Chapter 8

Unaware of the portentous events that were taking place in Piemburg, Kommandant van Heerden nevertheless spent a restless first night in his room at Weezen Spa. For one thing the strong smell of sulphur irritated his olfactory nerve and for another one of the many taps in his room insisted on dripping irregularly. The Kommandant tried to get rid of the sulphurous smell by spraying the room with the deodorant he’d bought to avoid giving bodily offence to Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon. The resulting pot-pourri was rather nastier than the sulphur alone and in any case it made his eyes water. He got up and opened the window to let the smell out only to find that he had let a mosquito in. He shut the window again and switching on the light killed the mosquito with a slipper. He got back into bed and the tap dripped. He got out again and tightened all six taps and got back into bed. This time he was about to get to sleep when a dull rumble in the pipes suggested an air lock. There wasn’t anything he could do in the way of major plumbing so he lay and listened to it while watching the moon rise mistily through the frosted glass window. In the early hours he finally slept to be awakened by a coloured maid at half past seven bringing him a cup of tea. The Kommandant sat up and drank some tea. He had already swallowed some before he realized how horrible it tasted. For a moment the thought that he had been the victim of a poison attempt crossed his mind before he realized that the taste was due to the ubiquitous sulphur. He got out of bed and began brushing his teeth with water that tasted vile. Thoroughly fed up, he washed and dressed and went to the pump room for breakfast.

“Fruit juice,” he ordered when the waitress asked him what he wanted. He ordered a second glass when she brought the first and swilling the grapefruit juice round his mouth managed to eradicate some of the taste of sulphur.

“Boiled eggs or fried,” the waitress asked. The Kommandant said fried on the ground that they were less likely to be tainted. When the old man came in and asked if everything was all right, the Kommandant took the opportunity of asking him if it was possible to have some fresh water.

“Fresh?” said the old man. “The water here is as fresh as mother nature can make it. Hot springs under here. Comes straight from the bowels of the earth.”

“I can well believe it,” said the Kommandant.

Presently he was joined by Mr Mulpurgo who sat at his usual table by the fountain.

“Good morning,” said the Kommandant cheerily and was a little hurt by the rather chilly “Morning” he got back. The Kommandant tried again.

“How’s the flatulence this morning?” he asked sympathetically.

Mr Mulpurgo ordered corn flakes, bacon and eggs, toast and marmalade before replying.

“Flatulence?”

“You said yesterday you came here for flatulence,” said the Kommandant.

“Oh,” said Mr Mulpurgo in the tone of one who didn’t want to be reminded what he had said yesterday. “Much better, thank you.”

The Kommandant refused the waitress’ offer of coffee and ordered a third fruit juice.

“I’ve been thinking about that worm you spoke of yesterday, the one that never dies,” he said as Mr Mulpurgo attempted to get the rind off a soggy piece of bacon. “Is it true that worms don’t die?”

Mr Mulpurgo looked at him distrustfully. “My own impression is that worms are not immune from the consequences of mortality,” he said finally, “and that they shuffle off this mortal coil at their own equivalent of three-score years and ten.” He concentrated on his bacon and eggs and left the Kommandant to consider whether worms could shuffle off anything. He wondered what a mortal coil was. It sounded like a piece of radio equipment.

“But you mentioned one that didn’t,” he said after giving the matter some thought.

“Didn’t what?”

“Die.”

“I was speaking metaphorically,” Mr Mulpurgo said. “I was talking about rebirth.” Like a reluctant Ancient Mariner prodded into action by the Kommandant’s insistent curiosity Mr Mulpurgo found himself embarking on a lengthy disquisition that had been no part of his plans for the morning. He had intended working quietly in his room on his thesis. Instead an hour later he found himself strolling beside the river expounding his belief that the study of literature added a new dimension to the life of the reader. Beside him Kommandant van Heerden lumbered along occasionally recognizing a phrase which was not wholly unfamiliar but for the most part merely lost in admiration for the intellectual excellence of his companion. He had no idea what “aesthetic awareness” or “extended sensibilities” were though “emotional anaemia” did suggest a lack of iron, but these were all minor problems beside the major one which was that Mr Mulpurgo for all his divagations seemed to be saying that a man could be born again through the study of literature. That at least the Kommandant discerned and the message coming from such an obviously well-informed source brought him fresh hope that he would one day achieve the transformation he so desired.

