Chapter 12
As they dressed in the dell Kommandant van Heerden and Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon were filled with post-coital depression.
“It’s been so nice to meet a real man for a change,” she murmured. “You’ve no idea how tiresome Henry can be.”
“I think I have,” said the Kommandant who wasn’t likely to forget his recent nightmare ride. And besides the thought of meeting the Colonel again so shortly after having, as the Kommandant delicately put it, had carnal knowledge of his wife was not particularly appealing. “I think I’ll just walk back to the Spa from here,” but Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon wouldn’t hear of it.
“I’ll send Boy over with the Land-Rover to pick you up,” she said. “You’re not in a fit state to walk anywhere. Certainly not after your fall and in this heat too.” Before the Kommandant could stop her, she had walked out of the wood and had mounted her horse and was riding away.
Kommandant van Heerden sat on a log and considered the romantic experience he had just undergone. “Undergone’s the word for it,” he muttered aloud and was horrified to hear the bushes part behind him and a voice say, “Lovely bit of stuff, eh?”
The Kommandant knew that voice. He spun round and found Els grinning at him.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he asked. “I thought you were dead.”
“Me? Dead?” said Els. “Never.” The Kommandant began to think Els was right. There was something eternal about him like original sin, “Been having it off with the Colonel’s old woman eh?” Els continued with a familiarity the Kommandant found quite nauseating.
“What I do with my spare time is no concern of yours,” he said emphatically.
“Might be of some concern to the Colonel,” Els said cheerfully, “I mean he might like to know-”
“Never mind what Colonel Heathcote-Kilkoon might like to know,” interrupted the Kommandant hurriedly. “What I’d like to know is why you didn’t die in Piemburg Prison with the Governor and the Chaplain.”
“That was a mistake,” said Els. “I got muddled up with the prisoners.”
“Understandably,” said the Kommandant.
Els changed the topic.
“I’m thinking of coming back into the police,” he said. “I’m tired of being Harbinger.”
“You’re thinking of what?” said the Kommandant. He tried to raise a laugh but it didn’t sound very convincing.
“I’d like to be a konstabel again.”
“You must be joking,” said the Kommandant.
“I’m not,” said Els. “I’ve got my pension to think about and there’s that reward money I’m owed for capturing Miss Hazel-stone.”
The Kommandant considered the reward money and tried to think of an answer.
“You died intestate,” he said finally.
“I didn’t, you know,” said Els. “I died in Piemburg.”
The Kommandant sighed. He had forgotten how difficult it was to get Els to understand the simplest facts of law.
“Intestate means you died without making a will.” he explained only to find Els looking at him with interest.
“Have you made a will?” Els asked fingering his horn threateningly. He looked as though he was going to blow it.
“I don’t see what that’s got to do with it,” he said.
“The Colonel’s got a legal right to kill you for stuffing his wife,” said Els. “And that’s what he’d do if I blew this horn and called him back.”
Kommandant van Heerden had to admit that for once Els was right. South African law reserved no penalties for husbands who shot their wives’ lovers. In his career as a police officer the Kommandant had had occasion to reassure a number of men who were feeling some alarm on this account. To add to his own alarm Els raised his horn to his lips.
“All right,” said the Kommandant, “what do you want?”
“I’ve told you,” said Els, “I want my old job back.”
The Kommandant was beginning to prevaricate when the sound of a Land-Rover approaching determined the issue.
“All right, I’ll see what I can do,” he said, “though how I’m going to explain how a coloured convict is really a white konstabel, God only knows.”
“No point in spoiling the shit for a ha’p’orth of tar,” said Els making use of an expression he had picked up from Major Bloxham.
“Hear you’ve been having a bit of trouble, old boy,” said the Major when the Land-Rover stopped beside the body of Chaka. “Always said that black bastard was a menace.” The Kommandant climbed in beside him and murmured his agreement but the black bastard he had in mind was not the dead horse. In the back of the truck Konstabel Els smiled happily. He was looking forward to shooting kaffirs quite legally again.
