The Power of One

FIFTEEN

We were reasonably safe the month after the piano stool incident as the inspector of prisons was due to arrive and Lieutenant Borman had the job of seeing that the place was spick and span, with fresh whitewash everywhere you looked. Much to Doc’s annoyance even the stones bordering his cactus garden were whitewashed. He was prepared to accept whisky bottles outlining his paths but painting real stones seemed to him an insult against nature. Fresh gravel was brought into the inner courtyard together with several loads of finely crushed iron pyrites and mica with which a large letter ‘B’ was formed in the centre. The darker colour and sheen from the mica and pyrites mix made the letter shimmer against the almost white gravel. The ‘B’ of course stood for Barberton. This was the lieutenant’s idea and he spent hours supervising the old lags sweeping and raking, until it was perfect. I must hand it to him, it did look very nice. Gert said the Kommandant was particularly pleased and Borman was up to his eyeballs in his good books. The prison corridors smelt of polish and the cells of Jeyes Fluid disinfectant. Window ledges were painted prison blue and everywhere you went smelt of new paint. But it was done early so the smell would have gone by the time the brigadier arrived. New canvas uniforms were issued to the old lags to be worn only during the visit. This was because they were doing all the painting and cleaning and their old patched and worn uniforms had paint on them and would give the game away. The Kommandant wanted the brigadier to think that everything was normal and that he could have popped in any old time and found things just the same. After the inspection, the lags handed back their new uniforms and wore their old patched and worn clothes until they finally fell apart.

Captain Smit had arranged the usual boxing exhibition and for weeks the Kommandant spent most of his mornings, as he did before every inspection, practising his pistol shooting on the pistol range behind the warders’ mess.

The rapidly approaching VE day was a matter of concern to the Kommandant. If it arrived before the brigadier’s visit then the truly cultural part of the programme would disappear with the release of Doc. He had tried to elicit a promise from Doc that, should this occur, he would return to the prison and play for the inspector. But Doc had not spent over four years in prison for nothing and he had learned the rules of prison life where everything is in return for something else. The Goldfields News had already printed a picture of the Kommandant above a piece by him saying that Doc was in prison because he was a German and that the moment Germany surrendered Doc would be released. The Kommandant couldn’t go back on his word without losing face. This he would not allow to happen. Doc’s price for staying over, if necessary, caused an uproar among the warders but as far as the Kommandant was concerned no price was too high for a smooth visit. Doc asked if he could give a concert for all the prisoners.

On Sundays, being God’s day, the prisoners did not go out in work gangs. Instead they were locked in their cells and fifty at a time were allowed in the exercise pen, a high-walled enclosure of brick and cement about the size of two tennis courts. This was done tribe by tribe, each tribal group allotted ninety minutes. First the Zulus, followed by the Swazis, then the Ndebele, Sotho and Tsonga. The Boers had long understood the antipathy each tribe has for the other, and by keeping the tribes separated in prison they maintained the traditional tensions between them. This was thought to lessen the chances of a mass uprising or a prison strike.

Doc told me how each Sunday he would take a position in the guard tower overlooking the exercise pen to listen to them. Each tribe would use much of the ninety minutes allotted to them singing together, and he soon learned which tribal song each tribe liked best. He had written out the music for it, and then he had composed a piano concerto which represented, in melody terms, each of these songs. Doc said that he had never heard such magnificent harmony. Most of the songs were very beautiful and even though he did not understand the words, he could hear in them the people’s longing for their homes, their people, the comfort of their fires, and the lowing of the cattle in the evening. He would sigh and say that his concerto could never capture the beauty of the original voices. He called it ‘Concerto of the Great Southland’. It was this which he hoped to play to all the prisoners as his tribute to them before he left the prison.

The idea was for Doc to play the concerto through first, each movement in effect being one or more of a particular tribe’s songs. Then on the second time through the tribe whose movement it was would sing the song to Doc’s accompaniment on the Steinway. In this way each of the tribes represented in the prison would participate in the concert.

Once the Kommandant had agreed that the concert could go ahead, a great deal had to be done. No rehearsal was possible of course, but through Geel Piet each of the tribes was told which song was needed and the exact time it should take to sing. At night Doc would play the various songs fortissimo with all the hall windows open so the sound carried to the cell blocks. The warders claimed you could hear the cockroaches scratching as the prisoners strained to hear the music.

Because Doc would be at the piano, he decided I should conduct. This I would do in the simplest possible sense, signalling the piano breaks and the pianissimo as well as the fortissimo to the choir. After some weeks I was quite good at taking my directions from Doc and we went through the concerto during morning practice until I knew what every shake and nod of his head meant. Geel Piet had also taken basic instructions back to the prisoners so supposedly they knew what my hand signals would mean. Had Doc proposed that I assume the role of conductor in front of a white audience I could not have done so, but such is the nature of white supremacy in South Africa that I thought little of standing up in front of three hundred and fifty black prisoners and directing them.

Geel Piet informed me of the mounting excitement among the inmates. For several weeks the warders had an easy time, they simply had to threaten an inmate with non-attendance at the concert to get him to comply with any instruction. When the news spread that the Tadpole Angel would be directing the people in the singing indaba, it was immediately assumed the concert had a mystical significance and I had chosen this time to meet all of the people. Work time was used as practice and farmers and the people at the saw mills who hired gangs spoke of singing from dawn until dusk. Even the dreaded quarries rang with the songs of the tribal work gangs. Concerto of the Great Southland was being wrought into being, a musical jigsaw where, on the big night, all the pieces would be brought together under the magic spell cast by the Tadpole Angel.

Lieutenant Borman had tried his best to prevent the concert from taking place, but Captain Smit seemed to have decided that it was a good idea, perhaps for no other reason than that the concert was opposed by Lieutenant Borman. The two men had never liked each other and Captain Smit, who was not a member of the Oxwagon Guard, was said to have been bitterly opposed to the elevation of Borman to lieutenant.

The concert was to take place on the parade ground, and a special platform had been built in the carpentry shop to raise the Steinway above the level of the prisoners. It was proposed that each tribe would form a semi-circle around the platform with ten feet separating each group. Two warders carrying sjamboks would be stationed in this corridor to stop any monkey business. A double shift issued with extra ammunition would be on guard duty on the walkways along the wall, and throughout the concert spotlights would be trained on the prisoners.

The concert was scheduled for Monday May 7th, 1945 and all the warders had been placed on full alert. Prisoners were never paraded at night and rumours were rife of tribal fights and vendettas being settled in the dark, as well as of an attempted prison break by the Zulus. The warders, whipped up by Lieutenant Borman, grew increasingly edgy as the concert night drew closer.

