Riotous Assembly

Chapter 18

The Bishop was still in a cheerful frame of mind when Hangman Els visited him to weigh him for the drop.

'You can smile,' Els said as he dragged him out of the cell and shoved him on to the weighing machine. 'It's all right for you. You don't have to do anything. I'm the one who has to do all the work.'

'Each of us has his little part to play,' said the Bishop.

'Play?' said Els. 'I don't call what I'm doing playing. I'm having to work my guts out.'

'Just so long as you don't achieve the same result in my case,' said the Bishop uneasily. 'By the way, how are you getting on with those sacks?'

'I've practised with them till I'm fit to drop,' Els said, 'and I still don't seem to get it right. It's got to do with the weight how far you have to fall.' He tried to read the scales. 'I can't make these things out at all,' he said finally. 'What do you make your weight out to be?'

The Bishop came to his assistance.

'Three hundred and ninety-eight pounds,' he said.

Els consulted a little black book entitled, _The Hangman's Handbook,_ which he had borrowed from the old warder.

'You're too heavy,' he said at last. 'It only goes up to three hundred pounds. Are you sure that's what the weighing machine said?'

The Bishop checked. 'Three hundred and ninety-eight pounds exactly.'

'Well I don't know what I'm going to do. It doesn't look as if you need any drop at all.'

'That's a nice thought,' Jonathan said, adding hopefully. 'Perhaps fat men don't commit murders.'

'Well, if they do, nobody seems to hang them,' said Els. 'Perhaps they shoot them.' On the whole he much preferred shooting. It was quicker and involved a lot less effort on his part.

'No, no,' said the Bishop hurriedly. 'They definitely have to be hanged.' He thought for a moment. 'What does it say is the drop for a man weighing two hundred pounds?' he asked.

Els consulted his little compendium. 'Six feet,' he said at last.

'Then three feet should be just about right,' said the Bishop.

'Why?' Els didn't like the sound of a shortened drop at all. It smacked too much of an attempt to avoid death.

'Double the weight and halve the drop,' the Bishop explained.

Els wasn't fool enough to fall into that trap. 'Double the weight and double the drop, you mean.'

The Bishop tried to explain. 'The heavier someone is the shorter the fall needed to break his neck. The light man needs a much longer drop to achieve the necessary momentum.'

Els tried to work it out. He found it very difficult.

'Why is a momentum necessary?' he asked. 'Nobody told me to get one.'

'Momentum is the product of a moving body's mass by its velocity.'

'I thought death was,' said Els.

'Yes, but you won't get death without momentum. It's not possible.'

'Oh, isn't it?' said Els. 'Well, I'll have a bloody good shot at it, don't you worry.'

Alarmed by the constant reference to shots, the Bishop tried again.

'When a man is hanged, how does he die?' he asked.

Els thought about it. 'By hanging,' he said finally.

'And hanging means doing what to him?'

'Dropping him down a hole with a rope round his neck.'

'And what happens then?'

'He dies.'

'Yes,' said the Bishop patiently, 'but what does the rope do?'

'Holds him up.'

'No, no. It breaks his neck.'

Els knew better than that. 'Oh no, it doesn't,' he said. 'I've been practising with sacks and it doesn't break their necks. Their bottoms drop out. It makes no end of a mess.'

The Bishop shuddered. 'I'm sure it must,' he said. 'Now we don't want that to happen to me, do we? That's why we've got to get the length of the drop right.'

'Oh, it wouldn't happen to you,' Els assured him. 'The old warder says it's the other way round with you. He says your head would…'

The Bishop didn't want to know what the old warder had said. He had had enough of his morbid interest in anatomy already.

'Look, if you're really so keen to get a permanent job as a hangman, you'll have to make a success of this execution. Nobody is going to employ you if you don't make a go of your first hanging.'

Els looked pathetically at the Bishop. 'I know that,' he said, 'but what can I do if your weight isn't in the handbook?'

'You could make me lighter,' the Bishop suggested looking at his manacles and chains.

'Done,' said Els delighted. 'I'll have you put on a nil diet at once.'

