They piled into Shasa's old Ford and went roaring up the long driveway towards the chateau. She watched them with trepidation until they were out of sight, and when she looked back Blaine and General Smuts had also left the circle and were strolling away amongst the oaks, their heads inclined towards each other talking earnestly. She watched them surreptitiously. They made an interesting and ill-assorted couple, the spry little white-bearded statesman and the tall handsome warrior and lawyer. Their conversation was obviously engrossing, and they were oblivious to all else as they promenaded slowly back and forth, just out of earshot from where Centaine sat.
When are you returning to Windhoek, Blaine? My wife sails for Southampton in two weeks time. I will return immediately the mail boat leaves. Can you stay over? General Smuts asked. Say until the New Year? I am expecting developments. May I have an inkling what they are? Blaine asked.
I want you back in the House. Smuts evaded the direct question for the moment. I know it will involve sacrifice, Blaine. You are doing an excellent job in Windhoek and building up personal prestige and bargaining power. I am asking you to sacrifice that by resigning the administratorship and contesting the Gardens by-election for the South Africa Party. Blaine did not reply. The sacrifice that the Ou Baas was asking for was onerous.
The Gardens was a marginal seat. There was a real risk of losing it to the Hertzog party and even with a victory he would gain only a seat on the opposition benches, a heavy price to pay for the loss of the administratorship.
We are in opposition, Ou Baas, he said simply, and General Smuts struck at the Kikuyu grass with his cane as he pondered his reply.
Blaine. This is for you only. I must have your word on that. 'Of course. If you trust me now, you will have a ministry within six months. Blaine looked incredulous and Smuts stopped in front of him. 'I see I will have to tell you more. He drew a breath. Coalition, Blaine. Hertzog and I are working out a Coalition cabinet. It looks certain and we will announce it in March next year, three months away. I will be taking justice and it looks as though I will be able to appoint four of my own ministers. You are on my list. I see. Blaine tried to take it in. The news was stupendous.
Smuts was offering him what he had always wanted, a place in the cabinet.
I don't understand, Ou Baas. Why should Hertzog be prepared to negotiate with us now? He knows that he has lost the confidence of the nation and that his own party is becoming unmanageable. His cabinet has become arrogant, if not downright lawless. It is engaging in discretionary rule. Yes, yes, Ou Baas. But surely this is our opportunity!
Look to this last month alone, look to the by-election at Germiston and the results of the Transvaal provincial elections. We won both decisively. If we can force a general election now, we will win. We don't have to form a coalition with the Nationalists. We could win as the South Africa Party on our own terms. The old general was silent for a few moments, his grey beard sunk into his chest and his expression grave. You may be right, Blaine. We might win now, but not on our own showing. The vote would go against Hertzog, not for us. A party victory now would be barren and sterile. We could not justify forcing a general election for the national welfare. It would be party political profiteering and I want no part of that. Blaine could not reply. Suddenly he felt humbled to be in the confidence of such a man. A man so truly great and good that he would unhesitatingly turn his back on the opportunity to profit from his country's agony.
These are desperate times, Blaine. Smuts was speaking softly. 'Storm clouds are gathering all around us. We need a united people. We need a strong coalition cabinet, not a parliament split by party differences. Our economy is tottering on the brink, the gold-mining industry is in jeopardy.
At present costs, many of the older mines are already closing down. others will follow, and when they do it will mean the end of the South Africa that we know and love. In addition to that, the prices of wool and diamonds, our other major exports, have crashed. Blaine nodded soberly. All these factors were the basis of nationwide concern.
I don't have to emphasize the findings of the Wage Commission, Smuts went on. One fifth of our white population has been plunged by drought and primitive farming methods into abject poverty, twenty percent of our productive lands have been ruined by erosion and abuse, probably permanently., The poor whites, Blaine murmured, a great mass of itinerant beggars and starvelings, unemployed and untrained, without skills, without hope. Then we have our blacks, split by twenty tribal divisions, flocking in from the rural districts in search of the good life, die lekkerlewe, and swelling the ranks of the unemployed, finding instead of the good life, crime and illicit liquor and prostitution, building up a pervading discontent, conceiving a fine contempt for our laws and discovering for the first time the sweet attractions of political power. That is a problem we haven't even begun to address or attempt to understand, Blaine agreed. Let us pray our children and our grandchildren do not curse us for our neglect. Let us pray, indeed, Smuts echoed. And while we do so, let us look beyond our own borders for a moment, to the chaos which engulfs the rest of the world. He stabbed at the earth with his cane to mark each point as he made it.
In America the system of credit has collapsed and trade with Europe and the rest of the world has come to a standstill. Armies of the poor and dispossessed roam aimlessly across the continent. He stabbed the point of the cane into the turf. In Germany the Weimar Republic is collapsing after ruining the economy. One hundred and fifty billion Weimar marks to one of the old gold marks, wiping out the nation's savings. Now from the ashes has risen a new dictatorship, founded in blood and violence, which has upon it the stench of immense evil. He struck the earth again, angrily. In Russia a ravening monster is murdering millions of his own countrymen. Japan is in the throes of anarchy.
The military have run riot cutting down the nation's elected rulers, seizing Manchuria and slaughtering the unfortunate inhabitants by the hundreds of thousands, threatening to walk out of the League of Nations when the rest of the world protests. Once again the cane hissed as he slashed at the lush Kikuyu grass. There has been a run on the Bank of England, Great Britain forced off the Gold Standard, and from the vault of history the ancient curse of anti-Semitism has escaped once more and stalks the civilized world. Smuts stopped and faced Blaine squarely. Everywhere we turn there is disaster and mortal danger. I will not attempt to profit from it and in so doing divide this suffering land. No, Blaine, coalition and cooperation, not conflict. How did it all go wrong so swiftly, Ou Baas? Blaine asked softly. It seems just yesterday that we were prosperous and happy. In South Africa a man can be filled with hope at dawn and sick with despair by noon. Smuts was silent for a moment, and then he roused himself.
I need you, Blaine. Do you want time to think about it? Blaine shook his head. No need. You can count on me, Ou Baas. I knew I could. Blaine looked beyond him to where Centaine sat under the oaks and tried to hide his jubilation and to suppress the sense of shame that underlaid it, shame that unlike this saintly little man before him he was to profit from the agony of his country and the civilized world, shame that only now, out of despair and hardship, he would achieve his cherished ambition of cabinet rank. Added to that he would be returning to the Cape, coming in from the desert lands to this lush and beautiful place, coming in to where Centaine Courtney was.
Then his gaze flicked to the thin pale woman in the wheelchair, her beauty fading under the onslaught of pain and drugs, and his guilt and shame balanced almost perfectly his jubilation.
But Smuts was speaking again.
I will be staying on here as a guest at Weltevreden for the JT; next four days, Blaine. Sir Garry has bullied me