Lieutenant Borman had taken to wearing a Sam Browne belt across his shoulder with revolver with its holster unclipped on his hip and he lost no opportunity of telling anyone who was prepared to listen that trouble, more trouble than any of the warders could handle, was on its way. ‘Give a black prisoner a pinkie and he eats your whole arm off at the shoulder, I’m telling you, man.’ He said it so often that it became a joke around the prison and some of the warders started to refer to him behind his back as Pinkie Borman. He even tried to have the concert aborted at the last minute, claiming that it was against prison regulations to assemble more than fifty prisoners in one place at the same time. Captain Smit had demanded that he show him the standing instructions but he couldn’t find them, claiming he knew them from Pretoria.

It was difficult to get my mother to agree to me staying up late for the concert. After consulting the Lord and receiving a note from Miss Bornstein which assured her that my school career would not be affected by one late night during the week she gave her permission.

Doc asked me how I would be dressed as conductor. The choice was limited: khaki shirts and shorts, and a pair of black boots with plain grey school socks were the entire contents of my wardrobe. Then Geel Piet suggested that I should be dressed in my boxing uniform, wearing the boots the people had made for me. Doc thought this was a splendid idea and I must say I quite liked it myself. Doc decided it would be awkward for me to wear boxing gloves as it would make it difficult for me to conduct. Geel Piet seemed disappointed and later came back with the suggestion that I should wear gloves and then just before the concert proper began, remove them. He seemed awfully keen on the idea and assured me that it wouldn’t be showing off one little bit.

Thus, on the night of the concert, all the myths Geel Piet had so carefully nurtured among the prisoners about the Tadpole Angel would harmonise in my appearance as their leader, uniting all the tribes in the great singing indaba.

In any other society Geel Piet would have been a great promoter. He knew how to set the warp so as to weave a complex pattern which appealed to the imagination of the people. The Tadpole Angel would appear to the people dressed as a great fighter who would lead them in their tribal songs, crossing over the barriers of race and tribe. Was he not already a slayer of giants? Was he not the spirit of the great chief who bound Zulu with the Swazi and the Ndebele and the Tsonga and the Sotho so that they all sat on one mat in a great singing indaba? The only who touched the pencil and letters went out to the families of the people and returned with news of loved ones, who caused children to be warm in winter and wives to have dresses and food for hungry infants? Did he not bring tobacco and sugar and salt into the prison, making it disappear when he entered and reappear when there was no risk? How otherwise could he do this thing for four years without being caught by the Boers?

As with Mrs Boxall’s Earl of Sandwich Fund, Doc’s wonderful Concerto of the Great Southland was appropriated by the prisoners as being my work and my doing. Geel Piet’s clever entrepreneurial mind had seen that it would be more appropriate if it was presented in this way.

The night of Doc’s concert arrived. The moment I passed through the gates I knew something in the prison was different. The feeling of despair was not in the air. The sad chattering which was in my mind the instant I stepped within the prison grounds had ceased. The thoughts of the people were calm. I felt a thrill of excitement. Tonight was going to be special.

A full moon had risen just above the dark shadow of the hills behind the prison walls and the parade ground was flooded with moonlight. Doc’s Steinway stood sharply outlined on the platform with its top already propped up. The scene had a silence of its own, like looking into a Dali painting. I stood for a moment, for even at my age with my limited grasp of logistics and the law of human probability, this concert seemed a remarkable thing.

As I stood looking at the Steinway etched in the moonlight, the floodlights, bright and sudden as a burst from a welding gun, came on. When my eyes had adjusted to the harsh, raw light I could see that around the platform in a semi-circle on the hard ground, whitewashed lines denoted the area for each tribe. A dozen warders carrying sjamboks came out of the main building and walked towards the piano, their boots making a scrunching sound on the gravel footpath.

I crossed the parade ground, entered a side door and made my way to the hall where Doc would be waiting for me. He was sitting at the Mignon upright, absently tapping at the keys. He looked up as I entered. ‘Geel Piet is late, he should be already here now,’ he said, his voice tetchy. Doc had grown very reliant on Geel Piet and he regarded him as an essential part of the entire operation. Without him working with the prisoners, a concert still fraught with the potential for unrehearsed disaster would have had no chance of succeeding.

‘He’ll be here any minute, you’ll see.’ I said to cheer him up. ‘I’ll save time and go and get my gloves.’ I hurried from the hall and walked down the passageway towards the gym. An old lag was coming towards me carrying a two-gallon coffee pot, another followed him with a tray of mugs and a tin of brown sugar. They were taking coffee to the warders on duty in the parade ground. ‘Have you seen Geel Piet?’ I asked one. I spoke in Shangaan for I could see from the cicatrisation on his cheeks that he was of the Tsonga tribe. ‘No, baas, we have not seen this one,’ he said humbly. As I departed I heard him say to the lag behind him, ‘See how the Tadpole Angel speaks the languages of all the tribes, is he not the chosen leader of the people?’

When I reached the gymnasium I switched on the lights in the gym and the shower room. The lights above the boxing ring were on the wall opposite and the ring was in semi-darkness, but there was enough light for me to see into the box containing the boxing gloves and I quickly selected one of two pairs I liked to use. I went to the showers where I undressed and put on my boxing singlet, shorts, socks and boots, then I loosely tied the laces of the gloves together and slung them around my neck for Doc to lace up for me later.

I returned to find Doc still alone in the hall, the expression of concern showing clearly on his face as he absentmindedly gloved me up. ‘It is too late to wait longer, we must go now, I will tell Geel Piet I am very cross because this happens.’

The door I’d used to enter the building couldn’t be opened from the inside, so we left the hall and walked down the long passage into the main administration building which led out to the parade ground. We passed through the small hallway where I had first entered the prison four years earlier. The lights were out in what was then Lieutenant Smit’s office but which was now occupied by Lieutenant Borman. I allowed Doc to walk ahead and moved over to the service window and peered for a moment into the darkened office. In the half light I could see where Klipkop sat and next to him the larger desk which was Lieutenant Borman’s. My eyes wandered around the room and stopped when they rested on a thin strip of light showing under the door of the interrogation room which led off from the main office. The door must have been slightly ajar, because I heard the unmistakable thud of a blow and a sudden sharp groan such as men make when they receive a hard punch to the solar plexus. It was not an unusual occurrence but it seemed inappropriate on this full moon night of the playing of the Concerto of the Great Southland.

The prisoners were already seated in their marked off sections when we arrived, the warders walking up and down the corridors striking their sjamboks against the sides of their legs and looking business-like. The prisoners avoided looking at them, almost as though they were not there. Talking was not allowed, but as we passed I could see the people smiling and a low murmur swept over the seated prisoners as Doc and I stepped onto the platform.

The Kommandant arrived shortly after us and stood on the platform to address the prisoners. Lieutenant Borman was to have done the translation into Fanagalo but appeared not to have arrived. The Kommandant was clearly annoyed by this and after a few minutes during which he looked at his watch repeatedly, he started to speak in Afrikaans.

‘Listen to me, you hear,’ he said and I quickly translated into Zulu. He looked surprised. ‘Can you translate, Peekay?’ I nodded. ‘Okay, then I will speak and stop after every sentence so you can translate.’

