8 Hijack! — a short story based on an episode on my journey to Beit Bridge.
AN ORDINARY LIFE OF A SEVENTY-PERCENTER
1953 — Hijack! — a short story based on an episode on my journey to Beit Bridge.
I wrote this story when our new, free South Africa was still very young and we had not had time to get used to the new intensity and viciousness of crime. Even those with criminal minds seem to have entered into the new freedom! In the ‘olden days’ car hijackings were rare — in fact, I had never heard of such a thing — and the use of guns in robberies and house-breakings was even more rare. We were confronted by a new reality which made those of us with white skins, and roots in England, seriously consider running to the welcoming arms of mother England! That is why in several of my Don Corbett stories the scene is set in some house or apartment (one of Don’s ‘hide-aways’) with a view of the ocean and ships passing by. I had long before the events leading to the demise of white domination often thought about England and imagined how pleasant it could be living there, simply because, I suppose, it was my Father’s homeland, so the notion of going there was not brought on, consciously that is, by the contemporary happenings. But the idea, now given new impetus, certainly would have been milling around deep down in me. The hijacking on Table Mountain sometime after the 1994 elections is completely factual and the elements of the event in a hitched lift to Johannesburg in 1953 are also factual except for the attempted hijacking at the traffic lights in Springs. Here is the story:
HIJACK!
The conversation was a bit subdued. During the week there had been a report of another car hijacking in which the owner had been shot and killed, and his companion seriously wounded. The stripped-down, burnt-out wreck of the car had been found soon afterwards. A miserable crime, just for some spare parts for a car-rebuild in some chopshop. There had been the usual outcry in the daily papers, and then silence as the country went about its normal business.
The latest car hijack had taken place at a popular viewsite overlooking Cape Town city, just over the hill from where we had gathered on the porch of Don’s magnificent home in Camp’s Bay. The Atlantic Ocean stretched out before us to the far horizon with ships in the middle-distance moving to the north or south across our view. To our right, the coast took a turn round the Clifton houses above their famous beaches. Ships disappearing from view in that direction would enter Table Bay and Cape Town harbour, or pass on northwards to other West African ports and eventually to Europe. The container ship heading off to our left would make its way round Cape L’Agulhas, along the coast to Durban, and perhaps further up to Kenya, or veer across the Indian Ocean to Hong Kong and places east. The tranquil scene evoked that vague sense of longing to escape from this vast continent which even today seems so menacing to people with their roots in Europe. Anne gave a perceptible shudder as she turned her back on the sea.
Gillian sipped at her spritzer, looking at Don over the glass. “Have you ever been hijacked, Don?,” she asked as she put the glass on the table. In all our company, if any one ever had been hijacked, it would have been Don.
None of us ever really knew what Don Corbett did for a living. We had been young married couples together in the distant past and we had been friends through all these years until most of us had retired — except for Don who never seemed to tire of travelling abroad ‘on business.’ While the rest of us had worked at more-or-less ordinary careers with pensions at the end, we had seen Don growing steadily wealthier as the years passed. Ryan (Gillian’s late husband) had once risked the question: “Don, what is it that you do, exactly?” To which Don had replied: “Oh, this and that — mostly I arrange international deals of one sort or another.” And that was all we got, but there was some speculation arising from Daphne’s observation that Don’s travels often seemed to take him to regions where there was a war or revolution in the wind. Somehow, Don had come to grips with the African reality and turned it to profit.
“No, I’ve never been hijacked in a car,” Don replied to Gillian’s question, “but I have been close to it.” He gave a wry grin as he lifted his cider to his lips. When he saw that we were all waiting for more, he continued with the story.
“I was quite young at the time, barely out of school and just beginning to get the feel of my .. er .. career. The freedom struggle in Kenya was just getting under way and I needed to get there to meet with my Principal to work on a deal. I was, as I said, just beginning and I had no money for anything so I set out to hitchhike from Pietermaritzburg in Natal hoping to make my way through Southern Rhodesia and on to Tanganyika where I was to make contact with our clients at the Kenyan border.