'I didn't mean that,' said the Bishop who couldn't imagine anything niller than the diet he was already on. 'What I had in mind was taking all these chains off and weighing me without them. I think you might find me a lot lighter.'

'I doubt if I'd find you at all,' said Els.

'Well, if you won't take these chains off I don't see how I can help you,' said the Bishop wearily.

'If I were to take them off, I'm damned sure you would not help me either,' said Els.

'In that case I don't know what to suggest. You're not going to find my proper weight with the chains on and if you won't take them off…' He paused as he remembered another scene in the chapel window. 'You don't surely intend to hang me in chains?' he asked.

'No,' said Els, 'there's a special set of leather straps and a cloth bag for your head.'

'Dear God what a way to go,' murmured the Bishop.

'I've put boot polish on the straps and shone them up. They look quite smart,' Els went on. The Bishop wasn't listening to him. He had suddenly thought of a way round the problem of weight.

'I know what we can do,' he said. 'You go and get another set of chains and manacles and bring them here, and we'll weigh them by themselves.'

'I don't see how that's going to help,' said Els. 'I've just told you we won't be using chains on the day. You don't think I've been polishing those straps for nothing, do you?'

The Bishop was beginning to think that he would never be able to get Els to understand anything.

'Once we know how much the chains weigh by themselves we can subtract their weight from three hundred and ninety-eight pounds and then we'll know how much I weigh by myself.'

Els considered the proposal for a moment, but in the end he shook his head.

'It wouldn't work,' he said.

'Why on earth not?'

'I could never do subtraction at school,' Els confessed finally.

'Never mind,' said the Bishop. 'I was very good at it and I'll do the sum myself.'

'How do I know you won't cheat?'

'My dear Hangman Els,' said the Bishop. 'I can think of two good reasons why I am as anxious as you are that this hanging should go with a swing. Possibly three. One is that if you make the drop too short, I shall strangle to death and I really don't want to. Two is that if you make it too long you'll probably decapitate me.'

'I won't,' said Els. 'Your head will come off.'

'Quite,' said the Bishop hurriedly. 'Nothing like calling a spade a bloody shovel, is there?'

'What's three?' asked Els, who didn't care what a bloody shovel was called.

'Oh yes, three. I had almost forgotten three. Well three is that you are obviously a born executioner and while you've got a lot to learn about hanging, I like to see a man make use of the gifts he's been given. Yes, I know about the cloth bag,' the Bishop continued, as Els tried to interrupt with the news that he wouldn't see anything on the scaffold, 'but I am speaking metaphorically, and speaking metaphorically I hope you'll go on to greater things, one might almost say to the top of your profession.'

'You really think I'll make a good hangman?' Els asked eagerly.

'I'm sure of it,' said the Bishop. 'I can feel it in my bones that you will make a name for yourself among executioners the world over,' and having given the hangman the reassurance Els so desperately needed the Bishop went back to his cell while Els went off to fetch another set of chains and manacles. In the end they discovered that Jonathan Hazelstone weighed one hundred and eighty pounds and needed a seven-foot drop.

If the Bishop was having difficulty persuading Els to kill him properly, Kommandant van Heerden was finding it almost as difficult to persuade the surgeons at Piemburg Hospital to undertake the operation he needed to save his life. They seemed to insist on raising quite irrelevant objections, and the Kommandant found particularly irritating their insistence that there was nothing wrong with his heart. When he had disposed of that difficulty by threatening to charge them with attempted murder if they didn't agree with his diagnosis, they spent another hour discussing the ethical problems involved in transferring the heart of a murderer into the body of a man, who, as they pointed out, was so manifestly non-homicidal. The Kommandant soon set their minds at rest on that score, and it was only when they raised the technical problems of tissue typing and rejection and tried to explain how unlikely it was that the condemned man's tissues would match those of a purebred Afrikaaner, like Kommandant van Heerden, that he lost his temper.

'Are you telling me that I'm not a human being?' the Kommandant yelled at Dr Erasmus who led the transplant team. 'Are you telling me I'm a bloody baboon?'

