by Tom Sharpe
‘All right, you bastards, enough’s as good as a fucking feast,’ Els yelled into the night, and before he could say more the privet hedge began to disintegrate around his shelter. As the bullets tore into the blockhouse walls and the gun port was aflame with tracer bullets, Els knew that he was about to die. This wasn’t the relief he expected. In one last desperate move to avert tragedy, Konstabel Els aimed the elephant gun at the armoured car. He held his fire until the Saracen was only ten yards from the gate and then pulled the trigger. Again and again he fired, and with a mixture of awe and satisfaction saw, silhouetted against the searchlight, the great armoured vehicle grind to a halt and begin to disintegrate. Its guns were silenced, its tyres were shreds of rubber and its occupants trickled gently but persistently through a hundred holes drilled in its sides. Only one man was even capable of trying to leave the thing and as he emerged convulsively from the turret-top, Els saw with appalling clarity the familiar uniform and cap of the South African Police. The body slumped back inside the turret, and Els, understanding dimly for the first time the enormity of his offences, knew himself but a stone’s throw from the gallows. He fired his last shot. The searchlight exploded into darkness and Els, with desperate energy, gathered up all evidence of his recent occupation and stumbled out of the blockhouse and, dragging his awful accomplice, sneaked off across the Park.
Behind him the armoured colander burst into flames and as Els hurled himself towards Jacaranda House the night sky was bright with the flames and the delicate tracery of exploding ammunition.
7
In Jacaranda House, Jonathan Hazelstone was singing in his bath. He was wearing a rubber bathing-cap to protect his delicate ears from the water, and partly because of the cap and partly because he was rather deaf, he was singing rather more loudly than he imagined. As a result he heard nothing of the noises of battle that accompanied his rendering of ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers’. Around him the pink water eddied and swirled, assuming strange intricate patterns as the percussion of the elephant gun reached it. But Jonathan Hazelstone had no time for observing such trifles. His mind was preoccupied with his own shortcomings. Shame and a guilty pride at his own achievement mingled in his thoughts and over them both there hung the awful remembrance of things past.
He tried to put the dreadful business out of his mind but it came back insistently. Still, in spite of his remorse he had to smile to himself a little. After all, he thought, there couldn’t be many men still alive who could say that they had done what he had and got away with it. Not that he was given to boastfulness, and he certainly was not going to go about broadcasting his deed. On the other hand he had been provoked quite horribly, and in the event he felt that his action had to some extent been excusable. ‘Old Rhino Skin’, he thought, and shuddered, and was about to remind himself that he must tell the cook never to use the beastly stuff for cooking again, when he remembered that there was in fact no cook to tell.
He looked sadly at the pink ring on the sides of the bath and then hurriedly got out and emptied the water. He sluiced the bath clean, refilled it and added bath salts and then lay down in the hot water to consider what to do next to erase the effects of the afternoon’s events. He was faced, he knew, with a terrible problem. True, his sister had promised to make a full confession to the police and that was all right as far as it went, but it wasn’t going to help him to escape scot-free. There were bound to be repercussions, and the whole episode was hardly calculated to help his career. It was a ghastly business altogether. Not that he had a great fund of sympathy for that damned cook. If it hadn’t been for him, none of this would have happened. Besides, there were some things that Jonathan Hazelstone could never forgive. Perversion was one of them.
Kommandant van Heerden would have shared all these sentiments had he known about them, but by this time his faculties were all focused on one simple realization, that his career as a police officer and probably as a free man had almost certainly been ended by his handling of the Hazelstone Case. The explosion that heralded the end of the armoured car had made that clear as daylight to him. Disgraced, cashiered and convicted of being an accessory before, during, and after the murder of the policemen who had undoubtedly fallen before Els’ tornado of gunshot at the main gate, he would share the rest of his life in prison with men who bore him debts of ingratitude no amount of suffering would ever repay. The day he entered Piemburg Prison might not be his last, but it would undoubtedly be his worst. Too many men had signed confessions after being tortured by Konstabel Els in the cells of Piemburg Police Station for him to relish the prospect of their company in prison.
