pools,' Shasa protested.
'Everybody will buy my swimming-pools - every home in the country will have one by the time I'm finished." Garry's enthusiasm was infectious.
'It works, Pater. I've seen it, and the figures add up perfectly.
Only trouble is I have to give an answer by noon today. Someone else is interested." 'How much?" Shasa asked.
'Four million initially - that's for the franchise and plant. Another four million over two years for running costs, then we will be into profit." 'All right,' Shasa said. 'Go ahead." 'Thanks, Pater. Thanks for trusting me." 'Well you haven't let me down yet. How is Holly?" 'She's fine. She's right here with me." 'At the office at eight in the morning?" Shasa laughed.
'Of course." Again Garry sounded surprised. 'We are a team. The swimming-pools were her idea." 'Give her my love,' Shasa said and hung up.
As he went back to his seat, Centaine said, 'It's the prime minister's budget vote this afternoon. I thought I'd drop in." 'It should be interesting,' Shasa agreed. 'I think Verwoerd is going to make a major policy speech about the country's international position. I have a committee meeting on armaments this morning, but why don't you meet me for lunch and you can listen to Doctor Henk's speech from the public gallery afterwards. I'll ask Tricia to get you a ticket." Ticia was waiting for him anxiously when an hour later Shasa walked into his parliamentary suite.
'The minister of police wants to see you most urgently, Mr Courthey. He asked me to let him know the moment you arrived. He said he'd come to your office." 'Very well." Shasa glanced at his appointment book on her desk.
'Let him know I'm here and then get a ticket for my mother for the public gallery this afternoon. Is there anything else?" 'Nothing important." Tricia picked up the in-house telephone to ring the minister of police's office and then paused. 'There has been a strange woman ringing you this morning. She called three times.
She wouldn't give her name and she asked for Squadron Leader Courtney. Funny, isn't it?" 'All right, let me know if she calls again." Shasa was frowning as he went through to his own office. The use of his old airforce rank was strangely disquieting. He went to his desk and began work on the mail and the memoranda that Tricia had placed on his blotter, but almost immediately the buzzer rang on his intercom.
'Minister De La Rey is here, sir." 'Ask him to come right in, Tricia." Shasa rose and went to meet Manfred, but as they shook hands he could see that Manfred was a worried man.
'Did you read the news report about the sinking of the ferry?" Manfred did not even return his greeting but came immediately to business.
'I noticed it, but didn't read it all." 'Moses Gama was on the boat when it sank,' Manfred said.
'Good Lord." Shasa glanced involuntarily at the ivory and gold}: !!
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leaf altar chest which still stood against the wall of his office.
'Is hid safe?" 'He is missing,' Manfred said. 'He may have drowned, or he ma be alive. Either way we are in a very serious predicament." 'Escaped?" Shasa asked.
'One of the survivors, a prison officer, says that there were two vessels at the accident scene, a large ship without lights that collidec with the ferry and another smaller craft that arrived seconds artel the ferry capsized. In the darkness it was impossible to see any details It is a distinct possibility that Gama was spirited away." 'If he drowned, we will be accused of murdering him,' Shasa saic softly, 'with disastrous international repercussions." 'And if he is at large, we will face the possibility of a populm uprising of the blacks similar to Longa and Sharpeville." 'What are you doing about it?" Shasa asked.
'The entire police force is on full alert. One of our best men, m) own son Lothar, is flying down from the Witwatersrand in an airforce jet to take charge of the investigation. He will land within the next few minutes. Navy divers are already attempting to salvage the wreckage of the ferry." For another ten minutes they discussed all the implications of the wreck, and then Manfred moved to the door.
'I will keep you informed as we get further news." Shasa followed him into the outer office, and as they passed Tricia's desk she stood up.
'Oh, Mr Courtney, that woman called again while you were with Minister De La Rey." Manfred and Shasa both paused, and Tricia went on, 'She asked for Squadron Leader Courtney again, sir, and when I told her you were in conference, she said she had news for you about White Sword. She said you'd understand." 'White Sword!" Shasa froze and stared at her. 'Did she leave a number?" 'No, sir, but she said that )ou must meet her at the Cape Town railway station at five-thirty this afternoon. Platform four." 'How will I know who she is?" 'She says she knows you by sight. You are merely to wait on the platform, she will come to you." Shasa was so preoccupied with the message that he did not notice Manfred De La Rey's reaction to the code name 'White Sword'. All colour had drained from Manfred's craggy features, and his upper lip and jowls were covered by a sheen of perspiration. Without another word he turned and strode out into the corridor.
The name 'White Sword' kept plaguing Shasa all though the Armscor meeting. They were discussing the new air-to-ground missiles for the airforce but Shasa found it difficult to concentrate. He was plagued by the memory of his grandfather, that good and gentle man whom Shasa had loved and who had been murdered by White Sword. His death had been one of the fiercest tragedies of his young life, and the rage that he had felt at the brutal killing came back to him afresh.
'White Sword,' he thought. 'If I can find out who you are, even after all these years, you will pay, and the interest will be more onerous for the time the debt has stood." Manfred De La Rey went directly to his office at the end of the corridor after he had left Shasa. His secretary spoke to him as he passed her desk but he did not seem to hear her.
He locked the door to his own office, but did not sit at the massive mahogany desk. He prowled the floor restlessly, his eyes unseeing and his heayy jaws chewing like a bulldog with a bone. He took the handkerchief from his jacket pocket and wiped his chin and then paused to examine his face in the wall mirror behind his desk. He was so pale that his cheeks had a bluish sheen, and his eyes were savage as those of a wounded leopard caught in a trap.
'White Sword,' he whispered aloud. It was twenty-five years since he had used that code name, but he remembered standing on the bridge of the German U-boat, coming in towards the land in darkness, with his hair and great bushy beard ded black, staring out at the signal fires on the beach where Roelf Stander waited for him.
Roelf Stander had been with him through all the dangerous days and the wild endeavours. They had planned many of their operations in the kitchen of the Stander cottage in the little village of Stellenbosch. It was there in that kitchen that he had given them the details of the action that would be the signal for the glorious uprising of Afrikaner patriots. And at all those meetings Sarah Stander had been present, a quiet unobtrusive presence, serving coffee and food, never speaking - but listening. It was only many years later that Manfred had been able to guess at how well she had listened.
In 1948, when the Afrikaners had at last won at the ballot box the power which they had failed to seize at the point of the sword, Manfred's hard and loyal work had been rewarded with a deputy minister's post in the department of justice.