Reports Before Daybreak, by Brent Meersman

Reports Before Daybreak, by Brent Meersman. Random House Struik Umuzi. Cape Town, South Africa 2011. ISBN 9781415201060 / ISBN 978-1-4152-0106-0

Brent Meersman has included enough subterfuge and intrigue to make one’s head spin. He does so, however, never losing control of his material or a sense of his characters’ humanity. Reports Before Daybreak is a must read for those who enjoy intelligent suspense fiction.

Brent Meersman  

SCHOOLBOY

Sitting on the floor in our flannel shorts worried about the dusty marks it will leave on our cuffs, our bums and at the bottoms of our brown school blazers; enough to get the ruler across the knuckles like a blunt guillotine; for untidiness, for disrespecting the uniform, our parents, and the white race. You would keep reminding yourself not to forget to brush it off, for it was so easy to overlook, when finally you could breathe a whisper to your friends as you all shuffled silently out of the hall. White knees with goose bumps from the cold that was not yet cold enough according to Principal Opperman, who was still to decree the season for long pants, even though our breath already smoked on the playground, and our blazers sponged up the grey mist shrouding the rugby fields. We listened. 31 May 1961, long before any of us were born. Never Forget, No Excuse Not To Know The Date By Heart. Mr Fouche said Hendrik Verwoerd was a hero and the founder of the Republic, our nation. But Mama said he was a great teacher until he became a Nazi and as backward as Paul Kruger. And Pappatjie said it was awful how she still behaved as if the Boer War was on. That's how the roast ended up burnt. And what was I to think? Happy to get out of schoolwork. Assembly was long. We had to sing the anthem twice that day, all of it, standing on the pins and needles in my feet from sitting cross-legged. We repeated: Ex Unitate Vires, which is Latin for Unity Is Strength. But, said Mr Fouche, the enemy was within. The Afrikaner and the English must stand together now. We were under attack. There were things called terrorists. Some nights I saw a shadowy face at the window, breath on the stipple-glass. I'd cry out. And Mama would come running, and cradle my head, and she'd say it was okay, kids sometimes dreamed when they were awake. Tired at school the next day, I'd want to nod off as Mr Opperman and Mr Fouche droned on. You'd be punished for yawning, so you pretended to be holding back a sneeze with your hands cupped as if in prayer. Sneezing was allowed. Yawning was beaten. Father Wilden of the Roman Catholic Religious Congregation writes in the parish diary: "Holy Mass in the Platberg location. If South Africa only does not reject Mary, the Queen, then hope prevails." [...]

This is an excerpt from the novel: Reports Before Daybreak, by Brent Meersman.

Title: Reports Before Daybreak
Author: Brent Meersman
Genre: Political novel
Publisher: Random House Struik
Imprint: Umuzi
Cape Town, South Africa 2011
ISBN 9781415201060 / ISBN 978-1-4152-0106-0
Softcover, 15 x 22 cm, 352 pages