Power Of The Sword Part 53

My husband will see you, Mevrou. Please come with me. Still shaken from her brief encounter with her grandchild Centaine was unprepared for the additional shock of meeting her son face to face. He stood behind a desk that was strewn with doc.u.ments and he glared at her with that disconcerting yellow gaze.

I cannot tell you that you are welcome in this house, Mrs Malcomess. He spoke in English. You are a blood enemy of my family, and of mine. That is not true. Centaine found her voice was breathless, and she tried desperately to regain control.

Manfred made a dismissive gesture. You robbed and cheated my father, you crippled him, and through you he has spent half his life in prison. If you could see him now, an old man broken and discarded, you would not come here seeking favours from me. Are you certain I came for a favour? she asked, and he laughed bitterly.

For what other reason? You have hounded me, from the day I first saw you in the courtroom at my father's trial. I have seen you watching me, following me, stalking me, like a hungry lioness. I know you seek to destroy me as you destroyed my father. No! She shook her head vehemently, but he went on remorselessly.

Now you dare to come and beg my favour. I know what you want. He pulled open the drawer of his desk and lifted out a file. He opened it and let the papers it contained spill upon the desktop. Amongst them she recognized French birth certificates and old newspaper clippings.

Shall I read all these to you or will you read them yourself? What other proof do I need to show the world that you are a wh.o.r.e and your son a b.a.s.t.a.r.d? he asked, and she flinched at the words.

You have been very thorough, she said softly.

Yes, he agreed. Very thorough. I have all the evidence No, she contradicted him. Not all the evidence. You know about one b.a.s.t.a.r.d son of mine, but there is another b.a.s.t.a.r.d. I will tell you about my second b.a.s.t.a.r.d. For the first time he was uncertain, staring at her, at a loss for words. Then he shook his head.

You are shameless, he marvelled. You flaunt your sins before the world. Not before the world, she said. Only before the person they concern most. Only before you, Manfred De La Rey. I do not understand. Then I shall explain why I followed you, as you put it hounded and stalked you like a lioness. It was not the way a lioness stalks her prey, it was the way a lioness follows her cub. You see, Manfred, you are my other son. I gave birth to you in the desert and Lothar took you away before I had seen your face. You are my son and Shasa is your halfbrother. If he is a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, so are you. If you destroy him with that fact, you destroy yourself., I do not believe you! He recoiled from her. Lies! All lies!

My mother was a German woman of n.o.ble birth. I have her photograph. There! Look there on the wall! Centaine glanced at it. 'That was Lothar's wife,, she agreed. She died almost two years before you were born. No. It's not true. It cannot be true. Ask your father, Manfred, she said softly. Go to Windhoek. The date of that woman's death will be registered there. He saw it was true, and he slumped down into his chair and buried his face in his hands.

if you are my mother, how can I hate you so bitterly? She went and stood over him. Not as bitterly as I have hated myself for renouncing and abandoning you. She bent and kissed his head. If only - she whispered.

But now it is too late, far too late. As you have said, we are enemies separated by a void as wide as the ocean. Neither of us can ever cross it, but I do not hate you, Manfred, my son. I have never hated you. She left him slumped at his desk and walked slowly from the room.

At noon the following day Andrew Duggan telephoned her.

My informant has retracted his allegations, Centaine. He tells me that the papers, all the papers connected to the case, have been burned. I think somebody got at him, Centaine, but I cannot for the life of me think who. On 25 May 1948, the day before polling for the general election, Manfred addressed a huge crowd in the Dutch Reformed Church hall in Stellenbosch. All of them were staunch Nationalist supporters. No opposition was allowed to enter the hall, Roelf Stander and his action squad saw to that.

Yet when Manfred rose to speak, he also was prevented from doing so. The standing ovation that the crowd gave him kept him silent for fully five minutes. However, when it was over, they sat and listened in attentive silence as he gave them a vision of the future.

Under s.m.u.ts this land of ours will become peopled by a coffee-coloured race of half-bred mongrels, the only white ones left will be the Jews, those same Jews who at this very moment in Palestine are murdering innocent British soldiers at every turn. As you well know, s.m.u.ts has hastened to recognize the new state of Israel. That is only to be expected. His paymasters are the Jewish owners of the gold mines, Now the crowd cried: Skande, Scandal! and he paused impressively before he went on.

