ii8 



only very much farther to go, but mostly over and into foreign 

 territory, with international complications as well, which alone 

 might turn the scale against me. Whereas it had been in my favour 

 that Smuts had had the flavour of science, would it not be exactly 

 the opposite with Malan, who was far away from science, very 

 far, a reputedly dour and at one time almost sinister figure in his 

 deeply religious stern Calvinistic righteousness? He was known 

 to be utterly indifferent to the criticism or disapproval of those 

 who opposed him, and once he had weighed a situation and come 

 to a decision he did what he felt was right, not what others wanted. 

 During the war, at a time when the Afrikanerdom he lived for 

 was battling for its very existence and its adherents were rent and 

 torn by schisms, Malan was not prepared to compromise or ap- 

 pease. Indeed, at that difficult time he set out to crush a powerful 

 group in his own camp, a policy that appalled most of his asso- 

 ciates of that time; but he succeeded, and later, when the fruits 

 of his policy and victory became apparent, they won him enor- 

 mous respect for his courage and wisdom. This was indeed one 

 of the main causes underlying Malan's final spectacular and 

 crushing victory over his life-long opponent SmutSx Paradoxically 

 enough he accomplished this in the British way because he won 

 really only the last victory in that long struggle. It was something 

 like the tortoise and the hare over again. Indeed, I reflected, man- 

 kind may be divided into the tortoises and the hares, I had myself 

 been like the tortoise this past fourteen years, plodding along 

 steadily, without encouragement, looking for my Coelacanth, 

 and now at the end I was aiming to finish off with a spurt no hare 

 could ever equal, not even a Pegasus. I wondered how Malan . . . 

 the telephone bell crashed through my thoughts and went on 

 ringing furiously. Shearer got up and went out hastily, and there 

 followed a long conversation of which we heard odd fragments. 



'Yes, Vernon Shearer, M.P. Member of Parliament. . . . Yes, 

 yes, tonight. Thank you.' Another fruitless effort, for Shearer 

 said that the Post Office had told him that the Prime Minister was 

 not at Groote Schuur, but at his private home at the Strand, where 

 he was resting, and there were strict orders that he was not to be 

 disturbed. Nevertheless, Shearer had stressed the importance and 

 urgency of the matter and we could only hope for the best. He 

 began to speak of Malan in a manner that interested me greatly, 



