Gerald Seymour - A song in the morning

Perhaps Oosthuizen knew of Jeez's wish for quiet. Perhaps he was determined to deny it.

"You've got to try for me, Carew, like a good man."

Jeez surrendered, as he usually did. "Where am I supposed to be looking, Sergeant?"

"I'm giving you a good hint, you're supposed to be looking at the flower bed, Carew."

Jeez stared down at the flower bed. Most of the geranium blooms were over, should have been pinched off. The lobelia was straggling, should have been pulled.

"I'm looking at the flower bed, Sergeant."

"And there's something in the flower bed that I never thought you'd let me see."

"I don't know what it is, Sergeant."

"You're not trying for me, Carew."

"Please, Sergeant, what is it that's in the flower bed?"

Oosthuizen tugged at his moustache. He stood at his full height and dragged in his belly so that his belt buckle sagged.

He was hugely satisfied.

"There's a weed."

"A fucking what?"

"Watch your language Carew… You've allowed a dandelion to grow in your flower bed."

Jeez saw the dandelion. It had no flower. It was half concealed by a geranium plant.

"Yes, you can see it now, but you hadn't noticed it before.

I'd never have thought you would let me find a weed in your garden, Carew."

Jeez wondered what would happen if he smashed Oosthuizen with his fist. He thought the man might burst.

Jeez knelt on the concrete.

The concrete was not warmed by the sun, the grilled shadows kept the heat off the concrete. He hadn't noticed the weed because he hadn't watered his garden for two days.

He could see that the geranium leaves were dropping and that the lobelia was parched. He pushed his fingers into the earth, he tugged at the dandelion root. He felt the root snap under the earth. The weed would grow again. He smoothed the earth over. The weed would grow again, but not surface before the following Thursday morning. He carried the dandelion to the plastic bag in the corner of the yard, where the dirt sweepings were left for a trustie to take away.

"Doesn't do to let it get the better of you, Carew,"

Oosthuizen said quietly.

"No, Sergeant."

"Believe me, man, you have to keep your standards up from the first day you come here, right up to the last day."

"Thank you, Sergeant."

"That's solid advice. You have to find something to think about. Whatever's going to happen to you, you have to keep going, keep those standards… Have you got no visits coming?"

"No."

"All those other fellows you were with, they've all got their families coming."

"No one's coming."

"I never saw a man who was so really alone, Carew."

"No one."

Oosthuizen looked once, almost furtively, over his shoulder and up to the empty catwalk window. He dropped his voice. "I'm only supposed to make little talk with you.

I'm out of order, but there's something I should like you to know, Carew. I'm retiring next week. Wednesday's my birthday. I should have retired on the coming Tuesday evening. They have a party all lined for me… "

"Will they give you a gold watch?"

"I don't think so, I think it'll be a decanter and some crystal glasses… But I've said to the governor that I don't want the party on Tuesday, nor on Wednesday. Our governor's a real gentleman, he said that I could have the party on Thursday. You understand me, Carew?"

"You're going to be here on Thursday morning. Thank you, Sergeant."

Jeez looked up. He followed the flight of a grey wagtail to the catwalk window.

Oosthuizen said simply, "It's because you don't have any visits, Carew."

He saw the wagtail start away from the narrow ledge below the window.

There was a face at the window, a pale face against the darkness behind. He saw the collar of a suit jacket and the brilliance of a white shirt. He knew who he had seen. He knew who would wish to look over him while he was at exercise.

Their nerves were raw because the rendezvous had not been kept.

It was two hours past the time of the rendezvous.

Thiroko had started to ponder what he should do if Jack Curwen had not arrived within an hour, when the next transport was due to pick them up. He could think of many reasons why Jack should be delayed, but as the minutes slipped to hours each reason had grown less credible. He knew the boys were on edge, strained, because they talked more, because it was harder for him each time to quiet them.

"JACOB THIROKO, YOU ARE SURROUNDED BY UNITS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN DEFENCE FORCE… "

It came as an amplified bellow. The noise of the magnified voice swept through the half opened door of the shed and coursed round the four walls. They were all frozen. They were all rigid. They were held in their postures of sitting, lying, squatting, crouching, standing.

"YOU SHOULD SURRENDER IMMEDIATELY. YOU SHOULD THROW YOUR WEAPONS O U T THROUGH THE DOOR, THEN YOU SHOULD COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HEADS…"

Movements now. Each man's hand moving stutteringly towards the stock of his Kalashnikov. Frightened little movements, as if the voice that overwhelmed them had an eye to see them.

"… YOU HAVE ONE MINUTE TO COME OUT. IF YOU COME OUT WITHIN THE ONE MINUTE T H E N YOU WILL NOT BE HARMED IN ANY WAY… "

The four boys looking at him, broken hope in their faces.

He saw the accusation of betrayal. He could have cried.

They all looked to him. He was their commander. He had told them of a great strike against the Boer regime, and they were in a cow shed and amongst cow dirt and they were surrounded by their enemy.

"… WE ARE STARTING THE ONE MINUTE, FROM NOW… "

Thiroko crawled to the doorway. He hugged the shadow.

He looked out. He could hear the drone of insects and the cry of birds and the whispering of the afternoon wind in the dry loose grass. He could not see his enemy.

"Are we the heroes of our revolution, or are we the frightened children that the Boers think us?"

None of the boys had voices in their throats. They nodded dumbly to Thiroko.

"Their promise of no harm is twenty years in their gaols."

One boy cocked his rifle. The chain was started. The rattling of the weapons being armed rung inside the shed.

"I have to win time, time for a young friend who is braver than I."

He saw the chins jut, and the eyes blaze, and the hands were steady on the rifles. He saw the trembling pass.

"… THIRTY SECONDS. YOU THROW YOUR WEAPONS OUT. YOU COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HEADS. YOU HAVE A GUARAN TEE O F SAFETY… "

They shouted together, the four boys and Jacob Thiroko.

The word in their shout was Amandla, the word ballooned inside the tin walls.

He waved them to the sides of the shed, each to a firing position. He stripped from his rucksack a khaki pouch. He tore a wad of papers from the pouch and ripped at them and made a cairn of them. He lit the heap of papers. His boys began to shoot. The smoke eddied through the shed, and with the smell of the burning paper was the stench of the cordite. Incoming fire, punching, ricocheting, into the shed.

He lay on the straw and the manure and he drew the air down into his lungs and breathed so that he could fan the small flames licking into the papers. He saw his notes curling.

He saw names blackening, the coded plans flaking.

So little time, and the boy against the back wall was whimpering, hit in the buttocks and the stomach. He blew again on the papers and prayed in anger for the fire to be fiercer. The boy close to the front door was coughing mouthfuls of blood onto his chest. He shouted for the two boys at the side walls to keep firing. No reply. He could see the clumsy postures in which they had died. The boy at the back wall no longer whimpered. The boy at the door toppled suddenly out of the door frame into the sunlight, and was hit and hit before he fell into the dry hard dirt.