Indecent Exposure (20 page)

“They seemed to like it this morning,” he said. He was getting sick of scrabbling through the fence for obviously well-filled condoms. Finally, after 378550 had bought two ice-creams and a chocolate bar and the sheath had been smeared with ice cream by itself and chocolate by itself and then with a mixture of the two, the proceedings were interrupted by the arrival of a Sanctuary warden fetched by the lady who had been feeding the ducks. 628461 who had just rescued the French letter from the ostriches’ enclosure for the eighth time stuffed it hurriedly into his pocket.

“Are these the men you saw trying to feed the ostriches with foreign matter?” the warden asked.

“Yes, they are,” said the lady emphatically.

The warden turned to 628461.

“Were you trying to induce the bird to digest a quantity of something or other contained in the thing this lady says you were?” he asked.

“Certainly not,” said 628461 indignantly.

“You were too,” said the lady, “I saw you.”

“I’ll ask you to move along,” said the warden.

As the little group moved off 745396 pointed out how right he had been.

“I told you ostriches weren’t so dumb,” he said and put 628461’s back up still further. He’d just discovered that the sheath in his back pocket had burst.

“I thought you were supposed to get Crêpe de Chines,” he grumbled to 885974 and tried to empty his pocket of earth, chocolate, ice cream and ostrich droppings.

“What am I going to do with twelve dozen Frenchies?” 885974 asked.

It took 378550 to come up with a solution. “Popcorn and honey”, he said suddenly.

“What about it?” 628461 asked.

“Coat them with popcorn and honey and I guarantee they’ll swallow the things.”

At the first shop they came to 378550 bought a packet of popcorn and a pot of honey and taking a contraceptive from 885794 went back to the Bird Sanctuary to try his recipe out.

“Worked like a treat,” he reported ten minutes later. “Swallowed the thing in one gulp.”

“What do we do when we’ve filled them all up and set the fuse?” 745396 asked doubtfully.

“Lay a trail of popcorn into the centre of town, of course,” 628461 told him. The group dispersed to collect their stocks of gelignite and that night at nine gathered at the Bird Sanctuary. The sense of mutual suspicion which had so informed their earlier meetings had been quite replaced by a genuine cameraderie. Verkramp’s agents were beginning to enjoy themselves.

“If this works,” 628461 said, “there’s no reason why we shouldn’t try the zoo.”

“I’m damned if I’m feeding contraceptives to the lions,” 745396 said.

“No need to feed them anything,” said 885974 who didn’t feel like buying any more French letters. “They’d be explosive enough on their own.”

If Verkramp’s agents were cheerful, the same couldn’t be said of their chief. The conviction that something had gone seriously wrong with his plans to end Communist subversion had gathered strength with the discovery by the armourer that large stocks of high-explosive and fuses were missing from the police armoury.

He reported his findings or lack of them to Luitenant Verkramp. Coming on top of a report by the police bomb-disposal squad that the detonators used in all the explosions were of a type used in the past solely by the South African Police, the armourer’s news added weight to Verkramp’s slow intuition that he might in some curious way have bitten off more than he could chew. It was an insight he shared with five ostriches in the Bird Sanctuary. What had seemed at the outset a marvellous opportunity to fulfil his ambitions had developed into something from which there was no turning back. Certainly the ostriches viewed it in that light as the secret agents discovered to their alarm when they released the loaded birds from their enclosure. Gregarious to the last and evidently under the impression that there was more to come in the way of popcorn-coated contraceptives, the five ostriches strode after the agents as the latter headed for town. By the time the mixed herd and flock had reached the end of Market Street the agents were in a state of near panic.

“We’d better break up,” 628461 said anxiously.

“Break up? Break up? We’ll fucking disintegrate if those birds don’t get the hell out of here,” said 745396 who had never approved of the project from the start and who seemed to have attracted the friendship of an ostrich that weighed at least 300lbs unloaded and which had a fifteen-minute fuse. The next moment the agents had taken to their heels down side roads in an effort to shake off the likely consequences of their experiment. Undaunted, the ostriches strode relentlessly and effortlessly behind them. At the corner of Market and Stanger Streets 745396 leapt on to the platform of a moving bus and was appalled to see through the back window the silhouette of his ostrich loping comfortably some yards behind. At the traffic lights at Chapel Street it was still there. 745396 hurled himself off the bus and dashed into the Majestic Cinema which was showing Where Eagles Dare.

