by Wilbur Smith
Desmond Blake and Michael Courtney flew down together from Johannesburg on the commercial flight, and while Desmond put a severe strain on the bar service Michael pored over the notebook in which he was roughing out a schedule of all the research into the history of the ANC and the background of Moses Gama and his tribe that he felt they would need.
Centaine Courtney-Malcomess was at the airport to meet the flight. Much to Michael’s embarrassment, she had two servants to carry Michael’s single valise out to the daffodil-yellow Daimler that, as usual, she was driving herself. Since Tara had left, Centaine had once more taken over the running of Weltevreden.
‘The paper has booked rooms for us at the Atlantic Hotel, Nana,’ Michael protested, after he had dutifully embraced his grandmother. ‘It’s very convenient for the law courts and the national library.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Centaine firmly. ‘The Atlantic is a bugrun and Weltevreden is your home.’
‘Father said I wouldn’t be welcome back.’
‘Your father has missed you even more than I have.’
Shasa sat Michael beside him at dinner, and even Isabella was almost totally excluded from their conversation. Shasa was so impressed by his youngest son’s sudden new maturity that the following morning he instructed his broker to purchase another hundred thousand shares in the holding company that owned the Golden City Mail.
Manfred and Heidi dined at Weltevreden the evening before the trial began and while they drank pre-prandial cocktails Manfred expressed the concern that Shasa and Centaine shared.
‘What the prosecution and the court must avoid is allowing the proceedings to deteriorate into a trial not of a murderer and a terrorist, but of our social system and our way of life. The vultures of the international press are already assembled eager to show us in the worst possible light, and as usual to distort and misrepresent our policy of apartheid. I only wish we had some control over the courts and the press.’
‘You know I can’t agree with you on that one.’ Shasa shifted in his chair. ‘The complete independence of our press and the impartiality of our judicial system gives us credibility in the eyes of the rest of the world.’
‘Don’t lecture me. I am a lawyer,’ Manfred pointed out stiffly.
It was strange how despite their enforced and mutually beneficial relationship, they were never truly friends and antagonism was always ready to surface between them. Now it took some little time for the tension to ease, and for them to adopt once more an outward show of cordiality. Only then could Manfred tell Shasa, ‘We have finally agreed with the prosecution not to raise in court the matter of your wife’s involvement with the accused. Apart from the difficulty of beginning extradition proceedings with Britain – she would almost certainly ask for political asylum – there is the consideration of her relationship with Gama. Black man and white woman—’ Manfred’s expression was one of deep disgust. ‘It is repugnant to all decent principles. Raising the subject would not further the prosecution, but would simply give the yellow press something more to drool over. No, it will do none of us any good at all.’ Manfred put special emphasis on this last sentence. It was all that needed to be said, but Shasa did not let it pass.
‘I owe you a great deal – for my son, Sean, and now my wife.’
‘Ja, you owe me a great deal,’ Manfred nodded. ‘Perhaps I will ask you for something in return one day.’
‘I hope so,’ said Shasa. ‘I do not like having outstanding debts.’
Outside the Supreme Court both pavements were filled with people. They were standing shoulder to shoulder and overflowing into the street, complicating the efforts of the traffic wardens and impeding the flow of traffic until it was reduced to a crawl.
A newspaper poster, GUY FAWKES KILLER TRIAL BEGINS TODAY, hung drunkenly from one of the lampposts until it was knocked down by the push of the crowd and trodden underfoot.
The throng was thickest at the colonnaded entrance to the Supreme Court and each time one of the players in the drama arrived the journalists and photographers surged forward. The State Prosecutor smiled and waved to them like a film star, but most of the others, intimidated by the crowds and the exploding flash bulbs and shouted questions, scurried for the entrance and the protection of the police guards.
