken by the wrong people and used on simple ignorant black folk, your words could help to open a Pandora's box of horrors. I want no more of that sort of thing from you, do you hear me, Michael?" 'I hear you, Pater,' Michael said softly. 'But I can't promise to obey you. I'm sorry, but I have to live with my own conscience." 'You are as bad as your bloody mother,' said Shasa. He had sworn twice in as many minutes, the first time in his life that Michael had ever heard his father use coarse language. That and the mention of his mother, also the first time Shasa had done so since she left, silenced Michael completely. They drove without speaking to the Carlton Hotel. Shasa only spoke again when they were in his permanent suite.
'All right, Mickey,' he said with resignation. 'I take that back.
I can't demand that you live your life on my terms. Follow your conscience, if you must, but don't expect me to come rushing in to save you from the consequences of your actions every time." 'I have never expected that, sir,' Michael said carefully. 'And I won't in future either." He paused and swallowed hard. 'But all the same, sir, I want to thank you for what you did. You have alwa
ys been so good to me." 'Oh Mickey, Mickey!" Shasa cried, shaking his head sorrowfully.
'If only I could give you the experience I earned with so much pain.
If only you didn't have to make exactly the same mistakes I made at your age." 'I am always grateful for your advice, Pater,' Michael tried to placate him.
'All right then, here's a piece for nothing,' Shasa told him. 'When you meet an invincible enemy you don't rush headlong at him, swinging with both fists. That way you merely get your head broken.
What you do is you sneak around behind him and kick him in the backside, then run like hell." 'I'll remember that, sir,' Michael grinned, and Shasa put his arm around ,his shoulders. 'I know you smoke like a bush fire, but can I offer you a drink, my boy?" 'I'll have a beer, sir." The next day Michael drove out to visit Solomon Nduli at Drake's Farm. He wanted to have his views on the 'Rage' article, and tell him of the consequences he had suffered at Marshall Square.
That was not necessary. Solomon Nduli somehow knew every detail of his detention and interrogation and Michael found he was a celebrity in the offices of Assegai magazine. Nearly every one of the black journalists and magazine staff wanted to shake his hand and congratulate him on the article.
As soon as they were alone in his office, Solomon told him excitedly, 'Nelson Mandela has read your piece and he wants to meet you." 'But heis wanted by the police - he's on the run." 'After what you wrote, he trusts you,' Solomon said, 'and so does Robert Sobukwe. He also wants to see you again." Then he noticed Michael's expression, and the excitement went out of him as he asked quietly, 'Unless you think it's too dangerous for you." Michael hesitated only a moment. 'No, of course not. I want to meet them both. Very much." Solomon Nduli said nothing. He simply reached across the desk and clasped Michael's shoulder. It was strange what a pleasurable sensation that grip gave Michael, the first comradely gesture he had ever received from a black man.
Shasa banked the HS 125 twin-engined jet to give himself a better view of the Silver River Mine a thousand feet below.
The headgear was of modern design, not the traditional scaffolding of steel girders with the great steel wheels of the haulage exposed. It was instead a graceful unbroken tower of concrete, tall as a tenstorey building, and around it the other buildings of the mine complex, the crushing works and uranium extraction plant and the gold refinery, had been laid out with equal aesthetic consideration.
The administration block was surrounded by green lawns and flowering gardens, and beyond that there were an eighteen-hole golf course, a cricket pitch and a rugby field for the white miners. An Olympic-size swimming-pool adjoined the mine club and single quarters. On the opposite side of the property stood the compound for the black mineworkers. Here again Shasa had ordered that the traditional rows of barracks be replaced by neat cottages for the senior black staff and the bachelor quarters were spacious and pleasant, more like motels than institutions to house and feed the five thousand tribesmen who had been recruited from as far afield as Nyasaland in the north and Portuguese Mozambique in the east. There were also soccer fields and cinemas and a shopping complex for the black employees, and between the buildings were green lawns and trees.
The Silver River was a wet mine and each day millions of gallons of water were pumped out of the deep workings and these were used to beautify the property. Shasa had reason to be proud.
Although the main shaft had intersected the gold-bearing reef at great depth - more than a mile below the surface - still the ore was so rich that it could be brought to the surface for enormous profit.
What's more, the price could not be pegged at $35 per ounce for much longer. Shasa was convinced that it would double and even treble.
'Our guardian angel,' Shasa smiled to himself as he levelled the wings of the HS 125, and began his preparations for the landing.
'Of all the blessings that have been heaped upon this land, gold is the greatest. It has stood us through the bad times, and made the good times glorious. It is our treasure and more, for when all else fails, when our enemies and the fates conspire to bring us down, gold glows with its bright particular lustre to protect us. A guardian angel indeed." Although the company pilot in the right-hand seat watched critically, for Shasa had only converted to jets within the last twelve months, Shasa brought the swift machine in to the long blue tarmac strip with casual ease. The HS 125 was painted in silver and blue with the stylized diamond logo on the fuselage, just as the old Mosquito had been. It was a magnificent machine. With its seating for eight passengers and its blazing speed, it was infinitely more practical than the Mosquito, but Shasa still occasionally mourned her loss. He had flown over five thousand hours in the old Mosquito before at last donating her to the airforce museum, where, restored to her combat camouflage and armaments, she was one of the prime exhibits.
