Hold My Hand I'm Dying

by John Gordon Davis

  ‘Okay, Mac’

  The orderly put his head back inside his door and bellowed down the cell corridor. ‘Tagwisa—!’

  From down the corridor the distant hollow voice of the black constable: ‘Sah?’

  ‘Bring the Death Sentence boy.’

  ‘Yassah.’

  The prison officer flapped the collar of his tunic. ‘Cor-er, ‘ot ain’t it?’

  ‘Yeah,’ the orderly said.

  ‘Pity to have to make this special trip down ‘ere to fetch this chap, what wi’ petrol rationing an’ all,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah,’ the orderly said.

  The orderly spotted Mahoney’s cigarette glowing in the darkness.

  ‘That you, Mr. Mahoney? I thought you’d gone home!’

  ‘No,’ Mahoney said, walking forward into the light.

  ‘Evenin’, Mr. Mahoney,’ the prison officer said, ‘’ot enough for you, sir?’

  ‘Just about.’

  ‘Fink it’ll rain then?’

  The orderly cleared his throat.

  ‘Did you see your boy all right, sir?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mahoney said, ‘I’ve just left him, I’ve only been waiting out here a few minutes.’

  The prison officer looked at Mahoney.

  ‘Wot – is ‘e your boy, then?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mahoney said.

  ‘Cor-er,’ the prison officer said.

  ‘Treat him gently,’ Mahoney said quietly, ‘he’s a good chap.’

  The prison officer looked surprised.

  ‘Okay, sir,’ he said slowly. ‘Don’tcha worry about that. They get V.I.P treatment until they’re dropped. Special food and cigarettes and all.’

  ‘I’ve given him about sixty cigarettes,’ Mahoney said. ‘Let him keep them on him, at least for tonight.’

  ‘I’ll try, sir,’ the prison officer said, surprised.

  The big gate at the end of the cell corridor rattled and the prison officer said: ‘Well, better be gettin’ along, then,’ and climbed up into the truck and started it and revved the engine over. A black prison corporal was standing at the back of the truck at the door.

  The iron gate of the cell corridor swung open and Samson Ndhlovu stepped through with his hands manacled in front of him. He stepped out into the darkness of the courtyard. He saw Mahoney standing there.

  Mahoney walked over to him. The truck was grumbling.

  ‘Well – good-bye, induna.’

  ‘Good-bye, Nkosi.’

  They stood awkwardly for a moment, with the orderly and the black constable hovering in the background. Then Mahoney put his new cigarette in Ndhlovu’s mouth. Then he clapped his hands quietly and Samson patted one hand with the other.

  ‘Stay well, induna.’ It sounded a silly thing to say.

  ‘Stay well, Nkosi.’

  Mahoney shifted his feet and then he nodded to the orderly. The orderly came forward.

  ‘Okay, Samson,’ he said gently.

  Samson coughed and started walking to the truck. The black corporal took his elbow and helped him climb up because he could not use his hands very well. He crouched into the dark truck and the corporal clanged the door shut behind him and the prison officer revved the engine.

  ‘Farewell all,’ the prison officer called out the window.

  Mahoney moved round the back of the truck. He could see Samson sitting at the wire mesh. The truck gave a big growl and began to rumble forward. Then Samson turned and shouted to Mahoney above the roar.

  ‘Nkosi—’

  ‘Yes?’ Mahoney waved to the orderly. ‘Tell him to cut the engine.’ The engine cut. ‘Yes?’ Mahoney said.

  Samson cleared his throat. He spoke down through the mesh.

  ‘Nkosi? – can I still appeal?’

  ‘Of course, induna,’ Mahoney said.

  Samson cleared his throat again.

  ‘Nkosi,’ he said, ‘can you please give me a note in the Nkosi’s handwriting, for the prison, to tell them I am going to appeal—’

  Mahoney shook his head.

  ‘It is not necessary, old man.’

  ‘But,’ Samson frowned – ‘if you do not they will hang me.’

  Mahoney shook his head.

  ‘Not yet, old man.’

  Samson frowned worriedly.

  ‘But are they not going to hang me tonight?’

  Mahoney’s stomach contracted. You poor bastard, you poor old bastard! Have you been sitting in that cell thinking you were going to get the chop tonight? And all you do is ask for a note. Christ. This is Africa. Give me a note, Bwana. Give me a note, the white man’s magic, the thing that opens doors, the thing that explains everything, the passport from one white man to another. Give me a note to the shopkeeper telling him you want a pound of sugar. Give me a note, Bwana, to the hospital telling the ma-dokitari that I have a pain in my stomach. Give me a note to the prison, Bwana, explaining to the Bwana at the prison that he mustn’t hang me tonight.

