"I'll get them laughing… "

"You'd have to get your trousers off to get a laugh."

"What do they want?"

"To know that our government is not abdicating its responsibilities in the face of overseas pressure, and Black pressure. Persuade them and we might just win."

"It's rubbish to talk of abdication."

The Party man shrugged. "Fine when you say that to me.

Tell your audience that and they'll shout you out of the hall, I promise you."

"What'll satisfy them?"

"You know the name of Prinsloo?"

"Should I?"

"Gerhardt Prinsloo."

"Don't know him."

"His parents live in Petrusburg."

"Don't give me riddles, man," the minister snapped.

They were coming into the town. One street on a main road, low buildings, a small shopping arcade, a decent church.

"His father runs a hardware store. His mother teaches in the nursery school. You should go to Gerhardt Prinsloo's grave."

"If I knew who he was."

"Everyone in Petrusburg knows the name of Gerhardt Prinsloo. He's the nearest thing they have to a genuine South African hero."

"Tell me, man."

"If the people here thought that you didn't know who Gerhardt Prinsloo was and what he did, then I assure you our vote would be halved."

"What did he do?"

"Warrant officer Gerhardt Prinsloo gave his life to save others. He smothered the terrorist bomb in the Rand Supreme C o u r t… "

The minister bit his lip in anger. "You caught me cold, early in the morning."

"I've heard it said in this town that our government of today is so preoccupied with foreign opinion, with the shouting of the liberals, with appeasement, that the men who murdered Gerhardt Prinsloo might receive the State President's clemency."