Power of the Sword

by Wilbur Smith

  ‘The details of this political execution have been carefully planned,’ Manfred went on to assure them. ‘Three different contingency plans were drawn up in Berlin, each for a different date, depending on the dictates of circumstances. The first plan, the earliest date, suits our present purpose exactly. Smuts will be executed this coming Saturday. Three days from now – the day before the detention orders are served on our leaders.’

  The silence drew out a minute longer, then the administrator asked, ‘Where? How will it be done?’

  ‘You do not need to know that. I will do what is necessary, alone and unaided. It will be up to you to act quickly and forcibly as soon as the news of Smuts’ death is released. You must step into the void he leaves and seize the reins of power.’

  ‘Let it be so,’ said the administrator quietly. ‘We will be ready for the moment when it comes, and may God bless our battle.’

  Of the eight men in the compartment, only Manfred remained aboard when the express pulled out of Bloemfontein station and began its long run southwards towards Cape Town.

  ‘I have a permit to keep a firearm on the estate,’ Sakkie Van Vuuren, the winery manager, told Manfred. ‘We use it to shoot the baboons that come down from the mountains to raid the vineyards and orchards.’

  He led the way down the steps into the cool gloom of the cellars.

  ‘Anybody who hears a few shots coming from the mountains will take no notice of them – but if you are challenged, tell them you are employed by the estate and refer them to me.’ He opened the false front of the wine cask and stood back while Manfred knelt and opened one of the waterproof canisters.

  First he lifted out the radio transmitter and connected the new batteries which Van Vuuren had procured for him. The radio was fitted into a canvas rucksack and was readily portable.

  He opened the second canister and brought out the rifle case. In it was a sniper’s model 98 Mauser, with that superb action which permitted such high breech pressure levels that the velocity of the 173 grain bullet could be pushed up over 2500 feet per second. There were fifty rounds of the 7–57 mm ammunition which had been specially hand-loaded by one of the expert technicians at Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabrik, and the telescopic sight was by Zeiss. Manfred fitted the telescopic sight to the rifle and filled the magazine. The rest of the ammunition he repacked and then stowed the canisters away in the false-fronted cask.

  Van Vuuren drove him up into one of the valleys of the Hottentots Holland mountains in his battered old Ford halftonner, and when the track at last petered out, left him there and drove back down the rocky winding trail.

  Manfred watched him out of sight and then hefted his pack and rifle and began to climb upwards. He had plenty of time, there was no need to hurry, but the hard physical exertion gave him pleasure and he went up with long elastic strides, revelling in the flood of sweat on his face and body.

  He crossed the first range of the foothills, went down into the wooded valley and then climbed again to one of the main peaks beyond. Near the crest he stopped and set up the radio, stringing his aerials from the tops of two cripplewood trees and orientating them carefully towards the north.

  Then he settled down with his back to a boulder and ate the sandwiches that little Sarah had made for him. The contact time with the Abwehr agent in Luanda, the capital of Portuguese Angola, was 1500 hours Greenwich Mean Time, and he had almost an hour to wait.

  After he had eaten he took the Mauser in his lap and handled it lovingly, refamiliarizing himself with the weapon’s feel and balance, working the bolt action, bringing the butt to his shoulder and sighting through the lens of the telescope at objects down the slope.

  In Germany he had practised endlessly with this same rifle, and he knew that at any range up to three hundred metres he could choose in which eye he would shoot a man. However, it was essential that he check the rifle to make absolutely certain that the sights were still true. He needed a target as close to that of a human form as possible, but he could find nothing suitable from where he sat. He laid the rifle carefully aside, checked his wristwatch and transferred his attention to the radio.

  He set up the Morse key and turned to the page of his notebook on which he had already reduced the message to code. He flexed his fingers and began to send, tapping the brass key with a fluid rapid movement, aware that the operator at Luanda far in the north would recognize his style and would accept that rather than his code name as proof of his identity.

  ‘Eagle Base, this is White Sword.’ On the fourth call he was answered. The signal in his headphones was strong and clear.