After a brief spell of sobbing Kommandant van Heerden tried to think of some way out of the mess Els had got him into. Only one thing could save him now and that was the successful capture of the murderer of Miss Hazelstone’s Zulu cook. Not that he placed much hope in that achievement and it wouldn’t help to explain the bloodbath Els had initiated. No, Els would have to stand trial for wholesale murder and there was just a chance that he could be persuaded to plead insanity. Come to think of it, there was no need for the bastard to have to plead. He was obviously insane. The facts spoke for themselves.
Urged forward by this faint hope and certainly not by the exploding ammunition in the once-mobile incinerator, Kommandant van Heerden reached the Park gates. Clambering over the pile of contorted metal the Kommandant stood and looked about him. A pall of black smoke darkened the night sky. It poured from the open turret of the Saracen and issued from the holes in its sides. Even the distracted Kommandant was aware of its smell. It smelt like nothing on earth. Taking a deep breath of the disgusting stuff, Kommandant van Heerden bellowed into the night.
‘Konstabel Els,’ he yelled, ‘Konstabel Els, where in fuck’s name are you?’ and recognized the stupidity of the question as soon as it was uttered. Els was hardly likely to come forward at this juncture. More likely he would consign his commanding officer to eternity with the same relish he had employed on his other comrades. After a moment’s silence punctuated only by the bang and whizz of bullets ricocheting round the interior of the Saracen the Kommandant shouted again.
‘This is your commanding officer, I order you to cease fire.’
Down the road the sound of Kommandant van Heerden’s strange order puzzled the men in the convoy and brought a warm glow of admiration to their hearts. The Kommandant was up there by the gates and had evidently captured the maniac who had been slaughtering them. They were amazed at this development, for the Kommandant was not known for his physical courage. Slowly but surely in little groups they made their way hesitantly up the road towards him.
*
Konstabel Els was making off in quite a different direction and racking his brains for a way of getting out of the mess he was in. First of all he had to conceal the elephant gun and then he would have to concoct an alibi. Considering the size of the gun he wasn’t sure which was going to be the more impossible task, and he was just debating whether or not to put it back on the stoep, where he had found it, when he ran across another privet hedge. His recent experience of privet hedges had taught him that they were ideal places for hiding things in. In this case the privet hedge hid a swimming-bath. Els peered round the hedge, and after reassuring himself that the swimming-bath was what it purported to be and not yet another of Sir Theophilus’ little traps, he stole into the enclosure and across to a small and elegant pavilion which stood at one end. He groped round in the dark for a moment and then struck a match. By its light he saw that the pavilion was a changing-room with pegs along its wall for hanging clothes. To his horror he saw that one of the pegs was being put to good use. A suit of dark clothes was hanging there.
Els doused the match and peered out at the pool. The owner of the black suit must be out there watching him, he thought. But the surface of the swimming-bath was unbroken by anything more sinister than reflections of the stars and a new moon which had just begun to rise. The edges of the pool held no unaccountable shadows an
d Els knew himself to be alone with a suit of dark clothes, an elephant gun, and the need to concoct an alibi.
‘Privet hedges seem to bring me luck,’ he said to himself and promised himself to plant one in his front garden if he ever got out of this scrape alive.
He lit another match and examined the clothes. He thought at first that he might be able to use them as a disguise but the trousers were much too large for him, while the jacket which he tried on would have done as a winter coat. He was a little puzzled by the black waistcoat with no buttons on it until he spotted the attached dog-collar. Konstabel Els gave up all thought of using the clothes as a disguise. He had too much respect for religion to profane the garments with his own person. Instead he used them to wipe the elephant gun clean of his fingerprints. An expert in removing vital evidence, by the time he had finished there was nothing to connect him with the gun.
