Tom Sharpe - Riotous Assembly

Kommandant van Heerden's lightning intellect had raced ahead and had grasped the point quite firmly. Besides he was beginning to understand, though only fitfully, the train of thought that Miss Hazelstone was bound to follow.

At this moment he visualized the scene in court which would follow the disclosure that Miss Hazelstone had made it a habit to inject her black cook's penis with a hypodermic syringe filled with novocaine before allowing him to have sexual intercourse with her. He visualized it and vowed that it would never happen, even if it meant he had to kill her to prevent it.

Despairingly his gaze wandered round the assembly of long-dead Hazelstones adorning the walls of the drawing-room and he hoped they appreciated the sacrifices he was prepared to make to save their family name from the shame that Miss Hazelstone seemed hell-bent on bestowing on it. The bit about the novocaine injections was an innovation in sexual techniques of such a bizarre nature that it wouldn't just hit the national headlines. The newspapers of the world would splash that titbit in foot-high letters across their front pages. He couldn't begin to think how they would actually word it, but he had every confidence in their editors' abilities to make it sensational. He tried to imagine what sort of sensation Fivepence had found it to be and reached the conclusion that the cook's death at the muzzle of that awful elephant gun must have seemed a relatively comfortable release from the continual practice of Miss Hazelstone plunging the needle of her hypodermic syringe into the top of his cock. The Kommandant wondered idly if Fivepence had had a foreskin. It was a fact that they would never be able to ascertain now.

The thought caused him to glance out of the window to see how Konstabel Els was getting on. He noted, with what little astonishment Miss Hazelstone's confession had left in him, that Els had regained his head for heights, not to mention Fivepence's, and had somehow managed to reach the ground where he was busily seeking promotion by kicking the Indian butler into collecting the scattered remains of the Zulu cook and putting them into a pillowcase. Els was, as usual, the Kommandant thought, being a bit optimistic. They didn't need anything as large as a pillowcase. A spongebag would have done just as well.

Behind him Miss Hazelstone, evidently exhausted by her confession, sat back silent in her armchair and gazed happily into her memories. Kommandant van Heerden slumped into a chair opposite her and gazed with less satisfaction into his immediate future. What Miss Hazelstone had revealed to him he had no doubt she would reveal to the world if he gave her half a chance and at all costs those revelations had got to be stopped in their tracks. His own career, the reputation of Zululand's leading family, the whole future of South Africa clearly depended on Miss Hazelstone's silence. His first duty was to ensure that no word of the afternoon's events leaked out of Jacaranda Park. Kommandant van Heerden had little faith in his own ability to prevent that leak. He had none whatsoever in Els'.

The Kommandant knew from bitter experience that Konstabel Els was incapable of keeping anything, money, wife, penis, prisoners, let alone gossip, to himself. And what Miss Hazelstone had to recount wasn't in the nature of mere gossip. It was political, racial, social, you name it, dynamite.

It was just at this point in his musings that the Kommandant caught sight of Konstabel Els approaching the house. He had the air of a good dog that has done its duty and expects to be rewarded. Had he possessed a tail he would undoubtedly have been wagging it. Lacking that appendage he dragged behind him a terrible substitute which, Kommandant van Heerden noted thankfully, he had the decency not to wag. What remained of Fivepence were not things that anybody, not even Els, would wish to wag.

Kommandant van Heerden acted swiftly. He stepped out on to the stoep and shut the door behind him.

'Konstabel Els,' he commanded. 'These are your orders.' The Konstabel dropped the pillowcase and came to attention eagerly. Tree-climbing and body-snatching he could do without, but he loved being given orders. They usually meant that he was being given permission to hurt somebody.

'You will dispose of that…that thing,' the Kommandant ordered.

'Yes sir,' said Els thankfully. He was getting tired of Fivepence.

'Proceed to the main gate and remain there on guard until you are relieved. See that nobody enters or leaves the grounds. Anybody at all. That means Europeans as well. Do you understand?'

'Yes sir.'

'If anyone enters you are to see that they don't get out again.'

'Can I use firearms to stop them, sir?' asked Els.

Kommandant van Heerden hesitated. He didn't want a bloodbath up at the main gateway to Jacaranda Park. On the other hand the situation was clearly such a desperate one and one word to the Press would bring hordes of newspapermen up-that he was prepared to take drastic measures.

'Yes,' he said at last. 'You can shoot.' And then remembering the fuss there had been when a wounded reporter had been taken to Piemburg Hospital, he added, 'And shoot to kill, Els, shoot to kill.' Complaints from the morgue were easier to refute.

Kommandant van Heerden went back into the house and Konstabel Els started off to guard the main gate. He hadn't gone very far when the thought crossed his mind that the elephant gun would certainly ensure that nothing larger than a cockroach got out of Jacaranda Park alive. He turned back and collected the gun from the stoep and then, after adding several packets of revolver ammunition from the police car set off up the drive with a light heart.

Back in the house Kommandant van Heerden was glad to see that Miss Hazelstone was still in her stupor in the armchair. At least one problem had been solved. No word of the injections would reach Konstabel Els. The thought of what would follow should Els get wind of that diversion had been haunting the Kommandant's mind. There had been enough complaints lately from local residents about the screams that came from the cells in Piemburg Police Station without Konstabel Els practising penal injections on the prisoners. Not that Els would have been content to use novocaine. He would have graduated to nitric acid before you could say Apartheid.

With Els out of the way, the Kommandant decided on his next step. Leaving Miss Hazelstone in her chair, he made his way to the telephone which lurked in the potted jungle in the hall. He made two calls. The first was to Luitenant Verkramp at the Police Station.

In later life Luitenant Verkramp was to recall that telephone conversation with the shudder that comes from recalling the first omens of disaster. At the time he had merely wondered what the hell was wrong with his Kommandant. Van Heerden sounded as though he were on the brink of a nervous breakdown.

'Verkramp, is that you?' his voice came in a strangled whisper over the phone.

'Of course it's me. Who the hell did you think it was?' Verkramp couldn't hear the answer but it sounded as if the Kommandant was trying to swallow something very unpleasant. 'What's going on up there? Is something wrong with you?' Verkramp inquired hopefully.

'Stop asking stupid questions and listen,' the Kommandant whispered authoritatively. 'I want you to assemble every single officer in Piemburg at the police barracks.'

Luitenant Verkramp was appalled. 'I can't do that,' he said, 'the rugby match is on. There'll be a riot if-'

'There'll be a fucking riot if you don't,' the Kommandant snarled. 'That's number one. Second, all leave including sick leave is cancelled. Got that?'

Luitenant Verkramp wasn't sure what he had got. It sounded like a frantic Kommandant.

'Assemble them all at the barracks,' continued the Kommandant. 'I want every man jack of them fully armed up here as soon as possible. Bring the Saracens too, and the guard dogs, oh and bring the searchlights too. All the barbed wire we've got, and bring those rabies signs we used in the epidemic last year.'