'I'm not saying anything of the sort,' Dr Erasmus protested. 'You don't seem to understand. Each human being has a different type of tissue and yours may not be the same type as that of the donor.'

'You're telling me I've got coloured blood in me,' the Kommandant yelled. 'You're saying I can't have an Englishman's heart because I'm part-kaffir. Is that what you're saying?'

'I'm not saying anything of the sort. There's no reason at all why you shouldn't have a kaffir's heart,' Dr Erasmus said desperately. He found Kommandant van Heerden's violence positively unnerving.

'There you are. You said it. You said I could have a kaffir's heart,' shouted the Kommandant.

'I didn't mean that you had to have one. There's no reason why a black man's heart should not be put into a white man's body any more than there is any reason why a white man's organs shouldn't be transferred to a black man.'

Kommandant van Heerden had never heard such a flagrant violation of the basic concepts of apartheid in his life.

'There's every bloody reason,' he shouted, 'why a white man's organs shouldn't be put into a black man. No white man is allowed to put any portion of his body into a black man. It's against the fucking law.'

Dr Erasmus had never heard of the Fucking Law but he assumed it was police slang for the Immorality Act.

'You misunderstand me,' he said. 'I wasn't referring to sexual organs.'

'There you go again,' bellowed the Kommandant. 'I'll charge you with incitement to inter-racial homosexuality if you don't shut up.'

Dr Erasmus was silenced.

'Calm yourself, Kommandant,' he said soothingly. 'For goodness sake calm yourself. You'll do yourself an injury carrying on like this.'

'I'll do you an injury, you bastard,' yelled the Kommandant who wasn't going to be ordered about by any pig of a doctor who told him he had coloured blood. 'I know your sort. You're an enemy of South Africa, that's what you are. You're a bloody Communist. I'll have you in under the Terrorist Act and we'll soon see how you like organ transplants.'

'For the sake of your health, please stop shouting,' the doctor pleaded.

'My health? You talk about my health? It's your health you should be worrying about if you don't do as I say,' the Kommandant screamed before he realized just what Dr Erasmus had meant. With a tremendous effort of will he calmed himself. Now he had not the slightest doubt that his heart needed changing. Dr Erasmus had admitted it in so many words.

In a quiet voice and with the authority he still possessed under Emergency Powers, Kommandant van Heerden gave his orders to the surgical team. They were to make all the necessary preparations for the transplant operation and were ordered not to divulge any information to the Press, the public or their families. The whole operation was to be conducted in the utmost secrecy. It was the only welcome piece of news the doctors could glean from the Kommandant's brief.

The only other consolation was the knowledge that Kommandant van Heerden's body would almost certainly reject the new heart. As Dr Erasmus pointed out to him, he was probably committing suicide. The Kommandant knew better. He had been eating in the police canteen for years and if his stomach could keep down the food they served there, he couldn't imagine that his body would reject a perfectly good heart.

Leaving the hospital still smarting at the affront to his origins and the good name of his family, but pleased with the way he had handled the situation, Kommandant van Heerden decided the time had come to pay a visit to Fort Rapier. His interest in the fortunes of Miss Hazelstone was undimmed by the events of the past month and his respect had if anything been increased by the old lady's remarkable resilience in the face of the misfortunes which had overtaken the Hazelstone family. The reports that had reached him from Fort Rapier indicated that Miss Hazelstone had maintained her dignity and sense of social prerogative in a situation which would have induced a feeling of despondency if not of inferiority in a less vigorous woman. Miss Hazelstone had succumbed to none of the temptations of madness. She neither shuffled lost in some interior wilderness nor imagined herself to be other than she was.

'I am Miss Hazelstone of Jacaranda Park,' she insisted in the face of attempts to turn her into a model patient with problems amenable to psychotherapy, and instead of conforming to the indolence that marked the lives of the other patients, she had found plenty of interest to occupy her time. The history of Fort Rapier and the part played by her ancestors in the creation of the garrison particularly fascinated her.

'My grandfather was C-in-C Zululand when this fort was built,' she told Dr Herzog when she met him one day crossing the parade ground, and had astonished the Superintendent by her grasp of military history.

