him to join the crowd around me. I wanted to call out to him, to tell that I felt sorry for him, that I wished I could have spared him, but there was nothing to say. He had said it all a hundred times before.
Every single national paper had it the following morning, and even
Louren had sent out for them all, and we sat in a sea of newsprint as we ate another of those gargantuan breakfasts. I was touched by Louren’s pride in my achievements. He read each article aloud, interspersing his own comments:
‘You rocked them, partner.’
‘Ben, you murdered the bums.’
‘The way you told it, you even had me wetting my pants, and, hell! I was there!’
He picked one of the left-wing tabloids from the pile and opened it. His expression changed immediately. Suddenly he was scowling furiously, a look of such concentrated venom that I asked quickly, ‘What is it, Lo?’
‘Here.’ He almost flung the sheet at me. ‘Read it yourself, while I finish changing.’ He went through into the bedroom and slammed the door.
I found it almost immediately. A full-page of photographs under a big banner ‘The forces of freedom’. Black men with guns, with tanks. Black men marching, rank upon endless rank. Eggshell helmets like evil toadstools of hatred, modern automatic weapons slung on camouflaged shoulders, booted feet swinging. It was not these that held me. In the centre of the page was a picture of a tall man with shoulders wide as the crosstree of a gallows, and a bald cannon-ball head that shone in the bright African sunshine. He walked unsmiling between two grinning Chinamen in those shabby rumpled uniforms that look like pyjamas.
The caption was in bold lettering: ‘The Black Crusader, Major-General Timothy Mageba, the newly appointed commander of the people’s Liberation Army with two of his military advisers.’
I felt a sinking sensation of dread as I looked at the brooding hatred in that face, the power and terrible purpose in those set shoulders and thrusting gait.
In some inexplicable fashion it seemed to detract from my own personal triumph. What had happened 2,000 years ago seemed of lessened importance when I looked at the picture of this man, and I thought of the dark forces in movement through the length of my land.
Yet it came to me then that this man was not unique, Africa had bred many like him. The dark destroyers who had strewn her plains with the white bones of men, Chaka, Mzilikazi, Mamatee, Mutesa, and hundreds of others that history had forgotten. Timothy Mageba was only the latest in a long line of warriors which stretched back beyond the shadowy, impenetrable veils of time.
Louren came out of the bedroom, and with him was Hilary. She came to kiss me and congratulate me again, and I dropped the sheet of newspaper from my hand, but not my mind.
‘I’m sorry I can’t be with you to hear your friend Eldridge this morning, Ben. I can’t get out of this meeting. Please look after Hil for me. Give her a good lunch, will you?’ Louren told me as the three of us went down in the lift.
Eldridge, in his tweeds and elbow patches, massacred his subject. For three and a half hours he mumbled about ‘hangs’ and ’abridgements‘, occasionally letting fly with that laugh of his, a sound which woke the sleepers. I was grateful to him as I looked around the slowly emptying hall, and the doodling yawning members of the Press. He certainly wasn’t stealing my glory from me.
An hour before lunch Sally slipped me a note from her seat behind me. ‘I can’t take any more. Going out to do some shopping. See you. S.’
And I smiled as I watched her slide gracefully out of the side exit. Hilary turned and winked at me, and we both smiled.
Eldridge ground to a slow, inconclusive halt and beamed around at his depleted audience.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘I think that covers just about everything.’ And there followed a relieved scramble for the doors.
In the lobby of the Society I was once more surrounded by an enthusiastic mob, and we made slow progress towards the door and our lunch.
When at last we reached the taxi, with Eldridge and myself flanking Hilary on the seat, I was just about to give the driver the address of the Trattoria Terrazza when Hilary looked down at her hands in her lap and gave a little stricken cry.
‘My ring!’ And for the first time we noticed that the great jewel was no longer flaming upon her hand. I stared aghast at the naked finger, a fortune beyond my dreams was missing. That diamond must certainly be worth ?30,000.
‘When did you last have it?’ I demanded of her, and after a second’s thought a look of relief replaced her worried frown.
‘Oh, I remember now. At the hotel, I was painting my nails. I put it in the alabaster cigarette box beside my chair.’
‘Which room? Which chair?’
‘The lounge, the tapestry chair beside the television set.’
‘Eldridge, will you take Mrs Sturvesant on to the restaurant, please. I’d better take another cab and dash back to the hotel before one of the cleaning staff discovers it. Have you your key with you, Hil?’
She dug into her handbag and came out with the key.
‘Ben, you are an old sweetheart. I’m so sorry about this.’ And she handed it to me.
‘Damsels in distress are my speciality.’ I stepped out onto the pavement. They pulled away and for five minutes I behaved like a berserk semaphorist towards the passing stream of taxis. I can never tell it those little yellow lights on top are burning or not, so I flag them all.