“Show’s over,” said the Commissionaire in the foyer.

“That’s what you think,” said 745396 with his eye on the ostrich which was peering inquisitively through the glass doors. “I just want to use the toilet.”

“Down the stairs to the left,” the Commissionaire told him and went out to the pavement to try to move the ostrich on. 745396 went down to the toilet and locked himself in a cubicle and waited for the explosion. He was still there five minutes later when the Commissionaire came down and knocked on the door.

“Is that ostrich anything to do with you?” he asked as 745396 tore paper off the roll to prove that he was using the place for its proper purpose.

“No,” said 745396 without conviction.

“Well, you can’t leave it outside like that,” the Commissionaire told him, “it’ll interfere with the traffic.”

“You can say that again,” said 745396.

“Say what again?” asked the Commissionaire.

“Nothing,” shouted 745396 frantically. He had reached the end of his tether. So it appeared had the ostrich.

“One last question, do you usually-” said the Commissionaire and got no further. An extraordinary sensation of silence hit him to be followed by a wall of flame and a gigantic bang. As the front of the Majestic Cinema crumbled into the street and the lights went out agent 745396 slowly slumped on to the cracked seat of the toilet and leant against the wall. He was still there when the rescue workers found him next day, covered in plaster and quite dead.

Throughout the night rumours that Piemburg had been invaded by hordes of self-detonating ostriches spread like wildfire. So did the ostriches. A particularly tragic incident occurred at the offices of the Zululand Wild Life Preservation Society where an ostrich which had been brought in by a bird-lover exploded while being examined by the society’s vet.

“I think it’s got some sort of gastric disorder,” the man explained. The vet listened to the bird’s crop with his stethoscope before making his diagnosis.

“Heartburn,” he said with a finality that was entirely confirmed by the detonation that followed. As the night sky erupted with bricks, mortar, and the assorted remains of both bird-lover, and vet, the premises of the Wild Life Preservation Society, historically important and themselves subject to a preservation order by the Piemburg Council, disappeared for ever. Only a plume of smoke and a few large feathers, emblematic as some dissipated Prince of Wales, floated lethargically against the moon.

In his office Acting Kommandant Verkramp listened to the muffled explosions with a growing sense of despair. Whatever else was in ruins, and by the sound of it a large section of the city’s shopping centre must be, his own career would shortly join it. In a frantic attempt to allay his alarming suspicions he had just searched the few messages from his secret agents only to find there confirmation that his plan if not their efforts had misfired. Agent 378550 had said that the sabotage group consisted of eleven men. Agent 885974 had said the same. So had 628461. There was a terrible congruency about the reports. In each case eleven men reported by his agent. Verkramp added one to eleven and got twelve. He had twelve agents in the field. The conclusion was inescapable and so it seemed were the consequences. Desperately searching for some way out of the mess he had got himself into, Luitenant Verkramp rose from the desk and crossed to the window. He was just in time to see a large ostrich loping purposefully down the street. With a muttered curse Verkramp opened the window and peered after the bird. “This is the end,” he snarled and was astonished to see that at least one of his orders was obeyed. With a violent flash and a blast wave that blew out the window above him the ostrich disintegrated and Verkramp found himself sitting on the floor of his office with the inescapable conviction that his sanity was impaired.

“Impossible. It can’t have been an ostrich,” he muttered, staggering back to the window. Outside the street was littered with broken glass and in a bare blackened patch in the middle of the road two feet were all that remained of the thing that had exploded. Verkramp could see that it had been an ostrich because the feet had only two toes.

In the next twenty minutes Luitenant Verkramp acted with maniacal speed. He burnt every file that could connect him with his agents, destroyed their messages and finally, ordering the police armourer to change the lock on the armoury door, left the police station in the Kommandant’s black Ford. An hour later, having visited every bar in town, he had run two of his agents to earth drinking to the success of their latest experiment in sabotage in the Criterion Hotel in Verwoerd Street.

