voice was thick with terror. 'Sodding Christ, let's get out of here.' It served to steel Lothar, and he felt contempt for his own weakness. As he had done so many times before, he strangled his fear and climbed onto the bonnet of the Land-Rover.
Deliberately he had left the sten gun on the front seat and he did not even unbutton the holster on his belt. A single firearm was useless against this sprawling monster.
He held up his arms and shouted, 'Stop! You people must go back. That is a police order.' But his words were drowned in the multitudinous voice of the monster, and it came on apace. The men in the front rank started to run towards him and those behind shouted and pressed forward faster.
'Go back,' Lothar roared, but there was not the slightest check in the ranks and they were close now. He could see the expressions on the faces of the men in front, they were grinning, but Lothar knew how swiftly the African mood can change, how close below the smiles lies the violence of the African heart. He knew he could not stop them, they were too close, too excited, and he was aware that his presence had inflamed them, the mere sight of his uniform was enough.
He jumped down and into the cab, reversed the Land-Rover and then accelerated forward, swinging the wheel into a full lock, and he pulled away as the leaders were within arm's reach.
He pushed the accelerator flat against the floorboards. It was almost two miles back to the station. As he made a quick calculation on how long it would take the march to reach it, he was already rehearsing the orders he would give and working out additional precautions to secure the station.
Suddenly there was another vehicle in the road ahead of him. He had not expected that, and as he swerved to avoid it he saw it was a Morris with lacquered wooden struts supporting the station wagon body. The driver was a young white man.
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.
