by Wilbur Smith
He rested awhile before repacking the altar chest. He stuffed his dirty overalls into the empty explosives compartment and placed the transmitter on top of them where he could reach it quickly. It would be a few minutes’ work to retrieve it, connect it to the loose wire that was concealed behind the row of encyclopaedias, close the circuit and fire the detonator in the chamber below. He had calculated that Shasa’s office was far enough from the centre of the blast, and that there were sufficient walls and cast concrete slabs between to cushion the effects of the explosion and ensure his own survival, but the chamber itself would be totally devastated. A good day’s work indeed, and as the light in the room faded, he settled down on the sofa and pulled the blanket up over his shoulders.
At dawn he roused himself and made one last check of the office, glancing ruefully up at the insignificant spiderweb of cracks in the ceiling. He gathered up his packages, then he let himself out through the panel door and went to the men’s toilet.
He washed and shaved in one of the basins. Tara had provided a razor and hand towel in the packet of food. Then he donned his chauffeur’s jacket and cap and locked himself in one of the toilets. He could not wait in Shasa’s office for Tricia would come in at nine o’clock, nor could he leave until the House activity was in full swing and he could pass out through the front doors unremarked.
He sat on the toilet seat and waited. At nine o’clock he heard footsteps passing down the passage. Then somebody came in and used the cubicle next to his, grunting and farting noisily. At intervals over the next hour men came in, singly or in groups, to use the basins and urinals. However, in the middle of the morning there was a lull. Moses stood up, gathered his parcels, braced himself, let himself out of the cubicle, and briskly crossed to the door into the passage.
The passageway was empty and he started towards the head of the staircase, and then halfway there he chilled with horror and checked in mid-stride.
Two men came up the stairs, and into the passageway, directly towards Moses. Walking side by side, they were in earnest conversation and the shorter and elder of the two was gesticulating and grimacing with the vehemence of his explanation. The younger taller man beside him was listening intently, and his single eye gleamed with suppressed amusement.
Moses forced himself to walk on to meet them, and his expression fixed into that dumb patient mould with which the African conceals all emotion in the presence of his white master. As they approached each other, Moses stepped respectfully aside to let the two of them pass. He did not look directly at Shasa Courtney’s face, but let his eyes slide by without making contact.
As they came level, Shasa burst out laughing at what his companion had told him.
‘The silly old ass!’ he exclaimed, and he glanced sideways at Moses. His laughter checked and a puzzled frown creased his forehead. Moses thought he was going to stop, but his companion seized his sleeve.
‘Wait for the best bit – she wouldn’t give him his pants until he—’ He led Shasa on towards his own office, and without looking back or quickening his pace, Moses went on down the staircase and out through the front doors.
The Chev was parked in the lot at the top of the lane where he expected it to be. Moses placed his parcels in the back and then went round to the driver’s door. As he slid in behind the steering-wheel, Tara leaned forward from the back seat and whispered:
‘Oh, thank God, I was so worried about you.’
The arrival of Harold Macmillan and his entourage in Cape Town engendered real excitement and anticipation, not only in the mother city but throughout the entire country.
The British Prime Minister was on the final leg of an extensive journey down the length of Africa, where he had visited each of the British colonies and members of the Commonwealth on the continent, of which South Africa was the largest and richest and most prosperous.
His arrival meant different things for different sections of the white population. For the English-speaking community it was an affirmation of the close ties and deep commitment that they felt towards the old country. It reinforced the secure sense of being part of the wider body of the Commonwealth, and the certain knowledge that there still existed between their two countries, who had stood solidly beside each other for a century and more through terrible wars and economic crises, a bond of blood and suffering that could never be eroded. It gave them an opportunity to reaffirm their loyal devotion to the Queen.
