Flyaway / Windfall (61 page)

‘I’ll be here, or in the Members’ Pavilion—upstairs.’

As I went back to the press room the loudspeakers were still blaring, ‘DON’T PANIC—DON’T PANIC,’ until suddenly the voice was cut off in mid-shout. I later discovered that some resourceful soul had pulled the plug on the idiot at the microphone.

The press room was bedlam, crammed with shouting reporters fighting for telephones. Fortunately, Joan had valiantly defended hers against all comers although she must have had a tough time. I had not known her long and her introduction to the newspaper world had come through me, so she had very little knowledge of how to telephone in a story.

She had rung the
Sunday Times
and, luckily, got hold of Maggie Smith, a reporter whom she knew quite well. She said to Maggie, ‘The assassin’s name is Spratt.’

‘What assassin?’ asked Maggie.

‘The man who shot Vervoerd.’

‘Are you trying to tell me the Prime Minister has been assassinated?’ said Maggie incredulously.

It was only then Joan realised that she, Joan Brown—intrepid, amateur girl-reporter—was scooping the world press. She froze solid. It took Maggie some time to unfreeze her, and then she had to cope with the thundering herd of reporters who charged into the press room, but by the time I got back she had regained her efficiency.

I set myself in front of her, fending off the flailing hands trying to grab her telephone, and fed her the facts a line at a time which she passed on to Maggie. Then I said, ‘Tell Maggie I’m going to get more from Esterhuysen and some background stuff on Pratt. It’ll be about half-an-hour. Then you can give up the phone.’

That telephone was seized very quickly.

When Joan and I left the press room two ambulance men went trotting by carrying a stretcher. On the stretcher lay Hendrik Vervoerd, his hands held to his face. There was a lot of blood. His eyelids flickered and then opened, and I could see that even with two bullets in his head he was quite conscious.

Again, there was not a reporter or cameraman in sight—and I had no camera.

We watched the men carry the stretcher until they turned a corner, then went in search of Kobus Esterhuysen. We drew a blank at the VIP box so we went upstairs in the Members’ Pavilion where a reception had been laid on for the Prime Minister after he had made his speech. The black waiters were still ladling out free booze because no one had told them to stop, and every freeloader in Johannesburg seemed to be present. Joan and I took a welcome brandy each, I scooped up a plate of canapés, and we went looking for Kobus.

We found him with a glass in his hand standing by a window. I asked him if he had spoken to other reporters and he smiled and shook his head, so I did my best to drain him of all he knew, glad that the immediate pressure was off and I had reasonable time to spare.

1 asked him what it felt like to tackle a man who was waving a gun. He shrugged and said that Pratt did not wave the gun for very long.

‘What kind of gun was it?’

Kobus said, ‘A .32 automatic pistol.’

‘I’ve just seen Vervoerd,’ I said. ‘He’s still conscious.’

Kobus stared at me. ‘He ought to be very dead. One bullet went in at the right cheek; the other went into his ear.’

He did not really know much about Pratt apart from a few general facts. Pratt was reputed to be quite wealthy, was a strong supporter of the United Party, had gone through two wives and had the reputation of being an odd-ball. That bit about the United Party made the questioning a shade delicate because the United Party was largely supported by English-speaking South Africans while the governing Nationalist Party, of which Vervoerd was the leader, was favoured by the Afrikaners. Kobus was an Afrikaner and his leader had just been shot by an English speaker.

But Kobus let me off the hook. ‘Hell, man,’ he said. ‘1 have no politics. I’m a painter and a sculptor and have no time for those things.’ He paused. ‘I’ll tell you one thing, though; I’m glad Vervoerd was shot by a white man and not by a black Kaffir. All hell would have really broken loose then. Natives have been beaten up in the show grounds already and the army is moving in.’

That was serious. We already had a state of emergency and we were but one step from martial law and army rule.

There was one point left which puzzled me. I said, ‘I saw Pratt being hustled away by the cops, and Vervoerd was in the VIP box. You say Pratt fired only two shots, both at Vervoerd. Right?’

‘Right.’

‘So who was the man lying on the steps, and how the hell did he get that way?’

Kobus grinned. ‘That was Major Richter, Vervoerd’s bodyguard. He fainted when he saw the blood.’

I thanked Kobus and we went in search of a telephone and found one in an empty office. I rang Maggie Smith, gave her what I had, and said we were returning to the office but not to expect us immediately. I had a feeling that getting to the centre of Johannesburg was not going to be easy.

There had been 120,000 people at Milner Park that day and they were being shepherded out by the police and the army. The traffic jams were catastrophic. Not that it worried us because we had no car and were resigned to a long walk, but we spotted a
Sunday Times
staff car and hopped aboard.

It was dusk before we got to downtown Johannesburg and it would have been quicker to walk, although not as restful. I used the time to sort out my impressions of the day and to lay out a story in my mind. Driving down Commissioner Street we saw that Broadcast House, the city radio centre, was ringed with armed troops, and so were the offices of the
Sunday Times.
There were also armoured cars parked at strategic intersections.

Because I was a freelance I had no official press card, but we still wore the press tags accrediting us to the Union Expo. Those, some fast talking, and the fact that we were able to give authentic news of what had happened at Milner Park got us into the building.

One of the first persons we saw was Maggie Smith. ‘Where is Stan Hurst?’ she demanded. ‘I thought he was with you.’

‘He went home after Vervoerd’s speech.’

