Chapter 30

‘Have you done your chores, George?’ Pondo Harrington asked as George Trebble walked into the Grosvenor bar.

‘What chores?’

‘What’s mine?’ said Pondo. ‘Mine’s a double whiskey. Thanks for offering.’

George Trebble was most vulnerable to being caught by this customary frivolity on a Saturday morning, after his usual, heavy Friday night, although he had yet to buy Harrington a drink.

This morning, anyway, the regulars had other things on their minds. They were still trying to absorb what Jeff Hall had said about Fritz Buhl’s part in making things easier for the Transkei POWs. And they were agog to hear what George could tell them about the conflagration afterwards at the Rec Ground.

‘So who did it then?’ Pondo asked. ‘Who spoilt our party? Was it that spy again? You army blokes must have some idea.’

Nick Mostert, since he was no longer suspected of being “that spy”, gave his opinion. ‘I don’t think any Nazi sympathiser would have set old Adolf on fire. Even a model of him. It would go against the grain.’

‘I think you’re right, Nick,’ said Gerald Wilson. ‘So who could it have been, George?’

‘Oh, we have a pretty good idea,’ George said, mysteriously.

In fact, George Trebble had no idea at all.

Sergeant Jock Brown had arrived at the Rec the previous night at the height of the blaze. He had found volunteers from the fire brigade filling buckets of water from a solitary tap. He told them not to bother, to let the bonfire take its course. The fire was not going anywhere else.

They all watched in some awe as Adolf Hitler became animated and suddenly rose from his seat, an action generated by pockets of air in the firewood.

Someone tapped Jock Brown on the arm. It was Melvyn Swanepoel, the janitor from the Drill Hall over the road.

‘I saw them, Jock!’ he said.

‘Them, Swanny?’

‘Three of them,’ said Swanepoel. ‘Three women. They were running up Alexandra Road.’

Brown digested the information. ‘You’re sure it wasn’t one woman and, maybe, two men?’

‘No, Jock. Three women. For sure. All in long dresses.’

Oh, my God, Jock Brown thought. It was Ma Perkins and her mad daughters!

From his home, he phoned Digger O’Brien to tell him.

‘What are you going to do?’ Digger asked. ‘Arrest them?’

‘On what evidence?’ Jock Brown said. ‘Swanny wouldn’t be able to identify them. We’ll just have to write it off as something that happened, just something else to put in our war journal.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘But one thing, Digger,’ said Brown. ‘For God’s sake, don’t tell George Trebble. Otherwise, we’ll have another bloody public meeting and they’ll want to tar and feather the whole Perkins family!’

Surprisingly, that Saturday fete met the expectations of the organisers. The early demise of the Nazi leader probably attracted more people than otherwise would have come. Particularly after one of the volunteer firemen had a brainwave. He tied a neatly lettered sign around what was left of the broomstick that had been the Fuhrer’s spine.

It was a variation of the old Guy Fawkes chant – “Guy Fawkes, Guy, stick him in the eye!” – and it seemed to excite the many schoolchildren who thronged around the ashes. Soon, some of them began to march about, chanting, ‘Easy as pie! Stick Hitler in the eye!’

Danny watched from a distance, feeling sick. He had hoped against hope that the Perkins females would not go through with their plan. The thought that he might have been able to prevent it, if he hadn’t made that silly promise, weighed on his heart.

Moses Madasa came by, looking smart in his blazer and hat. ‘Danny, my friend!’ he said. ‘What’s the matter? You look like you lost ten shillings and picked up a sixpence.’

‘Nothing, Moses,’ said Danny. ‘Thanks. I’m fine.’

‘But where’s the smile? This is a big day! Where are your friends, Billy and the others? You should all be celebrating! Hitler’s been burned in our town! He’s gone to ashes!’

As he often did when Moses was effervescent, Danny began to feel better and asked Moses about soccer.

‘Ah, we’ve got a big game next Sunday,’ said Moses. ‘Biggest one I’ve played in. North Transkei versus South Transkei. And I’m the striker for the South. Stanley Matthews Number Two!’

Because of the nature of the day, the boys had arranged to have shorter watches on the Buhl house – until lunchtime, when Herman Weisse would close his shop for the weekend. Danny’s shift was due to start in less than an hour. He was wondering how to spend that time, when his father arrived.

‘Let’s take a stroll, Danny,’ said Digger. He led the way through the stalls. At the end of the grandstand, he stopped.

‘Charles told you,’ he said. ‘Didn’t he, Danny? He told you what his mother and sisters were going to do. That’s why you’ve been so morose recently.’

‘Yes,’ said Danny after a long pause. ‘Charles told me. But it was a secret, Dad. He made me swear not to tell anybody.’

‘And so you swore that.’

‘Yes, but I didn’t know then what the secret was going to be. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have sworn.’

‘And if someone had been hurt last night, by that bonfire, how would you be feeling now?’

Danny fought to control the welling behind his eyes. ‘I feel bad anyway. I feel I let you down. I feel I should have told you. But I couldn’t, Dad. Do you see that?’

‘Yes, I do,’ said Digger. ‘You kept a confidence, and that couldn’t have been easy. But you learned something else, too. You don’t agree to share secrets until you are quite sure what they are about.’

‘Yes, I know that now,’ said Danny.

 

It had been a good few days for Nick Mostert. He had donated five chickens to the American auction, the winners to collect them dead or alive. At the fete on the Rec, he had offered dressed fowls for sale, sharing a stall with Olive Eales, an elderly woman who bottled honey and marmalade.

Nick felt warmed by a sudden sense of belonging. People in the passing crowd seemed to know who he was, although he was unable to recognise too many. Almost before he realised it, all his chickens had been sold. Digger O’Brien stopped by to exchange a few words. Ian Ross, the doctor who had removed the plaster from his leg, wanted to know if it pained him in the cold weather.

After that fiasco, when he was caught in a lie about being an air force pilot, it was an unexpected feeling. He had thought he would be frustrated, like a magician stripped of his bag of tricks, no longer able to impress people with the fantasies he spun in his mind. Instead, he now found it almost cathartic, knowing that the locals were likely to question anything they believed might be a fabrication.

So, simply, Nick Mostert had been put in a position where he was forced to tell the truth – or if not the whole truth, then most of it. He knew it wouldn’t last. When eventually he moved on to another place, another town, those old fantasies would inevitable be revived. But in the meantime, he felt strangely content.

In this mood, Mostert sought to quench his thirst at the Grosvenor bar. It was late afternoon and the regulars were in their usual places.

‘Hey, Nick!’ said Pondo Harrington. ‘Is it true you’ve never been down to the Wild Coast? Well, isn’t it about time you went? Alf and I are planning a trip to spend the money I won off Ginger there. Why don’t you come along?’

‘How do you plan to travel?’ asked Nick. ‘On the railway bus?’

‘No, in that De Soto of yours.’

Nick Mostert laughed. Harrington was irrepressible. Still, he thought, it wasn’t a bad idea. Perhaps Pondo had some contacts down there who would want to buy a load of chickens. Then again, considering the company he and Alf kept, perhaps not.

‘All right, Pondo,’ Nick said. ‘When would you two be free to go?’

‘Oh, we’re free, Nick, old man!’ said Harrington. ‘Free as air!’

From John Ryan’s Spy story