Rage - Smith Wilbur (читать книги онлайн без сокращений .TXT) 📗
'Light one for me, as well,' he told Solomon. 'I brought some sardine and onion sandwiches and a couple of bottles of beer. They are on the back seat." There was no public place in Johannesburg, or in the entire land for that matter, where two men of different colour could sit and drink or eat together. Michael drove slowly and aimlessly through the streets while they ate and talked.
'The PAC are planning their first big act since they broke away from the ANC,' Solomon told Michael through a mouthful of sardine and onion. 'In some areas they have built up strong support.
In the Cape and the rural tribal areas, even in some parts of the Transvaal. They have pulled in all the young militants who are unhappy with the pacifism of the old men. They want to follow Moses Gama's example, and take on the Nationalists in a head-on fight." 'That's crazy,' Michael said. 'You can't fight sten guns and Saracen armoured cars with half bricks." 'Yes, it's crazy, but then some of the young people would prefer to die on their feet than live on their knees." They were together for an hour, talking all that time, and then at last Michael drove him back to the main gates of Drake's Farm.
'So that's it then, my friend." Solomon opened the car door. 'If you want the best story on Monday, I would suggest you go down to the Vereeniging area. The PAC and Poqo have made that their stronghold on the Witwatersrand." 'Evaton?" Michael asked.
'Yes, Evaton will be one of the places to watch,' Solomon Nduli agreed. 'But the PAC have a new man in Sharpeville." 'Sharpeville?" Michael asked. 'Where is that? I've never heard of it?
'Only twelve miles from Evaton." 'I'll find it on my road map." 'You might think it worth the trouble to go there,' Solomon encouraged Michael. 'This PAC organizer in Sharpeville is one of the party's young lions. He will put on a good show, you can count on that." Manfred De La Rey asked quietly. 'So, how many reinforcements can we spare for the stations in the Vaal area?" General Dame Leroux shook his head and smoothed back the wings of silver hair at his temples with both hands. 'We have only three days to move in reinforcements from the outlying areas and most of those will be needed in the Cape. It will mean stripping the outlying stations and leaving them very vulnerable." 'How many?" Manfred insisted.
'Five or six hundred men for the Vaal,' Dame Leroux said with obvious reluctance.
'That will not be enough,' Manfred growled. 'So we will reinforce all stations lightly, but hold most of our forces in mobile reserve and react swiftly to the first hint of trouble." He turned his full attention to the map that covered the operations table in the control room of police headquarters in Marshall Square. 'Which are the main danger centres on the Vaal?" 'Evaton,' Dame Leroux replied without hesitation. 'It's always one of the trouble spots, and then Van Der Bijl Park." 'What about Sharpeville?" Manfred asked, and held up the crudely printed pamphlet that he had tightly rolled in his right hand. 'What about this?" The general did not reply immediately, but he pretended to study the operations map as he composed his reply. He was well aware that the subversive pamphlets had been discovered by Captain Lothar De La Rey, and he knew how the minister felt about his son.
Indeed Dame Leroux shared the general high opinion of Lothar, so he did not want to belittle him in any way or to offend his minister.
'There may well be disturbances in the Sharpeville area,' he conceded. 'But it is a small township and has always been very peaceful. We can expect our men there to behave well and I do not see any immediate danger. I suggest we send twenty or thirty men to reinforce Sharpeville, and concentrate our main efforts on the larger townships with violent histories of boycotts and strikes." 'Very well,' Manfred agreed at last. 'But I want you to maintain at least forty percent of our reinforcements in reserve, so that they can be moved quickly to any area that flares up unexpectedly." 'What about arms?" Dame Leroux asked. 'I am about to authorize the issue of automatic weapons to all units." He turned the statement into a query and Manfred nodded.
'Ja, we must be ready for the worst. There is a feeling amongst our enemies that we are on the verge of capitulation. Even our own people are becoming frightened and confused." His voice dropped, but his tone was fiercer and more determined. 'We have to change that. We have to crush these people who wish to tear down and destroy all we stand for and give this land over to bloodshed and anarchy." The centres of support for the PAC were widely scattered across the land, from the eastern tribal areas of the Ciskei and the Transkei to the southern part of the great industrial triangle along the Vaal river, and a thousand miles south of that in the black township of Longa and Nyanga that housed the greater part of the migrant worker force that serviced the mother city of Cape Town.
In all these areas Sunday 20 March 1960 was a day of feverish effort and planning, and of a peculiar expectancy. It was as though everybody at last believed that this new decade would be one of immense change.
The radicals were filled With hid feeling of infinite hope, however irrational, and with a certainty that the Nationalist government was on the verge of collapse. They felt that the world was with them, that the age of colonialism had blown away on the winds of change, and that after a decade of massive political mobilization by the black leaders, the time of liberation was at last at hand. All it needed now was one last shove, and the walls of apartheid would crash to earth, crushing under them the evil architect Verwoerd and his builders who had raised them up.
Raleigh Tabaka felt that marvelous euphoria as he and his men moved through the township, going from cottage to cottage with the same message: 'Tomorrow we will be as one people. No one will go to work. There will be no buses and those who try to walk to the town will be met by the Poqo on the road. The names of all who defy the PAC will be taken and they will be punished. Tomorrow we are going to make the white police fear us." They worked all that day, and by evening every person, man and woman, in the township had been warned to stay away from work and to assemble in the open space near the new police station early on the Monday morning.
'We are going to make the white police fear us. We want everybody to be there. If you do not come, we will find you." Amelia had worked as hard and unremittingly as Raleigh had done, but like him she was still fresh, unwearied and excited as they ate a quick and simple meal in the back room of the bakery.
'Tomorrow we will see the sun of freedom rise,' Raleigh told her as he wiped his bowl with a crust of bread. 'But we cannot afford to sleep. There is still much work to do this night." Then he took her hand and told her, 'Our children will be born free, and we will live our life together like men, not like animals." And he led her out into the darkening township to continue the preparations for the great day that lay ahead.
They met in groups on the street corners, all the eager young ones, and Raleigh and Amelia moved amongst them delegating their duties for the morrow, selecting those who would picket the road leading from Sharpeville to Vereeniging.
'You will let no one pass. Nobody must leave the township,' Raleigh told them. 'All the people must be as one when we march on the police station tomorrow morning." 'You must tell the people not to fear,' Raleigh urged them. 'Tell them that the white police cannot touch them and that there will be a most important speech from the white government concerning the abolition of the pass laws. Tell the people they must be joyful and unafraid and that they must sing the freedom songs that PAC has taught them." After midnight Raleigh assembled his most loyal and reliable men, ncluding the two Buffaloes from the shebeen, and they went to the homes of all the black bus drivers and taxi drivers in the township and pulled them from their beds.
