Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela 1918-2013 by IU Press Journals

Author:IU Press Journals [Journals, IU Press]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, Peace, History, Africa, South, General
ISBN: 9780253018540
Google: 0p3CBwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Published: 2015-02-02T16:06:03+00:00

No known caption. According to Struan Robertson the miners had to be checked off against their individual numbers on their bracelets when they went on shift. The same was true when they came off shift. This ensured that they were actually at work that day and, in case of an accident underground, those killed could be identified. Photo by Ernest Cole. Image taken between 1958 and 1966. Courtesy of the Hasselblad Foundation. © The Ernest Cole Family Trust

He wouldn’t say anything, but I knew I could ask. “Oh, boetie, man, even just to keep a look out, there on the road . . .”

I knew he didn’t want it but once they knew I knew, and that I’d been there and everything, they were keen to use me. At least that’s what I think. I never went to any meetings or anything where it was planned, and beforehand I only met the two others who were with me at the turn-off in the end, and we were told exactly what we had to do by Seb Masinde. Of course, neither of us said a word to Emma. The Monday that we did it was three weeks later and I can tell you, although a lot’s happened to me since then, I’ll never forget the moment when we flagged the truck through with Josias sitting there on the back in his little seat. Josias! I wanted to laugh and shout there in the veld; I didn’t feel scared—what was there to be scared of, he’d been sitting on a load of dynamite every day of his life for years now, so what’s the odds. We had one of those tins of fire and a bucket of tar and the real Road Closed signs from the PWD and everything went smooth at our end. It was at the Nek Halt end that the trouble started when one of these A.A. patrol bikes had to come along (Josias says it was something new, they’d never met a patrol on the road there that time of day before) and get suspicious about the block there. In the meantime the truck was stopped all right but someone was shot and Josias tried to get the gun from the white man up in front of the truck and there was a hell of a fight and they had to make a get-away with the stuff in a car and van back through our block, instead of taking over the truck and driving it to a hiding place to off-load. More than half the stuff had to be left behind in the truck. Still, they got clean away with what they did get and it was never found by the police. Whenever I read in the papers here that something’s been blown up back at home, I wonder if it’s still one of our bangs. Two of our people got picked up right away and some more later and the whole thing was all over the papers with speeches by the chief of Special Branch about a master plot and everything.

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