Authors: Wilbur Smith

Rage (49 page)

BOOK: Rage

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S
hasa allowed Garry to fly. Garry had been granted his private pilot's licence two months previously, but he still needed a few hours for his twin-engine endorsement. A year older than Garry, Sean had been given his licence immediately he was eligible. Sean flew the way he rode and shot, naturally, gracefully, but carelessly. He was one of those pilots who flew by the grace of God and the seat of his pants. In contrast, Garry was painstaking and meticulous and therefore, Shasa admitted grudgingly, the better pilot. Garry filed a flight plan as though he was submitting a thesis for his doctorate, and his pre-flight checks went on so long that Shasa squirmed in the right-hand seat and only just contained himself from crying out, âFor God's sake, Garry, let's get on with it.'

Yet it was a mark of his trust that he allowed Garry to take the controls of the Mosquito at all. Shasa was prepared to take over at the first sign of trouble, but he was amply rewarded for his forbearance when he saw the sparkle of deep pleasure behind Garry's spectacles as he handled the lovely machine, lifting her up through the silver wreaths of cloud into a blue African sky where Shasa could share with him a rare feeling of total accord.

Once they arrived at Walvis Bay Shasa tended to forget that Garry was with him. He had become accustomed to his middle son's close attendance, and though he did not really think of it, it was becoming familiar and comforting to have him there. Garry seemed to anticipate his smallest need, whether it was a light for his cigarette or a piece of
scrap paper and pencil on which to illustrate an idea to the architect. Yet Garry was quiet and unobtrusive, not given to inane questions and bumptious or facetious remarks.

The cannery was fast becoming one of the big winners in the Courtney stable of companies. For three seasons they had captured their full quota of pilchards, and then there had been an unusual development. In a private meeting Manfred De La Rey had suggested to Shasa that if the company were to issue a further ten thousand bonus shares in the name of a nominee in Pretoria, the consequences might be very much to everybody's advantage. Taking Manfred on trust, Shasa had issued the shares as suggested, and within two months there had been a review of their quota by the government Department of Land and Fisheries and that quota had been almost doubled to the two hundred thousand tons of pilchard that they were now permitted to capture annually.

âFor three hundred years the Afrikaners have been left out of business,' Shasa smiled cynically as he received the glad tidings. âBut they are catching on fast. They are in the race now, and not too fussy about how they win. The Jews and the English had better look to their business laurels, here come the Nats.' And he set about planning and financing the extension to the cannery.

It was late afternoon before Shasa finished with the architects, but at this season there were still a few hours of daylight remaining.

âHow about a swim at Pelican Point?' Shasa suggested to Garry, and they took one of the cannery Land-Rovers and drove along the hard wet sand at the edge of the bay. The waters of the bay stank of sulphur and fish offal, but behind it the high golden dunes and arid mountains rose in desolate grandeur, while out over the protected and silken waters the flamingo flocks were such a brilliant pink as to seem improbable and theatrical. Shasa drove fast around the curve of the bay with the wind ruffling their hair.

âSo what, if anything, did you learn today?'

âI learned that if you want other people to talk too freely, you keep quiet and look sceptical,' Garry answered, and Shasa glanced at his son with a startled expression. That had always been a deliberate technique of his, but Shasa had never expected anyone so young and inexperienced to see through it. âWithout saying anything, you made the architect admit that he really hasn't worked out a solution to siting the boiler room yet,' Garry went on. âAnd even I could see that his present proposal is an expensive compromise.'

âIs that so?' It had taken Shasa a full day of discussion to reach the same conclusion, but he wasn't going to say so. âWhat would you do, then?'

âI don't know, Pater, not for sure,' Garry said. He had a pedantic manner of delivering an opinion which had at first irritated Shasa, but which now amused him, particularly as the opinions were usually worth listening to. âBut instead of simply sticking on another boiler, I would explore the possibility of installing the new Patterson processâ'

âWhat do you know about the Patterson process?' Shasa demanded sharply. He had only heard about it himself very recently. Suddenly Shasa found himself arguing as though with an equal. Garry had read all the sales pamphlets and memorized the specifications and figures of the process, and had worked out for himself most of the advantages and disadvantages over the conventional method of preparation and canning.

They were still arguing as they rounded the sandy horn of the bay, and beyond the lighthouse the deserted beach, clean and white, stretched away in dwindling perspective to the horizon. Here the Atlantic waters were wild and green, cold and clean, foamy and effervescent with the rush of the surf.

They stripped off their clothes and, naked, swam out into the tumultuous seas, diving deep beneath each curling
wave as it came hissing down upon them. At last they emerged, their bodies tinted blue with the cold, but laughing breathlessly with exhilaration.

