‘There was a man standing in the parking lot outside the front guardhouse. When I got to my bakkie he asked who I was and when I told him he gave me some documents. He said he was a Deputy Sheriff and that he was serving me with an interdict. He said I was not to come anywhere near my wife and daughter and if I broke the terms of the interdict I would go to jail. He said I was not to visit or phone. I was not to talk to them except through their lawyer. I asked him how I could speak to my child through a lawyer and he said I must get my own lawyer; he was not there to give me legal advice. Then he threw the documents in the back of the bakkie and walked off.’
‘How did you feel after that episode?’ I asked. This was one of our prepared questions but he was not helpful with his reply at first.
‘I don’t know.’ When he realised I was not satisfied with the answer he added, ‘I did not know what to do.’
I put it to him bluntly, ‘Did you seek advice?’
‘I had no one to talk to.’
I had no intention of letting him hide in self-pity. ‘What about your parents?’
He would not look in their direction and straightened up a little. ‘I thought they would take Magda’s side.’
I took him back to Maximum.
‘What happened at work the next day?’
He thought for a while. ‘The Wednesday was the day before the next hanging. They received their last visits.’
‘Tell the Court what role you played and how the day went.’
‘I was assigned to Wessels. He asked if I could be his escort.’
The Judge looked up sharply at the use of the name but did not say anything. I proceeded as if I had not noticed his reaction.
‘Could you please explain the relationship between you and Wessels and how it came about that he asked for you to be his escort?’
He came up with the prepared answer. ‘I was on duty in C Section and I got to know him well. He was very quiet. We are not supposed to talk to the prisoners but it gets very lonely there, especially in C Section where there are never more than about six or so prisoners. I started talking to him one day when he was writing letters and he talked to me about his family and about the Bible. We also talked about rugby and what we had done at school. I could not understand how someone like him had come to be in there. We became friends, I think. I was very upset when the State President’s letter came. When I was taking him back to his cell after I had taken his measurements and weight he asked me what was going to happen. I said he should not give up hope, he could still ask for a stay of execution, but he said no, he was ready and had made peace with God. He again asked what was to happen. I told him and then he said he would ask the Warrant Officer if I could be his escort because he needed someone to help him to be strong, and to look after him after he was dead. And that is what happened.’
I tried to picture the scene, with the two young men from such similar backgrounds talking about death. ‘So how did you look after Wessels during that time?’ I asked.
‘First I went to read his case record in the archives office. Then I went to speak to him about his case. He wouldn’t talk about it, but he said he would die like Jesus. He kept saying, Ek sal gaan soos Jesus. I asked him what he was talking about, but he would not say. He asked me to stay with him for a while. We read the Bible and I prayed with him. He kept saying over and over, As ek gaan soos Jesus sal God my vergewe.’
Labuschagne stopped and then, almost as an afterthought, added, ‘I asked him if he was innocent, and he said, Ek sal gaan soos Jesus, vir ander se sondes.’
I had to prompt him again. ‘In what other ways were you involved with Wessels before he was hanged?’
Labuschagne had tensed up considerably since the start of the Wessels evidence and his voice had become strained.
‘The next day I took him out for exercise and I took him to the shower when it was his turn. He had been notified he could talk as much as he pleased and he spoke to me while I was on duty, telling me how sorry he was. I also sat in during his family visits. His wife and daughter were the last to visit him. I took him to the visitors’ room in B Section.’
‘How did this visit end?’
Labuschagne was on the verge of tears again. ‘I watched as they said goodbye. I became very emotional, so I turned my back on them, which I wasn’t supposed to do. His daughter kept looking at me. She reminded me of my own daughter. When their time was up I took Wessels back to his cell and came back to escort his wife and daughter out. I walked with them and showed the little girl a rabbit and the tortoise in the garden near the entrance. The little girl wanted to play with the rabbit but all I could allow was to take her for a walk through the greenery and around the pond. Then I signed them out at the main entrance and took them to the parking lot outside. There was someone waiting for them in a car. The little girl kept looking back at me. Then she waved at me. I stood outside the gate and cried. Then I went back in.’
‘What did you do the rest of the day?’
His voice became flat again, devoid of emotion. ‘When I came back in I was told to take Scheepers to the visitors’ room to see his lawyer. They were making an application for a stay of execution. I sat through that interview too. He signed an affidavit before the Warrant Officer. After that I went off duty. When I came in early the next morning I heard that the Judge had said no and we had to take him up with the others that morning.’
‘What were your duties that day, the twenty-sixth?’ I looked at the handwritten list in my hand:
Moatche
Scheepers
Wessels
Mokwena
I had missed Labuschagne’s answer and had to ask him to repeat it.
‘I had to take care of Wessels.’
‘What do you mean, take care of Wessels? Or rather, what did you actually do to take care of him?’
‘I did all the things we do at a hanging.’
He was reluctant to speak on this topic, that was obvious. But I had to drag it out of him.
‘Please start at the beginning. Tell us what you did and how you experienced this execution.’