“You don’t think heart transplants are any good then?” he asked when Mr Mulpurgo paused for breath. The devotee of Rupert Brooke looked at him suspiciously. Not for the first time Mr Mulpurgo had the feeling that he was having his leg pulled, but Kommandant van Heerden’s face was alight with a grotesque innocence which was quite disarming.

Mr Mulpurgo chose to assume that in his own quaint way the Kommandant was reviving the arguments in favour of science put forward by C. P. Snow in his famous debate with F. R. Leavis. If he wasn’t, Mr Mulpurgo couldn’t imagine what he was talking about.

“Science deals only with the externals,” he said. “What we need is to change man’s nature from within.”

“I should have thought heart transplants did that very well,” said the Kommandant.

“Heart transplants don’t alter man’s nature in the least,” said Mr Mulpurgo who was finding the Kommandant’s train of thought no less incomprehensible than the Kommandant had found his. What organ transplants had to do with extended sensibilities he couldn’t begin to think. He decided to change the topic of conversation before it became too inconsequential.

“Do you know these mountains well?” he asked.

The Kommandant said he didn’t personally but that his great-great-grandfather had crossed them in the Great Trek.

“Did he settle in Zululand?” Mr Mulpurgo asked.

“He was murdered there,” said the Kommandant. Mr Mulpurgo was sorry to hear it.

“By Dingaan,” continued the Kommandant. “My great-great-grandmother was one of the few women to survive the massacre at Blaauwkrans River. The Zulu impis swept down without warning and hacked them all to death.”

“A dreadful business,” Mr Mulpurgo murmured. His own family history was less chequered. He couldn’t remember his great-great-grandmother but he felt fairly certain she hadn’t been massacred by anyone.

“That’s one reason we don’t trust the kaffirs,” the Kommandant continued.

“There’s no chance of that happening again,” Mr Mulpurgo said.

“You never can tell with kaffirs,” said the Kommandant. “The leopard doesn’t change its spots.”

Mr Mulpurgo’s liberal leanings forced him to protest.

“Come now, you don’t mean to say that you think today’s Africans are savages,” he said mildly. “I know some highly educated ones.”

“Blacks are savages,” insisted the Kommandant vehemently, “and the more educated they are the more dangerous they get.”

Mr Mulpurgo sighed.

“Such a beautiful country,” he said. “It seems such a shame that people of different races can’t live amicably together in it.”

Kommandant van Heerden looked at him curiously.

“It’s part of my job to see that people of different races don’t live together,” he said by way of a warning. “You take my advice and put the idea out of your mind. I wouldn’t like to see a nice young fellow like you going to prison.”

Mr Mulpurgo stopped and began to hiccup. “I wasn’t suggesting,” he began but the Kommandant stopped him.

“I wasn’t suggesting you were,” he said kindly. “All of us have these ideas once in a while but it’s best to forget them. If you want some black tail go up to Lourenço Marques. The Portuguese let you have it quite legally, you know. Some nice girls too, I can tell you.” Mr Mulpurgo stopped hiccuping but he still stared at the Kommandant very nervously. Life at the University of Zululand had never prepared him for an encounter such as this.

“You see,” continued the Kommandant as they resumed their walk, “we know all about you intellectuals and your talk about education for the kaffirs and equality. Oh we keep an eye on you, you needn’t worry.”

Mr Mulpurgo was not reassured. He knew perfectly well that the police kept an eye on the university. There had been too many raids to think otherwise. He began to wonder if the Kommandant had deliberately sought him out to question him. The notion brought on another attack of hiccups.

“There’s only one real question in this country,” continued the Kommandant, quite unaware of the effect he was having on his companion, “and that is who works for who. Do I work for a kaffir or does he work for me? What do you say to that?”

Mr Mulpurgo tried to say that it was a pity people couldn’t work together cooperatively but he was hiccuping too much to be wholly coherent.

“Well I’m not working down some gold mine to make some black bastard rich,” said the Kommandant ignoring what he supposed was an acute attack of flatulence, “and I’m not having a kaffir tell me to wash his car. It’s dog eat dog and I’m the bigger dog. That’s what you intellectuals forget.”

With this simple statement of his philosophy the Kommandant decided it was time to turn back.

“I’ve got to go and find where my friends live,” he said.

