Rage

by Wilbur Smith

  He jerked his mind back to the present, to hear his manager saying, ‘So the position is now that the government has issued four factory licences to catch and process pilchards at Walvis Bay. The Department of Fisheries allocates an annual quota to each of the licensees, which is presently two hundred thousand tons.’ Shasa contemplated the enormous profit potential of those quantities of fish. According to their published accounts, each of those four factories had averaged two million pounds profit in the last fiscal year. He knew he could improve on that, probably double it, but it didn’t look as though he was going to get the chance.

  ‘Approaches to both the Fisheries Department, and to higher authority’ – Shasa had taken the administrator of the territory himself to dinner — ‘have elicited the firm fact that no further licences will be issued. The only way to enter the industry would be to buy out one of the licensees.’ Shasa smiled sardonically for he had already sounded out two of the companies. The owner of the first one had told Shasa in movingly eloquent terms to commit an unnatural sexual act on himself and the other had quoted a figure at which he might be prepared to negotiate which ended with a string of zeros that reached to the horizon. Despite his gloomy expression, it was the kind of situation in which Shasa revelled, seemingly hopeless, and yet with the promise of enormous rewards if he could find his way around the obstacles.

  ‘I want a detailed breakdown of balance sheets on all four companies,’ he ordered. ‘Does anybody know the Director of Fisheries?’

  ‘Yes, but he’s straight up and down,’ Frank warned him, knowing how Shasa’s mind worked. ‘His fists are tight closed, and if we try to slip him a little gifty, he’ll raise a stink they’ll smell in the High Court in Bloemfontein.’

  ‘Besides which the issue of licences is outside his jurisdiction,’ the company secretary agreed with him. ‘They are granted exclusively by the ministry in Pretoria, and there won’t be any more. Four is the limit. That is the decision of the Minister himself.’

  Five more days Shasa remained in Windhoek, covering every possible lead or chance with a total dedication to detail that was one of his strengths, but at the end of that time he was no closer to owning a factory licence at Walvis Bay than he had been when he had first spotted the little white trawlers out on the green ocean. The only thing he had achieved was to forget that malignant little sprite Kitty Godolphin for ten whole days.

  However, when at last he admitted to himself that there was nothing more to be gained by staying on in Windhoek and he climbed into the pilot’s seat of the Mosquito, Kitty Godolphin’s memory mocked him from the empty seat beside him. On impulse, instead of laying a course direct to Cape Town, he detoured westwards, heading for the coast and Walvis Bay, determined to have one long look at the site before finally abandoning the idea.

  There was something else besides Kitty’s memory that plagued him as the Mosquito dropped down the escarpment towards the sea. It was a burr of doubt, a prickle of discomfort that he had overlooked something important in his investigations.

  He saw the ocean ahead, wreathed in tendrils of fog where the cold current brushed the land. The high dunes writhed together like a nest of razor-backed vipers, the colour of ripe wheat and copper, and he banked the Mosquito and followed the endless beaches upon which the surf broke in regular snowy lines until he saw the horn of the bay spike into the restless ocean and the lighthouse on Pelican Point winked at him through the fog banks.

  He throttled back the Rolls-Royce Merlins and went down, brushing the tops of the scattered fog banks and in the gaps he saw the trawler fleet at work. They were close in to the land, on the edge of the current line. Some of the boats had their nets full, and he saw the silver treasure glittering through the water as the trawlermen raised it slowly to the surface, while over them hung a shimmering white panoply of seabirds, greedy for the feast.

  Then a mile away he picked out another boat hunting, cutting a foaming arabesque with its wake as it stalked yet another pilchard shoal.

  Shasa pulled on flap and banked the Mosquito steeply, turning above the trawler to watch the hunt develop. He saw the shoal, a dark shadow as though a thousand gallons of ink had been spilled into the green waters, and he was amazed by its size, a hundred acres of solid fish, each individual no longer than his hand, but in their multitudes dwarfing leviathan.

