plane, then once they had left he drove back home alone and told Bernstein and Hodgson that the mission had been accomplished.
A week or so later Mhlaba arrived in Johannesburg and Andrew went to see him at Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia, north of the city. He found him with Mandela and he later learned that the farm had been purchased as the headquarters of MK and that Mandela had been hiding there. He also learned that there were already moves to establish MK structures in the Cape, with Mhlaba, Govan Mbeki and Francis Baard, part of the team leading the exercise. Andrew took Mhlaba for cholera immunisation in town and awaited further instructions from Bernstein and Hodgson. A few days before their departure, Bernstein and Hodgson instructed John Nkadimeng to drive Andrew and Mhlaba to Botswana. Nkadimeng had been on the executive committee of the South African Congress of Trade Unions (Sactu), and on the ANC National Executive Committee, and was a 1956 treason triallist. A close friend of another prominent trade unionist and fellow SACP member from his home district of Sekhukhune, Flag Boshielo, Nkadimeng lived in Alexandra township.
The trio were instructed to leave the country on 31 October 1961 through the Zeerust route to Lobatse. Here, the same plane that had transported Mthembu, Kotane and Gqabi was to fetch them. ‘Nkadimeng did not seem to have been properly briefed about the whole mission but nevertheless he had been coached with the necessary security information for the trip,’ was Andrew’s observation. They left in the morning and arrived in the early evening of the same day. Nkadimeng dropped them off at a hotel in Lobatse. The pair then went into the hotel and relaxed for a while at the bar with soft drinks, as alcohol might have made them careless and jeopardised their security and safety. They didn’t check into the hotel, as their plan was, rather, to look for overnight accommodation somewhere in the town. Although they had money, they didn’t want to spend it.
At about half past seven, they decided to take their bags and go out to look for somewhere to sleep. Just outside the hotel, a tall, lean white man approached them. He introduced himself as McCabe and told them he was a member of the Special Branch of the Bechuanaland police. He instructed them to follow him. The three of them walked to his office, a block away from the hotel, where an interrogation began. McCabe asked where they were going and Andrew answered that they were going to Francistown.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked Andrew.
‘Percy Mokoena.’
‘What are you going to do in Francistown?’
‘I’m visiting my mother-in-law. She lives there,’ he answered patiently, adding that his mother-in-law sold cattle and that he often took customers to her.
Then McCabe turned his attention to Mhlaba.
‘And what’s your name?’
Mhlaba gave his Tswana name. When asked what he was going to do in Francistown he answered that he was going to buy cattle from ‘Percy’s mother-in-law’.
‘Where do you stay in Botswana?’ asked McCabe. Mhlaba had no idea. He didn’t know anything about Botswana.
‘I stay in Port Elizabeth, in South Africa,’ he answered cautiously.
‘Then how will you get your cattle there?’ asked McCabe.
‘I’m going to buy cattle, but most will be kept here for some time,’ replied Mhlaba.
‘Who is your traditional chief in Botswana?’ asked McCabe. Again, Mhlaba couldn’t answer.
‘Are you going to Rhodesia?’ McCabe asked. Andrew answered that they were going to Francistown. McCabe then said he wanted to search their luggage. That was a serious problem because their suitcases could implicate them. Nevertheless they could not refuse to be searched.
In Andrew’s suitcase, McCabe found two letters from the wives of Gqabi and Mthembu. He opened the envelopes at once and read them.
‘Are you going to Ghana?’ he asked them.
‘No, we are going to Francistown, sir,’ answered Andrew.
‘Then where are you taking these letters?’ he asked.
They were silent. Then, ‘I don’t believe you guys,’ he said.
The time was around ten o’clock and the two comrades were tired and hungry. The interrogation continued. Eventually, Mhlaba asked to go to the toilet and McCabe directed him around the corner, remaining in his office with Andrew. They looked at each other but said nothing. Time was ticking on and Mhlaba came back to find them still staring at each other in silence.
He took his seat, looked down and said, ‘Yes, sir, we are going to Ghana.’ Andrew was stunned. He wondered whether Mhlaba had lost his mind. He gave McCabe another quick look.
McCabe looked them both over. ‘Why didn’t you tell me the truth all this time? I would have released you a long time ago. My concern is about the security of Bechuanaland and not all the other countries. If you are only on the way to another country I have no problem.’
Andrew lifted his head, hardly daring to believe his ears. While they were still wondering whether they were really free McCabe said they had wasted his time but the discussion was over and they could go. Andrew said, ‘It’s late now. We’re tired, hungry and have nowhere to sleep. You will have to help us with food and accommodation.’
McCabe called his wife and came back to tell them he could help with accommodation but not food, as she had only prepared enough for the family. He took them to his house, a very short distance away, and they met a pretty wife of Asian descent. He showed them where to sleep and asked what time they were going to board their plane. They told him it was around seven in the morning. He asked them to be up and out by five so that no one would see them leaving his house.
Before they went to bed they had a friendly discussion with him and discovered that he was not a bad man at all. By five o’clock they were out of the house and on the way to the small Lobatse airport where they waited for over two hours for their plane to arrive. When it came and they boarded they realised that there was no food. They were now to spend the whole day without food – and it was a nine-hour non-stop flight from Lobatse to Mbeya.
Their brief was that once they were in Tanzania Frene Ginwala would come and fetch them and take care of their further destination. Andrew was wondering where the ANC representative in Tanzania, Tennyson Makiwane, was, or what his role was going to be in their trip. Makiwane had been a colleague of Gqabi’s in the New Age newspaper, and another fearless journalist whom he knew slightly. He had since left the country and was working for the ANC’s external mission in East Africa.
It was about four o’clock when they got into Mbeya. The sun was still up. At the hotel Andrew used a public phone to call Frene. He told her that ‘Percy’ and ‘John’ had arrived and asked her to come for them. She, too, had been briefed. She told him she was very far from where they were, in Dar es Salaam, where they were supposed to join her the next day. It had been raining heavily, and the roads were terrible. Therefore it was difficult to travel by road all the way to Dar es Salaam, where they were to catch a bus. The alternative was a train from Iringa, not too far from Mbeya. Frene said they were free to choose.
The following morning Andrew and Mhlaba caught a bus to Iringa. There were two routes from Mbeya to Iringa, they were told, but the other one was said to be impassable. The roads were very bad, untarred and destroyed by rain. They were poorly maintained as well. ‘The bus was not in good condition. It travelled very slowly, and huffed and puffed almost the whole morning to reach Iringa,’ recalled Andrew. The