For the Nationalist Afrikaners it meant something entirely different. They had fought two wars against the British crown, and though many Afrikaners had volunteered to fight beside Britain in two other wars – Delville Wood and El Alamein were only part of their battle honours – many others, including most members of the Nationalist cabinet, had vehemently opposed the declarations of war against Kaiser Wilhelm and Adolf Hitler. The Nationalist cabinet included members who had actively fought against the Union of South Africa’s war efforts under Jan Smuts, and many now high in government, men like Manfred De La Rey, had been members of the Ossewa Brandwag. To these men the British Prime Minister’s visit was an acknowledgement of their sovereign rights and their importance as rulers of the most advanced and prosperous nation on the continent of Africa.
During his stay Harold Macmillan was a guest at Groote Schuur, the official residence of the South African Prime Minister, and the climax of his visit was to be an address to both houses of the legislature of the Union of South Africa, the Senate and the House of Assembly, sitting together. On the evening of his arrival in Cape Town, the British Prime Minister was to be the guest of honour at a private dinner party to meet the ministers of Dr Verwoerd’s cabinet, the leaders of the Opposition United Party and other dignitaries.
Tara hated these official functions with a passion, but Shasa was insistent. ‘Part of our bargain, my dear. The invitation is specifically for Mr and Mrs, and you promised not to make an ass of me in public.’
In the end she even wore her diamonds, something she had not done in years, and Shasa was appreciative and complimentary.
‘You really are a corker when you take the trouble to spruce up like that,’ he told her, but she was silent and distracted on the drive around the southern slope of Table Mountain to Groote Schuur.
‘Something is worrying you,’ Shasa said as he steered the Rolls with one hand and lit a cigarette with his gold Ronson lighter.
‘No,’ she denied quickly. ‘Just the prospect of saying the right things to a room full of strangers.’
The true reason for her concern was a long way from that. Three hours previously, while Moses drove her back from a meeting of the executive of the Women’s Institute, he had told her quietly, ‘The date and the time has been set.’ He did not have to elaborate. Since she had picked him up outside the Parliament House just after ten o’clock the previous Monday, Tara had been haunted night and day by her terrible secret knowledge.
‘When?’ she whispered.
‘During the Englishman’s speech,’ he said simply, and Tara winced. The logic of it was diabolical.
‘Both houses sitting together,’ Moses went on. ‘All of them, all the slave-masters and the Englishman who is their accomplice and their protector. They will die together. It will be an explosion that will be heard in every corner of our world.’
Beside her Shasa snapped the cap of the Ronson and snuffed out the flame. ‘It won’t be all that unpleasant. I’ve arranged with protocol that you will be Lord Littleton’s dinner partner – you get on rather well with him, don’t you?’
‘I didn’t know he was here,’ Tara said vaguely. This conversation seemed so petty and pointless in the face of the holocaust which she knew was coming.
‘Special adviser on trade and finance to the British government.’ Shasa slowed the Rolls and lowered his side window as he turned into the main gates of Groote Schuur and joined the line of limousines that were moving slowly down the driveway. He showed his invitation to the captain of the guard and received a respectful salute.
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‘Good evening, Minister. Please go straight on down to the front entrance.’
Groote Schuur was High Dutch for ‘The Great Barn’. It had once been the home of Cecil John Rhodes, empire builder and adventurer, who had used it as his residence while he was Prime Minister of the old Cape Colony before the Act of Union in 1910 had united the separate provinces into the present Union of South Africa. Rhodes had left the huge house, restored after it was destroyed by fire, to the nation. It was a massive and graceless building, reflecting Rhodes’ confessed taste for the barbaric, a mixture of different styles of architecture all of which Tara found offensive.
Yet the view from the lower slopes of Table Mountain out over the Cape Flats was spectacular, a field of lights spreading out to the dark silhouette of the mountains that rose against the moon-bright sky. Tonight the bustle and excitement seemed to rejuvenate the ponderous edifice.
Every window blazed with light and the uniformed footmen were meeting the guests as they alighted from their limousines and ushering them up the broad front steps to join the reception line in the entrance lobby. Prime Minister Verwoerd and his wife Betsie were at the head of the line, but Tara was more interested in their guest.