  Mahoney nodded.

  ‘They will not do anything to you for at least three months, old man. But,’ he nodded kindly, ‘I will give a note to the driver now, just to make sure. Do not worry.’

  Samson looked relieved.

  ‘Thank you, Nkosi.’

  Mahoney raised his hand.

  He went to the front of the truck.

  ‘Tell the boy if he asks you that I have given you a note for the superintendent,’ he said.

  The officer winked and started the engine. The truck coughed and rumbled away down the dark alleyway.

  He stood in the darkness watching the big blue shape disappear. He could not make out the man in the back behind the wire mesh. Then the truck got to the corner into the lamplight. The light shone on the wire mesh and he could see Samson Ndhlovu. He raised a hand and waved and Samson raised his manacled wrists once.

  Good-bye, you poor old bastard.

  He turned and walked back into the courtyard. His eyes were burning.

  Christ, he thought, I want a beer.

  He put his knuckles once to his eyes and squeezed, then he walked into the orderly’s office and picked up the telephone and dialled a number.

  ‘Get your fat ass down to the Long Bar, Paddy,’ he said brusquely, ‘we’re off the wagon,’ and he hung up without waiting for a reply.

  He walked up the alleyway and turned right into wide Jameson Avenue. The streetlights were burning cheerily yellow and down the bottom the neon lights were flashing. Fly BOAC. Fly CAA. Fly UAT. Fly, fly away, my boy, while yet there is time. He looked at the statue of Cecil John Rhodes standing in the middle of Jameson Avenue and he wondered why the old buzzard was facing west instead of north, like all his other statues. Cape to Cairo Rhodes. Then he smiled grimly and gave a short laugh. Why, of course – Rhodes’s facing West because the country’s going that way.

  He crossed and walked along and turned down into the Long Bar. The first person he saw sitting on a barstool was Solomon Otto Berger, very red and bulbous in the nose. He dropped his hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Where you bin these last three months?’ Solly demanded.

  ‘On the wagon,’ Mahoney said. ‘Doctor’s orders. Ulcer, liver, the works. Barman—’

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  ‘Fight?’ Mahoney said. He was a little drunk. He snorted-laughed. ‘Hah. Sure we can fight. You can put up a magnificently heroic show fighting it, Solomon, sure. But can you win, Solomon? And if you win, can you kill it, Solomon? ‘Cos if you can’t win the fight, Solomon, or if once you’ve won you’ve got to spend the rest of your life watching out for a stab in the back, there’s no sense in fighting in the first place, is there, Solomon?’

  Jacqueline’s attention was divided between arguing with Mahoney and worrying about the beer. He had had eight already, she wanted to get some food inside him.

  ‘The Jews are fighting successfully in Israel,’ she said.

  ‘The Jews, my dear girl,’ Mahoney said, ‘happen to number three million. And the Jews are fighting external aggre
ssion only, not internal and external. Mrs. Cohen in Jerusalem isn’t afraid that little Izadore will have his throat cut by the cookboy. Mrs. Cohen does her own cooking. And most of the world is rooting for little old Israel, not trying to push her under. And the Jews, my dear girl, are tough cookies. They all get with it on kibbutzim and things, and the dollies tote guns against their tanned bulging thighs. They don’t live on two acres in Greendale with four servants and two motor cars.’ He took a long pull on his beer.

  ‘Well,’ Jackie said – she wriggled on the barstool defiantly – ‘I’ll stay and fight.’

  Mahoney leaned out and patted her unkindly on the back.

  ‘You do that, girl. You do that small thing. But first let me tell you the kind of fighting you’re going to be doing. There’ll be no beating of drums, no stirring tramp tramp of boots through the streets as the soldiers march off to war. There’ll be no boom of cannons at the front, no Florence Nightingale stuff for you to do up there in the trenches; there’ll be no sandbags and machine-guns in the Main Street. The war you’re going to fight is going to be a scream in the night, pulling your gun out from under your pillow when you hear a roof timber creak in the night. The way you’re going to fight is with bars on your windows and your kids sleeping in the same locked bedroom as you. You’re going to fight it with your pistol next to your soup plate in case your cookboy chops open your head when he brings the meat and potatoes to the dinner table. You’re going to have your pistol balancing on the wash-basin when you sneak into the bathroom to put in your Dutch cap at nights so you don’t have babies—’

  Jackie blinked.

