kicked and stamped shouting the traditional cheers, jiggling her firm young bottom with innocent abandon while the crowds screamed and writhed, beginning already to work themselves into an hysterical frenzy. Johnny watched Tracey. He stood completely still in the thunderous uproar. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
Then the show was over, the drum majorettes retreating back through the stadium entrance, and the home team trotted on to the field.
The presence of the Old Man and Tracey added intensity to the glare of hatred that Johnny turned on the tall whiteclad figure that fell back to take control of the Cape Town back field.
Benedict van der Byl reached his position and turned.
From inside his calf-length sock he took a comb and ran it through his dark hair. The crowd bellowed and whistled, loving this little theatrical gesture. Benedict returned the comb to his sock and posed with one hand on his hip, his chin lifted arrogantly as he surveyed the opposition.
Suddenly he intercepted Johnny’s glare, and the pose altered as he dropped his eyes and shuffled his feet a little.
The whistle fluted, and play began. It was everything the crowds had hoped for, a match that would long be remembered and gloated over. Massive Panzer offensives by the “! forwards, long probing raids by the backs with the oval ball flickering from hand to hand, until a bone-jarring tackle smashed the carrier to the turf. Hard and fast and clean play swung from side to side, a hundred times the crowd came up on its feet as one, eyes and mouths wide in screaming unbearable tension, to sink back with a groan as the ball was held by a desperate defence within inches of the try line.
No score and three minutes of play left, Cape Town attacking from a set scrummage, driving through a gap in the defence and then putting the ball in the air with a long raking pass, taken cleanly by the Cape Town wing without a break in his stride. His feet twinkled across the green turf, and again the crowd came up with a gasp.
Johnny hit him low, just above the knee, with his shoulder. The two of them rolled together out of the field of play lifting a puff of white lime from the line and the crowd groaned and sank back.
While they waited to receive the throw, Johnny whispered hoarse orders. His gold and maroon jersey was soaked with sweat, and blood from a grazed hip stained his white shorts.
“Get it back fast. Don’t run with it. Give it to Dawie.
Kick high and deep, Dawie.” Johnny leapt high to the flight of the thrown ball, with a bunched fist he punched it back accurately into Dawie’s hands, at the same moment twisting his body to block the attackers. Dawie fell back two paces and kicked. The power of the kick swung his right foot above his head, and the impetus flung him forward to put his forwards “on side’.
The ball climbed slowly, flying like a dart with no wobble or roll in the air, reaching the zenith of its trajectory high over mid-field, then floating back to earth.
Twenty thousand heads followed its flight, a hush had fallen over the field - and in the unnatural silence Benedict van der Byl was drifting back deep into his own territory, anticipating the drop of the ball with deceptively unhurried strides, yet timing it with the precision of the gifted athlete.
The ball slotted neatly into his arms, and he began moving lazily infield to open his angle for the return kick.
Still a tense throbbing mesmeric hush hung over the field, Benedict van der Byl was at the focus of attention.
“Jag Hond!” A single voice in the crowd alerted them, and twenty thousand heads swung downfield.
“Jag Hond!” A roar now. Johnny was well clear of the pack, arms pumping and legs churning as he bore down on Benedict. It was a futile effort, he could not hope to intercept a player of Benedict’s calibre from such long range, yet Johnny was burning the last of his physical reserves in that charge. His face was a sweat-shining mask of determination, and clods of torn grass flew from under his savagely driving boots.
Then something happened which was unaccountable, almost past belief. Benedict van der Byl glanced round and saw Johnny. He broke his stride, two clumsy shuffling paces, and tried to pivot away deeper into his own ground. All the assurance had gone from his body, all the skill and grace.
He tripped and stumbled, almost fell and the ball popped out of his hands, bouncing awkwardly.
Benedict scrambled after it, groping blindly, looking back over his shoulder. Now on his face was an expression of naked terror.
Johnny was very close. Grunting at each stride like a gut-shot lion, massive shoulders already bunching for the strike, his lips drawn back into a murderous parody of a grin.
Benedict van der Byl dropped to his knees and covered his head with both arms, cringing down on to the green turf.
Johnny swept past him without a check, stooping easily in his run to gather the bouncing ball.
When Benedict uncovered his head and, still kneeling, looked up, Johnny stood ten yards away between the goal posts watching him. Then, deliberately, Johnny placed the ball between his feet to complete the formality of the touchdown.
Now, as if by agreement, both Johnny and Benedict looked towards the main grandstand. They saw the Old Man rise from his seat and make his way slowly through the ecstatic crowds towards the exit.
The day after the match, Johnny went back into the desert.
He was down in the bottom of a fifteen-foot prospecttre rich that had been dug across the grain of the country rock. It was oppressively hot in the confines of the trench and Johnny was stripped to a skimpy pair of khaki shorts, his sun-browned muscles oily with sweat, but he worked steadily at his sampling. He was establishing the Contours; and profile of an ancient marine terrace that the ages buried beneath the sand. It was here on the bedrock that he expected to find the thin layer of diamond-bearing gravel.
He heard the Jeep pull up at ground level above him, and the crunch of footsteps. Johnny straightened up and held his aching back muscles.
The Old Man stood at the edge of the trench and looked down at him. He held a folded newspaper in his hand. This was the first time
Johnny had seen him at close range in all the years, and he was shocked at the change. The mass of Fli bushy hair was so white, and his features were folded and creased like those of a mastiff, leaving the big hooked nose standing like a hillock from his face. But there was no wasting or deterioration in his body, and his eyes were still that chilling enigmatic blue.
He dropped the newspaper into the trench and Johnny caught it, still staring up at the Old Man.
“Read it!” said the Old Man. The paper was folded to the sports page, and the headline was thick and bold.
JAG HOND IN. VAN DER BYL OUT.
The shock was as delicious as the plunge into a mountain stream.
He was in - he would carry the gold and green, and wear the leaping
Springbok on his blazer pocket.
He looked up, proud and happy, standing bareheaded in the sun waiting for the Old Man to speak.
“Make up your mind,” said the Old Man softly. “Do you want to play ball - or work for Van Der Byl Diamonds? You can’t do both.” And he walked back to the Jeep and drove away.
Johnny cabled his withdrawal from the team to the Doctor personally. The storm of outraged protest and abuse in the national press, and the hundreds of viperous letters Johnny received accusing him of cowardice and treachery and worse made him thankful for the sanctuary of the desert.
Neither Johnny nor Benedict had ever played the game again.
Thinking about it, even at this remove of time, Johnny felt the sting of disappointment. He had wanted that green and gold badge of honour so very deeply. Brusquely he pulled the Jaguar off the road and scanned the street map of London and found Stark Street tucked away off the King’s Road. He drove on remembering how it had been after the Old Man had taken it from him. The agony of mind had been scarcely endurable.
His companions in the desert were Ovambo tribesmen from the north, and a few of those taciturn white men that the desert produces, as hardy and uncompromising as her vegetation or her mountain ranges.
The deserts of the Namib and the Kalahari are amongst the loneliest places on earth, and the desert nights are long.