  ‘Go ahead, White Sword.’

  ‘Confirm plan one in force. Repeat plan one. Acknowledge.’

  There was no need for a long message that could increase the chances of being traced or intercepted. Everything had been arranged with Teutonic attention to detail before he left Berlin.

  ‘Understand plan one. Good luck. Over and out from Eagle Base.’

  ‘Over and out White Sword.’

  He rolled the aerial wires, repacked the transmitter, and was about to swing it on his shoulder when an explosive barking cough echoed along the cliffs and Manfred sank down flat behind the rock and reached for the Mauser. The wind favoured him and he settled down to wait.

  He lay for almost half an hour without moving, still and intent, scanning the valley floor below, before he saw the first movement amongst the jumbled lichen-covered rocks and stunted protea bushes.

  The baboons were moving in their usual foraging order, with half a dozen young males in the van, the females and young in the centre, and three huge grey patriarchal males in the rearguard. The infants were slung upside down below their mothers’ bellies, clinging with tiny paws to the thick coarse belly fur and peering out with pink hairless faces. The larger youngsters rode like jockeys perched on the backs of their dams. The three fighting bulls at the rear of the troop followed them, swaggering arrogantly, knuckling the ground as they moved forward on four legs, their heads held high, almost doglike, their muzzles long and pointed, their eyes close-set and bright.

  Manfred chose the largest of the three apes and watched him through the lens of the sight. He let him come on up the slope until he was only three hundred metres from where he lay.

  The bull baboon suddenly loped forward and with an agile bound reached the top of a grey boulder the size of a small cottage. He sat there, perched on his hindquarters, resting his elbows on his knees, almost human in his pose, and he opened his jaws in a cavernous yawn. His fangs were pointed and yellow and as long as a man’s forefinger.

  Carefully Manfred took up the slack in the rear trigger until he felt the hair trigger engage with an almost inaudible click, then he settled the cross hairs of the telescopic sight on the baboon’s forehead, and held his aim for the hundredth part of a second. He touched the front trigger, while he still concentrated fixedly on the baboon’s sloping furry forehead and the rifle slammed back into his shoulder. The shot crashed out across the valley. The echoes rang back from the cliffs in a descending roll of thunder.

  The bull baboon somersaulted backwards from his seat on the boulder, and the rest of the troop fled back down the slope in screaming panic.

  Manfred stood up, hoisted the pack onto his shoulders and picked his way down the slope. He found the ape’s carcass huddled at the base of the rock. It still twitched and quivered in reflex but the top of the animal’s skull was missing. It had been cut away as though by an axe stroke at the level of the eyes and bright blood welled up through the base of the brain pan and dribbled over the rocks.

  Manfred rolled the carcass over with his foot and nodded with satisfaction. The special hollow-tipped bullet would decapitate a man just as neatly, and the rifle had held true to within a finger’s breadth at three hundred metres.

  ‘Now I am ready as I will ever be,’ Manfred murmured and went down the mountain.

  Shasa had not been home to Weltevreden, nor had he seen Tara since he and Bla
ine had flown home from Pretoria in the Rapide after the discovery of the stolen weapons.

  He had not left CID headquarters during that time. He ate at the police canteen and snatched a few hours’ sleep in the dormitory that had been set up on the floor above the operations room. The rest of the time he had been engrossed entirely in the preparations for the planned police swoop.

  There were almost a hundred and fifty suspects to be dealt with in Cape Province alone, and for each the warrant had to be drawn, the expected whereabouts of subjects charted, and police officers delegated to make each separate arrest.

  Sunday had been selected deliberately for almost all of the subjects were devout Calvinists, members of the Dutch Reformed Church, and would attend divine service that morning. Their whereabouts could be anticipated with a high degree of certainty and they would in all probability be unsuspecting, in a religious frame of mind, and not in the mood to offer any resistance to the arresting officers.

  It was midday Friday before Shasa remembered that his grandfather’s birthday picnic was the following day and he rang Centaine at Weltevreden from the police operations room.