Twenty minutes later Konstabel Els stepped jauntily out of the pavilion and sauntered cheerfully across the Park towards Piemburg. Behind him he had left everything that connected him with the massacre at the main gate. The elephant gun was concealed under the clergy-man’s clothes. In a back pocket of the trousers was his revolver while the jacket pockets bulged with the empty cartridge cases he had carefully collected from the floor of the blockhouse. Each and every article had been meticulously polished. No fingerprint expert could prove that they had been used by Konstabel Els. Finally, and with a touch of whimsy, he had put the half-bottle of Old Rhino Skin into the inside breast pocket of the jacket. It had been quite empty and he had no use for empty bottles anyway.
It was while he was shoving the bottle into the pocket that he made another useful discovery. The pocket contained a wallet and comb. Konstabel Els searched the other pockets and found a handkerchief and several other objects.
‘Nothing like doing a job properly,’ he thought, pocketing the things, and set off for the blockhouse for one final visit. By the time he reached it his confidence had returned. Policemen were wandering around looking at the burning Saracen and no one took any notice of the Konstabel who nipped for a second behind the privet hedge before strolling off down the road in the direction of Piemburg. On the way he stopped to read a notice which was being hammered into place by a group of policemen.
An hour later, foaming at the mouth and exhibiting all the symptoms of rabies, Konstabel Els presented himself at the casualty department of Piemburg Hospital. Before they could get him into bed he had bitten two nurses and a doctor.
At the entrance to Jacaranda Park Kommandant van Heerden was exhibiting similar symptoms to the men who gathered round him under the pall of smoke. The disappearance of Luitenant Verkramp particularly incensed him.
‘Missing? What do you mean missing?’ he yelled at Sergeant de Kock.
‘He came up here to reconnoitre, sir,’ answered the Sergeant.
‘Any chance he came in that?’ asked the Kommandant more hopefully, looking at the burnt-out Saracen.
‘No sir. In disguise.’
‘In what?’ yelled the Kommandant.
‘He was disguised as a bush, sir.’
Kommandant van Heerden couldn’t believe his ears. ‘Disguised as a bush? What sort of bush?’
‘Difficult to say, sir. Not a very big one.’
Kommandant van Heerden turned to the men. ‘Any of you men seen a small bush round here?’
A hush fell over the policemen. They had all seen a small bush round there.
‘There’s one just behind you, sir,’ a konstabel said.
The Kommandant turned and looked at what remained of the privet hedge. It was obviously nothing like Verkramp disguised or not. ‘Not that you fool,’ he snarled. ‘A walking fucking bush.’
‘I don’t know about that bush fucking, sir,’ said the konstabel. ‘And I daresay it can’t walk, but I do know the bloody thing can shoot straight.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ snapped the Kommandant as a nervous giggle ran round the crowd.
Sergeant de Kock enlightened him. ‘The fellow who knocked out the Saracen took cover behind that bush.’
A moment later Kommandant van Heerden was peering through the doorway into the blockhouse. The interior was still filled with the fumes of burnt powder, but even so Kommandant van Heerden’s olfactory nerve could detect a pervasive familiar smell. The blockhouse stank of Old Rhino Skin. On the floor there was further evidence. A wallet, a comb and a handkerchief lay in the middle of the bunker. The Kommandant picked them up and gingerly held them to his nose. They were practically soaked in brandy. He opened the wallet and saw stamped in gold letters a name he was also familiar with, ‘Jonathan Hazelstone’.
Kommandant van Heerden wasted no more time. Leaving the bunker, he gave his orders. The Park was to be surrounded. Road blocks were to be set up on all roads in the vicinity. Searchlights were to illuminate the entire area of the Park. ‘We’re going in to get him,’ he said finally. ‘Bring up the other Saracens, and the guard dogs.’
Ten minutes later the five remaining Saracens, a hundred men armed with Sten guns and the sixty-nine tracker dogs were assembled at the Park gates ready for the assault on Jacaranda House. Kommandant van Heerden climbed aboard a Saracen and addressed the men from its turret.
