Lothar slowed and pulled his side window open. 'Where the hell do you think you're going?" he shouted, and the driver leaned out of the window and smiled politely. 'Good morning, Captain?
'Have you got a permit to be here?" Yes, do you want to see it?" 'No, hell,' Lothar told him. 'The permit is cancelled. You are ordered to leave the township immediately, do you hear?" ryes, Captain, I hear." 'There might be trouble,' Lothar insisted. 'You are in danger. I order you to leave immediately for your own safety." 'Right away,' Michael Courtney agreed, and Lothar accelerated away swiftly.
Michael watched him in the rear-view mirror until he was out of sight, and then he lit a cigarette and drove sedately on in the direction from which the police vehicle had come in such desperate haste. The police captain's agitation had confirmed that he was heading in the right direction and Michael smiled with satisfaction as he heard the distant sounds of many voices.
At the end of the avenue he turned towards the sound, and then pulled in to the side of the road and switched off the engine. He sat behind the wheel and stared ahead at the huge crowd that poured down the street towards him. He was unafraid, detached- an observer not a participant - and as the crowd came on he wastudying it avidly, anxious not to miss a single detail, already lorn3igg the sentences to describe it and scribbling them in his notebook.
'Young people in the vanguard, many children amongst them, all of them smiling and laughing and singing --' They saw Michael in the parked Morris and they called to him and gave him the thumbs-up signal.
'The good will of these people always amazes me,' he wrote. 'Their cheerfulness and the lack of personal antipathy towards us ruling whites --' There was a handsome young man in the van of the march, he walked a few paces ahead of the rest. He had a long confident stride so the girl beside him had to skip to keep up with him. She held his hand and her teeth were even and very white in her lovely dark moon face. She smiled at Michael and waved as she passed him.
The crowd split and flowed past on each side of the parked Morris.
Some of the children paused to press their faces against the windows, peering in at Michael, and when he grinned and pulled a face at them they shrieked with laughter and scampered on. One or two of the marchers slapped the roof of the Morris with open palms, but it was rather a cheerful greeting than a hostile act and they scarcely paused but marched on after the young leaders.
For many minutes the crowd flowed past and then only the stragglers, the latecomers, cripples and the elderly with stiff hampered gait were going by, and Michael started the engine of the Morris and U-turned across the street.
In low gear he followed the crowd at a walking pace, driving with one hand while he scribbled notes in the open pad on his lap.
'Estimate between six and seven thousand at this stage, but others joining all the time. Old man on crutches with his wife supporting him, a toddler dressed only in a short vest showing his little bum. A woman with a portable radio balanced on her head playing rock 'n' roll music as she dances along. Many peasant types, probably illegals, still wearing blankets and barefooted. The singing is beautifully harmonized. Also many well-dressed and obviously educated types,/ some wearing government uniforms, postmen and bus drivers, and workers in overalls of the steel and coal companies. For once, a call has gone out that has reached all of them; not just the politicized minority. A sense of excited and no'I've expectation that is palpalhie. Now the song changes - beginning at the head of the march, but the others pick it up swiftly.
They are all singing, doleful and tragic, not necessary to understand the words. This is a lament --' At the head of the march Amelia sang with such fervour that the tears burst spontaneously from her huge dark eyes and glistened down her cheeks: The road is long Our burden is heavy How long must we go on -The mood of gaiety changed, and the music of many thousand voices soared in a great anguished cry.
How long must we suffer?
How long? How long?
Amelia held hard to Raleigh's hand and sang with all her being and her very soul, and they turned the last corner. Ahead of them at the end of the long avenue was the diamond-meshed fence that surrounded the police station.
Then in the hard china blue of the highveld sky above the corrugated-iron roof of the police station, a cluster of tiny dark specks appeared. At first they seemed to be a flock of birds, but they swelled in size with miraculous speed as they approached, shining in the early rays of the morning sun with a silent menace.
The head of the march stopped and those behind pressed up behind and then halted also. All their faces turned up towards the menacing machines that bore down upon them, with gaping shark mouths and outstretched pinions, so swiftly that they outran their own engine noise.
The leading Sabre jet dropped lower still, skimming the roof of the police station and the rest of the formation followed it down.
The singing faltered into silence, and was followed by the first walls of terror and uncertainty. One after another the great airborne machines hurtled over their heads. It seemed they were low enough to reach up and touch, and the ear-splitting whine of their engines was a physical assault that drove the people to their knees. Some of them crouched in the dusty roadway, others threw themselves flat and covered their heads, while still others turned and tried to run back, but they were blocked by the ranks behind them and the march disintegrated into a confused struggling mass. The men were shouting and the women wailed and some of the children were shrieking and weeping with terror.
The silver jets climbed out and banked steeply, coming around in formation for the net pass; their engines screamed and the shock waves of their passingm_mbled across the sky.
Raleigh and Amelia were amongst the few who had stood their ground, and now Raleigh shouted, 'Do not be afraid, my friends.
They cannot harm you." Amelia took her lead from him and she called to her children, 'They will not hurt you, my little ones. They are pretty as birds. Just look how they shine in the sun!" And the children stifled their terror and a few of them giggled uncertainly.
'Here they come again!" Raleigh shouted. 'Wave to them like this." And he cavorted and laughed, and the other young people quickly imitated him and the people began to laugh with them. This time as the machines thundered over their heads, only a few of the old women fell over and grovelled in the road, but most of them merely cringed and flinched and then laughed uproariously with relief when the machines were past.
Under the urging of Raleigh and his marshals, the march began slowly to disentangle itself and move forward again, and when the jet fighters made their third pass, they looked up and waved at th, helmeted heads under the transparent canopies. This time the aircraf did not bank and come around. Instead they winged away into th, blue and the terrible sound of their engines dwindled and the peopl began to sing again and to embrace each other as they marched celebrating their courage and their victory.
Today you will all be free,' Raleigh shouted, and those close enougt to hear him believed him, and turned to shout to those farther back 'Today we will all be free!" Ahead of them the gates of the police station yard were closed or locked, but they saw the ranks of men drawn up beyond the wit The uniforms were dark khaki and the morning sun sparkled on the badges and on the ugly stubby blue weapons that the white police carried.
Lothar De La Rey stood on the front steps leading up to the charge office, under the lamp with the words 'Police - Polisie' engraved upon the blue glass and steeled himself not to duck as the formation of jet fighters flashed low over the station roof.