She was surprised by Macmillan’s height, almost as tall as Verwoerd, and by the close resemblance he bore to all the cartoons she had seen of him: the tufts of hair above his ears, the horsy teeth and the scrubby moustache. His handshake was firm and dry and his voice as he greeted her was soft and plummy, and then she and Shasa had passed on into the main drawing-room where the other dinner guests were assembling.
There was Lord Littleton coming to her, still wearing the genteelly shabby dinner jacket, the watered silk of the lapels tinged with the verdigris of age, but his smile was alight with genuine pleasure.
‘Well, my dear, your presence makes the evening an occasion for me!’ He kissed Tara’s cheek and then turned to Shasa. ‘Must tell you of our recent travels across Africa – fascinating,’ and the three of them were chatting animatedly.
Tara’s forebodings were for the moment forgotten, as she exclaimed, ‘Now, milord, you cannot hold up the Congo as being typical of emerging Africa. Left to his own devices, Patrice Lumumba would be an example of what a black leader—’
‘Lumumba is a rogue, and a convicted felon. Now Tshombe—’ Shasa interrupted her and Tara rounded on him, ‘Tshombe is a stooge and a quisling, a puppet of Belgian colonialism.’
‘At least he isn’t eating the opposition like Lumumba’s lads are,’ Littleton interjected mildly, and Tara turned back to him with the battle light in her eyes.
‘That isn’t worthy of somebody—’ She broke off with an effort. Her orders were to avoid radical arguments and to maintain her role as a dutiful establishment wife.
‘Oh, it’s so boring,’ she said. ‘Let’s talk about the London theatre. What is on at the moment?’
‘Well, just before I left I saw The Caretaker, Pinter’s new piece,’ Littleton accepted the diversion, and Shasa glanced across the room. Manfred De La Rey was watching him with those intense pale eyes, and as he caught Shasa’s eye he inclined his head sharply.
‘Excuse me a moment,’ Shasa murmured, but Littleton and Tara were so occupied with each other that they barely noticed him move away and join Manfred and his statuesque German wife.
Manfred always seemed ill at ease in tails, and the starched wing collar of his dress shirt bit into his thick neck and left a vivid red mark on the skin.
‘So, my friend,’ he teased Shasa. ‘The dagos from South America thrashed you at your horse games, hey?’
Shasa’s smile slipped a fraction. ‘Eight to six is hardly a massacre,’ he protested, but Manfred was not interested in his defence.
He took Shasa’s arm and leaned closer to him, still smiling jovially as he said, ‘There is some nasty work going on.’
‘Ah!’ Shasa smiled easily and nodded encouragement.
‘Macmillan has refused to show Dr Henk a copy of the speech he is going to deliver tomorrow.’
‘Ah!’ This time Shasa had difficulty in maintaining the smile. If this was a fact, then the British Prime Minister was guilty of a flagrant breach of etiquette. It was common courtesy for him to allow Verwoerd to study his text so as to be able to prepare a reply.
‘It’s going to be an important speech,’ Manfred went on.
‘Yes,’ Shasa agreed. ‘Maud returned to London to consult with him and help him draw it up, they must have been polishing it up since then.’ Sir John Maud was the British High Commissioner to South Africa. For him to be summoned to London underlined the gravity of the situation.
‘You are friendly with Littleton,’ Manfred said quietly. ‘See if you can get anything out of him, even a hint as to what Macmillan is going to do.’
‘I doubt he knows much,’ Shasa was still smiling for the benefit of anybody watching them. ‘But I’ll let you know if I can find out anything.’
The dinner was served on the magnificent East India Company service, but was the usual bland and tepid offering of the civil service chefs whom Shasa was certain had served their apprenticeship on the railways. The white wines were sweet and insipid, but the red was a 1951 Weltevreden Cabernet Sauvignon. Shasa had influenced the choice by making a gift of his own cru for the banquet, and he judged it the equal of all but the very best Bordeaux. It was a pity that the white was so woefully bad. There was no reason for it, they had the climate and the soil. Weltevreden had always concentrated on the red but he made a resolution to improve his own production of whites, even if it meant bringing in another wine-master from Germany or France and buying another vineyard on the Stellenbosch side of the peninsula.