'On this very parade ground in 1876 the Greys, the Welsh Regiment and the 12th Hussars marched past my grandfather before leaving for the Zulu War,' she told the astonished doctor, and went on to give details of the uniforms of the various branches and the character of the officers in command.

'What a remarkable memory you have,' he said, 'to remember these things.'

'Part of the family history,' said Miss Hazelstone and had gone on to explain the mistakes made in the campaign, and in particular at the Battle of Isandhlwana. Dr Herzog was so impressed with her interest, and especially by her knowledge of the Boer War and the part played in it by Dr Herzog's own grandfather, that he invited her to his house for tea and the discussion was continued until supper.

'Quite extraordinary,' he said to his wife when Miss Hazelstone went back to the ward. 'I had no idea my grandfather was responsible for our victory at Magersfontein.'

The following day he sent a memorandum to the staff, instructing them that Miss Hazelstone was to be given all the help and encouragement she needed to continue her study of military history and the part played in it by Fort Rapier.

'We have a duty to encourage patients to pursue their hobbies, particularly when they may well be of benefit to the hospital,' he told Dr von Blimenstein who complained that Miss Hazelstone had stopped attending her therapy classes.

'Miss Hazelstone hopes to publish the history of Fort Rapier and any publicity must surely rebound to our credit. It's not every day that lunatics publish military history.'

Dr von Blimenstein had reservations on that score, but she kept her thoughts to herself and Miss Hazelstone had continued her researches with growing enthusiasm. She had discovered regimental records in a trunk in the basement of what was now the staff canteen, but which had in earlier days been the officers' mess. These had led her to unearth even more interesting relics in the shape of discarded uniforms in the quartermaster's stores.

'We really ought to hold a pageant,' she told the Superintendent. 'The uniforms are there and while they do need patching up in places, because the cockroaches have got at them you see, there's no doubt they are authentic and it will give all the patients something to work for. It's so important for morale to create a common aim and something to look forward to.'

Dr Herzog had been impressed by the idea.

'A pageant of Fort Rapier's history,' he said, 'what a splendid idea,' and his mind toyed with the idea of an open day in which the public and the Press could see the wonderful work being done on behalf of mental health in Zululand.

'I thought we might start with a march-past,' Miss Hazelstone continued, 'followed by several tableaux commemorating particularly memorable feats of courage in the history of South Africa.'

Dr Herzog was hesitant. 'I don't want any mock battles,' he said anxiously.

'Oh no, nothing like that,' Miss Hazelstone assured him, 'I was thinking more of purely stationary representations of the events.'

'We can't have the patients getting too excited.'

'Quite,' said Miss Hazelstone who had long since ceased to think of herself as a patient. 'I take your point. We shall have to see that the whole affair is conducted with truly military discipline. I was thinking of including as one of the set-pieces your great-grandfather's heroic defence of his homestead in the 6th Kaffir War.'

Dr Herzog was flattered. 'Were you really?' he said. 'I had no idea my family played such an important role in the military history of the country.'

'The Herzogs were practically the Afrikaans counterpart of the Hazelstones,' Miss Hazelstone told him, and with the knowledge that the pageant would enhance the reputation of the Herzog family as well as that of the hospital, the Superintendent gave his permission for the event to be held.

In the weeks that followed Miss Hazelstone threw herself into the preparations with an enthusiasm that communicated itself to the other inmates of Fort Rapier. She took command of the organization with all the natural authority of Sir Theophilus' granddaughter and with an attention to detail made possible by her wealth. Bales of red cloth were ordered from Durban on Miss Hazelstone's account, and the patients in the sewing-rooms were kept busy making new uniforms.

'It certainly brightens the place up,' Dr Herzog said to Dr von Blimenstein as they watched Miss Hazelstone drilling a squad of manic depressives on the parade ground one day.

'I can't help feeling uneasy,' Dr von Blimenstein said. 'Is it really necessary to include the Battle of Blood River in the programme? I'm sure it will have an unfortunate effect on the black patients.'

