by Tom Sharpe
*
At White Ladies Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon, idly turning the pages of a month-old Illustrated London News in an impractical attempt to relieve her boredom, told Major Bloxham to make her a dry Martini.
‘You would think he’d let us know he wasn’t coming,’ she said petulantly. ‘I mean it’s only common courtesy to send a postcard.’
‘What do you expect from a pig but a grunt?’ said the Major. ‘Can’t make silk purses out of sows’ ears.’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon murmured, ‘I see Princess Anne’s been chosen Sportswoman of the Year.’
‘Wonder she accepted,’ said the Major. ‘Seems a common sort of thing to be.’
‘Oh I don’t know,’ said Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon. ‘They even knight jockeys these days.’
After lunch Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon insisted on going for a drive and the Colonel who was expecting a telegram from his stockbroker drove them into Weezen and then over to the Sani Pass Hotel for tea.
The Kommandant, who had finally found their address at the Post Office, discovered the house empty when he visited it in the afternoon. He had recovered his temper though not his confidence and he was therefore not altogether surprised at the lack of welcome afforded by the empty house and the ancient Zulu butler who answered the door when he rang.
‘Master gone,’ the butler said and the Kommandant turned back to his car with the feeling that this was not a lucky day for him. He stood looking round at the house and garden before getting back into his car, and tried to absorb some of the amourpropre which was so evident in the atmosphere.
Well-trimmed lawns and disciplined herbaceous borders, carefully labelled rose bushes and a bush clipped to the replica of a chicken, all was ordered agreeably. Even the fruit trees in the orchard looked as though they’d been given short back and sides by a regimental barber. Against a wall a vine grew symmetrically, while the house with its stone walls and shuttered windows suggested a cosy opulence in its combination of garrison Georgian and art nouveau. On a flagstaff the Union Jack hung limply in the hot summer air and the Kommandant, forgetting his fury of the morning, was glad to see it there. It was, he supposed, because the Heathcote-Kilkoons were real Englishers not the descendants of settlers that the place was so trim and redolent of disciplined assurance. He got into his car and drove to the hotel. He spent the rest of the afternoon fishing the river with no better luck than he had had previously but recovering from the emotional upsets of the morning. Once again the strange sense of self-awareness, of seeing himself from a distance, came over him and with it came a sense of calm acceptance of himself not as he was but as he might remotely be in other, better circumstances. When the sun faded over the Aardvarks he dismantled his rod and walked back to the hotel through the swift dusk. Somewhere near him someone hiccupped but the Kommandant ignored the overture. He’d seen enough of Mr Mulpurgo for one day. He had dinner and went early to bed with a new novel by Dornford Yates. It was called Perishable Goods.
*
In Piemburg Operation White Wash was about to move into a new phase. Luitenant Verkramp had tested his ten volunteers once again in a live situation and was satisfied that the experiment had been wholly successful. Confronted with black women the volunteers had all demonstrated an entirely convincing aversion for them and Verkramp was ready to move to phase two. Sergeant Breitenbach’s enthusiasm for the project was as usual less marked.
‘Two hundred at a time in the drill hall?’ he asked incredulously. ‘Two hundred konstabels strapped to chairs and wired up in the drill hall?’
‘One sergeant to operate the projector and administer the electric shocks,’ Verkramp said. ‘Won’t be any difficulty about that.’
‘There’ll be a hell of a difficulty getting two hundred sane men to sit there in the first place,’ said the Sergeant, ‘and anyway it’s impossible. Those generators aren’t big enough to shock two hundred men.’
‘We’ll use the mains,’ said Verkramp.
Sergeant Breitenbach stared at him with bulging eyes.
‘You’ll use what?’
‘The mains,’ said Verkramp. ‘With a transformer of course.’
‘Of course,’ said the Sergeant with an insane laugh, ‘a transformer off the mains. And what happens if something goes wrong?’
‘Nothing is going to go wrong,’ said Verkramp, but Sergeant Breitenbach wasn’t listening. He was visualizing a drill hall filled with the corpses of two hundred konstables electrocuted while being shown slides of naked black women. Quite apart from the public outcry he would almost certainly be lynched by the widows.
‘I’m not having any part of this,’ he said emphatically. ‘You can keep it.’ He turned to leave the office but the Acting Kommandant called him back.
‘Sergeant Breitenbach, what we are doing is for the ultimate good of the white race in South Africa,’ Verkramp said solemnly. ‘Are you prepared to sacrifice the future of your country simply because you are afraid to take a risk?’
‘Yes,’ said Sergeant Breitenbach who couldn’t see how the electrocution of two hundred policemen could possibly benefit South Africa.
Luitenant Verkramp adopted a more practical line of reasoning.
‘In any case there will be fuses to prevent accidental overloading,’ he said.
‘15 Amp I suppose,’ said the Sergeant caustically.
‘Something of the sort,’ said Verkramp airily. ‘I’ll leave the details to the police electrician.’
‘More likely the mortician,’ said the Sergeant, whose knowledge of power points was somewhat less limited. ‘In any case you’ll never get the men to submit to the ordeal. I’m not forcing any man to risk getting himself electrocuted.’