The speeches were mercifully short and inconsequential, a brief welcome from Verwoerd and a short appreciation from Macmillan, and the conversation at Shasa’s end of the table never rose above such earth-shaking subjects as their recent defeat by the Argentinians on the polo field, Denis Compton’s batting form and Stirling Moss’s latest victory in the Mille Miglia. But as soon as the banquet ended Shasa sought out Littleton, who was still with Tara, drawing out the pleasure of her company to the last.
‘Looking forward to tomorrow,’ he told Littleton casually. ‘I hear your Supermac is going to give us some fireworks.’
‘Wherever did you hear that?’ Littleton asked, but Shasa saw the sudden shift of his gaze and the guarded expression that froze his smile.
‘Can we have a word?’ Shasa asked quietly, and apologized to Tara. ‘Excuse me, my dear.’ He took Littleton’s elbow and chatting amicably steered him through the glass doors on to the paved stoep under the trellised vines.
‘What is going on, Peter?’ He lowered his voice. ‘Isn’t there anything you can tell me?’
Their relationship was intimate and of long standing; such a direct appeal could not be ignored.
‘I will be frank with you, Shasa,’ Littleton said. ‘Mac has something up his sleeve. I don’t know what it is, but he is planning on creating a sensation. The press at home have been put on the alert. It’s going to be a major policy statement, that is my best guess.’
‘Will it alter things between us – preferential trade, for instance?’ Shasa demanded.
‘Trade?’ Littleton chuckled. ‘Of course not, nothing alters trade. More than that I can’t tell you. We will all have to wait for tomorrow.’
Neither Tara nor Shasa spoke on the drive back to Weltevreden until the Rolls passed beneath the Anreith gateway and then Tara asked, her voice strained and jerky, ‘What time is Macmillan making his speech tomorrow?’
‘The special session will begin at eleven o’clock,’ Shasa replied, but he was still thinking of what Littleton had told him.
‘I wanted to be in the visitors’ gallery. I asked Tricia to get me a ticket.’
‘Oh, the session isn’t being held in the chamber – not enough seating. It will be in the dining-room and I don’t think they will allow visitors—’ He broke off and stared
at her. In the reflected light of the headlamps she had gone deathly pale.
‘What is it, Tara?’
‘The dining-room,’ she breathed. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I am. Is something wrong, my dear?’
‘Yes – no! Nothing is wrong. Just a little heartburn, the dinner—’
‘Pretty awful,’ he agreed, and returned his attention to the road.
‘The dining-room,’ she thought, in near panic. ‘I have to warn Moses. I have to warn him it cannot be tomorrow – all his arrangements will have been made for the escape. I have to let him know.’
Shasa dropped her at the front doors of the chateau and took the Rolls down to the garages. When he came back, she was in the blue drawing-room and the servants, who had as usual waited up for their return, were serving hot chocolate and biscuits. Shasa’s valet helped him change into a maroon velvet smoking-jacket, and the housemaids hovered anxiously until Shasa dismissed them.
Tara had always opposed this custom. ‘I could easily warm up the milk myself and you could put on a jacket without having another grown man to help you,’ she complained when the servants had left the room. ‘It’s feudal and cruel to keep them up until all hours.’
‘Nonsense, my dear.’ Shasa poured himself a cognac to go with his chocolate. ‘It’s a tradition they value as much as we do – makes them feel indispensable and part of the family. Besides, chef would have a seizure if you were to mess with his kitchen.’
Then he slumped into his favourite armchair and became unusually serious. He began to talk to her as he had at the beginning of their marriage when they had still been in accord.
‘There is something afoot that I don’t like. Here we stand at the opening of a new decade, the 1960s. We have had nearly twelve years of Nationalist rule and none of my direst predictions have come to pass, but I feel a sense of unease. I have the feeling that our tide has been at full flood, but the turn is coming. I think that tomorrow may be the day when the ebb sets in—’ He broke off, and grinned shamefacedly. ‘Forgive me. As you know, I don’t usually indulge in fantasy,’ he said and sipped his chocolate and his cognac in silence.