And their Commie friends don’t count any more.’ Know which way to jump, they can smell where money comes from.
But since ’91 we’re right in there, fighting hard.’ Mr Du Plessis had no hang-ups about being governed by blacks in the nearish future.
The Chinese, Japs, Taiwanese, Koreans – all those yella fellas, they had Africa all sewn up. Only our expansion northwards was blocked. ‘Sure we dodged most sanctions easy enough – Malawi helped a lot. He thoroughly approved of the recent political changes. From there, on the morrow, a bus would take me to Karoi in northern Zimbabwe, where Lear (my dearly beloved bicycle) had been left with friends at the end of last year’s ride from Nairobi.Īs we took off the extrovert Afrikaner beside me introduced himself as Mr Du Plessis, sales director of a pharmaceutical company. I asked, ‘What’s the story?’ Discomfited, the steward looked away – this stowaway might, after all, have been a hijacker … Then he muttered, ‘Even in the air they make trouble!’Īt Jan Smuts airport I changed planes for Lusaka. When I emerged from the loo it wore a snarl of contempt as he addressed some remark, in Afrikaans, to his captive. For me it wore a professional, steward’s smile. Nearby, an Afrikaner steward sat on guard, a tall hulky fellow, his thick sleek hair like a shiny brass helmet, his pale blue eyes close-set, his lips thin in a plump face that was easily rearranged. One could scarcely blame them for that he looked seriously deranged and the midnight struggle had sounded strenuous. He had wet himself: they wouldn’t, he sobbed, let him go to the toilet. When I glanced down at him he began to cry. At dawn I saw him lying in a narrow space behind the last row of seats, his hands and feet heavily manacled, his expression terrified. A black stowaway had been discovered, a sad mad young man whose history is anybody’s guess.
At midnight, on my flight to Johannesburg, an alarming commotion woke us all.
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