your father would have thought of this 'That's hitting low, Uncle Paul.
I don't think so, David. I think you are the one who is cheating. Your
trust fund is a huge block of Morgan shares, and other assets given to
you, on the unstated understanding that you assume your duties and
responsibilities, if only he would bawl me out, thought David fiercely,
knowing that he was being stampeded as Barney had warned him. If only
he would order me to do it so I could tell him to shove it. But he knew
he was being manipulated by a man skilled in the art, a man whose whole
life was the manipulation of men and money, in whose hands a
seventeen-year-old boy was as soft as dough.
You see, David, you are born to it. Anything else is cowardice, self
indulgence, the Morgan group reached out its tentacles, like some
grotesque flesh-eating plant, to suck him in and digest him, - we can
have your enlistment papers annulled. It will be the matter of a single
phone call - Uncle Paul, David almost shouted, trying to shut out the
all-pervasive flow of words. My father. He did it.
He joined the army. Yes, David. But it was different at that time.
One of us had to go. He was the younger, and, of course, there were
other personal considerations. Your mother, he let the rest of it hang
for a moment then went on, and when it was over he came back and took
his rightful place here. We miss him now, David. No one else has been
able to fill the gap he left. I have always hoped that you might be the
one But I don't want to. David shook his head. I don't want to spend
my life in here. He gestured at the mammoth structure of glass and
concrete that surrounded them. I don't want to spend each day poring
over piles of paper It's not like that, David. It's exciting,
challenging, endlessly variable Uncle Paul. David raised his voice
again. What do you call a man who fills his belly with rich food, and
then goes on eating? Come now, David The first edge of irritation
showed in Paul Morgan's voice, and he brushed the question aside
impatiently. What do you call him? David insisted.
I expect that you would call him a glutton Paul Morgan answered.
And what do you call a man with many millions who spends his life trying
to make more? Paul Morgan froze into stillness. He stared at his ward
for long seconds before he spoke. You become insolent, he said at last.
No, sir. I did not mean it so. You are not the glutton - but I would
be. Paul Morgan turned away and went to his desk. He sat in the
high-backed leather chair and lit the cigar at last. They were silent
again for a long time until at last Paul Morgan sighed.
You'll have to get it out of your system, the way your father did. But
how I grudge you five wasted years. 'Not wasted, Uncle Paul. I will
come out with a Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautical engineering.
'I suppose we'll just have to be thankful for little things like that.
David went and stood beside his chair.
Thank you. This is very important to me. Five years, David. After
that I want you, then he smiled slightly to signal a witticism, at least
they will make you cut your hair.
Four miles above the warm flesh-coloured earth, David Morgan rode the
high heavens like a young god. The sun visor of his helmet was closed,
masking with its dark cyclops eye the rapt, almost mystic expression
with which he flew. Five years had not dulled the edge of his appetite
for the sensation of power and isolation that flight in a Mirage
interceptor awoke in him.
The unfiltered sunlight blazed ferociously upon the metal of his craft,
clothing him in splendour, while far below the very clouds were
insignificant against the earth, scattered and flying like a sheep flock
before the wolf of the wind.
Today's flight was tempered by a melancholy, a sense of impending loss.
The morrow was the last day of his enlistment. At noon his commission
expired and if Paul Morgan prevailed he would become Mister David, new
boy at Morgan Group.
He thrust the thought aside, and concentrated on the enjoyment of these
last precious minutes; but too soon the spell was broken.
Zulu Striker One, this is Range Control. Report your position. Range
Control, this is Zulu Striker One holding up range fifty miles.
Striker One, the range is clear. Your target-markers are figures eight
and twelve. Commence your run. The horizon revolved abruptly across
the nose of the Mirage, as the wings came over and he went down under
power, falling from the heights, a controlled plunge, purposeful and
precise as the stoop of a falcon.
David's right hand moved swiftly across the weapon selector panel,
locking in the rocket circuit.
The earth flattened out ahead, immense and featureless, speckled with
low bush that bluffed past his wingtips as he let the Mirage sink lower.
At this height the awareness of speed was breathtaking, and as the first
marker came up ahead it seemed at the same instant to flash away below
the silvery nose.
