Indecent Exposure (24 page)

“All right,” said the Kommandant, “what do you want?”

“I’ve told you,” said Els, “I want my old job back.”

The Kommandant was beginning to prevaricate when the sound of a Land-Rover approaching determined the issue.

“All right, I’ll see what I can do,” he said, “though how I’m going to explain how a coloured convict is really a white konstabel, God only knows.”

“No point in spoiling the shit for a ha’p’orth of tar,” said Els making use of an expression he had picked up from Major Bloxham.

“Hear you’ve been having a bit of trouble, old boy,” said the Major when the Land-Rover stopped beside the body of Chaka. “Always said that black bastard was a menace.” The Kommandant climbed in beside him and murmured his agreement but the black bastard he had in mind was not the dead horse. In the back of the truck Konstabel Els smiled happily. He was looking forward to shooting kaffirs quite legally again.

As they approached the house the Kommandant saw Colonel and Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon standing at the top of the steps waiting for them. Once again their reactions came as a complete surprise to him. The woman with whom but an hour before he had enjoyed what could without exaggeration be called a touching intimacy now stood erect and coldly detached at the front door while her husband was exhibiting signs of evident embarrassment quite out of keeping with his role.

“Dreadfully sorry,” he muttered opening the door of the Land-Rover for the Kommandant, “shouldn’t have given you that horse in the first place.”

The Kommandant tried to think of a suitable reply to this apology.

“Ant-bear hole,” he said falling back on an expression which seemed to cover a multitude of situations.

“Quite,” said the Colonel. “Damned nasty things. Should have been stopped.” He led the way up the steps and Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon stepped forward to greet the Kommandant.

“So nice of you to come,” she said.

“Good of you to have me,” murmured the Kommandant blushing.

“You must try to make it more often,” said Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon.

They went into the house where the Kommandant was greeted by La Marquise with a remark about The Flying Dutchman which he didn’t particularly like.

“Don’t take any notice,” Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon said, “I think you were wonderful. They’re just jealous.”

For the next few minutes Kommandant van Heerden found himself the centre of attention. The fact that he was the first man to have cleared the high wall, albeit involuntarily, drew murmurs of admiration from everyone. Even the Colonel said he had to take off his hat to him, which considering the loss of Chaka and the state of his garden, not to mention that of his wife, the Kommandant thought was pretty generous of him. He had just explained how he had learnt to ride on his ouma’s farm in Magaliesburg and had ridden for the police in Pretoria when the blow fell.

“I must say you take things pretty cool Kommandant,” the fat man who knew how to get discounts on refrigerators said, “coming out here and hunting when there’s all this trouble in Piemburg.”

“Trouble? What trouble?” he asked.

“What? Do you mean to say you haven’t heard?” asked the fat man. “There’s been an outbreak of sabotage. Bomb attacks all over the place. Radio mast down. Electricity cut off. Absolute chaos.”

With a curse Kommandant van Heerden dumped the glass of Cointreau he’d been drinking into the nearest receptacle.

“I’m afraid we haven’t a phone,” Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon told him as he looked wildly round the hall. “Henry won’t have one for security reasons. He’s always calling his stock-broker -”

The Kommandant was in too much of a hurry to wait and hear about Henry’s stock-broker. He dashed down the steps to his car and found, as he might have expected, Els at the wheel. With the feeling that Els’ presumption was somehow appropriate to the terrible news he had just received, the Kommandant climbed into the back seat. Disaster was in the air. It was certainly in the herbaceous border, where Els reversed before turning the car down the drive with a spurt of gravel that suggested he was shaking the dust of White Ladies from his feet.

From the terrace Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon watched them leave with a feeling of sadness. “To part is to die a little,” she murmured and went to join the Colonel who was staring morosely into a tank of tropical fish where the Kommandant’s drink was already producing some unusual effects. “So that’s how poor Willy went,” said the Colonel.

As they drove into Weezen the Kommandant cursed himself for his own stupidity.

“I might have known Verkramp would foul things up,” he thought and ordered Els to stop at the local police station. The information he was given there did nothing to restore his confidence.