They walked back in silence for some time, Mr Mulpurgo mulling over the Kommandant’s Spencerian view of society while the Kommandant, ignoring what he had just said about leopards and their spots, wondered if he could become an Englishman by reading books.

“How do you go about studying your poem?” he asked presently.

Mr Mulpurgo returned to the topic of his thesis with some relief.

“The main thing is to keep notes,” he explained. “I make references and cross-references and keep them on file. For instance Brooke uses the image of smell frequently. It’s there in ‘Lust’, in ‘Second Best’, and of course in ‘Dawn’.”

“It’s there all the time,” said the Kommandant. “It’s the water, there’s sulphur in it.”

“Sulphur?” said Mr Mulpurgo absentmindedly. “Yes, you get that in ‘The Last Beatitude’. ‘And fling new sulphur on the sin incarnadined.’”

“I don’t know about that,” said the Kommandant uneasily, “but they certainly put some in my tea this morning.”

By the time they reached the hotel Mr Mulpurgo had come to the conclusion that the Kommandant had no professional interest in him after all. He had recited “Heaven” to him twice and explained what “fish fly replete” meant and was beginning to feel that the Kommandant was quite a kind man in spite of his earlier utterances.

“I must say you have unusual interests for a policeman,” he said condescendingly as they climbed the steps to the terrace, “I had gained quite a different impression from the newspapers.”

Kommandant van Heerden smiled darkly.

“They say a lot of lies about me in the papers,” he said. “You mustn’t believe all you hear.”

“Not as black as you’re painted, eh?” said Mr Mulpurgo.

The Kommandant stopped in his tracks.

“Who said anything about me being black?” he demanded lividly.

“No one. No one,” said Mr Mulpurgo appalled at his faux pas. “It was purely a figure of speech.”

But Kommandant van Heerden wasn’t listening. “I’m as white as the next man,” he yelled, “and if I hear anyone say any different I’ll rip the balls off the swine. Do you hear me? I’ll castrate the bugger. Don’t let me hear you saying such a thing again,” and he hurled himself through the revolving doors with a violence that propelled the two flies quite involuntarily into the open air. Behind him Mr Mulpurgo leant against the balustrade and tried to stop hiccuping. When the door finally stopped revolving he pulled himself together and went shakily down the corridor to his room.

Having collected his keys from his room Kommandant van Heerden went out to his car. He was still inwardly raging at the insult to his ancestry.

“I’m as white as the next man,” he muttered pushing blindly past a Zulu gardener who was weeding a flower-bed. He got into his car and drove furiously into Weezen. He was still in a foul temper when he parked in the dusty square and went up the steps into the trading store. There were several farmers waiting to be served. The Kommandant ignored them and spoke to the gaunt man behind the counter.

“Know where the Heathcote-Kilkoons live?” he asked.

The gaunt man ignored his question and went on attending to his customer.

“I said do you know where the Heathcote-Kilkoons live?” the Kommandant said again.

“Heard you the first time,” the man told him, and was silent.

“Well?”

“I’m serving,” said the gaunt man. There were murmurs from the farmers but the Kommandant was in too irritable a mood to worry.

“I asked a civil question,” he insisted.

“In an uncivil fashion,” the man told him. “If you want answers, you wait your turn and ask decently.”

“Do you know who I am?” the Kommandant asked angrily.

“No,” said the man, “and I don’t care. I know where you are though. On my premises and you can get the hell off them.”

The Kommandant looked wildly round. All the men in the store were staring at him unpleasantly. He turned and lumbered out onto the verandah. Behind him someone laughed and he thought he caught the words “Bloody hairy-back.” No one had called him a hairy-back for a very long time. First a black and now a baboon. He stood for a moment controlling himself with an effort before turning back into the shop.

He stood in the doorway with the sunlit square behind him, a squat silhouette. The men inside stared at him.

“My name is van Heerden,” said the Kommandant in a low and terrible voice, “I am Kommandant of Police in Piemburg. You will remember me.” It was an announcement that would have caused alarm anywhere else in Zululand. Here it failed hopelessly.

“This is Little England,” said the gaunt man. “Voetsak.”

