Power of the Sword

It was all over in seconds, the crowd sitting in stunned silence, Manfred still weaving and swaying over the prostrate figure that lay at his feet, his features contorted into a mask of savagery and that strange yellow light glowing in his eyes, not yet human, with the killing sickness still strong upon him.

Then in the crowd a woman screamed and instantly there was consternation and uproar. The men were up on their feet, chairs crashing over backwards, roaring in bewilderment and amazement and jubilation, rushing forward, clambering through the ropes, surrounding Manfred, pounding his back, others on their knees beside the maroon-and-goldclad figure lying deathly still on the canvas, jabbering instructions at one another as they lifted him gingerly, one of them dabbing ineffectually at the blood; all of them stunned and shaken.

The women were pale-faced with shock, some of them still screaming with delicious horror, their eyes bright with excitation which was tinged with sexuality, craning to watch as Roelf Stander was lifted over the ropes and carried down the aisle, hanging limp as a corpse, his head lolling, blood running back from his slack mouth across his cheek into his gleaming hair, turning to watch Manfred as he was hustled along to the changing-rooms by a group of seniors.

The women's faces betrayed fear and horror but some of their eyes smouldered with physical arousal, and one of them reached out to touch Manfred's shoulder as he passed.

Uncle Tromp took Sarah's arm to calm her, for she was capering and shrilling like a dervish, and led her out of the hall into the sunlight. She was still incoherent with excitement.

He was wonderful, so quick, so beautiful. Oh, Uncle Tromp, I have never seen anything like that in my life. Isn't he wonderful? Uncle Tromp grunted but made no comment, listening to her chatter all the way back to the manse. Only when they climbed the front steps onto the wide stoep did he stop and look back, as though to a place or a person that he was leaving with deep regret.

His life has changed, and ours will change with him, he murmured soberly. I pray Almighty God that none of us ever lives to regret what happened to us this day, for I am the one who brought this about. For three more days the ritual of initiation continued, and Manfred was still denied contact with anybody but his fellow freshmen. However, to them he had become a godlike figure, their very hope of salvation, and they crowded to him pathetically through the final humiliations and degradation to take strength and determination from him.

The last night was the worst. Blindfolded and denied sleep, forced to sit unflinching on a narrow beam, a galvanized bucket over their heads against which a senior would crack a club unexpectedly, the night seemed to last for ever. Then in the dawn the buckets and blindfolds were removed and Roelf Stander addressed them.

Then! he started, and they blinked with shock at being called that, for they were still in a stupor from lack of sleep and half deafened by the blows on their buckets. Then! Stander repeated. We are proud of you, you are the best damned bunch of freshers we've had in this house since I was a fresher myself. You took everything we could throw at you and never squealed or funked it. Welcome to Rust en Vrede; this is your house now, and we are your brothers. And then the seniors were swarming around them, laughing and slapping their backs and embracing them.

Come on, men! Down to the pub. We are buying the beer! Roelf Stander bellowed and, a hundred strong, arms linked, singing the house song, they marched down to the old Drosdy Hotel and pounded on the locked door until I the publican in defiance of licensing hours finally gave in and opened up for them.

Light-headed with sleeplessness and with a pint of lager in his belly, Manfred was grinning owlishly and hanging surreptitiously onto the bar counter to keep on his feet when he had a feeling that something was up. He turned quickly.

The crowd around him had opened, leaving a corridor down which Roelf Stander was stalking towards him, grimfaced and threatening. Manfred's pulse raced as he realized that this was to be their first confrontation since that in the ring three days before, and it was not going to be pleasant.

He set down his empty tankard, shook his head to clear it and turned to face the other man, and they glowered at each other.

Roelf stopped in front of him, and the others, freshers and seniors, crowded close so as not to miss a single word. The suspense drew out for long seconds, nobody daring to breathe.

There are two things I want to do to you, Roelf Stander growled, and then, as Manfred braced himself, he smiled, a flashing charming smile, and held out his right hand. First, I want to shake your hand, and second, I want to buy you a beer.

By God, Manie, you punch like no man I've ever fought before. There was a howl of laughter and the day dissolved into a haze of beer fumes and good fellowship.

That should have been the end of it, because even though formal initiation had ended and Manfred had been accepted into the Rust en Vrede fraternity, there was still a vast social divide between a fourth-year honours man, senior student and captain of boxing, and a freshman. However, the following evening, an hour before house dinner, there was a knock on Manie's door and Roelf sauntered in dressed in his academic gown and hood, dropped into the single armchair, crossed his ankles on top of Manie's desk and chatted easily about boxing and law studies and South-West Africa geography until the gong sounded, when he stood up.

I'll wake you at five am tomorrow for roadwork. We've got an important match against the Ikeys in two weeks, he announced, and then grinned at Manie's expression. Yes, Manie, you are on the squad. After that Roelf dropped in every evening before dinner, often with a black bottle of beer in the pocket of his gown which they shared out of tooth mugs, and each time their friendship became more relaxed and secure.

This was not lost on the other members of the house, both seniors and freshers, and Manie's status was enhanced.

Two weeks later the match against the Ikey team was contested in four weight divisions and Manie donned the university colours for the first time. Ikeys was the nickname for the students at the University of Cape Town, the Englishlanguage university of the Cape and traditional rival of Stellenbosch, the Afrikaans-language university whose men were nicknamed Maties. So keen was the rivalry between them that Ikey supporters came out the thirty miles in busloads, dressed in their university colours, full of beer and rowdy enthusiasm, and packed out half the gymnasium, roaring their university songs at the Matie supporters on the other side of the hall.

Manie's opponent was Laurie King, an experienced light-heavy with good hands and a concrete jaw who had never been put down in forty amateur bouts. Almost nobody had ever heard of Manfred De La Rey, and those few who

had now discounted his single victory as a lucky punch on an opponent who wasn't taking it seriously anyway.

Laurie King, however, had heard the story and he was taking it very seriously indeed. He kept off for most of the first round until the crowd started to boo with impatience.

However, he had now studied Manfred and decided that, although he moved well, he wasn't as dangerous as he had been warned and that he could be taken with a left to the head. He went in to test this theory. The last thing he remembered was a pair of ferocious yellow eyes, burning like a Kalahari sun at midday into his face, and then the harsh canvas grazing the skin from his cheek as he slammed head first into the boards of the ring. He never remembered seeing the punch. Although the gong rang before he was counted out, Laurie King could not come out for the second round; his head was still rolling like a drunkard's. He had to be supported by his seconds back to the dressing-room.

In the front row Uncle Tromp roared like a wounded bull buffalo while beside him Sarah shrieked herself hoarse as tears of joy and excitement wet her lashes and shone upon her cheeks.

The next morning the boxing correspondent of the Afrikaans newspaper Die Burger, The Citizen', dubbed Manfred The Lion of the Kalahari and mentioned that he was not only the great nephew of General Jacobus Hercules De La Rey, hero of the Volk, but also related to the Reverend Tromp Bierman, boxing champion, author, and the new dominie of Stellenbosch.

Roelf Stander and the entire boxing squad were waiting in the quadrangle when Manfred came out of his sociology lecture and they surrounded him.

You've been holding out on us, Manie, Roelf accused furiously. 'You never told us that your uncle is the Tromp Bierman. Sweet mercy, man, he was national champion for five years. He knocked out both Slater and Black Jephta!

Didn't I tell you? Manie frowned thoughtfully. It must have slipped my mind., Manie, you have to introduce us, the vice-captain pleaded. We all want to meet him, please, man, please. Do you think he would coach the team, Manie? Won't you ask him. Hell, if we had Tromp Bierman as coach Roelf broke off, awed into silence by the thought.

,I tell you what, Manie suggested. If you can get the whole boxing team to church on Sunday morning, I'm sure that my Aunt Trudi will invite us all to Sunday lunch. I tell you, gentlemen, you don't know what heaven is until you have tasted my Aunt Trudi's koek-sisters. So scrubbed and shaven and Brylcreerned and buttoned into their Sunday-best suits, the university boxing squad took up a full pew of the church, and their responses and rendition of the hymns shook the roof timbers.

Aunt Trudi looked upon the occasion as a challenge to her culinary skills and she and the girls took all week to prepare the dinner. The guests, all lusty young men in peak physical condition, had existed on university fare for weeks, and they gazed in ravenous disbelief upon the banquet, trying valiantly to divide their attention between Uncle Tromp, who was in top form at the head of the long table recounting his most memorable fights, the tittering blushing daughters of the house who waited upon them and the groaning board piled with roasts and preserves and puddings.

At the end of the meal Roelf Stander, bloated like a python which had swallowed a gazelle, rose to make a speech of thanks on behalf of the team, and halfway through changed it into an impassioned plea to Uncle Tromp to accept the duties of honorary coach.

Uncle Tromp waved away the request with a jovial chortle as though it were totally unthinkable, but the entire team, including Manie, added their entreaties, whereupon he made a series of excuses, each one lamer than the preceding one, all of which were vociferously rebutted by the team in unison, until finally, with a heavy sigh of resignation and forbearance, he capitulated. Then while accepting their fervent gratitude and hearty handshakes, he at last broke down and beamed with unrestrained pleasure.

I tell you, boys, you don't know what you've let yourselves in for. There are many words I don't understand at all. "I'm tired" and "I've had enough" are just some of them, he warned.

After the evening service, Manie and Roelf walked back under the dark rustling oaks to Rust en Vrede and Roelf was uncharacteristically silent, not speaking until they had reached the main gates. Then his tone was reflective: Tell me, Manie, your cousin, how old is she? 'Which one? Manie asked without interest. The fat one is Gertrude and the one with pimples is Renata.

No! No, Manie, don't be a dog! Roelf cut him short. The pretty one with blue eyes, the one with the silky gold hair.

The one I'm going to marry. Manfred stopped dead and swung to face him, his head going down on his shoulders, his mouth twisting into a snarl.

Never say that again! His voice shook and he seized the front of Roelf's jacket. Don't ever talk dirty like that again.

I warn you, you talk about Sarah like that again, and I'll kill you. Manfred's face was only inches from Roelf's. That terrible yellow glow, the killing rage, was in his eyes.

Hey, Manie, Roelf whispered hoarsely. What's wrong with you? I didn't say anything dirty. Are you mad? I would never insult Sarah. The yellow rage faded slowly from Manfred's eyes and he released his grip on Roelf's lapels. He shook his head as if to clear it, and his voice was bemused when he spoke again.

She's only a baby. You shouldn't talk like that, man. She's only a little girl. A baby? Roelf chuckled uncertainly and straightened his jacket. Are you blind, Manie. She's not a baby. She is the most lovely, but Manfred flung away angrily and went storming through the gates into the house.

So, my friend, Roelf whispered, that's how it is! He sighed and thrust his hands deeply into his pockets. And then he remembered how Sarah had looked at Manfred during the meal and how he had seen her lay her hand on the back of his neck, furtively and adoringly, as she leaned over him to take his empty plate, and he sighed again, overcome suddenly with a brooding sense of melancholy. There are a thousand pretty girls out there, he told himself with an attempt to throw off the dark mood. All of them panting for Roelf Stander, and he shrugged and grinned lopsidedly and followed Manie into the house.

Manfred won his next twelve matches in an unbroken succession, all of them by knock-out, all of them within three rounds; and all the sports writers had by now adopted the name Lion of the Kalahari in describing his feats.

All right, Jong, win them while you can, Uncle Tromp admonished him. But just remember you aren't going to be young always, and in the long run it's not a man's muscles and fists that keep him on top. It's what's in his skull Jong, and don't you ever forget it! So Manfred threw himself as enthusiastically into his academic studies as he had into his training routine.

German was by now almost as natural to him as Afrikaans, and he was considerably more fluent in it than in English, which he spoke only reluctantly and with a heavy accent. He found the Roman Dutch Law satisfying in its logic and philosophy and read the Institutes of Justinian like literature; at the same time politics and sociology both fascinated him. He and Roelf debated and discussed them endlessly, cementing their own friendship in the process.

His boxing prowess had made him an instant celebrity on the Stellenbosch campus. Some of his professors treated him with special favour and condescension because of this, while others were at first deliberately antagonistic, acting as though he were a dunce until he proved that he was not.

Perhaps our well-known pugilist will give us the benefit of his towering intellect and throw some light on the concept of National Bolshevism for us. The speaker was the professor of Sociology and Politics, a tall austere intellectual with the piercing eyes of a mystic. Though he had been born in Holland his parents had brought him out to Africa at an early age, and Dr Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd was now one of the leading Afrikaans intellectuals and a champion of his people's nationalist aspirations. He lectured first-year political students only once a semester, reserving most of his efforts for his faculty's honour students. Now he was smiling superciliously as Manfred rose slowly to his feet and composed his thoughts.

Dr Verwoerd waited for a few seconds and was about to wave him down again, the fellow was clearly a clod, when Manfred began his reply, speaking with carefully couched grammatical exactitude and in his newly acquired Stellenbosch accent which Roelf was helping him hone - the Oxford accent of Afrikaans.

As opposed to the revolutionary ideology of conventional Bolshevism created under Lenin's leadership, National Bolshevism was originally a term used in Germany to describe a policy of resistance to the Treaty of Versailles, and Dr Verwoerd blinked and stopped smiling. The fellow had seen the trap from a mile off, separating the two concepts immediately.

Can you tell us who was the innovator of the concept? Dr Verwoerd demanded, a prickle of exasperation in his usual cool tones.

I believe the idea was first put forward in 1919 by Karl Radek. His forum was an alliance of the pariah powers against the common Western enemies of Britain, France and the United States. The professor leaned forward like a falcon bating for its prey. In your view, sir, does it, or a similar doctrine, have any currency in the present politics of southern Africa? They devoted all their attention to each other for the rest of the session, while Manfred's peers, relieved of all necessity to think, listened with varying degrees of mystification or boredom.

The following Saturday night, when Manfred won the university light heavyweight title in the packed gymnasium, Dr Verwoerd was sitting in the second row. It was the first time that he had been seen at any of the university's athletic tournaments, apart, of course, from the rugby football matches which no Afrikaner worthy of the name would have missed.

A few days later the professor sent for Manfred, ostensibly to discuss an essay that he had submitted on the history of liberalism, but their discussion ran for well over an hour and ranged widely. When it ended Dr Verwoerd stopped Manfred at the door. Here is a book that you might not have had an opportunity to look at. He handed it across the desk.

Keep it as long as you need, and let me know your views when you have finished with it. Manfred was in a hurry to get to his next lecture so he did not even read the title, and when he got back to his room he tossed it on his desk. Roelf was waiting to join him on their evening run and he had no chance to look at the book again until he had changed into his pyjamas late that night.

He picked it up from the desk and saw that he had already heard of it, and that it was in the original German. He did not put it down again until dawn was glimmering through the chinks in his curtains and the rock pigeons were cooing on the ledge outside his window. Then he closed the book and re-read the title: Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler.

He passed the rest of the day in a trance of almost religious revelation and hurried back to his room at lunchtime to read again. The author was speaking directly to him, addressing his German and Aryan bloodlines. He had the weird sensation that it had been written exclusively for him. Why else would Herr Hitler have included such marvelous passages as: It is considered as natural and honourable that a young man should learn to fence and proceed to fight duels right and left, but if he boxes, it is supposed to be vulgar! Why?

There is no sport that so much as this one promotes the spirit of attack, demanding lightning decisions, and trains the body in steel dexterity ... but above all the young healthy body must also learn to suffer blows, it is not the function of the V61kisch state to breed a colony of peaceful aesthetes and physical degenerates. . . If our entire intellectual upper class had not been brought up so exclusively on upper-class etiquette; if instead they had learned boxing thoroughly, a German revolution of pimps, deserters and suchlike rabble would never have been possible.

Manfred shivered with a sense of foreknowledge when he saw his own hardly formulated attitudes to personal morality so clearly explained.

Parallel to the training of the body, a struggle against the poisoning of the soul must begin. Our whole public life today is a hot-house for sexual ideas and stimulations ...

Manfred had himself suffered from these torments set like snares for the young and pure. He had been forced to struggle against the evil lustful clamour of his own body when he had been exposed to magazine and cinema posters, always written in English, that effete degenerate language which he was growing to hate, depicting half-naked females.

You are right, he muttered, turning the pages furiously.

You are laying out the great truths for all of mankind. We must be pure and strong. Then his heart bounded as he saw set out in unequivocal language the other truths that he had only before heard lightly hinted at. He was transported back across the years to the hobo camp beside the railway tracks outside Windhoek, and saw again the tattered newspaper cartoon of Hoggenheimer driving the Volk into slavery. His outrage was consuming and he trembled with anger when he read:

With satanic joy in his face, the black-haired Jewish youth

lurks in wait for the unsuspecting girl whom he defiles with his blood, stealing her from her people.

In his imagination he saw Sarah's sweet pale body lying spreadeagled under the gross hairy carcass of Hoggenheimer and he was ready to kill.

Then the author lanced a vein of his Afrikaner blood so skilfully that Manfred's soul seemed almost to bleed upon the page.

It was and is the Jews who bring the negroes into the Rhineland, always with the same secret thought and clear aim of ruining the hated white race by the necessarily resulting bastardization ...

He shuddered. Swartgevaar! Black danger! had been the rallying cry of his people over the centuries they had been in Africa, and his atavistic heart beat to that summons once again.

He finished the book shaken and exhausted as he had never been in the boxing ring. Although it was already late he went to find the man who had loaned it to him, and they talked eagerly and seriously until after midnight.

The next day the professor dropped an approving word to another in a high place: I have found one who I believe will be a valuable recruit, one with a good receptive mind who will soon have great influence and standing amongst our young people. Manfred's name was laid before the high council of a secret society at its next conclave: 'One of our best young men at the university, the senior student of Rust en Vrede is close to him, Have him recruited, ordered the chairman of the council.

Five days a week Roelf and Manfred ran a training route through the mountains together, a hard route of steep gradients and rough footing. Five miles out they stopped to drink in the pool below a feathery white waterfall. Roelf watched Manfred kneel on the slippery wet rocks an scoop up a double handful of the clear cold water to pour it into his open mouth.

He is a good choice, he agreed silently with the decision of his superiors. The light vest and shorts that Manfred wore showed off his powerful but graceful body, and his lustrous coppery hair and fine features were compelling. But it was the golden topaz eyes that were the key to his personality.

Even Roelf felt overshadowed by the younger man's developing confidence and assurance.

He will be a strong leader, the type we need so desperately. Manfred sprang to his feet again, dashing the water from his mouth with his forearm.

Come on, drag arse, he laughed. Last one back home is a Bolshevik. But Roelf stopped him. Today I want to talk to you, he admitted, and Manfred frowned.

Hell, man, we do nothing but talk anyway. Why here? Because here no one will overhear us. And you are wrong, Manie, some of us are doing more than just talking. We are preparing for action, hard fighting action, the kind of action you love so well. Manfred turned back towards him, immediately intrigued, and came to squat in front of him. Who? What action? he demanded, and Roelf inclined his head.

A secret elite of dedicated Afrikaners, the leaders of our people, men in top places, in government and education and the commercial life of the nation. That's who, Manie. And not only the leaders of today, Manie, the leaders of tomorrow also. Men like you and me, Manie, that's who. A secret society? Manfred swayed back on his heels.

No, Manie, much more than that, a secret army ready to fight for our poor downtrodden people. Ready to die to restore our nation to greatness. Manfred felt the fine hairs on his arms and at the nape of his neck come erect as the thrill of it coursed through his veins. His response was immediate and unquestioning.

Soldiers, Manie, the storm-troopers of our nation, Roelf went on.

Are you one of them, Roelf? Manie demanded.

