Power of the Sword

by Wilbur Smith

  ‘This is Heidi Kramer.’ She was tall and strong, but unmistakably feminine, with hips and bosom like an hourglass, yet touched with a dancer’s grace and a gymnast’s poise. Her hair was the colour of the Kalahari dawn, Manfred thought, and her teeth when she smiled were perfect, their edges minutely serrated and translucent as fine bone china, but her eyes were beyond description, bluer and clearer than the high African sky at noon, and he knew without any hesitation that she was the most magnificent woman he had ever seen. At the thought he made a silent guilty apology to Sarah – but compared to this German Valkyrie, Sarah was a sweet little tabby cat beside a female leopard in her prime.

  ‘Now Heidi will arrange for your baggage to be collected and will get you all seated in the limousines. From now on if there is anything you need, ask Heidi! She is your big sister and your stepmother.’

  They laughed and whistled and cheered and Heidi, smiling and charming but quick and efficient, took over. Within minutes their baggage had been whisked away by a band of uniformed porters and she led them down the long glass-domed platform to the magnificent entrance portals of the railway station where a line of black Mercedes limousines was waiting for them.

  Manfred, Uncle Tromp and Roelf Stander climbed into the back seat of one of them, and the driver was just about to pull away when Heidi waved to him and came running back along the kerb. She wore high heels and they threw tension on her calf muscles, emphasizing their lovely lines and the fine delicacy of her ankles. Neither Sarah nor any of the girls Manfred knew at home wore high heels.

  Heidi opened the front passenger door and stuck her head into the Mercedes. ‘You gentlemen will object if I ride with you, yes?’ she asked with that radiant smile, and they all protested vigorously, even Uncle Tromp joining in.

  ‘No! No! Please come in.’

  She slipped into the seat beside the driver, slammed the door, and immediately wriggled round so that she was facing them, with her arms folded along the back of her seat.

  ‘I am so excited to meet you,’ she told them in her accented English. ‘I have read so much about Africa, the animals and the Zulus, and one day I will travel there. You must promise to tell me all about your beautiful country, and I will tell you all about my beautiful Germany.’

  They agreed enthusiastically, and she looked directly at Uncle Tromp.

  ‘Now, let me guess. You will be the Reverend Tromp Bierman, the team boxing coach?’ she asked, and Uncle Tromp beamed.

  ‘How clever of you.’

  ‘I have seen your photograph,’ she admitted. ‘How could I forget such a magnificent beard?’ Uncle Tromp looked highly gratified. ‘But you must tell me who the others are.’

  ‘This is Roelf Stander, our heavyweight boxer,’ Uncle Tromp introduced them. ‘And this is Manfred De La Rey, our light heavyweight.’

  Manfred was certain that she reacted to his name, a lift to one corner of her mouth and slight narrowing of the eyes; then she was smiling again. ‘We will all be good friends,’ she said, and Manfred replied in German.

  ‘My people, the Afrikaners, have always been the loyal friends of the German people.’

  ‘Oh, your German is perfect,’ she exclaimed with delight in the same language. ‘Where did you learn to speak like a true German?’

  ‘My paternal grandmother and my mother were both pure-blooded Germans.’

  ‘Then you will find much to interest you in our country.’ She switched back to English and began to lecture, pointing out the sights of the city as the line of black Mercedes, Olympic pennants fluttering on the bonnets, sped through the streets.

  ‘This is the famous Unter den Linden, the street we Berliners love so dearly.’ It was broad and magnificent with linden trees growing down the promenade that divided the double carriageway. ‘The street is a mile long. That is the royal palace behind us, and there ahead of us is the Brandenburg Tor.’ The tall colonnades of the monument were decked with enormous banners that hung from the quadriga charioteer group of figures on the summit to the ground far below; the crimson and black swastika flanked by the multi-coloured rings of the Olympic symbol billowed and heaved in the light breeze.