What we offer you instead is a plan, nay more than a plan, a vision, a bold and n.o.ble vision which will ensure the survival of the pure untainted bloodlines of our VoLk. A vision that will at the same time protect all the other people of this land, the Cape coloureds, the Indians, the black tribes.

This grand concept has been drawn up by clever men working with dedication and without self-interest, men like Dr Theophilus Donges and Dr Nicolaas Diederichs and Dr Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd, brilliant men every one of them. The crowd roared their agreement, and he sipped a gla.s.s of water and shuffled his notes until they quieted.

It is an idealistic, carefully worked out and completely infallible concept that will allow all the different races to live in peace and dignity and prosperity and yet allow each of them to retain its separate ident.i.ty and culture. For this reason we have named the policy Separateness. That is our vision that will carry our land to greatness, a vision at which the world will wonder, an example to all men of good will everywhere. That is what we call Apartheid. That, my beloved people, is the glorious mantle which we have prepared to place upon our country. Apartheid, my dear friends, that is what we offer you, the shining vision of Apartheid. He could not speak for many minutes, but when there was silence, he went on in a brisker more businesslike tone.

Of course, it will first be necessary to disenfranchise those black and coloured people who are already registered on the voters roll When he ended an hour later they carried him on their shoulders from the hall.

Tara stood close beside Shasa as they waited for the electoral officers to finish counting the votes and announce the result in the Hottentots Holland const.i.tuency.

The hall was filled with an excited crowd. There was laughter and singing and horseplay. The Nationalist candidate was at the far side of the hall with his tall blond wife beside him, surrounded by a restless overwrought knot of his supporters all sporting Nationalist rosettes.

One of the United Party organizers beckoned frantically at Shasa over the heads of the crowd, but he was chatting gaily to a bevy of fernale enthusiasts, and Tara slipped away to answer the summons. She came back only seconds later and when Shasa saw her face he broke off his conversation and went to meet her, forcing his way through the throng.

What is it, darlings You look as though you have seen a ghost. 'It's the Ou Baas, she whispered. A telephone call from the Transvaal. s.m.u.ts has lost Standerton. The Nationalists have won it. 'Oh G.o.d, no. Shasa was appalled. The Ou Baas has held that seat for twenty-five years. They cannot discard him now. The British discarded Winston Churchill, Tara said.

They don't want heroes any more. It's a sign, Shasa muttered. 'If s.m.u.ts goes, we all go with him. Ten minutes later the news was telephoned through.

Colonel Blaine Malcomess had lost the Gardens by almost a thousand votes.

A thousand votes, Shasa tried to accept it, but that's a swing of almost ten percent. What happens now? The electoral officer climbed onto the stage at the end of the hall. He had the results in his hand, and the crowd fell silent but edged forward eagerly.

Ladies and gentlemen, the results of the election for the const.i.tuency of Hottentots Holland, he intoned. Manfred De La Rey, Nationalist Party: 3,126 votes. Shasa Courtney, United Party: 2,012 votes. Claude Sampson, Independent: 196 votes. Tara took Shasa's hand and they went out to where the Packard was parked. They sat side by side on the front seat, but Tara did not start the engine immediately. They were both shaken and confused.

I just cannot believe it, Tara whispered.

I feel as though I am on a runaway train,, Shasa said.

Heading into a long dark tunnel, no means of escape, no way of stopping it. He sighed softly. Poor old South Africa, he murmured. 'G.o.d alone knows what the future holds for you. Moses Gama was surrounded by men. The small room with walls of galvanized corrugated iron was packed with them.

They were his praetorian guard, and Swart Hendrick was chief amongst them.

The room was lit only by a smoky paraffin lamp, and the yellow flame highlighted Moses Gama's features.

He is a lion among men, Hendrick thought, reminded again of one of the old kings, of Chaka or Mzilikazi, those great black elephants. Thus must they have called the war chiefs to council, thus they must have ordered the battle.

Even now the hard Boers vaunt their victory across the land, Moses Gama said. But I tell you, my children, and I tell you true that below the leaping flames of their pride and avarice lie the ashes of their own destruction. It will not be easy and it may be long. There will be hard work, bitter hard work and even b.l.o.o.d.y work, but tomorrow belongs to us. The new Deputy Minister of Justice left his office and went down the long corridor in the Union Buildings, that ma.s.sive fortresslike complex designed and built by Sir Herbert Baker on a low kopje overlooking the city of Pretoria. It was the administrative headquarters of the South African Government.