‘Before we start,’ he said, ‘I think I had better warn you that the man we are after is a dangerous criminal.’ He paused. The policemen who had seen the burnt-out armoured car and the corpses littering the hillside needed no telling. ‘The house is practically a fortress,’ continued the Kommandant, ‘and he has at his disposal an armoury of lethal weapons. At the first sign of resistance you have my permission to open fire. Are there any questions?’
‘What about the Black Death?’ Sergeant de Kock asked anxiously.
‘The black’s death? Oh yes, caused by gunshot wounds,’ replied the Kommandant enigmatically, and disappearing inside the turret slammed the lid. The convoy moved off cautiously down the drive to Jacaranda House.
8
Jonathan Hazelstone’s musings on his next sermon had taken his mind off the tragic death of Fivepence. He had just decided on the title, ‘The Rhinos of Wrath are Whiter than the Horses of Destruction’, for a peroration on the evils of alcohol and was drying himself after his bath when he remembered he had left his clothes in the bathing-pavilion. Still groggy from the effects of the brandy he wandered absent-mindedly downstairs wearing the bathing-cap and wrapped only in a voluminous towel. On the steps of the front door he stopped and took a deep breath of cool night air. Headlights were moving slowly down the drive.
‘Visitors,’ he thought to himself. ‘Mustn’t be caught like this,’ and wrapping the towel more firmly round himself trotted across the drive and disappeared behind the privet hedge as Kommandant van Heerden’s convoy approached the house. He went into the bathing-pavilion and a moment later came out again feeling worse than ever. The smell of Old Rhino Skin in the pavilion sent a wave of nausea over him. Standing on the edge of the swimming-pool, he uttered a silent prayer to the Almighty to help him by no matter what drastic methods to avoid the repetition of his wickedness, and a moment later the Bishop of Barotseland plunged through the moon’s reflected image into the cool water of the bath. He swam the length of the pool underwater, surfaced momentarily and then swam back and forth along the bottom of the swimming-pool and as he swam it seemed to the Bishop that the Lord was calling to him. Faintly, very faintly it was true, but with a distinctness he had never before experienced he heard through his bathing-cap the voice of the Lord, ‘Jonathan Hazelstone, I know you are there. I don’t want any resistance. Give yourself up quietly,’ and six feet beneath the surface of the water the Right Reverend Jonathan Hazelstone knew for the first time that he was truly destined for great things. The call he had waited so long to hear had come at last. He turned on his back and gave himself up quietly and without any resistance to meditation under the night sky. He knew now that he had been forgiven his lapse of the afternoon.
�
�O Lord, thou knowest I was provoked,’ he murmured, as he floated on the still surface of the pool, and a sense of peace, sweet forgiving peace, descended on him as he prayed.
Peace had not descended on the rest of Jacaranda House. Ringed by one hundred armed men who crouched in the shadows of the garden fingering the triggers of their Sten guns, by sixty-nine German guard dogs snarling and slobbering for a kill and by five Saracen armoured cars which had been driven heedlessly over flowerbeds and lawns to take up their positions, Jacaranda House stood silent and unanswering.
Kommandant van Heerden decided to have one more go at getting the brute out without trouble. The very last thing he wanted was another gun-battle. He peered out of the turret and raised the loudhailer again.
‘Jonathan Hazelstone, I am giving you one last chance,’ his voice, amplified a hundred times, boomed into the night. ‘If you come out quietly you will be safe. If not, I am coming in to get you.’
The Bishop of Barotseland, lying on his back meditating quietly and staring up into the night sky where a great bird drifted slowly above him, heard the words more distinctly than before. God manifested Himself in many mysterious ways, he knew, but vultures he had never thought of. Now the Almighty had spoken again and more clearly, much more clearly.
The first part of the message had been quite unequivocal. ‘Come out quietly and you will be saved,’ but the second part had been much less easy to interpret; ‘If not, I am coming in to get you.’ Jonathan Hazelstone swam to the edge of the pool and climbed out quietly as instructed. Then pausing to look back at the water to see if the Lord had even begun to get in to fetch him out, he noticed the vulture turn and flap horribly away over the blue gums.