The Kommandant turned and went. He had been told to voetsak like a dog. It was an insult he would never forget. He went blindly down the steps into the street and stood with clenched teeth squinting malevolently at the great Queen whose homely arrogance had no appeal for him now. He, Kommandant van Heerden, whose ancestors had manhandled their wagons over the Aardvark Mountains, who had fought the Zulus at Blood River, and the British at Spion Kop, had been told to voetsak like a kaffir dog by men whose kinfolk had scuttled from India and Egypt and Kenya at the first hint of trouble.

“Stupid old bitch,” said the Kommandant to the statue and turned away to look for the post office. As he walked his rage slowly subsided to be replaced by a puzzled wonder at the arrogance of the English. “Little England,” the gaunt man had said as if he had been proud of its being so little. To Kommandant van Heerden there was no sense in it. He stomped along the sidewalk brooding on the malfeasance of chance that had given him the power to rule without the assurance that was power’s natural concomitant. In some strange way he recognized the right of the storekeeper to treat him like a dog no matter what awesome credentials he presented. “I’m just Boeremense.” he thought with sudden self-pity and saw himself alone in an alien world unattached to any true community but outspanned temporarily among strange hostile tribes. The English had Home, that cold yet hospitable island in the North to which they could always turn. The blacks had Africa, the vast continent from which no law or rule could ever utterly remove them. But he, an Afrikaner, had only will and power and cunning between him and oblivion. No home but here. No time but now. With a fresh fear at his own inconsequence the Kommandant turned down a side street to the Post Office.

 At White Ladies Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon, idly turning the pages of a month-old Illustrated London News in an impractical attempt to relieve her boredom, told Major Bloxham to make her a dry Martini.

“You would think he’d let us know he wasn’t coming,” she said petulantly. “I mean it’s only common courtesy to send a postcard.”

“What do you expect from a pig but a grunt?” said the Major. “Can’t make silk purses out of sows’ ears.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon murmured, “I see Princess Anne’s been chosen Sportswoman of the Year.”

“Wonder she accepted,” said the Major. “Seems a common sort of thing to be.”

“Oh I don’t know,” said Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon. “They even knight jockeys these days.”

After lunch Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon insisted on going for a drive and the Colonel who was expecting a telegram from his stockbroker drove them into Weezen and then over to the Sani Pass Hotel for tea.

The Kommandant, who had finally found their address at the Post Office, discovered the house empty when he visited it in the afternoon. He had recovered his temper though not his confidence and he was therefore not altogether surprised at the lack of welcome afforded by the empty house and the ancient Zulu butler who answered the door when he rang.

“Master gone,” the butler said and the Kommandant turned back to his car with the feeling that this was not a lucky day for him. He stood looking round at the house and garden before getting back into his car, and tried to absorb some of the amour-propre which was so evident in the atmosphere.

Well-trimmed lawns and disciplined herbaceous borders, carefully labelled rose bushes and a bush clipped to the replica of a chicken, all was ordered agreeably. Even the fruit trees in the orchard looked as though they’d been given short back and sides by a regimental barber. Against a wall a vine grew symmetrically, while the house with its stone walls and shuttered windows suggested a cosy opulence in its combination of garrison Georgian and art nouveau. On a flagstaff the Union Jack hung limply in the hot summer air and the Kommandant, forgetting his fury of the morning, was glad to see it there. It was, he supposed, because the Heathcote-Kilkoons were real Englishers not the descendants of settlers that the place was so trim and redolent of disciplined assurance. He got into his car and drove to the hotel. He spent the rest of the afternoon fishing the river with no better luck than he had had previously but recovering from the emotional upsets of the morning. Once again the strange sense of self-awareness, of seeing himself from a distance, came over him and with it came a sense of calm acceptance of himself not as he was but as he might remotely be in other, better circumstances. When the sun faded over the Aardvarks he dismantled his rod and walked back to the hotel through the swift dusk. Somewhere near him someone hiccupped but the Kommandant ignored the overture. He’d seen enough of Mr Mulpurgo for one day. He had dinner and went early to bed with a new novel by Dornford Yates. It was called Perishable Goods. 

In Piemburg Operation White Wash was about to move into a new phase. Luitenant Verkramp had tested his ten volunteers once again in a live situation and was satisfied that the experiment had been wholly successful. Confronted with black women the volunteers had all demonstrated an entirely convincing aversion for them and Verkramp was ready to move to phase two. Sergeant Breitenbach’s enthusiasm for the project was as usual less marked.

“Two hundred at a time in the drill hall?” he asked incredulously. “Two hundred konstabels strapped to chairs and wired up in the drill hall?”

