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said it might be as well to stay until Smuts returned. That was 

 twice I had been advised to try the direct personal approach by 

 those who should know, so I told my friends that I would wait 

 and should telephone later, and they went off. 



They put me in a room, but I could not sit still and found my 

 way outside, pacing up and down beneath the magnificent trees 

 that toned the sunlight almost to gloom. Every minute was an age. 

 When would this man return ? 



It was an awful time. I can stand a good deal, but find suspense 

 wearing, for while my imagination helps my work it clouds my 

 life. I could see those precious piles of fishes starting to rot, being 

 eaten by birds, washed away by the waves and buried by sanitary 

 gangs. Some time later a kindly official came out to offer me tea, 

 so I went inside, still steeped in anxiety, and ate and drank with- 

 out any memory of what they served. This man questioned me 

 again, astutely and with interest, and I got to speaking of my work. 

 Quite suddenly I realised that he had become interested, even my 

 ally, and would do all he could. Plainly concerned, he set out to 

 alleviate my pressing tension and showed me round the lovely 

 mansion, but the rarities and treasures meant nothing to me, I 

 could see only those rarities and treasures rotting on that sun- 

 drenched dazzling sand at Walvis Bay, and in the end he left me 

 to start again my restless pacing beneath the trees. Would this 

 man never come? 



I had gone some way from the house, the sun was already so 

 low that it was turning dark beneath the trees, when I heard the 

 throb of a car which passed round the corner of the house out of 

 sight. I had, from my reluctance to worry any man at this time, 

 suggested that I should not be in the house when Smuts came, but 

 that if he was willing to receive me I should come in. Slowly now 

 I made my way towards the house, and went on pacing up and 

 down the gravel path along the side. A good fifteen minutes 

 passed. Suddenly my sixth sense told me I was being scrutinised, 

 and from upstairs. Unobtrusively I scanned the windows, but 

 they were screened and told me nothing. I waited tensed and 

 anxious, and when the official came to seek me, he had no need to 

 speak, for I could read his message in his walk and bearing. To 

 his great regret he had to tell me that the Field-Marshal would 

 not see me. He had told him the outlines of my story and had 



