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The cricket match is played and lost, with the ball shooting through off the uneven grass and batsmen jumping about to avoid being hit. Noël, playing in a white track suit with red piping that made him look like Father Christmas in thermal underwear, batted number eleven and was bowled first ball. 'Where did you learn your cricket?' I asked. 'Moorreesburg, in the 1930s, in the school playground, in the lunch break,' he replied.
He strikes me as the best kind of person we have.
Partying deep into the night after the game. A return match promised for February, at Simonstown, if we are still around.
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Noël very despondent. He heard today that Uitenhage was just the begi
To me Noël confides that he is thinking of resigning: he is sixty, he has given enough of his life to the service, he has a widowed daughter who is pressing him to come and live with her in Gordon's Bay. 'You need an iron man to run an iron camp. I am not that kind of man.' I could not disagree. Not being iron is his greatest virtue.
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Michaels is gone. He must have escaped during the night. Felicity noticed that his bed was empty when she arrived this morning, but did not report it ('I thought he had gone to the toilet'-!). It was ten o'clock before I found out. Now, in retrospect, one can see how easy it must have been, or would be for anyone in normal health. With the camp nearly empty, the only sentries on duty were at the main gate and the gate to the perso
'Michaels should never have come to this camp,' I went on. 'It was a mistake. In fact his life was a mistake from begi
'He is wearing camp issue khaki pyjamas,' said Noël. 'The police will pick him up, they will ask where he comes from, he will tell them he comes from Kenilworth, they will check and find there has been no escape reported, and there will be hell to pay.'
'He was not wearing pyjamas,' I replied. 'What he found to wear I don't yet know, but he left his pyjamas behind. As for admitting he comes from Kenilworth, he won't do that for the simple reason that he doesn't want to be returned to Kenilworth. He will tell them one of his other stories, for example that he comes from the Garden of Paradise. He will bring out his packet of pumpkin seeds and rattle them, and give them one of his smiles, and they will pack him straight off to the madhouse, if the madhouses haven't all been closed down yet. You have heard the last of Michaels, Noel, I swear it. Besides, do you know what he weighs? Thirty-five kilos, all skin and bone. For two weeks he has eaten nothing whatever. His body has lost the ability to digest ordinary foodstuffs. I am amazed he had the strength to stand up and walk; it is a miracle that he climbed the wall. How long can he possibly last? One night in the open and he will be dead of exposure. His heart will stop. '
'Speaking of which,' said Noël: 'has anyone checked that he is not lying outside somewhere-that he didn't climb the wall and fall straight down the other side?' I stood up. 'Because the last advertisement we need,' he went on, 'is a body lying outside the camp with flies all over it. It isn't your job, but if you want to check by all means do so. You can take my car.'
I did not take the car, but made a circuit of the camp on foot. There were weeds growing thickly all around the perimeter; along the back wall I had to struggle through knee-high grass. I saw no body nor any break in the wire. In half an hour I was back where I had started, a little surprised at how small a camp can seem from the outside that is, to those who dwell within, an entire universe. Then, instead of returning to report to Noël, I wandered down Rosmead Avenue in the dappled shade of the oak-trees, enjoying the midday stillness. An old man passed me riding a bicycle that creaked with every stroke of the pedals. He raised a hand in greeting. It occurred to me that if I followed after him, proceeding down the avenue in a straight line, I could be at the beach by two o'clock. Was there any reason, I asked myself, why order and discipline should not crumble today rather than tomorrow or next month or next year? What would yield the greater benefit to mankind: if I spent the afternoon taking stock in the dispensary, or if I went to the beach and took off my clothes and lay in my underpants absorbing the benign spring sun, watching the children frolic in the water, later buying an ice-cream from the kiosk on the parking lot, if the kiosk is still there? What did Noël ultimately achieve labouring at his desk to balance the bodies out against the bodies in? Would he not be better off taking a nap? Maybe the universal sum of happiness would be increased if we declared this afternoon a holiday and went down to the beach, commandant, doctor, chaplain, PT instructors, guards, dog-handlers all together with the six hard cases from the detention block, leaving behind the concussion case to look after things. Perhaps we might meet some girls. For what reason were we waging the war, after all, but to augment the sum of happiness in the universe? Or was I misremembering, was that another war I was thinking of?
'Michaels is not lying outside the wall,' I reported. 'Nor is he wearing clothes that will incriminate us. He is wearing royal blue overalls with the legend treefellers emblazoned on back and front that have been hanging on a nail in the grandstand toilets since God knows when. Therefore we can safely disclaim him.'