The Kommandant was uncomfortable talking to the prisoners and he spoke too loudly and too harshly. ‘This concert is a gift to you all from the professor who is not a dirty criminal like all of you, you hear! I don’t know why an important person like him wants to make a concert for Kaffirs, not only Kaffirs, but criminals as well. But that’s what he wants so you got it because I am a man of my word. I just want you to know it won’t happen again and I don’t want any trouble, you hear, you just listen to the peeano and you sing then we march you back to your cells.’ He turned to me, snorting nervously through his nostrils. ‘That’s all. You tell them what I said now.’

I said the Kommandant welcomed them and that the professor welcomed them and thanked them for coming to his great singing indaba. He hoped that they would sing, each tribe better than the other so they would be proud. They should watch my hands, and I took my boxing gloves off to demonstrate the hand movements. When I had finished the sea of faces in front of me was smiling fit to burst and then spontaneously they started to clap. ‘You done a good job, Peekay,’ the Kommandant said, pleased at this spontaneous response to his speech.

Doc played the Concerto for the Great Southland through entirely and the prisoners listened quietly with nods of approval as they heard the melodies of their own tribal songs. At the end they all clapped furiously.

I then stood up and showed them how I would bring each tribe into their part and stop them by fading their voices out or simply ending a song or a passage with a downward stroke of the hands, a slicing gesture. I asked them to raise their hands if they understood and a sea of hands rose.

Doc played the prelude which was a musical medley of each of the melodies and then I brought in the Sotho singers. Their voices melded into the night as though they had caused the early summer air to vibrate with a deep harmony before they broke into song. It was the most beautiful male singing I had ever heard. They seemed instinctively to understand what was required of them and followed every gesture as though anticipating it. They were followed by the Ndebele who carried a more strident melody and whose voices rose deep and true, repeating the thread of the song carried by a single high-pitched male voice, chasing the single voice, sometimes even catching it to surround it and nourish it with beautiful harmony before allowing it to escape once more to carry the song forward again. The Swazis followed as beautiful as any, then the Shangaan. Each tribe sounded different, seemingly building on the tribe before, each separated by a common refrain which was hauntingly African and seemed somehow to be a mixture of all. The Zulus took the last part which rose in power and majesty as they sang the victory song of the great Shaka, using the flats of their hands to bang on the ground as the mighty Zulu impi had done with their feet, until the parade ground appeared to shake. The other tribes soon got the rhythm and they too hit the ground to add to the effect. The concerto lasted for half an hour, the last part being the by now familiar refrain which all the tribes hummed in a glorious finale. Never had a composer’s work had a stranger debut and never a greater one. Eventually the composition would be played by philharmonic and symphony orchestras around the world, accompanied by some of the world’s most famous choirs, but it would never sound better than it did under the African moon in the prison yard when three hundred and fifty black inmates lost themselves in their pride and love for their tribal lands.

Doc rose from the Steinway and turned to the mass of black faces. He was crying unashamedly and fumbling for his bandanna and many of the Africans were weeping with him. Then without warning came a roar of approval from the people that would have been impossible to stop. Doc would later tell me that it was the greatest moment of his life, but what they were saying was ‘Onoshobishobi Ingelosi! ‘Onoshobishobi Ingelosi!’ Tadpole Angel! Tadpole Angel! chanted over and over again.

The Kommandant looked worried and some of the warders had started to slap the sjamboks against the ground. Onoshobishobi Ingelosi! Onoshobishobi Ingelosi! Doc had risen from his seat to take a bow and I jumped up onto it and started to wave my hands to indicate that the chanting must stop. Almost instantly there was silence. Doc looked up surprised, not sure what had happened. I said, ‘The great music wizard and I thank the people for singing, you are all men who tonight have brought honour to your tribes and you have brought great honour also to the great musical wizard and to me.’ I would have lacked the maturity to make such a speech in English but the African tongue is gracious and by its very nature fits such words easily. ‘You must go quietly now in the names of your wives and your children, for the Boers grow restless.’ My voice was a thin piping sound in the night.

Suddenly a shower of stars sprayed across the sky above the town and then another and another, single red and green stars that burst high, cascades that danced in the heavens. The prisoners looked up in awe, some even covering their heads against the magic. A warder came hurrying up to the Kommandant, whispered in his ear and the Kommandant turned towards Doc and then extended his hand. ‘You are free to go, Professor. The war in Europe is over. The Germans have surrendered.’ He pointed in the direction of the town. ‘See the fireworks, the blêrrie Rooineks are already celebrating.’ A final cascade of stars burst against the dark sky and the black men cried out in awe; they had never seen such a happening before.

Was this not the final sign? Even the heavens spoke for the Tadpole Angel, spoke for all to see. The myth of the Tadpole Angel was complete. Now it could only grow and shape as legends are wont to do. Nothing I would ever do could change things. I had crossed the line to where only the greatest of the medicine men have ever been, perhaps even further, for not even the greatest were known by all the tribes and honoured by all of the people. I had become a myth.

Each tribe rose when they were commanded to do so and marched silently away until the parade ground was empty but for the guards who manned the walls, and the Kommandant.

‘Magtig! I have never seen such a thing in all my life, man,’ the Kommandant said, shaking his head. He turned to Doc, ‘Your music was beautiful, man, the most beautiful I have ever heard and such singing we will never hear again. Peekay, someday you will make a great Kommandant. I have never seen such command of black men. It is as though you are some kind of witchdoctor, hey?’

Quite suddenly there was a single voice in the night as though from the direction of the gymnasium, ‘Onoshobishobi Ingelosi!’ I heard it just the once and the sad voices in my head began chattering; the trouble in this place had returned.

Doc was overwhelmed by the news of the German surrender and the excitement of the concert, and he sat on the piano stool for a long time sniffling into his bandanna. The Kommandant bade us goodnight and the floodlights had once more been switched off so that the moon, which had risen high in the sky, ruled the night again. Then I remembered Geel Piet. I turned to Doc who looked up at me at the same time, we were thinking the same thing.

‘Geel Piet never came. I cannot understand it. He would not have stayed away,’ Doc said. I could see he felt guilty for not having thought about his absence sooner.

There was a scrunch of footsteps on gravel and soon Gert appeared out of the darkness. ‘Captain Smit says it’s late and school tomorrow, so I must drive you home now, Peekay.’

I was surprised, for I had expected to walk home as always. ‘I’ll go and get changed and take the gloves back,’ I said, and I left Doc sitting on the piano stool, staring at his hands.

‘It was a wonderful concert, Professor,’ I heard Gert say in his halting English as I ran into the dark towards the gymnasium. I entered the side door to the gym and switched on the light, moving past the wooden horse and the medicine balls and giving the punching bag a straight left and a right hook. The big wooden box in which we kept the gloves was just to the side of the ring. I had tied the laces of my gloves together after the concert and had strung them around my neck as before. I secretly felt this made me seem more like a fighter. Now I took the gloves off and threw them towards the box from halfway across the gym. It was almost a good shot with one glove landing inside the wooden box while the other hung over the ring. I moved over to drop the glove in and suddenly, with a certainty I knew always to trust, became aware that something was terribly wrong. I ran over to the wall opposite and turned the ring light on. For a split second the sudden blaze of light blinded me; then I saw the body in the centre of the ring.

