Indecent Exposure (10 page)

“We’ve all got to make sacrifices for a White South Africa,” said Verkramp, “which reminds me. I want you to move your digs every few days. That’s what real saboteurs do and you’ve got to be really convincing this time.”

“All right, so I blow the transformer. What then?”

“Do as I say. Mingle with the students and the lefties and let it be known you’re a saboteur. You’ll soon find the swine letting you in on their plans.”

745396 was doubtful. “How do I prove I blew the transformer?” he asked. Verkramp considered the problem.

“You’ve got a point there,” he agreed, “I suppose if you could show them some gelignite it would do the trick.”

“Fine,” said 745396 sarcastically, “and where do I get gelly from? I don’t keep the stuff handy you know.”

“The police armoury,” said Verkramp, “I’ll have a key cut and you can take some out when you need it.”

“What do I do when I’ve found the real saboteurs?” 745396 asked.

“Get them to blow something up and inform me before they do so that we can nab the bastards,” said Verkramp, and having arranged to drop the key of the police armoury at an arranged spot, he handed over 500 rand from Security Branch funds for expenses and left 745396 to fix the distributor he had taken to bits.

“Remember to get them to blow something up before we arrest them,” Verkramp told the agent before he left. “It’s important that we have proof of sabotage so we can hang the swine. I don’t want any conspiracy trials this time. I want proof of terrorism.”

He drove off to his next rendezvous and during the course of the next two days twelve secret agents had left their jobs and had been given targets round Piemburg to destroy. Twelve keys for the police armoury had been cut and Verkramp felt confident that he was about to strike a blow for freedom and Western Civilization in Piemburg which would significantly advance his career.

Back in his office Luitenant Verkramp checked the scheme and memorized all the details carefully before burning the file on Operation Red Rout as an added precaution against a security leak. He was particularly proud of his system of secret agents whom he had recruited separately over the years and paid out of the funds allocated by
BOSS
for informers. Each agent used a nom de guerre and was known to Verkramp only by his number so that there was nothing to connect him with
BOSS
. The method by which the agents reported back to him was similarly devious and consisted of coded messages placed in “drops” where they were collected by Verkramp’s security men. Each day of the week had a different code and a different “drop” which ensured that Verkramp’s men never met his agents, of whose existence they were only vaguely aware. The fact that the system was complex and that there were seven codes and seven drops for each agent and that there were twelve agents would have meant that there was an enormous amount of work being done had it not been for lack of Communist and subversive activity in Piemburg to be reported. In the past Verkramp had been lucky to receive more than one coded message per week, and that inevitably of no value. Now it would be different and he looked forward to an influx of information.

Having initiated Operation Red Rout, Luitenant Verkramp considered his second campaign, that against miscegenating policemen, which he had code-named White Wash. Out of defence to Dr Eysenck he had decided to try apomorphine injections as well as electric shock and sent Sergeant Breitenbach to a wholesale chemist with an order for one hundred hypodermic syringes and two gallons of apomorphine.

“Two gallons?” asked the chemist incredulously. “Are you sure you’ve got this right?”

“Quite sure,” said Sergeant Breitenbach.

“And a hundred hypodermics?” asked the chemist, who still couldn’t believe his ears.

“That’s what I said,” insisted the Sergeant.

“I know that’s what you said but it doesn’t seem possible,” the chemist told him. “What in God’s name are you going to do with two gallons?”

Sergeant Breitenbach had been briefed by Verkramp.

“It’s for curing alcoholics,” he said.

“Dear God,” said the chemist, “I didn’t know there was that number of alcoholics in the country.”

“It makes them sick,” the Sergeant explained.

“You can say that again,” muttered the chemist. “With two gallons you could probably kill them all off too. Probably block the sewage system into the bargain. Anyway I can’t supply it.”

“Why not?”

“Well for one thing I haven’t got two gallons and wouldn’t know where to get it and for another you need a doctor’s prescription and I doubt if any doctor in his right mind would prescribe two gallons of apomorphine anyway.”

Sergeant Breitenbach reported his refusal to Luitenant Verkramp.

“Need a doctor’s prescription,” he said.

