One year and six months for engraving a tea break mug with the words MANDELA – t h e people's leader. Six years for singing in gaol S university a song in praise of Mandela who was in gaol and Aggett and Biko who had died in police custody. Eight years for membership of the banned underground African National Congress and being found in possession of T-shirts with the logo viva mandela. Ten years for collecting political information for the African National Congress. Fifteen years for possession of firearms and explosives. Twenty years for sabotage. The sentence of death for the man who in the name of the African National Congress executed a policeman. On their way to the gaols the comrades had come in their tens and in their hundreds to the Rand Supreme Court on Pritchard Street.

It was a good target.

They were beside the sweeping entrance road that went down the side of the court building and then turned sharply into the tunnel that burrowed under the tower. It was the way the prisoners went, and the informers who gave evidence against them, the most secret of the state's witnesses. A White stood at the mouth of the entrance road, blocking it, short cut hair, pressed slacks, a club tie neatly knotted, and his arms crossed and cradling a personal radio. They had seen this policeman each time that they had come to look at the court, they would have to run back past him after the bomb. They had been told that everyone would be dazed after the bomb, that the Boer too would be confused, and they had the Makharov and the R.G.-42 fragmentation grenade.

The bustle and swim of the city eddied around them. The sun shone down on them. The noises of the city drifted between them. The one who carried the duffel bag closed his eyes, seemed to look upwards and his lips moved in silence as if he repeated a single word again and again.