As they approached the house the Kommandant saw Colonel and Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon standing at the top of the steps waiting for them. Once again their reactions came as a complete surprise to him. The woman with whom but an hour before he had enjoyed what could without exaggeration be called a touching intimacy now stood erect and coldly detached at the front door while her husband was exhibiting signs of evident embarrassment quite out of keeping with his role.
“Dreadfully sorry,” he muttered opening the door of the Land-Rover for the Kommandant, “shouldn’t have given you that horse in the first place.”
The Kommandant tried to think of a suitable reply to this apology.
“Ant-bear hole,” he said falling back on an expression which seemed to cover a multitude of situations.
“Quite,” said the Colonel. “Damned nasty things. Should have been stopped.” He led the way up the steps and Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon stepped forward to greet the Kommandant.
“So nice of you to come,” she said.
“Good of you to have me,” murmured the Kommandant blushing.
“You must try to make it more often,” said Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon.
They went into the house where the Kommandant was greeted by La Marquise with a remark about The Flying Dutchman which he didn’t particularly like.
“Don’t take any notice,” Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon said, “I think you were wonderful. They’re just jealous.”
For the next few minutes Kommandant van Heerden found himself the centre of attention. The fact that he was the first man to have cleared the high wall, albeit involuntarily, drew murmurs of admiration from everyone. Even the Colonel said he had to take off his hat to him, which considering the loss of Chaka and the state of his garden, not to mention that of his wife, the Kommandant thought was pretty generous of him. He had just explained how he had learnt to ride on his ouma’s farm in Magaliesburg and had ridden for the police in Pretoria when the blow fell.
“I must say you take things pretty cool Kommandant,” the fat man who knew how to get discounts on refrigerators said, “coming out here and hunting when there’s all this trouble in Piemburg.”
“Trouble? What trouble?” he asked.
“What? Do you mean to say you haven’t heard?” asked the fat man. “There’s been an outbreak of sabotage. Bomb attacks all over the place. Radio mast down. Electricity cut off. Absolute chaos.”
With a curse Kommandant van Heerden dumped the glass of Cointreau he’d been drinking into the nearest receptacle.
“I’m afraid we haven’t a phone,” Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon told him as he looked wildly round the hall. “Henry won’t have one for security reasons. He’s always calling his stock-broker -”
The Kommandant was in too much of a hurry to wait and hear about Henry’s stock-broker. He dashed down the steps to his car and found, as he might have expected, Els at the wheel. With the feeling that Els’ presumption was somehow appropriate to the terrible news he had just received, the Kommandant climbed into the back seat. Disaster was in the air. It was certainly in the herbaceous border, where Els reversed before turning the car down the drive with a spurt of gravel that suggested he was shaking the dust of White Ladies from his feet.
From the terrace Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon watched them leave with a feeling of sadness. “To part is to die a little,” she murmured and went to join the Colonel who was staring morosely into a tank of tropical fish where the Kommandant’s drink was already producing some unusual effects. “So that’s how poor Willy went,” said the Colonel.
As they drove into Weezen the Kommandant cursed himself for his own stupidity.
“I might have known Verkramp would foul things up,” he thought and ordered Els to stop at the local police station. The information he was given there did nothing to restore his confidence.
“They do what?” he asked in astonishment when the Sergeant in charge told him that Piemburg had been invaded by hordes of self-detonating ostriches.
“Fly in at night in their hundreds,” said the Sergeant.
“That’s a damned lie for a start,” shouted the Kommandant. “Ostriches don’t fly. They can’t.”
He went back to the car and told Els to drive on. Whatever ostriches could or couldn’t do, one thing was sure. Something had happened in Piemburg to cut the city off from the outside world. The telephone lines had been dead for days.
As the car hurtled along the dirt road towards the head of the Rooi Nek Pass, Kommandant van Heerden had the feeling that he was leaving an idyllic world of peace and sanity and heading back into an inferno of violence at the centre of which sat the diabolical figure of Luitenant Verkramp. He was so immersed in his own thoughts that it only occurred to him once or twice to tell Els not to drive so damned dangerously.
