'Well done, Lothie!" One of Lothar's fellow cadets got through to him at last, and the two lads grinned as they shook hands. 'No doubt about who was the best man." 'I was lucky,' Lothat laughed self-deprecatingly, and changed the subject. 'Have you been told your posting yet, Hannes?" 'Ja, man. I'm being sent down to Natal, somewhere on the coast.
How about you, perhaps we'll be together?" 'No such luck,' Lothar shook his head. 'They are sending me to some little station in the black townships near Vereeniging - a place called Sharpeville." 'Sharpeville? Bad luck, man." Hannes shook his head with mock sympathy. 'I've never heard of it." 'Nor had I. Nobody has ever heard of it,' said Lothar with resignation. 'And nobody ever will." On 24 August 1958 the prime minister, Johannes Gerhardus Strijdom, 'Lion of the Waterberg', succumbed to heart disease. He had only been at the head of government for four years, but his passing left a wide gap in the granite cliffs of Afrikanerdom, and like termites whose nest has been damaged, they rushed to repair it.
Within hours of the announcement of the prime minister's death, Manfred De La Rey was in Shasa's office, accompanied by two of the senior Cape back-benchers of the National Party.
'We have to try and keep the northerners out,' he announced bluntly. 'We have to get our man in." Shasa nodded cautiously. He was still regarded by most of the party as an outsider in the cabinet. His influence in the coming election of a new leader would not be decisive, but he was ready to watch and learn as Manfred laid out their strategy for him.
'They have already made Verwoerd their candidate,' he said. 'All right, he has been in the Senate most of his career and has little experience as an MP, but his reputation is that of a strong man and a clever one. They like the way he has handled the blacks. He has made the name Verwoerd and the word apartheid mean the same thing. The people know that under him there will be no mixing of races, that South Africa will always belong to the white man." 'Ja,' agreed one of the others. 'But he is so brutal. There are ways of doing things, ways of saying things that don't offend people. Our own man is strong also. Dnges introduced the Group Areas Bill and the Separate Representation of Voters bill - nobody can accuse him of being a kafferboetie, a nigger-lover. But he's got more style, more finesse." 'The northerners don't want finesse. They don't want a genteel prime minister with sweet lips, they want a man of power, and Verwoerd is a talker, hell that man can talk and he's not afraid of work - and as we all know, anybody whom the English press hates so much can't be all bad." They laughed, watching Shasa, waiting to see how he would take it. He was still an outsider, their tame rooinek, and he would not give them the satisfaction of seeing their raillery score. He smiled easily.
'Verwoerd is canny as an old bull baboon, and quick as a mamba.
We'll have to work hard if we are to keep him out,' Shasa agreed.
They worked hard, all of them. Shasa was convinced that despite his record of introducing racially inspired legislation to the House, D6nges was the most moderate and altruistic of the three men who allowed themselves to be persuaded to stand as candidates for the highest office in the land.
As Dr Hendrik Verwoerd himself said, as he accepted nomination, 'When a man receives a desperate call from his people, he does not have the right to refuse." On 2 September 1958, the caucus of the National Party met to choose the new leader. The caucus was made up of 178 Nationalist members of parliament and Nationalist senators voting together, and Verwoerd's short term in parliament that had seemed at first to be a weakness, turned out to be an advantage. For years Hendrik Verwoerd had been the leader of the Senate, and had dominated the upper house by the strength of his personality and the powers of his oratory. The senators, docile and compliant, men whose ranks had been enlarged to enable the governing party to force through distasteful legislation, voted for Verwoerd as a block.
D6nges survived the first ballot in which 'Blackie' Swart, the Free State's candidate, was eliminated, but on the second ballot, a straight contest between Verwoerd and D6nges, the northerners closed their ranks and swept Verwoerd into the premiership by ninety-eight votes to seventy-five.
That evening when, as prime minister, Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd broadcast to the nation, he did not try to conceal the fact that his election had been the will of Almighty God. 'He it is who has ordained that I should lead the people of South Africa in this new period of their lives." Blaine and Centaine had driven across from Rhodes Hill. It was a family tradition to gather in this room to listen to important broadcasts. Here they had heard speeches and announcements that had shifted the world they knew on its axis: declarations of war and peace, the news of the evil mushroom clouds planted in the skies above Japanese cities, the death of kings and beloved rulers, the accession of a queen, to all these and others they had listened together in the blue drawing-room of Weltevreden.
Now they sat quietly as the high-pitched, nervously strained but articulate voice of the new prime minister came to them, jarring when he repeated platitudes and well-worn themes.
'No one need doubt for a single moment that it will always be my aim to uphold the democratic instutitions of our country, for they are the most treasured possessions of western civilization,' Verwoerd told them, 'and the right of people with other convictions to express their views will be maintained." 'Just as long as those views are passed by the government board of censors, the synod of the Dutch Reformed Church and the caucus of the National Party,' Blaine murmured, a sarcastic qualification for him, and Centaine nudged him.
'Do be quiet, Blaine, I want to listen." Verwoerd had moved on to another familiar subject, how the country's enemies had deliberately misconstrued his racial policies. It was not he who had coined the word apartheid, but other dedicated and brilliant minds had foreseen the necessity of allowing all the races of a complicated and fragmented society to develop towards their own separate potential. 'As the minister of Bantu affairs, since 1950 it has been my duty to give cohesion and substance to this policy, the only policy which will allow full opportunity for each and every group within its own racial community. In the years ahead, we will not deviate one inch from this course." Tara had been tapping her foot restlessly as she listened, but now she sprang to her feet. Tm sorry,' she blurted. 'I'm feeling a little queasy. I must get a breath of fresh air on the terrace --' and she hurried from the room. Centaine glanced sharply at Shasa, but he smiled and shrugged, was about to make a light comment, when the voice on the radio riveted them all once more.
'I come now to one of the most, if not the most sacred ideal of our people,' the high-pitched voice filled the room, 'and that is the formation of the Republic. I know how many of the English-speaking South Africans listening to me tonight are filled with a sense of loyalty to the British Crown. I know also that this divided loyalty has prevented them from always dealing with the real issues on their merits.
The ideal of monarchy has too often been a divisive factor in our midst, separating Afrikaners and English-speakers when they should have been united. In a decolonizing world, the black.man and his newly fledged nations are beginning to emerge as a threat to the South Africa we know and love. Afrikaner and Englishman can no longer afford to stand apart, but must now link arms as allies, secure and strong in the ideal of a new white republic." 'My God,' Blaine breathed, 'that's a new line. It used always to be the Afrikaner Republic exclusively, and nobody took it seriously, least of all the Afrikaners. But this time he is serious, and he has started something that is going to raise a stink. I remember all too well the controversy over the flag, back in the 1920s. That will seem like a love feast compared to the idea of a republic --' he broke off to listen as Verwoerd ended: 'Thus I give you my assurance that from now on the sacred ideal of Republic will be passionately pursued." When the prime minister finished speaking, Shasa crossed the room and switched off the radio; then he turned and stood with his hands thrust deeply into his pockets, and his shoulders hunched as he studied their faces. They were all of them subdued and shaken.