  ‘Oh chéri, that is terrible news, Sir Garry will be so disappointed. He has asked for you every day since he arrived – and we are all so looking forward to seeing you.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mater.’

  ‘Can’t you get away to join us – even for an hour?’

  ‘That’s just not possible. Believe me, Mater, I am as disappointed as anyone.’

  ‘You don’t have to come up the mountain, Shasa. Just drink a glass of champagne with us at Weltevreden before we leave. You can go back immediately and do whatever it is you are doing that is so important. For my sake, chéri, won’t you try?’

  She sensed that he was wavering. ‘Blaine and Field-Marshal Smuts will be here. They have both promised. If you come at eight o’clock, just to wish your grandfather a happy birthday, I promise you can leave again before eight-thirty.’

  ‘Oh, all right, Mater,’ he capitulated, and grinned into the telephone. ‘Don’t you find it boring always to get your own way?’

  ‘It is something I have learned to bear, chéri,’ she laughed back at him. ‘Until tomorrow.’

  ‘Until tomorrow,’ he agreed.

  ‘I love you, chéri.’

  ‘I love you too, Mater.’

  He hung up, feeling guilty at having given in to her, and was about to ring Tara to tell her that he wouldn’t be able to escort her to the picnic when one of the sergeants across the room called him.

  ‘Squadron Leader Courtney, this call is for you.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘She didn’t say, it’s a woman,’ and Shasa smiled as he crossed the room. Tara had anticipated him and called him first.

  ‘Hello, is that you Tara?’ he said into the mouthpiece, and there was silence except for the soft sound of somebody breathing nervously. His nerves snapped tight, and he lowered his voice, trying to make it friendly and encouraging as he switched into Afrikaans.

  ‘This is Squadron Leader Courtney speaking. Is that the lady I spoke to before?’

  ‘Ja. It is me.’ He recognized her voice, young, breathless and afraid.

  ‘I am very grateful to you. What you have done has saved many lives – the lives of innocent people.’

  ‘I saw nothing about the guns in the newspapers,’ the woman whispered.

  ‘You can be proud of what you have done,’ he told her, and then on inspiration added, ‘Many people would have died, perhaps even women and little children.’

  The words ‘little children’ seemed to decide her and she blurted out, ‘There is still great danger. They are planning something terrible, White Sword is going to do something. Soon, very soon. I heard him say that it will be the signal, and it will turn the nation on its head—’

  ‘Can you tell me what it is?’ Shasa asked, trying not to frighten her, keeping his voice low and reassuring. ‘What is this thing he plans?’

  ‘I don’t know. I only know it will be very soon.’

  ‘Can you find out what it is?’

  ‘I don’t know – I can try.’

  ‘For the sake of everybody, the women and little children, will you try to find out what it is?’

  ‘Yes, I will try.’

  ‘I will be here at this telephone—’ then suddenly he remembered his promise to Centaine ‘ – or at this other number—’ and he gave her the number at Weltevreden. ‘Try here first, and the other number if I am not here.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Can you tell me who White Sword is?’ He took a calculated risk. ‘Do you know his real name?’ Immediately the connection crackled and was broken. She had hung up. He lowered the telephone and stared at it. He sensed that he had frightened her off for good with that last question, and dismay overwhelmed him.

  ‘Something that will turn the nation on its head.’ Her words haunted him, and he was filled with an ominous sense of impending disaster.

  Manfred drove sedately along the De Waal Drive past the university buildings. It was past midnight, and the streets were almost deserted except for a few Friday-night revellers wending their unsteady way homeward. The car he was driving was a nondescript little Morris and the rifle was in the boot under a tattered piece of tarpaulin. He was dressed in a railwayman’s blue overalls over which he wore a thick fisherman’s jersey and a heavy greatcoat.

  He was moving into position now to avoid the danger of being seen on the mountain during daylight carrying a rifle. On a weekend the slopes of Table Mountain were favoured by hikers and rock climbers, birdwatchers and picnickers, boy scouts and lovers.

