Rage - Smith Wilbur - Страница 60
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He was one of the first to arrive at Puck's Hill that morning to attend the council meeting to which the previous night's messenger had summoned him.
Marcus Archer met Moses on the verandah, and his smile was vitriolic as he greeted him. 'They say a man is incomplete until he marries - and only then is he finished." There were two men already seated at the long table in the kitchen which had always been used as their council chamber. They were both white men.
Brain Fischer was the scion of an eminent Afrikaner family whose father had been a judge-president of the Orange Free State. Though he was an expert on mining law, and a QC at the Johannesburg bar, he had also been a member of the old Communist Party and was a member of the ANC, and lately his practice had become almost entirely the defence of those accused under the racial laws that the Nationalist government had enacted since 1948. Although he was a charming and erudite man with a real concern for his countrymen of all races, Moses was wary of him. He was a starry-eyed believer in the eventual miraculous triumph of good over evil, and firmly opposed the formation of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the military branch of the ANC. His pacifist influence on the rest of the Congress set a brake on Moses' aspirations.
The other white man was Joe Cicero, a Lithuanian immigrant.
Moses could guess why he had come to Africa - and who had sent him. He was one of the eagles, fierce hearted as Moses was himself, and an ally when the need for direct and even violent action was discussed. Moses went to sit beside him, across the table from Fischer. He would need Joe Cicero's support this day.
Marcus Archer, who loved to cook, set a plate of devilled kidneys and oen?s ranchero in front of him, but before Moses had finished his breakfast, the others began to arrive. Nelson Mandela and his faithful ally Tambo, arrived together, followed quickly by Walter Sisulu and Mbeki and the others, until the long table was crowded and cluttered with papers and dirty plates, with coffee cups and ashtrays which were soon overflowing with crushed cigarette butts.
The air was thick with tobacco smoke and Marcus's cooking aromas, and the talk was charged and serious as they tried to decide and agree exactly what were the objects of the defiance campaign.
'We have to stir the awareness of our people, to shake them out of their dumb cowlike acceptance of oppression." Mandela put the premier proposition, and across from him Moses leaned forward.
'More important, we must awaken the conscience of the rest of the world, for that is the direction from which our ultimate salvation will come." 'Our own people--' Mandela began, but Moses interrupted him.
'Our own people are powerless without weapons and training. The forces of oppression ranged against us are too powerful. We cannot triumph without arms." 'You reject the way of the peace then?" Mandela asked. 'You presuppose that freedom can only be won at the point of the gun?" 'The revolution must be tempered and made strong in the blood of the masses,' Moses affirmed. 'That is always the way." 'Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" Brain Fischer held up his hand to stop them. 'Let us return to the main body of the discussion. We agree that by our campaign of defiance we hope to stir our own people out of their lethargy and to attract the attention of the rest of the world.
Those are our two main objects. Let us now decide on our secondary objects." 'To establish the ANC as the only true vehicle of liberation,' Moses suggested. 'At present we have less than seven thousand members, but by the end of the campaign we should aim to have enrolled one hundred thousand more." To this there was general agreement, even Mandela and Tambo nodded and when the vote was taken it was unanimous and they could go on to discuss the details of the campaign.
It was a massive undertaking, for it was planned that the campaign should be nationwide and that it hould be conducted simultaneously in every one of the main centres of the Union of South Africa so as to place the utmost strain on the resources of the government and to test the response of the forces of law and order.
'We must fill their gaols until they burst. We must offer ourselves up for arrest in our thousands until the machinery of tyranny breaks down under the strain,' Mandela told them.
For three more days they sat in the kitchen at Puck's Hill, working out and agreeing every minute detail, preparing the lists of names and places, putting together the timetable of action, the logistics of transport and communication, establishing the lines of control from the central committee down through the provincial headquarters of the movement, and ultimately to the regional cadres in every black township and location.
It was an onerous task but at last there was only one detail left to decide - the day on which it would begin. Now they all looked to Albert Luthuli at the head of the table and he did not hesitate.
'June the twenty-sixth,' he said, and when there was a murmur of agreement, he went on, 'So be it then. We all know our tasks." And he gave them the salute of upraised thumbs. 'Amandla.t Power!
Ngawethu.t' When Moses went out to where the old Buick was parked beneath the gum trees, the sunset was filling the western sky with furnace colours of hot orange and smouldering red, and Joe Cicero was waiting for him. He leaned against the silvery trunk of one of the bluegum trees, with his arms folded over his broad chest, a bearlike figure, short and squat and powerful.
He straightened up as Moses came towards him.
'Can you give me a lift in to Braamfontein, comrade?" he asked, and Moses opened the door of the Buick for him, and they drove in silence for ten minutes before Joe said quietly, 'It is strange that you and I have never spoken privately." His accent was elusive, but The planes of his pale face above the short dark fringe of beard were flat and Slavic and his eyes were dark as tar pools. 'Why is it so strange?" Moses asked.
'We share common views,' Joe replied. 'We are both true sons of the revolution." 'Are you certain of that?" 'I am certain,' Joe nodded.
'I have studied you and listened to you with approval and admiration. I believe that you are one of the steely men that the revolution needs, comrade." Moses did not reply. He kept his eyes on the road, and his expression impassive, letting the silence draw out, forcing the other man to break it.
'What are your feelings towards mother Russia?" Joe asked softly at last, and Moses considered the question.
'Russia has never had colonies in Africa,' Moses answered carefully. 'I know that she gives support to the struggle in Malaya and Algeria and Kenya. I believe she is a true ally of the oppressed peoples of this world." Joe smiled and lit another Springbok cigarette from the flat maroon and white pack. He was a chain-smoker and his stubby fingers were stained dark brown.
'The road to freedom is steep and rocky,' he murmured. 'And the revolution is never secure. The proletariat must be protected from itself by the revolutionary guards." 'Yes,' Moses agreed. 'I have read the works of both Marx and Lenin." 'Then I was correct,' Joe Cicero murmured. 'You are a believer.
We should be friends - good friends. There are difficult days ahead and there will be a need for steely men." He reached over the back seat and picked up his attach case. 'You can let me out at th, central railway station, comrade,' he said.
It had been fully dark for two hours by the time Moses reached th camp in the gorge below the Sundi Caves and parked the Buick behind the Nissen hut that was the expedition's office and laboratory, and he went up the path to Tara Courtney's tent, stepping softly sc as not alarm her. He saw her silhouette against the canvas side. She was lying on her stretcher bed reading by the light of the petromax lantern, and he saw her start as he scratched on the canvas.
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