Geel Piet lay face down, as though he had fallen, his arms stretched out to either side of him. His head lay in a pool of blood where he had haemorrhaged from the nose and mouth. Without thinking I jumped into the ring screaming, although I could hear no sound coming from me. I fell to my knees beside him and started to shake him, then I rose and took him by one of his arms and tried to pull him to his feet. I began bawling at him, ‘Get up, please get up! If you’ll get up you’ll be alive again!’ But the little yellow man’s body just flopped at the end of his arm and his head bounced in the pool of blood which splattered in an explosion of colour around his face. Inside me the loneliness bird cackled: ‘He’s dead… he’s dead! He’ll never be alive again!’ I kept pulling him and trying to make him come alive. ‘Please, Geel Piet! Please get up, if you can get up you’ll be alive again! It’s true! I promise it’s true! Please!’

There was a trail of blood as I pulled him across the ring. And then I saw that in his other hand he held the picture of Captain Smit, Doc, Gert, myself and himself. The corner of the photograph covering Captain Smit’s head was soaked in blood. I dropped his hand and fell over his body and sobbed and sobbed. Then I felt myself being lifted from Geel Piet’s body by Captain Smit, who held me like a baby in his arms and rocked me as I sobbed uncontrollably into his chest. ‘Shhhh, don’t cry, champ, don’t cry,’ he whispered as he rocked and rocked me. ‘Shhhh. I will avenge you, this I promise. Don’t cry, champ, don’t cry, little brother.’

The festivities in honour of the inspector of prisons were held on the following Saturday night. Doc tried to get out of playing; the death of Geel Piet had upset him dreadfully and the idea of returning to the prison, even for the concert, filled him with apprehension. The Kommandant didn’t quite see it the same way, Geel Piet was simply another Kaffir. ‘No man! Fair is fair! I gave you your Kaffir concert, now I want my brigadier concert! I’m a fair man, and I kept my word. I let you leave the prison the morning after Germany surrendered. A man’s word is his word.’

Doc’s return to his cottage had been an emotional business. Dee and Dum had scrubbed and polished and his home had never been as clean and neat. Gert dropped Doc at the bottom of the hill as the roadway to the cottage had eroded over the four years he’d been away and it wasn’t a good idea to try to drive to the top. Gert reported the road would not allow the truck to return the Steinway; the very next day Klipkop sent a prison gang to repair the road. They worked on it furiously so that it would be ready on the day after the concert for the piano to be returned.

Doc had mentioned on his way home that his first job would be to extend the cactus garden. Gert told Captain Smit who instructed the warder ganger that, after they’d completed the road repairs, the work gang should construct the new terraces Doc required.

Mrs Boxall had ordered groceries from H. C. Duncan, the town’s leading grocery shop, and had made sure that the municipal ratcatcher had been up to the cottage to check the outside lavatory hole to see that no snakes or anything else had made their home down there in the past four years. He had dropped a bucket of chlorine pellets down the hole and for the first week you had to hold your nose against the sharp fumes when you entered. When Dee and Dum unpacked the box of groceries from H. C. Duncan they found that Mrs Boxall had included a parcel of her own which contained one of those really soft rolls of toilet paper. Goodness knows where she found it, because only the hard kind had been available since the war. Dee and Dum held the roll against their cheeks and exclaimed at its softness, marvelling that paper such as this could be used for such a silly purpose. I must say they had a point, Doc would have agreed, for he only ever used the Goldfields News.

Mrs Boxall also gave me a bottle of Johnnie Walker for Doc which she said Mr Goodhead of the Barberton Bottle Store had been fearfully sweet and let her have. After my jaw incident and all the mentions I’d heard of the demon drink down at the Apostolic Faith Mission I wasn’t at all sure that Mrs Boxall was doing the right thing. I carried the whisky up to the cottage convinced that at any moment the Lord might send a bolt of lightning out of the clear blue sky to strike the bottle from my hand and possibly take me along with it. If God could part the Red Sea then striking a bottle of Johnnie Walker with a bolt from the blue seemed like a simple enough thing for Him to do.

For several weeks before Doc’s release Mrs Boxall had been sending the boy from the library to the cottage with his bike basket filled with Doc’s books. She referred to these books as not really the town’s property but simply ‘borrowed for the duration’. When Doc returned to his cottage on the morning after the people’s concert he found it exactly as it had been some four years before, with only the Steinway missing. He told me some weeks later that he sat down on the stoep and wept and wept because his friends had all been so lovely to him.

After school on the first day of Doc’s freedom I found him in his cactus garden cutting a dead trunk from a patch of halfmens; their proper name is Pachypodium namaquanum and they stand about seven feet tall and look like large, prickly elephant trunks sticking out of the ground.

I made coffee and we sat on the stoep for a while. Neither of us had mentioned Geel Piet, both unwilling to share our individual grief. After a while Doc brought up the loss by saying, ‘No more letters for the people. No more anything.’ Then we talked about the garden for a while and Doc pointed to an overgrown hedge of krans aloe which he had originally used as a windbreak and which was now beginning to intrude into the garden. ‘We are being invaded by Aloe arborescens. I will attack soon, ja in one week.’ I could see he loved the idea of making plans again, of being free to decide the divisions of the days and the weeks ahead.

He rose from his stool to refill his coffee mug and groaned. I looked up in alarm to see him trying to conceal his pain with a smile. ‘Ja, I am a domkopf, Peekay. This morning I climb the hill to our rock but such a small climb has made me very stiff. It is four years since, and my muscles are soft and my lungs soon grow tired. It will take maybe a month, maybe more before we can go into the hills again.’ He walked stiffly towards the kitchen where I had left the coffee pot, and for the first time I saw that Doc had become an old man.

He spent most of Thursday and all of Friday in the cactus garden, content to be on his own. He planned an excursion to visit Mrs Boxall at the library on Saturday morning – the day after school broke up for the June holidays and the day of the Kommandant’s concert. He had instructed me to ask her if this would be convenient. Mrs Boxall was in quite a tizz when I told her that Doc would be coming to see her. I also told my granpa of Doc’s visit to the library and early on Saturday morning he cut two dozen long-stemmed pink and red roses for Doc to give to Mrs Boxall. ‘He can’t go giving her a bunch of cactus flowers now, can he?’ he declared a little smugly. My granpa was a rose man and saw no virtue whatsoever in a cactus garden.