“You can get one from the police surgeon,” Verkramp told him and the Sergeant went down to the police morgue where the surgeon was performing an autopsy on an African who had been beaten to death during questioning.

“Natural causes,” he wrote on the death certificate before attending to Sergeant Breitenbach.

“There’s a limit to what I’m prepared to do,” said the surgeon with a sudden display of professional ethics. “I’ve got my Hippocratic oath to consider and I’m not issuing prescriptions for two gallons. A thousand cc is the most I’ll do and if Verkramp wants anything more out of them he’ll have to tickle their throats with a feather.”

“Is that enough?”

“At 3cc a dose you should get 330 pukes,” said the surgeon. “Don’t overdo it though. I’ve got my work cut out signing death certificates as it is.”

“Stingy old bastard,” said Verkramp when Sergeant Breitenbach returned from the chemist with twenty hypodermics and 1000cc of apomorphine. “The next thing we need is slides of kaffir girls in the raw. You can get the police photographer to take those as soon as the Kommandant leaves on Friday.”

While his deputy was making these preparations for Kommandant van Heerden’s holiday, the Kommandant was adjusting himself to the change of plans occasioned by Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon’s letter. He was just passing the desk in the police station when Major Bloxham arrived.

“A letter for Kommandant van Heerden,” said the Major.

Kommandant van Heerden turned back. “That’s me,” he said. “Pleased to make your acquaintance,” and shook the Major’s hand vigorously.

“Bloxham, Major,” said the Major nervously. Police stations always had this effect on him.

The Kommandant opened the mauve envelope and glanced at the letter.

“Hunting season. Always the same,” said the Major, by way of explanation, and alarmed by the suffusion of blood to the Kommandant’s face. “Damned awkward. Sorry.”

Kommandant van Heerden stuffed the letter hurriedly into his pocket.

“Yes. Well. Hm,” he said awkwardly.

“Any message?”

“No. Yes. I’ll stay at the hotel,” said the Kommandant and was about to shake hands again. But Major Bloxham had already left the police station and was getting his breath back in the street. The Kommandant went upstairs to his office and read the letter again in a state of considerable agitation. It was hardly the sort of letter he had expected to receive from Mrs. Heathcote-Kilkoon.

“Darling Van,” he read, “I feel so terrible writing to you like this but I’m sure you’ll understand. Aren’t husbands a frightful bore? It’s just that Henry’s being awkward and I would so love to have you but I think it would be better for all our sakes if you stayed at the hotel. It’s this wretched club thing of his and he’s so stubborn and anyway I’m sure you’ll be more comfortable there and you can come and eat with us. Please say you will and don’t be angry, Your loving Daphne.” It was heavily scented.

Unaccustomed as he was to receiving perfumed letters on mauve deckle-edged paper from other men’s wives, the Kommandant found the contents quite bewildering. What Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon meant by calling him Darling Van and describing her husband as a dreadful bore he could only surmise, but he was hardly surprised that Henry was being awkward. Given half an inkling that his wife was writing letters like this, the Colonel had every right to be awkward and the Kommandant, recalling the Major’s enigmatic remark about the hunting season being always the same, shuddered.

On the other hand the notion that he found favour in Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon’s eyes, and if the letter was anything to go by there wasn’t much doubt about that, appealed to the chivalrous instincts of the Kommandant. Of course, he wouldn’t be angry. Circumspect certainly but not angry. After consulting Etiquette for Everyman to see what it had to say about replying to amorous letters from married women and finding it of little use, the Kommandant began to draft a reply. As he couldn’t decide for ten minutes whether to use Dearest, My Dear, or simply Dear the letter took some considerable time to write and in its final form read, “Dearest Daphne, Kommandant van Heerden has pleasure in accepting Colonel & Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon’s kind invitation to stay at the hotel. He also has pleasure in accepting your invitation to dinner. Yours affectionately, Van,” which the Kommandant thought was a nice blend of informal and formal and unlikely to offend anyone. He sent it up by police messenger to the Heathcote-Kilkoons’ house at Piltdown. Then he turned his attention to the map and planned his route to Weezen. Lying at the foot of the Aardvark mountains, the little town had something of a reputation as a health resort – had once in fact been something of a spa – but in recent years had been forgotten like Piemburg itself and replaced as a holiday centre by the skyscrapers and motels along the coast.

