After Sharpeville
Tuesday, 29 March 1960. The day I remembered at the beginning of this story, when Duma Nokwe said, “This trial is out of date.” The Court rises at 4 pm and we are taken home as usual. For us everything is frustratingly normal, but the world outside is on the move. Of course, it has been on the move all the time, and we have always been aware of what is going on, but never have we felt so cruelly cut off from it as now, after Sharpeville. We hear that many Africans are staying at home still, in protest against the massacre. Can they last out?
We return, a few to our offices, the rest to the townships, the great treason bus lumbering its way along 80 kilometres of familiar road. We expect to meet again as usual next day. I go to my office with Stanley Lollan and we work until nine o’clock and then home to supper and bed.
2 am Wednesday, 30 March 1960. I am still awake, but lying peacefully in my bed, when I become aware that a car has stopped outside. I hear the opening and closing of car doors and rapid heavy footsteps coming down my path. As I scramble out of bed, I hear a voice say, “This is the police, Mrs Helen Joseph, it is Head Constable Viviers – you know me. You must let us in.” So, I open the door and see three very large men who come in and tell me that I am arrested under the Public Safety Act, and that no warrant is needed for my arrest or for the search of my house.
I protest that I want to consult a lawyer, but I am told that I am not allowed to speak to anyone. And so, the search begins. The telephone rings twice and Head Constable Viviers answers it – once he tells the caller it is a wrong number. But he does not tell me who has telephoned. Then I dress, pack a suitcase, lock up my car and my house and go off in the police car to the Police Headquarters, in Marshall Square.
We go through the usual rigmarole of checking “effects” and off to the cell I go, to the same large five-bed cell where I stayed in solitary state on that famous Wednesday of the treason arrests more than three years ago – 5 December 1956. Now it is 30 March 1960, and this time I’m not alone, for I find Violet Weinberg arid Philippa Levy of the Congress of Democrats, and receive a warm welcome.
We lie on our beds – it doesn’t seem worth undressing, for I fondly imagine that I shall be going to Pretoria in the morning as usual for the trial. And as we lie talking, we hear the clank, clank of keys and the clanging of doors and we sit up eagerly, craning to see, saying to each other, “Who is it? Who is it?” In walks gay Rica Hodgson with a suitcase nearly as large as her small self. We chatter, eager for news, as Rica unpacks – and then we all grow quieter and quieter – until quite suddenly the wardress arrives, and it is half past seven in the morning. It now seems hardly likely that I shall be going to Pretoria. We are told that we can take it easy.
“There is no hurry” – and then we get our first breakfast in the cells: bread and marmalade and a hard-boiled egg and coffee.
We inquire eagerly whether our friends have called with newspapers or anything else and are surprised to hear from the head constable in charge of us that he has been instructed to deny that we are here at all. We demand to see the Public Safety Regulations under which we have been charged, but we are unsuccessful. (Only later on do we discover that we were asking for the moon, because they hadn’t in fact been printed; and in any case our arrest was then illegal.) We ask for exercise and are told we can go into a yard, a special yard, because the ordinary yard is overlooked by the windows of the tall Chamber of Mines building – and we are not to be seen by anyone! We take our blankets and find a sunny spot in a corner, this being our idea of exercise.
Soon we become aware of voices around us, and gradually one voice seems to rise above the others – it is Goolam Pahad. But it sounds far off. Then we hear Kathrada’s voice quite clearly and we jump to our feet and shout, “Kathy! Kathy!” Kathy, Treason Accused Number Three, hears us and shouts back, gaily giving us “The World at 1 pm”, telling us of the Indians who are with him and of other arrests and that all the African men are held in Newlands police cells and are not with us here. We know the conditions of the Newlands non-European cells and are anxious about our friends. Soon we hear another voice and look wildly round, and find it is Joe Slovo; by getting into the far corner of the yard we can just see his eyes and his forehead in the window above us – he is standing on the lavatory seat. More news is exchanged and we learn that three or four men have been taken away and have not come back. Then I recognise Bertha Mashaba’s laugh, and I begin to call her name; soon I hear her reply, “Helen, we are missing you!”
Now we have established a complete inter-communication system of which we are the centre. The men are on the floor above us, and the African women (Lilian Ngoyi is with them) opposite to us. By standing on their lavatory seats they can all shout clearly over the tops of the high netted windows. We try our lavatory seat too, for the time when we shall be shut up again, and find to our joy that if we shout very loudly Joe can hear us. News flashes continue on our “inter-com” throughout the afternoon. Philippa Levy is called away and we are glad because of her fourteen-month-old child. Julius Baker and Vic Goldberg go from upstairs and we feel that our people outside are working fast, for we have heard that the first habeas corpus application has succeeded and know that others will follow. Late in the afternoon we are locked up again, but we don’t mind because now we are in touch with each other. Suddenly, we hear voices in the street outside the cell. Our friends are calling to the people upstairs. We clamber on the bedrails, fix our fingers in the wire grating and find to our joy that we can just see into the street. Our friends tell us they have come to take us home and we shout. “When?” Colonel Spengler, the head of the Special Security Branch of the police, has been sent for, they shout. “The order for your release has been served on him!”