We arrived at the library just as the clock on the magistrate’s court tower struck nine. The library was closed and the library boy was sitting on the step outside. ‘The missus, she be come soon,’ he said. Doc started to stride up and down the footpath, stopping to hook his finger into the front of his celluloid collar and to clear his throat. Then I saw Charlie, Mrs Boxall’s little navy blue Austin Seven, coming down the road towards us. It was making a dreadful racket and was obviously quite sick but Doc seemed not to hear it approaching. ‘Here she comes!’ I yelled, and thrust the bunch of roses at him. He jumped visibly and grabbed the flowers with both hands. Charlie lurched to a halt outside the library and the engine died with a clunking sound. Mrs Boxall stuck her head out of the window and spoke to me.

‘Come along, Peekay, give a gel a hand, there’s a good chap,’ she said cheerily. In my anxiety for Doc I didn’t move immediately. ‘Come along, Peekay, open the door, you’re not a Boer you know.’ I hurried to open the door of the Austin. ‘Now that the war is over we can all go back to having nice manners,’ Mrs Boxall said, stepping out of Charlie. I realised she was grateful for the opportunity to chide me so as to cover the first few moments of her reunion with Doc. She looked up at Doc and gave him her best smile. Doc thrust the roses at her. ‘And here’s the man with the nicest manners of all,’ she said, burying her nose into the pink and red blossoms and breathing deeply. ‘There’s nothing quite as charming as roses, don’t you think?’ She cradled them in her arm like the Queen and stretched her hand out towards Doc. ‘Roses say so much without having to say anything at all.’ Doc immediately clicked his heels together, almost knocking himself over in the process, then he bowed stiffly and, taking her hand, lifted it high above her head and kissed it lightly.

‘Madam Boxall,’ he said.

‘Oh dear, I have missed you, Professor. It is so very nice to have you back.’ I thought for a moment that she might cry, but instead she buried her head in the roses again and then looked up brightly. ‘A cup of tea for Peekay and me and for you, Professor, I have some fresh ground Kenya coffee. Peekay, bring my basket from Charlie.’ She handed the roses back to Doc and reached into her handbag for the keys to the library. ‘I’ve baked a lovely Madeira cake, it’s in the tin beside the basket, do be sure to bring it along, Peekay.’

Once we were inside it was like old times. The four and a bit years slipped away and it was the same old Doc and Mrs Boxall. Doc spoke with some consternation of the prospect of returning to the prison that evening to fulfil his obligation to play for the brigadier and Mrs Boxall volunteered to drive us over. Doc, to my enormous surprise, then suggested that she might like to attend the concert and she seemed thrilled at the idea. We phoned Captain Smit who said that Mrs Boxall was most welcome, that any friend of Doc’s was a friend of his.

We then talked for the first time about Geel Piet. Mrs Boxall had never met him but he was almost as real to her as he had been to Doc and me. Doc lamented the fact that the Sandwich Fund was effectively finished and to our surprise Mrs Boxall would hear of no such thing. ‘Just a temporary hiccup, we can’t have Geel Piet thinking we’re a bunch of milk sops. I have a plan.’ She gazed at us steadily. ‘I’m not prepared to reveal it yet, not even to the two of you. But I can tell you this much. I had proposed taking the train to Pretoria but now, by golly, Pretoria seems to have come to us.’ She wore one of her tough expressions and so we didn’t question her any further. ‘It’s my plan, and if it doesn’t work, then only I shall look a proper idiot,’ she declared.

On the night of Geel Piet’s death, Captain Smit had led me sobbing and hiccupping to the blue prison Plymouth where Gert was waiting to drive me home. He had told me that I needed a break from training and was not to return to the prison until the boxing exhibition for the brigadier on Saturday night. It was a nice holiday but as prospective welterweight champion of the world, it worried me that I wasn’t in training. It hadn’t yet occurred to me that I would return to a boxing squad that was now without Geel Piet, and that from now on I would simply be the most junior boxer under Captain Smit’s concerned but preoccupied care.

On Saturday night Mrs Boxall picked us up at the bottom of Doc’s road. Even though the road was now in splendid repair Charlie, in his present state of health, was not considered capable of climbing it. We arrived at the prison just before seven o’clock and made our way to the hall. Doc’s piano recital was to be the first item of the evening: it was the cultural part, it was thought best to get it over with while everyone was still well behaved. After that, the audience would go through into the gym for the boxing exhibition and then back to the hall for the tiekiedraai dancing and braaivlies. The air smelt smoky from the braaivleis fires which had been lit on the parade ground immediately outside the hall. Someone was already playing a piano accordion in the dark, his swaying torso silhouetted by the light from one of the fires.

Mrs Boxall, Doc and I found three seats in the front row so that Doc could get to the Steinway easily. I hadn’t seen Gert since he had driven me home four days before and he now made a special point of coming over to me. I excused myself and we moved off into the corner for a chat. Gert told me again how sorry he was about Geel Piet and how it wasn’t the same without him on the boxing squad.

‘Man, I don’t understand, he was only a Kaffir but I miss him a lot,’ he confided. He also told me that the brigadier’s inspection was an all-time success and that Lieutenant Borman was up to his eyeballs in the Kommandant’s good books right up until late that afternoon.

‘What happened this afternoon?’ I asked, delighted at the suggestion that Lieutenant Borman might have fallen from grace.

‘The brigadier stood up and said to us all that he had never seen a prison in better shape. But that also Pretoria had heard of the Kaffir concert.’ He paused and his eyes grew wide, ‘I’m telling you, man, we knew who had told them about it and we thought we were in a lot of trouble.’ He shook his head from side to side. ‘But it wasn’t like that at all. The brigadier said that it was a piece of proper prison reform and that Barberton led the way and the Kommandant was to be congratulated. Not only were the prison buildings and grounds immaculate and the discipline first class, but also prison reform was taking place that was an example to the rest of the country. You should have seen Pinkie Borman’s face, man, he was furious. I nearly wet my pants. Everyone was looking at him with this big smile on their faces, even the Kommandant.’

Snotnose came over and said Doc wanted me. Gert told me he’d see me later in the gym. Doc had decided to play Chopin’s Nocturne No. 5, the same piece I had so unsuccessfully been coming to grips with for some weeks. I knew the music well enough to turn the pages for him and that’s why he had sent for me. Doc had agreed to play two pieces for the concert. When I had enquired about the second piece he had said it was to be a surprise and that after the Chopin nocturne I was to return to my seat beside Mrs Boxall.

The hall was almost full, and the warders and their wives and guests from the town had all taken their seats when the Kommandant walked to the front of the hall and stood beside the Steinway.