  ‘—you’re going to fight this war by driving your children to and from school because you daren’t let them cycle. And there’ll be no Sunday drives and picnics, I’m afraid. And your husband – well, you won’t see your husband very much, I’m afraid. He’ll be out most nights patrolling on Police Reserve duties, if he’s lucky, or more likely he’ll be out there in the Zambezi Valley trying to shoot guerillas.

  ‘You see, Jacqueline, it’s not going to be a real war like the Spanish Civil War or like Tshombe’s war in the Congo. You aren’t going to see much of the enemy. There’s not going to be much to shoot at, Jackie. It’s going to be a war of terror, Jackie. You fighters will knock off one or two, even maybe one or two thousand over a year, but it won’t make any difference, Jackie, because there’ll be plenty more where they came from. Look at my friend Samson Ndhlovu. They made him do it, Jackie. So Samson Ndhlovu gets the chop. So what? There are plenty more Samson Ndhlovus in this world for the wide boys to use.’

  Mahoney took a sip of his beer.

  ‘It’s going to be like Kenya, Jackie,’ he explained maddeningly – ‘it’s not going to be like Israel or like the wars the pioneers fought in their laagers. In our case it’s going to be worse than Kenya, Jackie, much much worse. Because the Kenya settlers at least were doing their fighting legally, Great Mother Britain and the rest of the civilised world were on their side. Britain even sent troops to help. But not us, Jackie. We’re outlaws. Everybody’s against us. The wog who throws a petrol bomb in your child’s bedroom window and bums him alive will be applauded by many for attacking the outlaws. And even if – and I repeat if – Britain and the United Nations don’t actually send soldiers, they’ll still be imposing sanctions. We’ll be ground down economically and physically. And mentally. That’s the kind of war you’ll be fighting, Jackie. That’s the worst kind of war. It is much better to have soldiers to fight against. And shall I tell you something? You can’t win, Jackie.’

  Mahoney took a long pull out of his glass. Jackie was glaring at him.

  ‘I wish,’ she said slowly, ‘that you would not speak to me in that maddening way as if I were a child—’

  ‘Sorry, kid—’ Mahoney said coolly.

  ‘Why can’t we win?’ she cried. ‘Why, why why? – we’ve got right on our side—’

  ‘Sure, Jackie, we’ve got most of the right on our side here. We’ve got a multi-racial society, or almost multi-racial, the wogs can go to our cinemas and into our pubs and there’s nothing to stop a black man becoming Prime Minister right now provided he can gather the votes. Etcetera, etcetera. But don’t you see honey, that what is right or wrong doesn’t happen to matter at the moment. It doesn’t happen to matter to the politicians. What matters to the politicians is money and power. And it happens to suit their purpose to make this the decade for Let’s Stop Being Beastly to the Blacks, so that they can make money in Africa and keep the Communists out. It’s more profitable and easier to be nice to the wogs than beastly at the moment. So if all the black countries say they want to see black men rule Rhodesia, okay, everybody else’ll back them to keep all palsy-walsy—’

  ‘Why doesn’t everybody else bombard South Africa, then, to keep in palsy-walsy with the blacks?’

  ‘Because South Africa is too important at the moment. Nice gold and diamonds. Strong army to keep the Communists at bay. South Africa’ll become expendable in due course, too, but it suits the overseas politicians to be reasonable with the South Africans at the moment and just say Shame-on-you to them every now and again to keep the blacks happy.’

  Jackie was looking at him intrigued, then she shook her head. ‘Oh come on, now, Joe, it is not as simple as that, don’t believe it. There is some sincerity in this politics business.’

  Mahoney laughed softly. ‘You think so? At dear old ladies’ tea-parties, yes, and among those students at their bloody college debates, yes. Even among the parliamentary back-benchers, maybe. But not, not, my girl, in the front benches where the brass sit. Not in the conference room at No. 10 Downing Street. Not in Wall Street and Threadneedle Street. Not even in the Kremlin. What matters in those inner temples is money, kid, and how to keep making it. Why is Britain selling arms and ammunition to Cuba? To the Viet Cong for Chrissake? To South Africa? America and Britain are big friends and America is at war with the Viet Cong and at war with Cuba! But Britain is selling arms to the Communists! Why? Because it suits Britain’s purpose, and her purpose is to make money. It doesn’t matter that people will get killed. Britain hopes America will win the war in Vietnam, because then she’ll be better able to trade in the Far East, but in the meantime she’ll help the Commies fight the Yanks because it’s good business. Britain doesn’t want Cuba to undermine America too much, but Britain likes Cuba needling America ‘cos then Britain can sell arms to Cubans. She’ll only stop selling arms if the other side looks like winning, because if the Yanks actually lose, then Britain’ll lose a good trading partner. The Yanks would do the same to Britain, given a chance. Don’t think for one moment, my girl, that the British Government has got its bowels in an uproar about the sorry lot of the poor black man here. The British Government only wants to keep the black Commonwealth happy so they can still get their cocoa beans from Ghana and sell their trinkets to Tanzania. Until she gets into the European Common Market.’ He turned to Solly. ‘Right, Solly?’