“They do what?” he asked in astonishment when the Sergeant in charge told him that Piemburg had been invaded by hordes of self-detonating ostriches.

“Fly in at night in their hundreds,” said the Sergeant.

“That’s a damned lie for a start,” shouted the Kommandant. “Ostriches don’t fly. They can’t.”

He went back to the car and told Els to drive on. Whatever ostriches could or couldn’t do, one thing was sure. Something had happened in Piemburg to cut the city off from the outside world. The telephone lines had been dead for days.

As the car hurtled along the dirt road towards the head of the Rooi Nek Pass, Kommandant van Heerden had the feeling that he was leaving an idyllic world of peace and sanity and heading back into an inferno of violence at the centre of which sat the diabolical figure of Luitenant Verkramp. He was so immersed in his own thoughts that it only occurred to him once or twice to tell Els not to drive so damned dangerously.

At Sjambok the impression of imminent catastrophe was increased by the news that the road bridges had been blown outside Piemburg. At Voetsak he learnt that the Sewage Disposal plant had been destroyed. After that the Kommandant decided not to stop any more but to drive straight through to Piemburg.

An hour later as they drove down the hill from Imperial View they came to the first tangible evidence of sabotage.

A road block had been set up at the temporary bridge erected to replace the one destroyed by Verkramp’s secret agents. The Kommandant got out to inspect the damage while a konstabel searched the car.

“Got to make a personal check too,” said the konstabel before the Kommandant could explain who he was and ran his hands over the Kommandant’s breeches with a thoroughness that was surprising.

“Only obeying orders, sir,” said the konstabel when the Kommandant snarled that he wasn’t likely to keep high explosives there. Kommandant van Heerden scrambled into the car. “And change your shaving lotion,” he shouted. “You stink to high heaven.”

They drove on into the city and the Kommandant was appalled to notice two konstabels walking down the pavement hand in hand.

“Stop the car,” the Kommandant told Els and got out.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he shouted at the two konstabels.

“We’re on patrol, sir,” said the men in unison.

“What? Holding hands?” screamed the Kommandant. “Do you want the general public to think you’re fucking queers?”

The two konstabels let go of one another and the Kommandant got back into the car.

“What the hell’s been going on round here?” he muttered.

In the front seat Konstabel Els smiled to himself. There had been some changes in Piemburg since he’d last been there. He was beginning to think he was going to enjoy being in the South African Police again.

By the time they arrived at the Police Station the Kommandant was in a vile temper.

“Send me the Acting Kommandant,” he shouted at the konstabel at the Duty desk and went upstairs wondering if his imagination was playing him up or there had been a suggestive leer on the man’s face. The first impression that there had been a breakdown in discipline was confirmed by the state of the Kommandant’s office. The windows had no glass in them and ashes from the grate had blown all over the room. The Kommandant was just staring at the mess when there was a knock and Sergeant Breitenbach entered.

“What in the name of hell has been happening round here?” the Kommandant yelled at the Sergeant who was not, he was relieved to note, exhibiting any signs of queerness.

“Well, sir-” he began but the Kommandant interrupted him.

“What do I find when I come back?” he screamed in a voice that made the Duty Konstabel wince on the floor below and several passers-by stop in the street. “Poofters. Bombs. Exploding ostriches. Do they mean anything to you?” Sergeant Breitenbach nodded. “I thought they fucking might. I go away on holiday and the next thing I hear is that there’s an outbreak of sabotage. Road bridges being blown up. No telephones. Konstabels walking about hand in hand and now this. My own office in a shambles.”

“That was the ostriches, sir,” mumbled the Sergeant.

Kommandant van Heerden slumped into a chair and held his head. “Dear God. It’s enough to drive a man out of his mind.”

“It has, sir,” said the Sergeant miserably.

“Has what?”

“Driven a man out of his mind, sir. Luitenant Verkramp, sir.”

The name Verkramp shook the Kommandant out of his reverie.

“Verkramp!” he yelled. “Wait till I lay my hands on the swine. I’ll crucify the bastard. Where is he?”

“In Fort Rapier, sir. He’s off his rocker.”

Kommandant van Heerden absorbed the information slowly.