“One sergeant to operate the projector and administer the electric shocks,” Verkramp said. “Won’t be any difficulty about that.”

“There’ll be a hell of a difficulty getting two hundred sane men to sit there in the first place,” said the Sergeant, “and anyway it’s impossible. Those generators aren’t big enough to shock two hundred men.”

“We’ll use the mains,” said Verkramp.

Sergeant Breitenbach stared at him with bulging eyes.

“You’ll use what?”

“The mains,” said Verkramp. “With a transformer of course.”

“Of course,” said the Sergeant with an insane laugh, “a transformer off the mains. And what happens if something goes wrong?”

“Nothing is going to go wrong,” said Verkramp, but Sergeant Breitenbach wasn’t listening. He was visualizing a drill hall filled with the corpses of two hundred konstabels electrocuted while being shown slides of naked black women. Quite apart from the public outcry he would almost certainly be lynched by the widows.

“I’m not having any part of this,” he said emphatically. “You can keep it.” He turned to leave the office but the Acting Kommandant called him back.

“Sergeant Breitenbach, what we are doing is for the ultimate good of the white race in South Africa,” Verkramp said solemnly. “Are you prepared to sacrifice the future of your country simply because you are afraid to take a risk?”

“Yes,” said Sergeant Breitenbach who couldn’t see how the electrocution of two hundred policemen could possibly benefit South Africa.

Luitenant Verkramp adopted a more practical line of reasoning.

“In any case there will be fuses to prevent accidental over-loading,” he said.

“15 Amp I suppose,” said the Sergeant caustically.

“Something of the sort,” said Verkramp airily. “I’ll leave the details to the police electrician.”

“More likely the mortician,” said the Sergeant, whose knowledge of power points was somewhat less limited. “In any case you’ll never get the men to submit to the ordeal. I’m not forcing any man to risk getting himself electrocuted.”

Luitenant Verkramp smiled.

“No need for force,” he said. “They’ve all signed the necessary forms.”

“It’s one thing to sign a form. It’s another to allow someone to give you electric shocks. And what about the electricity? Where are you going to get that from? It’s all been cut off since the sabotage.”

Luitenant Verkramp dialled the manager of the Electricity Board. While he waited he showed Sergeant Breitenbach the forms the men had signed. “Read the small print at the bottom.” he told him.

“Can’t without my glasses,” the Sergeant told him. Verkramp snatched the form back and read it aloud.

“I admit freely and of my own volition that I have had sexual intercourse with Bantu women and am in need of treatment,” he said before being interrupted by a horrified squawk from the telephone receiver. The manager of the Electricity Board was on the line.

“You do what?” yelled the manager, appalled at the confession he had just been privy to.

“Not me,” Verkramp tried to explain.

“I heard you quite distinctly,” the manager shouted back. “You said ‘I admit freely and of my own volition that I have had sexual intercourse with Bantu women.’ Deny that if you can.”

“All right, I did say it…” Verkramp began but the manager was too incensed to let him continue.

“What did I say? You can’t deny it. This is an outrage. You ring me up to tell me that you sleep with kaffir girls. I’ve a good mind to ring the police.”

“This is the police,” said Verkramp.

“Good God, the whole world’s gone mad,” shouted the manager.

“I was just reading a prisoner’s confession out loud,” Verkramp explained.

“Over the phone?” asked the manager. “And why to me of all people? I’ve got enough trouble on my hands without that sort of filth.”

Sergeant Breitenbach left Verkramp to sort the thing out with the Electricity Board. The tempo of events since Verkramp had taken over was so rapid the Sergeant was beginning to feel totally confused.

 Much the same could be said of the state of mind of Verkramp’s secret agents. Lack of sleep, the need to move their lodgings, the incessant following and being followed that was so much a part of their duties, had left them utterly exhausted and with what little hold on reality they had ever possessed badly impaired. The one sure thing they all knew was that they had been ordered to get the real saboteurs to blow something up. In Florian’s café they sat round a table and worked to this end.