Yes, Manie, I am one of them, and you also. You have attracted the attention of our supreme council. I have been asked to invite you to join us in our march to destiny, in our struggle to fulfill the manifest destiny of our people., Who are our leaders? What is the name of this secret army? You will know. You will be told everything after you have taken the oath of allegiance, Roelf promised him, and reached out to seize his arm, pressing powerful fingers into Manie's thick rubber-hard biceps.

Do you accept the call of duty? he asked. Will you join us, Manfred De La Rey? Will you wear our uniform and fight in our ranks? Manfred's Dutch blood, suspicious and broodingly introspective, responded to his promise of clandestine intrigue, while his Germanic side longed for the order and authority of a society of fierce warriors, modern-day Teutonic knights, hard and unrelenting for God and Country. And though he was unaware of it, the streak of flamboyance and love of theatrics he had inherited from his French mother was drawn to the military pomp, uniforms and eagles, that Roelf seemed to offer him.

He reached out and seized Roelf's shoulder and they held each other in the clasp of comrades, staring deeply into each other's eyes.

With all my heart, Manfred said softly. I will join you with all my heart. The full moon stood high above the Stellenbosch mountains, silvering their sheer buttresses and plunging the gullies and ravines into deepest black. In the south the Great Cross stood high, but it was washed out into insignificance by the huge fiery cross that burned closer and fiercer at the head of the open forest glade. It was a natural amphitheatre, screened by the dense conifers that surrounded it, a secret place, hidden from curious or hostile eyes, perfect for the purpose.

Beneath the fiery cross the ranks of storm-troopers were massed and their polished cross belts and buckles glinted in its light and in that of the burning torches each of them held high. There were not more than three hundred troopers present, for they were the elite, and their expressions were proud and solemn as they watched the tiny band of new recruits march out of the forest and down the slope of the glade to where the general waited to greet them.

Manfred De La Rey was the first of them to come to attention before the leaders. He wore the black shirt and riding-breeches, the high polished riding-boots of this secret band of knights, but his head was bare and his uniform unadorned except for the sheathed dagger on his belt.

The high commander stepped forward and stopped only a pace in front of Manfred. He was an imposing figure, a tall man with craggy weathered face and hard jutting jaw.

Although thickened around the waist and big-bellied under his black shirt, he was a man in his prime, a black-maned lion in his pride and the aura of command and authority sat easily upon his broad shoulders.

Manfred recognized him immediately, for his was a face often reproduced in the political columns of the national newspaper. He was high in government, the administrator of one of the country's provinces, and his influence was deep and far-reaching.

Manfred De La Rey, the commander asked in a powerful voice, are you ready to take the blood oath? I am, Manfred replied clearly, and drew the silver dagger from his belt.

From the ranks behind him Roelf Stander, in full uniform, capped and booted and with the broken cross insignia on his right arm, stepped out and drew the pistol from his holster.

He cocked the pistol and pressed the muzzle to Manfred's chest, aiming for the heart, and Manfred did not flinch. Roelf was his sponsor. The pistol was symbolic of the fact that he would also be his executioner should Manfred ever betray the blood oath he was about to swear.

Ceremoniously the commander handed Manfred a sheet of stiff parchment. Its head was illuminated by the crest of the order: a stylized powderhom like those used by the voortrekkers, the pioneers of his people. Below it was printed the oath, and Manfred took it in one hand and with the other held the bared dagger pointed at his own heart to signify his willingness to lay down his life for the ideals of the brotherhood.

Before Almighty God, and in the sight of my comrades, he read aloud, I subject myself entirely to the dictates of MY people's divinely ordained destiny. I swear to be faithful to the precepts of the Ossewa Brandwag, the sentinels of the Afrikaner wagon train, and to obey the orders of my superiors. On my life I swear a deadly oath of secrecy, that I will cherish and hold sacred the affairs and proceedings of the Ossewa Brandwag. I demand that if I should betray my comrades, my oath or my Vow, vengeance shall follow me to my traitor's grave. I call upon my comrades to hear my entreaty.

If I advance, follow me.

If I retreat, shoot me down.

If I die, avenge me.

So help me Almighty God! And Manfred drew the silver blade across his wrist so that his blood sprang dark ruby in the torchlight, and he sprinkled the parchment with it.

The high commander stepped forward to embrace him, and behind him the black ranks erupted in a jubilant warlike roar of approval. At his side Roelf Stander returned the loaded pistol to its holster, his eyelids stinging with the nettles of proud tears. As the commander stepped back, Roelf rushed forward to take Manfred's right hand in his.

My brother. His whisper was choking. Now we are truly brothers. in mid-November Manfred sat his end-of-year examinations and passed third in a law class of 153.

Three days after the results were posted, the Stellenbosch boxing squad, led by its coach, left to take part in the InterVarsity Championships. This year the venue was the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, and boxers from the other universities of South Africa journeyed from every province and corner of the Union to take part.

The Stellenbosch team travelled up by train, and there was a cheering, singing crowd of students and faculty members to see them off at the railway station on their thousand-mile journey.

Uncle Tromp kissed his women farewell, beginning with Aunt Trudi and working his way down to Sarah, the youngest, at the end of the line, and Manfred followed him. He was wearing his colours blazer and straw basher and he was so tall and beautiful that Sarah could not bear it and she burst into tears as he stooped over her. She flung both arms around his neck and squeezed with all her strength.

Come along, don't be a silly little duck, Manfred gruffed in her ear, but his voice was rough with the strange unaccustomed tumult that the contact of her hot silky cheek against his provoked beneath his ribs.

Oh, Manie, you are going so far away. She tried to hide her tears in the angle of his neck. We have never been parted by such distance. Come on, monkey. People are looking at you, he chided her gently. Give me a kiss and I'll bring you back a present. I don't want a present. I want you, she sniffed, and then lifted her sweet face and placed her mouth over his. Her mouth seemed to melt in its own heat, and it was moist and sweet as a ripe apple.

The contact lasted only seconds, but Manfred was so intensely aware that she might have been naked in his arms and he was shaken with guilt and self-disgust at his body's swift betrayal and at the evil that seemed to smoke in his blood and burst like a sky rocket in his brain. He pulled away from her roughly, and her expression was bewildered and hurt, her arms still raised as he scrambled up the steps onto the balcony of the coach and joined the noisy banter and horseplay of his team mates.

As the train pulled out of the station she was standing a little apart from the other girls, and when they all turned and trooped away down the platform, Sarah lingered, staring after the train as it gathered speed and ran towards the mountains.

At last a bend in the tracks carried him out of sight of her, and as Manfred drew his head back into the carriage he saw that Roelf Stander was watching him quizzically and now grinned and opened his mouth to speak, but Manfred flared at him furiously and guiltily: Hou jou bek! Hold your jaw, man! The Inter-Varsity Championships were held over ten days with five heats in each weight division; thus each contestant would fight every second day.

Manfred was seeded number two in his division, which meant that he would probably meet the holder of the champion's belt in the final round. The reigning champion was an engineering student who had just graduated from the Witwatersrand University. He was unbeaten in his career and had announced his intention of turning professional immediately after the Olympics for which he was considered a certain choice.

The Lion of the Kalahari meets the sternest test of his meteoric career. Can he take the same sort of punishment that he deals out? This is the question everyone is asking, and which Ian Rushmore will answer for us if all goes as expected,wrote the boxing correspondent of the Rand Daily Mail. There does not seem to be any contestant in the division who will be able to prevent De La Rey and Rushmore meeting on Saturday night, 20 December 1935. It will be Rushmore's Right hand, made of granite and gelignite, against De La Rey's swarming battering two-handed style, and your correspondent would not miss the meeting for all the gold that lies beneath the streets of Johannesburg. Manfred won his first two bouts with insulting ease. His opponents, demoralized by his reputation, both dropped in the second round under the barrage of slashing red gloves, and the Wednesday was a rest day for Manfred.

He left the residence on the host university's campus before any of the others were up, missing breakfast to be in time for the early morning train from Johannesburg's Central Station. it was less than an hour's journey across the open grasslands.

He ate a frugal breakfast in the buffet of the Pretoria station and then started out on foot with a leaden reluctance in his gait.

Pretoria Central Prison was an ugly square building and the interior was as forbidding and depressing. Here all executions were carried out, and life imprisonments served.

Manfred went into the visitors entrance, spoke to the unsmiling senior warder at the enquiries desk and filled in an application form.

He hesitated over the question, Relationship to prisoner', then boldly wrote Son.

When he returned the form to the warder, the man read it through slowly and then looked up at him, studying him gravely and impersonally. He has not had a visitor, not one in all these years, he said.

I could not come before. Manfred tried to excuse himself.

There were reasons. They all say that. Then the warder's expression altered subtly. You are the boxer, aren't you? That's right, Manfred nodded, and then on an impulse he gave the secret recognition signal of the OB and the man's eyes flicked with surprise then dropped to the form in front of him.

Very well, then. Have a seat. I'll call you when he is ready, he said, and under cover of the counter top he gave Manfred the counter signal of the Ossewa Brandwag.

Kill the rooinek bastard on Saturday night, he whispered, and turned away. Manfred was amazed but elated to have proof of how widely the brotherhood had spread its arms to gather in the Volk.

Ten minutes later the warder led Manfred through to a green-painted cell with high barred windows, furnished only with a plain deal table and three straight-backed chairs.

There was an old man sitting on one of the chairs, but he was a stranger and Manfred looked beyond him expectantly.

The stranger stood up slowly. He was bowed with age and hard work, his skin wrinkled and folded and spotted by the sun. His hair was thin and white as raw cotton, wisped over a scalp that was speckled like a plover's egg. His thin scraggy neck stuck out of the coarse calico prison uniform like a turtle's from the opening of its carapace, and his eyes were colourless, faded and red-rimmed and swimming with tears that gathered like dew on his lashes.

Papa? Manfred asked with disbelief as he saw the missing arm, and the old man began to weep silently. His shoulders shook and the tears broke over the reddened rims of his eyelids and shmed down his cheeks.

Papa" said Manfred, and outrage rose to choke him. What have they done to you? He rushed forward to embrace his father, trying to hide his face from the warder, trying to protect him, to cover his weakness and tears.

Papa! Papa! he repeated helplessly, patting the thin shoulders under the rough uniform, and he turned his head and looked back at the warder in silent appeal.

I cannot leave you alone. The man understood, but shook his head.

it is the rule, more than my job is worth., Please, Manfred whispered.

Do you give me your word, as a brother, that you will not try to help him escape? My word as a brother! Manfred answered.

Ten minutes, said the warder. I can give you no more. He turned away, locking the green steel door as he left.

4 Papa. Manfred led the trembling old man back to the chair and knelt beside him.

Lothar De La Rey wiped his wet cheeks with his open palm and tried to smile, but it wavered and his voice quivered. Look at me, blubbering like an old woman. It was just the shock of seeing you again. I'm all right now. I'm fine.

Let me look at you, let me just look at you for a moment. He drew back and stared into Manfred's face intently.

What a man you have become, strong and well favoured, just like I was at your age. He traced Manfred's features with his fingertips. His hand was cold and the skin was rough as sharkskin.

I have read about you, my son. They allow us to have the newspapers. I have cut out everything about you and I keep them under my mattress. I'm proud, so proud. We all are, everybody in this place, even the narks. Papa! How are they treating you? Manfred cut him short.

Fine, Manie, just fine. Lothar looked down and his lips sagged with despair. It's just that, for ever is such a long time. So long, Manie, so very long and sometimes I think about the desert, about the horizons that turn to distant smoke and the high blue sky. He broke off and tried to smile. And I think about you, every day, not a day that I don't pray to God "Look after my son." No, Papa, please, Manfred pleaded. Don't! You will have me weeping too. He pushed himself off his knees and pulled the other chair close to his father's. I've thought about you also, Papa, everyday. I wanted to write to you. I spoke to Uncle Tromp, but he said it was best if, Lothar seized his hand to silence him. Ja, Manie, it was best. Tromp Bierman is a wise man; he knows best. He smiled more convincingly. 'How tall you have grown, and the colour of your hair, just like mine used to be. You will be all right, I know. What have you decided to do with your life? Tell me quickly. We have so little time. I am studying law at Stellenbosch. I passed third in the first year. That is wonderful, my son, and afterwards? I am not sure, Papa, but I think I must fight for our nation.

I think I have been called to the fight for justice for our people. Politics? Lothar asked, and when Manfred nodded, A hard road, full of turns and twists. I always preferred the straight road, with a horse under me and a rifle in my hand. Then he chuckled sardonically. And look where that road has led me. I will fight too, Papa. When the time is right, on a battleground of my own choosing., Oh, my son. History is so cruel to our people. Sometimes I think with despair that we are doomed always to be the underdogs. 'You are wrong! Manfred's expression hardened and his voice crackled. 'Our day will come, is already dawning. We will not be the underdogs for much longer. He wanted to tell his father, but then he remembered his blood oath and he was silent.

Manie. His father leaned closer, glancing around the cell like a conspirator before he tugged at Manfred's sleeve. The diamonds, have you still got your diamonds? he demanded, and immediately saw the answer in Manfred's face.

What happened to them? Lothar's distress was hard to watch. 'They were my legacy to you, all I could leave you.

Where are they? Uncle Tromp, he found them years ago. He said they were evil, the coin of the devil, and he made me destroy them. 'Destroy them? Lothar gaped at him.

Break them on an anvil with a sledgehammer. Crush them to powder, all of them. Manfred watched his father's old fierce spirit flare up.

Lothar leapt to his feet and raged around the cell. Tromp Bierman, if I could get my hand on you! You were always a 1stubborn sanctimonious hypocrite, He broke off and came back to his son.

Manie, there are the others. Do you remember, the kopjeZ the hill in the desert? I left them there for you. You must

go back.

Manfred turned his head away. Over the years he had tried to drive the memory from his mind. It was evil, the memory of great evil, associated with terror and guilt and grief. He had tried to close his mind to that time in his life. It was long ago, and he had almost succeeded, but now at his father's words he tasted again the reek of gangrene in the back of his throat and saw the package of treasure slide down into the cleft in the granite.

I have forgotten the way back, Papa. I could never find the way back. Lothar was pulling at his arm. Hendrick! he babbled.

Swart Hendrick! He knows, he can lead you. Hendrick. Manfred blinked. A name, half-forgotten, a fragment from his past; then suddenly and clearly an image of that great bald head, that black cannonball of a head, sprang into his mind. Hendrick, he repeated. 'But he is gone. I don't know where. Gone back into the desert. I could never find him. No! No! Manie, Hendrick is here, somewhere close here on the Witwatersrand. He is a big man now, a chief among his own people. How do you know, Papa? The grapevine! In here we hear everything. They come in from the outside, bringing news and messages. We hear everything. Hendrick sent word to me. He had not forgotten me. We were comrades. We rode ten thousand miles together and fought a hundred battles. He sent word to me, to set a place where I could find him if ever I escaped these damned walls. Lothar leaned forward and seized his son's head, pulling it close, placing his lips to his ear, whispering urgently and then drawing back. You must go and find him there.

He will lead you back to the granite hill below the Okavango river - and, oh sweet God, how I wish I could be there to ride into the desert with you again. There was the clink of keys in the lock and Lothar shook his son's arm desperately. Promise me you will go, Manie. Papa, the stones are evil. Promise me, my own son, promise me that I have not endured these captive years for nothing. Promise me you will go back for the stones. I promise, Papa, Manfred whispered, as the warder stepped into the cell.

Time is up. I'm sorry. Can I come and see my father again tomorrow? The warder shook his head. Only one visit a month. I'll write to you, Papa. He turned back to embrace Lothar.

I'll write to you every week from now on. But Lothar nodded expressionlessly; his face had closed and his eyes were veiled. Ja!

he nodded. You write to me sometime, he agreed, and shuffled out of the cell.

Manfred stared at the closed green door until the warder touched his shoulder: Come along. Manfred followed him to the visitors entrance in a tangle of emotions. only when he stepped out of the gates into the sunlight and looked up at the towering blue African sky of which his father had spoken so yearningly did one emotion emerge to swamp all the others.

It was rage, blind hopeless rage, and it grew stronger over the days that followed, seeming to climax as he marched down the aisle between the rows of screaming cheering spectators towards the brilliantly lighted ring of rope and canvas, dressed in shimmering silks with the crimson leather on his fists and bloody murder in his heart.

Centaine woke long before Blaine did; she grudged every second they wasted in sleep. It was still dark outside for the cottage was close under the precipice of the high tabletopped mountain and screened from dawn's first glow by its bulk, though the birds in the tiny walled garden were already squeaking and chirping sleepily. She had ordered tacoma and honeysuckle to be trained over the stone walls to attract them, and on her orders the feeding-boxes were replenished every day by the gardener.

She had taken months to find the perfect cottage. It had to be discreetly enclosed, with covered parking for her Daimler and Blaine's new Bentley, both vehicles that attracted immediate attention. It had to be within ten minutes walk of Parliament and Blaine's office in the wing of the imposing Herbert Baker building reserved for cabinet ministers. it had to have a view of the mountain, and must be set in one of the tiny lanes of an unfashionable suburb where none of their friends or business associates or fellow parliamentarians or enemies or members of the press were ever likely to stray.

But above all it had to have that special feel.

When at last she walked into it she did not even see the stained and faded wallpaper or the threadbare carpets on the floor. She stood in the central room and smiled softly.

Happy people have lived here. Yes, this is the one. I'll take it. She had registered the title deeds in one of her holding companies, but trusted no architect nor decorator with its renovation. She planned and executed the reconstruction entirely herself.

It's got to be the most perfect love nest ever built., She set her usual unattainable standard for herself and consulted with the builder and his carpenters and plumbers and painters every single morning while the work was in hand.

They tore down the walls between the four tiny bedrooms and fashioned them into a single boudoir with french windows and shutters opening onto the enclosed garden with its high wall of yellow Table Mountain sandstone and the view of the grey mountain cliff beyond.

She built separate bathrooms for Blaine and herself, his finished in ruby-veined cream Italian marble with gold dolphin taps and fittings, hers like a Bedouin tent draped in rose silk.

The bed was a museum piece, Italian Renaissance workmanship inlaid with ivory and gold leaf. We can always play polo on it in the off-season, Blaine remarked when first he saw it, and she placed her magnificent Turner, all sunlight and golden sea, so that it was in full view from the bed.

She hung the Bonnard in the dining-room and lit it with a chandelier which was a shimmering inverted Christmas tree of crystal, and placed the choicest pieces of her collection of Queen Anne and Louis Quatorze silver on the sideboard.

She staffed the cottage with four permanent servants, cluding a valet for Blaine and a full-time gardener. The In chef was a Malay who conjured up the most heavenly pilaffs and boboties and rest that Blaine, who had a spicy palate and was a connoisseur of curries, had ever tasted.

A flowerseller from her pitch outside the Groote Kerk near the parliament buildings had a contract to deliver huge bunches of yellow roses to the cottage each day, and Centaine stocked the small wine cellar with the noblest vintages from Weltevreden's own cavernous cellars and installed, at enormous expense, an electric walk-in cold room in the pantries to keep the hams and cheeses, the potted caviars and smoked Scotch salmon and other such necessities of life in prime condition.

Yet with all her loving attention to detail and lavish planning, they were lucky if they could spend a single night there in a month, although there were other stolen hours, garnered like diamonds, and hoarded by Centaine as though she were the stingiest of misers: a private luncheon when parliament recessed or a midnight interlude after the house had sat late; the occasional afternoon, and, oh sweet heavens, what afternoons, when his wife, Isabella, believed he was at polo practice or at a cabinet meeting.