  He passed the forestry station and turned into Rhodes Avenue, then followed the road up past the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens with the bulk of the mountain blotting out half the starry night sky. The road wound around the bottom slopes through the dark forests. Before he reached the Constantia Nek pass he slowed down, and checked in his rearview mirror to make certain there was no vehicle following him. Then he switched off his headlights and turned off sharply onto the forestry track.

  He drove at a walking pace, keeping in low gear until he reached the forestry gate. Then he stopped and, leaving the engine idling, went to the gate and tried his key in the lock. Roelf had given him the key and assured him that the forester was a friend. It turned easily, and Manfred drove the Morris through and closed the gate behind him. He hooked the staple of the padlock through the chain, but did not lock it.

  He was on the bottom stretch of the bridle path now and drove on up the narrow track as it ascended the slope in a series of tight hairpins. He passed the contour path that girdled the mountain three hundred metres above sea level. A mile further on, just below the summit he reversed the Morris off the bridle path so that it was out of sight of a casual hiker. From the boot he took the Mauser and wrapped it carefully in a light tarpaulin. Then he locked the doors of the Morris and went back down towards the contour path carrying the rifle across his shoulder. He used his flashlight as little as possible and then only for quick glimpses of the pathway, shielding the beam with his body.

  Within twenty minutes he intercepted the pathway that climbed directly up Skeleton Gorge and he flashed his light onto the square concrete signpost and read the legend printed on it.

  SMUTS TRACK

  The concrete block resembled a tombstone rather than a signpost, and he smiled grimly at the appropriateness of the name upon it. The old field-marshal had made this ascent the most famous of all routes to the summit.

  Manfred climbed quickly, without resting, 1200 feet up Skeleton Gorge until he came up past Breakfast Rock over the crest, onto the tableland. Here he paused for a moment to look back. Far below him the Constantia valley huddled in the night, lit by only a star dusting of lights. He turned his back upon it and began his final preparations. He had scouted the site two days previously, and he had chosen the stance from which he would fire and paced out the exact range from the
re to the point on the pathway where a man would become visible as he came out onto the summit.

  Now he moved into his stance. It was a hollow between two boulders, lightly screened by mountain scrub. He spread the tarpaulin over the low wiry bracken and then lay full length upon it, flattening the plants into a comfortable mattress under him.

  He wriggled into firing position, cradled the butt of the Mauser into his cheek and aimed at the head of the pathway 250 metres away. Through the Zeiss lens he could make out the individual branches of the bush that grew beside the path starkly silhouetted against the soft glow of light from the valley beyond.

  He laid the weapon on the tarpaulin in front of him, ready for instant use. Then he pulled the collar of the greatcoat up around his ears and huddled down. It was going to be a long cold wait, and to pass the time he reviewed all the planning that had led him to this place, and the odds that tomorrow morning, at a little before or a little after ten-thirty, his quarry would come up the path that bore his name and step into the cross hairs of the Zeiss scope.

  The dossier on Jan Christian Smuts meticulously assembled by the Abwehr in Berlin, which he had studied so avidly, had shown that for the last ten years, on every anniversary of this date, the field-marshal had kept this arrangement with an old friend, and now the fate of a nation depended on him doing so once again.

  Shasa drove through the Anreith gates and up the long driveway to the château. There were a dozen motor cars parked in front of Weltevreden, Blaine’s Bentley amongst them. He parked the Jag beside it and checked his wristwatch. It was ten minutes past eight o’clock. He was late and Mater was going to be huffed, she was an absolute stickler for punctuality.

  She surprised him again by springing up from the long table in the dining-room and running to embrace him. The entire party of twenty was assembled for one of Weltevreden’s celebrated breakfasts. The buffet sideboard groaned under the weight of silver and food. The servants in their long white kanzas and red pillbox fezes burst into beaming grins when they saw Shasa and a welcoming buzz of pleasure went up from the guests seated at the stinkwood table.