page 432 - Long Walk Original Manuscript [LWOM_432.jpg]

I also made a number of mistakes. In Natal I lived for a fortnight on a sugar farm with a number of African labourers and their families. I posed as an agricultural demonstrator and spent part of the day testing the soil and making experiments to validate my pose. But almost every evening I disappeared quietly into the dark night. This must have aroused suspicion and they probably guessed what I was doing. As we were conversing one day their leader addressed me. "Tell me, Qudeni (a cover clan name), what does Luthuli really want?" I explained. "But how is he going to get the country back if he has no army?" He had raised a fundamental question but I could not discuss the matter with him frankly. I realised I had stayed too long in the place and the following night I left as quietly as I had come.

Zami and the children spent some weekends with me at Rivonia. My son Kgatho, then 11 years, was careful not to reveal my real name. But one day he slipped up. Zami and I went out, leaving a copy of the Drum magazine on the table. As Kgatho and Nicholas, Arthur's eldest son, were paging through it they suddenly came across my photo taken before I went underground. In his excitement Kgatho revealed that I was his father. That evening Nicholas told his parents that he knew my real name. For the second time I realised that I stayed too long in one place. We were looking for another place when I had to leave on another mission.

One day I was listening to the radio when it was announced that Chief Luthuli had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. We welcomed the award and considered it as a recognition of the