Now Centaine rolled her head carefully on the lace pillow and looked at him. The dawn light was silvery through the shutters and his features seemed carved in ivory. She thought that he looked like a sleeping Roman Caesar, with that imperial nose and wide commanding mouth.

In all but the ears, she thought, and stifled a giggle.

Strange how after three years his presence could make her still feel like a girl. She rose quietly, careful not to rock the mattress and disturb him, picked up her wrap from the couch and slipped through to her bathroom.

Swiftly she brushed her hair into thick dark plumes checking for grey and then, relieved, went on to clean her teeth and wash her eyes with the little blue glass bath of lotion until the whites were clear and sparkling. Then she creamed her face and wiped away the excess. Blaine liked her skin free of cosmetics. As she used her bidet she smiled again at Blaine's mock amazement when he had first seen it.

Marvellous! he had cried. A horse trough in the bathroom, how jolly useful! Sometimes he was so romantic he was almost French. She laughed with anticipation, snatched a fresh silk wrap from the wardrobe and ran through to the kitchen. The servants were all astir, bubbling with excitement because the master was here and they all adored Blaine.

Did you get them, Hadji? Centaine demanded, using the title of respect for one who has made the pilgrimage to Mecca, and the Malay chef grinned like a butter-yellow gnome under his tasselled red fez and proudly displayed the pair of thick juicy kippers.

Come on the mail boat yesterday, madam, he boasted.

Hadji, you are a magician, she applauded. Scotch kippers were Blaine's favourite breakfast. You are going to do them his way, aren't you? Blaine's way was simmered in milk, and Hadji looked pained at the impropriety of the question as he turned back to his stove.

For Centaine it was a marvelous game of make-believe, playing wife, pretending that Blaine truly belonged to her.

So with a sharp eye she watched Miriam grind the coffee beans and Khalil finish sponging Blaine's grey pinstripe suit and begin to put a military gleam on his shoes before she left them and crept back into the darkened bedroom.

She felt quite breathless as she hovered beside the bed and studied his features. He still had that effect on her even after all this time.

I am more faithful than any wife, she gloated. More dutiful, more loving, more, His arm shot out so suddenly that she squealed with fright as he plucked her down beside him and flicked the sheet over her.

You were awake all along, she wailed. Oh, you awful man, I can never trust you. They could still, on occasion, drive each other into that mindless frenzy, those writhing sensual marathons that exploded at the end in a great burst of light and colour like the Turner on the wall before them. But more often it had become as it was this morning, a fortress of love, solid and impregnable. They left it with reluctance, coming apart slowly, lingeringly, as the day filled the room with gold and they heard the clink of Hadji's breakfast dishes on the terrace beyond the shutters.

She brought him his robe, full-length brocaded China silk royal blue lined in crimson with a belt of embroidered seed pearls and velvet lapels. She had chosen it because it was so outlandish, so different from his usual severe style of dress.

I wouldn't wear it in front of anybody else in the world, he had told her, holding it gingerly at arm's length, when she presented it to him on his birthday.

If you do, you'd better not let me catch you at it! she warned, but after the first shock he had come to enjoy wearing it for her.

Hand in hand they went out onto the terrace and Hadji and Miriam beamed with delight and bowed them to their seats at the table in the morning sunlight.

With a rapid but steely survey, Centaine made sure everything was perfect, from the roses in the Lalique vase to the snowy linen and the Faberg6 jug of silver gilt and crystal filled with freshly squeezed grapefruit juice, before she opened the morning paper and began to read to him.

Always in the same order: the headlines and then the parliamentary reports, waiting for him to comment on each, adding her own ideas, and then going on to the financial pages and stock exchange reports, and finally to the sports pages with special emphasis on any mention of polo.

Oh, I see you spoke yesterday: "a forceful reply from the minister without portfolio", they say. And Blaine smiled as he lifted a fillet off his kipper.

Hardly forceful, he demurred. "Pissed off" better describes it. What's this about secret societies? A bit of a flap over these militant organizations, inspired it would seem by the charming Herr Hitler and his gang of political thugs. Anything in it? Centaine sipped at her coffee. She still couldn't get her stomach to accept these English breakfasts.

You seem to have dismissed the whole thing rather lightly. Then she looked up at him with narrowing eyes. You were covering up, weren't you? She knew him so well, and he grumed guiltily at her.

Don't miss a thing, do you? Can you tell me? Shouldn't really. He frowned, but she had never betrayed his trust. We are very worried indeed, he admitted. in fact the Ou Baas considers it the most serious threat since the 1914 rebellion when De Wet called out his commandos to fight for the Kaiser. The whole thing is a political nettle, and a potential mine-field. He paused, and she knew there was more, but she waited quietly for him to make up his mind to tell her. 'All right, he decided. The Ou Baas has ordered me to head a commission of enquiry, cabinet level and confidential, into the Ossewa Brandwag, which is the most extreme and flourishing of them all.

Worse than the Broederbond even. Why you, Blaine? It's a nasty one, isn't it? Yes, it's a nasty one, and he picked me as a non-Afrikaner.

The impartial judge!

Of course, I've heard of the OB. There has been talk for years but nobody seems to know much. Extreme right-wing nationalists, anti-Semitic, anti-black, blaming all the ills of their world on perfidious Albion, secret blood oaths and midnight rallies, a sort of Neanderthal boy scout movement with Mein Kampf as its inspiration. I haven't yet read Mein Kampf. Everyone is talking about it. is there an English or French translation? Not officially published, but I have a Foreign Office translation. It's a rag-bag of nightmares and obscenities, a manual of naked aggression and bigotry. I would lend you my copy but it is appallingly bad literature and the sentiments would sicken you. He may not be a great writer, Centaine conceded. 'But, Blaine, whatever else he has done, Hitler has put Germany on its feet again after the disaster of the Weimar Republic.

Germany is the only country in the world with full employment and a booming economy. My shares in Krupp and Farben have almost doubled in the last nine months. She stopped as she saw his expression. Is something wrong, Blaine? He had laid his knife and fork down and was staring at her.

You have shares in the German armaments industry? he asked quietly, and she nodded.

The best investment I have made since gold went off She broke off; they had never mentioned that again.

I have never asked you to do anything for me, have I? he asked, and she considered that carefully.

No, you haven't, ever. Well, I'm asking you now. Sell your shares in German armarnents. She looked puzzled. Why, Blaine? 'Because it is like investing in the propagation of cancer, or like financing Genghis Khan's campaigns. She did not reply, but her expression went blank and her eyes went out of focus, crossing into a slightly myopic squint. The first time he had seen that happen he had been alarmed; it had taken him some time to realize that when she squinted like that she was involved in mental arithmetic, and it had fascinated him to see how quickly she made her calculations.

Her eyes flicked back into focus and she smiled agreement.

On yesterday's prices, I'll show a profit of a hundred and twenty-six thousand pounds. It was time to sell anyway. I'll cable my London broker as soon as the post office opens. Thank you, my love. Blaine shook his head sorrowfully.

But I do wish you'd made your profit somewhere else. You may be misjudging the situation, cheri, she suggested tactfully. Hitler may not be as bad as you think he is. He doesn't have to be as bad as I think he is, Centaine.

He only has to be as bad as he says he is in Mein Kampf to qualify for the chamber of horrors. Blaine took a mouthful of his kipper and closed his eyes with mild ecstasy. She watched him with a pleasure almost equal to his own. He swallowed, opened his eyes, and declared the subject closed with a wave of his fork.

Enough horrors for such a splendid morning. He smiled at her. 'Read me the sports pages, woman! Centaine rustled the pages portentously and then composed herself to read aloud, but suddenly the colour drained from her face and she swayed in her seat.

Blaine dropped his knife and fork with a clatter and jumped up to steady her. What is it, darling? He was desperately alarmed and almost as pale as she was. She shrugged his hands away and stared at the open newspaper which trembled in her grip.

Blaine moved quickly behind her, and scanned the page over her shoulder. There was an article on the previous weekend's racing at Kenilworth. Centaine's entry, a good stallion named Bonheur, had lost the feature race by a short head, but that could not have occasioned her distress.

Then he saw that she was looking at the foot of the page and he followed her gaze to a quarter-column photograph of a boxer, in shorts and vest, facing the camera in a formal pose, bare fists raised and a grim expression on his handsome features. Centaine had never evinced the slightest interest in boxing, and Blaine was puzzled. He read the heading of the article which accompanied the photograph: FEAST OF FISTICUFFS CLASSY FIELD FOR INTERvARSITY CHAMPIONS, which did nothing to alleviate his puzzlement. He glanced at the footnote beneath the photograph: The Lion of the Kalahari, Manfred De La Rey, the Challenger for the InterVarsity Light Heavyweight Belt. Hard pounding ahead., Manfred De La Rey. Blaine said the name softly, trying to remember where last he had heard it. Then his expression cleared and he squeezed Centaine's shoulders.

Manfred De La Rey! The boy you were looking for in Windhoek. Is this him?

Centaine did not look round, but she nodded jerkily.

What is he to you, Centaine? She was shaken into an emotional turmoil; otherwise she might have answered different But now it was out before she could bite down on the words. He's my son. My bastard son. Blaine's hands dropped from her shoulders and she heard the sharp hissing intake of his breath.

I must be mad! Her reaction was immediate, and she thought, I should never have told him. Blaine will never understand. He'll never forgive me. She dared not look round at the shock and accusation she knew she would find on his face. She dropped her head and cupped her hands over her eyes.

I've lost him, she thought. Blaine is too upright, too virtuous to accept it. Then his hands touched her again, and they lifted her to her feet and turned her gently to face him.

I love you, he said simply, and her tears choked her and she flung herself against his chest and held him with all her strength.

Oh Blaine, you are so good to me. If you want to tell me about it, I'm here to help you. If you'd rather not talk, then I understand.

There is just one thing, whatever it was, whatever you did, makes no difference to me and my feelings for you.

I want to tell you. She fought back her tears of relief and looked up at him. I've never wanted to keep secrets from you. I've wanted to tell you for years now, but I am a coward. You are many things, my love, but never a coward. He seated her again and drew his own chair close so that he could hold her hand while she talked.

Now tell me,he commanded.

It's such a long story, Blaine, and you have a cabinet meeting at nine. Affairs of state can wait, he said. Your happiness is the Most important thing in the world. So she told him, from the time that Lothar De La Rey had rescued her to the discovery of the H'ani diamond mine and the birth of Manfred in the desert.

She held nothing back: her love for Lothar, the love of a lonely forsaken girl for her rescuer. She explained how it had changed to bitter hatred when she discovered that Lothar had murdered the old Bushman woman who was her foster mother, and how that hatred had focused on Lothar's child that she was carrying in her womb, and how she had refused even to look upon the newborn infant but had made the father take it from the childbed still wet from the act of birth.

It was wicked, she whispered. But I was confused and afraid, afraid of the rejection of the Courtney family if I brought a bastard amongst them. Oh, Blaine, I have regretted it ten thousand times, and hated myself as much as I hated Lothar De La Rey. Do you want to go to Johannesburg to see him again? Blaine asked. We could fly up to watch the championships. The idea startled Centaine. We? she asked. 'We, Blaine? I couldn't let you go alone. Not to something so disturbing. But can you get away? What about Isabella? Your need is far more important now, he told her simply.

Do you want to go? Oh yes, Blaine. Oh yes please. She dabbed away the last tear with her lace table napkin, and he saw her mood shift.

It always fascinated him how she could change moods as other women changed their hats.

Now she was crisp and quick and businesslike. I am expecting Shasa back from South-West later today. I'll ring Abe in Windhoek to find out what time they took off. If all is well, we can leave for Johannesburg tomorrow. What time, Blaine? As early as you like, he told her. This afternoon I will clear my desk and make my peace with the Ou Baas. The weather should be fine this time of year, perhaps a few thunderstorms on the highveld. She took his wrist and turned it to see his Rolex watch. Cheri, you can still get to the cabinet meeting if you hurry. She went with him to the garage to see him off, still playing the dutiful wife, and kissed him through the open window of the Bentley.

I'll ring your office as soon as Shasa arrives, she murmured in his ear. I'll leave a message with Doris if you are still in the meeting. Doris was Blaine's secretary, and one of the very few people in the world that knew about them.

As soon as he was gone, Centaine rushed back into the bedroom and picked up the phone. The line to Windhoek was noisy with crackles and hisses and Abe Abrahams sounded as though he were in Alaska.

They left at first light, almost five hours ago, he told her faintly. David is with him, of course. What's the wind, Abe? They should have a tail wind all the way. I'd say twenty or thirty miles an hour. Thank you. I'll wait at the field for them., That might be a little awkward. Abe sounded hesitant.

There was a lot of secrecy and deliberate vagueness when they got in from the mine yesterday evening, and I wasn't allowed to see them off from the airfield this morning. I think they might have company, if you will excuse the euphemism. As a reflex, Centaine frowned, though she truly could not find it in herself thoroughly to disapprove of Shasa's philanderings. She always excused him with: It's his de Thiry blood. He can't help himself, feeling a covert touch of indulgent pride in her son's effortless successes with the opposite sex. Now she changed the subject.

Thank you, Abe. I've signed the new Namaqualand leases so you can go ahead and draw up the contract. They spoke business for five minutes more before Centaine hung up.

She made three more calls, all business, then phoned her secretary at Weltevreden and dictated four letters and the cable to her London broker to Sell all Krupp and Farben at best. She hung up, sent for Hadji and Miriam and gave them instructions for the running of the cottage in her absence.

Then she made a quick calculation. The Dragon Rapide, a beautiful blue and silver twin-engined aircraft which Shasa had prevailed on her to buy, could cruise at 150 knots, and with a tail wind of twenty miles an hour they should be at Youngsfield before noon.

So we will see just how much Master Shasa's taste in women has improved recently. She went out to the Daimler and drove slowly around the shoulder of the mountain, below District Six, the colourful Malay quarter, its narrow lanes reverberating to the cries of the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer, the hoot of the fishsellers horns declaring their wares and the birdlike cries of children, and past the hospital of Groote Schuur and the university which adjoined Cecil Rhodes magnificent estate, his legacy to the nation.

it must be the most beautiful situation of any university in the world, she thought.

The colonnaded stone buildings were set against a backdrop of dark pines and the sheer sky-high cliff of the mountain, while on the meadows abutting them grazed small herds of plains animals, eland and wildebeest and zebra.

Sight of the university set her thinking about Shasa again.

He had just completed his year, with a respectable second-class.

I always suspect those who pass first class in everything, Blaine had remarked when he heard Shasa's results. Most of them are too clever for their own good or the good of those around them. I prefer those lesser mortals for whom the achievement of excellence requires considerable effort. You accuse me of spoiling him, she had smiled. 'But you are always making excuses for Shasa yourself. Being your son, my love, is not the easiest of tasks for a young man, he had told her, making her bridle furiously.

You think I am not good to him. You are very good to him. As I have suggested, perhaps too good to him. It's just that you do not leave much for him. You are so successful, so dominant. You have done it all. What can he do to prove himself? Blaine, I am not domineering. I said dominant, Centaine, not domineering. The two are different. I love you because you are dominant. I would despise you if you were domineering. Still I do not always understand this language of yours. I shall look it up in my dictionary. Ask Shasa, English was his only first. Blaine chuckled and then put his arm around her shoulders. You must slacken the rein a little, Centaine, give him space to make his own mistakes and enjoy his own triumphs. If he wants to hunt, even though you do not approve of killing animals that you cannot eat, the Courtneys have all been big-game hunters. Old General Courtney slew elephant in their hundreds and Shasa's father hunted; let the boy try his hand at it. That and polo are the only things you haven't done before him. What about flying? she challenged.

I apologize, and flying. Very well, I will let him go and murder beasts. But Blaine, tell me, will he make the polo team for the Olympics? Frankly, my darling, no. But he is good enough! You said so yourself., Yes, Blaine agreed. He is probably good enough. He has all the fire and dash, a marvelous eye and arm, but he lacks experience. If he were chosen he'd be the youngest international ever.

However, I don't think he will be. I think Clive Ramsay has to get the ride at number two. She stared at him, and he stared back expressionlessly. He knew what she was thinking. As Captain, Blaine was one of the national selectors.

David will be going to Berlin, she had followed up.

David Abrahams is the human version of a gazelle,Blaine had pointed out reasonably. He has the fourth best time in the world for the two hundred metres and the third best for the four hundred. Young Shasa is competing against at least ten of the world's best horsemen for a place. I would give anything in the world for Shasa to go to Berlin. Very likely you would, Blaine had agreed. She had built a new wing to the engineering faculty at the University of Cape Town the Courtney Building, when it had finally been decided that Shasa would go there rather than to oxford; yes, he knew no price was too high for her to pay.

I assure you, my love, that I will make very certain he paused, and she perked up expectantly, that I excuse myself from the room when, and if, Shasa's name ever comes up before the selectors. He's so damned virtuous! she exclaimed aloud now and beat her clenched fist on the steering-wheel of the Daimler with frustration, until a sudden vision of the ivory and gold inlaid bed stopped her and she grinned wickedly.

Well, Perhaps virtuous is not the correct word again. The airfield was deserted. She parked the Daimler beside the hangar, where Shasa would not see it from the air. Then she took the travelling rug from the boot and spread it under a tree on the edge of the wide grassy strip.

It was one of those lovely summer days, bright sunlight with only patches of cloud over the mountain, a sharp breeze ruffling the stone pines and taking the edge off the heat.

She settled down on the rug with Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, a book that she had been trying to finish for the last week, occasionally glancing up from the page to scan the northern sky.

David Abrahams was almost as enchanted with flying as he was with running. That was what had brought him and Shasa together in the beginning. Though Abe Abrahams had worked for Centaine and been one of her closest personal friends for almost all of David's lifetime, the two boys had really only noticed each other when they went up to university in the same year. Since then they had become inseparable and were founder members of the university flying club, for which Centaine had provided a Tiger Moth trainer.

David was studying law, and it was tacitly understood that when he qualified he would join his father in Windhoek, which meant naturally that he would become one of Centaine's people. She had observed the boy carefully over the years and found no vice in him, so she approved of his friendship with Shasa.

David was taller than his father, with a lean runner's body and an attractively ugly, humorous face, thick curly hair and a large beaky nose which he had inherited from Abe. His best features were his dark Semitic eyes and long sensitive hands, with which he was now manipulating the control column of the Dragon Rapide. He flew with an almost religious dedication, like a priest performing the ritual of some arcane religion. He treated the aircraft as though it were a beautiful living creature, whereas Shasa flew like an engineer, with understanding and great skill, but without David's mystic passion.

David brought that same passion to running and many of the other things in his existence. This was one of the reasons that Shasa loved him so dearly. He spiced Shasa's own life, enhanced the pleasure which Shasa derived from the things they did together. These past weeks might have been dull and anti-climactic without David.

With Centaine's blessing, withheld strenuously for almost a year and then mysteriously given at the last moment, the two of them had taken the Rapide and flown to the H'ani Mine the day after they had written their final examinations.

At the mine Dr Twenty-man-Jones had arranged for two four-ton trucks to be waiting for them, fully equipped with camping equipment, camp staff, trackers, skinners and a k. one of the company prospectors, a man thoroughly versed in the ways of the wild, in bushcraft and hunting big dangerous game, was in charge of the expedition.

Their destination was the Caprivi Strip, that remote ribbon of wilderness, between Angola and Bechuanaland.

Entry to this area was severely restricted and hunting was forbidden except in exceptional circumstances. Enviously it was referred to by other sportsmen as the private hunting preserve of the cabinet ministers of the South African government. Blaine Malcomess had arranged entry permits and hunting licences for them.