On Friday morning the Kommandant was up early and on the road to Weezen. He had packed his fishing rod and the paraphernalia he had acquired for his holiday in the boot of his car the night before and was wearing his Norfolk jacket and brown brogues. As he drove up the long hill out of Piemburg he looked down at the red tin roofs without regret. It was a long time since he had permitted himself a holiday and he was looking forward to learning at first hand how the British aristocracy really lived on their country estates. As the sun rose the Kommandant turned off the national road at Leopard’s River and was presently bucketing over the corrugations of the dirt road towards the mountains. Around him the countryside varied according to the race of its occupants, being gentle undulating grassland in the white areas and, down by the Voetsak River which was part of Pondoland and therefore a black area, badly eroded scrub country where goats climbed the lower branches of the trees to gnaw at the leaves. The Kommandant practised being British by smiling at the Africans by the side of the road but got little response and after a while gave it up. At Sjambok he stopped for morning coffee which he asked for in English instead of his usual Afrikaans and was delighted when the Indian waiter diplomatically asked him if he was an overseas visitor.

He left Sjambok in high spirits and an hour later was threading the pass over Rooi Nek. At the top he stopped and got out of the car to look at the countryside which had figured recently so much in his imagination. The reality exceeded his expectations. Weezen lay on a rolling upland of gentle hills and meadows through which streams meandered to a lazy river glinting in the distance. Here and there a wood darkened a hillside or bordered the river to add a darker green to the landscape, or a grove of trees sheltered a farmhouse. In the distance the mountains rose in a great crescent above the rolling plateau and above them again a sky of impeccable blue darkened towards the meridian. To Kommandant van Heerden, emerging from the dusty dryness of the Rooi Nek pass, the countryside before him spoke of the shires of England. “It’s just like a picture on a biscuit-tin,” he murmured ecstatically, “only more real,” before climbing back into the hot seat of his car and driving on down the curving dirt road into Weezen.

Here again his hopes were more than realized. The little town, hardly more than a village, was unspoilt. A stone-built church with a lych-gate, a colonial baronial town hall with rusting metal gargoyles, and a row of shops with an arcade looked onto a square in the centre of which Queen Victoria sat plumply staring with evident distaste over a kaffir who was lying asleep on a bench in the garden at her feet. Whatever else had changed in South Africa since her Diamond Jubilee it was clear that Weezen hadn’t and the Kommandant, for whom the British Empire still retained its magic, rejoiced in the fact. “No pot-smoking long-hairs lounging about juke boxes here,” he thought happily, stopping the car and entering a trading store which smelt of sacks and polish. He asked a tall gaunt man the way to the hotel.

“Bar or bed?” the man asked with a taciturnity the Kommandant felt was wholly authentic.

“Bed,” said the Kommandant.

“That’ll be Willow Water,” the man told him. “Half a mile on. There’s a sign.”

The Kommandant went out and drove on. “Willow Water Guest Farm,” said a sign and the Kommandant turned in down a narrow drive lined with blue gums to a low stucco building which looked less like an hotel than an abandoned pumping station of a defunct waterworks. The Kommandant stopped his car uncertainly on the mossy forecourt and looked at the building without enthusiasm. Whatever it was it wasn’t what he had expected. Above the doorway he could just make out the faded inscription Weezen Spa and Philosophical Society, made pointillist by the suckers of some long-since decayed creeper. He got out and climbed the steps to the little terrace and peered through the revolving door into the interior vaguely aware that several large flies, trapped in the door, were buzzing insistently. Neither their presence nor what he could see of the foyer suggested that the place was much frequented. The Kommandant pushed through the revolving door and leaving the flies trapped on the other side stood looking around him at the white-tiled hall. Light from a glass dome in the roof illuminated what appeared to be the inquiry desk in a niche at the far end and the Kommandant crossed to it and banged the brass bell that stood there on the marble top. “I’ve come to the wrong place,” he thought looking uneasily at a plaque above a doorway which said Thermal Douche No 1, and he was about to make his way back to town when a door slammed somewhere in the distance to be followed by the sound of slippers shuffling along the corridor and an elderly man appeared.