  ‘That is the state opera house,’ Heidi turned to point through the side window. ‘It was built in 1741—’ She was entertaining and informative.

  ‘See how the people of Berlin welcome you,’ she cried, with that gay brittle enthusiasm which seemed to characterize all the citizens of National Socialist Germany. ‘Look! Look!’

  Berlin was a city of flags and banners. From every public building, department store, apartment block and private dwelling the flags fluttered and waved, swastikas and the Olympic rings, thousands upon tens of thousands.

  When they came at last to the apartment block in the Olympic village that had been set aside for them, an honour guard of the Hitler Youth with burning torches waited to welcome them, and another band drawn up on the sidewalk broke into ‘The Voice of South Africa’, the national anthem.

  Inside the building Heidi issued each of them with a booklet filled with coloured coupons by which every last detail of their personal arrangements were organized, from their room and the bed on which they would sleep, and the buses that would carry them to and from the Olympic complex, to the changing rooms and the numbers of the lockers that they had been allocated at the stadium.

  ‘Here in this house you will have your own chef and dining-hall. Food will be prepared to your own preference, with due regard to any special diets or tastes. There is a doctor and a dentist available at any hour. Drycleaning and laundry, radios and telephones, a private masseur for the team, a secretary with a typewriter—’ It had all been arranged, and they were amazed by the precise, meticulous planning.

  ‘Please find your rooms, your luggage is already there waiting for you. Unpack and relax. Tomorrow morning I will take you on the bus for a tour of the Reichssportfeld, the Olympic complex. It is ten miles from here, so we will leave immediately after breakfast at eight-thirty am. In the meantime, if there is anything – anything at all – that you want, you have only to ask me.’

  ‘I know what I’d like to ask her for,’ one of the weight-lifters whispered, rolling his eyes, and Manfred clenched his fists with anger at the impertinence, even though Heidi had not heard it.

  ‘Until tomorrow,’ she called gaily, and went through to the kitchens to talk to the chef.

  ‘Now that is what I call a woman!’ Uncle Tromp growled. ‘I give thanks that I am a man of the cloth, old and happily married, and beyond all the temptations of Eve.’ There were cries of mock commiserations for Uncle Tromp was by this time everybody’s uncle. ‘All right!’ He was suddenly stern. ‘Running shoes, all you lazy young dogs. A quick ten miles before supper, please!’

  Heidi was waiting for them when they came down to breakfast, gay and bright and smiling, answering their questions, distributing mail from home, sorting out a dozen small problems quickly and without fuss, and then when they had eaten, taking them off in a group to the bus station.

  Most of the athletes from the other countries were in residence, and the village was bustling and full of tense excitement, men and women in sporting attire running through the streets, calling to each other in a multiplicity of tongues, their superb physical condition showing in their bright young faces and in every movement that they made. When they came to the stadium, the size of it awed them all. A huge complex of halls, gymnasiums and covered swimming-pools surrounded the oval track and field theatre. The banks of seating seemed to reach away for ever, and the Olympic altar at the far end with the unlit tripod torch gave a sense of religious solemnity to this temple devoted to the worship of the human body.

  It took the morning for them to see it all, and they had a hundred questions between them. Heidi answered them all, but more than once Manfred found her walking beside him, and when they spoke German together it gave them a sense of intimacy, even in the crowd. It was not his imagination alone, for Roelf had noticed the special attention
Manfred was receiving.

  ‘How are you enjoying your German lessons?’ he asked innocently at lunch, and when Manfred snarled at him he grinned unrepentantly.

  Their hosts had arranged sparring partners from the local boxing clubs, and over the days that followed, Uncle Tromp drove them hard towards the pinnacle of their training.

  Manfred tore at his opponents, slamming punches into the thick padding that covered their midriffs and heads, so that even with that protection none of them lasted more than a round or two before calling for quarter; and when Manfred went back to his corner and looked around it was usually to find Heidi Kramer watching from somewhere near at hand, a flush on her flawless neck, a strange intent look in those impossibly blue eyes, her lips slightly parted and the tip of her pink tongue held between sharp white teeth.