Under the grizzled old prospector's quiet instruction and firm hand the two young men had come to a closer understanding of, and respect for, the wilderness and the fascinating spectrum of life it contained. In a few weeks he had taught them something of man's place in the fragile balance of nature and instilled in them the principles of ethical hunting.

The death of each individual animal is sad but inevitable.

However, the death of the forest or swamp or plain that supports the entire species is tragedy, he explained. if the kings and noblemen of Europe had not been avid huntsmen, the stag and the boar and the bear would be extinct today.

it was the huntsmen who saved the forest from the axe and the plough of the peasants. And they listened attentively at the camp-fire as he explained. Then who hunt for love of the creatures they pursue will protect the breeding females and young from the poachers and save the forests from the goats and cattle. No, my young friends, Robin Hood was a dirty poacher. The sheriff of Nottingham was the real hero. So they spent enchanted days in the bush, leaving camp on foot while it was still dark and returning dog-weary after the sun had set. Each of them killed his lion, and experienced the hunter's sadness and elation at the deed, and came out determined to preserve that wild and beautiful country from the predations of unthinking, greedy men. And Shasa, blessed by the chance of birth with the promise of great wealth and influence, came to realize in some small measure how much of that responsibility could one day be his.

The women had been superfluous, as David had warned they would be.

However, Shasa had insisted on bringing them, one for himself and one for David.

Shasa's choice was almost thirty years old. The best tunes are played on an old fiddle, he assured David. She was also a divorcee. 'I never break in my own polo ponies., She had big blue eyes, a ripe red mouth and a pneumatic figure, but was not burdened by an unnecessary amount of brain.

David nicknamed her Jumbo,, Because, he explained, she's so thick that two elephants could walk across her skull side by side., Shasa had prevailed upon Jumbo to bring a friend for David, and she had selected a tall dark lady, another divorcee, with trailing locks; her thin arms were loaded with bangles, her long neck with strings of beads. She affected an ivory cigarette-holder and had a smouldering intense gaze but spoke seldom, then usually to ask for another gin.

David dubbed her the Camel for her insatiable thirst.

However, the two of them turned out to be ideal, for while they delivered what was expected of them with vigour and expertise when called upon to do so, for the rest they were quite content to remain in camp all day, and in the evening demanded little attention and made no attempt to sabotage the conversation around the camp-fire by joining in.

That was probably the most enjoyable holiday I will ever spend., Shasa leaned back in the pilot's seat of the Rapide and stared dreamily ahead, content to let David, in the copilot's seat, do the flying. 'But it isn't over yet! He glanced at his wristwatch. Another hour before we reach Cape Town. Keep her on course, he told David, and unfastened his safety-belt.

where are you going2 David demanded.

I will not embarrass you by replying to that question, but do not be surprised when the Camel comes up to the cockpit to join you. I really am worried about you. David looked grave.

You're going to rupture something if you go on like this. Never felt stronger, Shasa assured him as he wriggled out of the seat.

Not you, dear boy, it's jumbo I'm worried about. David shook his head sadly, and Shasa chuckled, slapped his shoulder and ducked into the rear cabin.

The Camel looked up at him with that dark fanatical gaze and spilled a little gin and tonic down the front of her blouse, while jumbo giggled and wriggled her fat little rump across the seat to make room for Shasa. beside her.

He whispered in her ear and jumbo looked bewildered, not an unusual expression for her.

The Mile High Club, what in heaven's name is that? Shasa whispered again and she peered out of the side window at the earth below.

Goodness! I didn't realize we were that high. You get a special brooch when you become a member, Shasa told her, made of gold and diamonds. And jumbo's interest flared.

Oh goody! What kind of brooch? A flying pussy cat, with gold wings and diamond eyes. A pussy cat? Why a pussy, she broke off as understanding dawned in those china blue eyes. Shasa Courtney, you are awfulF She lowered her eyes and blinked demurely, and Shasa winked across the aisle at the Camel.

I think Davie wants to talk to you. The Camel rose obediently, glass in hand, all her bangles and beads jangling as she wobbled from one side of the aisle to the other.

An hour later Shasa brought the Rapide in from the mountain side of the airstrip, and laid her down on the grass as though he were buttering hot toast. He swung her nose around before she had stopped, taxiing back towards the hangars. With a burst of the starboard engine, he brought her up onto the hard stand and cut the motors.

Only then did he notice the yellow Daimler parked in the shadow of the hangar with Centaine standing beside it.

Oh for the love of Allah, Mater is here. Get those beauties flat on the floor! Too late, David groaned. Jumbo, bless her, is already waving at your mum through the porthole., Shasa steeled himself to his mother's wrath as jumbo came giggling down the boarding ladder, supporting the Camel, whose legs had finally let her down.

Centaine said nothing, but she had a taxi waiting beside the Daimler. How she had known about the girls Shasa would never ask, but she waved the taxi forward and herded the unsteady pair into the back seat with an eye like a stockwhip.

Get their luggage in the boot, she ordered Shasa tersely, and the moment it was loaded, she nodded at the taxi-driver.

Take them wherever they want to go., Camel sat owl-eyed in her seat, but jumbo leaned out of the rear window waving and blowing kisses at Shasa until the taxi disappeared through the gates of the airfield, and Shasa bowed his head and waited for his mother's icy sarcasm.

Did you have a good trip, darling? Centaine asked sweetly, holding up her face to be kissed, and the two girls were never mentioned again.

Marvellous! Shasa's kiss was full of gratitude and relief and genuine pleasure at being with her again, and he began to tell her all about it, but she cut him off, Cheri!! she said. Right now I Want you to arrange for the Rapide to be refuelled and checked. We are flying up to Johannesburg tomorrow. In Johannesburg they stayed at the Carlton. Centaine owned thirty percent of the equity in the hotel company, and the royal suite was at her disposal whenever she was in town.

The hotel would soon be in need of major renovation, but it occupied a prime position in the centre of Johannesburg.

While she dressed for dinner, Centaine weighed the possibility of having the old building pulled down and redeveloping the site, She would have her architects prepare a report, she decided, as she put business out of her mind and devoted the rest of the evening and all of her attention to Blaine.

Taking a silly chance of alerting the gossips, she and Blaine danced until two in the morning in the nightclub on the top floor of the hotel.

The next day Blaine had a full series of meetings at the Union Buildings in Pretoria, his excuse to Isabella for leaving Cape Town, so Centaine could spend the day with Shasa. In the morning there was a sale of yearlings at the showgrounds, but the prices were ridiculously high and they ended up without having bought a single animal. They lunched at the East African pavilion, where, more than the food, Centaine enjoyed the envious and speculative glances of the women at the surrounding tables.

in the afternoon they went to the zoo. Between feeding the monkeys and rowing on the lake, they discussed Shasa's plans for the future and she was delighted to learn that he had lost none of his determination to take up his duties and responsibilities with Courtney Mining and Finance as soon as he had obtained his Master's degree.

They arrived back at the Carlton with plenty of time to change for the boxing. Blaine, already in his dinner jacket, held a whisky and soda in his hand and he sprawled in one of the armchairs and watched Centaine complete her toilet.

She enjoyed that. It was playing at being married again, and she called him to hook in her ear-rings and then paraded for his approval, pirouetting to spread her long skirts.

I have never been to a boxing match before, Blaine. Aren't we terribly over-dressed? I assure you that black tie is de rigueur. oh God, I'm so nervous. I don't know what I'm going to say to him, even if I get a chance, she broke off. You did manage to get tickets, didn't you? He showed them to her and smiled. Front row, and I have arranged for a car and driver. Shasa drifted into the suite with a white silk scarf draped casually over the shoulders of his dinner jacket, and his black tie minutely and artfully asymmetrical so that it could never be mistaken for one of the modern clip-on monstrosities.

He looks so magnificent. Centaine's heart swelled at the sight of him. How ever am I going to preserve him from the harpies? He kissed her before going to the cabinet and pouring her customary glass of champagne.

Can I freshen your whisky, sir? he asked Blaine.

Thanks, but one is my limit, Shasa, Blaine declined, and Shasa poured himself a dry ginger-ale. That was one thing she didn't have to worry about, Centaine thought, liquor would never be one of Shasa's weaknesses.

Well, Mater, Shasa raised his glass, here's to your newfound interest in the gentlemanly art of boxing. Are you versed in the general objectives of the game? I think two young men get into a ring and try to kill each other, is that right! That, Centaine, is exactly right, Blaine laughed. He never used an endearment in front of Shasa, and not for the first time she wondered what Shasa thought of her and Blaine.

He must suspect, surely, but she had enough to worry about this evening without opening that dark door. She drank her champagne and then, gorgeous in diamonds and silks, on the arms of the two most important men in her world, she swept out to the waiting limousine.

The streets of the campus of the University of the Witwatersrand around the gymnasium were solid with parked vehicles and others moving nose to tail up the hill, while the sidewalks were packed with a jostling excited crowd of students and fight fans from the general public hurrying towards the hall, so their driver was forced to drop them off two hundred yards short of the entrance, and they joined the throng on foot.

The atmosphere in the hall was noisy and expectant, and as they took their reserved seats Centaine was relieved to see that everyone in the first three rows was wearing evening dress and that there were almost as many ladies as gentlemen in the crowd. She had had nightmares about being the only female in the hall.

She sat through the preliminary bouts, trying to appear interested in the lecture she was receiving from both Blaine and Shasa on the finer points of the contests, but the fighters in the lower weight divisions were so small and scrawny that they reminded her of underfed game cocks, and the flurry of action was fast enough to trick the eye. Besides, racing ahead to her first her mind and expectations were sight of the man she had come to see.

Another bout ended; the fighters, bruised and slick with sweat, climbed down from the ring, and an expectant hush fell on the hall, and heads began craning around towards the dressing-room.

Blaine checked his programme and murmured, This is it! Then a bloodthirsty roar went up from the mass of spectators.

Here he comes. Blaine touched her arm, but she found she could not turn her head.

,I wish I had never come, she thought, and shrank down in her seat. I don't want him to see me. The light heavyweight challenger, Manfred De La Rey, came down to the ring first, attended by his coach an two seconds, and the block of Stellenbosch students let out a roar and brandished their colour banners, launching into the Varsity war cry. They were immediately answered by the Wits students opposite with cheers and jeers and stamping of feet. The pandemonium was painful to the eardrums as Manfred climbed up into the ring and did a little shuffling dance, holding his gloved hands above his head, the silk gown swinging from his shoulders like a cloak.

His hair had grown longer and unfashionably it was not dressed with Brylcreem, but rippled around his head like a gilded cloud as he moved. His jaw was strong, stopping just short of heaviness, and the bones of forehead and cheek were prominent and cleanly chiselled, but his eyes dominated all his other features, pale and implacable as those of one of the big predatory cats, emphasized by his dark brows.

His shoulders were wide, descending in an inverted pyramid to his hips and the long clean lines of his legs, and his body had been pared of all fat and loose flesh, so that each individual muscle was visible beneath the skin.

Shasa stiffened in his seat as he recognized him. He chewed angrily, grinding his teeth together as he remembered the impact of those fists into his flesh and the suffocating slime of dead fish engulfing him as clearly as if the intervening years had never been.

I know him, Mater, he growled between clenched teeth.

He is the one I fought on the jetty at Walvis Bay. Centaine laid a hand on his arm to restrain him, but she did not look at him nor speak. Instead, she stole a single glance at Blaine's face, and what she saw distressed her.

Blaine's expression was grim, and she could feel the anger and the hurt in him. He might have been understanding and magnanimous a thousand miles from here, but with the living proof of her wantonness before him, he could only be thinking of the man who had made this bastard on her, and her acquiescence, nay, her joyous participation in the act.

He was thinking of her body which should be his alone, used by a stranger, by an enemy against whom he had risked his life in battle.

Oh God, why did I come? She tortured herself, and then she felt something melt and change shape inside of her and knew the answer.

Flesh of my flesh, she thought. Blood of my blood. And she remembered the weight of him in her womb, and the spasm of burgeoning life deep within her, and all the instincts of motherhood welled and threatened to choke her, and the angry birth cry rang again in her head, deafening her.

My son! she almost cried aloud. My own son. The magnificent fighting man in the ring turned his head in her direction and saw her for the first time. He dropped his hands to his sides, and he lifted his chin and stared at her with such concentrated venom, with such bitter hatred in those yellow eyes that it was like the blow of a spiked mace in her unprotected face. Then Manfred De La Rey deliberately turned his back on her and strode to his corner.

The three of them, Blaine, Shasa and Centaine, sat rigid and silent in the midst of the roaring, chanting, heaving multitude. Not one of the three looked at the others, only Centaine moved, twisting the corner of her sequined shawl in her lap and chewing on her lower lip to prevent it quivering.

The champion jumped up into the ring. Ian Rushmore was an inch shorter than Manfred, but broader and deeper in the chest, with long simian arms heavily muscled, and a neck so short and thick that his head seemed to ride directly on his shoulders. Thick, coarse black hair curled out of the top of his vest and he looked powerful and dangerous as a wild boar.

The bell rang and in the blood roar of the crowd the two fighters came together in the middle of the ring. Centaine gasped involuntarily at the thud of gloved fist on flesh and bone. Compared to the flickering blows of the lighter smaller men in the preceding bouts, this was like the meeting of gladiators.

She could not see any advantage between the two men as they wheeled and came together and their fists struck those terrible blows that bounced off solid guards of arms and gloves. Then they weaved and ducked and joined again while the crowd around her bellowed in a mindless frenzy.

As abruptly as it had begun, it ended, and the fighters separated and went back to the little groups of white-clad seconds who hovered over them, tending them lovingly, sponging and kneading their flesh, fanning and massaging and whispering to them.

Manfred took a mouthful from the bottle that his big black bearded coach held to his mouth. He sluiced it around his teeth and then turned and looked at Centaine again, sinmou gling her out of the crowd with those pale eyes, and deliberately spat the mouthful of water into the bucket at his feet without breaking his gaze. She knew that it was for her, he was spitting his anger at her. She quailed before his rage and she barely heard Blaine murmur beside her.

I scored that round as a draw. De La Rey gave nothing away, and Rushmore is wary of him., Then the boxers were on their feet again, circling and jabbing and pumping leather-clad fists, grunting like labouring bulls at punches thrown and received, their bodies shining with the running sweat of their exertions and bright red patches glowing on their bodies where blows landed. It went on and on, and Centaine felt a sickness rising in her at the primeval savagery of it, at the sounds and smell and spectacle of violence and pain.

Rushmore took that one, Blaine said quietly, as the round ended, and she actually hated him for his calmness. She felt a clammy sweat break out on her face and her nausea threatened to overwhelm her as Blaine went on, De La Rey will have to end it in the next two rounds. If he doesn't, Rushmore is going to grind him down. He's getting more confident all the time. She wanted to jump to her feet and hurry out of the hall, but her legs would not function. Then the bell rang and the two men were out there again in the glare of floodlights, and she tried to look away but could not, so she stared in sick fascination and saw it happen, saw every vivid detail of it, and knew she would never forget it.

She saw the red leather glove blur as it tore through a tiny gap in the defending circle of arms, and she saw the other man's head snap as though it had reached the limit of the hangman's noose as his body fell through the trap. She saw each individual droplet of sweat burst from his sodden locks, as though a heavy stone had been flung into a deep pool, and the features below twisted grotesquely out of shape by the impact into a carnival mask of agony.

She heard the blow, and the snap of something breaking, teeth or bone or sinew, and she screamed, but her scream was lost and swallowed up in the high surf of sound that burst from a thousand throats around her, and she thrust

her fingers into her own mouth as the blows kept coming, so fast that they dissolved before her eyes, so fast that the shocking thuds of impact blended like the sound of an egg-baeter in thick cream, and flesh turned to red ruin beneath them. She went on screaming as she watched the terrible killing yellow rage in the eyes of the son she had borne, watched him become a ravening murderous beast, and the man before him wilted and broke, and reeled away on boneless legs, and went down twisting as he fell and rolled onto his back staring up at the overhead lights with blind eyes, snoring in the thick bright flood that throbbed from his crushed nose into his open mouth. Manfred De La Rey danced over him, still possessed by the killing rage, so that Centaine expected him to throw back his head and howl like a wolf, or throw himself upon the broken thing at his feet and rip the bleeding scalp from its head and brandish it high in obscene triumph.

Take me away, Blaine, she sobbed. Get me out of this place, and his arms lifted her to her feet and carried her out into the night.

Behind her the blood roar faded, and she gulped down the cold sweet highveld air as though she had been rescued at the very point of drowning.

The Lion of the Kalahari writes his own ticket to Berlin, the headlines crowed, and Centaine shuddered with the memory, and dropped the newspaper over the edge of the bed and reached for the telephone.

Shasa, how soon can we leave for home? she demanded, as soon as his voice, blurred with sleep, sounded in her earpiece, and Blaine came through from the bathroom of the hotel suite with shaving lather on his cheeks.

You have decided? he asked as soon as she hung up.

There is no point in even trying to speak to him, she replied. 'You saw how he looked at me. Perhaps there will be another time, he tried to comfort her. But he saw the despair in her eyes and he went to hold her.

David Abrahams improved his best time for the 200-metre sprint by almost a second on the first day of the Olympic trials. However, in reaction he did not do as well as expected on the second day when he could only just win his final heat in the 400 by half a metre. Still, his name was high on the list that was read out at the banquet and ball that closed the five days of the track and field trials, and Shasa, who was sitting beside him, was the first to shake his hand and pound him between the shoulder blades. David was going to Berlin.

Two weeks later the polo trials were held at the Inanda Club in Johannesburg and Shasa was selected for the T team of possibles against Blaine's W team of probables for the last match of the final day.

Sitting high in the grandstand, Centaine watched Shasa play one of the most inspired games of his career, but with despair in her heart knew that it was still not good enough.

Shasa never missed an interception, nor mis-hit a stroke during the first five chukkas, and once even took the ball out from under the nose of Blaine's pony with a display of audacious riding that brought every person in the grandstand to their feet. Still it was not good enough, she knew.

Clive Ramsay, Shasa's rival for the position of number two in the team that would go to Berlin, had played well all week. He was a man of forty-two years, with a record of solid achievement behind him, and he had seconded Blaine Malcomess in almost thirty international matches. His polo career was just reaching its peak, and Centaine knew that the selectors could not afford to drop him in favour of the younger, more dashing, probably more gifted, but certainly less experienced and therefore less reliable rider.

She could almost see them nodding their heads sagely,

puffing their cigars and agreeing. Young Courtney will get his chance next time, and she was hating them for it in advance,, Blaine Malcomess included, when suddenly there was a howl from the crowd around her and she jumped to her feet with them.

Shasa, thank God, was out of it, galloping wide down the sideline ready to take the cross as his own number one, another thrusting young player, challenged Clive Ramsay in centre field.

It was probably not deliberate, more likely the consequence of a reckless urge to shine, but Shasa's team-mate fouled Clive Ramsay murderously on the interception, knocking his pony onto its knees and sending Clive somersaulting from the saddle onto the iron-hard ground. Later that afternoon X-ray examination confirmed a multiple fracture of Ramsay's femur which the orthopaedic surgeon was subsequently forced to open up and wire.

No polo for at least a year, he ordered, when Clive Ramsay came out of the anaesthetic.

So when the selectors went into conclave, Centaine waited anxiously, allowing herself renewed hope. As he had warned Centaine he would, Blaine Malcomess excused himself from the selectors room when Shasa's name came up.

But when he was called back in, the chairman grunted.

Very well, young Courtney gets the ride in Clive's place. And despite himself he felt a lift of elation and pride, Shasa JA Courtney was the closest he would ever get to having a son of his own.