“You mean …”

“He’s got religious mania, sir. Thinks he’s God.”

The Kommandant stared at him disbelievingly. The notion that any man could think he was God when his creation was as chaotic as Verkramp’s had so obviously been seemed inconceivable.

“Thinks he’s God?” he mumbled. “Verkramp?”

Sergeant Breitenbach had given the matter some thought.

“I think that’s how the trouble started,” he explained. “He wanted to show what he could do.”

“He’s done that all right,” said the Kommandant limply, looking round his office.

“He’s got this thing about sin, sir, and he wanted to stop policemen going to bed with black women.”

“I know all that.”

“Well he started off by giving them shock treatment and showing them photographs of naked black women and -”

Kommandant van Heerden stopped him.

“Don’t go on,” he said, “I don’t think I can stand it.”

He got up and went over to his desk. He opened a drawer and took out a bottle of brandy he kept for emergencies and poured himself a glass. When he’d finished it he looked up.

“Now then begin at the beginning and tell me what Verkramp did.” Sergeant Breitenbach told him. At the end the Kommandant shook his head sadly.

“It didn’t work then? This treatment?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t say that, sir. It just didn’t work the way it was meant to. I mean you’d find it difficult to get any of the konstabels who’s been treated into bed with a black woman. We’ve tried it and they get into a frightful state.”

“You’ve tried to get a konstabel into bed with a black woman?” asked the Kommandant, who could see himself giving evidence at the inevitable court of inquiry and having to admit that policemen under his command had been ordered to have sexual intercourse with black women as part of their duties.

Sergeant Breitenbach nodded. “Couldn’t do it though,” he said, “I guarantee that not one of those two hundred and ten men will ever go to bed with a black again.”

“Two hundred and ten?” asked the Kommandant stunned by the scale of Verkramp’s activities.

“That’s the number, sir. Half the force are gay,” the Sergeant told him. “And not one of them prepared to sleep with a black woman.”

“I suppose that makes a change,” said the Kommandant looking for some relief in this recital of disasters.

“Trouble is they won’t go near a white woman either. The treatment seems to have worked both ways. You should see the letters of complaint we’ve had from some of the men’s wives.”

The Kommandant said he’d prefer not to.

“What about the exploding ostriches?” he asked. “That have anything to do with Verkramp’s religious mania?”

“Not to my knowledge,” said the Sergeant. “That was the work of the Communist saboteurs.”

The Kommandant sighed. “Them again,” he said wearily. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a lead on them, have you?”

“Well, we have made some progress, sir. We’ve got the description of the men who were feeding the ostriches French letters …” He stopped. Kommandant van Heerden was staring at him wildly.

“Feeding them French letters?” he asked. “What the hell were they doing that for?”

“The explosive was packed in contraceptives, sir. Fetherlites.”

“Fetherlights?” said the Kommandant trying to imagine what sort of ornithological offal he was on about.

“That’s the brand name, sir. We’ve also an excellent description of a man who bought twelve dozen. Twelve women have come forward who say they remember him.”

“Twelve dozen for twelve women?” said the Kommandant. “I should bloody well think they can remember him. I should have thought he was unforgettable.”

“They were in the shop when he tried to buy the things,” the Sergeant explained. “Five barbers have also given us a description which tallies with that of the women.”

The Kommandant tried desperately to visualize the sort of man whose tastes were so indiscriminate. “He can’t have got far, that’s for sure,” he said finally. “Not after that lot.”

“No sir,” said Sergeant Breitenbach. “He didn’t. A man answering his description and with fingerprints that correspond with some of those on the French letters was found dead in the toilet at the Majestic Cinema.”

“I’m not in the least surprised,” said the Kommandant.

“Unfortunately we can’t identify him.”

“Too emaciated I suppose,” the Kommandant suggested.

“He was killed by the bomb which went off there,” the Sergeant explained.

“Well have you made any arrests at all?”

The Sergeant nodded. “Luitenant Verkramp ordered the arrest of thirty-six suspects as soon as the first bombings occurred.”

“Well that’s something anyway,” said the Kommandant more cheerfully. “Got any confessions out of them?”