'Such an escape is only possible once?'
'Of course. From the new gaol for politicals it would not be possible.'
'From Beverly Hills?'
Magyar smiled sadly. His mind was taken far back.
'Nothing is possible from Beverly Hills. Before our time, a White condemn, Franz von Staden, escaped. He was at exercise and the wall of the exercise yard was not as high as it is now, and in those days it had no grille. He saw his chance, took it, and then he went to the station and a policeman who was not on duty saw him and remembered his face. They took him back and they hanged him. Now nothing is possible from Beverly Hills.'
'From the outside?'
Magyar shrugged. 'What is on the outside, Comrade Jacob? What do I know of the outside? I was brought to the gaol in a closed van with slit windows. I saw some trees, I saw some houses for the prison staff, I saw their self-service store, but I have no detail. It is the same inside. I lived in the gaol for 32 months, I was in C section 1. I can tell you about each inch of the floor of C section 1, not of C section 2, not of C section 3. I would have to imagine that C section 2 and C section 3 are the same as our section. I can tell you nothing of B section, nor of A section, where the Blacks are.
There are gardens inside the outer wall that come up to the sections. I saw those gardens when I went inside and when I left. You are there a long time and you know very little.
It was the same for all of us who were there… It is not a place that I care to remember.'
Thiroko was hunched towards him.
'For me, I want you to try to remember.'
For more than an hour the radio played light music, and a disc jockey doodled away his time in a London studio.
The old man covered a dozen sheets of foolscap paper with his drawings. At the moment of his arrest he had been an architect's draughtsman in Cape Town.
He drew a plan, as best he knew it, of the square mile to the west of Potgieterstraat, a square mile that encompassed Defence Headquarters to Pretoria Central to Magazine Hill.
He drew a plan of the whole of Beverly Hills, cursing the gaps in his knowledge.
He drew C section. He drew C section I. He drew an individual cell. He drew a cell in relation to the catwalk above the linking corridor. He drew the corridor of C section I and the catwalk. He drew the exercise yard of C section I, and after that he drew a top view plan to show the positioning of the metal grid over the yard and of the supporting beams. He drew the visit rooms. He drew the gallows shed as it had been described to him. Last he drew the airlock entry through the outer wall.
He said drily, 'Under the Prisons Act, I could get ten years for drawing you such plans… should I be returning to South Africa.'
Thiroko accepted no time for banter.
'Firearms?'
'There is an armoury in the administration block where they keep hand guns, machine guns, grenade launchers.
There are guns available at all times in the gatehouse and at the reception at the entrance to administration. There are guns on the watch tower that is set onto the highest wall on the hillside where the sentry can overlook the whole of the compound. The men on the catwalks have F.N. s or Lee Enfields, they are issued with six rounds for a duty. No one carries a gun if they are in contact with prisoners.'
'What is the closest guard to the condemns?'
'I cannot tell you about B section and A section. Over C section there is the armed guard on the catwalk. Through the windows he can look down into each cell. In addition there is one guard, not armed, who is locked for the night into the individual corridors of C section i, and 2 and 3.
Each of those men has a telephone line to the Control in the gatehouse.'
Magyar looked up to see the fighting concentration in Thiroko's eyes.
'Comrade, I do not think you can go to any of the others of us who were there and find more. One man's experience is the same as every man's. I have forgotten nothing that I knew. You cannot break out. You cannot break in.'
Thiroko said, 'Last night a man broke into John Vorster Square.'
Again the sad smile, as if it was a disappointment to the old man that he played the bearer of bad news.
'John Vorster Square has public roads on all sides. Go east from Beverly Hills, you have half a mile before you get to Potgieterstraat, all a control area. Go south, and you are climbing Magazine Hill which is within the prison complex.
Go west, you have a rifle range for the military, and then you have the police training college, and then you have the police dog centre. Go north, you are into Defence Headquarters and the Air Force command bunker. There is not just a high railing. You cannot break in nor out of Beverly Hills… Is it because five comrades will hang?'
A defiance in Thiroko, an echo in his words from a park bench. 'It is not right that we should do nothing.'
'Sentiment from you, Comrade Jacob? There was one amongst the White politicals serving with me, serving longer than I. He used to say, 'Why don't they hurry up with their bloody revolution, get us out of here?' I tell you, every man in Beverly Hills, political or criminal, yearns by the candle of hope for freedom, that is what I know. Comrade, there are five of our men in there who are going to hang and they have no hope.'
Thiroko put the drawings into his briefcase.
'If you hold the candle of hope for them then that is wonderful,' the old man said.
Their farewells were curtly made. Thiroko switched off the radio. He went out of the room. He was given his ticket.
It had been taken to the Zambian airlines office in Piccadilly, and endorsed for that night's flight.
He was photographed when he left the green painted front door, as he had been when he had entered. The cameraman freelanced for the Special Branch and operated from the Metropolitan Police offices on the opposite side of the street.
Thiroko would have expected to be photographed. He didn't care. He had curtailed his visit to London. He was going home with the pain in his stomach. And when he got there he was going to provide the support that an extraordinary young man had asked of him.
•**
Jeez knew of the bomb.
The sentries changing duty on the catwalk would have been disciplined, up before the governor, if it had been known that they had let slip such a nugget of information.
Jeez had heard them talking.
It seemed a small matter. What seemed a big matter was that Sergeant Oosthuizen had informed him that his solicitor was driving from Johannesburg the next day to see him.
He thought the days were sliding fast, each day shorter.
He thought his time was bloody racing.
**
George Hawkins was driving to inspect a chimney when he heard the one o'clock news.
He was preoccupied with the chimney because he was certain it would be difficult. The chimney was 112 feet high, and to bring it down he required an additional 28 feet of clearance on the fall line. It was a built-up area of Hackney, and the oaf who had telephoned him hadn't known whether there was 140 feet clear. He was going to see for himself and he was going to charge them for his time whether or not he agreed to do the demolition.
Johannesburg's central police station? Stone the bleeding crows.
He knew it was his boy. The fire told him that the blue print for the bomb had been his own diagram of the La Mon Hotel device.