Five, six, seven, the black numerals on their glaring white grounds
flickered by.
A touch of left rudder and stick, both adjustments made without
conscious effort, and ahead was the circular layout of the rocket range,
the concentric rings shrinking in size around the central mound, the
coke of flight jargon, which was the bull's-eye of the target.
David brought the deadly machine in fast and low, his mach meter
recording a speed that was barely subsonic. He was running off the
direct line of track, judging his moment with frowning concentration.
When it came he pulled the Mirage's nose in to the pitch up and went
over on to the target with his gloved right finer curled about the
trigger lever.
The shrieking silver machine achieved her correct slightly nose-down
attitude for rocket launch at the precise instant of time that the white
blob of coke was centred in the diamond patterns of the reflector sight.
It was an evolution executed with subtle mastery of man diverse skills,
and David pressed against the y spring-loaded resistance of the trigger.
There was no change in the feel of the aircraft, and the hiss of the
rocket launch was almost lost beneath the howl of the great jet, but
from beneath his wings the brief smoke lines reached out ahead towards
the target, and in certainty of a fair strike David pushed his throttle
to the gate and waited for the rumbling ignition of his afterburners,
giving him power for the climb out of range of enemy flak.
What a way to go, he grinned to himself as he lay on his back with the
Mirage's nose pointed into the bright blue, and gravity pressing him
into the padding of his seat.
Hello, Striker One. This is Range Control. That was right on the nose.
Give the man a coke. Nice shooting.
Sorry to lose you, Davey. The break in hallowed range discipline
touched David. He was going to miss them all of them. He pressed the
transmit button on the maulded head of his joystick, and spoke into the
microphone of his helmet, From Striker One, thanks and farewell, David
said. Over and out. His ground crew were waiting for him also.
He shook hands with each of them, the awkward handshakes and rough jokes
masking the genuine affection that the years had built between them.
Then he left them and went down the vast metal-skinned cavern, redolent
with the smell of grease and oil along which the gleaming rows of
needle-nosed interceptors stood, even in repose their forward lines
giving them speed and thrust.
David paused to pat the cold metal of one of them, and the orderly found
him there peering up at the emblem of the Flying Cobra upon the towering
tail plane.
C. O. 's compliments, sir, and will you report to him right away.
Colonel Rastus Naude was a dried-out stick of a man, with a wizened
monkey face, who wore his uniform and medal ribbons with a casually
distracted air.
He had flown Hurricanes in the Battle of Britain, Mustangs in Italy,
Spitfires and Messerschmitt log's in Palestine and Sabres in Korea, and
he was too old for his present command, but nobody could muster the
courage to tell him that, especially as he could out-fly and out-gun
most of the young bucks on the squadron.
So we are getting rid of you at last, Morgan, he greeted David. Not
until after the mess party, sir. Ja, Rastus nodded. You've given me
enough hardship these last five years. You owe me a bucket of whisky.
He gestured to the hard-backed chair beside his desk. Sit down, David.
It was the first time he had used David's given name, and David placed
his flying helmet on the corner of the desk and lowered himself into the
chair, clumsy in the constricting grip of his G-suit.
Rastus took his time filling his pipe with the evil black Magaliesberg
shag and he studied the young man opposite him intently. He recognized
the same qualities in him that Paul Morgan had prized, the aggressive
and competitive drive that gave him a unique value as an interceptor
pilot.
He lit the pipe at last, puffing thick rank clouds of blue smoke as he
slid a sheath of documents across the desk to David.
Read and sign, he said. That's an order. David glanced rapidly through
the papers, then he looked up and grinned.
You don't give in easily, sir, he admitted.
One document was a renewal of his short service contract for an
additional five years, the other was a warrant of promotion, from
captain to major.
We have spent a great deal of time and money in making you what you are.
You have been given an exceptional talent, and we have developed it
until now you are, I'll not mince words, one hell of a pilot I'm sorry,
sir, David told him sincerely.
Damn it, said Rastus angrily. Why the hell did you have to be born a
Morgan. All that money, they'll clip your wings, and chain you to a
desk. It's not the money. David denied it swiftly. He felt his own
anger stir at the accusation.