Only minutes before the court was due to go into session, a chartered bus turned into the slow-moving stream of traffic and came down towards the entrance. The sound of singing grew louder as it approached, the lovely haunting chorus of African voices rising and sinking and weaving the intricate tapestry of sound that thrilled the ears and raised the gooseflesh on the skins of the listeners.
When the bus finally halted in front of the Supreme Court, a young Zulu woman stepped down into the street. She wore a flowing caftan of green and yellow and black, the colours of the African National Congress, and her head was bound in a turban of the same colours.
Her pregnancy had given Vicky a fullness of body that enhanced her natural fine looks. There was no trace left of the shy little country girl. She carried her head high, and moved with all the confidence and style of an African Evita.
The press camera men recognized instantly that they were being presented with an unusual opportunity and they rushed forward with their equipment to capture her dark beauty, and the sound of her voice as she sang the thrilling hymn to freedom.
‘Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika – God Save Africa.’
Behind her, holding hands, and singing, came all the others, some of them white like Molly Broadhurst and some of them Indians and coloured like Miriam and Ben Afrika, but most of them pure African. They streamed up the steps into the courthouse to fill the section of the gallery of the courtroom reserved for non-whites and to overflow into the corridors outside.
The rest of the court was packed with the press and the curious, while a separate section had been set aside for observers from the diplomatic corps. Every one of the embassies was represented.
At every entrance to the court were police guards wearing sidearms, and four policemen of warrant officer rank were drawn up around the dock. The prisoner was a killer and a dangerous revolutionary. They were taking no chances.
Yet when he stepped up into the dock, Moses Gama seemed none of these things. He had lost weight during his imprisonment, but this merely enhanced his great height and the wide angularity of his shoulders. His cheeks were hollow, and the bones of his face and forehead were more prominent, but he stood proudly as ever with his chin up and that dark messianic glow in his eyes.
His presence was so overpowering that he seemed to take possession of the room; the gasp and hum of curiosity as he stood before them was subdued by an almost tangible sense of awe. In the back of the gallery Vicky Dinizulu sprang to her feet and began to sing, and those around her came in with the chorus. As he listened to her beautiful ringing voice, Moses Gama inclined his head slightly, but he did not smile or give any other sign of recognition.
Vicky’s freedom song was interrupted by a cry of ‘Stilte in die hof! Opstaan! Silence in the court! Stand up!’
The Judge-President of the Cape, wearing the scarlet robes which indicated that this was a criminal trial, took his seat on the bench beneath the carved canopy.
Justice André Villiers was a big man with a flamboyant courtroom style. He had a reputation for being a connoisseur of food, good wine and pretty girls. He was also noted for handing down savage sentences for crimes of violence.
Now he slumped massively on the bench and glowered around his court as the charge sheet was read, but his gaze checked momentarily as it reached each female, the length of the pause proportional to the prettiness of the recipient. On Kitty Godolphin he spent at least two seconds and when she smiled her angelic little-girl smile at him, he hooded his eyes slightly before passing on.
There were four main charges on the sheet against Moses Gama, two of attempted murder, and one each of high treason and murder. Every one of these was a capital offence but Moses Gama showed no emotion
as he listened to them read out.
Judge Villiers broke the expectant silence that followed the reading. ‘How do you plead to these charges?’
Moses leaned forward, both clenched fists on the rail of the dock and his voice was low and full of scorn, but it carried to every corner of the crowded court.
‘Verwoerd and his brutal government should be in this dock,’ he said. ‘I plead not guilty.’
Moses sat down and did not raise his eyes while the judge enquired who appeared for the crown, and the prosecutor introduced himself to the court, but when Mr Justice Villiers asked:
‘Who appears for the defence?’ before the advocate whom Vicky and Hendrick Tabaka had retained could reply, Moses sprang to his feet again.
‘I do,’ he cried. ‘I am on trial here for the aspirations of the African people. No other can speak for me. I am the leader of my people, I will answer for myself and for them.’
There was such consternation in the court now, such uproar that for a few moments the judge pounded his gavel in vain, demanding silence, and when it was at last obtained, he threatened them.