‘Oh, God!’ she wailed. ‘Half the paper is being remade, everyone is screaming for Hurst, and he has to go home.’

‘Ring him.’

‘Can’t,’ said Maggie. ‘He’s just moved house and his telephone hasn’t been installed.’ More telephone trouble. Maggie hurried away to give someone the bad news.

Joan said suddenly, ‘I know his next door neighbour—she has a telephone.’ I stared at her. That was the first coincidence; in a city of over a million people Joan just happened to know Hurst’s next-door neighbour.

I took her by the elbow, steered her into Hurst’s office, and pointed to the telephone, then I appropriated his
typewriter and began to put words on paper. Ten minutes later when Stan came on the line he sounded muzzy and was disgruntled at being woken up. ‘Stan, you’d better get back to the office. Vervoerd was shot this afternoon and the paper is being remade.’

He didn’t believe it.

More urgently. ‘Stan, you must get back. You have your own cables to get out to Australia.’ Hurst was the Johannesburg stringer for a chain of Australian newspapers.

‘Is this straight?’

‘I wouldn’t joke about a thing like this.’

‘When did this happen?’

‘Five minutes after you left.’

‘Who shot him?’

‘A fellow called Pratt—David Pratt.’

Something happened to Hurst; his voice was suddenly alert. ‘Not David Pratt of Moloney’s Eye?’ he said incredulously. There was a lot of incredulity about that day, but Stan had real reason for his.

‘That’s right.’

‘My God!’ he shouted. ‘Pratt’s mistress is my ex-mistress. I’m going to see her.’

That was the second coincidence. Who in hell would ever suppose that the Features Editor of the
Sunday Times
and a political assassin could be linked in such a way? If I put a thing like that into a novel my publisher would scream.

‘Aren’t you coming into the office?’

‘This is more important.’ He slammed down his phone.

I looked at Joan and grinned. ‘It’s a small world.’

To everybody who asked we said that Hurst was on his way back to the office. It was true, even though he was taking a detour and, after all, it was his exclusive story. The groundwork he had laid must have been delightful even though it was damned fortuitous. He strolled into the office threequarters of an hour later and beamed at me. ‘Good lad!’

‘That didn’t take long.’

‘I went up to her flat,’ he said. ‘I supposed you can call it her flat even though Pratt pays the rent. I hadn’t been there more than twenty minutes before two very tall, very broad, Afrikaner Special Branch cops pitched up and tossed me out on my can.’ He winked. ‘But I got what I wanted.’

‘What did she tell you about Pratt?’

‘He’s bonkers,’ said Hurst. ‘A nutter who is really round the twist but I knew that already. She told me that he took her to Klosters in Switzerland where they were hob-nobbing with Aly Khan, among others. Then suddenly he announced that he was broke, so they went to London. Pratt booked in at the Savoy and then told her to go out and get a job. What do you think of that?’

‘Was he broke?’

‘Of course not. Just bloody eccentric.’ Stan shook his head. ‘Pratt won’t hang for this—I don’t think he’ll even stand trial. And there’s a hell of a lot of juicy stuff we won’t be allowed to print.’

He sat at his desk and started work.

I was pretty busy myself and Joan was drafted into a strange job for a newspaper office. The news of the shooting had been telephoned to the airport and most of the newsmen who were on their way out cancelled their flights and came streaming back into town. The chattering telex machines also told of others who were flying in.

All these men had to be found hotel rooms; and hotel accommodations in Johannesburg during the Union Expo were as scarce as hen’s teeth. So she sat with the telephone book open at the yellow pages and rang every hotel in town and got most of the boys a room. Someone ought to have thanked her for what she did that night but I can’t recall that anybody did. She certainly was not paid for it.

In spite of the strange hazards associated with the project the photographer from the
Farmer’s Weekly
had got his picture—
just
one
good picture. It showed Hendrik Vervoerd, Prime Minister of South Africa, sitting on the floor of the VIP box and leaning into the corner. Blood streamed down his face.

That night, in a bedroom in the Langham Hotel, the picture was auctioned off by Terence Clarkson, acting as a disinterested neutral. The bidding was brisk but too rich for local blood, and at last there were only two bidders left in the ring—
Time
magazine and
Paris-Match.
The price crept up by jerks to R2,000 (about $2,800), then
Time
shrugged, looked at
Paris-Match
and said, ‘What say we split it?’
Paris—Match
agreed and so the
Farmer’s Weekly
photographer was a good deal richer than he had been that morning. I hope he bought himself a new camera.

The presses rolled at midnight and five minutes later the first copies were distributed around the
Sunday Times
newsroom. This was a time for relaxation; the first edition was out and away and the pressure was off. Stan brought out a bottle and we drank brandy from paper cups while scanning the front page.

Someone had written an atmosphere piece, the first paragraph of which read:

All is peaceful as the sun sets redly over the Main Arena at the Union Expo. The crowds are gone and all is quiet, and there is nothing to show of the tragedy that happened here this afternoon; nothing, that is, but the Prime Minister’s head which still lies on the floor of the VIP box.

I pointed out the error to Joan and she shared my laughter, then I said, ‘Hey, Stan; here’s something that needs changing. There’s a clown on the staff who can’t spell hat.’

I turned back to Joan. ‘You know; we never did get to eat those strawberries.’

‘Which strawberries?’

‘Those we ordered in the Members’ Pavilion.’