The tension was visible in the stiffness of Labuschagne’s shoulders and he pursed his lips until they were white. He spoke fast, as he did with most prepared answers.
‘Wessels made me promise that I would take care of him, so I stood at his cell and went in when the Warrant Officer unlocked the door. He was already awake and dressed in his day clothes. Then I took him to the fingerprint table and from there to the chapel. I sat next to him during the service and sang and prayed with him. I told him that he had nothing to fear, that it would be over soon, and that he would feel no pain.’
I let Labuschagne talk. The court was very quiet. The rain was drizzling softly on the roof.
‘When the service was over I cuffed his hands behind his back. He was shivering. I held him steady, not by the sleeve as we usually do, but by the arm, firmly, and I didn’t push and shove him. All the time I spoke softly to him. I walked him up to the gallows. In the room before the gallows room he said goodbye and thank you. He was the last in the line onto the trapdoors, but the first for the rope.’ Labuschagne stifled a sob. ‘I held his arm tightly and he squeezed my hand between his arm and his body. We stood like that until he went down.’
The usher filled the glass and we watched as Labuschagne drank slowly. He had difficulty keeping the glass steady.
Again I tried to picture the scene, two young men in that room, one on the outside of the rail and the other inside on the trapdoors.
‘What then?’ I asked. My own voice had become unreliable.
Labuschagne spoke fast. ‘I went down to the pit and opened his shirt. I took the handcuffs off and undressed him. They pulled him up and lowered him again and I put him on the trolley. I washed him and I put the death shroud on. We put him in his coffin. Then I screwed the lid down and tied his card with his v-number to the handle of the coffin.’
Judge van Zyl had a question. ‘I thought y
ou said earlier that you never used the death shrouds.’ He paged back through his bench book, searching for his note on that evidence.
Labuschagne answered before the Judge could find it. ‘This was the only prisoner I ever dressed in the shroud.’
‘What did you do after placing Wessels in his coffin?’ I asked.
‘I had to help with the others.’
‘How did you treat them in comparison to Wessels?’
‘They just threw the other bodies in their coffins and nailed them shut.’
‘I thought I heard you mention screws.’ I leaned on the lectern.
‘The coffins come with screws but we never used a screwdriver because that would take too much time. We used a hammer.’ He was leaning heavily on the witness box.
It was time for a reminder of the horrors that had become commonplace to Labuschagne and the other escorts. ‘Is there anything in particular that you remember about the bodies after you had taken them down from the ropes?’ I asked.
He closed his eyes and opened them just as quickly. ‘I remember their eyes when we put them on the trolley. They were popping out and I felt them looking at me. I remember their necks were stretched out, and their tongues sticking out. The ears … the rope almost always tears the ear on the left side. I remember this all the time.’
‘What do you mean by remembering this all the time?’
‘I see them every time I close my eyes, during the day, at night, everywhere I go, and even when I sleep.’
I watched the Assessors. They were dutifully taking notes.
‘Carry on,’ I said. ‘Tell the Court how the rest of the day went.’
‘I attended the funeral service with the family and when it was over I escorted them out. Then I collected the paperwork to register the death. After that I buried them, Wessels and Scheepers.’
‘Did anything happen at the cemetery?’
‘Nothing.’
‘What was your state of mind at the end of that day?’
The bluntness of the question on this topic caused Judge van Zyl to look sharply at me. Labuschagne inclined his head, considering his answer.
‘I was tired.’
Labuschagne was not helping and I could not carry his case on my own. I decided to rough him up a bit.
‘What did you feel when you were standing next to Wessels, holding on to his arm, feeling him shake just before he went down?’
‘I felt nothing.’ He was angry, possibly because I had revisited the topic, and his answer could not have been true.
‘Did it cross your mind how similar you were, you and Wessels?’
‘No, I said I felt nothing.’
‘Wessels had a wife, didn’t he, and you had a wife, Magda?’
The yes took a long time to come out.
‘How old was Wessels again?’
‘Nineteen.’
‘And how old were you?’
‘Nineteen.’
I asked the Judge if I could have a word with Wierda and deliberately wasted time talking to him about nothing of importance. Surreptitiously, I kept an eye on Labuschagne. He was looking at his hands; they were gripping the edge of the witness box in front of him.
‘Wessels had a daughter, didn’t he?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you have a daughter.’
This time Labuschagne looked directly at me. ‘Yes,’ he whispered. ‘Esmeralda. But we call her Esmè.’
‘Let me see if I have the facts right,’ I said, keeping an eye on James Murray who had been remarkably patient with my line of questioning. ‘You stood there, next to Wessels, holding his arm, and you felt nothing. Is that right?’
‘Yes,’ he said defiantly. ‘I felt nothing and I thought nothing.’
‘You read the Bible with Wessels and you felt nothing?’
‘I read the Bible with many of them and I felt nothing.’
Wierda passed me a note and I asked Judge van Zyl to give me a moment: Wessels killed a woman. And Labuschagne took Roos de Vos up.