‘If there is another such demonstration of contempt for this court, I will not hesitate to have it cleared.’
He turned back to Moses Gama to reason with him and try to persuade him to accept legal representation, but Moses forestalled him.
‘I wish to move immediately that you, Judge Villiers, recuse yourself from this case,’ he challenged, and the scarlet-robed judge blinked and was for a moment stunned into silence.
Then he smiled grimly at the prisoner’s effrontery and asked, ‘On what grounds do you make this application?’
‘On the grounds that you, as a white judge, are incapable of being impartial and fair to me, a black man, forced to submit to the immoral laws of a parliament in which I have no representation.’
The judge shook his head, half in exasperation and half in admiration. ‘I am going to deny your application for recusal,’ he said. ‘And I am going to urge you to accept the very able services of the counsel who has been appointed to represent you.’
‘I accept neither his services, nor the competence of this court to condemn me. For all the world knows that is what you propose. I accept only the verdict of my poor enslaved people and of the free nations out there. Let them and history decide my innocence or guilt.’
The press were electrified, some of them so enchanted that they made no effort to write down his words. None of them would ever forget them. For Michael Courtney sitting in the back row of the press section, it was a revelation. He had lived with Africans all his life, his family employed them by the tens of thousands, but until this moment he had never met a black man of such dignity and awe-inspiring presence.
Judge Villiers sagged down in his seat. He always maintained his place firmly in the centre-stage of his court, overshadowing everybody in it with the ruthless authority of a born actor. Here he sensed he had met an equal. The entire attention of everybody in the court was captivated by Moses Gama.
‘Very well,’ Judge Villiers said at last. ‘Mr Prosecutor, you may proceed to present the case for the crown.’
The prosecutor was a master of his profession and he had an infallible case. He worked it up with meticulous attention to detail, with logic and with skill.
One at a time he submitted his exhibits to the court. The wiring and the electrical detonator, the Tokarev pistol and spare magazines. Although it was considered too dangerous to allow the blocks of plastic explosives and the detonators into the courtroom, photographs were submitted and accepted. The altar chest was too large to bring into court, and again photographs were accepted by Judge Villiers. Then there were the gruesome photographs of Shasa’s office, with Blaine’s covered body against the bookcases and his blood splashed over the carpet, and the wreckage of broken furniture and scattered papers. Centaine turned her face away as the photographs were handed in and Shasa squeezed her arm and tried to shield her from the curious glances.
After all the exhibits had been tabled, the prosecutor called his first witness. ‘I call the Honourable Minister of Mines and Industry, Mr Shasa Courtney.’
Shasa was on the witness stand for the rest of that day and all of the following morning, describing in detail how he had discovered and thwarted the bombing.
The prosecutor took him back to his first childhood meeting with Moses Gama, and as Shasa described their relationship, Moses raised his head and for the first time since he had taken the stand looked directly into Shasa’s face. In vain Shasa searched for the slightest trace of that sympathy they had once shared, but there was none. Moses Gama’s stare was baleful and unwavering.
When at last the prosecutor had finished with Shasa, he turned to the accused. ‘Your witness,’ he said, and Justice Villiers roused himself.
‘Do you wish to cross-examine the witness?’
Moses shook his head and looked away, but the judge insisted. ‘This will be your last opportunity to query or refute the witness’s evidence. I urge you to make full use of it.’
Moses crossed his arms over his chest, and closed his eyes as though in sleep, and from the non-white section of the court there were hoots of laughter and the stamping of feet.
Justice Villiers raised his voice, ‘I will not warn you again,’ and there was silence in the face of his anger.
Over the next four days the prosecutor placed his witnesses on the stand.
Tricia, Shasa’s secretary, explained how Moses had gained entrance to the office suite in the guise of a chauffeur and how on the day of the murder Moses had seized and bound her. How she had watched him fire the fatal shot that killed Colonel Malcomess.