'Our chief responsibility is to the whites,' said Dr Herzog, 'and it can only help them to see the great events of the past re-enacted here. I have every hope that by participating in them our patients will come to see that there is still a place for the mentally sick in modern South Africa. I like to think of this pageant as drama therapy on a vast scale.'

'But surely, Doctor, you don't consider insanity to be simply a matter of morale?' Dr von Blimenstein said.

'Yes, I do, and if it isn't it ought to be. Besides,' said the Superintendent, 'the pageant will help to sublimate some of their aggression.'

On the parade ground Miss Hazelstone's squad marched past the saluting base which the carpenters had erected between the two field guns.

'Eyes right,' Miss Hazelstone shouted, and two hundred pairs of eyes fixed themselves manically on Dr Herzog. The Superintendent saluted.

'Eyes front,' and the squad marched on.

'Most impressive,' said Dr Herzog. 'What a pity we didn't think of this before.'

'I just hope we don't have cause to regret it,' said Dr von Blimenstein pessimistically.

As the day of the pageant approached, Miss Hazelstone had to deal with several problems. One was the question of assegais for the Zulu warriors. Dr Herzog was adamant.

'I'm not having hundreds of black patients running around brandishing spears. God alone knows what would happen.'

In the end the problem was solved by the purchase of one thousand rubber spears which had been used in the making of a film a year or two before.

Another problem centred round the question of the music and the sound effects to accompany the tableaux.

'I was thinking of the _1812 Overture'_ Miss Hazelstone explained to the conductor of the hospital band.

'We can't reach those heights,' the bandmaster objected, 'and in any case we haven't got a cannon.'

'We could use the field guns,' Miss Hazelstone said.

'We can't go round letting off loud bangs in the hospital grounds. It would have a terrible effect on the anxiety cases.'

In the end it was agreed that the band would restrict itself to simple marches like _Colonel Bogey_ and tunes like _Goodbye Dolly Gray_ and that a recording of the _1812 Overture_ should be played over loudspeakers to accompany the battle scenes.

A dress rehearsal was held the day before the pageant and Superintendent Herzog and the staff attended.

'Simply splendid,' Dr Herzog said afterwards. 'One has the feeling that one is actually present, it's so real.'

It was quite by chance that Kommandant van Heerden chose the afternoon of the pageant for his visit to the hospital. Unlike the Mayor of Piemburg and other notables, he had not been invited because it was felt that Miss Hazelstone might not like it.

'We don't want anything to put the old lady off her stride, and having the police here would only remind her of her brother's execution,' the Superintendent said.

As his car passed into the grounds of Fort Rapier Kommandant van Heerden noticed that a new air of festivity seemed to have come to the hospital.

'I hope it isn't too open,' he said to the driver who had replaced Konstabel Els, as the car passed under a banner which announced Open Day. They drove up to the parade ground which was decked with regimental flags and Kommandant van Heerden got out.

'Glad you could make it Kommandant,' Dr Herzog said, and led the way to the saluting base, where the Mayor and his party were already seated. The Kommandant looked nervously around as he took his seat.

'What's going on?' he asked one of the aldermen.

'It's some sort of publicity stunt to foster public interest in mental health,' the alderman said.

'Funny place to hold it,' said the Kommandant. 'I thought everyone up here was supposed to be barmy. Good heavens, look at those kaffirs.'

A detachment of schizophrenic Zulus marched across the parade ground to take up their position for the tableaux.

'Who the hell gave them those spears?'

'Oh it's all right, they're only rubber,' said the councillor.

The Kommandant sank down in his chair in horror. 'Don't tell me,' he said, 'this whole thing has been organized by Miss Hazelstone.'

'Right first time,' said the councillor. 'Put up the money herself. Just as well she did too. I hate to think what this little lot cost.'

Kommandant van Heerden wasn't listening. He rose from his chair and looked desperately round for some way of escaping, but the crowd round the saluting base was too dense to pass through, and in front the march-past had already begun. He sank back into his chair in despair.