At Sjambok the impression of imminent catastrophe was increased by the news that the road bridges had been blown outside Piemburg. At Voetsak he learnt that the Sewage Disposal plant had been destroyed. After that the Kommandant decided not to stop any more but to drive straight through to Piemburg.
An hour later as they drove down the hill from Imperial View they came to the first tangible evidence of sabotage.
A road block had been set up at the temporary bridge erected to replace the one destroyed by Verkramp’s secret agents. The Kommandant got out to inspect the damage while a konstabel searched the car.
“Got to make a personal check too,” said the konstabel before the Kommandant could explain who he was and ran his hands over the Kommandant’s breeches with a thoroughness that was surprising.
“Only obeying orders, sir,” said the konstabel when the Kommandant snarled that he wasn’t likely to keep high explosives there. Kommandant van Heerden scrambled into the car. “And change your shaving lotion,” he shouted. “You stink to high heaven.”
They drove on into the city and the Kommandant was appalled to notice two konstabels walking down the pavement hand in hand.
“Stop the car,” the Kommandant told Els and got out.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he shouted at the two konstabels.
“We’re on patrol, sir,” said the men in unison.
“What? Holding hands?” screamed the Kommandant. “Do you want the general public to think you’re fucking queers?”
The two konstabels let go of one another and the Kommandant got back into the car.
“What the hell’s been going on round here?” he muttered.
In the front seat Konstabel Els smiled to himself. There had been some changes in Piemburg since he’d last been there. He was beginning to think he was going to enjoy being in the South African Police again.
By the time they arrived at the Police Station the Kommandant was in a vile temper.
“Send me the Acting Kommandant,” he shouted at the konstabel at the Duty desk and went upstairs wondering if his imagination was playing him up or there had been a suggestive leer on the man’s face. The first impression that there had been a breakdown in discipline was confirmed by the state of the Kommandant’s office. The windows had no glass in them and ashes from the grate had blown all over the room. The Kommandant was just staring at the mess when there was a knock and Sergeant Breitenbach entered.
“What in the name of hell has been happening round here?” the Kommandant yelled at the Sergeant who was not, he was relieved to note, exhibiting any signs of queerness.
“Well, sir-” he began but the Kommandant interrupted him.
“What do I find when I come back?” he screamed in a voice that made the Duty Konstabel wince on the floor below and several passers-by stop in the street. “Poofters. Bombs. Exploding ostriches. Do they mean anything to you?” Sergeant Breitenbach nodded. “I thought they fucking might. I go away on holiday and the next thing I hear is that there’s an outbreak of sabotage. Road bridges being blown up. No telephones. Konstabels walking about hand in hand and now this. My own office in a shambles.”
“That was the ostriches, sir,” mumbled the Sergeant.
Kommandant van Heerden slumped into a chair and held his head. “Dear God. It’s enough to drive a man out of his mind.”
“It has, sir,” said the Sergeant miserably.
“Has what?”
“Driven a man out of his mind, sir. Luitenant Verkramp, sir.”
The name Verkramp shook the Kommandant out of his reverie.
“Verkramp!” he yelled. “Wait till I lay my hands on the swine. I’ll crucify the bastard. Where is he?”
“In Fort Rapier, sir. He’s off his rocker.”
Kommandant van Heerden absorbed the information slowly.
“You mean …”
“He’s got religious mania, sir. Thinks he’s God.”
The Kommandant stared at him disbelievingly. The notion that any man could think he was God when his creation was as chaotic as Verkramp’s had so obviously been seemed inconceivable.
“Thinks he’s God?” he mumbled. “Verkramp?”
Sergeant Breitenbach had given the matter some thought.
“I think that’s how the trouble started,” he explained. “He wanted to show what he could do.”
“He’s done that all right,” said the Kommandant limply, looking round his office.