745396 suggested the petrol storage tanks in the railway yard as a suitable target. 628461 was in favour of the gasworks. 885974, not to be outdone, recommended the sewage disposal plant on the grounds that the ensuing epidemic would benefit the cause of world Communism, and all the others had their own favourite targets. By the time they had argued the pros and cons of each suggestion no one was clear what target had finally been selected and the air of mutual suspicion had been exacerbated by 885974 who had accused 745396 of being a police spy in the belief that this would add credibility to his own claim to be a genuine saboteur. Accusations and counter-accusations were exchanged and when the group finally left Florian’s café to go their none too separate ways, each agent was determined to prove himself to the others by a demonstration of zeal for sabotage. That night Piemburg experienced a second wave of bombings.

At ten the petrol storage tanks exploded and set light to a goods train in the railway yard. At ten-thirty the gasometer exploded with a roar that blew the windows out in several neighbouring streets. As the fire brigade rushed in different directions the sewage disposal plant erupted. All over the previously darkened city fires broke out. In an attempt to prevent a further spread of the flames in the railway yard the goods train was moved down the line and in the process set fire to four tool sheds in the gardens it passed and started a grass fire which spread to a field of sugar cane. By morning Piemburg’s fire-fighting force was exhausted and a dark smudge of smoke hung ominously over the city.

Sergeant Breitenbach arrived at the police station with his face covered in sticking plaster. He had been looking out of his bedroom window when the gasometer exploded. He found Verkramp desperately trying to decode several messages from his agents which he hoped would give him some lead to the new outbreak of violence. So far all he had learnt was that the petrol tanks were due to be sabotaged by a man who called himself Jack Jones who lived at the Outspan Hotel. By the time Verkramp had received and deciphered the message both the petrol tanks and Jack Jones had vanished. The manager of the Outspan hotel said he had checked out two days ago.

“What are you doing?” Sergeant Breitenbach asked as ne entered the office. The Acting Kommandant stuffed the messages hurriedly into a drawer in his desk.

“Nothing,” he said nervously. “Nothing at all.”

Sergeant Breitenbach eyed the handbook on Animal Husbandry which was the codebook for the day and wondered if Verkramp was thinking of taking up farming. In the light of the catastrophes which were taking place under his command it seemed wise of Verkramp to be thinking about retiring.

“Well?” said Verkramp, annoyed that he had been interrupted. “What is it?”

“Isn’t it about time you did something about these saboteurs? Things are getting out of hand,” said the Sergeant.

Verkramp stirred uneasily in his chair. He had the feeling that his authority was being impugned.

“I can see you got out of bed on the wrong side this morning,” he said.

“I didn’t get out at all,” said the Sergeant, “I was blown out. By the sewage disposal works.”

Verkramp smiled.

“I thought you’d cut your face shaving,” he said.

“That was the gasometer,” Sergeant Breitenbach told him. “I was looking out the window when it blew up.”

“Through. Not out of,” said Verkramp pedantically.

“Through what?”

“Through the window. If you had been looking out the window you wouldn’t have been hit by flying glass. It’s really very important for a police officer to get his facts right.”

Sergeant Breitenbach pointed out that he was lucky to be still alive.

“A miss is as good as a mile,” said Verkramp.

“Half a mile,” said the Sergeant.

“Half a mile?”

“I live half a mile from the gasometer since you want the facts right,” said the Sergeant. “What it must have been like for the people living next door to it I can’t think.”

Luitenant Verkramp stood up and strode across to the window and stared out. Something about the way he was standing reminded the Sergeant of a film he had seen about a general on the eve of a battle. Verkramp had one hand behind his back and the other tucked into his tunic.

“I am about to strike a blow at the root of all this evil,” he said dramatically before turning and fixing an intense look on the Sergeant. “Have you ever looked evil in the face?”

Sergeant Breitenbach, remembering the gasometer, said he had.

“Then you’ll know what I am talking about,” said Verkramp enigmatically and sat down.

“Where do you think we should start looking?” the Sergeant asked.

“In the heart of man,” said Verkramp.

“In where?” said the Sergeant.

“In the heart of man. In his soul. In the innermost regions of his nature.”

“For saboteurs?” asked Sergeant Breitenbach.

“For evil,” said Verkramp. He handed the Sergeant a long list of names. “I want these men to report to the Drill Hall immediately. Everything is ready. The chairs have been wired and the projector and the screen have been installed. Here is a list of the Sergeants who will administer the treatment.”

Sergeant Breitenbach stared maniacally at his commanding officer.