Luitenant Verkramp smiled.
‘No need for force,’ he said. ‘They’ve all signed the necessary forms.’
‘It’s one thing to sign a form. It’s another to allow someone to give you electric shocks. And what about the electricity? Where are you going to get that from? It’s all been cut off since the sabotage.’
Luitenant Verkramp dialled the manager of the Electricity Board. While he waited he showed Sergeant Breitenbach the forms the men had signed. ‘Read the small print at the bottom,’ he told him.
‘Can’t without my glasses,’ the Sergeant told him. Verkramp snatched the form back and read it aloud.
‘I admit freely and of my own volition that I have had sexual intercourse with Bantu women and am in need of treatment,’ he said before being interrupted by a horrified squawk from the telephone receiver. The manager of the Electricity Board was on the line.
‘You do what?’ yelled the manager, appalled at the confession he had just been privy to.
‘Not me,’ Verkramp tried to explain.
‘I heard you quite distinctly,’ the manager shouted back. ‘You said “I admit freely and of my own volition that I have had sexual intercourse with Bantu women.” Deny that if you can.’
‘All right, I did say it …’ Verkramp began but the manager was too incensed to let him continue.
‘What did I say? You can’t deny it. This is an outrage. You ring me up to tell me that you sleep with kaffir girls. I’ve a good mind to ring the police.’
‘This is the police,’ said Verkramp.
‘Good God, the whole world’s gone mad,’ shouted the manager.
‘I was just reading a prisoner’s confession out loud,’ Verkramp explained.
‘Over the phone?’ asked the manager. ‘And why to me of all people? I’ve got enough trouble on my hands without that sort of filth.’
Sergeant Breitenbach left Verkramp to sort the thing out with the Electricity Board. The tempo of events since Verkramp had taken over was so rapid the Sergeant was beginning to feel totally confused.
*
Much the same could be said of the state of mind of Verkramp’s secret agents. Lack of sleep, the need to move their lodgings, the incessant following and being followed that was so much a part of t
heir duties, had left them utterly exhausted and with what little hold on reality they had ever possessed badly impaired. The one sure thing they all knew was that they had been ordered to get the real saboteurs to blow something up. In Florian’s café they sat round a table and worked to this end.
745396 suggested the petrol storage tanks in the railway yard as a suitable target. 628461 was in favour of the gasworks. 885974, not to be outdone, recommended the sewage disposal plant on the grounds that the ensuing epidemic would benefit the cause of world Communism, and all the others had their own favourite targets. By the time they had argued the pros and cons of each suggestion no one was clear what target had finally been selected and the air of mutual suspicion had been exacerbated by 885974 who had accused 745396 of being a police spy in the belief that this would add credibility to his own claim to be a genuine saboteur. Accusations and counter-accusations were exchanged and when the group finally left Florian’s café to go their none too separate ways, each agent was determined to prove himself to the others by a demonstration of zeal for sabotage. That night Piemburg experienced a second wave of bombings.
At ten the petrol storage tanks exploded and set light to a goods train in the railway yard. At ten-thirty the gasometer exploded with a roar that blew the windows out in several neighbouring streets. As the fire brigade rushed in different directions the sewage disposal plant erupted. All over the previously darkened city fires broke out. In an attempt to prevent a further spread of the flames in the railway yard the goods train was moved down the line and in the process set fire to four tool sheds in the gardens it passed and started a grass fire which spread to a field of sugar cane. By morning Piemburg’s fire-fighting force was exhausted and a dark smudge of smoke hung ominously over the city.
Sergeant Breitenbach arrived at the police station with his face covered in sticking plaster. He had been looking out of his bedroom window when the gasometer exploded. He found Verkramp desperately trying to decode several messages from his agents which he hoped would give him some lead to the new outbreak of violence. So far all he had learnt was that the petrol tanks were due to be sabotaged by a man who called himself Jack Jones who lived at the Outspan Hotel. By the time Verkramp had received and deciphered the message both the petrol tanks and Jack Jones had vanished. The manager of the Outspan hotel said he had checked out two days ago.
‘What are you doing?’ Sergeant Breitenbach asked as he entered the office. The Acting Kommandant stuffed the messages hurriedly into a drawer in his desk.
‘Nothing,’ he said nervously. ‘Nothing at all.’
Sergeant Breitenbach eyed the handbook on Animal Husbandary which was the codebook for the day and wondered if Verkramp was thinking of taking up farming. In the light of the catastrophes which were taking place under his command it seemed wise of Verkramp to be thinking about retiring.
‘Well?’ said Verkramp, annoyed, that he had been interrupted. ‘What is it?’
‘Isn’t it about time you did something about these saboteurs? Things are getting out of hand,’ said the Sergeant.
Verkramp stirred uneasily in his chair. He had the feeling that his authority was being impugned.
‘I can see you got out of bed on the wrong side this morning,’ he said.
‘I didn’t get out at all,’ said the Sergeant, ‘I was blown out. By the sewage disposal works.’