“I got a ride in a furniture removal truck as far as Howick, spent the night sleeping on a bench in a little church there, and hit the road again at first light. After about five hours a car stopped. I’ll never forget it, it was a grey Peugeot 203 with a Durban registration number and with two men in it. I was a little taken aback at the way they acted when they opened the boot to stow my suitcase. In the boot was a canary cage and the spare wheel. The driver grabbed the cage and without comment threw it into the bushes beside the road. When there still didn’t seem to be enough room for my case, the driver picked up the spare wheel saying: ‘I don’t think we’ll need this!’ and threw it into the ditch as well! It did seem very strange, but I was only too grateful that they had stopped for me and they did seem friendly enough — rather jovial types really.”
Daphne was leaning forward to hear better by this stage as Don talked. “What a waste” she said, “to throw away a spare wheel like that! What were they up to?”
“I was very much wondering myself as we travelled along. I was sitting in the back and the two of them asked me all the usual things – like Who are you? Where are you going? What are you going to do there? – but most of the time they were either silent or exchanging comments between themselves. At one point a police vehicle passed going in the opposite direction and soon after another overtook us and travelled for a while just ahead of us. The passenger in our car remarked: ‘The johns are active today.’ Just like that, in a sort of cryptic way. I had never heard of policemen referred to as ‘johns’, so it served to increase my sense of wonder — what had I got myself involved in?”
It was Fred’s turn to interrupt: “Had the car been hijacked?”
Don shook his head: “No. That wasn’t the hijacking. That was still to come!” He took a long drink from his glass while we all waited to hear the next bit.
“We arrived on the outskirts of the Witwatersrand goldmining town of Springs as the sun was setting. The chap in the passenger seat turned to me and said: ‘This is as far as we go. What do you want to do?’ I said ‘Could you drop me off at the station so I can take a train through to Pretoria and hit the road again from there in the morning?’
“The driver looked at the other chap enquiringly before turning to me to say: ‘Spend the night with us, and tomorrow we’ll get you back to the road.’
“The offer sounded genuine enough but by this time I was quite nervous. ‘That’s really kind of you,’ I said, ‘but I’d rather take a train tonight.’ They didn’t argue, and turned to go towards the station. A red traffic light stopped us and, as we waited there, a man holding a gun appeared at the driver’s side window, and another at the passenger side. ‘Get out! All of you, get out! We want this car,’ the one said to our driver.
“My heart was in my mouth, but the driver and the passenger just burst out laughing. ‘You want it, take it! We stole it in Durban to get home in so we don’t need it any more. The police are out looking for it.’
“I can’t say that the hijacker’s face fell because I couldn’t see it clearly in the limited light, but what I did see was that the two thugs just disappeared across the street and around the corner.”
Don paused for a sip of his cider. “The two nice guys did drop me off at the station, wished me good luck, and made off down the road. That night, sitting on the Johannesburg station waiting for my train, I read in a paper which someone had left on the bench, that a car had been stolen in Durban and was thought to be heading for Johannesburg.” He paused again while he gazed at a ship on the horizon, then continued thoughtfully: “How very much our world has changed! — in those days it was national news when one car got stolen somewhere. Today, hijackings with car owners being shot is a daily thing — we probably don’t even get to hear about all of them.”
Don stopped speaking, but it was obvious that there was a further story to be told: “Rhodesia and northwards,” Daphne asked, “did you get there?”
“No. Not on that trip,” said Don. “They stopped me at the border because I only had a visitor’s passport and not enough money on me to keep me for three weeks! I spent the night on a bench at Beit Bridge border post and the next morning got a lift from a travelling salesman right back to Pretoria.”
“But you did get to Kenya eventually?”
“Yes, eventually. But that’s another story.”
Mavis emerged from the house to say that dinner was ready and would we come and eat it? From the dining-room table we still had a view of the Atlantic with the ships passing up and down. But Don’s story had broken the spell and, for the moment we were distracted by Mavis’ cooking and the convivial company from any thoughts of adventure, or escape from the hijackings, murders, and from the vast brooding continent over the hill.
Copyright: Jessop Sutton Cape Town South Africa January 2000.