We are wildly excited and ignore the warning “but you may be rearrested”. It doesn’t matter – we are going home! We dress and pack as best we can, between clambering up to the window to get more news. “Spengler has left his house – he is on the way here,” we are told, and then “Spengler has arrived!” Soon after that we hear the keys clanging, but we don’t care and we face the door with our cases in our hands, smiling broadly. We are going home.
Then to the charge office where, after much greeting and handshaking, the truth begins to sink in. We are going to be released – and re-arrested again immediately!
Attorney Jimmy Kantor explains to us that he can only be with us until we are re-arrested, after that we shall be “incommunicado” again. So while the going is good, we file up to Jimmy and give him a formidable list of messages and requirements. Pressed against the frosted windows of the charge office, behind the counter barricade, are the faces of our friends – we can just recognise them, but we cannot go out to them for we are not released.
We wait and wait, and then our Indian friends outside begin to organise things – first in this field as always. In comes a canteen of steaming coffee and a pile of paper cups, sandwiches follow and it is all very gay and friendly. We send out for cigarettes, stocking up for the days to come. I see many well-known faces among the 30-odd of us who are being held. We five of the Treason Trial are, of course, “old hands” – we’ve been arrested before. And so indeed have several of the others, for they are veterans of the Defiance Campaign of 1952 and of the Passive Resistance Campaigns. It seems strange for us all to be here without the African men among our friends, and we talk and wonder about them. We scan the newspapers eagerly to read of arrests in other centres – there must be more than 200.
After an hour and a half, Colonel Spengler enters the charge office. He thrusts his way to the edge of the counter and mumbles that we have been released. He steps back and a police officer takes his place and tells us we are all under arrest again. Jimmy Kantor says goodbye to us and is gone. Then follows an irresistibly comic ceremony. We are crowded to one side of the charge office and our names are called out. As we cross over to the other side a police officer touches each one on the shoulder and says, “You are under formal arrest.” And as the name is called of any one who was released earlier during the day, we shout in chorus “Escaped!” We realise that it is no longer the faces of our friends that are pressed against the frosted glass, bul the khaki backs of policemen – we are really under arrest again, and policemen with Sten guns are standing at the doors. But still our friends outside are not deterred and very soon we see the charge office windows being opened over the heads of the policemen and our “comforts” come pouring in – sandwiches, fruit, cigarettes, playing cards, nuts – surely the strangest cargo ever to be poured in through a charge office window.
Suddenly it is all over and we pick up our suitcases and bags, clutch our newspapers, in which we have read of the arrests of so many Congressmen and women in other centres, and separate again, back to our cells. The six treason trialists are warned to be dressed for court by 7 am, so we gather that the trial is to go on as usual in spite of the State of Emergency. Violet and Rica and I unpack our cases again, rearrange our blankets, and go to sleep.
Thursday, 31 March. The wardress comes in at 6 am and I get up, dress and pack – Rica and Violet stay in bed, propped up with blankets behind their heads. Just before seven o’clock comes the wardress, accompanied by none other than Sergeant Davidson, so well known to us all from the long months of the Preparatory Examination.
I say cheerio to Violet and Rica, really thinking I shall see them again the same night, but at the same time a little apprehensive because I have been told to take my suitcase with me. At the office I meet Treason Accused Lilian, Kathrada, Farid, Mosey and Leon – all looking unbelievably smart after two nights in the cells. We walk out to the waiting police van and are greeted with a loud shout of “Mayibuye!” – there are some of the African accused waiting for us, welcoming us. But Leon and I must sit alone in the small compartments of the van, because we are Europeans.
We rattle our familiar way to Pretoria. Sometimes through the bars and the close-meshed wire netting we can see African men and women giving the Congress sign to our singing vanload of prisoners as it hurtles through the busy streets of Johannesburg. We see many startled Europeans too. We drive through the open country and the songs die down, to start again as we reach Pretoria. As we pass the Central Gaol, Leon and I exchange glances – we wonder . . .
Then we are back again in our Treason Trial existence. At court there is another reunion as we greet the rest of the accused – the twelve who were arrested the previous day immediately after the trial had adjourned. They spent the night in Pretoria, in the cells, and both they and the other African men who have been held in the Newlands Police Station in Johannesburg give us shocking stories of their treatment.
Nelson Mandela, attorney, Transvaal president of the African National Congress, gives a vivid, horrifying account of the conditions which the African Treason Trial accused and other detainees had to endure:
The time was 1.30 am 30 March 1960, when I was awakened by an unfriendly knock, the type of a knock that even a deaf African in South Africa is able to notice from the reaction of the people in the house. I knew immediately it was the police. “Well, the time has come!” I said to myself as I opened the door. After ransacking my house in search of every piece of paper that attracted their attention, I was arrested without a warrant. No opportunity was given to me to phone any other lawyer, nor was my wife told where I would be taken to.
