The children giggled and shrieked with excitement, delighted with this unexpected release from the drudgery of the schoolroom, and they skipped behind Raleigh and his young pickets as they went on.
From each cottage they passed the people swarmed out and when they saw the laughing children, they were infected by the gaiety and excitement. Amongst them by now there were grey heads, and young mothers with their infants strapped to their backs, older women in aprons leading a child on each hand, and men in the overalls of the steel company or the more formal attire of clerks and messengers and shop assistants, and the black petty civil servants who assisted in the administration of the apartheid laws. Soon the road behind Raleigh and his comrades was a river of humanity.
As they approached the open common ground they saw that there was already a huge concourse of people gathered there, and from every road leading on to the common more came swarming each minute.
'Five thousand?" Raleigh asked Amelia, and she squeezed his hand and danced with excitement.
'More,' she said. 'There must be more, ten thousand - even fifteen thousand. Oh, Raleigh, I am so proud and happy. Look at our people - isn't it a fine sight to see them all here?" She turned and looked up at him adoringly. 'And I am so proud of you, Raleigh. Without you these poor people would never realize their misery, would never have the will to do anything to change their lot, but look at them now." As Raleigh moved forward the people recognized him and made way for him, and they shouted his name and called him 'brother' and 'comrade'.
At the end of the open common was a pile of old bricks and builders' rubble and Raleigh made his way towards it, and when he reached it he climbed up on top of it and raised his arms for silence.
'My people, I bring you the word of Robert Sobukwe who is the father of PAC, and he charges you thus - Remember, Moses Gama!
Remember all the pain and hardships of your empty lives! Remember the poverty and the oppression!" A roar went up from them and they raised their clenched fists or gave the thumbs-up sign and they shouted 'Amandla' and 'Gama'. It was some time before Raleigh could speak again, but he told them, 'We are going to burn our passes." He brandished his own booklet as he went on. 'We are going to make fires and burn the dompas. Then we are going to march as one people to the police station and ask them to arrest us. Then Robert Sobukwe will come to speak for us--' this was a momentary inspiration of Raleigh's, and he went on happily, 'then the police will see that we are men, and they will fear us. Never again will they force us to show the dompas, and we will be free men as our ancestors were free men before the white man came to this land." He almost believed it as he said it. It all seemed so logical and simple.
So they lit the fires, dozens of them across the common, starting them with dry grass and crumpled sheets of newspaper, and then they clustered around them and threw their pass books into the flames. The women began swaying their hips and shuffling their feet, and the men danced with them and the children scampered around between their legs and they all sang the freedom songs.
It was past eight o'clock before the marshals could get them moving, and then the mass of humanity began to uncoil like a huge serpent and crawl away towards the police station.
Michael Courtney had watched the Evaton demonstration fizzle out ignominiously, and from a public telephone booth he phoned the Van Der Bijl Park police station to learn that after a police batoncharge on the marchers, all was now quiet there also. When he tried to telephone the Sharpeville police he could not get through, although he wasted almost ten shillings in the coin slot and spent forty frustrating minutes in the telephone booth. In the end he gave up in disgust and went back to the small Morris station wagon which Nana had given him for his last birthday present.
He set off back towards Johannesburg, steeling himself for Leon Herbstein's sarcasm. 'So you got a fine story of the riot that didn't take place. Congratulations, Mickey, I knew I could rely on you." Michael grimaced and lit another cigarette to console himself, but as he reached the junction with the main road he saw the sign Wereeniging 10 miles' and a smaller sign below it 'Sharpeville Township', and instead of turning towards Johannesburg, he turned south and the Morris buzzed merrily down the strangely open and uncrowded roadway.
Lothar De La Rey kept a toilet kit in his desk, complete with razor and toothbrush. When he got back to the station he washed and shaved in the hand basin in the men's toilet and he felt refreshed, although the sense of ominous disquiet that he had experienced during his night patrol still remained with him.
The sergeant at the charge office saluted him as he entered.
'Good morning, sir, are you signing off duty?" but Lotbar shook his head.
Has the kommandant come on duty yet?" 'He came in ten minutes ago." 'Have you had any telephone calls.since midnight, sergeant?" 'Now you come to mention it, sir, no, we haven't. That's funny, isn't it?" 'Not so funny - the lines have been cut. You should have seen that in the station log,' Lothar snapped at him and went through to the station commandefts office. ' He listened gravely to Lothar's report. 'Ja, Lothie. You did good work. I'm not happy about this business. I've had a bad feeling ever since you found those damned pamphlets. They should have given us more men here, not just twenty raw recruits. They should have given us experienced men, instead of sending them to Evaton and the other stations." I have called in the foot patrols,' Lothar told him crisply. He did not want to listen to complaints about the decisions of his superiors.
He knew there were good reasons for everything. 'I suggest we hold all our men here at the station. Concentrate our forces." 'Ja, I agree,' said the commander.
'What about weapons? Should I open the armoury?" 'Ja, Lothie. I think you can go ahead." 'And I'd like to talk to the men before I go out on patrol again." 'All right, Lothie. You tell them we have everything in hand. They must just obey orders and it will be all right." Lothar saluted and strode back into the charge office.
'Sergeant, I want an issue of arms to all white members." 'Sten guns?" The man looked surprised.
'And four spare magazines per man,' Lotbar nodded. 'I will sign the order into the station log." The sergeant handed him the keys and together they went through to the strong room, unlocked and swung open the heavy steel Chubb door. The sten guns stood in their racks against the side wall. Cheap little weapons of pressed steel manufacture, they looked like toys, but the 9 men parabellum cartridges they fired would kill a man as efficiently as the finest crafted Purdey or square-bridged Mauser.
The reinforcements were almost entirely from the police college, fresh-faced and crew-cut, eager boys who looked up at the decorated captain with awe as he told them, 'We are expecting trouble. That's why you are here. You have been issued stens - that alone is a responsibility that each of you must take seriously. Wait for orders, do not act without them. But once you have them, respond swiftly." He took one of his constables with him, and drove down to the main township gates with his sten gun on the seat beside him. It was well after six o'clock by then, but the streets were still quiet. He passed fewer than fifty people, all of them hurrying in the same direction. The post office repair truck was waiting at the gate, and Lothar escorted it down to where the telephone wires had been severed. He waited while a linesman scaled the pole and spliced the wires, and then he escorted the truck back to the gates. Before he reached the broad avenue that led up to the station gates, Lothar pulled to the side of the road and switched off the engine.