‘Do you wish to cross-examine the witness?’ Judge Villiers asked, and once again Moses shook his head.
Manfred De La Rey gave his evidence and described how he had found Moses Gama with the pistol in his hand and Blaine Malcomess lying on the floor dying. How he had heard him cry, ‘You! You!’ and saw him deliberately fire the pistol at Shasa Courtney.
‘Do you wish to cross-examine the witness?’ the judge asked, and this time Moses did not even look up.
An electrical engineer described the captured equipment and identified the transmitter as being of Russian origin. An explosives expert told the court of the destructive power of the plastic explosives placed beneath the Government benches.
‘In my opinion it would have been sufficient to destroy totally the entire chamber and the adjoining rooms. It would certainly have killed every person in the main chamber, and most of those in the lobby and the surrounding offices.’
After each witness had finished his evidence Moses again refused to cross-examine. At the end of the fourth day the crown had presented its case, and Judge Villiers adjourned the court with one last appeal to the prisoner.
‘When the court reconvenes on Monday, you will be required to answer the charges against you. I must once more impress upon you the grave nature of the accusations, and point out to you that your very life is at stake. Yet again I urge you to accept the services of legal counsel.’
Moses Gama smiled at him with contempt.
Dinner at Weltevreden that evening was a sombre affair. The only one who was unaffected by the day’s events was Garry, who had flown down in the Mosquito from the Silver River Mine for the weekend.
While the rest of the family sat in silence, each of them brooding on the events of these last days and their own particular part in them, Garry was enthusiastically selling to Centaine and Shasa his latest plan for reducing costs at the mine.
‘Accidents cost us money in lost production. I’ll admit that in the last two years our safety record has been about average for the industry as a whole, but if we could cut down our fatalities to one per hundred thousand shifts or better, we could reduce our overall production costs by over twelve per cent. That is twenty million pounds a year. On top of that we would get the added bonus of worker satisfaction and cooperation. I have put all the figures
through the computer.’ Garry’s eyes behind his spectacles glittered as he mentioned that piece of equipment. Shasa had reports from Dave Abrahams and the general manager of the Silver River that Garry sometimes sat all night at one of the terminals of the new IBM computer that the company had at last installed.
‘The lad knows his way around the machine as well, if not better, than any of our full-time operators. He can almost make it sit up and whistle “God Save the Queen”.’ David Abrahams had not attempted to conceal his admiration and Shasa had remarked deprecatingly, to conceal his paternal pride, ‘That will be a redundant accomplishment by next year, when we become a republic.’
‘Oh, Garry, you are being an utter bore,’ Isabella interrupted him at last. ‘All that business about tonnages and pennyweights – at the dinner table, what’s more. No wonder you can’t find a girlfriend.’
‘For once I think Bella is right,’ Centaine said quietly from the end of the table. ‘That’s enough for one night, Garry. I just cannot concentrate at the moment. I think this has been one of the worst weeks of my entire life, having to watch that monster, with Blaine’s blood on his hands, sitting there defying us and making a mockery of our system of justice. He threatens to tear down the whole structure of government, to plunge us all into anarchy and the same savagery of Africa which rent the land before we whites arrived. Then he smirks at us from the dock. I hate him. I have never hated anything or anybody as much as I hate him. I pray each night that they hang him.’
Unexpectedly it was Michael who replied. ‘Yes, we hate him, Nana. We hate him because we are afraid of him, and we are afraid of him because we do not understand him or his people.’
They all stared at him in astonishment.
‘Of course we understand him,’ Centaine said. ‘We have lived in Africa all our lives. We understand them as nobody else does.’
‘I don’t think so, Nana. I think if we had truly understood and listened to what this man had to say, Blaine would be alive today. I think he could have been an ally and not our deadly enemy. I think Moses Gama could have been a useful and highly respected citizen, and not a prisoner on trial for his life.’