After 30 minutes, I arrived at Newlands police station where I had so often visited my clients. Facing the police station are the ruins of what was once known as Sophiatown – then a non-racial township – now bulldozed by the Nationalist government because it was a “black spot”.
Inside the police station I found some of my friends in the struggle for freedom, and our colleagues in the marathon Treason Trial and from then on more and more were brought in until we were a crowd of 40. We were put in a yard with the sky as the only roof. There was little room to move about. The yard was lit by only one bulb, which helped little to dispel the dank darkness. Here we remained standing for the rest of the night, some leaning wearily against the walls, with neither food nor blankets.
At 7.15 we were taken into a cell about 1.6 square metre. The sole sanitation was a drainage hole in the floor, which could be flushed only from the outside, if and when the policeman in charge deemed fit. Sometimes he would wait until it became blocked, which did not take long for 40 men, who had been locked up already for five hours. The stench became indescribable, unbearable. No toilet paper was provided, nor had we been allowed to keep paper of any sort in our possession.
Here again the only lighting was from one naked bulb and a small barred, wire-meshed window, high up in the wall, long since discoloured by accumulated dust and dirt which prevented any light from coming through.
No drinking water of any sort, nor food, was given to us until three o’clock in the afternoon, twelve hours after we had been brought there, and this only after we had protested. Earlier a young white policeman had closed the heavy door on the face of some of us because we dared to protest. This was resented by the men, who were hungry and enraged. We decided that next time the door was opened we would walk out and refuse to go back until we had been fed. So we surged out into a small yard and made our demands. The policeman beat a hasty retreat, locking door after door after him. We remained in the yard until the sergeant came to us, big, burly and crude, the type we know so well from our daily life. “You go inside!” he shouted to us. “If you don’t I’ll fix you! We’ll bring 50 men and we’ll baton you down and break your skulls.” Then he tried unsuccessfully to push a few of us back and left us to realise that such threats could be carried out! Sharpeville was only a week away.
Another came, this time the Station Commander himself, who straight away abused me for standing with my hands in my pockets. From where he stood, outside the gate, he shouted, “Take out your hands!” Provoked beyond bearing, angry and hungry, I refused. When we complained that we had no food, he retorted that he was not interested if we had no manners.
After this we were therefore surprised when food came – at three o’clock. Food! Soft thin mealie pap, what the gaols consider fit for the natives! But we who were so hungry ate it, despite our dirty hands, for we had not been able to wash the whole day. We ate it with our fingers – and very good it tasted.
In the afternoon the detainees elected a Committee which was to be in charge of their affairs, consisting of Duma Nokwe, a Johannesburg barrister, and banned secretary-general of the African National Congress; WB Nfgakane, a social worker and deputy president of the African National Congress in the Transvaal province; ZB Molete, a law student and publicity secretary of the Pan-Africanist Congress; G Beck, secretary of the Transvaal Coloured Peoples Progressive Association; and myself. I was also elected spokesman for the Committee. The first function of this Committee was to draw up a petition to the authorities in charge of the police station demanding the immediate release of all the men detained on the grounds that the detention was illegal. It also brought to the notice of the authorities the unbearable condition of the cells in which no human being should be held. The petition was then signed by all of us.
At six o’clock that evening we got more mealie pap, sleeping mats and two blankets. No words can do justice to the filthy condition of this bedding, if such it can be called. The blankets were indescribably filthy, the dirt of months and years, encrusted with dried vomit, reeking with stench, and ridden with lice and bugs. Our stomachs retched with disgust, but there they were, thrown down on to the stone floor and there was nothing else.
At eight o’clock, one by one, eighteen of us were called out – for what? We did not know – but to many it was expected release! I was the first to go. I went out into the night, dazed and uncomprehending, and as I stepped out into the front yard of the police station I walked straight into a group of police officers.
“Name?”
“Mandela,” I said, and the policeman continued.
“Nelson Mandela, I arrest you under the Emergency regulations!”
And so I was not free after all. There was no warning, we knew nothing, we were merely re-arrested and back to the stench of the cell we went, one by one. Yet, exhausted almost beyond endurance, we slept.
Just before we left the next morning, vermin infested and unwashed, I was nearly back into the cell, perhaps for a definite charge this time, for just at that time the Station Commander came to us and greeted my colleague Robert Resha. Immediately Resha wanted to know why he had behaved to me in that manner the day before. The Station Commander gave the typical white-man boss reply, “Mandela was cheeky.” To this I took exception retorting, “I’m not bound to take my hands out of my pockets.” The Station Commander took such offence that it nearly resulted in blows.
I was still raving mad with temper when in came Special Branch Detective Sergeant Heiberg and says, “Hallo, Nelson!”
“I am not Nelson to you, I am Mr Mandela!” I shouted.
By this time tempers were running high and every one of us was on his high horse. Fortunately, we were told to get into a truck before any of us had the misfortune to referee a fight between Detective Sergeant Heiberg and Robert Resha.
