He rang through to the library. He requested all communications over the previous month from Major Swart of the London Embassy. He was told such records were classified.
He said he knew they were classified. He was told that for access to classified communications he needed the counter-signature of the head of library on the docket. He shouted into the telephone that he knew access to classified communications required the counter-signature of the head of library. He was told the head of library was at supper, had left the building, would be back in 40 minutes.
What a fucking way to run a fucking intelligence gathering operation.
He telephoned his wife. He told her he would not be home until late. He said he thought the funeral had gone well.
She told him that the immersion heater had broken, the thermostat had failed, that there was no hot water in the house. He asked her what she wanted. Did she want South Africa sleeping safe, or did she want her husband as a plumber, for God's sake.
* * *
They moved all of their possessions to the corridor leading to the front door, their bags and the explosives and the firearms.
Each of them held a handkerchief underneath the kitchen tap and then set to work methodically to clean the rooms of finger prints. Jack took the bedroom, Jan the living room, and Ros did the kitchen. Not for the sake of Jack's prints, but for the brother's and the sister's.
When they had finished they carried the bags and the explosives and the firearms down the back fire escape to the car park, to Ros's Beetle, and to the car she and Jan had stolen.
Jeez sat on his bed.
Sergeant Oosthuizen had moved his chair from the end of the C section 2 corridor, by the locked doorway, to outside Jeez's cell. He allowed Jeez's door to be three, four inches open.
It was in direct contradiction of regulations. At this time in the evening, with the lights dimmed, Jeez should have been locked into his cell.
He was like a terrier with a rabbit, with conversation. If Jeez didn't respond to him then Sergeant Oosthuizen asked a question that demanded an answer. As though good Sergeant Oosthuizen had determined that a man who was to hang in less than a day and a half was best served by making conversation.
Jeez didn't know his mind, didn't know whether he wanted to hear the retirement plans over again, didn't know whether he was better with the silence and the worm of his own thoughts. A new worm crawling. The worm was money.
Money in the bank. Earning interest, accumulating. He had the account number and Century had the account number.
Who would tell Hilda the number? The guy who used to know him in accounts, old Threlfall, bloody long time retired. Worry worming as a cash register, and trying to hold the thread against Oosthuizen's battering. He understood why Sergeant Oosthuizen talked about his retirement and about his kids. It was all Oosthuizen could talk about that did not drive coaches through the already broken regulations. He couldn't talk about the State President's plans for reform, because Jeez wouldn't be there to see them. He couldn't talk about the unrest, because Jeez to him was a part of that unrest. He couldn't talk about Jeez, about Jeez being the centre of whispering interest through the gaol, because it was Tuesday night and Jeez was to hang at dawn on Thursday. Good Sergeant Oosthuizen ploughed on from his exhausted retirement plans into the difficulties at his son's liquor store in Louis Trichardt.
The murmur sounds of singing.
Jeez heard them.
Not the great choir of that dawn when a single man had gone to his death, when the whole company of Blacks had sung the hymn to strengthen him as he walked the corridor to the shed of execution. A fist of voices only.
Oosthuizen heard the singing, and the slam of a door that cut into the singing, and he was off his chair and straightening his tunic and heaving his chair away from Jeez's door and back to the proper place beside the exit door from the corridor of C section 2.
Firm, bold singing. More of an anthem than a hymn.
"I'm sorry, Carew, believe me. I have to lock you up…"
The singing was approaching. A few voices, along with the stamp of boots, and the shouts in Afrikaans for doors ahead to be opened.
"What's happening?"
"They're bringing the others down. The other four.
They're going to double them up in two cells in here."
"Why?"
Sergeant Oosthuizen snorted. "You know I cannot tell you, man."
The door closed. Oosthuizen turned the key. The corridor door opened. Oosthuizen had keys only for the cells, not for the door leading into the main corridor of C section. Of course Sergeant Oosthuizen could not tell Jeez why the Pritchard Five were to be together. Of course the prison officer couldn't chattily explain that for the final few hours it was more convenient to have all five men in one wing, one section, where the disruption to prison life would be minimised. Not an ordinary hanging because the five men were from Umkonto we Sizwe. A hanging that raised the tension pitch in the gaol. Jeez knew another reason that of course good Sergeant Oosthuizen could not explain to him.
Thursday morning, dawn on Thursday, and they wouldn't want to be bringing four men from B section and one man from C section, because they might not have their watches together, and one might walk too fast, and one might have to wait in preparation, and some might have to be scrambled down the corridors to the hanging shed. Get them all cosily together, separated from A section and B section, so that the rest of the gaol was less disturbed. Made sense to Jeez.
The door into the corridor of C section 2 was unlocked.
Jeez heard the singing.
"Rest in peace, Comrade Moloise… "
He heard the voices of Happy Zikala and Charlie Schoba and Percy Ngoye and Tom Mweshtu.
"Long live Comrade Mandela… "
Brilliant voices that were without fear.
"Long live the African National Congress… "
He shook his head. His chin was trembling. He felt the moisture welling in his eyes. He heard them all shout together, Happy and Charlie and Percy and Tom.
"Heh, Comrade Jeez, heh, Comrade – Amandla… Hear us Comrade Jeez, Amandla, Comrade Jeez… "
His voice was a quaver.
"Listen, you bastards. Don't you ever bloody listen to anything I bloody tell you? What did I tell you? Let's have a bit of dignity, lads, that's what I told you bastards, way back."
He heard the shrieks of their laughter. He heard the orders of the duty major. He heard the driving shut of two cell doors. He heard the duty major demanding they should settle down for the night.
He heard the closing of the door into C section's main corridor.
They were still singing. Jeez thought his friends had found him. He called for Sergeant Oosthuizen. He saw the bulk of the man at the grille aperture on his cell door. He thought of the way they had laughed when he had called for a bit of dignity.
"Doesn't it frighten you, Sergeant Oosthuizen, that they aren't afraid?"
• • •
Jack parked the stolen car a hundred yards from the turning onto the Ben Schoeman Highway.
He switched off the lights. Eyes closed, he sagged back in his seat.
It was the inevitable moment he had come for.
He felt an awful tiredness through his body. He heard Ros bring her Beetle to a stop behind him. He stepped out of his car. It was a Renault, he thought it had a decent engine and could make some speed, he had filled the tank and had checked the oil himself.
He walked to the Beetle. Jan was in the back, half buried with equipment and the bags. He settled in beside Ros.
Stretching above them was the slope to the fort that Jan had said was called Skanskopfort. Ros drove away. She reversed sharply, swung and went back to the Ben Schoeman. She took them to the far side of Skanskop, to the road at the bottom of the valley between Skanskop and Magazine. She drove off the road and onto a stone chip track, and jolted them as she braked.