The Colour of Gold Read Online Free PDF

unemployed at the time Shadow
had been able to join the students and help organize them into
effective gangs fighting the well-armed white security forces.
Although the only weapons the young black people had were stones
and petrol bombs, they did themselves proud against the guns, stun
grenades and teargas of their enemy.
    On the third
day of the revolt Shadow had taken a heavy calibre bullet in the
upper part of his right leg. The missile had shattered the femur
bone and the young fighter had collapsed in a sea of excruciating
pain. His companions had dragged him to safety and hidden him in a
small shack while they searched for a doctor. They dared not take
him to the hospital because the authorities would arrest and
imprison him for defying the State. It was automatically assumed
that any black man with a bullet wound had received it while
fighting against the white government.
    When the doctor
eventually arrived there was very little that he could do except to
fix a rough wooden splint to the broken leg and hope that the bone
would knit and allow Shadow to walk again. He gave the wounded man
the few painkillers that he had and left, shaking his head
sadly.
    For six months
Shadow lay on the cheap steel bed with its thin, dirty mattress,
willing his leg to heal and listening to the bitterly one-sided war
going on around him. Every day he vowed that some day he would he
able to take up the fight where he had left off and lead his
comrades to victory over the white oppressors. The young black
people were fighting a war that they could never win without help
from outside the country and by the time Shadow was able to walk
again the only alternative open to young black fighters was to
leave the country and seek military training in countries such as
Mozambique, Zambia, East Germany and Russia.
    Although
Shadow’s femur bone had knitted securely, the makeshift splint had
not aligned the two pieces of bone correctly and this put
tremendous strain on his hip joint causing him searing pain each
time he took a step. Eventually he perfected a technique of walking
that minimized the pain but the pronounced limp allowed him to walk
no more than a few hundred metres before having to rest. This
didn’t stop the determined young man and over a period of several
months he walked more than four hundred kilometres to the border of
South Africa without being detected and joined the external network
of the A.N.C. From Mozambique he was flown to Moscow where he leg
was re-broken and set correctly. Too much damage had already been
done to the leg though and for the rest of his life Shadow walked
with his pronounced limp, albeit with a great deal less pain.
    As soon as
Shadow left the Moscow hospital he began training for his return to
South Africa. His instructors were impressed with his
single-mindedness and dedication as well as his determination to
learn everything that was necessary to help him free his people
from the oppression that they were enduring. He wasn’t interested
in politics or negotiations. He was only interested in fighting the
enemy and bringing them to their knees using the same methods that
they were using to demean and subdue his people. He was happy to
leave the talking to those who thought that it would make a
difference.
    After two years
of intensive training in subversive warfare Shadow was ready to
return to his beloved country. His instructions were to recruit
cadres for the African National Congress’s armed wing called
Umkhonto weSizwe or Spear of the Nation and train these men and
women to commit acts of sabotage that would destabilize the country
and eventually lead to the downfall of the illegitimate white
government.
    Recruiting
young black people to fight for freedom wasn’t difficult but
training them to perform their tasks efficiently and effectively
was almost impossible. There were no facilities where weapons could
be demonstrated and usually the first time that recruits actually
used their weapons was