As they stood beside the Land-Rover and towelled themselves, Shasa studied his son frankly. Even though sodden with salt water, Garry's hair stuck up in disorderly spikes and without his spectacles he had a bemused myopic look. His torso was massively developed, his chest was like a pickle barrel and he had grown such a coat of dark body hair that it almost obscured the ridges of muscle that covered his belly like chain mail.

âLooking at him, there is no way you would ever suspect that he was a Courtney. If I didn't know better, I would think that Tara had a little fling on the side.' Shasa was certain that Tara might be capable of many things, but never infidelity or promiscuity. âThere is nothing about him of his ancestry,' he thought, and then looked further and grinned suddenly.

âWell at least, Garry, you have inherited one of the Courtney gifts. You've got a wanger on you that would make old General Courtney himself turn in his grave with envy.'

Hurriedly Garry covered himself with his towel and reached into the Land-Rover for his underpants, but secretly he was pleased. Up until now he had always regarded that portion of his anatomy with suspicion. It seemed to be an alien creature with a will and existence of its own, determined to embarrass and humiliate him at the most unexpected or inappropriate moments, like that unforgettable occasion when he was standing in front of the commerce class at business school giving his dissertation and the girls in the front row started giggling, or when he was forced to retreat in confusion from the typing-pool at Centaine House because of the alien's sudden but very apparent interest in the surroundings. However, if his father spoke respectfully of it, and the shade of the legendary
general approved, then Garry was prepared to reconsider his own relationship with it and come to terms.

They flew on to the Hâani Mine the next morning. All three of the boys had done their stint at the H'ani. As indeed had Shasa so many years before, they had been required to work their way through every part of the mine's operation, from the drilling and blasting in the deep amphitheatre of the open pit, to the final separation rooms where at last the precious crystals were recovered from the crushed blue ground.

That forced labour had been more than sufficient for both Sean and Michael and neither of them had ever shown the least desire to return to the H'ani Mine again. Garry was the exception, he seemed to have developed the same love for these remote wild hills as both Shasa and Centaine shared. He asked to accompany his father here whenever Shasa's regular inspection tours were scheduled. In a few short years he had built up an expert knowledge of the mine's operation, and had at one time or another personally performed all of the tasks involved in the process of production. So on their last evening at the mine the two of them, Shasa and Garry, stood on the brink of the great pit and while the sun set over the desert behind them they stared down into its shadowy depths.

âIt's strange to think that it all came out of there,' Garry said softly. âEverything that you and Nana have built up. It makes one feel somehow humble, like when I am in church.' He was silent for a long moment and then went on. âI love this place. I wish we could stay longer.'

To hear his own feeling echoed like this, moved Shasa deeply. Of his three sons, this was the only one who understood, who seemed capable of sharing with him the almost religious awe that this massive excavation and the wealth it produced evoked in him. This was the fountainhead, and only Garry had recognized it.

He placed his arm around Garry's shoulders and tried to
find words, but after a moment he simply said, âI know how you feel, champ. But we have to get back home. I have to introduce my budget to the House on Monday.' It was not what he had wanted to say, but he sensed that Garry knew that, and as they picked their way down the rough pathway in the dusk, they were closer in spirit than they had ever been.

T
he budget for Shasa's Ministry of Mines and Industry had been almost doubled this year, and he knew that the Opposition were planning to give it a rough passage. They had never forgiven him for changing parties. So he was on his mettle as he rose to his feet and sought the Speaker's recognition, and then instinctively glanced up at the galleries.

Centaine was in the middle of the front row of the visitors' gallery. She was always there when she knew that either Shasa or Blaine was going to speak. She wore a small flat hat tilted forward over her eyes with a single yellow bird of paradise feather raked back at a jaunty angle, and she smiled and nodded encouragement as their eyes met.

Beside Centaine sat Tara. Now that was unusual. He couldn't remember when last she had come to listen to him.

âOur bargain doesn't include torture by boredom,' she had told him, but there she was looking surprisingly elegant in a dainty straw basher with a trailing pink ribbon around the crown and elbow-length white gloves. She touched the brim in a mocking salute, and Shasa lifted an eyebrow at her and then turned to the press gallery high above the Speaker's throne. The political correspondents from the English-speaking press were all there, pencils poised eagerly. Shasa was one of their favourite prey, but all their attacks seemed only to consolidate his position in the National
Party, and by their pettiness and subjectivity point up the efficiency and effectiveness with which he ran his ministry.

He loved the rough and tumble of parliamentary debate, and his single eye sparkled with battle lust as he took up his familiar slouch, both hands in his pockets, and launched into his presentation.

They were at him immediately, yapping and snapping at his heels, interjecting with expressions of disbelief and outrage, calling out âShame on you, sir!' and âScandal!' and Shasa's grin infuriated them and goaded them to excesses which he brushed aside with casual contempt, holding his own easily and then gradually overwhelming them and turning their own ridicule back upon them, while around him his colleagues grinned with admiration and encouraged his more devastating sallies with cries of â
Hoor, hoor!
â Hear, hear!'