I crumpled the note and put it in my pocket. It would be going too far to ask questions about that. Nevertheless, I decided to hit Labuschagne from another angle.
‘Did you seek advice from anyone about your problems with Magda and her father?’
‘No.’
‘Did you get a lawyer?’
‘No.’
‘Did you try to communicate with Magda?’
‘No, not after they chased me away. What could I do?’
‘Did you tell anyone at Maximum that Magda had left you and had taken Esmè with her?’
‘No. What could they do?’
I ignored the question. My purpose was to establish a sense of hopelessness on his part, despair even. The answers had given me that. I was ready to move on. As I was turning the page in my notebook I became aware of a change in the atmosphere in the court. For a moment I listened carefully. There was no sound, only the faint hush of the air flowing into the courtroom along the ducts and through the vents in the walls. When I listened more closely I could hear the ambient sounds of the city, cars and buses on the Square, but nothing else. The rain had stopped. The spectators had become silent; there was none of the usual coughing and shifting on the hard benches they sat on.
‘Let’s deal with the next two weeks,’ I suggested. ‘What did you do each day?’
‘Work was just like before. Every day was the same. I went to work and then I came home to sleep. Then I would go back to work the next day.’
‘What did you do at home after work?’
‘Nothing.’
‘What did you do for dinner and breakfast?’
Labuschagne thought long before answering. ‘I must have eaten.’
‘Who prepared the food?’ I needed detail.
‘It must have been me.’
‘What else did you do at home?’
‘I told you, nothing. There was nothing to do.’ Labuschagne would not look at me anymore.
‘Well,’ I said, sensing hostility from him to the line of questioning, ‘let’s deal with the matter on a day-to-day basis. What did you do on Friday the twenty-seventh?’
‘I went to work.’
‘What happened there?’
He thought for a moment. ‘We called out the next lot and they went into the Pot.’
‘And after work, when you were at home, what did you do?’
‘Nothing that I can remember.’
‘It was a Friday night. Didn’t you go out drinking with your colleagues like you did before?’
James Murray turned to face me with raised eyebrows. I knew it was a leading question, but he did not object and I was able to return my focus to Labuschagne.
‘No, I did not feel like going out. I went home.’
I pressed on. ‘How did you sleep that night?’
‘I had nightmares.’
‘Please give the Court some details. What was your nightmare about?’
He wouldn’t answer at first. I repeated the question.
‘It was about Wessels,’ he conceded eventually.
‘What about Wessels?’
‘They kept putting the rope around my neck instead of his. I struggled and fought and said it was wrong. When I woke up I felt like I was in a coffin. I couldn’t see anything.’
I watched as he stood with his shoulders slumped and his head down.
‘And Saturday the twenty-eighth? What did you do that day?’ I asked.
‘I stayed at home during the day. I had the second night shift. I was on the catwalk in C Section. I can remember that clearly.’
‘What makes you remember that shift?’
‘It was a very quiet shift and I saw the ghosts in C Section again.’ Labuschagne kept his eyes down. He must have known that we would be sceptical about the ghosts.
‘How did that happen? Could you explain, please?’
‘I looked into Wessels’ cell, but it was empty. I saw movement above the cells, in the catwalk area. I heard creaking
noises. I thought I saw the ghost. It was just a misty, shrouded figure, never straight in front of my eyes, always to the side, but it was definitely there. I sat down and closed my eyes to make it go away. I must have fallen asleep. The next thing the duty officer pushed me over with his foot. He asked what was wrong. I said I was just tired. He told me not to sleep on the job. I decided then to see our pastor after church in the morning.’
‘On Sunday the twenty-ninth, did you go to church?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you see your pastor?’
‘No, he was on leave. There was a young proponent. I couldn’t speak to him. He did not even know my wife.’
‘What did you want to discuss with your pastor?’
‘I wanted him to speak to Magda and her father.’
‘Why did you not get an attorney to do that for you?’
‘I had no money.’ He added, ‘It had nothing to do with the law. It was about my family.’
I followed the cue. ‘Why didn’t you ask your own family to help?’
‘I didn’t think of that.’ Still he could not bring himself to look in the direction of his parents in the well of the court behind the dock. ‘I didn’t want them to know, I think.’
‘Whose fault was it that your marriage broke down? What did you think?’
‘At the time I thought it was Magda’s fault. I know I had got drunk a few times, that I had stayed out late, that I had pushed her around even, and that I had sworn at her father, but that wasn’t serious. In the court documents she said it was my fault.’
‘What do you think now, whose fault was it?’ I asked.
‘Now I think it must have been my fault, except I didn’t know what was wrong.’ He shook his head. ‘I just don’t know what’s gone wrong.’
‘But didn’t you see that things were going wrong in your marriage and that Magda might leave you? And take Esmè with her?’
‘I only saw that when it was too late, when I was in the cells.’
‘Let’s move on,’ I said. ‘What happened at work in the week of the thirtieth?’
Labuschagne thought about it for a while before he said, ‘We must have called out the ones who were going to go up the next week and put them in the Pot.’
‘How many were there?’
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