Then we were on our way to Pretoria to the Treason Trial, packed like sardines into a truck, whose driver acted like a smuggler on the run rather than a representative of the law taking citizens to a Court of Law.
The trial resumes and falters again to a standstill, as tall Advocate Maisels informs the three attentive red-robed judges what the arrests and the Emergency regulations really mean in terms of the Treason Trial. His customary nonchalance has gone, and his voice rings indignantly as he shows that under the Emergency regulations, those Defence witnesses not already detained will be exposed to detention without trial, for they must inevitably in the course of their evidence make statements that would be “subversive” under the broad terms of the Emergency regulations. Witnesses yet to be called might already be held, incommunicado.
The tentative suggestion by Justice Bekker that the trial might be held in camera, to avoid exposure of witnesses, is received almost with horror, and Mr Maisels then goes on to say that even the accused themselves are almost certain to be exposed to interrogation on the policies and activities of their organisations, with penalties of a fine of £500 or five years’ imprisonment – or both – for failure to answer a “lawful” question. Indeed there is no reason to believe that this procedure is not already being used to the prejudice of the accused.
We hear Advocate de Vos reply that it is the Crown’s attitude that there is nothing to prevent a proper trial, but he concedes that the matter requires weighty consideration, and asks for an adjournment to the following day. We file out into our courtyard, now sealed off at the entrance by three or four policemen so that we may not make contact with people gathered outside the gates of the court, waiting for us so anxiously. And we are anxious too – where shall we be kept? Shall we go back to our friends in Johannesburg, or shall we be isolated in Pretoria Gaol?
Meanwhile, the court sergeant helps us out by sending policemen to buy cigarettes and personal necessities for us. We have consultations with our Counsel, and begin to get a clearer idea of these Emergency regulations – they will certainly be no weekend affair!
Instead of having our usual friendly lunch under the trees in the garden of our hospitable friend, the Reverend Mark Nye, we think sadly of this courageous priest – who also is held prisoner, torn from his family, somewhere in Pretoria. Then we see Mrs Nye herself and little four-year-old David trotting beside her, proudly carrying plates for us, and once again we have our picnic lunch, but this time in the shed. I look at little David and wonder angrily when he will see his father again. After how many weeks or months? He does not know what has happened, but he will soon ask. How shall a little boy of four understand? And his mother, so gentle and shy, with her young face and the dramatic white hair – now she is left alone. Yet she still brings our lunch with a cheerful smile, although we may not speak to her.
The sergeant comes to tell me that it is my ‘right’ to ask for separate “white” transport to the gaol. I assure him that I don’t wish to exercise that right and he goes away satisfied. After that it is only a short while before the prison van comes and we learn with misgiving that we must go to Pretoria Central Gaol – but we still think it is only for one night; we clamber in with our bags and baggage and seat ourselves as best we may; there is not enough room for all to be seated.
In one corner is Chief Luthuli – we had been shocked and grieved to hear in court that he was so unwell. His blood pressure is very high and we are all anxious, remembering his serious illness in 1955. We know that he will be in the prison hospital, but our Chief is no longer young and he needs proper care – we don’t have much faith in gaol hospitals! It was with horror and anger that we had heard that he had been assaulted by a prison warder, after he was arrested – Chief Luthuli whom the whole world knows and respects.
When we get to Pretoria Gaol, the men climb out singing loudly and waving cheerfully to us, and Lilian and I are left sitting disconsolately in the now empty van. Out of the main road and into the prison grounds and we stop before the door of the forbidding women’s gaol. Then we are inside and standing before the matron, tall and trim in her uniform. We are given just what we require for the night, and I am not allowed to keep my suitcase. We go, Lilian and I, to another office where we stand for some time before the two young wardresses condescend to take any notice of us. Then our names are entered once again and Lilian is asked if she is coloured. She replies that she is an African, to which one wardress retorts angrily, “Jy is ’n Bantu!” I see Lilian close her lips firmly. The younger wardress repeats “African” under her breath and sniggers. Then to our horror the wardress snaps out at Lilian “Trek uit!” We are paralysed and the order is repeated in English, “Take your clothes off!” I say firmly “We were given to understand that this would not be required.”
The wardress, a bit taken aback, says she will ask Matron (a phrase I am to hear so often in the future, and when Matron is floored, she will say, “I’ll ask the Colonel”). She goes out of the office for ten minutes and when she returns nothing more is said about Lilian having to strip naked. Now we are taken to our cells and to our amazement we are led up the stairs together to the cell dormitory – here in this land of apartheid, the European and the African are on the same floor!
I look around my cell – it has a black stone polished floor; it’s about 3 metres by 1.8 metres; up to about 1.2 metres, the walls are painted a dingy pinky-orange and from there up to the top, about 2.4 metres, a deep cream. So this is the pastel-painted cell that I once read about in a newspaper! The open top is covered by a formidable wire netting, and there is no window except a small corner of one, 2 metres up. It is, in fact, a cage. There is a bed – and, unbelievably, a pink coverlet and sheets. In a corner there is a built-in iron strip, holding an enamel jug but no basin, with beneath it a covered enamel bucket, and I recognise the “po” of the days in the Fort. Shortly after three o’clock a wardress unlocks the door and takes me to the toilet and the bath. More shocks, for the toilets have no doors and the wardress remains. Then to the bath – a half door only and the wardress stands outside – there is no plug to the bath. I have a quick sluice down and get dressed again and am taken back to my cell.