  ‘Millions of tons in one shoal,’ he whispered. As he translated it into terms of wealth, the acquisitive passion flared up in him again. He watched the trawler beneath him throw its net around a tiny part of the gigantic shoal, and then he levelled out and flew at a hundred feet, skimming the fog banks, towards the maw of the bay. There were the four factory buildings, standing on the edge of the water, each with its own jetty thrusting out into the shallow waters, and black smoke billowing from the chimney stacks of the furnaces.

  ‘Which one belonged to old De La Rey?’ he wondered. On which of those flimsy structures had he fought with Manfred and ended with his ears and nose and mouth filled with fish slime? He grinned ruefully at the memory.

  ‘But surely it was further north,’ he puzzled, trying to cast his mind back twenty years. ‘It wasn’t down here so close to the hook of the bay.’ He banked the Mosquito and flew back parallel to the beach, and then a mile ahead he saw the line of palings, rotted and black, running in an irregular line out into the waters of the bay, and on the beach the roofless old ruins of the factory.

  ‘It’s still there,’ he realized, and instantly his skin prickled with excitement. ‘It’s still there, deserted and forgotten all these years.’ He knew then what he had overlooked.

  He made two more passes, so low that the blast of his propellers raised a miniature sandstorm from the tops of the dunes. On the seaward wall of the derelict factory whose corrugated iron covering was gnawed and streaked with red rust, he could still make out the faded lettering: SOUTH WEST AFRICAN CANNING AND FISHING CO. LTD.

  He pushed on throttle and lifted the Mosquito’s nose into a gentle climbing turn, bringing her out of the turn on course for Windhoek. Cape Town and his promise to his sons and Isabella to be home before the weekend were forgotten. David Abrahams had flown the Dove back to Johannesburg, leaving a few minutes before Shasa that morning, so there was nobody in Windhoek whom Shasa would trust to conduct the search. He went down to the registrar of deeds himself and an hour before the deed office closed for the weekend he found what he was looking for.

  The licence to capture and process pilchards and all other pelagic fish was dated 20 September 1929 and signed by the administrator of the territory. It was made out in favour of one Lothar De La Rey of Windhoek, and there was no term of expiry. It was good now and for all time.

  Shasa stroked the crackling, yellowing document, smoothing out the crumples in it lovingly, admiring the crimson revenue stamps and the administrator’s fading signature. Here in these musty drawers it had lain for over twenty years — and he tried to put a value on this scrap of paper. A million pounds, certainly — five million pounds, perhaps. He chuckled triumphantly and took it to the deeds clerk to have a notorized copy made.

  ‘It will cost you a pretty penny, sir,’ the clerk sniffed. ‘Ten and six for the copy and two pounds for the attestation.’

  ‘It’s a high price,’ Shasa agreed, ‘but I can just afford it.’

  Lothar De La Rey came bounding up the wet black rocks, surefooted as a mountain goat, dressed only in a pair of black woollen bathing trunks. In one hand he carried a light fishing rod and in the other he held the trace on the end of which a small silver fish fluttered.

  ‘I’ve got one, Pa,’ he called excitedly, and Manfred De La Rey roused himself. He had been lost in thought; even on this, one of his rare vacations, his mind was still concentrated on the work of his ministry.

  ‘Well done, Lothie.’ He stood up and picked up the heavy bamboo surf rod that lay beside him. He watched his son gently unhook the small bait fish and hand it to him. He took it from him. It was cold and firm and slippery, a
nd when he pressed the sharp point of his large hook through its flesh, the tiny dorsal fin along its back came erect and its struggles were frantic.

  ‘Man, no old kob will be able to resist that.’ Manfred held the live bait up for his son to admire. ‘It looks so good, I could eat it myself.’ He picked up the heavy rod.

  For a minute he watched the surf break on the rocks below them, and then timing his moment he ran down to the edge, moving lightly for such a big man. The foam sucked at his ankles as he poised, and then swung the bamboo rod in a full whipping action. The cast was long and high, the live bait sparkled as it spun a parabola in the sunlight and then hit the green water a hundred yards out, beyond the first line of breakers.