  Solly nodded his head. ‘I guess that’s pretty much right,’he said.

  ‘Sure it’s right,’ Mahoney said.

  He turned back to Jackie. He tapped his forefinger on the counter.

  ‘There’ll never be any peace now, Jackie, you’ll always have your pistol dangling at your podgy thigh, my girl. You can’t win. Not even the South Africans can, let alone little old us.’

  He looked at her.

  ‘And,’ he said, ‘I’m not going to beat my brains out trying. I’ll sit back somewhere and read about your efforts in the newspaper.’

  Jackie was looking steadily into his eyes and her eyes were hard.

  ‘So!’ she said. ‘So. That’s that. What exactly are you going to do, pray?’

  Mahoney shrugged and snapped his fingers for the barman.

  ‘Same again here, Alfonse.’

  ‘Do?’ He sat back on his barstool and held his arms out and made an airplane noise. ‘Get the hell out of it, that’s what.’

  ‘To?’
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  ‘Hong Kong,’ he said, ‘or Jamaica.’

  ‘Jamaica,’ she said scornfully. ‘Hong Kong. And do what?’

  ‘Lawyer,’ Mahoney said complacently. ‘Magistrate or Crown Counsel or something. Write. That’s what I’ll do, write. Get a soft job as a magistrate and write. Wonderful life, Hong Kong. No wogs.’

  Jackie looked away.

  ‘Wonderful life is right. Drink, you mean. Women, you mean. That’s what you’ll do in Hong Kong. All the nice English girls will love you with your blarney and all the nice little yum yum girls too. You’ll go to the dogs and end up a no-good whisky-tanned colonial servant. Excuse me—’

  She jumped off the stool and picked up her handbag and walked down the Long Bar to the Ladies’ room.

  Part Nine

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  It takes about three months to get around to hanging a man, from the day he’s sentenced, to that Friday morning at nine o’clock sharp. There is a lot of red tape. First, the shorthand writer’s record must be transcribed, then the appeal has to be argued, then the Executive Council has to consider granting the Royal Prerogative of Mercy, warrants have to be signed and countersigned, then the condemned is given some time in which to make his peace with his Maker. A lot of things happen to a man in Death Row in three months.

  Death Row in Salisbury Central Prison is a two-storeyed rectangular fortress. There are two floors of cells in Death Row, on either side of the building, and at the far end is an exercise yard with very high walls. At the end of the south row of cells is the gallows chamber. The gallows occupies two floors; they take you in the upper door and they carry you out the bottom. The cells on the top floor look across at the stout wooden doorway of the gallows chamber. Nearly every Thursday evening a man was taken from his cell and put in the holding cell next door to the gallows chamber, nearly every Friday morning the condemned men heard the hangman arrive early. They went to the grids of their cell doors and peered through and they saw the hangman enter the gallows chamber and close the door behind him. Then they listened and they could hear him shuffling around in there, rigging his rope, and then they waited and they heard a loud clanging thud as he tested the trapdoor once. Then they saw him come out again and lock the door behind him and tramp down the iron staircase and they heard the iron door clang behind him as he went out to wait and have a cup of coffee, maybe. Then they waited a long time. There were people coming and going, priests and warders, and sometimes they took the man out of the holding cell to the lavatory, for there is no lavatory in the holding cell lest he find a way of injuring himself with it. Then they heard the big iron door open again and the heavy tramp and the clanging of boots climbing the stairs and then the senior prison officials and the doctors and the hangman again came into view, and they opened the gallows chamber and filed into it and closed the door behind them. Then the other prisoners started singing and wailing and chanting. Then at one minute to nine o’clock the gallows chamber door opened and the hangman came out with a priest and two prison warders. They opened the door of the holding cell and sometimes there was the sound of a struggle and sometimes shouts. And then they brought him out of the cell with his hands cuffed behind his back and they marched him through the gallows chamber doorway, and as soon as they had passed through the door was shut again, and everybody stopped singing in the other cells. There was half a minute of silence, then the big loud clanging bang again, and a moment later a thud. And the wailing started again, and you could hear it even outside the prison walls.