Colonel Rastus Naude was a dried-out stick of a man, with a wizened
monkey face, who wore his uniform and medal ribbons with a casually
distracted air.
He had flown Hurricanes in the Battle of Britain, Mustangs in Italy,
Spitfires and Messerschmitt log's in Palestine and Sabres in Korea, and
he was too old for his present command, but nobody could muster the
courage to tell him that, especially as he could out-fly and out-gun
most of the young bucks on the squadron.
So we are getting rid of you at last, Morgan, he greeted David. Not
until after the mess party, sir. Ja, Rastus nodded. You've given me
enough hardship these last five years. You owe me a bucket of whisky.
He gestured to the hard-backed chair beside his desk. Sit down, David.
It was the first time he had used David's given name, and David placed
his flying helmet on the corner of the desk and lowered himself into the
chair, clumsy in the constricting grip of his G-suit.
Rastus took his time filling his pipe with the evil black Magaliesberg
shag and he studied the young man opposite him intently. He recognized
the same qualities in him that Paul Morgan had prized, the aggressive
and competitive drive that gave him a unique value as an interceptor
pilot.
He lit the pipe at last, puffing thick rank clouds of blue smoke as he
slid a sheath of documents across the desk to David.
Read and sign, he said. That's an order. David glanced rapidly through
the papers, then he looked up and grinned.
You don't give in easily, sir, he admitted.
One document was a renewal of his short service contract for an
additional five years, the other was a warrant of promotion, from
captain to major.
We have spent a great deal of time and money in making you what you are.
You have been given an exceptional talent, and we have developed it
until now you are, I'll not mince words, one hell of a pilot I'm sorry,
sir, David told him sincerely.
Damn it, said Rastus angrily. Why the hell did you have to be born a
Morgan. All that money, they'll clip your wings, and chain you to a
desk. It's not the money. David denied it swiftly. He felt his own
anger stir at the accusation.
Rastus nodded cynically. Ja! he said. I hate the stuff also. He
picked up the documents David had rejected, and grunted. Not enough to
tempt you, hey?
Colonel, it's hard to explain. I just feel that there is more to do,
something important that I have to find out about, and it's not here. I
have to go look for it. Rastus nodded heavily. All right then, he
said. I had a good try. Now you can take your long-suffering
commanding officer down to the mess and spend some of the Morgan
millions on filling him up with whisky He stood up and clapped his
uniform cap at a rakish angle over his cropped grey head. You and I
will get drunk together this night, for both of us are losing something&
I perhaps more than you.
It seemed that David had inherited his love of beautiful and powerful
machines from his father. Clive Morgan had driven himself, his wife,
and his brand new Ferrari sports car into the side of a moving goods
train at an unlit level crossing. The traffic police estimated that the
Ferrari was travelling at one hundred and fifty miles an hour at the
moment of impact.
Clive Morgan's provision for his eleven-year-old son was detailed and
elaborate. The child became a ward of his uncle Paul Morgan, and his
inheritance was arranged in a series of trust funds.
On his majority he was given access to the first of the funds which
provided an income equivalent to that of, say, a highly successful
surgeon. On that day the old green M. G. had given way to a
powder-blue Maserati, in true Morgan tradition.
On his twenty-third birthday, control of the sheep ranches in the
Karroo, the cattle ranch in South West Africa and Jabulani, the
sprawling game ranch in the Sabi-Sand block, passed to him, their
management handled smoothly by his trustees.
On his twenty-fifth birthday the number two fund interest would divert
to him, in addition to a large block of negotiable paper and title in
two massive urban holdings, office and supermarket complexes, and a
highrise housing project.
At age thirty the next fund opened for him, as large as the previous two
combined, and transfer to him for the first of five blocks of Morgan
stock would begin.
From then onwards, every five years until age fifty further funds
opened, further blocks of Morgan stock would be transferred. It was a
numbing procession of wealth that stretched ahead of him, daunting in
its sheer magnitude; like a display of too much rich food, it seemed to
depress appetite.
David drove fast southwards, with the Michelin metallics hissing
savagely on the tarmac, and he thought about all that wealth, the great
golden cage, the insatiable maw of Morgan Group yawning open to swallow
him so that, like the cell of a jelly fish, he would become a part of
the whole, a prisoner of his own abundance.
The prospect appalled him, adding a hollow sensation in his belly to the
pulse of pain that beat steadily behind his eyes, testimony to the
foolhardiness of trying, to drink level with Colonel Rastus Naude.
He pushed the Maserati harder, seeking the twin opiates of power and
speed, finding comfort and escape in the rhythms and precision of
driving very fast, and the hours flew past as swiftly as the miles so it
was still daylight when he let himself into Mitzi's apartment on the
cliffs that overlooked Clifton beach and the clear green Atlantic.
Mitzi's apartment was chaos, that much had not changed. She kept open
house for a string of transitory guests who drank her liquor, ate her
food and vied with each other as to who could create the most
spectacular shambles.
In the first bedroom that David tried there was a strange girl with dark
hair curled on the bed in boys pyjamas, sucking her thumb in sleep.
With the second room he was luckier, and he found it deserted, although
the bed was unmade and someone had left breakfast dishes smeared with
congealed egg upon the side table.
David slung his bag on the bed and fished out his bathing costume. He
changed quickly and went out by the side stairs that spiralled down to
the beach and began to run, a trot at first, and then suddenly he
sprinted away, racing blindly as though from some terrible monster that
pursued him. At the end of Fourth beach where the rocks began, he
plunged into the icy surf and swam out to the edge of the kelp at
Bakoven point, driving overarm through the water and the cold lanced him
to the bone, so that when he came out he was blue and shuddering. But
the hunted feeling was gone and he warmed a little as he jogged back to
Mitzi's apartment.
He had to remove the forest of pantihose and feminine underwear that
festooned the bathroom before he could draw himself a bath. He filled
it to the overflow, and as he settled into it the front door burst open
and Mitzi came in like the north wind.
Where are you, warrior? She was banging the doors. I saw your car in
the garage, so I know you're hereV In here, doll, he called, and she
stood in the doorway and they grinned at each other. She had put on
weight again, he saw, straining the seam of her skirt, and her bosom was
bulky and amorphous under the scarlet sweater. She had finally given up
her struggle with myopia and the metal-framed spectacles sat on the end