As soon as he could, Blaine telephoned Centaine with the news. 'It won't be announced until Friday, but Shasa has got his ticket. Centaine was beside herself . Oh Blaine, darling, how will I contain myself until Friday? she cried. Oh won't it be fun going to Berlin together, the three of us! We can take the Daimler and drive across Europe. Shasa has never visited Mort Homme. We can spend a few days in Paris, and you can take me to dinner at Laserre There is so much to arrange, but we can talk about it when I see you on Saturday. 'Saturday? He had forgotten, she could hear it in his voice.

Sir Garry's birthday, the picnic on the mountain! She sighed with exasperation. Oh Blaine, it's one of the few times in the year we can be together, legitimately! Is it Sir Garry's birthday again so soon? What happened to the year? he hedged.

Oh, Blaine, you did forget, she accused. You can't let me down. It will be a double celebration this year, the birthday, and Shasa's selection for the Games. Promise you will be there, Blaine. He hesitated an instant longer. He had already promised to take Isabella and the girls to her mother's home at Franschoek for the weekend.

I promise, my sweeting, I'll be there. She would never know what that promise would cost him, for Isabella would make him pay with exquisite refinements of cruelty for the broken pledge.

it was the drug which had wrought this change in Isabella, he kept assuring himself. Beneath it she was still the same sweet and gentle person he had married. It was the unremitting pain and the drug which had ravaged her so, and he tried to maintain his respect and affection for her.

He tried to remember her loveliness, as delicate and ethereal as the bloom on the petals of a new-blown rose, but that loveliness had long since disappeared and the petals of the rose had withered, and the smell of corruption was upon her. The sweet sickly smell of the drug exuded from every pore of her skin and the deep never-healing abscesses in her buttocks and at the base of her spine gave off an odour, faint but penetrating, that he had come to abhor. It made it difficult for him to be near her. The smell and the sight of her offended him but at the same time filled him with helpless pity and corrosive guilt at his infidelity to her.

She had wasted to a skeleton. There was no flesh on the bones of those frail legs, they looked like the legs of one of the wading water birds, perfectly straight and shapeless, distorted only by the lumpy knots of her knees and the useless disproportionately large feet at their extremities.

Her arms were just as thin, and the flesh had receded from the bones of her skull. Her lips had drawn back so that her teeth were prominent and exposed, and looked like those of a skull when she tried to smile or more often grimaced with anger, and her gums were pale, almost white.

Her skin also was pale as rice-paper, and as dry and lifeless, so thin and translucent that the veins of her hands and forehead showed through it in a blue tracery and her eyes were the only living things in her face. They had a malicious glitter in them now, as though she resented him for his healthy lusty body when her own was destroyed and useless.

How can you, Blaine? she asked the question with the same accusing high-pitched whine that she had used countless times before. 'You promised me, Blaine. God knows, I see little enough of you as it is. I've been looking forward to this weekend since,, It went on and on, and he tried to shut it out, but he found himself thinking of her body again.

He had not seen her unclothed in almost seven years, then only a month previously he had walked into her dressing-room believing that she was in the gazebo in the garden where she spent most of her day, but she was laid out naked on the white sheet of the massage table with her uniformed day nurse working over her and the shock must have shown clearly on his face as the two women looked up at him, startled.

Every rib stood out of Isabella's narrow chest and her breasts were empty pouches of skin that drooped under her armpits. The dark bush of her pubic hair was incongruous and obscene in the bony basin of her pelvis below which those sticklike legs protruded at a disjointed angle, so shrunken that the gap between her thighs was wider than the span of his hands.

Get out! she had screamed at him, and he had torn his eyes from her and hurried from the room. Get out! Don't ever come in here again! Now her voice had the same ring to it. Go to your picnic then, if you must. I know what a burden I am to you. I know you can't bear to spend more than a few minutes in my presence, He could not stand it any longer, and he held up a hand to quieten her. You are right, my dear. It was selfish of me to even mention it. We won't speak of it again. Of course I will go with you. He saw the vindictive sparkle of triumph in her eyes, and suddenly for the very first time he hated her, and before he could prevent himself, he thought, Why doesn't she die? It would be better for her and everybody about her if she were dead. instantly he was appalled at himself and guilt washed over him so that he went to her quickly and stooped over the wheelchair, took that cold bony hand in both of his and squeezed it gently as he kissed her on the lips.

Forgive me, please, he whispered, but unbidden the image of her in her coffin appeared to him. She lay there, beautiful and serene as she had once been, her hair once again thick and lustrous auburn spread on the white satin pillow. He shut his eyes tightly to try and drive the image away, but it persisted even when she clung to his hand.

Oh, it will be such fun to be alone together for a while. She prevented him pulling away. We have so few opportunities to talk any more. You spend so much time in Parhament, and when you aren't about your cabinet duties you are out on the polo field. I see you every day, morning and evening. Oh, I know, but we never talk. We haven't even discussed Berlin yet, and the time is running out. Is there much we should discuss, my dear? he asked carefully as he disengaged her grip and returned to his own chair on the opposite side of the gazebo.

Of course there is, Blaine. She smiled at him, exposing those pale gums behind shrunken lips. It gave her a cunning, almost ferrety, expression which he found disturbing. There are so many arrangements to make. When is the team leaving? I may not travel with the team, he told her carefully. I may leave a few weeks earlier and stop off in London and Paris for discussions with the British and French Governments before going on to Berlin. Oh Blaine, we must still make the arrangements for me to go with you, she said and he had to control his expression for she was watching him carefully.

Yes, he said. It will need careful planning. The idea was insupportable. How he longed to be with Centaine, to be able to get away from all pretence and fear of discovery. We shall have to be very certain, my dear, that travelling will not seriously impair your health further. You don't want me with you, do you? Her voice rose sharply.

Of course It's a wonderful chance for you to get away from me, to escape from me. Isabella, please calm yourself. You will do yourself Don't pretend you care about me, I've been a burden on you for nine years. I'm sure you wish me dead. Isabella, He was shaken by the accuracy of the accusation.

Oh, don't play the saint with me, Blaine Malcomess. I may be locked into this chair, but I see things and I hear things. I don't wish to continue like this. He stood up. We'll talk again once you have control Sit down! she screeched at him. I won't have you running off to your French whore as you always do! He flinched as though she had struck him in the face, and she went on gloatingly, There, I've said it at last. Oh God, you'll never know how close I've been to saying it so many times. You'll never know how good it feels to say it, whore! Doxy! If you continue, I will leave, he warned.

Harlot, she said with relish. Slut! Jade! He turned on his heel and went down the steps of the gazebo two at a time.

Blaine, she screamed after him. Come back! He continued walking up towards the house, and her tone changed.

Blaine, I'm sorry. I apologize. Please come back. Please! and he could not refuse her. Reluctantly he turned back, and found that his hands were shaking with shock and anger.

He thrust them into his pockets and stopped at the top of the steps.

All right, he said softly. It's true about Centaine Courtney. I love her. But it is also true that we have done everything in our power to prevent you being hurt or humiliated.

So don't ever talk like that about her again. If she had allowed it, I would have gone to her years ago, and left you.

May God forgive me, but I would have walked out on you!

Only she kept me here, only she still keeps me here. She was chastened and shaken as he was, or so he thought, until she raised her eyes again and he saw that she had feigned repentance merely to lure him back within range of her tongue. I know I cannot go to Berlin with you, Blaine.

I have already asked Dr Joseph and he has forbidden it. He says the journey would kill me. However, I know what you are planning, you and that woman. I know you have used all your influence to get Shasa Courtney into the team merely to give her an excuse to be there. I know you are planning a wonderful illicit interlude, and I can't stop you going, He spread his hands in angry resignation. It was useless to protest and her voice rose again into that harrowing shrillness.

Well, let me tell you this, it isn't going to be the honeymoon that the two of you think it is. I've told the girls, both Tara and Mathilda Janine, that they are going with you.

I've told them already, and they are beside themselves with excitement. it will be up to you. Either you are heartless enough to disappoint your own daughters, or you will be playing baby-sitter and not Romeo in Berlin. Her voice rose even higher, and the glitter of her eyes was vindictive. And I warn you! if you refuse to take them with you, Blaine Malcomess, I will tell them why. I call on God as my witness, I will tell them that their beloved daddy is a cheat and a liar, a libertine and a whoremaster! Although everybody, from the most knowledgeable sports writers to the lowliest fight fan, had confidently expected Manfred De La Rey to be on the boxing squad to go to Berlin, when the official announcement of the team was made and he was indeed the light heavyweight selection, but in addition Roelf Stander was the heavyweight choice and the Reverend Tromp Bierman was given the duties of official team coach, the entire town and university body of Stellenbosch erupted in spontaneous expressions of pride and delight.

There was a civic reception and parade through the streets of the town, while at a mass meeting of the Ossewa Brandwag the commanding general held them up as an example of Afrikaner manhood and extolled their dedication and fighting skills.

It is young men such as these who will lead our nation to its rightful place in this land, he told them, and while the massed uniformed ranks gave the OB salute, the clenched right fist held across the chest, Manfred and Roelf had the badges of officer rank pinned to their tunics.

For God and the Volk, their high commander exhorted them, and Manfred had never before experienced such pride, such determination to honour the trust that had been placed in him.

over the weeks that followed, the excitement continued to build up. There were fittings at the official team tailor for the gold and green blazers, white slacks and broad-brimmed Panama hats which made up the uniform in which they would march into the Olympic stadium. There were endless team briefings, covering every subject from German etiquette and polite behaviour to travel arrangements and profiles of the opponents whom they were likely to encounter on the way to the final.

Both Manfred and Roelf were interviewed by journalists from every magazine and newspaper in the country, and a half an hour on the nationally broadcast radio programme This is your Land was devoted entirely to them.

Only one person seemed unaffected by the excitement.

The weeks you are away will seem longer than my whole life, Sarah told Manfred.

Don't be a silly little duck, he laughed at her. It will all be over before you know it, and I'll be back with a gold medal on my chest. Don't call me a silly little duck,she flashed at him, not ever again! He stopped laughing. You are right, he said. You are worth more than that. Sarah had taken on herself the duties of timekeeper and second for Manfred's and Roelf's evening training runs. On flying bare feet she took short cuts up the hillside and through the forest to wait for them at prearranged spots with her stopwatch, borrowed from Uncle Tromp, a wet sponge and a flask of cold freshly squeezed orange juice to refresh them. As soon as they had sponged down, drunk and set off again she would race away, cutting over the crest of the hill or through the valley to wait for them at the next stage.

Two weeks before the sailing date, Roelf was forced to miss one of the evening runs when he was obliged to chair an extraordinary meeting of the students representative council and Manfred made the run alone.

He took the long steep side of the Hartenbosch mountain at a full run, going with all his strength, flying up the slope with long elastic strides, lifting his gaze to the crest. Sarah was waiting for him there, and the low autumn sun was behind her, crowning her with gold and striking through the thin stuff of her skirts so that her legs were silhouetted and he could see every line and lovely angle of her body almost as though she were unclothed.

He pulled up involuntarily in full stride and stood staring up at her, his chest heaving and his heart pounding, not only from his exertions.

She is beautiful. He was amazed that he had never seen it before, and he walked up the last angle of the slope slowly, staring at her, confused by this sudden realization and by the hollow hunger, the need that he had kept suppressed, whose existence he had never admitted to himself but which now suddenly threatened to consume him.

She came to meet him the last few paces; barefoot she was so much smaller than he was and that seemed only to increase this terrible hunger. She held out the sponge to him, but when he made no move to take it from her, she stepped up close to him and reached up to wipe the sweat from his neck and shoulders.

I dreamed last night we were back in the camp, she whispered as she worked, swabbing his upper arms. Do you remember the camp beside the railway tracks, Manie? He nodded. His throat had closed, and he could not reply.

I saw my ma lying in the grave. It was a terrible thing.

Then it changed, Manie, it wasn't my ma any more, it was you. You were so pale and handsome, but I knew I had lost you, and I was so eaten by my own sorrow that I wanted to die also and be with you for ever. He reached out and took her in his arms and she sobbed and fell against him. Her body felt so cool and soft and compliant and her voice shook.

Oh, Manie. I don't want to lose you. Please come back to me, without you I don't want to go on living. I love you, Sarie. His voice was hoarse and she jerked in his arms.

Oh Manie. I never realized it before, he croaked.

oh Manie, I have always realized it. I loved you from the first minute of the first day, and I will love you until the last, she cried, and turned her mouth up to his. Kiss me, Manie, kiss me or I will die. The touch of her mouth ignited something within him, and the fire and the smoke of it obscured reason and reality.

Then they were under the pines beside the path, lying on a bed of soft needles, and the sultry autumn air was soft as silk upon his bare back, but not as soft as her body beneath his nor as hot as the liquid depths in which she engulfed him.

He did not understand what had happened until she cried out, in pain and intense joy, but by then it was too late and he found himself answering her cry, no longer able to draw back, carried along on a swirling tidal wave to a place he had never been before, nor had he even dreamed of its existence.

Reality and consciousness returned slowly from far away, and he drew away from her and stared at her in horror, putting on his own clothing.

What we have done is wicked beyond forgiveness No. She shook her head vehemently and, still naked, reached for him. No, Manie, it's not wicked when two people love each other. How can it be wicked?

It's a thing from God, beautiful and holy. The night before Manfred sailed for Europe with Uncle Tromp and the team, he slept in his old room at the Manse.

When the old house was dark and quiet, Sarah crept down the passage. He had left his door unlatched. Nor did he protest as she let her nightdress fall and crept under the sheet beside him.

She stayed until the doves in the oaks outside the stoep began fluttering and softly cooing. Then she kissed him one last time and whispered: Now we belong to each other, for ever and always. It was only half an hour before sailing and Centaine's stateroom was so crowded that the stewards were forced to pass the champagne glasses over the heads of the guests, and it required a major expedition to get from one side of the cabin to the other. The only one of Centaine's friends who was not present was Blaine Malcomess. They had decided not to advertise the fact that they were sailing on the same mail ship, and had agreed only to meet once they were clear of the harbour.

Both Abe Abrahams, bursting with pride, his arm hooked through David's, and Dr Twenty-man-jones, tall and lugubrious as a marabou stork, were in the party around Centaine.

They had come all the way down from Windhoek to see her off. Naturally, Sir Garry and Anna were there, as were the Ou Baas General Smuts, and his little fluffy-haired wife with her steel-rimmed spectacles making her look like an ad:rtisement for Mazzawattee tea.

the far corner Shasa was surrounded by a bevy of young ladies, and was in the middle of a story that was being followed with shrieks of amusement and gasps of increduous wo rider, when suddenly he lost track of what he had been saying and stared out of the porthole beside him.

Through it he had a view out onto the boat deck, and what had caught his attention was a glimpse of a girl's head as she passed.

He couldn't see her face, just the side and back of her head, a cascade of auburn curls set on a long slim neck, and a little ear sticking out of the curls at a jaunty angle. It was a fleeting glimpse only, but something about the angle and carriage of that head made him lose immediate interest in the females in front of him.

He went up on his toes, spilling champagne, and stuck his head through the porthole, but the girl had passed by and he only had a back view of her. She had an impossibly narrow waist but a cheeky little rump that switched from side to side and made her skirts swing rhythmically as she walked. Her calves were perfectly turned and her ankles slim and neat. She went round the corner with a last twitch of her bottom, leaving Shasa determined that he must get a look at her face.

Excuse me, ladies. His audience gave little cries of disappointment, but he eased himself neatly out of their circle and began working his way towards the door. But before he reached it, the sirens started their booming thunder of warning and the cry went up, 'Last call, ladies and gentlemen all ashore, those who are going ashore, and he knew he had run out of time.

She was probably a dog, a backside like heaven and a face like hell, and she almost certainly isn't sailing, anyway, he consoled himself. Then Dr Twenty-man-Jones was shaking his hand and wishing him luck for the Games, and he tried to forget that bunch of auburn curls and concentrate on his social duties, but it wasn't all that easy.

out on deck he looked for an auburn head going down the gangway, or in the crowd on the quayside, but Centaine was tugging at his arm as the gap between ship and land opened below them.

Come, cheri, let's go and check the dining-room seating. But you have been invited to the captain's table, Mater, he protested. 'here was an invitation in the, Yes, but you and David haven't, she pointed out. Come along, David, let's go and find where they have put the two of you, and have it changed if it's not suitable. She was up to something& Shasa realized. Normally she would take the seating for granted, secure in the knowledge that her name was all the guarantee of preference that was necessary, but now she was insistent, and she had that look in her eye which he knew so well, and which he called her 'Machiavellian sparkle.

Come along then, he agreed indulgently, and the three of them went down the walnut-panelled staircase to the first class dining-room on the deck below.

At the foot of the stairs a small group of seasoned travellers were being affable to the head waiter; five-pound notes were disappearing like magic into that urbane gentleman's pocket, leaving no bulge, and names were being rubbed out and re-pencilled on the seating plan.

Standing a little apart from the group was a tall familiar figure that Shasa recognized instantly. Something about him, the expectant turn of his head towards the staircase, told Shasa he was waiting for someone, and his dazzling smile as he saw Centaine made it clear who that someone was.

Good Lord, Mater, Shasa exclaimed. I didn't realize Blaine was sailing today, I thought he would be going later with the others, he broke off . He had felt his mother's grip on his forearm tighten and the quick catch of her breath as she saw Blaine.

They have arranged this, he realized with a flare of amazement. 'That's what her excitement was. And at last it dawned upon him. You never think it of your own mother, but they are lovers. All these years, and I never saw it. The little things, insignificant at the time but now full of meaning, came crowding back. Blaine and the mater, damn me blind! Who would have thought it and conflicting emotions assailed him. Of all men in the world, I would have chosen him, in that moment he realized how much Blaine Malcomess had come to stand in the place of the father he had never known, but the thought was followed instantly by a flush of jealous and moral indignation. 'Blaine Malcomess, pillar of society and government, and Mater who is always frowning and shaking her head at me, the naughty little devils, they have been raving away for years without anybody suspecting! Blaine was coming towards them. Centaine, this is a surprise! Mater was laughing and holding out her right hand to him.

Gracious me, Blaine Malcomess, I had no idea you were on board. Shasa thought wryly: What marvelous acting! You have had me and everybody fooled for years. The two of you make Clark Gable and Ingrid Bergman look like a pair of beginners! Then suddenly it didn't matter any more. The only thing that was important was that there were two girls following Blaine as he came towards Centaine.

Centaine, I'm sure you remember my two daughters. This is Tara and this is Mathilda Janine, Tara. Silently Shasa sang the name in his head. Tara what a lovely name. It was the girl he had glimpsed on the boat deck, and she was only one hundred times more stunning than he had hoped she might be.

Tara. She was tall, only a few inches below his own six foot, but her legs were like willow wands and her waist was like a reed.

Tara. She had the face of a madonna, a serene oval, and her complexion was a mixture of cream and flower petals, almost too perfect, yet redeemed from insipid vacuity by the smoking chestnut hair, her father's wide strong mouth and her own eyes, resilient as grey steel and bright with intelhgence and determination.

She greeted Centaine with the correct amount of deference and then turned to look directly at Shasa.

Shasa, you too remember Tara, Blaine told him. She came out to Weltevreden four years ago. Was this the same noisy little pest? Shasa stared at her the one in short skirts with scabs on her bony knees who had embarrassed him with her boisterous and childish capers? He could not believe it was, and his voice caught in his throat.