As the band played the regiments formed up and marched towards the stand. Red-coated and surprisingly well drilled for their mental health, they swung past the Superintendent and at their head there marched the familiar figure of Miss Hazelstone. For a moment the Kommandant thought he was back in the hall at Jacaranda House, and staring once more at the portrait of Sir Theophilus. Miss Hazelstone's uniform was a replica of the one the Viceroy had worn in the painting. Her face was partially obscured by a plumed pith helmet but on her chest were the stars and medals of her grandfather's disastrous campaigns. Behind the first regiment which was the Welsh Guards, came the others, the county regiments of England, appropriately less in step than the Guards (it had been difficult to find enough compulsive cases to be really smart) but shuffling along with determination all the time. After them came the Scots regiments recruited from women patients wearing kilts and led by a chronic depressive playing the bagpipes. Last of all was a small detachment of frogmen in rubber suits with flippers who had difficulty keeping in step.

'A nice touch of modernity, don't you think?' Dr Herzog murmured to the Mayor as twenty crazed faces turned their masks towards the stand.

'I hope those kaffirs aren't going to come too close,' said the Mayor anxiously. There was no need to worry. The black lunatics were not allowed the privilege of marching past the stand. Miss Hazelstone was arranging them for the first tableau.

In the interval Kommandant van Heerden left his seat and spoke to the Superintendent.

'I thought I told you to keep Miss Hazelstone under close surveillance,' he said angrily.

'She's made remarkable progress since she has been here,' Dr Herzog answered. 'We like to see our patients taking an interest in their hobbies.'

'You may,' said the Kommandant, 'but I don't. Miss Hazelstone's hobbies happen to include murder and you go and let her organize a military parade. You must be out of your mind.'

'Nothing like allowing the patients to dramatize their aggressive tendencies,' said the Superintendent.

'She's done that quite enough already,' said the Kommandant. 'My advice is to stop this thing before it's too late.'

But already the first tableau had begun. A square of cardboard ox wagons stood in the centre of the parade ground and around them gathered the Zulu schizophrenics brandishing their spears. After several minutes the Zulus lay down on the tarmac in attitudes supposed to represent agonizing death.

'Blood River,' said the Superintendent.

'Very realistic,' said the Mayor.

'Bloody insane,' said Kommandant van Heerden.

A polite round of clapping greeted the end of the battle. For the next hour the history of South Africa unfurled before the spectators in a series of blood-curdling battles in which the blacks were invariably massacred by the whites.

'You would think they'd get tired of lying down and getting up and lying down again,' the Mayor said when the Zulus had gone through their death agonies for the umpteenth time. 'Must keep them physically fit, I suppose.'

'So long as the bastards don't win, I'm happy,' said the Kommandant.

'I think they do have a moment of triumph in the finale,' said Dr Herzog. 'It's the Battle of Isandhlwana. The British ran out of ammunition and were massacred.'

'Do you mean to tell me,' said the Kommandant, 'that you have allowed white men to be defeated by blacks? It's insane. What's more it's illegal. You are encouraging racial hatred.'

Dr Herzog was nonplussed. 'I hadn't thought of it like that,' he said.

'Well, you had better think of it now. You're breaking the law. You've got to put a stop to it. I'm not prepared to sit here and watch anything so outrageous,' the Kommandant said firmly.

'Nor am I,' said the Mayor. Several councillors nodded in agreement.

'I don't really see how I can,' Dr Herzog said. 'They're about to begin.'

In the middle of the parade ground Miss Hazelstone had organized the British camp and was superintending the placement of the two old field guns. Several hundred yards away the Zulu army was gathered ready for its moment of triumph.

'I insist that you stop the battle,' said the Kommandant.

'So do I,' said the Mayor, who still didn't feel very comfortable about the rubber spears.

Dr Herzog hesitated. 'Oh dear, I do wish you had told me it was illegal before. I don't see what I can do now,' he said anxiously.

'Well, if you won't stop it, I will,' said the Kommandant. 'Good man,' said the Mayor, seconded by the councillors.

Before he could think about the likely consequences of his intervention, Kommandant van Heerden found himself being helped off the saluting base and on to the parade ground. He marched slowly towards the two armies, and as he went the realization of his position slowly dawned on him. In the middle of the square halfway between the two opposing forces of lunatics, he began to regret his precipitate decision to intervene. On one side of him five hundred Zulu schizophrenics pawed the ground and waved their spears ferociously, while on the other, an equal number of white madmen awaited defeat with a determination made all the more awful by foreknowledge.

