white flag to be marched away to captivity and eventual trial.
But Fordsburg was the heart and the Brixton ridge which commanded it was the key to the revolt.
Now at last, Sean Courtney had the ridge, but it had been two days of hard and bitter fighting. With artillery and air support, they had swept the rocky kopjes, the school buildings, brickfields, the cemetery, the public buildings and the cottages, each of which the strikers had turned into a strongpoint; and in the night they had carried in the dead of both sides, and buried them in the Milner Park cemetery, each with his own comrades, soldier with soldier and striker with striker.
Now Sean was ready for the thrust to the heart, and below them the iron roofs of Fordsburg blinked in the fine clear sunlight. Here he comes now, said Mark Anders, and they all lifted their binoculars and searched for the tiny fleck of black in the immense tall sky.
The DH. 9 sailed in sedately, banking slowly in from the south and levelling for the run over the cowering cottages of Fordsburg.
Through the lens of his glasses, Mark could make out the head and shoulders of the navigator in the forward cockpit as he hoisted each stack of pamphlets on to the edge of the cockpit, cut the strings and then pushed them over the side. They flurried out in a white storm behind the slow-moving machine, caught in the slipstream, spreading and spinning and drifting like flocks of white doves.
A push of the breeze spread some of the papers towards the ridge, and Mark caught one out of the air and glanced at the crude printing on cheap thick paper.
MARTIAL LAW NOTICE Women and children and all persons well disposed towards the Government are advised to leave before 11 a. m. today that part of Fordsburg and vicinity where the authority of the Government is defied and where military operations are about to take place. No immunity from punishment or arrest is guaranteed to any person coming in under this notice who has broken the law.
SEAN COURTNEY CONTROL OFFICER It was clumsy syntax. Mark wondered who had composed it as he crumpled the notice and dropped it into the grass at his feet. What if the pickets won't let them come out, sir? he asked quietly.
I don't pay you to be my conscience, young man, Sean growled warningly, and they stood on in silence for a minute. Then Sean sighed and took the cigars from his breast pocket and offered one to Mark as a conciliatory gesture. What can I do, Mark? Must I send my lads into those streets without artillery support? He bit the tip off his cigar and spat it into the grass. Whose lives are more important, the strikers and their families or men who trust me and honour me with their loyalty? It's much easier to fight people you hate, Mark said softly, and Sean glanced at him sharply. Where did you read that? he demanded, and Mark shook his head.
At least there are no blacks caught up in this, he said.
Mark had personally been in charge of sending disguised black policemen through the lines to warn all tribesmen to evacuate the area. Poor blighters, Sean agreed. I wonder what they make of this white men's madness. Mark strode to the edge of the shallow cliff, ignoring the danger of sniping fire from the buildings below, and glassed the town carefully. Suddenly he exclaimed with relief, They're coming outV Far below where they stood, the first tiny figures straggled out of the entrance of the Vrededorp subway. The women carried infants and dragged reluctant children at arm's length. Some were burdened with their personal treasures, others brought their pets, canaries in wire cages, dogs on leashes. The first small groups and individuals became a trickle and then a sorry, toiling stream, pushing laden bicycles and hand carts, or simply carrying all the possessions they could lift. Send a platoon down to guide them, and give them a hand, Sean ordered quietly, and brooded heavily with his beard on his chest. I'm glad to see the women out of it, he growled. But I'm sad for what it means.
The men are going to fight, Mark said. Yes, Sean nodded. They're going to fight. I had hoped we had had enough slaughter, but they are going to make a bitter ending to a tragic tale. He crushed the stub of his cigar under his heel. All right, Mark. Go down and tell Molyneux that it's on. Eleven hundred hours we'll open the barrage. Good luck, son Mark saluted, and Sean Courtney left him and limped back from the crest to join General Smuts and his staff who had come out to watch the final sweep of the battle.
The first shrapnel bursts clanged across the sky, and burst in bright gleaming cotton pods of smoke above the roofs of Fordsburg, cracking the sky and the waiting silence, with startling violence.
The y were fired by the horse artillery batteries on the ridge, and immediately the other batteries on Sauer Street joined in.
For twenty minutes, the din was appalling and the brilliant air was sullied by the rising mist of smoke and dust.
Mark stood in the hastily dug trench and peered over the parapet. There was something so dreadfully familiar in this moment. He had lived it fifty times before, but now he felt his nerves screwing down too tightly and the heavy indigestible lump of fear in his guts nauseated him.
He wanted to duck down below the parapet, cover his head to protect his ears from the great metallic harrimerblows of sound, and stay there.
It required an immense effort of will to stand where he was and to keep his expression calm and disinterested but the men of A Company lined the trench on each side of him and, to distract himself, he began to plan his route through the outskirts of the town.
There would be road-blocks at every corner, and every cottage would be held. The artillery barrage would not have affected the strikers under cover, for it was limited to shrapnel bursts. Sean Courtney was concerned with the safety of over a hundred police and military personnel who had been captured by the strikers and were being held somewhere in the town. No high explosive, was the order, and Mark knew his company would be cut to ribbons on the open streets.
He was going to take them through the kitchen yards and down the sanitary lanes to their final objective, the Trades Hall on Commercial and Central Streets.
He checked his watch again, and there were four minutes to go.
All right, Sergeant, he said quietly.
The order passed quickly down the trench and the men came to their feet, crouching below the parapet. Like old times, sir, the Sergeant said affably, and Mark glanced at him. He seemed actually to be enjoying this moment, and Mark found himself hating the man for it. Let's go, he said abruptly, as the minute hand of his watch touched the black hair-line division, and the Sergeant blew his whistle shrilly.
Mark put one hand on the parapet and leapt nimbly over the top.