“He’s got this thing about sin, sir, and he wanted to stop policemen going to bed with black women.”
“I know all that.”
“Well he started off by giving them shock treatment and showing them photographs of naked black women and -”
Kommandant van Heerden stopped him.
“Don’t go on,” he said, “I don’t think I can stand it.”
He got up and went over to his desk. He opened a drawer and took out a bottle of brandy he kept for emergencies and poured himself a glass. When he’d finished it he looked up.
“Now then begin at the beginning and tell me what Verkramp did.” Sergeant Breitenbach told him. At the end the Kommandant shook his head sadly.
“It didn’t work then? This treatment?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t say that, sir. It just didn’t work the way it was meant to. I mean you’d find it difficult to get any of the konstabels who’s been treated into bed with a black woman. We’ve tried it and they get into a frightful state.”
“You’ve tried to get a konstabel into bed with a black woman?” asked the Kommandant, who could see himself giving evidence at the inevitable court of inquiry and having to admit that policemen under his command had been ordered to have sexual intercourse with black women as part of their duties.
Sergeant Breitenbach nodded. “Couldn’t do it though,” he said, “I guarantee that not one of those two hundred and ten men will ever go to bed with a black again.”
“Two hundred and ten?” asked the Kommandant stunned by the scale of Verkramp’s activities.
“That’s the number, sir. Half the force are gay,” the Sergeant told him. “And not one of them prepared to sleep with a black woman.”
“I suppose that makes a change,” said the Kommandant looking for some relief in this recital of disasters.
“Trouble is they won’t go near a white woman either. The treatment seems to have worked both ways. You should see the letters of complaint we’ve had from some of the men’s wives.”
The Kommandant said he’d prefer not to.
“What about the exploding ostriches?” he asked. “That have anything to do with Verkramp’s religious mania?”
“Not to my knowledge,” said the Sergeant. “That was the work of the Communist saboteurs.”
The Kommandant sighed. “Them again,” he said wearily. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a lead on them, have you?”
“Well, we have made some progress, sir. We’ve got the description of the men who were feeding the ostriches French letters …” He stopped. Kommandant van Heerden was staring at him wildly.
“Feeding them French letters?” he asked. “What the hell were they doing that for?”
“The explosive was packed in contraceptives, sir. Fetherlites.”
“Fetherlights?” said the Kommandant trying to imagine what sort of ornithological offal he was on about.
“That’s the brand name, sir. We’ve also an excellent description of a man who bought twelve dozen. Twelve women have come forward who say they remember him.”
“Twelve dozen for twelve women?” said the Kommandant. “I should bloody well think they can remember him. I should have thought he was unforgettable.”
“They were in the shop when he tried to buy the things,” the Sergeant explained. “Five barbers have also given us a description which tallies with that of the women.”
The Kommandant tried desperately to visualize the sort of man whose tastes were so indiscriminate. “He can’t have got far, that’s for sure,” he said finally. “Not after that lot.”
“No sir,” said Sergeant Breitenbach. “He didn’t. A man answering his description and with fingerprints that correspond with some of those on the French letters was found dead in the toilet at the Majestic Cinema.”
“I’m not in the least surprised,” said the Kommandant.
“Unfortunately we can’t identify him.”
“Too emaciated I suppose,” the Kommandant suggested.
“He was killed by the bomb which went off there,” the Sergeant explained.
“Well have you made any arrests at all?”
The Sergeant nodded. “Luitenant Verkramp ordered the arrest of thirty-six suspects as soon as the first bombings occurred.”
“Well that’s something anyway,” said the Kommandant more cheerfully. “Got any confessions out of them?”
Sergeant Breitenbach looked dubious.
“Well, the Mayor says…” he began.
“What’s the Mayor got to do with it?” asked the Kommandant with a sense of awful premonition.
“He’s one of the suspects, sir,” Sergeant Breitenbach admitted awkwardly. “Luitenant Verkramp said…”
But Kommandant van Heerden was on his feet and white with rage.