Now the voices begin – the voices that will become so much a part of my life from now on. For the African women around me begin to talk to each other across the open tops of the cells; I can’t understand what they are saying but I listen almost in amazement to those gay lilting voices – there is no sadness, no despondency, only a cheerful comradeship.
Then, there suddenly comes an ear-splitting yell from a wardress, “Moenie so raas nie!” and “Hou jou bloody bek!” It echoes and reverberates right through the cells, with its shuddering brutality. I remember the screaming young wardress of the afternoon who bellowed at a meek, crouching African prisoner, “Bugger af, jy!” The voice is the same and it belongs to a tall fair girl, surely not more than twenty. Is this the inevitable effect of prison power and bullying authority on these young girls who walk around with yard-long ugly straps dangling from their wrists, hitched to their jangling keys? The African voices die down with – unbelievably – a few giggles, and start up again a little later. I cannot distinguish the voices but I listen carefully for Lilian’s and once or twice I think that I hear it. It becomes dark outside but there is no darkness in my cell for the naked bulb still flares and high up in the roof is another bulb which shines almost directly through the wire netting ceiling. Gradually the chattering voices die down and I hear them begin to sing hymns in the African language, in exquisite harmony. Can these women be criminals? Are they not the victims of our cruel society with its hate-ridden apartheid? I don’t know what their crimes are and I don’t suppose I shall ever know, but they have warm voices, the voices of women and mothers.
Now my cell light goes out, but the light overhead shines fiercely into my cell. I cover my head and try to sleep but it is not easy for the mattress is hard lumpy coir and so is the little pillow.
Friday, 1 April 1960. By 6.30 I am awake and my cell light has been switched on. When the door is opened, it is only for a bowl of porridge to be handed in, and a portion of dark brown bread and a mug of coffee. I drink the coffee but cannot face the rest. Then I am rushed off again through the long corridors to the ablution block where I have time only to wash my face and hands, and back again to the cell. At eight o’clock I am taken to the office with Lilian – and we insist on taking the suitcase, which has now become a joint one, for we are so hopeful that we shall not be coming back here again. Before we leave we are fingerprinted.
Out of the gate and into a van and down the road we swing to the main gaol where we pick up our fellow accused. Twenty-nine of us, for we are all detained now, and off we go singing gaily again, to the synagogue, our Special Court, which we used to hate the sight of but which we now long for, for it brings us together again, and in touch with the world outside.
We have a long consultation with our lawyers on the pros and cons of an adjournment of the trial until after the Emergency regulations, or whether our Counsel should withdraw altogether. We are also warned to expect police interrogation. Discussing amongst ourselves – crowded at the far end of the shed – we decide that no matter what the consequences to our case of the inability of Defence witnesses to give their full evidence, we want the trial to go on, for at all costs, we want to keep in touch with each other and with the outside world, even in the limited sphere of coming to court.
The court resumes as the judges file in, and then Advocate de Vos begins speaking. He is a QC from the Cape who has won his spurs as one of the government Counsel in the notorious High Court of Parliament case. We study the handsome profile turned so carelessly towards us. He seemed confident, even light-hearted in the days before the burden of the case pressed so heavily on his shoulders after Pirow’s death, before he became the Crown authority on Communism. But he has taken almost no part in the legal arguments until now.
He states that the attorney-general has given the matter full consideration and that it is the Crown’s view that the case should proceed as an ordinary criminal trial, and that there should be no adjournment or postponement. The Crown would co-operate fully in making practical arrangements for consultation and precognition of the accused. Judge Rumpff comments somewhat tartly that the real difficulty lies with the Defence witnesses – can they speak as freely now as before the Emergency regulations?
Advocate de Vos replies that similar regulations were promulgated during the war and the point had never arisen then that criminal proceedings might be stultified thereby – if it were to be so, there could be no trials at all for treason during periods of Emergency regulations. It would be the legal duty of a witness to give correct information to the Court. When it is pointed out by Mr Justice Rumpff that this might result in a witness himself being detained without trial, Advocate de Vos replies that there is no legal difference in the position since the promulgation of the Emergency regulations!
After even more severe questioning by the judges, Advocate de Vos takes refuge again in the last war and refers to the possibility of internment at that time. [My heart sinks a little – internment sounds much more “long term” than detention. It can go on for years.] Mr Justice Rumpff asks caustically what is the use of going on referring to the last war, which was in no way analogous to the present situation.
