rivoniaunmasked

Rounding up all the occupants of Lilliesleaf and placing them under arrest had been the work of
only a few minutes; but the task that lay ahead, of searching the house and outbuildings for
incriminating evidence, would require many hours, possibly days.
The men went about their task systematically and with the thoroughness typical of efficient
policemen. Lilliesleaf, that peaceful rural retreat, fairly buzzed with activity. It is to be doubted
whether even the glorious day of the revolution itself, which its inmates had been plotting so diligently,
would have found the place busier than it was now.
The various rooms yielded stack after stack of papers and documents, which were all handed over
to the experts, Mr Dirker and Sergeant Kennedy, who would examine them thoroughly at their leisure.
Meanwhile even a cursory inspection showed the contents of these papers to be of a highly
inflammatory nature. There were letters, circulars, Communist literature, pamphlets issued by the
ANC, the Communist Party and Umkhonto We Sizwe; among them documents so incriminating that Dr
Percy Yutar, who appeared for the State at the Rivonia trial, observed afterwards that he could have
proved his case on the strength of the documentary evidence alone, even had not a single witness come
forward.
Six typewriters and over a hundred maps were discovered in an open coal hole near the
outbuildings. One of the outside rooms housed a radio transmitter, with some of the parts missing; but
the police were convinced that the transmitter had actually been used for broadcasting, for directly
behind the room in question were the remains of an earth wire and some poles which had obviously
served as aerial masts.
Another of the outside rooms contained a duplicating machine and a large supply of stationery
stacked on shelves along the walls. Many and many an inflammatory circular and pamphlet must have
been composed here before being distributed by Government mail throughout the length and breadth of
the land…
Beside the duplicating machine the fingerprint expert spotted a tin; just a small, innocuous tin– but
it had an interesting story to tell– it showed a fingerprint, so distinct that the expert did not even have
to make use of his dusting powder. The fingerprint belonged to a man who was not present at all at
Lilliesleaf on that fateful afternoon: one Harold Wolpe, of the legal firm Kantor and Partners in
Johannesburg.
The thatched cottage, which was to feature so prominently in the trial, was appointed like a luxury
flat, with a bathroom and toilet and hot and cold running water. Lionel Bernstein, the architect, had
designed it himself. The furniture consisted of three beds, a desk, several easy chairs, and a handsome
carpet on the floor. Under one of the beds was an extra mattress, so that the cottage offered sleeping
accommodation for four persons.
The homestead was a spacious, luxuriously furnished modern building providing every comfort.
One of the front rooms had obviously served as a conference room, for it contained an exceptionally
long table with a number of chairs placed round it. How many subversive conferences had taken place
at that table, how many acts of sabotage been plotted, what sinister schemes hatched there?
"I beg your pardon, Lieutenant– " Van Wyk glanced up. "Yes, Constable?"
"A car full of Bantus turned in at the gate a few moments ago; but when the driver saw what was
going on here he swung round and sped back before we could get near enough to stop the car."
Van Wyk thought quickly and acted promptly. Two policemen in cars were instructed to station
themselves unobtrusively near the entrance to the caravan park, from where they commanded a view of
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