“Don’t tell me what the fucking shit says,” he screamed. “I go away for ten days and half the town blows up, half the police force turns into raving homosexuals, half the stock of French letters is bought up by some sex maniac, Verkramp arrests the fucking Mayor. What the fuck do I care what Verkramp says. It’s what he’s done that’s worrying me.”
The Kommandant stopped short. “Is there anything else I ought to know?” he demanded. Sergeant Breitenbach shifted his feet nervously. “There are thirty-five other suspects in the prison, sir. There’s the Dean of Piemburg, Alderman Cecil, the manager of Barclays Bank…”
“Oh my God, and I suppose they’ve all been interrogated,” squawked the Kommandant.
“Yes sir,” said Sergeant Breitenbach who knew precisely what the Kommandant meant by interrogated. “They’ve been standing up for the last eight days. The Mayor’s admitted he doesn’t like the government but he still maintains he didn’t blow up the telephone exchange. The only confession we’ve got that’s any use is from the manager of Barclays Bank”
“The manager of Barclays Bank?” asked the Kommandant. “What’s he done?”
“Peed in the Hluwe Dam, sir. It carries the death penalty.”
“Peeing in the Hluwe Dam carries the death penalty? I didn’t know that.”
“It’s in the Sabotage Act 1962. Polluting water supplies, sir,” the Sergeant said.
“Yes well,” said the Kommandant doubtfully, “I daresay it is but all I can say is that if Verkramp thinks he can hang the manager of Barclays Bank for peeing in a dam he must be mad. I’m going up to Fort Rapier to see that bastard.”
In Fort Rapier Mental Hospital Luitenant Verkramp was still suffering from acute anxiety brought on by the wholly unexpected result of his experiment in aversion therapy and counter-terrorism. His temporary conviction that he was the Almighty had given way to a phobia about birds. Dr von Blimenstein drew her own conclusions.
“A simple case of sexual guilt together with a castration complex,” she told the nurse when Verkramp refused his dinner on the grounds that it was stuffed chicken and French lettuce.
“Take it away,” he screamed, “I can’t take any more.”
He was equally adamant about feather pillows and in fact anything vaguely reminiscent of what Dr von Blimenstein would insist on calling our feathered friends.
“No friends of mine,” said Verkramp, eyeing a pouter pigeon on the tree outside his window with alarm.
“We’ve got to try to get to the bottom of this thing,” said Dr von Blimenstein. Verkramp looked at her wildly.
“Don’t mention that thing,” he shouted. Dr von Blimenstein took note of this fresh symptom. “Anal complex,” she thought to herself and sent the Luitenant into panic by asking him if he had ever had any homosexual experiences.
“Yes,” said Verkramp desperately when the doctor insisted on knowing.
“Would you like to tell me about it?”
“No,” said Verkramp who still couldn’t get the picture of hooker Botha in a yellow wig out of his mind. “No. I wouldn’t.”
Dr von Blimenstein persisted.
“We’re never going to get anywhere unless you come to terms with your own unconscious,” she told him. “You’ve got to be absolutely frank with me.”
“Yes,” said Verkramp who hadn’t come to Fort Rapier to be frank with anyone.
If, during the day, Dr von Blimenstein gained the impression that sex was at the root of Verkramp’s breakdown, his behaviour at night suggested another explanation. As she sat by his bedside and made notes of his ramblings, the doctor noticed a new pattern emerging. Verkramp spent much of his nights screaming about bombs and secret agents and was clearly obsessed with the number twelve. Remembering how frequently she had counted twelve explosions as the saboteurs struck she was hardly surprised that the head of Security in Piemburg should be obsessed by the number. On the other hand she gained the definite impression from Verkramp’s sleep-talking that he had had twelve secret agents working for him. She decided to ask him about this new symptom in the morning.
“What does the number twelve mean to you?” she asked when she came to see him next day. Verkramp went pale and began to shake.
“I have to know,” she told him. “It’s in your own interest.”