  Manfred ran back as the next wave dashed head-high at him. With the rod over his shoulder and line still streaming from the big Scarborough reel he beat the angry white surf and regained his seat high up on the rocks.

  He thrust the butt of the rod into a crack in the rocks and jammed his old stained felt hat against the reel to hold it. Then he settled down on his cushion with his back to the rock and his son beside him.

  ‘Good kob water,’ he grunted. The sea was discoloured and cloudy, like home-made ginger beer, the perfect conditions for the quarry they were seeking.

  ‘I promised Ma we would bring her a fish for pickling,’ Lothar said.

  ‘Never count your kob before it’s in the pickle barrel,’ Manfred counselled, and the boy laughed.

  Manfred never touched him in front of others, not even in front of his mother and the girls, but he remembered the enormous pleasure it had given him when he was Lothar’s age to have his own father’s embrace, and so at times when they were alone together like this he would let his true feelings show. He let his arm slip down off the rock and fall around the boy’s shoulders and Lothar froze with joy and for a minute did not dare to breathe. Then slowly he leaned closer to his father and in silence they watched the tip of the long rod nod in rhythm to the ocean.

  ‘And so, Lothie, have you decided what you want to do with your life when you leave Paul Roos?’ Paul Roos was the leading Afrikaans medium school in the Cape Province, the South African equivalent of Eton or Harrow for Afrikaners.

  ‘Pa, I’ve been thinking.’ Lothar was serious. ‘I don’t want to do law like you did, and I think medicine will be too difficult.’

  Manfred nodded resignedly. He had come to terms with the fact that Lothar was not academically brilliant, but just a good average student. It was in all the other fields that he excelled. Already it was clear that his powers of leadership, his determination and courage, and his athletic prowess were all exceptional.

  ‘I want to join the police,’ the boy said hesitantly. ‘When I finish at Paul Roos, I want to go to the police academy in Pretoria.’

  Manfred sat quietly, trying to hide his surprise. It was probably the last thing he would have thought of himself.

  At last he said. ‘Ja, why not! You’d do well there.’ He nodded. ‘It’s a good life, a life of service to your country and your Volk.’ The more he thought about it, the more he realized that Lothar was making a perfect choice – and of course, the fact that his father was Minister of Police wouldn’t hurt the boy’s career either. He hoped he would stick to it. ‘Ja,’ he repeated, ‘I like it.’

  ‘Pa, I wanted to ask you—’ Lothar started, and the tip of the rod jerked, bounced straight, and then arced over boldly. Manfred’s old hat was thrown clear of the spinning reel as the line hissed from it in a blur.

  Father and son leapt to their feet and Manfred seized the heavy bamboo and leaned back against it to set the hook.

  ‘It’s a monster,’ he shouted, as he felt the weight of the fish, and the flow of line never checked, even when he thrust the palm of the leather mitten he wore against the flange of the reel to brake it. Within seconds blue smoke burned from the friction of reel and leather glove.

  When it seemed that the last few turns of line would be stripped from the spindle of the reel, the fish stopped, and two hundred yards out there under the smoky grey waters it shook its head doggedly so the rod butt kicked against Manfred’s belly.

  With Lothar dancing at his side, howling encouragement and advice, Manfred winched in the fish, pumping the rod to recover a few turns of line at a time, until the reel was almost full again and he expected to see the quarry thrashing in the surf below the rocks. Then suddenly the fish made another long heavy run, and he had to begin the laborious back-straining task all over again.

  At last they saw it, deep in the water below the rocks, its side shining like a great mirror as it caught the sun. With the rod bent taut as a longbow, Manfred forced it up until it flapped ponderously, washing back and forth in the suck and thrust of the waves, gleaming in marvellous iridescent shades of rose and pearl, its great jaws gaping with exhaustion.

  ‘The gaff!’ Manfred shouted. ‘Now, Lothie, now!’ and the boy sprang down to the water’s edge with the long pole in his hands and buried the point of the gaff hook into the fish’s shoulder, just behind the gills. A flush of blood stained the waters pink, and then Manfred threw down his rod and jumped down to help Lothar with the gaff pole.