When Advocate de Vos peters out with the plea that he cannot take the matter any further, Mr Justice Rumpff gives the decision of the Court that Defence witnesses will not be able to speak as freely and as frankly as if there were no Emergency regulations, and that it is not inconceivable that in the present circumstances a witness might even say something not in the public interest. The present matter seems to be quite different from the possibility of internment during the war, and finally the Court feels that the trial should not be held in camera, and has come to the conclusion that the trial should not proceed and should be adjourned. In order to give time for the attorney-general to consult the Minister, it is agreed that the trial be adjourned until Tuesday, 19 April.
We gasp a little at the lengthy adjournment – nineteen days and Easter in gaol! But there is no help for it. Out to the courtyard again and now clothes pour in for the men and I see some of the wives, Winnie Mandela, Albertina Sisulu and others with them. The men change hastily in the shed and emerge looking smart and refreshed – those who are lucky enough to have clothes brought to them. Mrs Pillay is outside, our beloved Mrs Pillay, who has never failed to bring us coffee at the morning break for all these long weeks of the trial – but the coffee is brought in by policemen, for she may not enter herself.
All too soon, we are called up for the prison van; we have been told by our lawyers that we must go back to the Pretoria Gaol now and they will try to get us brought back to Johannesburg as soon as possible. So with this small comfort we climb in again and the last face I see is Mrs Pillay’s as she stands by the gate, apart from all others, grief-stricken and desolate, a bronze statue in her brown sari. I wave to her but she cannot manage a smile. She loves us dearly and has been like a mother to us.
Back to the gaol and this time our men shake hands with us a little formally in farewell as they climb out, for we shall not see each other again for nineteen long days.
In the matron’s office we pack our things away again very reluctantly, Lilian and I, in our common suitcase, and hand over our cash. I plead with the matron to be allowed to be with Hannah Stanton, the missionary whom I think is also detained here, but to no avail; the colonel has ruled otherwise. I am still not allowed to have my suitcase – only necessities, and then I gather from Matron that we are to be locked up all the time for nineteen days. I almost break down with horror; the tears come into my eyes. Matron is not unkind and suggests I smoke a cigarette, which I light up gratefully, and after a few puffs, I regain control and off we go, Lilian and I, to our cells again.
When I am locked in again, the full horror of it comes home – to be confined in this cell for 24 hours a day for nineteen days – it is solitary confinement. When we were all together in the Fort Gaol, three and a half years ago on our arrest for high treason, Yetta, Sonia, Ruth, Jackie, Dorothy and I agreed that each of us could have one “zero hour” for weeping during our imprisonment – to be taken at any time. I take mine this time on this Friday afternoon! But it does not last for very long. I am tired after these three days of strain and change, and I fall asleep soon after the women prisoners around me have sung their evening hymns and prayed together.
Saturday, 2 April. The main event of this day was a visit from the colonel. I complained that I was wrongfully confined in terms of the regulations, which provide only for detention; confinement, up to a maximum of 30 days, could be imposed only as a penalty for actual infringement of any of the regulations. It didn’t get me very far; he just told me that his instructions were to keep me in safe custody! However, he did inform me, when I asked to see a legal representative, that this question had gone before a judge and after two or three days we would get a decision. The colonel has a weather-beaten, not unkindly, face, and betrays an unexpected spark of humanity at times, even a twinkle in his eye.
During the morning I got into trouble over my inability to consume large hunks of bread. I rashly pointed out that as I had fruit etc. sent in to me, I could not eat both that and the bread. Half an hour later I was told that I had better eat the bread as the colonel has stopped all food coming in from outside. After that knock, I felt not much more could happen to me, and looked sadly at the remainder of the packet of sweets that had come the day before. There were exactly sixteen left – and there were sixteen more days to go before 19 April – so I decided to eat one every day. I still had an apple and a banana left so I set aside the banana for the next day, Sunday, and the apple for the following Sunday – calculating that I should not need solace on the third Sunday because by then we would be going to court within two days.
In the afternoon I asked for exercise and after much palaver was escorted to a yard with a tree in the middle of a circular garden – dry brown grass, uncared for, and a few rose trees in the bed on the outside of the circle. But the tree is a tall palm tree with a few ferns growing on the trunk, and I was reminded of my little Norwood garden and all the ferns growing on my huge palm tree. I was only there for about ten minutes and then it was time for me to go back to my cell.
Today Lilian has called to me across the top of the cells – she has no bed and only a mat on the floor and a bucket of water, which she says is stinking. I feel so embarrassed because I have a bed and sheets and a pillow and I remember unhappily Lilian’s bitter comment as we rode to the gaol – “You are better off with your pink skin!” But here in gaol there is nothing I can do about it, for I cannot find ways of expiating this pink skin, as I can outside. She tells me that the other African women are forbidden to speak to her, but they do sometimes, for among the voices I recognise Lilian’s every now and again. And so the day goes by. I make myself walk up and down my cell, and I force myself to do exercises. At least I can have a book almost every day from the gaol library, which will help the time to pass.