  However, it was only after four days of training that he found himself alone with her. He had finished a hard session in the gymnasium and after showering and changing into grey slacks and a Varsity sweater, he went out through the front entrance of the stadium. He had almost reached the bus station when she called his name and ran to catch up with him.

  ‘I am also going back to the village. I have to talk to the chef — may I ride the bus with you?’ She must have been waiting for him and he felt flattered and a little nervous.

  She had a free, hip-swinging walk, and her hair swayed around her head like a sheet of golden silk when she looked up at him as they walked down to the bus station.

  ‘I have been watching the boxers from the other countries,’ she said, ‘especially the light heavyweights, and I have also been watching you.’

  ‘Yes.’ He frowned to cover his embarrassment. ‘I saw you.’

  ‘You have nobody to fear, except the American.’

  ‘Cyrus Lomax,’ he nodded. ‘Yes, Ring Magazine rates him the best amateur light heavyweight in the world. Uncle Tromp has been watching him also. He agrees that he is very good. Very strong, and being a nigger, he will have a skull like solid ivory.’

  ‘He is the only one you will have to beat for the gold,’ she agreed. The gold – the sound of it on her lips had a music that quickened his pulse. ‘And I will be there cheering for you.’

  ‘Thank you, Heidi.’

  They boarded the bus, and when the men in the other seats glanced at Heidi with admiration, he felt proud to have her at his side.

  ‘My uncle is a great follower of boxing. He thinks as I do, that you have a good chance of beating the American negro. He would like very much to meet you.’

  ‘It is kind of your uncle.’

  ‘He is having a small reception at his home this evening. He asks me to invite you.’

  ‘You know that is not possible,’ he shook his head. ‘My training schedule—’

  ‘My uncle is an important and very influential man,’ she insisted, holding her head on one side and smiling appealingly up at him. ‘It will be very early. I promise you will be home before nine o’clock.’ She saw him hesitate and went on, ‘It will make my uncle – and me – very happy.’

  ‘I have an uncle also, Uncle Tromp—’

  ‘If I get your Uncle Tromp’s permission, will you promise to come?’

  Heidi was waiting in the Mercedes at the front door of their house in the village at seven o’clock, as she had arranged. The driver held the rear door open for him and Manfred slid onto the leather seat beside her.

  She smiled at him. ‘You look very handsome, Manfred.’

  She had plaited her blond hair into two thick gleaming ropes and piled them on top of her head. Her shoulders and the upper slopes of her stately bosom were bare, and snowy perfection. Her blue taffeta cocktail dress matched the colour of her eyes perfectly.

  ‘You are beautiful,’ he said with wonder in his tone. He had never paid a compliment to a woman before, but this was a mere statement of fact. She lowered her eyes, a touchingly modest gesture from someone who must be accustomed to male adulation.

  ‘To the Rupertstrasse,’ she ordered the driver.

  They drove slowly down the Kurfürstendamm, watching the throngs of merry-makers on the brightly lit sidewalks, then the Mercedes accelerated as they entered the quieter streets of the westerly section of the Grünewald district. This was the millionaires’ village on the western outskirts of the sprawling city, and Manfred relaxed and settled back against the leather upholstery and turned to the lovely woman beside him. She was talking seriously, asking him questions about himself and his family, and about his country. Quickly he realized that she had a much better knowledge of South Africa than he could have expected, and he wondered how she had acquired it.

  She knew the history of war and conflict and rebellion, the struggle of his people against the barbarous black tribes, and then the subjugation of the Afrikaner by the British, and the terrible threats to their existence as a people.

  ‘The English,’ she said, and there was a knife-edge of bitterness in her tone. ‘They are everywhere, bringing war and suffering with them – Africa, India, my own Germany. We too have been oppressed and persecuted. If it were not for our beloved Führer, we should still be staggering under the yoke of the Jew and the English.’

