Inothi Yokugcina

I know you need your sleep now, I know your life’s
been hard, but many men are falling where you
promised to stand guard.
– LEONARD COHEN, FIELD COMMANDER COHEN

London
April 2021

My name is Sibongile ‘Bongi’ Whitehead, nee Dube. I was the wife ... no, I am the widow, of Jeremy ‘Jerry’ Whitehead, born Alexander Sebastian October, a man from the flatland below the mountain named after a table, of Scottish, Xhosa and Khoi lineage – and author of this book. A man who wandered the globe not, I must say, as an aimless itinerant, but as a believer, an ardent believer that things could be better. A lover. A revolutionary. An officer.

I commend him to you. I commend the man. And I commend the work.

Yes, he wandered from the southern extremity of Africa, through the world, and, eventually, back again and – finally – to return to the land of his forebears ... one of them ... to be buried in lush English soil a few kilometres from where I write this.

The tale he tells in this book is substantially and despairingly true. It must be told. The treachery he depicts must be unravelled, put out to air, a harsh wind blown through it.

I commend it. I commend it.