Outside it was dark, but there were lights burning in most of the offices. All of them were working late. Taking over the reins of power was an onerous business, but Manfred De La Rey revelled in every tedious detail of the task he had been given. He was sensible of the honour for which he had been selected. He was young, some said too young, for the post of a deputy minister, but he would prove them wrong.

He knocked on the minister's door and opened it to the command, 'Kom binne, enter! Charles Robberts Blackie Swart was tall almost to the point of deformity with huge hands that now lay on the desk top in front of him.

Manfred. He smiled like a crack appearing in a granite slab. 'Here is the little present I promised you. He picked up an envelope embossed with the crest of the Union of South Africa and handed it across the desk.

I will never be able to express my grat.i.tude, Minister. Manfred took the envelope. I hope only to demonstrate it to you by my loyalty and hard work in the years ahead. Back in his own office Manfred opened the envelope and unfolded the doc.u.ment it contained. Slowly savouring each word of it, he read through the free pardon granted to one Lothar De La Rey, convicted of various crimes and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Manfred folded the doc.u.ment and slipped it back into its envelope.

Tomorrow he would deliver the pardon to the prison governor in person, and he would be there to take his father's hand and lead him out into the sunshine again.

He stood up and went to his safe, tumbled the combination and swung open the heavy steel door. There were three files lying on the top shelf, and he took them down and laid them on his desk. One file was from military intelligence, the second from CID headquarters, the third from his own Department of justice. it had taken time and careful planning to have all three on his desk and all record of their existence removed from the archive registers. They were the only existing files on White Sword'.

He took his time and read each one through carefully. It was long after midnight when he finished, but now he knew that nowhere in those files had any person made the connection between White Sword and Manfred De La Rey, Olympic gold medallist and now Deputy Minister of justice.

He picked up the three files and carried them through to the outer office where he switched on the shredding machine. As he fed each separate page into the shredder and watched the thin strips of paper come curling out the far side like spaghetti, he considered what he had learned from them.

So there was a traitoress, he murmured. I was betrayed.

A woman, a young woman, speaking in Afrikaans. She knew everything, from the guns in Pretoria to the ambush on the mountain. There is only one young woman who knew all that. There would be retribution in time, but Manfred was in no hurry, there were many scores to settle, many debts to pay.

When the last page of the reports was reduced to minute slivers, Manfred locked his office and went down to where the new black Ford sedan that went with his rank was parked.

He drove back to his sumptuous official residence in the elegant suburb of Waterkloof. As he went upstairs to the bedroom he was careful not to wake Heidi. She was pregnant again, and her sleep was precious.

He lay in the darkness unable to sleep himself. There was too much to think about, too much planning to do, and he smiled and thought, So at last the sword of power is in our hands, and we will see, with a vengeance, who are the underdogs now.

The End

The novels of Wilbur Smith

The Courtney Novels: When the Lion Feeds The Sound of Thunder A Sparrow Falls The Burning Sh.o.r.e Power of the Sword Rage A Time to Die The Ballantyne Novels: A Falcon Flies Men of Men The Angels Weep The Leopard Hunts in Darkness Also: The Dark of the Sun Shout at the Devil Gold Mine The Diamond Hunters The Sunbird Eagle in the Sky The Eye of the Tiger Cry Wolf Hungry as the Sea Wild justice Golden Fox Elephant Song River G.o.d Power of the Sword Wilbur Smith was born in Central Africa in 1933. He was educated at Michaelhouse and Rhodes University. He became a full-time writer in 1964 after the successful publication of When the Lion Feeds, and has since written twenty-four novels, meticulously researched on his numerous expeditions worldwide. His work is now translated into twenty-five languages. He normally travels from November to February, often spending a month skiing in Switzerland, and visiting Australia and New Zealand for sea fishing. During his summer break he visits environments as diverse as Alaska and the dwindling wilderness of the African interior. He has an abiding concern for the peoples and wildlife of his native continent, an interest strongly reflected in his novels.

He is married to Danielle, to whom his last twenty books have been dedicated.

The novels of Wilbur Smith

The Courtney Novels:

When the Lion Feeds

The Sound of Thunder

A Sparrow Falls

The Burning Sh.o.r.e

Power of the Sword

Rage

A Time to Die

The Ballantyne novels:

A Falcon Flies

Men of Men

The Angels Weep

The Leopard Hunts in Darkness

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