  ‘Yes, he is a great man, your Führer,’ Manfred agreed and then he quoted: ‘What we must fight for is to safeguard the existence and reproduction of our race and our people, the sustenance of our children and the purity of our blood, the freedom and independence of the fatherland, so that our people may mature for the fulfilment of the mission allotted it by the creator of the universe.’

  ‘Mein Kampf,’ she exclaimed. ‘You can quote the words of the Führer!’ They had passed a significant milestone in their relationship, Manfred realized.

  ‘With those words he has captured everything that I feel and believe,’ he said. ‘He is a great man, head of a great nation.’

  The house in the Rupertstrasse was set back from the road in large gardens on the bank of one of the beautiful Havel Lakes. There were a dozen chauffeured limousines parked in the driveway, most of them with swastika pennants on their bonnets and uniformed chauffeurs waiting behind the wheels. All the windows of the large house were lit and there was the sound of music and voices and laughter as their own chauffeur let them out of the Mercedes under the portico.

  Manfred offered Heidi his arm and they went in through the open front doors, crossed a lobby of black and white chequered marble slabs and panelled walls decorated with a forest of stag antlers, and paused in the doorway of the large reception room beyond. The room was already filled with guests. Most of the men were in dashing uniforms that glittered with the insignia of rank and regiment, while the women were elegant in silks and velvets, with shoulders bare and hair bobbed in the latest style.

  The laughter and conversation subsided as they turned to examine the newcomers, and there were interested and calculating appraisals, for Manfred and Heidi made a strikingly handsome couple. Then the conversation picked up again.

  ‘There is Uncle Sigmund,’ Heidi exclaimed, and drew Manfred into the room towards the tall uniformed figure who came to meet them.

  ‘Heidi, my dear.’ He stooped over Heidi’s hand as he kissed it. ‘You grow more beautiful each time I see you.’

  ‘Manfred, this is my uncle, Colonel Sigmund Boldt. Uncle Sigmund, may I present Herr Manfred De La Rey, the South African boxer.’

  Colonel Boldt shook hands with Manfred. He had pure white hair scraped severely back from the thin face of an academic, with good bone structure and a narrow aristocratic nose.

  ‘Heidi tells me that you are of German extraction?’ He wore a black uniform with silver death’s head insignia on the lapels; and one eyelid drooped, while the eye itself watered uncontrollably and he dabbed at it with the fine linen handkerchief he held in his right hand.

  ‘That is true, Colonel. I have very strong ties to your country,’ Manfred replied.

  ‘Ah, you speak excellent German.’ The colonel took his arm. ‘There are many people here t
his evening who will want to meet you, but first tell me, what do you think of the black American boxer, Cyrus Lomax? And what will be your tactics when you meet him?’

  With discreet social grace, either Heidi or Colonel Boldt were always on hand to steer him from one group of guests to the next, and the wine waiter brought him a glass of mineral water when he refused the champagne that was offered.

  However, they left him longer than usual with one guest whom Heidi had introduced as General Zoller, a tall Prussian officer in field grey uniform with an iron cross at the throat who, despite a rather undistinguished and forgettable face with pale sickly features, proved to have a sharp incisive intelligence. He questioned Manfred minutely on the politics and conditions in South Africa, particularly as to the feelings of the average Afrikaner towards their ties to Great Britain and the Empire.

  While they spoke, General Zoller chain-smoked a series of thin cigarettes wrapped in yellow paper with a strong herbal odour, and every now and again he wheezed with asthma. Manfred quickly found that he was sympathetic and had an encyclopaedic grasp of African affairs; the time passed very quickly before Heidi came across the room and touched his arm.

  ‘Excuse me, General Zoller, but I have promised the boxing coach that I will have his star back before nine o’clock.’

  ‘I have enjoyed meeting you, young man.’ The general shook Manfred’s hand. ‘Our countries should be good friends.’

  Manfred assured him, ‘I will do all in my power to bring that about.’