“Shan’t tell you,” said Verkramp who knew, if he knew anything, that it wasn’t in his interest to tell her about the number twelve.
“Don’t forget that I’m acting in a professional capacity,” said the doctor, “and that anything you tell me remains a secret between us.”
Luitenant Verkramp was not reassured.
“Doesn’t mean anything to me,” he said. “I don’t know anything about number twelve.”
“I see,” said the doctor making a note of his alarm. “Then perhaps you’d like to tell me about the trip to Durban.”
There was no doubt now that she was close to the heart of Verkramp’s neurosis. His reaction indicated that quite clearly. By the time the gibbering Luitenant had been got back into bed and given sedation, Dr von Blimenstein was satisfied that she could effect a cure. She was beginning to think that there were other advantages to be gained from her insight into his problems and the idea of marriage, never far from the doctor’s mind, began to re-emerge.
“Tell me,” she said as she tucked Verkramp into bed again, “is it true that a wife cannot be forced to give evidence against her husband?”
Verkramp said it was and, with a smile that suggested he would do well to meditate on the fact, Dr von Blimenstein left the room. When she returned an hour later, it was to find the patient ready with an explanation for his obsession with the number twelve.
“There were twelve saboteurs and they were-”
“Bullshit,” snapped the doctor, “utter bullshit. There were twelve secret agents and they were working for you and you took them to Durban by car. Isn’t that the truth?”
“Yes. No, No, it’s not,” Verkramp wailed.
“Now listen to me. Balthazar Verkramp, if you go on lying I’ll have you given an injection of truth drug and we’ll get an accurate confession out of you before you know what’s happened.”
Verkramp stared panic-stricken from the bed.
“You wouldn’t,” he shrieked. “You’re not allowed to.”
Dr von Blimenstein looked round the room suggestively. It was more like a cell than a private room. “In here,” she said, “I can do anything I like. You’re my patient and I’m your doctor and if you give any trouble I can have you in a straitjacket and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. Now then, are you prepared to tell me about your problems and remember your secrets are safe with me. As your medical adviser no one can force me to tell them what has passed between us unless of course I was put into the witness box. Then of course I would be under oath.” The doctor paused before continuing, “You did say that a wife couldn’t be forced to give evidence against her husband, didn’t you?”
To Verkramp the alternatives he was now facing were if anything more shocking than exploding ostriches and camp konstabels. He lay in bed and wondered what to do. If he refused to admit that he was responsible for all the bombings and violence in the city, the doctor would use the truth drug to get it out of him and he would have forfeited her good-will into the bargain. If he admitted it openly, he would escape the legal consequences of his zeal only to be led to the altar. There seemed to be little choice. He swallowed nervously, stared round the room for the last uncommitted time and asked for a glass of water.
“Will you marry me?” he said finally.
Dr von Blimenstein smiled sweetly.
“Of course, I will, darling. Of course I will,” and a moment later Verkramp was in her arms and the doctor’s mouth was pressed closely over his lips. Verkramp shut his eyes and considered a lifetime of Dr von Blimenstein. It was, he supposed, preferable to being hanged.
When Kommandant van Heerden arrived at Fort Rapier to see the Luitenant it was not surprising that he found his way strewn with extraordinary obstacles. In the first place he found the clerk in the Inquiry Desk at Admissions decidedly unhelpful. The fact that the clerk was a catatonic schizophrenic chosen by Dr von Blimenstein for his general immobility to help out at a time of acute staff shortage led to a sharp rise in the Kommandant’s blood pressure.
“I demand to see Luitenant Verkramp,” he shouted at the motionless catatonic and was about to resort to violence when a tall man with an exceedingly pale face interrupted.
“I think he’s in Ward C,” the man told him. The Kommandant thanked him and went to Ward C only to find it was filled with manic-depressive women. He returned to Admissions and after another one-sided altercation with the catatonic clerk was told by the tall thin man who happened to be passing through again that Verkramp was definitely in Ward H. The Kommandant went to Ward H and while unable to diagnose what the patients there were suffering from was grateful to note that Verkramp wasn’t. He went back to Admissions in a foul temper and met the thin tall man in the corridor.