“Fuzz,” said 628461 as Verkramp entered the bar. “Better break up.” 885974 finished his drink and went out. 628461 watched him go and was surprised to see Verkramp follow him out.

“He’s making an arrest,” he thought and ordered another beer. A moment later he looked up to find Verkramp glowering down at him.

“Outside,” said Verkramp brusquely. 628461 left his bar stool and went outside and was surprised to find his fellow-saboteur sitting unguarded in the police car.

“I see you’ve got one of them,” 628461 said to Verkramp, and climbed in beside 885974.

“Them? Them?” Verkramp spluttered hysterically. “He’s not them. He’s us.”

“Us?” said 628461, mystified.

“I’m 885974. Who are you?”

“Oh, my God,” said 628461.

Verkramp climbed into the driving seat and stared back malevolently.

“Where are the others?” he hissed.

“The others?”

“The other agents, you idiot,” Verkramp shouted. For the next two hours they searched the bars and cafés while Verkramp fulminated on the evils of sabotaging public utilities and detonating ostriches in a built-up area.

“I send you out to infiltrate the Communist movement and what do you do?” he shouted. “Blow up half the bloody town, that’s what you do. And you know where that’s going to get you, don’t you? On the end of the hangman’s rope in Pretoria Central.”

“You might have warned us,” said 628461 reproachfully. “You could have told us there were other agents in the field.”

Verkramp turned purple.

“Warned you?” he screamed. “I expected you to use your, common sense, not go around looking for one another.”

“Well, how the hell were we to know we were all police agents?” 885974 asked.

“I should have thought even idiots like you could tell the difference between a good Afrikaner and a Communist Jew.”

885974 thought about this.

“If it’s that easy,” he said finally, clinging precariously to some sort of logic, “I don’t see how we’re to blame. I mean the Communist Jews must be able to see we’re good Afrikaners just by looking at us. I mean what’s the point of sending out good Afrikaners to look for Communist Jews if Communist Jews can …”

“Oh, shut up,” shouted Verkramp, who was beginning to wish that he hadn’t brought up the subject in the first place.

By midnight seven other agents had been found in various parts of the city and the police car was getting rather crowded.

“What do you want us to do now?” 378550 asked as they drove round the park for the fifth time looking for the three remaining agents. Verkramp stopped the car.

“I ought to arrest you,” he snarled, “I ought to let you stand trial for terrorism but-”

“You won’t,” said 885974 who had been giving the matter some thought.

“Why won’t I?” Verkramp shouted.

“Because we’ll all give evidence that you ordered us to blow up the transformer and the gasometer and the-”

“I did nothing of the sort. I told you to find the Communist saboteurs,” Verkramp yelled.

“Who gave us the keys of the police armoury?” 885974 asked. “Who supplied the explosives?”

“And what about the messages we sent you?” 628461 asked.

Verkramp stared through the windshield and contemplated a short and nasty future, at the end of which stood the hangman in Pretoria Central Prison.

“All right,” he said. “What do you want me to do?”

“Get us past the road blocks. Get us down to Durban and give us each 500 rand,” 885974 said, “and then forget you ever saw us.”

“What about the other three agents?” Verkramp asked.

“That’s your problem,” 885974 said. “You can find them tomorrow.”

They drove back to the police station and Verkramp collected the money and two hours later nine agents climbed out at Durban airport. Luitenant Verkramp watched them disappear into the terminal and then drove back to Piemburg. At the road block on the Durban road the sergeant waved him through for the second time and made a note of the fact that the Acting Kommandant looked drawn and ill. By four in the morning Verkramp was in bed in his flat staring into the darkness and wondering how he was going to find the other three agents. At seven he got up again and drove down to Florian’s café. 885974 had advised him to look for them there. At eleven the Kommandant’s car passed through the Durban Road check-point yet again and this time the Acting Kommandant had with him two men. By the time he returned eleven agents had left Piemburg for good. 745396 was in the city morgue waiting to be identified.

At Weezen Spa Kommandant van Heerden slept more soundly than his hallucination had led him to expect. He woke next morning with something of a hangover but felt better after a large breakfast in the Pump Room. In the far corner the two elderly ladies with short hair continued their endlessly whispered conversation.