When the division was called, his party backed him solidly, and his budget was approved by the expected majority. It was a performance which had enhanced his stature and standing. He was no longer the junior member of the cabinet and Dr Verwoerd passed him a note.

âI was right to keep you on the team. Well done.'

In the front of the visitors' gallery Centaine caught his eye, and clasped both hands together in a boxer's victory flourish, yet somehow she made the gesture appear at once regal and ladylike. Shasa's smile faded as he realized that beside her Tara's seat was empty, she had left during the debate, and Shasa was surprised by his own feeling of disappointment. He would have liked her to witness his triumph.

The House was moving on to other business which did not concern him and on an impulse Shasa rose and left the chamber. He went up the wide staircase and down the long panelled passageway to his office suite. As he approached the front entrance to the suite, he checked suddenly and again on impulse turned at the corner of the passage and
went down to the unobtrusive and unmarked doorway at the end.

This was the back door to his office, a convenient escape route from unwanted visitors which had been ordered by old Cecil John Rhodes himself as a by-pass of the front waiting-room, a means for special visitors to reach him and leave again unobserved. Shasa found it equally convenient. The Prime Minister used it occasionally, as did Manfred De La Rey, but the majority of other users were female, and their business with Shasa was seldom political.

Instead of rattling the key in the Yale lock, Shasa slipped it in silently and turned it gently, then pushed the door open sharply. On the inside the door was artfully blended into the panelling of his office and few people knew of its existence.

Tara was standing with her back towards him, bending over the altar chest. She did not know the door existed. Except for the gift of the chest, she had taken little interest in the decoration and furbishment of his office. It was a few seconds before she sensed that she was not alone, and then her reaction was extravagant. She jumped back from the chest and whirled to face him, and as she recognized Shasa, instead of showing relief, she paled with agitation and began to explain breathlessly.

âI was just looking at it â it's such a magnificent piece of work. Quite beautiful, I had forgotten how beautifulâ'

One thing Shasa realized immediately, she was as guilty as if she had been caught red-handed in some dreadful crime, but he could not imagine what had made her react that way. She was quite entitled to be in his office, she had her own key to the front door, and she had given him the chest â she could admire it whenever she chose.

He remained silent and fastened his eye upon her accusingly, hoping to trick her into over-explaining, but she left the chest and moved across to the window behind his desk.

âYou were doing very well on the floor,' she said. She was still a little breathless, but her colour had returned and she was recovering her composure. âYou always put on such a good show.'

âIs that why you left?' he asked, as he closed the door and pointedly crossed the room to the chest.

âOh, you know how useless I am with figures, you quite lost me towards the end.'

Shasa studied the chest carefully. âWhat was she up to?' he asked himself thoughtfully, but he could not see that anything was altered. The Van Wouw bronze sculpture of the Bushman was still in its place, so she could not have opened the lid.

âIt's a marvellous piece,' he said, and stroked the effigy of St Luke at the corner.

âI had no idea there was a door in the panel.' Clearly Tara was trying to distract his attention from the chest, and her efforts merely piqued his curiosity. âYou gave me quite a turn.' Shasa refused to be led and ran his fingers over the inlaid lid.

âI should get Dr Findlay from the National Gallery to have a look at it,' Shasa mused. âHe's an expert on Medieval and Renaissance religious art.'

âOh, I promised Tricia I would let her know when you arrived.' Tara sounded almost desperate. âShe's got an important message for you.' She crossed quickly to the interleading door and opened it. âTricia, Mr Courtney's here now.' Shasa's secretary popped her head into the inner office.

âDo you know a Colonel Louis Nel?' she asked. âHe's been trying to get hold of you all morning.'

âNel?' Shasa was still studying the chest. âNel? No, I don't think so.'

âHe says he knows you, sir. He says you worked together during the war.'

âOh, good Lord, yes!' She had Shasa's full attention now.
âIt was so long ago â but, yes, I know him well. He wasn't a colonel then.'

âHe's Head of CID for the Cape of Good Hope now,' Tricia told him. âAnd he wants you to telephone him as soon as you can. He says it's very urgent, he actually said “life and death”.'

âLife and death, hey,' Shasa grinned. âThat probably means he wants to borrow money. Get him on the blower, please, Trish.'

He went to his desk, sat down and pulled the telephone towards him. He motioned Tara towards the couch, but she shook her head.

âI'm meeting Sally and Jenny for lunch,' and she sidled towards the door with a relieved expression. But he wasn't looking at her, he was staring out of the window over the oaks to the slopes of Signal Hill beyond, and he didn't even glance round as she slipped out of the room and closed the door quietly behind her.