‘Dames and Here,’ he began, ‘it gives me much pleasure to welcome you all to this concert in honour of our good friend Brigadier Joubert, Transvaal Inspector of Prisons. The brigadier this very afternoon said nice things about Barberton prison and I just want to say to all my men that I am proud of you. Now it is our turn to say nice things about the brigadier who is a good kêrel and also a good revolver shot as some of us saw at the pistol range this afternoon. We thank him for his visit and,’ the Kommandant grinned, ‘for going so easy on us.’ The audience laughed and he continued, ‘No, seriously, man, it is men like Brigadier Joubert who make the South African Prison service a place where good men can hold their heads up high.’ He paused and seemed to be examining the large gold signet ring on his hand before looking up again. ‘The concert we held for the black prisoners last week, the brigadier was kind enough to say, was a good example of prison reform. It was just a little idea I had and it worked. But the brigadier is a man of big ideas that work, a big man who gives us inspiration and strength to continue.’ I could feel Mrs Boxall’s arm trembling against my own and I turned to see her trying very hard not to laugh. ‘He is a man of the Church, a God-fearing man and a man dedicated to the prison service.’ The audience broke out in spontaneous applause and the Kommandant let it go on for a moment before holding his hand up. ‘He is also a cultured man, which brings me to our first item on the programme for tonight.’ He cleared his throat and looked around. ‘All of you know that we have had in this prison as our guest,’ one or two titters issued from the audience and the Kommandant went on, ‘no, I mean it, man, as our honoured guest for the past four years, a man who is a musical genius. This is the last time we will hear him play for us. Last week he helped us with the prisoners’ concert and tonight he is giving a personal one just for us in Brigadier Joubert’s honour. I ask you now to welcome Professor Von Vollensteen.’ Doc rose and did a small bow to the audience and gave me a nod and with the applause continuing we moved over to the Steinway.

Doc lost no time getting started and the Kommandant was still on his way to his seat when the first notes of the Chopin nocturne filled the hall. At first the music was wonderfully relaxed, deceptively simple and straightforward and then, as the recital continued, the melody line became more and more ornamental.

Doc’s finger technique was remarkable as the delicate filigree writing for the right hand came into play. In the middle section the music became more and more complex, fast and urgent, leading to a long crescendo and frenzied climax where Doc could shake his head a lot and bang furiously at the keys which he knew the audience would like. The nocturne ended with an elegant descent in steps towards a rustling, almost muted final chord.

Doc had chosen well. Chopin’s Nocturne No. 5 is not difficult music to understand and it is very beautiful. The audience stood up, clapped and seemed very pleased. Doc rose and took a bow and nodded for me to return to my seat next to Mrs Boxall. Then he removed several sheets of music from inside his piano stool and fixed them carefully to the music rack. He turned to the audience and cleared his throat.

‘Ladies and gentleman. Tonight I would like to dedicate this next piece of music, which I have played once only before, to a friend, a very good friend. I have named this music by his name and it is for him. I give you, “Requiem for Geel Piet”!’

Without further ado Doc sat down at the Steinway and commenced to play the Concerto of the Great Southland which he had now renamed. The melodies of the tribal songs seemed to take over the hall, as the Ndebele song followed the Sotho with its more strident rhythm, Doc’s left hand taking the part of the solo high-pitched voice and the right chasing it as the singers themselves had done. The Swazi melody followed and then the Shangaan, each separated by the haunting refrain that carried a hint of each, yet acted to lead away from the one and into the other. Finally came the victory song of the great Shaka and the Steinway seemed to build the drama of the magnificent Zulu impi, the chords crashing as they marched into battle. The requiem closed with a muted and very beautiful compilation of the songs of the tribes. The music seemed to swell as all around us from the cells beyond the hall the voices came as the tribes completed the requiem. Geel Piet, who had had no tribe, whose blood was the mixture of all the people of Southern Africa – the white tribe, the Bushman, the Hottentot, the Cape Malay and the black tribal blood of Africa itself – was celebrated in death by all the tribes. He was the new man of Southern Africa, the result of three hundred years of torture, treachery, racism and slaughter in the name of one colour or another.

There was a special kind of silence as the performance ended. To our own was joined the silence of the listeners beyond the hall. We had all been a part of the lament for Africa. Requiem for Geel Piet was a lament for all of us, the tears shed for South Africa itself.

During the applause Brigadier Joubert, the Inspector of Prisons, rose from his seat and moved to the front of the hall. He raised his hands for silence and the hall grew quiet again. Taking a khaki handkerchief from his trouser pocket he slowly wiped his eyes and began to speak very emotionally.

‘Tonight, Dames and Here, we have heard a work of true genius. Whoever this Geel Piet was, we know from his name that he was an Afrikaner who is honoured by this music. He was also the spirit of Africa and as Afrikaners we should all honour him and his death.’ He folded the handkerchief neatly and put it back into the pocket of his tunic. ‘All I can say is that he must have been a great man for the professor to write a piece of music just for him. I now ask you all to stand and to bring your hands together once again for the professor.’ I saw that Captain Smit had a big smile on his face and was clapping madly. Even the Kommandant seemed to have decided to ignore the irony, he was clapping for all he was worth. I think he must have seen a colonel’s insignia on the lapel of his uniform in the very near future.

Doc stood with his head bowed throughout the brigadier’s speech and I could see that he had his bandanna out and was doing one of his sniffs into it. I knew he was crying for Geel Piet. But I also knew Geel Piet would have found this moment very funny.

‘Ag, man,’ he would have said, ‘why must a man always wait until he is dead for such a clever joke to heppen?’

Then the warders, wives and guests moved into the gym to watch the boxing exhibition. The chairs were being cleared from the hall to get ready for the Boere music and tiekiedraai which, with the braaivleis, were the highlight of the evening.

Captain Smit had worked out a routine for the boxing exhibition which was pretty clever. All the boxers were seated in a row facing the ring and he was in the ring with a whistle round his neck, acting as referee. When the audience had filled the gym he blew his whistle and I climbed into the ring with Snotnose. We shook hands and Captain Smit blew his whistle again and Snotnose and I started to box. The idea was that every round, one of the boxers would step down and another would replace him. As the youngest I stepped out first and Fonnie Kruger came in and boxed the next round with Snotnose. Then Maatie Snyman replaced Snotnose and fought Fonnie and then Fonnie stepped down and Nels Stekhoven came in and so on right up to the heavyweights, where Klipkop fought Gert and then as a joke I stepped in and fought the final round with Klipkop. It was a good way to entertain the crowd, as every boxer ended up fighting someone lighter and heavier than himself and we fought as hard as we could to give them a good show. It all went like clockwork and not a word was spoken by Captain Smit who just blew his whistle to start and stop a round. When I stepped into the ring with Klipkop the crowd cheered like mad and someone said, ‘Murder da bum, Peekay!’ and everybody laughed. I danced around Klipkop and gave him a terrible time, punching him in the solar plexus. He also attempted to take my head off with huge uppercuts, always missing by a mile. The crowd enjoyed it a lot and finally Captain Smit blew his whistle and held my hand up and there was a lot of cheering.

Afterwards, as the crowd was leaving, I went over to Doc and Mrs Boxall to tell them that I had to change and would see them at the braaivleis. Mrs Boxall said that she wanted to have a word with the inspector chappie and that she’d be obliged if Doc would go with her for moral support, so they’d see me later. As I turned to go she called me back.