“Not there?” the man inquired. “Then he’s certainly in Ward E.”
“Make up your mind,” shouted the Kommandant angrily. “First you say he’s in Ward C, then in Ward H and now Ward E.”
“Interesting point you’ve just raised,” said the man.
“What point?” asked the Kommandant.
“About making up your mind,” said the man. “It presupposes in the first place that there is a distinction between the mind and the brain. Now if you had said ‘Make up your brain’ the implications would have been quite different.”
“Listen,” said the Kommandant, “I’ve come here to see Luitenant Verkramp not swop logic with you.” He went off down the corridor again in search of Ward E only to learn that it was in the Bantu section which made it unlikely Verkramp was in it whatever he was suffering from. The Kommandant went back to Admissions swearing to murder the tall man if he could find him. Instead he found himself confronted by Dr von Blimenstein who pointed out acidly that he was in a hospital and not in a police station and would he kindly behave accordingly. Somewhat subdued by this evidence of authority the Kommandant followed her into her office.
“Now then, what is it you want?” she asked seating herself behind her desk and eyeing him coldly.
“I want to visit Luitenant Verkramp,” said the Commandant.
“Are you parent, relative or guardian?” asked the doctor.
“I’m a police officer investigating a crime,” said the Kommandant.
“Then you have a warrant? I should like to see it.”
The Kommandant said he hadn’t a warrant. “I am Kommandant of Police in Piemburg and Verkramp is under my command. I don’t need a warrant to visit him wherever he is.”
Dr von Blimenstein smiled patronizingly.
“You obviously don’t understand hospital rules,” she said. “We have to be very careful who visits our patients. We can’t have them being disturbed by casual acquaintances or by being asked questions about their work. After all, Balthazar’s problems largely stem from overwork and I’m afraid I hold you responsible.”
The Kommandant was so astonished by hearing Verkramp called Balthazar that he couldn’t think of a suitable reply.
“Now, if you could let me have some idea of the sort of questions you wish to put to him, I might be able to assist you,” continued the doctor, conscious of the advantage she had already gained.
The Kommandant could think of a great many questions he would like to put to the Luitenant but he thought it wiser not to mention them now. He explained that he simply wanted to find out if Verkramp could shed any light on the recent series of bombings.
“I see,” Dr von Blimenstein said. “Now if I understand you rightly, you are quite satisfied with the way the Luitenant handled the situation in your absence?”
Kommandant van Heerden decided that a policy of appeasement was the only one likely to persuade the doctor to allow him to interview Verkramp.
“Yes,” he said, “Luitenant Verkramp did everything he could to put a stop to the trouble.”
“Good,” said Dr von Blimenstein encouragingly, “I’m glad to hear you say that. You see it’s important that the patient shouldn’t be made to feel in any way guilty. Balthazar’s problems are largely the result of a long-standing sense of guilt and inadequacy. We don’t want to intensify those feelings now, do we?”
“No,” said the Kommandant who could well believe that Verkramp’s problem had to do with guilt.
“I take it then, that you are absolutely satisfied with his work and feel that he has handled the situation with skill and an exceptional degree of conscientiousness. Is that correct?”
“Definitely,” said the Kommandant, “he couldn’t have done better if he had tried.”
“In that case I think it is quite all right for you to see him,” Dr von Blimenstein said and switched off the portable tape recorder on her desk. She got up and went down the passage followed by the Kommandant who was beginning to feel that he had in some subtle way been outmanoeuvred. After climbing several flights of stairs they came to yet another corridor. “If you’ll just wait here,” said the doctor, “I’ll go and tell him that you want to see him,” and leaving the Kommandant in a small waiting-room she went off to Verkramp’s private room.
“We’ve got a visitor,” she announced gaily as Verkramp cringed in his bed.
“Who is it?” he asked weakly.