“You’ve gone mad,” he said finally. “You must have gone out of your mind. We’ve got the biggest wave of bombings this country has seen, with petrol tanks and gasometers going up and radio masts coming down and all you can think about is stopping people going to bed with coons. You’re fucking loony.” The Sergeant stopped, stunned by the accuracy of his last remark. Before he could draw any further conclusions from it, Luitenant Verkramp was on his feet.

“Sergeant Breitenbach,” he screamed, and the Sergeant shrank at his fury, “are you refusing to obey an order?” A demonic hopefulness in Verkramp’s tone frightened the Sergeant.

“No, sir. Not an order,” he said. The sacrosanct word recalled him to his uncritical senses. “Law and order have to be maintained at all times.”

Luitenant Verkramp was mollified.

“Precisely,” he said. “Well I’m the law round this town and I give the orders. My orders are that you start the treatment of aversion therapy at once. The sooner we have a truly Christian and incorruptible police force the sooner we will be able to eradicate the evil of which these bombings are merely the symptom. It’s no use treating the mere manifestations of evil, Sergeant, unless we first cleanse the body politic and that, God willing, is what I intend to do. What has happened in Piemburg should be a lesson to us all. That smoke out there is a sign from Heaven of God’s anger. Let us all see to it that we incur no more.”

“Yes sir. I sincerely hope so, sir,” said Sergeant Breitenbach. “Any special precautions you want taken in case we do, sir? Any guards on the remaining public installations?”

“No need, Sergeant,” said Verkramp loftily, “I have the matter in hand.”

“Very good, sir,” said Sergeant Breitenbach and left the room to carry out his orders. Twenty minutes later he was facing near-mutiny in the drill hall as two hundred konstabels, already alarmed at the deteriorating situation in the city, refused to allow themselves to be strapped to the chairs wired to a large transformer. Quite a few had already said they would rather stand trial for sleeping with kaffir girls and take their chance of getting ten strokes with a heavy cane and do seven years hard labour than run the risk of electrocution. Finally he telephoned Luitenant Verkramp, and explained the dilemma. Verkramp said he’d be down in five minutes.

He arrived to find the men milling about rebelliously in the Drill Hall.

“Outside,” he ordered briskly and turned to Sergeant Breitenbach. “Assemble these men in platoons under their sergeants.”

Two hundred konstabels lined up obediently on the parade ground. Luitenant Verkramp addressed them.

“Men,” he said. “Men of the South African Police, you have been brought here to test your steadfast loyalty to your country and your race. The enemies of South Africa have been using black women to seduce you from the path of duty. Now is your chance to prove that you are worthy of the great trust the white women of South Africa have placed in you. Your wives and mothers, your sisters and daughters look to you in this great moment of trial to prove yourself loyal fathers and husbands. The test that you have now to pass will prove that loyalty. You will singly come in to the Drill Hall and be shown certain pictures. Those of you who do not respond to them will return immediately to the police station. Those of you who fail will assemble here on the parade ground to await instructions. In the meantime Sergeant Breitenbach will give the rest of you drill practice. Carry on. Sergeant.”

As the konstabels marched and countermarched up and down the hot parade ground they watched the men who were called singly disappear into the drill hall. It was quite clear that they all passed the test. None returned to the parade ground. As the last man passed through the door, Sergeant Breitenbach followed him in curious to see what had happened. In front of him the last konstabel was seized by four sergeants, had sticking plaster swiftly clapped over his mouth and was strapped to the last empty chair. Two hundred silent konstabels glared frantically at their Acting Kommandant. The lights were switched off and the projector on. On the vast screen at the end of the hall, naked as the day she was born and forty times as large, there appeared the brilliantly coloured image of a gigantic black woman. Luitenant Verkramp mounted the stage and stood in front of the screen, partially obscuring the woman’s sexual organs and with an aura of pubic hairs sprouting round his head. With a nauseating realism Verkramp opened his mouth, his face livid with projected labia.

“This is for your own good,” he said. “By the time you leave this hall your transracial sexual tendencies will have been eradicated for ever. You will have been cleansed of the lusts of the flesh. Start the treatment.” Below him two hundred konstabels jerked in their seats with a uniformity of movement that had been noticeably lacking in their drill.

As they drove back to the police station, Sergeant Breitenbach complimented Verkramp on his cunning.

“It’s all a question of psychology,” said Verkramp smugly. “Divide and rule.”