Shasa rolled the glistening new jet down to the hangar at the far end of the strip, and reception committee was out to meet him headed by the general manager of the Silver River, all of them holding their ears against the shrill wall of the engines.
The general manager shook Shasa's hand and said immediately, 'Your son asked me to apologize that he wasn't able to meet you, Mr Courtney.
He is underground at the moment, but asked me to tell you he will come up to the guest house as soon as he gets off shift." The general manager, emboldened by Shasa's smile of paternal approval, risked a pleasantry. 'It must run in the family, but it's difficult to get the little blighter to stop working, we almost have to tie him down." There were two guest houses, one for other important visitors to the mine, and this one set aside exclusively for Shasa and Centaine.
It was so sybaritic and had cost so much that embarrassing questions had been put to Shasa at the annual general meeting of the company by a group of dissident shareholders. Shasa was totally unrepentant. 'How can I work properly if I'm not allowed at least some basic comforts? A roof over my head - is that too much to ask?" The guest house had its own squash court and heated indoor pool, cinema, conference room, kitchens and wine cellar. The design was by one of Frank Lloyd Wright's most brilliant pupils and Hicks had come out from London to do the interior. It housed the overflow of Shasa's art collection and Persian carpets from Weltevreden, and the mature trees in the landscaped garden had been selected from all over the country to be replanted'here. Shasa felt very much at home in this little pied-a-terre.
The underground engineer and the chief electrical engineer were already waiting in the conference room and Shasa went straight in and was at work within ten minutes of landing the jet. By eight o'clock that evening he had exhausted his engineers and he let them go. Garry was waiting next door in Shasa's private study, filling in the time playing with the computer terminal, but he leapt up as Shasa ú walked in.
'Dad, I'm so glad I've found you. I've been trying to catch up with you for days - I'm running out of time." He was stuttering again.
These days he only did that when he was wildly over-excited.
'Slow down, Garry. Take a deep breath,' Shasa advised him, but the words kept tumbling out, and Garry seized his father's hand and led him to the computer to illustrate what he was trying to put across.
'You know what Nana has always said, and what you are always telling me about land being the only lasting asset, well--' Garry's powerful spatulate fingers rippled over the computer keys. Shasa watched with curiosity as Garry presented his case, but when he realized what the boy was driving at, he quickly lost interest and concentration.
However, he listened to it all before he asked quietly, 'So you have paid for the option with your own money?" 'I have it signed, here!" Garry brandished the document. 'It cost me all my savings, over two thousand pounds just for a one-week option." 'Let me recap, then,' Shasa suggested. 'You have spent two thousand pounds to acquire a one-week option on a section of agricultural ground on the northern outskirts of Johannesburg which you intend to develop as a residential township, complete with a shopping complex, theatres, cinemas and all
the trimmings--' 'There is at least twenty million pounds of profit in the development - at the very least." Garry manipulated the computer keyboard and pointed to the rippling green figures. 'Just look at that, Dad!" 'Garry! Garry!" Shasa sighed. 'I think you have just lost your two thousand pounds, but the experience will be worth it in the long run.
Of course, there is twenty million profit in it. Everybody knows that, and everybody wants a piece of that action. It's just for that reason that there is such strict control on township development. It takes at least five years to get government approval for a new township, and there are hundreds of pitfalls along the way. It's a highly complex and specialized field of investment, and the outlay is enormous millions of pounds at risk. Don't you see, Garry? Your piece of land is probably not the best available, there will be a dozen other projects ahead of yours and township development just isn't one of the areas which we deal in--' Shasa broke off and stared at his son. Garry was flapping his hands and stuttering so badly that Shasa had to warn him again, 'Big breath." Garry gasped and his barrelchest expanded until his shirt buttons strained. It came out quite clearly.
'I already have approval,' he said.
'That takes years - I've explained." Shasa was brusque. He began to rise. 'We should change for dinner. Come on." 'Dad, you don't understand,' Garry insisted. 'Approval has already been granted." Shasa sat down slowly. 'What did you say?" he asked quietly.
'Township approval was granted in 1891 by the Volksraad of the old Transvaal republic. It was signed by President Kruger himself, but it is still perfectly legal and binding. It was just forgotten, that is all." 'I don't believe it." Shasa shook his head. 'How on earth did you get on to this, Garry?" 'I was reading a couple of old books about the early days of the Witwatersrand and the gold-mines. I thought that if I was going to learn mining, the very least I could do was bone up on the history of the industry,' Garry explained. 'And in one of the books there was a mention of one of the old Rand lords and his grandiose idea of building a paradise city for the very rich away from the coarse and rowdy centre of Johannesburg. The author mentioned that he had actually bought a six-thousand-acre farm and had it surveyed and that approval had been granted by the Volksraad, and then the whole idea had been abandoned." 'What did you do then?" 'I went to the archives and looked up the proceedings of the Volksraad for the years 1889 to 1891 and there it was - the approval.