How good to see you again, Tara, after so long. Remember, Tara Malcomess, she cautioned herself. Be controlled and aloof. She almost shivered with shame as she remembered how she had gambolled and fawned around him like a puppy begging to be patted. What a callow little beast, I was. But she had been smitten by a crush so powerful at first sight of him that the pain of it still lingered even now.

However, she managed to display the right shade of indifference as she murmured, Oh have we met? I must have forgotten, forgive me. She held out her hand. Well, it's pleasant to meet you again, Shasa? 'Yes, Shasa, he agreed, and he took the hand as though it were a holy talisman. Why haven't we met again since then? he asked himself, and immediately he saw the answer.

It was deliberate. Blaine and Mater made damn sure that we never met again in case it complicated their own little arrangement. They did not want Tara reporting back to her mama. But he was too happy to be angry with them now.

Have you made your table reservations? he asked, without relinquishing her hand.

Daddy is sitting at the captain's table, Tara pouted lovingly at her father. And we are to be left all alone. The four of us can sit together, Shasa suggested quickly.

Let's go and talk to the Maitre. Blaine and Centaine exchanged relieved glances, it was all going exactly as they had planned, with one twist they had not foreseen.

Mathilda Janine had blushed as she shook hands with David Abrahams. Of the two sisters, she was the ugly duckling for she had inherited not only her father's wide mouth but his large nose and prominent ears as well, and her hair was not auburn but ginger carrot.

But he's got a big nose too, she thought defiantly, as she studied David, and then her thoughts went off on a tangent.

If Tara tells him I'm only sixteen I'll just die! The voyage was a tempest of emotions, full of delights and surprises and frustrations and agonies for all of them.

During the fourteen days of the passage to Southampton Blaine and Centaine saw very little of the four youngsters, meeting them for a cocktail beside the ship's pool before lunch and for a duty dance after dinner, David and Shasa each taking a turn at whirling Centaine around the floor while Blaine did the same to his daughters. Then there would be a quick exchange of glances between the four young people and they would make their elaborate excuses before all disappearing down into the tourist class where the real fun was, leaving Blaine and Centaine to their staid pleasures on the upper decks.

Tara in a one-piece bathing costume of lime green was the most magnificent sight Shasa had ever laid eyes upon. Her breasts under the clinging material were the shape of unripe pears and when she came from the pool with water streaming down those long elegant limbs, he could make out the dimple of her navel through the cloth and the hard little marbles of her nipples, and it took all his control to prevent himself groaning out loud.

Mathilda Janine and David discovered a mutual zany and irreverent sense of humour, and kept each other in convulsions of laughter most of the time. Mathilda Janine was up at four-thirty each morning, no matter how late they had got to bed, to give David raucous encouragement as he made his fifty circuits of the boat deck.

He moves like a panther, she told herself. Long and smooth and graceful. And she had to think up fifty new witticisms each morning to shout at him as he went bounding past her. They chased each other around the pool and wrestled ecstatically below the surface; once they had managed to fall in locked in each other's arms, but, apart from a furtive pecking kiss at the door of the cabin that Mathilda. Janine shared with Tara, neither of them even considered carrying it any further. Although David had benefited from his brief relationship with the Camel, it never occurred to him to indulge in the same acrobatics with someone as special as Matty.

Shasa on the other hand suffered under no such inhibitions. He was vastly more sexually experienced than David, and once he had recovered from the initial awe of Tara's beauty, he launched an insidious but determined assault on the fortress of her virginity. However, his rewards were even less spectacular than David's.

it took him almost a week to work up to the stage of intimacy where Tara would allow him to spread suntan oil on her back and shoulders. In the small hours of the morning when the lights on the dance floor were dimmed for the last dance and the band played the sugary romantic Poinciana', she laid her velvet-soft cheek against his, but when he tried to press his lower body against hers, she allowed it for only moments before she arched her back, and when he tried to kiss her at the cabin door she held him off with both hands on his chest and gave him that low tantalizing laugh.

The silly little witch is totally frigid,, Shasa told his reflection in the shaving mirror. She probably has an iceberg in her knickers. Thought of those regions made him shiver with frustration, and he resolved to break off the chase. He thought of the five or six other females on board, not all of them young, who had looked at him with unmistakable invitation in their eyes. I could have any or all of them instead of panting along behind Miss Tin Knickers, But an hour later he was partnering her in the mixed doubles deck quoit championships, or smoothing suntan oil on that flawless finely muscled back with fingers that trembled with agonized desire, or trying to keep level with her in a discussion of the merits and demerits of the government's plans to disenfranchise the coloured voters of the Cape Province.

He had discovered with some dismay that Tara Malcomess had a highly developed political conscience, and that even though it was vaguely understood between him and Mater that Shasa would one day go into politics and parliament, his grasp of and interest in the complex problems of the country was not of the same calibre as Tara's. She held views that were almost as disturbing to him as her physical attractions.

I believe, as Daddy does, that far from taking the vote away from the few black people who have it, we should be giving it to all of them. All of them! Shasa was appalled. You don't really believe that, do you? Of course I do. Not all at once, but on a civilization basis, government by those who have proved fit to govern. Give the vote to all those who have the right standards of education and responsibility. In two generations every man and woman, black or white, could be on the roll. Shasa shuddered at the thought, his own aspirations to a seat in the house would not survive that, but this was probably the least radical of her opinions.

How can we prevent people from owning land in their own country or from selling their labour in the best market, or prohibit them from collective bargaining? Trade unions were the tools of Lenin and the devil. That was a fact Shasa had taken in with his mother's milk.

She's a bolshy, but, God, what a beautiful bolshy! he thought, and pulled her to her feet to break the unpalatable lecture. Come on, let's go for a swim. He's an ignorant fascist, she thought furiously, but when she saw the way the other women looked at him from behind their sunglasses, she wanted to claw their eyes out of their faces, and at night in her bunk when she thought about the touch of his hands on her bare back, and the feel of him against her on the dance floor, she blushed in the darkness at the fantasies that filled her head.

If I just let it start, just the barest beginning, I know I won't be able to stop him, I won't even want to stop him, I and she steeled herself against him. Controlled and aloof, she repeated, like a charm against the treacherous wiles of her own body.

By some extraordinary coincidence it just so happened that Blaine Malcomess had shipped his Bentley in the hold, alongside Centaine's Daimler.

We could drive to Berlin in convoy, Centaine exclaimed as though the idea had just occurred to her, and there was clamorous acceptance of the idea from the four younger members of the party, and immediate jockeying and lobbying for seats in the two vehicles. Centaine and Blaine, protesting mildly, allowed themselves to be allocated the Bentley while the others, driven by Shasa, would follow in the Daimler.

From Le Havre they drove the dusty roads of north-western France, through the town that still had the ring of terror in their names, Amiens and Arras. The green grass had covered the muddy battlefields where Blaine had fought, but the fields of white crosses were bright as daisies in the sunlight.

May God grant that mankind never has to live through that again, Blaine murmured, and Centaine reached across and took his hand.

in the little village of Mort Homme they parked in front of the auberge in the main street, and when Centaine walked in through the front door to enquire for lodgings, Madame behind the desk recognized her instantly and screeched with excitement.

Henri, viens vite! Cest Mademoisefle de Thiry du chateau, and she rushed to embrace Centaine and buss her on both cheeks.

A travelling salesman was ousted, and the best rooms put at their disposal; a little explanation was needed when Centaine and Blaine asked for separate accommodation, but the meal they were served that night was exquisitely nostalgic for Centaine, with all the specialities - terrines and truffles and tartes, with the wine of the region, while Madame stood beside the table and gave Centaine all the gossip, the deaths and births, the marriages and elopernents and liaisons of the last nineteen years.

In the early morning Centaine and Shasa left the others sleeping, and drove up to the chateau. It was rubble and black scorched walls, pierced with empty windows and shell holes, overgrown and desolate, and Centaine stood in the ruins and wept for her father who had burned with the great house rather than abandon it to the advancing Germans.

After the war the estate had been sold off to pay the debts that the old man had accumulated over a lifetime of good living and hard drinking. It was now owned by Hennessy, the great cognac firm; the old man would have enjoyed that little irony, Centaine smiled at the thought.

Together they climbed the hillock beyond the ruined chAteau and from the crest Centaine pointed out the orchard and plantation that marked the old wartime airfield.

That is where your father's squadron was stationed, on the edge of the orchard. I waited here every morning for the squadron to take off, and I would wave them away to battle. They flew SE5a's didn't they? Only later. At first it was the old Sopwiths. She was looking up at the sky. Your father's machine was painted bright yellow. I called him le petit jaune, the little yellow one, I can see him now in his flying helmet. He used to lift the goggles so I could see his eyes as he flew past me.

Oh Shasa, how noble and gay and young he was, a young eagle going up into the blue. They descended the hillock and drove slowly back between the vineyards. Centaine asked Shasa to stop beside a small stone-walled barn at the corner of North Field. He watched her, puzzled, as she stood for a few minutes in the doorway of the thatched building and then came back to the Daimler with a faint smile on her lips and a soft glow in her eyes.

She saw his enquiring look and told him, Your father and I used to meet here. In a clairvoyant insight Shasa realized that in this rickety old building in a foreign land he had been conceived. The strangeness of this knowledge remained with him as they drove back towards the auberge.

At the entrance to the village in front of the little church with its green copper spire, they stopped again and went into the cemetery. Michael Courtney's grave was at the far end, beneath a yew tree. Centaine had ordered the headstone from Africa but had never seen it before. A marble eagle, perched on a tattered battle standard, was on the point of flight, with wings spread. Shasa thought it was a little too flamboyant for a memorial to the dead.

They stood side by side and read the inscription: SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF CAPTAIN MICHAEL COURTNEY RFC KILLED IN ACTION 19 APRIL 1917.

GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN.

Weeds had grown up around the headstone, and they knelt together and tidied the grave. Then they stood at the foot of it, their heads bowed.

Shasa had expected to be profoundly moved by his father's grave, but instead he felt remote and untouched. The man beneath the headstone had become clay long before he was born. He had felt closer to Michael Courtney six thousand miles from here when he had slept in his bed, worn his old thomproof tweed jacket, handled his Purdey shotgun and his fishing-rods, or used his gold-nibbed pen and his platinum and onyx dress studs.

They went back along the path to the church and found the village priest in the vestry. He was a young man, not much older than Shasa, and Centaine was disappointed for his youth seemed to her a break in her tenuous link to Michael and the past. However, she wrote out two large cheques, one for the repairs to the church's copper spire, and the other to pay for fresh flowers to be placed on Michael's grave each Sunday in perpetuity, and they went back to the Daimler with the priest's fervent benedictions following them.

The following day they all drove on to Paris; Centaine had wired ahead for accommodation at the Ritz in the Place Vendeme.

Blaine and Centaine had a full round of engagements meetings, luncheons and dinners, with various members of the French government, so the four younger members of the party were left to their own devices and they very soon discovered that Paris was the city of romance and excitement.

They rode to the first stage of the Eiffel Tower in one of the creaking elevators and then raced each other up the open steel staircase to the very top and oohed and aahed at the city spread below them. They strolled with arms linked along the footpath on the riverbank and under the fabulous bridges of the Seine. With her baby box Brownie, Tara photographed them on the steps of Montmartre with the Sacre

Coeur as a backdrop; they drank coffee and ate croissants in the sidewalk cafes and lunched at the Cafe de la Paix, dined at La Coupole and saw La Traviata at the Opra.

At midnight when the girls had said goodnight to Centaine and their father and retired demurely and dutifully to their room, Shasa and David smuggled them out over the balcony and they went dancing in the boites on the Left Bank or sat listening to jazz in the cellars of Montparnasse, where they discovered a black trombone player who blew a horn that made your spine curl and a little brasserie where you could eat snails and wild strawberries at three in the morning.

In the last dawn, as they crept down the corridor to get the girls back to their room, they heard familiar voices in the elevator cage as it came up to their floor, and only just in time the four of them dived down the staircase and lay in a heap on the first landing, the girls stuffing handkerchiefs into their mouths to stifle their giggles, while just above them Blaine and Centaine, resplendent in full evening dress and oblivious of their presence, left the elevator and arm in arm strolled down the passage towards Centaine's suite.

They left Paris with regret and reached the German border in high spirits. They presented their passports to the French douaniers and were waved through to the German side with typical Gallic panache. They left the Bentley and Daimler parked at the barrier and trooped into the German border post where they were struck immediately by the difference in attitude between the two groups of officials.

The two German officers were meticulously turned out, their leather polished to a gloss, their caps set at the exact regulation angle and the black swastikas in a field of crimson and white on their left arms. From the wall behind their desk, a framed portrait of the Fuhrer, stern and moustached, glowered down upon them.

Blaine laid the sheaf of passports on the desk top in front of them with a friendly Guten Tag, mein Herr', and stood chatting to Centaine while one of the officials went through the passports one at a time, comparing each of the holders to his or her photograph and then stamping the visa with the black eagle and swastika device, before going on to the next document.

Dave Abrahams passport was at the bottom of the pile, and when the officer came to it, he paused and re-read the front cover and then pedantically turned and perused every single page in the document, looking up at David again and scrutinizing his features after each page. After a few minutes of this the group around David fell silent and began exchanging puzzled glances.

I think something is wrong, Blaine,Centaine said quietly, and he went back to the desk.

Problem? Blaine asked, and the official answered him in stilted but correct English.

Abrahams, it is a Jewish name, no? Blaine flushed with irritation, but before he could reply David stepped up to the desk beside him. It's a Jewish name, yes! he said quietly, and the official nodded thoughtfully, tapping the passport with his forefinger.

You admit you are Jewish? I am Jewish, David replied in the same level tone.

It is not written in your passport that you are Jewish, the customs officer pointed out.

Should it be? David asked. The officer shrugged, then asked, 'You wish to enter Germany, and you are Jewish? I wish to enter Germany to take part in the Olympic Games, to which I have been invited by the German government. Ah! You are an Olympic athlete, a Jewish Olympic athlete? No, I am a South African Olympic athlete. Is my visa in order? The official did not reply to the question. Wait here, please. He went through the rear door, carrying David's passport with him.

They heard him speaking to someone in the back office, and they all looked at Tara. She was the only one in the party who understood a little German, she had studied the language for her matriculation examinations and passed it on the Higher Grade.

What is he saying? Blaine asked.

They are talking too fast, a lot about "Jews" and "Olympics", Tara answered, then the rear door opened and the original official came back with a plump rosy-faced man who was clearly his superior, for his uniform and his manner were grander.

Who is Abrahams? he demanded.

I am!

You are a Jew? You admit you are a Jew? Yes, I am a Jew. I have said so many times. Is there something wrong with my visa? You will wait, please. This time all three officials retired to the rear office, once more taking David's passport with them. They heard the tinkle of a telephone bell, and then the senior officer's voice, loud and obsequious.

What's going on? They looked to Tara.

He's talking to somebody in Berlin, Tara told them. He's explaining about David. The one-sided conversation in the next room ended with Jawohl, mein Kapitdn, repeated four times, each time louder, and then a shouted Heil Hitler! and the tinkle of the telephone.

The three officials filed back into the front office. The rosy-faced superior stamped David's passport and handed it to him with a flourish.

Welcome to the Third Reich! he declared, and flung his right hand up, palm open, and extended towards them, and shouted, Heil Hitler! Mathilda Janine burst into nervous giggles, Isn't he a lark! Blaine seized her arm and marched her out of the office.

So they drove into Germany, all of them silent and subdued.

They found lodgings in the first roadside inn, and contrary to her usual custom, Centaine accepted them without first inspecting the beds, the plumbing and the kitchens. After dinner nobody wanted to play cards or explore the village and they were in bed before ten o'clock.

However, by breakfast time they had recovered their high spirits, and Mathilda Janine had them laughing with a poem she had composed in honour of the extraordinary feats that her father, Shasa and David were about to perform in the Games ahead of them.

Their good humour increased during the day's easy journey through the beautiful German countryside, the villages and hilltop castles right out of the pages of Hans Andersen fairy tales, the forests of pine trees in dark contrast to the open meadows and the tumbling rivers crossed by arched bridges of stone. Along the way they saw groups of young people in national dress, the boys in lederhosen and feathered loden hats, the girls in dirndls, who waved and called greetings as the two big motor cars sped past.

They lunched in an inn full of people and music and laughter, on a haunch of wild boar with roast potatoes and apples and drank a Moselle with the taste of the grape and sunshine in its pale greenish depths.

Everybody is so happy and prosperous-looking, Shasa remarked as he glanced around the crowded room.

The only country in the world with no unemployment and no poor, Centaine agreed, but Blaine tasted his wine and said nothing.

That afternoon they entered the northern plain on the approach to Berlin, and Shasa, who was leading, swung the Daimler off onto the verge so suddenly that David grabbed for the dashboard and the girls in the back squeaked with alarm.

Shasa jumped out, leaving the engine still running, shouting 'David! David! just look at them, aren't they the most beautiful things you have ever seen. The others piled out beside him and stared up at the sky, while Blaine pulled the Bentley in behind the Daimler and he and Centaine climbed out to join them, shading their eyes against the slanting sun.

There was an airfield adjoining the highway. The hangar buildings were painted silver and the windsock waved its long white arm in the small breeze. A stick of three fighter aircraft turned out of the sun, coming around in formation to line up for the strip. They were sleek as sharks, their bellies and lower wings painted sky blue, their upper surfaces speckled with camouflage and the boss of their propellers bright yellow.

What are they? Blaine called across to the two young pilots, and they answered as one. 109S., Messerschmitts. The machine-gun snouts bristled from the leading edges of the wings, and the eyes of the cannon peered malevolently from the centre of the spinning propeller bosses.

What I'd give to fly one of those! An arm And a leg And my hope of salvation! The three fighters changed formation into line astern and descended towards the airfield.

They say that they can do 350 mph, straight and level- Oh sweet! Oh sweet! Look at them fly! The girls were infected by their excitement, and they clapped and laughed, as the war machines passed low over their heads and touched down on the airstrip only a few hundred yards beyond.

It would be worth going to war, just to get a shot at flying something like that, Shasa exulted, and Blaine turned back to the Bentley to hide his sudden anger at the remark.

Centaine slid into the seat beside him and they drove in silence for five minutes before she said: He's so young and foolish sometimes - I'm sorry, Blaine, I know how he upset you. He sighed. We were the same. We called it "a great game" and thought it was going to be the glory of a lifetime that would make us men and heroes. Nobody told us about the ripped guts and the terror and how dead men smell on the fifth day in the sun. It won't happen again, Centaine said, fiercely.

Please don't let it happen again! In her mind's eye she saw once again the burning aircraft, with the body of the man she loved, blackening and twisting and crisping; then the face was no longer Michael's but that of his only son, and Shasa's beautiful face burst open like a sausage held too close to the flames and the sweet young life juices burst from it.

.Please stop the car, Blaine, she whispered. I think I am going to be ill. With hard driving they could have reached Berlin that night, but in one of the smaller towns that they were passing through the streets were decorated for some sort of celebration, and Centaine asked and was told that it was the festival of the local patron saint.

Oh Blaine, let's stay over, she cried, and they joined in the festival.

That afternoon there was a procession. An effigy of the saint was paraded through the narrow cobbled streets, and a band followed it, with angelic little blond girls in national dress, and small boys in uniform.

Those are the Hitler Youth, Blaine explained. Something like old Baden-Powells Boy Scouts, but with a much stronger emphasis on German national aspirations and patriotism. After the parade there was torchlit dancing in the town square, and barrows serving foaming tankards of beer or glasses of Sekt, the German equivalent of champagne, and serving-girls with lace aprons and cheeks like ripe apples carrying over owing platters of rich food, pigs trotters and veal, smoked mackerel and cheeses.