Monday, 4 April. I have been moved to another cell, an improvement on the last for it is not just at the head of the stairs, from which all sounds, particularly the yelling of the nonnas, used to rise up and spread over our cells as though through a great megaphone, crashing the sound barrier of, the rafters with a resounding, ear-splitting din. And I now have two-fifths of a window instead of only a small corner, so I can really see the sun and the sky, even if only through the double wire mesh and dirty window panes. The sun came into my cell this morning. Best of all, I am away from the fierce light in the roof, so that even though my cell is never dark I am spared that blinding glare.
When we were having our lunch-hour chat over the cells today, Lilian asked me what I had for lunch. I was so ashamed to say that I had some meat and potato in my bowl, for I know she had no meat – only porridge. Again, I heard her bitter comment, “You are better off”, and the only reply I could make was that she at least could join in the conversation around her, whereas I was likely to lose my voice altogether for lack of use.
Tuesday, 5 April. The colonel informed me today that he had received instructions that we can receive a visit from our next-of-kin to discuss domestic matters only, and in the presence of a detective. In the afternoon I got a bag of chocolate slabs and other things, so I realise that the ban on food had also been lifted. Things are looking up! I ask if I can share the chocolate with Lilian, but this is refused.
Wednesday, 6 April – Van Riebeeck’s Day. The dullest of dull days! The only change from routine was that I did not get taken for a bath, so did not even get out of my cell for that exciting walk downstairs and back. Lilian reminds me that we have always planned to have a picnic together one day under the trees – and I tell her we have been planning this picnic now for five years and we laugh and say we will have it on the very first Sunday that we are free. We talk a little over our cells and she tells me she has heard that there are some other women here from Pretoria, charged with burning passes. So we feel that something is going on outside.
Thursday, 7 April. The first touch with the outside world. Just after 2 pm the door of my cell was opened and a young wardress said, “Kom! Kom!” (one of the most welcome words in the prison vocabulary, for at least you go out of your cell, even if it is only to get a bath). I grabbed my jacket and went down to the matron’s office where I found the colonel himself – and sitting demurely on a chair one of my dearest friends.
We were taken off to a large room with square tables, at one of which I recognised the sweet-faced Miss Stanton from the mission hospital in the Lady Selborne Location, and at last I knew for sure who was the other white woman detained here like myself. She was talking to her brother, a cassocked priest. There was also a Special Branch detective in attendance, but we were at least allowed to sit at separate tables. We had just fifteen minutes with our visitors and there was so much to arrange about my house, standing so forlornly empty, that the fifteen minutes were up before I could get round to office affairs at all, or do more than ask for a Shakespeare, my Jane Austens and an Afrikaans dictionary.
All I look forward to now is 19 April and going to court, and getting some news and seeing the others again. When the women sang tonight they sang “Nkosi Sikelele” as one of their hymns – it was very moving, and they sang it most beautifully.
Friday, 8 April. Today is my birthday. Pretoria Central is a strange place to celebrate one’s birthday. I was thinking this morning of how Sonia had her birthday in the Fort in December 1956, and Rebecca sent her in some roses and pansies and how that reduced us all to a moment of tears so unexpectedly. Well, it hardly seems likely that I shall be receiving flowers in the Pretoria Central Gaol, but I have had a parcel, a stupendous parcel of tinned meats, chocolates, biscuits, liver sausage, spaghetti and heaven knows what. The only difficulty is that I am not allowed to share any of it with Lilian and this makes me feel embarrassed and even unwilling to take any of it myself. But Mrs Wessels, our kind-hearted little wardress, insisted that I have some liver sausage and brought it to me with such pleasure that I could not refuse.
And then, during the morning, the colonel came on his rounds with matron and solemnly handed me a mug of little golden marigolds and button dahlias! It was from Miss Stanton, my fellow detainee. And also three Penguin books. I was so overcome that I blurted out that it was my birthday, and the colonel solemnly wished me many happy birthdays – “but not in this place!” said he. It all seemed a bit unreal for the Central Gaol.
I feel so ashamed that I have a bed and get meat with my food, while Lilian has only a mat and blankets and gets mealie pap and boiled mealies. It is really terrible to be right in the midst of all these African women and to be better off. She says too, that when she goes to bath it is in an “open place” with a stable door. I am not quite sure what she means, but it is certainly far worse than the ablution block where I go, despite its open toilets and half-door to the bathrooms. There are baths, even sometimes with plugs – and the little wardress Mrs Wessels, who is in charge of us, is delicate and considerate and waits outside the block till I am finished.
This morning, for the first time for a week, I was allowed back into the yard with the tree for exercise. I walked for about ten minutes after my bath – it was good to get out again. I wonder how the men are faring. Robert said they were five in a cell; if that is so it won’t be too bad. I hope they have not been split up into separate cells. I hardly think so, as there are so many of them.
Monday, 11 April. When the colonel and Matron came on their rounds, I was told that we can now write and receive one letter a week. Also that I can now have a small mirror, a table and a chair. So after the stocktaking upheaval was over, the goods duly arrived and transformed my cell into a bed-sitting room. But I still have no wash basin. I told little Mrs Wessels that all I needed was a carpet for the floor and some curtains for the window. She said, “Where’s the window?” and then whispered softly, “It won’t be for long!” But I don’t really think anyone knows anything – she is gentle and kind and wants to be comforting.