Verkramp smiled.
‘I thought you’d cut your face shaving,’ he said.
‘That was the gasometer,’ Sergeant Breitenbach told him. ‘I was looking out the window when it blew up.’
‘Through. Not out,’ said Verkramp pedantically.
‘Through what?’
‘Through the window. If you had been looking out the window you wouldn’t have been hit by flying glass. It’s really very important for a police officer to get his facts right.’
Sergeant Breitenbach pointed out that he was lucky to be still alive.
‘A miss is as good as a mile,’ said Verkramp.
‘Half a mile,’ said the Sergeant.
‘Half a mile?’
‘I live half a mile from the gasometer since you want the facts right,’ said the Sergeant. ‘What it must have been like for the people living next door to it I can’t think.’
Luitenant Verkramp stood up and strode across to the window and stared out. Something about the way he was standing reminded the Sergeant of a film he had seen about a general on the eve of a battle. Verkramp had one hand behind his back and the other tucked into his tunic.
‘I am about to strike a blow at the root of all this evil,’ he said dramatically before turning and fixing an intense look on the Sergeant. ‘Have you ever looked evil in the face?’
Sergeant Breitenbach, remembering the gasometer, said he had.
‘Then you’ll know what I am talking about,’ said Verkramp enigmatically and sat down.
‘Where do you think we should start looking?’ the Sergeant asked.
‘In the heart of man,’ said Verkramp.
‘In where?’ said the Sergeant.
‘In the heart of man. In his soul. In the innermost regions of his nature.’
‘For saboteurs?’ asked Sergeant Breitenbach.
‘For evil,’ said Verkramp. He handed the Sergeant a long list of names. ‘I want these men to report to the Drill Hall immediately. Everything is ready. The chairs have been wired and the projector and the screen have been installed. Here is a list of the Sergeants who will administer the treatment.’
Sergeant Breitenbach stared maniacally at his commanding officer.
‘You’ve gone mad,’ he said finally. ‘You must have gone out of your mind. We’ve got the biggest wave of bombings this country has seen, with petrol tanks and gasometers going up and radio masts coming down and all you can think about is stopping people going to bed with coons. You’re fucking loony.’ The Sergeant stopped, stunned by the accuracy of his last remark. Before he could draw any further conclusions from it, Luitenant Verkramp was on his feet.
‘Sergeant Breitenbach,’ he screamed, and the Sergeant shrank at his fury, ‘are you refusing to obey an order?’ A demonic hopefulness in Verkramp’s tone frightened the Sergeant.
‘No, sir. Not an order,’ he said. The sacrosanct word re-called him to his uncritical senses. ‘Law and order have to be maintained at all times.’
Luitenant Verkramp was mollified.
‘Precisely,’ he said. ‘Well I’m the law round this town and I give the orders. My orders are that you start the treatment of aversion therapy at once. The sooner we have a truly Christian and incorruptible police force the sooner we will be able to eradicate the evil of which these bombings are merely the symptom. It’s no use treating the mere manifestations of evil, Sergeant, unless we first cleanse the body politic and that, God willing, is what I intend to do. What has happened in Piemburg should be a lesson to us all. That smoke out there is a sign from Heaven of God’s anger. Let us all see to it that we incur no more.’
‘Yes sir. I sincerely hope so, sir,’ said Sergeant Breitenbach. ‘Any special precautions you want taken in case we do, sir? Any guards on the remaining public installations?’
‘No need, Sergeant,’ said Verkramp loftily, ‘I have the matter in hand.’
‘Very good, sir,’ said Sergeant Breitenbach and left the room to carry out his orders. Twenty minutes later he was facing near-mutiny in the drill hall as two hundred konstabels, already alarmed at the deteriorating situation in the city, refused to allow themselves to be strapped to the chairs wired to a large transformer. Quite a few had already said they would rather stand trial for sleeping with kaffir girls and take their chance of getting ten strokes with a heavy cane and do seven years hard labour than run the risk of electrocution. Finally he telephoned Luitenant Verkramp, and explained the dilemma. Verkramp said he’d be down in five minutes.
He arrived to find the men milling about rebelliously in the Drill Hall.
‘Outside,’ he ordered briskl
y and turned to Sergeant Breitenbach. ‘Assemble these men in platoons under their sergeants.’
Two hundred konstabels lined up obediently on the parade ground. Luitenant Verkramp addressed them.
‘Men,’ he said. ‘Men of the South African Police, you have been brought here to test your steadfast loyalty to your country and your race. The enemies of South Africa have been using black women to seduce you from the path of duty. Now is your chance to prove that you are worthy of the great trust the white women of South Africa have placed in you. Your wives and mothers, your sisters and daughters look to you in this great moment of trial to prove yourself loyal fathers and husbands. The test that you have now to pass will prove that loyalty. You will singly come in to the Drill Hall and be shown certain pictures. Those of you who do not respond to them will return immediately to the police station. Those of you who fail will assemble here on the parade ground to await instructions. In the meantime Sergeant Breitenbach will give the rest of you drill practice. Carry on, Sergeant.’