Kommandant van Heerden halted and raised his hand. Silence fell over the two armies.

'This is Kommandant van Heerden speaking,' he shouted. 'I am ordering you to disperse and return to your wards. This is an illegal gathering and contravenes the Riotous Assemblies Act.'

He stopped and waited for the armies to retire. There was no sign of their doing anything of the sort. As his words echoed away, both sides stared insanely at their adversaries and there were murmurs in the ranks. Miss Hazelstone finished sighting the field guns and stepped forward. On the Zulu side an enormous warrior followed suit.

'What is the meaning of this nonsense?' Miss Hazelstone shouted.

'You heard me,' said the Kommandant. 'This battle constitutes a breach of the peace. I insist you disperse.'

In the space between the armies Kommandant van Heerden found his new role as keeper of the peace becoming more difficult.

'You've no right to come here and interfere with our pageant,' Miss Hazelstone insisted. 'And it's not a breach of the peace.'

'We won,' said the Zulu chief. 'We won the battle of Isandhlwana and now we win it again.'

'Over my dead body,' said the Kommandant and regretted the words as soon as he had said them. The murmurs in the ranks of the two armies indicated all too clearly that the spirit of belligerency was spreading.

On the saluting base the spectators were growing as restless as the lunatics.

'Are those axes made of rubber too?' the Mayor asked as he watched several Zulus flourishing choppers in place of their spears.

'I certainly hope so,' said the Superintendent.

'The British appear to be loading those field guns,' said the Mayor.

'Impossible,' said the Superintendent. 'They've nothing to load them with.'

'They're putting something up the spout,' said the Mayor. 'And those Zulus seem to be putting something on the ends of their spears. They look like knitting needles to me. Either that or bicycle spokes.'

The alarm of the Mayor was as nothing to the panic that Kommandant van Heerden was beginning to feel. Miss Hazelstone and the Zulu chief were engaged in a fierce argument about who had won the Battle of Isandhlwana.

'My grandfather was there,' said Miss Hazelstone.

'So was mine,' said the Zulu.

'Mine wasn't,' said the Kommandant, 'and in any case I don't care a stuff who won the battle, no one is going to win it here. I demand you withdraw your forces.'

'We're going to win,' said the Zulu. 'We've been losing all afternoon and we've a right to win.'

'Nonsense,' said Miss Hazelstone. 'My grandfather won the victory and that's all there is to be said.'

'My grandfather told my father and my father told me that your grandfather ran away,' the Zulu said.

'How dare you?' Miss Hazelstone shrieked. 'How dare you insult a Hazelstone?'

Kommandant van Heerden was horrified too. He knew from experience what was likely to be the result of any altercation between Miss Hazelstone and a Zulu. As the old lady wrestled with the sword that hung from her belt and the Zulu took refuge behind his enormous shield, Kommandant van Heerden made one last effort to restore harmony.

'I order you to leave this parade ground,' he yelled, drawing his revolver from its holster, but it was already too late. With an upward sweep of her sword Miss Hazelstone knocked the Kommandant's arm into the air. The revolver fired harmlessly into the sky and with a great roar the two armies of the insane surged towards one another.

As Miss Hazelstone's sword swept through the air and the Zulu parried with his shield, Kommandant van Heerden turned to flee. One glance at the Zulu schizophrenics convinced him that if safety lay anywhere, it was with the British Army and he dashed towards tie advancing lines of redcoats. A moment later he regretted his decision. Advancing at a run, a regiment of paranoid women in kilts still headed by the depressed piper playing _The Road to the Isles,_ swept over the Kommandant and he had just time to turn and run with them before he was bowled over and thrown to the ground. He lay still and was trodden on several times before the regiment was past. Then raising his head, he surveyed the scene around him.