‘Peekay, I must say I’ve never been too keen on your boxing. But you do seem to be rather good at it and I do believe you will be a welterweight champion of the world some day. Jolly well done is all I can say!’

‘A champion already. Absoloodle!’ Doc added.

We were all in the showers changing when Klipkop came in. ‘Captain Smit wants you all to come back into the gym when you finished. Make quick, you must all be there in the next ten minutes. When you get into the gym the lights will be off. Only the lights above the ring will be on.’ He had changed hurriedly as he spoke and now he fumbled with his shirt buttons and then sat down and pulled on his socks and shoes. ‘Sit in the dark and be very quiet. Not near the door but on the far side of the ring, you hear?’ We all nodded and he hurried from the room.

We hadn’t been seated long in the darkened gym when one of the double doors opened spilling a shaft of light from the passage into the gymnasium. Caught in the light were Captain Smit, Klipkop and, standing between them, Lieutenant Borman. The door swung back into place and we could only dimly see the three men walking towards the ring, while they would not have been able to see us. Then they appeared suddenly in the circle of light illuminating the ring.

‘Climb in, Borman, up into the ring,’ Captain Smit said.

‘What you doing, man, what’s happening?’ we heard Lieutenant Borman say.

‘Just climb in, we’ll tell you in a minute. Everything will be made clear in a minute,’ Captain Smit said. Borman climbed up into the ring and Captain Smith and Klipkop followed. A pair of boxing gloves hung from the posts of each of the two boxers’ corners and in one of the neutral corners lay what appeared to be a piece of rolled up canvas. Like Captain Smit, Lieutenant Borman was wearing civilian clothes, an open neck shirt and long pants. Captain Smit leaned into the ropes and removed his shoes, leaving his socks on.

‘Take off your shoes, please, lieutenant,’ Klipkop said politely.

‘Hey man, what’s going on here?’ Borman said, with just a hint of apprehension in his voice. ‘I’m not going to fight, man. I don’t want to fight nobody. What’s going on?’

‘Take off your shoes, please, lieutenant,’ Klipkop repeated. Captain Smit picked up his shoes and placed them neatly beside a corner post.

‘I got no quarrel with you, Smit. I never done anything personally to you. Why do you want to fight me?’

‘Take off your shoes or am I going to have to take them off for you, lieutenant?’ Klipkop asked calmly.

‘Keep you hands off me, you hear,’ Borman snarled. ‘I am your superior, Oudendaal! You show me respect or you on report, you hear?’ He seemed to gain courage from the sound of his voice, shaking his finger as he shouted at Klipkop. Klipkop sighed, shook his head slowly and started to move towards Lieutenant Borman. Borman hurriedly pulled one shoe off and dropped it on the canvas, then removed the other and placed them both in the neutral corner right next to the rolled up piece of canvas.

From the moment Captain Smit had stepped into the ring he had remained silent, and I could sense this was beginning to unnerve Borman. Klipkop lifted the gloves from the post nearest to the lieutenant and walked over to him.

‘Give me your hand please, sir,’ he said in a matter of fact sort of voice.

Lieutenant Borman immediately folded his arms, tucking his hands under his armpits. ‘No, man! No way! You can’t make me fight, man. Let Smit tell me first what I done.’ Captain Smit had retrieved the gloves in his corner; placing one between his legs, he slipped his hand into the other. ‘Jus’ tell me, you hear!’ Borman shouted. Captain Smit looked up from the glove straight at Borman. Keeping his eyes fixed on the lieutenant he slowly pulled the glove from his fist and dropped it, then opened his knees so that the second glove also fell onto the canvas. He walked over to the neutral corner and picked up the object lying there. We could now see, for sure, that it was a roll of canvas. He held the roll up to his chin so that it unrolled. My heart gave an enormous leap. The canvas sheet Captain Smit was holding was covered with dry blood. Borman pulled back in horror but then, as quickly, recovered himself.

‘What’s this, man? I never saw that before in my whole life.’

Captain Smit said nothing but began to roll the canvas up again. I had been terrified, when I climbed into the ring earlier, that I might see signs of Geel Piet’s blood, but the old canvas had been removed and the ring re-covered. The sight of Captain Smit holding part of the old blood-stained canvas brought back the shock I had felt, and without realising it I began to sob. Suddenly a large, hard hand covered my mouth and Gert’s arm came around my shoulder and drew me into him.

Captain Smit put the canvas back in the corner and retrieved the boxing gloves. Klipkop pulled Borman’s arms open and slipped his gloves on. This time the lieutenant made no move to stop Klipkop who laced up the gloves.

‘I don’t know what you talking about, you hear! I swear I was at home the night the Kaffir died. I can prove it! I had to go home because my wife had an asthma attack. Everybody saw I wasn’t at the Kaffir concert. That’s because I was at home, I got called on the telephone, my wife had a bad attack and I had to go home. You’re mad, I’m telling you, you’re mad, I never done it. I never killed the Kaffir!’

Klipkop finished tying Captain Smit’s gloves and he walked to the centre of the ring. ‘No butting, no kicking, fight like a man,’ Klipkop said, and climbed out of the ring leaving Smit and Borman to fight.

Captain Smit started across the ring towards Lieutenant Borman, but Borman held up his glove open-handed. ‘Look. I admit I phoned Pretoria about the Kaffir concert, I admit that. Orright you got me on that. I thought I was right, I done my duty, that’s all. You can’t blame me for that. I done what I thought was right.’

Captain Smit brushed the open glove aside with a left and drove a hard right into the soft spot of gut that spilt over Borman’s belt. The lieutenant doubled up, clasping at his stomach with both hands trying to catch his breath. Smit stood over him waiting. Without warning, Borman suddenly smashed his gloved fist into Captain Smit’s balls. The captain staggered back, grabbing at his genitals, and then he sank to his knees. Borman was on him in a flash, and catching him on the side of the jaw he sent Captain Smit crashing to the canvas. Borman shouted, ‘You Kaffirboetie, you nigger lover, don’t fuck with me you hear, man!’ He kicked Captain Smit in the ribs just as Klipkop, who had climbed back into the ring, reached him and brought his arms around him. But Borman’s blood was up, he was a big man, and he jerked free just as Captain Smit was attempting to rise. He caught Smit another solid blow to the side of the head, putting him back on the canvas. Klipkop tried to hold Lieutenant Borman again.

‘I killed the bastard, you hear!’ Borman shouted. ‘I killed that yellow nigger. He wouldn’t tell me who gave him the letters, who brought the letters in. I caught him red-handed, two letters, man, red-handed! Two fucking letters in his pocket. He wouldn’t tell me. I broke every bone in his face. I jammed the fucking donkey prick up his arse till he shit his entrails, but he wouldn’t tell me! The black bastard wouldn’t talk!’ There were flecks of foam at the corners of Borman’s mouth and he began to sob.