They found a table at the corner of the square, and the revellers at the neighbouring tables called greetings and merry banter to them; and they drank beer and danced and beat time to the oom-pa-pa band with their beer mugs.

Then quite abruptly the atmosphere changed. The laughter around them became brittle and forced, and there was a wariness in the faces and eyes of revellers at the adjacent tables; the band began to play too loudly and the dancers became feverish in their exertions.

Four men had entered the square. They wore brown uniforms with cross-straps over the chest and the ubiquitous swastika arm-bands. Their brown cloth caps with rounded peaks were pulled low and their leather chin straps were down. Each of them carried a small wooden collection box with a slot in the lid and they spread out and went to each of the tables.

Everybody made a donation, but as they pushed their coins into the slot of the box, they avoided looking at the brown-uniformed collectors.

Their laughter was forced and nervous, and they looked into their tankards or at their own hands until the collectors had passed on to the next table, when they exchanged relieved glances.

Who are these people? Centaine asked innocently, making no attempt to hide her interest.

They are the SA, Blaine replied. Storm troopers, the bully boys of the National Socialist Party. Look at that one. The trooper he had chosen had the bland heavy face of a peasant, dull and brutal. Is it not remarkable that there are always people to do this type of work, the need finds the man. Let us pray that his is not the face of the new Germany. The storm trooper had noticed their unconcealed interest and he came directly to their table with that menacing deliberate swagger.

Papers! he said.

He wants our papers, Tara translated, and Blaine handed over his passport.

Ah! Foreign tourists. The storm trooper's manner changed. He smiled ingratiatingly and handed back Blaine's passport with a few pleasant words.

He says, welcome to the paradise of National Socialist Germany, Tara translated, and Blaine nodded.

He says, you will see how the German people are now happy and proud, and something else that I didn't catch. Tell him we hope that they will always be happy and proud. The trooper beamed and clicked the heels of his jackboots as he sprang to attention.

Heil Hitler! He gave the Nazi salute, and Mathilda Janine dissolved into helpless giggles.

I can't help it, she gasped as Blaine gave her a sharp look and a shake of the head. It just slays me when they do that., The storm troopers left the square, and they could feel the tension ease; the band slackened its frenetic beat and the dancers slowed down. People looked directly at one another and smiled naturally.

That night Centaine pulled the fat goose-down duvet up around her ears and snuggled into the curve of Blaine's arm.

Have you noticed, she asked, how the people here seemed caught between feverish laughter and nervous tears? Blaine was silent for a while and then he grunted, There is a smell in the air that troubles me, it seems to me that it is the stench of some deadly plague, and he shuddered slightly and drew her closer to him.

With the Daimler leading, they streamed down the wide white autobahn into the suburbs of the German capital.

So much water, so many canals and so many trees. The city's built on a series of canals, Tara explained.

Rivers trapped between the old terminal moraines that the east to west, How is it you always know everything? Shasa interrupted her, a touch of real exasperation under his teasing tone.

Unlike some I could name, I am actually literate, you know, she flashed back, and David winced theatrically.

Ouch, that hurt, and it wasn't even aimed at me. Very well, little Miss Know-it-all, Shasa challenged. If you are so clever, what does that sign say? He pointed ahead to a large white signboard beside the autobahn.

The lettering was in black, and Tara read it aloud.

It says: "Jews! Keep straight on! This road will take you back to Jerusalem, where you belong!" As she realized what she had said, she flushed with embarrassment and leaned forward to touch David's shoulder over the back of his seat.

Oh David, I'm so sorry. I should never have uttered such rot! David sat straight, staring ahead through the windscreen, and then after a few seconds he gave a thin little smile.

Welcome to Berlin, he whispered. The centre of Aryan civilization. Welcome to Berlin! Welcome to Berlin! The train that had brought them across half of Europe slid into the station, clouds of steam hissing from the vacuum brakes and the cries of greeting almost drowned by the beat of the band playing a rousing martial air.

Welcome to Berlin! The waiting crowd surged forward at the moment their coach came to a standstill, and Manfred De La Rey stepped down from the balcony to be surrounded by well-wishers, smiling happy faces and friendly handclasps, laughing girls and wreaths of flowers, shouted questions and popping flash bulbs.

The other athletes, all dressed like him in green blazers with gold piping, white slacks and shoes and Panama hats, were also surrounded and mobbed and it was some minutes before a loud voice rose above the hubbub.

Attention, please! May I have your attention. The band beat out a ruffle of drums while a tall man in a dark uniform and steelrimmed spectacles stepped forward.

First of all let me offer you the warm greetings of the Fahrer and the German people, and we welcome you to these the eleventh Olympic Games of the modern era. We know that you will represent the spirit and courage of the South African nation, and we wish you all success and many, many medals. Amidst clapping and laughing, the speaker held up his hands. There are motor vehicles waiting to take you to your quarters in the Olympic village, where you will find all preparations have been made to make your stay with us both memorable and enjoyable. Now it is my pleasant duty to introduce the young lady who will be your guide and your interpreter over the next few weeks. He beckoned to somebody in the crowd, and a young woman stepped out into the space beside him and turned to face the band of athletes. There was a collective sigh and hum of appreciation.

This is Heidi Kramer. She was tall and strong, but unmistakably feminine, with hips and bosom like an hour-glass, yet touched with a dancer's grace and a gymnast's poise. Her hair was the colour of the Kalahari dawn, Manfred thought, and her teeth when she smiled were perfect, their edges minutely serrated and translucent as fine bone china, but her eyes were beyond description, bluer and clearer than the high African sky at noon, and he knew without any hesitation that she was the most magnificent woman he had ever seen. At the thought he made a silent guilty apology to Sarah, but compared to this German Valkyrie, Sarah was a sweet little tabby cat beside a female leopard in her prime.

Now Heidi will arrange for your baggage to be collected and will get you all seated in the limousines. From now on if there is anything you need, ask Heidi! She is your big sister and your stepmother. They laughed and whistled and cheered and Heidi, smiling and charming but quick and efficient, took over. Within minutes their baggage had been whisked away by a band of uniformed porters and she led them down the long glassdomed platform to the magnificent entrance portals of the railway station where a line of black Mercedes limousines was waiting for them.

Manfred, Uncle Tromp and Roelf Stander climbed into the back seat of one of them, and the driver was just about to pull away when Heidi waved to him and came running back along the kerb. She wore high heels and they threw tension on her calf muscles, emphasizing their lovely lines and the fine delicacy of her ankles. Neither Sarah nor any of the girls Manfred knew at home wore high heels.

Heidi opened the front passenger door and stuck her head into the Mercedes. You gentlemen will object if I ride with you, yes? she asked with that radiant smile, and they all protested vigorously, even Uncle Tromp joining in.

No! No! Please come in. She slipped into the seat beside the driver, slammed the door, and immediately wriggled round so that she was facing them, with her arms folded along the back of her seat.

I am so excited to meet you, she told them in her accented English. I have read so much about Africa, the animals and the Zulus, and one day I will travel there. You must promise to tell me all about your beautiful country, and I will tell you all about my beautiful Germany. They agreed enthusiastically, and she looked directly at Uncle Tromp.

Now, let me guess. You will be the Reverend Tromp Bierman, the team boxing coach? she asked, and Uncle Tromp beamed.

How clever of you. I have seen your photograph, she admitted. 'How could I forget such a magnificent beard? Uncle Tromp looked highly gratified. But you must tell me who the others are. This is Roelf Stander, our heavyweight boxer, Uncle Tromp introduced them. 'And this is Manfred De La Rey, our light heavyweight. Manfred was certain that she reacted to his name, a lift to one corner of her mouth and slight narrowing of the eyes; then she was smiling again. We will all be good friends, she said, and Manfred replied in German.

My people, the Afrikaners, have always been the loyal friends of the German people. Oh, your German is perfect, she exclaimed with delight in the same language. Where did you learn to speak like a true German? My paternal grandmother and my mother were both pureblooded Germans. Then you will find much to interest you in our country. She switched back to English and began to lecture, pointing out the sights of the city as the line of black Mercedes, Olympic pennants fluttering on the bonnets, sped through the streets.

This is the famous Unter den Linden, the street we Berliners love so dearly. It was broad and magnificent with linden trees growing down the promenade that divided the double carriageway. The street is a mile long. That is the royal palace behind us, and there ahead of us is the Brandenburg Tor. The tall colonnades of the monument were decked with enormous banners that hung from the quadriga charioteer group of figures on the summit to the ground far below; the crimson and black swastika flanked by the multi-coloured rings of the Olympic symbol billowed and heaved in the light breeze.

That is the state opera house, Heidi turned to point through the side window. It was built in 1741 She was entertaining and informative.

See how the people of Berlin welcome you, she cried, with that gay brittle enthusiasm which seemed to characterize all the citizens of National Socialist Germany. Look!

Look! Berlin was a city of flags and banners. From every public building, department store, apartment block and private dwelling the flags fluttered and waved, swastikas and the Olympic rings, thousands upon tens of thousands.

When they came at last to the apartment block in the Olympic village that had been set aside for them, an honour guard of the Hitler Youth with burning torches waited to welcome them, and another band drawn up on the sidewalk broke into The Voice of South Africa', the national anthem.

Inside the building Heidi issued each of them with a booklet filled with coloured coupons by which every last detail of their personal arrangements were organized, from their room and the bed on which they would sleep, and the buses that would carry them to and from the Olympic complex, to the chanong rooms and the numbers of the lockers that they had been allocated at the stadium.

Here in this house you will have your own chef and dining-hall. Food will be prepared to your own preference, with due regard to any special diets or tastes. There is a doctor and a dentist available at any hour. Dry-cleaning and laundry, radios and telephones, a private masseur for the team, a secretary with a typewriter, It had all been arranged, and they were amazed by the precise, meticulous planning.

Please find your rooms, your luggage is already there waiting for you. Unpack and relax. Tomorrow morning I will take you on the bus for a tour of the Reichssportfeld, the Olympic complex. It is ten miles from here, so we will leave immediately after breakfast at eight-thirty am. In the meantime, if there is anything, anything at all, that you want, you have only to ask me. I know what I'd like to ask her for, one of the weightlifters whispered, rolling his eyes, and Manfred clenched his fists with anger at the impertinence, even though Heidi had not heard it.

Until tomorrow, she called gaily, and went through to the kitchens to talk to the chef.

Now that is what I call a woman Uncle Tromp growled.

I give thanks that I am a man of the cloth, old and happily married, and beyond all the temptations of Eve., There were cries of mock commiserations for Uncle Tromp was by this time everybody's uncle.

All right! He was suddenly stern.

Running shoes, all you lazy young dogs. A quick ten miles before supper, please! Heidi was waiting for them when they came down to breakfast, gay and bright and smiling, answering their questions, distributing mail from home, sorting out a dozen small problems quickly and without fuss, and then when they had eaten, taking them off in a group to the bus station.

Most of the athletes from the other countries were in residence, and the village was bustling and full of tense excitement, men and women in sporting attire running through the streets, calling to each other in a multiplicity of tongues, their superb physical condition showing in their bright young faces and in every movement that they made.

When they came to the stadium, the size of it awed them all. A huge complex of halls, gymnasiums and covered swirnMing-pools surrounded the oval track and field theatre. The banks of seating seemed to reach away for ever, and the Olympic altar at the far end with the unlit tripod torch gave a sense of religious solemnity to this temple devoted to the worship of the human body.

It took the morning for them to see it all, and they had a hundred questions between them. Heidi answered them all, but more than once Manfred found her walking beside him, and when they spoke German together it gave them a sense of intimacy, even in the crowd. it was not his imagination alone, for Roelf had noticed the special attention Manfred was receiving.

How are you enjoying your German lessons? he asked innocently at lunch, and when Manfred snarled at him he grinned unrepentantly.

Their hosts had arranged sparring partners from the local boxing clubs, and over the days that followed, Uncle Tromp drove them hard towards the pinnacle of their training.

Manfred tore at his opponents, slamming punches into the thick padding that covered their midriffs and heads, so that even with that protection none of them lasted more than a round or two before calling for quarter; and when Manfred went back to his corner and looked around it was usually to find Heidi Kramer watching from somewhere near at hand, a flush on her flawless neck, a strange intent look in those impossibly blue eyes, her lips slightly parted and the tip of her pink tongue held between sharp white teeth.

However, it was only after four days of training that he found himself alone with her. He had finished a hard session in the gymnasium and after showering and changing into grey slacks and a Varsity sweater, he went out through the front entrance of the stadium.

He had almost reached the bus station when she called his name and ran to catch up with him.

I am also going back to the village. I have to talk to the chef - may I ride the bus with you? She must have been waiting for him and he felt flattered and a little nervous.

She had a free, hip-swinging walk, and her hair swayed around her head like a sheet of golden silk when she looked up at him as they walked down to the bus station.

I have been watching the boxers from the other countries, she said, especially the light heavyweights, and I have also been watching you. Yes. He frowned to cover his embarrassment. I saw you., You have nobody to fear, except the American. Cyrus Lomax, he nodded. 'Yes, Ring Magazine rates him the best amateur light heavyweight in the world. Uncle Tromp has been watching him also. He agrees that he is very good. Very strong, and being a nigger, he will have a skull like solid ivory. He is the only one you will have to beat for the gold, she agreed. The gold, the sound of it on her lips had a music that quickened his pulse. And I will be there cheering for you., Thank you, Heidi. They boarded the bus, and when the men in the other seats glanced at Heidi with admiration, he felt proud to have her at his side.

My uncle is a great follower of boxing. He thinks as I do, that you have a good chance of beating the American negro.

He would like very much to meet you. It is kind of your uncle. 'He is having a small reception at his home this evening.

He asks me to invite you. You know that is not possible, he shook his head. My training schedule, My uncle is an important and very influential man,, she insisted, holding her head on one side and smiling appealingly up at him. it will be very early. I promise you will be home before nine o'clock. She saw him hesitate and went on, It will make my uncle, and me, very happy., I have an uncle also, Uncle Tromp, If I get your Uncle Tromp's permission, will you promise to come? Heidi was waiting in the Mercedes at the front door of their house in the village at seven o'clock, as she had arranged. The driver held the rear door open for him and Manfred slid onto the leather seat beside her.

She smiled at him. You look very handsome, Manfred., She had plaited her blond hair into two thick gleaming ropes and piled them on top of her head. Her shoulders and the upper slopes of her stately bosom were bare and snowy perfection. Her blue taffeta cocktail dress matched the colour of her eyes perfectly.

You are beautiful, he said with wonder in his tone. He had never paid a compliment to a woman before, but this was a mere statement of fact. She lowered her eyes, a touchingly modest gesture from someone who must be accustomed to male adulation.

To the Rupertstrasse, she ordered the driver.

They drove slowly down the Kurfarstendamin, watching the throngs of merry-makers on the brightly lit sidewalks, then the Mercedes accelerated as they entered the quieter streets of the westerly section of the Granewald district.

This was the millionaires, village on the western outskirts of the sprawling city, and Manfred relaxed and settled back against the leather upholstery and turned to the lovely woman beside him. She was talking seriously, asking him questions about himself and his family, and about his country. Quickly he realized that she had a much better knowledge of South Africa than he could have expected, and he wondered how she had acquired it.

She knew the history of war and conflict and rebellion, the struggle of his people against the barbarous black tribes, and then the subjugation of the Afrikaner by the British, and the terrible threats to their existence as a people.

The English, she said, and there was a knife-edge of bitterness in her tone. They are everywhere, bringing war and suffering with them, Africa, India, my own Germany. We too have been oppressed and persecuted. if it were not for our beloved Fithrer, we should still be staggering under the yoke of the Jew and the English. Yes, he is a great man, your Fahrer, Manfred agreed and then he quoted: What we must fight for is to safeguard the existence and reproduction of our race and our people, the sustenance of our children and the purity of our blood, the freedom and independence of the fatherland, so that our people may mature for the fulfilment of the mission allotted it by the creator of the universe. Wein Kampf, she exclaimed. You can quote the words of the Fuhrer! They had passed a signing ant milestone in their relationship, Manfred realized.

With those words he has captured everything that I feel and believe, he said. He is a great man, head of a great nation. The house in the Rupertstrasse was set back from the road in large gardens on the bank of one of the beautiful Havel Lakes. There were a dozen chauffeured limousines parked

in the driveway, most of them with swastika pennants on their bonnets and uniformed chauffeurs waiting behind the wheels. All the windows of the large house were lit and there was the sound of music and voices and laughter as their own chauffeur let them out of the Mercedes under the portico.

Manfred offered Heidi his arm and they went in through the open front doors, crossed a lobby of black and white chequered marble slabs and panelled walls decorated with a forest of stag antlers, and paused in the doorway of the large reception room beyond. The room was already filled with guests. Most of the men were in dashing uniforms that glittered with the insignia of rank and regiment, while the women were elegant in silks and velvets, with shoulders bare and hair bobbed in the latest style.

The laughter and conversation subsided as they turned to examine the newcomers, and there were interested and calculating appraisals, for Manfred and Heidi made a strikingly handsome couple. Then the conversation picked up again.

There is Uncle Sigmund, Heidi exclaimed, and drew Manfred into the room towards the tall uniformed figure who came to meet them.

Heidi, my dear. He stooped over Heidi's hand as he kissed it. 'You grow more beautiful each time I see you., Manfred, this is my uncle, Colonel Sigmund Boldt. Uncle Sigmund, may I present Herr Manfred De La Rey, the South African boxer. Colonel Boldt shook hands with Manfred. He had pure white hair scraped severely back from the thin face of an academic, with good bone structure and a narrow aristocratic nose.

Heidi tells me that you are of German extraction? He wore a black uniform with silver death's head insignia on the lapels; and one eyelid drooped, while the eye itself watered uncontrollably and he dabbed at it with the fine linen handkerchief he held in his right hand.

That is true, Colonel. I have very strong ties to your country, Manfred replied.

Ah, you speak excellent German. The colonel took his arm. 'There are many people here this evening who will want to meet you, but first tell me, what do you think of the black American boxer, Cyrus Lomax? And what will be your tactics when you meet him? With discreet social grace, either Heidi or Colonel Boldt were always on hand to steer him from one group of guests to the next, and the wine waiter brought him a glass of mineral water when he refused the champagne that was offered.

However, they left him longer than usual with one guest whom Heidi had introduced as General Zoller, a tall Prussian officer in field grey uniform with an iron cross at the throat who, despite a rather undistinguished and forgettable face with pale sickly features, proved to have a sharp incisive intelligence. He questioned Manfred minutely on the politics and conditions in South Africa, particularly as to the feelings of the average Afrikaner towards their ties to Great Britain and the Empire.

While they spoke, General Zoller chain-smoked a series of thin cigarettes wrapped in yellow paper with a strong herbal odour, and every now and again he wheezed with asthma. Manfred quickly found that he was sympathetic and had an encyclopaedic grasp of African affairs; the time passed very quickly before Heidi came across the room and touched his arm.

Excuse me, General Zoller, but I have promised the boxing coach that I will have his star back before nine o'clock. I have enjoyed meeting you, young man. The general shook Manfred's hand. Our countries should be good friends. Manfred assured him, I will do all in my power to bring that about., Good luck for the Games, Herr de La Rey. in the Mercedes again Heidi remarked, My uncle liked you very much, and so did many of his friends, General Zoller for one. I enjoyed the evening. Do you like music, Manfred? He was a little surprised by the question. I enjoy some music, but I am no expert. 'Wagner? Yes, I like Wagner very much. Uncle Sigmund has given me two tickets to the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra for next Friday. The young conductor Herbert von Karajan is performing a programme of Wagner. I know you will be fighting your first bout that afternoon, but afterwards we could celebrate. She hesitated, and then she went on quickly, Forgive me, you think me forward, but I assure you No, no. I would be greatly honoured to accompany you whether I win or lose. 'You will win, she said simply. I know you will., She dropped him in front of the team house, and waited until he had gone in before she ordered the driver, Back to the Rupertstrasse. When she got back to the colonel's house most of the other guests were leaving. She waited quietly until he came back from seeing the last of them away and, with an inchnation of his silver hair, ordered her to follow him. His treatment of her had altered completely, it was now brusque and superior.

