i65 



friends who knew of my return would soon leave when they saw 

 how weary I was. It is quite amusing to look back on my ignorance 

 of what lay ahead. 



'The lights of Durban,' Ralston again, it would not be long now, 

 but it was a full half-hour before we could land. Round and round 

 we buzzed, because a stubborn aerial refused to come in and 

 eventually a plate of the hull had to be unscrewed and opened 

 before it c-ould be retracted. We went down. As the door opened 

 I was first at the steps, and was immediately blinded by a battery 

 oi^ flash-bulbs. In that fraction of a second's vision I was appalled 

 to see a seething crowd whose dimensions enlarged as further 

 flashes flared. How on earth had all these people got there ? My 

 bewilderment and dismay increased when that human dynamo 

 George Moore of the S.A.B.C. at Durban grabbed me by the 

 arm and pushed a microphone with trailing wires under my nose 

 and started to question me. The sounds from my lips were more 

 frog-like than human, and, indeed, later that night when my son 

 in Grahamstown heard those words from our radio set, he said 

 to my wife, 'But, Mom, that's not Dad.' His mother's sole retort 

 was a terse 'Shut-up', as she sat tense before the machine. 



In this confused milling crowd I was moved across the ground 

 towards the office. I needed a drink badly and asked for coffee. A 

 Customs officer pushed a form under my nose, put a pen in my 

 hand, and asked me to sign on a line. The officer in charge said 

 the Commander-in-Chief in Pretoria was waiting on the telephone, 

 would I speak to him, and so I made my formal report and received 

 his congratulations (Plate 6, facing p. 129). He asked if I was now 

 finished with the plane or should it take me to Grahamstown } So I 

 told him my plans, could the plane take me to Cape Town in the 

 morning as I wished to show the animal to Dr. Malan } Would he 

 kindly make contact with the necessary authorities as soon as 

 possible to say that I wished to bring it ? All this he promised to 

 do. I then told Blaauw that we might have to go to Cape Town 

 in the morning and why. He was by then clearly resigned to anything 

 and told his crew. Only later were they able to get my wife on the 

 telephone at Grahamstown, when I gave her a brief account of 

 events and told her my plans. 



My coffee had got cold, so they fetched more, and it was scarcely 

 easing my parched throat when George Moore brought me to 