Lilian was sad and disappointed that she did not have a visit from her daughter Edith – she is worried about Edith’s condition because she is three months’ pregnant and is not very strong. Poor Edith came twice since we have been here, but before we were allowed visitors, and I suppose she did not get the message that she should be here today. I only hope she does not come tomorrow for the detectives will not be here then, so she will not be able to see Lilian.
At two o’clock I was called to the office again to find Advocate Tony O’Dowd of the Treason Trial defence team and the inevitable detective and Matron at the doorway. This was to ask my wishes as to whether, if we eventually have any choice, I wish the trial to proceed during the Emergency. I said yes and also that I would leave it entirely to the Defence as to whether I should be called as a witness.
When I thought of this interview afterwards I felt very angry: is this what Advocate de Vos calls “full facilities for consultation”? With a detective and the matron listening to every word, what can I be expected to say? And why should the police know at this stage whether we (or which of us) want the trial to go on now or not? If we all say we want it to go on it may well stiffen the police and the Court into objecting. On 1 April it did not appear as though the Crown wanted to go on – but who knows what has happened meanwhile? Please God we shall get some news all round on the 19th.
Tuesday, 12 April. A quiet day but I have written my letter – the first of how many? Lilian is more cheerful and more like herself today – she says she feels better and can accept her present circumstances – it is all in the struggle. By common agreement lunch-time is reserved by the other prisoners for Lilian and me to talk, because only at that time is there no one to listen to us talking in English. We spoke today of our fellow accused from Port Elizabeth and how desperate their situation is, a thousand miles from their families and no one to visit them.
Lilian says now, “We are better off, for people can come to see us,” and she is torn even at the thought that we might possibly go back to Johannesburg if the trial is postponed, for much as she wants to go, to be nearer her family, and perhaps to be with the other African women detainees from Johannesburg, yet she is unhappy because it will mean leaving Rebecca, the African woman detainee from Lady Selborne, alone here. But who knows what will happen on 19 April?
Thursday, 14 April. Just as I thought I would write a record of “A day in the Life of a Detainee!”, it has undergone a stupendous change. For I am now to spend two hours in the morning and an hour in the afternoon with Miss Stanton out in the yard, which I now acknowledge as a kind of garden. It has changed my existence completely and I have only one regret – that Lilian and Rebecca have not got the same privilege so far.
Lilian was so unhappy today because she had heard that there were people to see her and they were turned away because it was not the right day for the detainees. Last week we were told it would be twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays, and then that it would only be Mondays, but Lilian had no visitor on Monday when the arrangements were altered. I do hope it was not her daughter Edith who came today – for that would be the third time she was turned away.
Tonight some new African detainees have been moved into the cell next to me, and one of them has a child. It is strange to hear a child gurgle and laugh in this desolate place.
Miss Stanton whispered to me today that she had heard that Dr Verwoerd had been shot at and injured in the face. Truly we are isolated here – we know nothing and cannot even imagine what is going on outside. But only four more days and I shall be at court and get real news again.
Friday, 15 April – ‘AFRIKA DAY’. Lilian was distressed and angry at lunch time. Edith did come yesterday but was turned away without seeing her mother. Lilian has been most unfortunate with her visitors and has suffered severe disappointments. I only hope that Edith comes to court on Tuesday – if she can and has money for her fare.
This afternoon the women sang “Nkosi Sikelele” again – very softy – so we did have a celebration of Afrika Day even here.
Saturday, 16 April. I had only a few words with Lilian today; she said, “Things are not the same!” but I don’t know what she meant. She was very happy at having received a letter from her daughter Edith – after three fruitless visits to the gaol. During the afternoon there was much shuffle and bustle going on in our cells and at first I thought it meant more detainees were coming in and listened most anxiously to see if I could recognise voices. However, it turned out to be an internal shift. The African women were moved downstairs while we were out walking in the yard. It is so quiet up here that I believe Lilian has gone downstairs too.
Easter Sunday, 17 April. It is so quiet here now. I am all alone in these fourteen dark cells and I miss the gay clatter and chatter almost unbearably. Everyone else has been moved downstairs and I am left solitary up in the rafters. Miss Stanton is a little distance away in her cell in the tower – like the Lady of Shallot. But she does at least have a room with a view. Lilian is also downstairs but I am told that she is not alone any more, so I suppose she is with Rebecca and the African women from Zeerust.
“Sunday, day of Blues!” I once heard one of the African prisoners say. I think I’ve got them today – it is this isolation. Thank Heaven for the two or three hours a day with Miss Stanton.
How does the time pass? I read, do crossword puzzles, walk up and down the cell, or lie on the bed. I can add to the diet if I wish, but beyond a few biscuits and some jam, I really don’t have much interest in the food. How long will this go on? Who knows? It is very quiet without the African women in the other cells and I miss my daily talks with Lilian – but on Tuesday I shall see her! And after that? I wish I knew.