Captain Smit had dragged himself to his feet and stood facing Borman, who was no longer trying to get out of the bear hug Klipkop held him in. Bringing his gloves up, Smit signalled to Borman to come and fight. Klipkop released his grip and Borman rushed at Smit, walking into a straight left from Smit that stopped him in his tracks. Borman charged in again and Captain Smit stopped him again, repeating the straight left into the face. It was obvious that Borman had never been a boxer. A trickle of blood ran from his nose and he brought his arm up to wipe it. A smear of blood covered the top of his arm and he stared down in horror at it. ‘Shit, I’m bleeding!’ he cried. ‘Jesus Christ, I’m bleeding!’

Then Captain Smit stepped up and smashed his glove into Borman’s face. The blow seemed to flatten Borman’s nose and he dropped to the canvas. Covering his face with his gloves, he wailed, ‘Don’t hit me, please don’t hit me!’

Captain Smit signalled to Klipkop to get Borman back onto his feet. Klipkop got his arms under Borman’s armpits but the man refused to get up. The blood from his nose had stained his white shirt and his eyes were wide with terror. Klipkop let him go and he dropped to the ground; then, crawling on all fours towards Captain Smit, Borman held Smit around the legs. ‘Please don’t hit me, Captain. I don’t understand, why you doing this to me? It was only a Kaffir, a dirty stinking yellow man, why you hitting a white man over a Kaffir?’

Captain Smit kicked his legs free of Borman’s embrace. ‘You can’t even fight, you low bastard. You can’t even stand up and fight like man!’ It was the first time Smit had spoken since they’d entered the ring. He turned and extended his hands to Klipkop who unlaced and removed the gloves. Then Smit went over to the neutral corner, picked up the canvas roll and unrolled it beside the sobbing officer. Klipkop grabbed Borman by the legs and Captain Smit grabbed him around the wrists and they lifted him and placed him on the blood-stained canvas and rolled it around him. ‘This Kaffir’s blood will haunt you till you die,’ Captain Smit said. He picked up his shoes and then he and Klipkop climbed from the ring. Klipkop moved over to the wall and reaching for the switch plunged the gymnasium into darkness.

In the darkness from the direction of the swing doors there came a sudden shout, ‘Abantu bingelela Onoshobishobi Ingelosi!’ The people salute the Tadpole Angel! The door opened slightly and in the shaft of light it threw we saw a black figure slip quickly out of the gymnasium. The people knew. The curse was fixed. Lieutenant Borman was dead meat.

When I got outside, the tiekiedraai dancing was already going full swing with someone on the Mignon hammering out the Boeremusiek accompanied by the man with the piano accordion and a banjo player. Outside, on the parade ground, warders and their wives stood around the barbecue fires now burnt down to glowing embers, homemade sausages known as boerewors were held over the fires and the sizzle of the fat dropping from the sausage skins made the embers flare in the dark.

Doc and Mrs Boxall were nowhere to be seen. I watched the guy beating the Mignon half to death, thankful he wasn’t using Doc’s Steinway, when I felt a tap on my shoulder. ‘Howzit?’ It was Gert. ‘How you getting home?’ he enquired. ‘Maybe I can borrow the Plymouth and take you all.’ I explained that Mrs Boxall had brought us in her old crock which made a fearful racket and I was doubtful that it had long to live. ‘You know where the professor and that lady is don’t you?’ Not waiting for my reply, he said: ‘I seen them going into the administration building with the brigadier and the Kommandant.’

Gert was amazing like that; he always seemed to know what was going on. ‘Maybe the professor will get a medal or something for the Kaffir concert.’ Then he giggled, ‘Jesus! I hope the brigadier never finds out that Geel Piet was only a broken down old lag.’ He punched me lightly on the shoulder, ‘Sorry man, about shutting your mouth back there.’ I hung my head, the memory of the blood-stained canvas still too sharp in my mind for me to chance looking at him.

‘You did right,’ I said softly.

‘So long, Peekay, I’d better kick the dust,’ Gert said. At last Doc and Mrs Boxall came out. I ran up to them and I could see Mrs Boxall was excited.

‘By Jove, Peekay, miracles will never cease. I do believe we’ve done it!’ she exclaimed.

‘Done what?’ I asked.

‘Have done what?’ she corrected automatically. ‘We have been given permission to start a letter writing service. Isn’t that simply grand news? The brigadier says that every prisoner may send and receive one letter a month. It’s the first time it has happened in South Africa and it’s going on trial for six months.’ She grabbed me by the hand and Doc by the other and we danced around in a circle to the sound of the tiekiedraai music coming from the hall. ‘You’re going to be needed because you speak three African languages as well as English and Afrikaans. Every Sunday morning after church we’ll come out for two hours and take dictation from the prisoners. I say, it’s a real victory for the forces of good. The brigadier was most impressed when I told him that it would be done under the auspices of the Earl of Sandwich Fund,’ she stopped, puffed from the dancing, and then giggled. ‘The Kommandant assured the brigadier that the Earl of Sandwich Fund was a very respected organisation with worldwide contacts and that all the warders’ wives baked for it at the Christmas and Easter show.’ We all started to laugh. Doc finally said, ‘Madam Boxall, you are absoloodle the best. For this I give you eleven out of ten.’

She did a small curtsey. ‘Why thank you, kind sir!’ She gave Doc one of her extra special smiles. We hung around for a while longer just so we wouldn’t seem rude and finally made our way to the car. As we approached we could hear soft grunting sounds and then we saw that a pair of boots was sticking out from under Charlie. Gert got up sheepishly and wiped his grease-blackened hands on the sides of his khaki shorts. He bowed awkwardly to Mrs Boxall.

‘Does Mevrou speak Afrikaans?’ he asked me.

I shook my head. ‘I’ll translate, if you like?’

Gert nodded. ‘Tell her she’s got more power now, you only had three cylinders firing,’ he spoke fast, swallowing his words as he fought his shyness, ‘but you still got a bad knock in the diff.’ He turned to Mrs Boxall. ‘If you can get it here tomorrow, maybe just after you been to church, I’ll borrow the Plymouth and drive you home and I’ll fix the car up for you.’ I introduced Gert to Mrs Boxall and translated what he’d said. Mrs Boxall was very grateful and called Gert ‘A dear, sweet boy,’ which I didn’t translate but I think he understood because he seemed very embarrassed.

‘Oh dear, I have no idea what a knock in the diff is. Is it something very bad?’

‘It’s the differential, I think it’s pretty bad,’ I replied without consulting Gert.

Pulling up his socks which were already pulled up Gert stammered, ‘Good night, Missis,’ in English and then walked quickly away into the dark.

We zoomed away and Mrs Boxall had no trouble driving up the Sheba road hill. The difference in Charlie was amazing now that we were driving on all cylinders. We dropped Doc off at the bottom of his hill. I think the new four-cylinder Charlie could’ve made it easily but Mrs Boxall had never been invited by Doc to his cottage and she said as she drove me home, ‘This wasn’t the right time’ – whatever that was supposed to mean.