I05 



That long night my tortured and almost fevered brain worked 

 through all the people who might help, and in the end crystallised 

 on the Minister of Defence. Early next morning, Christmas Day, 

 1952, would the Post Office please try to find the Minister for 

 Defence ? And once more I paced the bridge. Late the night before 

 my wife had discovered that the French Consul of Cape Town 

 was on board and she had got from him the private number of the 

 French Consul in Durban. So at a reasonable hour I asked the 

 Post Office to try this and they soon had him on the telephone. I 

 gave him some account of the matter and of the difficulties, but 

 had to confess that at the moment I did not know what could be 

 done, and nor did he; but we parted with the assurance that 

 whatever he could do to assist would be done. It is indeed pleasing 

 to record that every single representative of France in the Union 

 with whom we had any dealings gave our requests the utmost 

 consideration and went to great trouble to assist us throughout. 



Christmas day — Teace on earth and goodwill towards all men.' 



Well that might be, but why on earth did Coelacanths want to 

 turn up just before Christmas ? Christmas ! Well, mine wasn't 

 going to be the conventional Christmas, anyway. I waited for 

 what seemed an endless time, but no message came, so I telephoned 

 the Post Office, but they had nothing to report. For seven agonis- 

 ing incredibly long hours that Christmas Day, 1952, I paced that 

 bridge. The gong went for lunch, but I could not go, no great loss 

 to me because I cannot eat the conventional Christmas meal, 

 anyway ; my liver revolts. Even the simple stuff they sent up on a 

 tray remained forgotten, and later I saw a deck-hand polishing off 

 the canned peaches behind a ventilator and tip the rest overboard. 



In the late afternoon the Post Office telephoned to say that they 

 had tracked Mr. Erasmus (the Minister of Defence) to his farm 

 at White River, but it was certainly an ideal retreat, for the only 

 available telephone was miles away and worked only in office 

 hours and not on holidays. I dare say this was what anyone outside 

 the inner circle would be told, because it seemed impossible to 

 me that a Minister of Defence could cut himself off like that. 

 What if an emergency arose and the Prime Minister needed to 

 speak to him at once and could not ? As will be told that actually 

 happened later, but it was from an 'Act of God' (was it God?), 

 for storms had cut the telephone line. 



