WORRALS IN THE WILDS

by Captain W. E. Johns

VI. WORRALS TURNS THE TABLES (Pages 60 – 70)

The Junkers is far faster than Worrals Kingfisher and soon disappears into the distance. Arriving at Keetmannshoop, Worrals decides to drop Dick and Frecks off and fly on to Cape Town to make enquires about Shardwell and Gronk and their alleged ownership of the Impala landing ground. On her arrival at Cape Town, Worrals is called to an urgent long distance telephone call and Frecks tells her that Uncle Dick has been arrested for what they call I.D.B. which stands for “Illicit Diamond Buying”. “Apparently you aren’t allowed to buy or sell diamonds in this crazy country without some sort of government licence – or something like that – because it encourages the native workmen in the mines to steal”. Dick has been found with a bag of 17 uncut diamonds worth about a thousand pounds on him. Dick “has said that it was a ridiculous mistake, and he’d reserve his defence till he could get a lawyer”. Worrals gets a taxi to the Cape Town police and asks to see the Chief of Police. Worrals knows there is no point telling the truth, she will have to use guile. “The first thing, she resolved, was to disarm the Chief of Police by pretending to be ingenuous (meaning lacking in cunning, guile or worldliness, openly straightforward, frank; candid) to the point of childishness. Worrals spins a yard about finding some diamonds on the floor of the resthouse at the Impala landing ground where she met a man she didn’t know called Ashton, showed him the stones and he had said they were diamonds. Worrals is asked point blank, as she tells her story, “Until this morning, you had never seen him before in your life?” “That’s right” she replies. “You’d swear to that?” “Certainly”. Worrals says she has come to the police to hand them in. She then makes a pretence of looking for them and “remembering” that she asked Mr. Ashton to keep them in his pocket until they got to Keetmannshoop. The Chief of Police is angry with Worrals and says she nearly had an innocent man sent to prison. He says he will arrange for Dick to be released. Worrals says she was at Impala looking for a Mr. Shardwell for a job. When told he hasn’t any planes, Worrals says he has a Junkers, registration ZS – YKX. The Chief checks with his sergeant and discovers that this vehicle is registered to a “Jansen Gronk” for air-taxi work. Worrals leaves. “Outside the door, Worrals leaned on it and laughed silently”. She goes to the aerodrome hotel and has a bath and a meal and then sleeps “the sleep of the innocent”.