Louis Nel's call had transported Shasa back almost twenty years in time. âWas it that long ago?' he wondered. âYes, it was. My God, how quickly the years have passed.'

Shasa had been a young squadron leader, invalided back from the campaign in Abyssinia where he had lost his eye fighting the Duke of Aosta's army on the drive up to Addis Ababa. At a loose end, certain that his life was ruined and that he was a cripple and a burden on his family and friends, Shasa had gone into seclusion and started drinking heavily and letting himself slip into careless despondency. It had been Blaine Malcomess who had sought him out and given him a scornful and painful tongue-lashing, and then offered him a job helping track down and break up the
Ossewa Brandwag
, the Sentinels of the Wagon Train, a secret society of militant nationalist Afrikaners who were virulently opposed to Field-Marshal Jan Christiaan Smuts' pro-British war efforts.

Shasa had worked in cooperation with Louis Net,
establishing the identity of the leading members of the pro-Nazi conspiracy and preparing the warrants for their arrest and internment. His investigations of the
Ossewa Brandwag
's activities had put him in contact with a mysterious informer, a woman who had contacted him only by telephone and who took every precaution to conceal her identity. To this day Shasa did not know who she had been, or indeed if she were still alive.

This informer had revealed to him the
OB
theft of weapons from the government arms and munitions factory in Pretoria, and enabled them to deal a major blow to the subversive organization. Then the same informer had warned Shasa of the White Sword conspiracy. This was an audacious plot to assassinate Field-Marshal Smuts, and in the ensuing confusion to seize control of the armed forces, declare South Africa a republic, and throw in their lot with Adolf Hitler and the Axis powers.

Shasa had been able to foil the plot at the very last minute, but only by the most desperate efforts, and at the cost of his own grandfather's life. Sir Garrick Courtney had been shot by the assassin in mistaken identity, for the old man had physically resembled his good and dear friend, Field-Marshal Smuts.

Shasa had not thought about those dangerous days for many years. Now every detail came back vividly. He lived it all again as he waited for the telephone on his desk to ring; the reckless climb up the sheer side of Table Mountain as he tried to catch his grandfather and the Field-Marshal before they could reach the summit where the killer was waiting for them. He recalled his dreadful sense of helplessness as the rifle shot crashed and echoed against the rocky cliffs and he realized he was too late, the horror of finding his grandfather lying in the track with the ghastly bullet wound which had blown his chest open, and the old Field-Marshal kneeling beside him stricken with grief.

Shasa had chased the killer, using his intimate knowledge of the mountain to cut off his retreat against the top of the cliff. They fought chest to chest, fought for their very lives. White Sword had used his superior strength to break away and escape, but not before Shasa had put a bullet from his 6.5 mm Beretta into his chest. White Sword disappeared and the plot to overthrow Smuts' government collapsed, but the killer had never been brought to justice, and Shasa felt once again the agony of his grandfather's murder. He had loved the old man and named his second son after him.

The telephone rang at last and Shasa snatched it up.

âLouis?' he asked.

âShasa!' Shasa recognized his voice immediately. âIt's been a long time.'

âIt's good to speak to you.'

âYes, but I wish I was the bearer of better news. I'm sorry.'

âWhat is it?' Shasa was immediately serious.

âNot on the telephone â can you come down to Caledon Square as soon as possible?'

âTen minutes,' Shasa said, and hung up.

The headquarters of the CID was only a short walk from the House of Assembly and he stepped it out briskly. The episode with Tara and the chest was put out of his mind as he tried to imagine what bad news Louis Nel had for him.

The sergeant at the front desk had been alerted and he recognized Shasa immediately.

âThe colonel is expecting you, Minister. I'll send someone to show you up to his office,' and he beckoned one of the uniformed constables.

Louis Nel was in his shirt-sleeves and he came to the door to welcome Shasa and lead him to one of the easy chairs.

âHow about a drink?'

âStill too early for me.' Shasa shook his head, but he accepted the cigarette Louis offered him.

The policeman was lean as ever, but he had lost most of his hair and what remained was ice white. There were dark pouches beneath his eyes and after his welcoming smile his mouth settled back into a thin nervous line. He looked like a man who worried a lot, worked too hard and slept badly at night. He must be past retirement age, Shasa thought.

âHow's the family â your wife?' Shasa asked. He had met her only once or twice and could not remember her name or what she looked like.

âWe were divorced five years ago.'

âI'm sorry,' Shasa said, and Louis shrugged.

âIt was bad at the time.' Then he leaned forward. âYour family â you have three boys and a girl. That's right?

âAh! You have been doing a police number on me,' Shasa smiled, but Louis did not respond. His expression remained serious as he went on.

BOOK: Rage

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