“Just an old friend,” she said. “He just wants to ask you a few questions. Kommandant van Heerden.”
Verkramp assumed a new and dreadful pallor.
“Now there’s no need to worry,” Dr von Blimenstein said, sitting down on the edge of the bed and taking his hand. “You don’t have to answer any questions unless you want to.”
“Well, I don’t,” said Verkramp emphatically.
“Then you shan’t,” she said, extracting a bottle from her pocket and a lump of sugar.
“What’s that?” Verkramp asked nervously.
“Something to help you not to answer any questions, my darling,” said the doctor and popped the lump of sugar into his mouth. Verkramp chewed it up and lay back.
Ten minutes later the Kommandant who was trying to keep his temper at the long wait by reading a magazine about motor cars was horrified by the sound of screams coming from the corridor. It sounded as though one of the patients was enduring the torments of hell.
Dr von Blimenstein came into the room. “He’s ready to see you now,” she said, “but I want to warn you that he’s to be handled gently. This is one of his good days and we don’t want to upset him do we?”
“No,” said the Kommandant trying to make himself heard above the demented shrieks. The doctor unlocked a door and the Kommandant peered very nervously inside. What he saw sent him hurriedly back into the corridor.
“No need to be alarmed,” said the doctor and pushed him, into the room. “Just put your questions to him gently and don’t excite him.” She locked the door behind him and the Kommandant found himself alone in a small room with a screaming scurrying creature that had when the Kommandant could catch a glimpse of its face some of the features of Luitenant Verkramp. The thin nose, the fierce eyes and the angular shape were those of the Kommandant’s second-in-command but there the resemblance ended. Verkramp didn’t scream like that, in fact the Kommandant couldn’t think what did. Verkramp didn’t slobber like that, Verkramp didn’t scurry sideways like that, and above all Verkramp didn’t cling to the window bars like that.
As the Kommandant pressed himself terrified into a corner by the door he knew that he had made a wasted trip. Whatever else the day had taught him, one thing was quite sure: Luitenant Verkramp’s insanity was unquestionable.
“Ugh, ugh, snow man balloon fill up baboon,” shrieked Verkramp and hurled himself from the window bars and disappeared under the bed still shrieking only to reappear precipitously scrabbling for the Kommandant’s legs. The Kommandant kicked him off and Verkramp shot across the room and up the window bars. “Let me out of here,” yelled the Kommandant and found himself beating on the door with a dementia that almost equalled that of Verkramp. An eye regarded him bleakly through the spy hole in the door.
“You’re quite sure you’ve asked him all the questions you want to?” Dr von Blimenstein asked.
“Yes, yes,” shouted the Kommandant desperately.
“And there’s no question of Balthazar being held responsible for what has happened?”
“Responsible?” screamed the Kommandant. “Of course he’s not responsible.” It seemed a totally unnecessary question to ask.
Dr von Blimenstein unlocked the door and the Kommandant staggered into the corridor. Behind him Verkramp was still gibbering from the window, his eyes alight with an intensity the Kommandant had no doubt was a sign of incurable insanity.
“One of his good days,” said the doctor, locking the door and leading the way back to her office.
“What did you say was the matter with him?” the Kommandant asked wondering what Verkramp’s bad days were like.
“Mild depression brought on by overwork.”
“Good heavens,” said the Kommandant, “I wouldn’t have thought that was mild.”
“Ah but then you’ve had no experience of mental illness,” said the doctor. “You judge these things from a lay position.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” said the Kommandant. “Do you think he’ll ever recover?”
“Positive,” said the doctor. “He’ll be as right as rain in a few days time.”
Kommandant van Heerden deferred to her professional opinion and with a politeness that sprang from the conviction that she had a hopeless case on her hands thanked her for her help.
“If there’s anything I can do at any time,” she told him, “don’t hesitate to call on me.”
With a silent prayer that he would never have to, the Kommandant left the hospital. In his room Luitenant Verkramp continued his trip. It was the first time he’d taken LSD.