  Between them they dragged the fish, flapping and thumping, up the rocks above the high-water mark.

  ‘He’s a hundred pounds if he’s an ounce,’ Lothar exulted. ‘Ma and the girls will be up till midnight pickling this one.’

  Lothar carried the rods and the fishing box while Manfred slung the fish over his shoulder, a short loop of rope through its gills, and they trudged back around the curve of white beach. On the rocks of the next headland, Manfred lowered the fish for a few minutes to rest. Once he had been Olympic light heavyweight champion, but he had fleshed out since those days, his belly was softening and spreading and his breath was short.

  ‘Too much time behind my desk,’ he thought ruefully, and sank down on a black boulder. As he mopped his face he looked around him.

  This place always gave him pleasure. It grieved him that he could find so little time in his busy life to come here. In their old student days he and Roelf Stander, his best friend, had fished and hunted on this wild unspoiled stretch of coast. It had belonged to Roelfs family for a hundred years, and Roelf would never have sold the smallest piece of it to anybody but Manfred.

  In the end he had sold Manfred a hundred acres for one pound. ‘I don’t want to get rich on an old friend,’ he had laughed away Manfred’s offer of a thousand. ‘Just let us have a clause in the contract of sale that I have a right of first option to buy it back at the same price at your death or whenever you want to sell.’

  There beyond the headland on which they sat was the cottage that he and Heidi had built, white stucco walls and thatch, the only sign of human habitation. Roelf’s own holiday house was hidden beyond the next headland, but within easy walking distance so they could be together whenever both families were on holiday at the same time.

  There were so many memories here. He looked out to sea. That was where the German U-boat had surfaced when it had brought him back in the early days of the war. Roelf had been on the beach, waiting for him, and had rowed out in the darkness to fetch him and his equipment ashore. What mad exciting days those had been, the danger and the fighting, as they had struggled to raise the Afrikaner Volk in rebellion against the English-lover Jan Christiaan Smuts, and to declare South Africa a republic under the protection of Nazi Germany – and how very close they had come to success.

  He smiled and his eyes glowed at the memory. He wished he could tell the boy about it. Lothie would understand. Young as he was, he would understand the Afrikaner dream of republic and he would be proud. However that was a story that could never be told. Manfred’s attempt to assassinate Jan Smuts and precipitate the rebellion had failed. He had been forced to fly the country, and to languish for the rest of the war in a far-off land, while Roelf and the other patriots had been branded traitors and hustled into Jannie Smuts’ internment camps, humiliated and re
viled until the war ended.

  How it had all changed. Now they were the lords of this land, although nobody outside the inner circle knew the part that Manfred De La Rey had played in those dangerous years. They were the overlords, and once again the dream of republic burned brightly, like a flame on the altar of Afrikaner aspirations.

  His thoughts were broken up by the roar of a low-flying aircraft overhead, and Manfred looked up. It was a sleek blue and silver machine, turning away steeply to line up for the airstrip that lay just beyond the first line of hills. The airstrip had been built by the Public Works department when Manfred had achieved full ministerial rank. It was essential that he was in close contact with his department at all times, and from that landing-field an Air Force plane could fetch him within hours if he was needed in an emergency.

  Manfred recognized this machine and knew who was flying it, but frowned with annoyance as he stood up and hefted the huge carcass of the fish again. He treasured the isolation of this place, and fiercely resented any unwarranted intrusion. He and Lothar set off on the last leg of the long haul back to the cottage.

  Heidi and the girls saw them coming, and ran down the dunes to meet them and then surrounded Manfred, laughing and squealing their congratulations. He plodded up the soft dunes, with the girls skipping beside him, and hung the fish on the scaffold outside the kitchen door. While Heidi went to fetch her Kodak camera, Manfred stripped off his shirt which was stained with fish blood and.stooped to the tap of the rainwater tank and washed the blood from his hand and the salt from his face.