He crossed to the unobtrusive oak door at the far end of the room and went in ahead of her. Heidi entered and closed the door behind her softly, then drew herself to attention and stood waiting. Colonel Boldt left her standing while he poured two balloon glasses of cognac and took one to General Zoller where he sat in the wingbacked chair beside the log fire in the stone fireplace, puffing at one of his herbal cigarettes, with an open file on his knees.

So, FrIulein, Colonel Boldt sank into the leather chair and waved Heidi towards the couch, sit down. You may relax in your "uncle's" house. She smiled politely but sat stiff-backed on the edge of the couch and Colonel Boldt turned back to the general.

May I ask the general's opinion of the subject? and General Zoller looked up from the file.

There seems to be a grey area surrounding the subject's mother. Is it confirmed that his mother was a German, as he claims? I am afraid we do not have confirmation on that. We can establish no proof of his mother's nationality, although I have made exhaustive enquiries amongst our people in South West Africa. The general belief is that she died at childbirth in the African wilderness. However, on his father's side there is definite documented proof that his grandmother was German and that his father fought most valiantly for the Kaiser's army, in Africa. Yes, I see that, the General said testily, and looked up at Heidi. What sentiments has he expressed to you, Fraulein? He is very proud of his German blood, and he looks upon himself as the natural ally of the German people. He is a great admirer of the Fuhrer and can quote at length from Mein Kampf. The general coughed and wheezed and lit another cigarette with a taper from the fire before turning all his attention back to the red file with the eagle and swastika emblem on the front cover. The others waited quietly for almost ten minutes before he looked up at Heidi.

What relationship have you established with the subject, Fraulein? On Colonel Boldt's orders, I have made myself agreeable and friendly towards him. I have in small ways conveyed my interest as a woman towards him. I have shown him that I am knowledgeable and interested in the art of boxing, and that I know a great deal about the problems of his fatherland. Frulein Kramer is one of my best operatives, Colonel Boldt explained. She has been given a thorough grounding in the history of South Africa and the sport of boxing by our department. The general nodded. Proceed, Friulein, he ordered, and Heidi went on.

I have conveyed to him my sympathy for his people's political aspirations and made it clear that I am his friend, with the possibility of more than that., There has been no sexual intimacy between your No, my General. I judge that the subject would be offended if I were to proceed too rapidly. As we know from his file, he comes from a strict Calvinist religious background. Besides which, I have not received orders from Colonel Boldt to initiate sexual advances. Good, the general nodded. This is a matter of major importance. The Fuhrer himself is aware of our operation.

He considers, as I do, that the southern tip of Africa has enormous tactical and strategic importance in our plans for global expansion. It guards the sea routes to India and the East, and in the event that the Suez Canal is denied to our shipping, it is the only route available. In addition, it is a treasure house of raw material vital to our military preparations, chrome, diamonds, the platinum group minerals.

With this in mind, and after my meeting with the subject, I am of the firm belief that we must proceed. Therefore, the operation now has full departmental sanction and a "red" ratings Very good, my General., 'The code name for the operation will be "White Sword" Das Weisse Schwart!

Jawohl, my General. Fraulein Kramer, you are now assigned exclusively to this operation. You will, at the first opportunity, initiate sexual intimacy with the subject in such a way as not to alarm nor offend him, but rather to strengthen our hold over his allegiance. 'Very well, my General. In due course it may be necessary for you to enter into a form of marriage with the subject. Is there any reason why you could not do so, if required? Heidi did not hesitate. None, my General. You can rely on my duty and loyalty entirely. I will do whatever is required of me. Very good, Frulein. General Zoller coughed and hunted noisily for breath, and his voice was still rough as he went on, Now, Colonel, it will suit our purpose if the subject is winner of a gold medal at these Games. It will give him a a great deal of prestige in his home country, apart from the ideological aspect of a white Aryan triumphing over a person of an inferior black race. 'I understand, my General. There is not a serious German contender for the light heavyweight title, is there? No, my General, the subject is the only serious white contender. We can make certain that all matches which the subject fights are refereed and judged by members of the Party who are under the control of our department.

Naturally, we cannot effect the decision in the case of a knock-out, but- Naturally, Boldt, but you will do all in your power, and Frdulein Kramer will report daily to Colonel Boldt on her progress with the subject. Both the Courtney and Malcomess clans had descended upon the luxurious Bristol Hotel rather than the Olympic village, though David Abrahams had bowbd to the dictates of the athletics coach and moved into the apartment house with his team mates, so that Shasa saw little of him during the days of hard training leading up to the opening of the Games.

Mathilda Janine prevailed on Tara to accompany her to most of the field athletic training, in return for equal timeshares of her company at the polo fields, so the two girls spent most of their time dashing from the vast Olympic complex across Berlin to the equestrian centre at high speed, the only rate of progress with which Tara seemed able to conduct her father's green Bentley.

The brief lay-off from training, combined with the imminence of the Games themselves, seemed to have sharpened David's running rather than harmed it. He returned some excellent times during those five days and courageously resisted Mathilda Janine's suggestion that he should sneak out for just an hour or two in the evenings.

You are in with a chance, Davie, his coach told him, checking the stopwatch after his last run before the official opening ceremony.

Just concentrate it all now and you'll have a bit of tin to take home with you. Both Shasa and Blaine were delighted with the ponies that their German hosts had provided. Like everything else in the equestrian centre, the grooms, stabling and equipment were all without fault, and under Blaine's iron control, the team settled down to concentrated practice and were soon once more a cohesive phalanx of horsemen.

Between their own long sessions on the practice field, they watched and judged the other teams whom they would have to meet. The Americans, expense not considered, had brought their own mounts across the Atlantic. The Argentinians had gone one better and brought their grooms as well, in flat-brimmed gaucho hats and leather breeches decorated with silver studs.

Those are the two to beat, Blaine warned them. But the Germans are surprisingly good, and the Brits, as always, will be slogging away at it. We can flatten any of them, Shasa gave the team the benefit of his vast experience, with a little luck. Tara was the only one who took the boast seriously, as from the stand she watched him tear down the side field, sitting tall in the saddle, a beautiful young centaur, lean and lithe, white teeth flashing against the dark tan of his face.

He's so big-headed and cock-sure, she lamented. If only I could just ignore him. If only life wasn't just so flat when he's not around.

By nine o'clock on the morning of 1 August 1936, the vast

Olympic stadium, the largest in the world, was packed with over one hundred thousand human beings.

The turf of the central isle had been groomed into an emerald velvet sheet, and ruled with the stark white lanes and circles that marked out the venue for the field events.

The running track around the periphery was of brick-red cinders. High above it rose the Tribune of Honour', the reviewing stand for the traditional march-past of the athletes. At the far end of the stadium was the Olympic altar with its tripod torch still cold.

Outside the entrance to the stadium stretched the Maifeld, its open acres of space containing the high bell tower with the legend: 'Ich rufe die Jugend der Welt, I summon the youth of the world. And the massed echelons of athletes were drawn up to face down the long boulevard of the Kaiserdamm, renamed for the solemn occasion the Via Triumphalis. High above the field floated the giant airship, the Hindenburg, towing behind it the banner of the Olympics, the five great linked circles.

From afar a faint susurration rose on the cool still morning air. Slowly it grew louder, closer. A long procession of open four-door Mercedes tourers was approaching down the Via Triumphalis, chromework gleaming like mirrors, passing between the closed ranks of fifty thousand brown-uniformed storm troopers who lined both sides of the way, holding back a dense throng of humanity, ten and twenty deep, who roared with adulation as the leading vehicle passed them and threw their right arms high in the Nazi salute.

The cavalcade drew to a halt before the legion of athletes and from the leading Mercedes Adolf Hitler stepped down.

He wore the plain brown shirt, breeches and jackboots of a storm trooper. Rather than rending him inconspicuous, this sombre unadorned dress seemed rather to distinguish him in the mass of brilliant uniforms, gold lace, bearskins and stars and ribbons that followed him between the ranks of athletes towards the marathon gate of the stadium.

So that is the wild man, Blaine Malcomess thought as Hitler strolled by, not five paces from where he stood. He was precisely as Blaine had seen him portrayed a thousand times, the dark hair combed forward, the small square mustache. But Blaine was unprepared for the intense Messianic gaze that rested upon him for a fleeting part of a second, then passed on. He found that the hair on his forearms had come erect and prickled electrically, for he had just looked into the eyes of an Old Testament prophet, or a madman.

Following close behind Adolf Hitler were all his favourites: Goebbels wore a light summer suit, but Goering was portly and resplendent in the sky-blue full-dress of a Luftwaffe marshal and he saluted the athletes casually with his gold baton as he went by. At that moment the great bronze bell high above the Maifeld began to toll, summoning the youth of the world to assembly.

Hitler and his entourage passed out of sight, entering the tunnel beneath the stands, and a few minutes later a great fanfare of trumpets, magnified a hundred times by the banks of loudspeakers, crashed over the field and a massed choir burst into Deutschland fiber alles. The ranks of athletes began to move off, wheeling into their positions for the entry parade.

As they emerged from the gloom of the tunnel into the sunlit arena, Shasa exchanged a glance with David marching beside him. They grinned at each other in shared excitement as the great waves of sound, amplified music from the bands and the choir singing the Olympic hymn and the cheering of one hundred thousand spectators, poured over them. Then they looked ahead, chins up, arms swinging, and stepped out to the grandeur of Richard Strauss's music.

In the rank ahead of Shasa, Manfred De La Rey stepped out as boldly, but his eyes were focused on the brown-clad figure far ahead in the front rank of the Tribune of Honour and surrounded by princes and kings. As they came level, he wanted to fling up his right arm and shout, Heil Hitler! but he had to restrain himself. After lengthy discussion and argument, the counsel of Blaine Malcomess and the other English speakers in the team had prevailed. Instead of the German salute the team members merely snapped their heads around in the eyes right salute as they came level. A low whistle and stamp of disapproval from the largely German spectators followed them. Manfred's eyes burned with tears of shame at the insult he had been forced to offer the great man on the high dais.

His anger stayed with him during the rest of the amazing festivities that followed: the lighting of the Olympic torch and the official speech of opening by the Fiffirer, the sky filled with the white wings of fifty thousand doves released together, the flags of the nations raised simultaneously around the rim of the stadium, the displays of swaying gymnasts and dancers, the searchlights and the fireworks and the music and the fly-past by squadrons of Marshal Goering's Luftwaffe that filled and darkened the sky with their thunder.

Blaine and Centaine dined alone that evening in her suite at the Bristol and both of them were suffering from an anticlimactic weariness after the day's excitements.

What a show they put on for the world! Centaine remarked. I don't think any of us expected this. We should have, Blaine replied, 'after their experience in arranging the Nuremberg rallies, the Nazis are the grand masters of pageantry. Not even the ancient Romans developed the seductive appeal of public spectacle to this refinement. 'I loved it, Centaine agreed.

it was pagan and idolatrous, and blatant propaganda Herr Hitler selling Nazi Germany and his new race of supermen to the world. But, yes, I have to agree with you, it was unfortunately jolly good fun, with an ominous touch of menace and evil to it that made it even more enjoyable. Blaine, you are a hard-nosed old cynic. My only real virtue, he conceded, and then changed the subject. They have posted the draw for the first-round matches. We are fortunate not to have drawn either the Argentinians or the Yanks. They had drawn the Australians, and their hopes of an easy win were dashed almost immediately for the Aussies galloped in like charging cavalry from the first whistle, driving both Blaine and Shasa back in desperate defence, and they kept up that unrelenting attack throughout the first three hard-ridden chukkas, never allowing Blaine's team to gather themselves.

Shasa kept the curb on his own instincts, which were to ride and shine alone, and placed himself completely under the control of his captain, responding instantly to Blaine's calls to cut left or cover the fall or break back', drawing from Blaine the only thing which he lacked himself, experience. Now in these desperate minutes the bond of understanding and trust between then, which had taken so long to forge, was tested almost to breaking point, but in the end it held and halfway through the fourth chukka, Blaine grunted as he passed close to his young number two.

They've shot their bolt, Shasa. Let's see now if they can take what they've been handing out. Shasa took Blaine's next high cross shot at full stretch, standing in his stirrups to pull it down out of the air, and then to drive it far up field, drawing off the Aussie backs before sending it back inside in a lazy dropping parabola to fall under the nose of Blaine's racing pony. That was the turning-point, and in the end they rode in on lathered ponies and jumped down from the saddle to pound each other between the shoulder blades, laughing with a triumph touched by a shade of disbelief at their own achievement.

Triumph turned to gloom when they heard that they would meet the Argentinians in the second round.

David Abrahams ran a disappointing race in his first heat of the 400 metre dash, coming in fourth and missing the cut.

Mathilda Janine refused dinner and went up to bed early that night, but two days later she was bubbling and deliriously excited when David won his heat in the 200 metres and went through to the semi-finals.

Manfred De La Rey's first opponent was the Frenchman,

Maurice Artois, unranked in his division.

Fast as a mamba, brave as a ratel, Uncle Tromp whispered to Manfred at the gong.

Heidi Kramer was sitting beside Colonel Boldt in the fourth row, and she shivered with unexpected excitement as she watched Manfred leave his corner and come out into the centre. He moved like a cat.

Up to this time it had taken much effort for her to feign an interest in the sport. She had found the sounds and odours and sights associated with it all repellent, the stench of rancid sweat on canvas and leather, the animal grunting and the slogging of padded fists into flesh, the blood and sweat and flying spittle offended her fastidious nature. Now in this company of well-dressed and cultivated spectators, clad herself in fresh silk and lace, perfumed and serene, she found the contrast of violence and savagery before her frightening but at the same time stirring.

Manfred De La Rey, the quiet stern young man, humourless and grave, slightly gauche in unaccustomed clothing and ill at ease in sophisticated company, had been transformed into a magnificent wild beast, and the primeval ferocity he seemed to exude, the blaze of those yellow eyes under the black brows as he slashed the Frenchman's face into a distorted bleeding mask and then drove him down onto his knees in the centre of the sheet of spotless white canvas, excited her perversely so that she found she was clenching her thighs tightly together and her groin was hotly melting and dampening the expensive crepe-de-chine skirt under her.

That excitement persisted as she sat beside Manfred in the stalls of the state opera house that evening while Wagner's heroic Teutonic music filled the auditorium with thrilling sound. She moved slightly in her seat until her bare upper arm touched Manfred's. She felt him start, begin to pull away, then catch himself. The contact between them was gossamer-light but both of them were intensely aware of it.

Once again Colonel Brandt had placed the Mercedes at her disposal for the evening. The driver was waiting for them when they came down the front steps of the opera house.

As they settled into the back seat, she saw Manfred wince slightly.

What is it? she asked quickly.

It is nothing. She touched his shoulder with firm strong fingers. Here, does it hurt? A stiffness in the muscle, it will be all right tomorrow. Hans, take us to my apartment in the Hansa, she ordered the driver, and Manfred glanced at her, perturbed.

Mutti has passed down to me one of her special secrets. It is an embrocation made with wild ferns, and truly magical., It is not necessary, he protested.

My apartment is on the way back to the Olympic village.

It will not take long and Hans can drop you back home afterwards. She had been uncertain as to how she would get him alone without alarming him, but now he accepted her suggestion without further comment. He was silent for the rest of the drive and she could sense the tension in him, though she made no attempt to touch him again.

Manfred was thinking of Sarah, trying to form the image of her face in his mind but it was blurred, a sweet and insipid blur. He wanted to order Hans to drive directly back to the village, but he could not find the will to do so. He knew what they were doing was incorrect, to be alone with a young attractive woman, and he tried to convince himself that it was innocent, but then he remembered the touch of her arm against him and he stiffened.

It does hurt? she misinterpreted the movement.

Just a little, he whispered, and his voice caught.

It was always most difficult after he had fought. For many hours after a match he was strung up and nervously sensitive, and it was then that his body was likely to play Satan's tricks upon him. He could feel it happening now, and his mortification and guilt forced hot blood up into his face.

what would this pure clean German virgin think of him if she guessed at that obscene and wicked tumescence? He opened his mouth to tell her would not go with her, but she was leaning forward in the seat.

Thank you, Hans. Drop us here on the corner and you can wait down the block. She was out of the car and crossing the sidewalk, and he had no option but to follow her.

it was half dark in the entrance lobby of the building.

I'm sorry, Manfred, I am on the top floor and there is no elevator. The climb allowed him to regain control of himself, and she let him into a small one-roomed flat.

This is my palace, she smiled apologetically. Flats are so difficult to find in Berlin these days. She gestured to the bed. Sit there, Manfred. She slipped off the jacket she wore over her white blouse, and stood on tiptoe to hang it in the cupboard. Her breasts swung forward heavily as she lifted her pale smooth arms.

Manfred looked away. There was a shelf of books on one wall; he saw a set of Goethe's works and remembered how he had been his father's favourite author. Think of any thing, he told himself, anything but those big pointed breasts under the thin white cloth.

She had gone through to the little bathroom and he heard running water and the clink of glass. Then she came bac with a small green bottle in her hands and stood in front of him smiling.

You must take off your coat and your shirt, she said, and he could not reply. He had not thought of that.

That is not proper, Heidi. She laughed softly, a throaty little sound, and through the laughter she murmured, Don't be shy, Manfred. just think of me as a nurse. Gently she lifted the coat off his shoulders, helping him out of it. Her breasts swung forward again and almost brushed against his face before she stepped back and hung his coat over the back of the single chair and then, a few seconds later, folded his shirt on top of it. She had warmed the bottle in the basin and the lotion was instantly soothing on his skin, her fingers cunning and strong.

,Relax, she whispered. There, I can feel it. It's all hard and knotted. Relax, let the pain just wash away. Gently she drew his head forward. Lean against me, Manfred. Yes, like that., She was standing in front of him and she thrust her hips forward so that his forehead was pressed against her lower torso. Her belly was soft and warm and her voice hypnotic, he felt waves of pleasure spreading out from the contact of her kneading fingers.

You are so hard and strong, Manfred, so white and hard and beautiful, It was moments before he realized what she had said, but her fingers were stroking and caressing, and all rational thought ebbed out of his mind. He was conscious only of the hands and the murmured endearments and praise, then he was aware of something else, a warm musky odour wafted up from her belly against which his face was pressed. Though he did not recognize it as the smell of a healthy young woman physically aroused and ripe for love, yet his own reaction to it was instinctive and no longer to be denied.

Heidi, his voice shook wildly. I love you. Forgive me, God, but I love you so. Yes, mein Schatz, I know, she whispered. And I love you also. She pushed him back gently upon the bed and standing over him began slowly to unbutton the front of the white blouse. As she came over him, her big silky white breasts, tipped with ruby, were the most beautiful things he had ever seen.

I love you, he cried so many times during that night, each time in a different voice of wonder and awe and ecstasy, for the things she did with him and for him, surpassed all s imaginings.

For the first day of the finals of the track and field events,

Shasa had managed to finagle team tickets for the girls, but the seats were high in the north stand. Mathilda Janine had borrowed Shasa's binoculars and was anxiously scanning the great arena far below them.