It was immediately clear that the Zulus had no intention of forgoing their victory. Nonplussed for a moment by the charge of the paranoid women, they had recovered their nerve and had counter-attacked to good effect. Using their short rubber spears now tipped with knitting needles, they were stabbing their way forward very successfully. On the left flank the Welsh Guards were making a desperate defence but their wooden rifles were no match for the assegais. As the Black Watch wavered and began to retreat Kommandant van Heerden scrambled to his feet and ran before them. Around him the parade ground echoed to the war-cry of the Zulu hordes, the screams of the wounded women, and the weird noises coming from the bagpipes. To add to the din a tape-recorder struck up the _1812 Overture_ through the loudspeakers. In the middle of the battle, Miss Hazelstone's pith helmet could be seen bobbing about. Kommandant van Heerden made it to the British camp and collapsed inside one of the tents.

To the spectators on the stand the re-enactment of history appeared at first to be entirely convincing. The valiant charge of the British and their subsequent retreat had an air of authenticity about them which the previous tableaux had lacked.

'Amazing realism,' said the Mayor, who had just seen a Guardsman run through with a spear.

'I think the music helps too,' said the Superintendent.

The Mayor had to agree. 'People seem to be screaming rather a lot,' he said.

'I'm sure this sort of thing helps the patients,' Dr Herzog continued. 'Tends to take their minds off their problems.'

'I suppose it must,' said the Mayor. 'Certainly takes other things off. There's a fellow over there who seems to have lost a leg.'

On the square in front of them glimpses of a terrible reality were beginning to appear through the pageant of history. Increasingly it was becoming difficult to tell what was illusion from what was fact. History and present tragedy mingled inextricably. In some places, death was being mimed with a series of violent contortions whose realism far surpassed the agonies of those whose deaths were in no way rehearsed. To the strains of Tchaikovsky a number of patients in the Black Watch found themselves being raped by Zulu warriors while a detachment of frogmen who had never been anywhere near Isandhlwana threw themselves into the fray with all the vigour their flippers would allow.

From the shelter of the tent into which he had crawled the Kommandant watched as the crew of a field gun aimed the weapon into the crowd of struggling combatants and was horrified to see Miss Hazelstone, minus her pith helmet and stained with blood, superintending the operation.

'More chlorate and less sugar,' he heard her say to a man who was filling what appeared to be a pillowcase with powder. The Kommandant waited no longer. He knew too well Miss Hazelstone's remarkable skill with large-calibre weapons to risk being in the line of fire. Disentangling himself from the canvas and refusing the passionate overtures of a private of the Black Watch who had crawled in beside him, the Kommandant dashed for shelter towards the saluting base. He had covered some twenty yards when he heard Miss Hazelstone give the order to fire, and a moment later a sheet of flame enveloped the British camp. As an enormous explosion threw him to the ground and the blast slid him across the tarmac the Kommandant shut his eyes and prayed. Above his head portions of field gun mingled with combatants interrupted in their struggles. Miss Hazelstone had not merely fired the gun, she had exploded it. As he slid to a halt under the saluting base, Kommandant van Heerden raised his head and looked around at the subsiding chaos. The actors in the tableau had assumed a new and altogether convincing stillness and it was clear that nobody had won the Battle of Isandhlwana.

The parade ground was littered with black and white bodies while what survivors there were had lost all interest in history. With all the marks of an entirely sane instinct for self-preservation, they crawled towards the sick bay.

Only the staff seemed to have taken leave of their senses. On the stand above him the Kommandant could hear Dr Herzog still trying to reassure the late Mayor that the spears were made of rubber. To Kommandant van Heerden the assurance seemed quite unnecessary. Whatever had hit the Mayor had been made of something much more lethal.

The Kommandant waited until Dr Herzog had been taken away before crawling from his hiding-place. He stood up and looked around. History had not merely been portrayed, he thought, it had been made. Not only the past but the present and future of South Africa was to be seen in the devastation that greeted his eyes. Picking his way over the bodies, the Kommandant made his way towards a large crater which had been blown in the middle of the parade ground. Beside it, there lay the remains of a plumed pith helmet and the Star Miss Hazelstone had been wearing.

'A last memento,' he murmured, and picked them up. Then still dazed and shaken he turned and made his way back to the car.