Rastus nodded cynically. Ja! he said. I hate the stuff also. He
picked up the documents David had rejected, and grunted. Not enough to
tempt you, hey?
Colonel, it's hard to explain. I just feel that there is more to do,
something important that I have to find out about, and it's not here. I
have to go look for it. Rastus nodded heavily. All right then, he
said. I had a good try. Now you can take your long-suffering
commanding officer down to the mess and spend some of the Morgan
millions on filling him up with whisky He stood up and clapped his
uniform cap at a rakish angle over his cropped grey head. You and I
will get drunk together this night, for both of us are losing something&
I perhaps more than you.
It seemed that David had inherited his love of beautiful and powerful
machines from his father. Clive Morgan had driven himself, his wife,
and his brand new Ferrari sports car into the side of a moving goods
train at an unlit level crossing. The traffic police estimated that the
Ferrari was travelling at one hundred and fifty miles an hour at the
moment of impact.
Clive Morgan's provision for his eleven-year-old son was detailed and
elaborate. The child became a ward of his uncle Paul Morgan, and his
inheritance was arranged in a series of trust funds.
On his majority he was given access to the first of the funds which
provided an income equivalent to that of, say, a highly successful
surgeon. On that day the old green M. G. had given way to a
powder-blue Maserati, in true Morgan tradition.
On his twenty-third birthday, control of the sheep ranches in the
Karroo, the cattle ranch in South West Africa and Jabulani, the
sprawling game ranch in the Sabi-Sand block, passed to him, their
management handled smoothly by his trustees.
On his twenty-fifth birthday the number two fund interest would divert
to him, in addition to a large block of negotiable paper and title in
two massive urban holdings, office and supermarket complexes, and a
highrise housing project.
At age thirty the next fund opened for him, as large as the previous two
combined, and transfer to him for the first of five blocks of Morgan
stock would begin.
From then onwards, every five years until age fifty further funds
opened, further blocks of Morgan stock would be transferred. It was a
numbing procession of wealth that stretched ahead of him, daunting in
its sheer magnitude; like a display of too much rich food, it seemed to
depress appetite.
David drove fast southwards, with the Michelin metallics hissing
savagely on the tarmac, and he thought about all that wealth, the great
golden cage, the insatiable maw of Morgan Group yawning open to swallow
him so that, like the cell of a jelly fish, he would become a part of
the whole, a prisoner of his own abundance.
The prospect appalled him, adding a hollow sensation in his belly to the
pulse of pain that beat steadily behind his eyes, testimony to the
foolhardiness of trying, to drink level with Colonel Rastus Naude.
He pushed the Maserati harder, seeking the twin opiates of power and
speed, finding comfort and escape in the rhythms and precision of
driving very fast, and the hours flew past as swiftly as the miles so it
was still daylight when he let himself into Mitzi's apartment on the
cliffs that overlooked Clifton beach and the clear green Atlantic.
Mitzi's apartment was chaos, that much had not changed. She kept open
house for a string of transitory guests who drank her liquor, ate her
food and vied with each other as to who could create the most
spectacular shambles.
In the first bedroom that David tried there was a strange girl with dark
hair curled on the bed in boys pyjamas, sucking her thumb in sleep.
With the second room he was luckier, and he found it deserted, although
the bed was unmade and someone had left breakfast dishes smeared with
congealed egg upon the side table.
David slung his bag on the bed and fished out his bathing costume. He
changed quickly and went out by the side stairs that spiralled down to
the beach and began to run, a trot at first, and then suddenly he
sprinted away, racing blindly as though from some terrible monster that
pursued him. At the end of Fourth beach where the rocks began, he
plunged into the icy surf and swam out to the edge of the kelp at
Bakoven point, driving overarm through the water and the cold lanced him
to the bone, so that when he came out he was blue and shuddering. But
the hunted feeling was gone and he warmed a little as he jogged back to
Mitzi's apartment.
He had to remove the forest of pantihose and feminine underwear that
festooned the bathroom before he could draw himself a bath. He filled
it to the overflow, and as he settled into it the front door burst open
and Mitzi came in like the north wind.
Where are you, warrior? She was banging the doors. I saw your car in