Echoes From a Distant Land

by Frank Coates

  ‘I am well known among them. Many years ago I set up a modest loans fund for farmers, small landholders and graziers. Mainly Kikuyu. These days I suppose you might call it a rural bank, but a small one.’

  ‘What happened to it?’

  Sam shifted in his seat. ‘It went bust in the Depression.’

  ‘I see. And you believe you still have the goodwill of that community?’

  ‘I’m sure of it. If they didn’t trust me, I wouldn’t be able to get the information I have already received.’ He paused. ‘And if I couldn’t trust them, I’d be dead within a week.’

  Baring studied him for a moment.

  ‘Mmm … yes,’ he said, then dropped his eyes to the proposal Sam had prepared for him. ‘You’ve asked for quite a budget.’

  ‘If love of the crown isn’t enough to motivate people to risk their lives, it will have to be greed.’

  ‘And you suggest you should be a member of the Colony Emergency Committee.’

  Sam knew it would be the most difficult point for the Governor to accept. The committee was headed by General Sir George Erskine, whom Prime Minister Churchill had given full command over the colonial, auxiliary, police and security forces. Other members of the committee were the nominal heads of each of those forces. Baring himself attended most meetings.

  ‘It’s essential,’ Sam said. ‘Otherwise I shall have to withdraw my offer.’

  Sam watched Baring closely. His features remained unchanged, but he stiffened ever so slightly.

  Sam continued: ‘As a civilian, but more importantly, a member of the Legislative Council, I feel no obligation to become involved in the conflict. Nor can you order me to do so. I am offering my services voluntarily as a means of ending this war as quickly as possible. As you yourself have noted, Governor, the haystack is enormous. I can gather information on the movement of the Mau Mau from a dozen different sources scattered all over the Aberdares and Mt Kenya. But I won’t risk my life in some academic exercise. If my information is to be useful, it must be coordinated with Erskine’s proposed operations. The only way I can achieve that is to be part of that committee.’

  Baring smiled thinly. ‘Don’t misunderstand me, Mr Wangira. Courtesy dictates that I discuss with General Erskine any new members of the committee. I’m sure there won’t be a problem.’

  He stood, indicating the meeting was over. They shook hands when the Governor came around from behind his desk. He placed a hand on Sam’s shoulder as he escorted him through the outer office to the door.

  ‘It’s a very decent thing you’re doing here, Mr Wangira … Sam,’ he said, giving Sam’s shoulder a brotherly pat. ‘If we had more patriotic Kikuyu chaps like you, loyal to Britain and the Queen, we’d have these Mau Mau animals, these so-called freedom fighters, on the gallows by now.’

  Sam turned to him. They were now alone on the wide veranda, surrounded by expansive lawns and manicured shrubbery.

  ‘You’re right, Sir Evelyn, I am a patriot. But a Kenyan patriot. I am completely supportive of the Mau Mau’s objectives of land rights and self-government. Our only point of disagreement is the right means by which to achieve them.’

  He walked down the steps of Government House, leaving Baring on the veranda, tight-lipped and fuming.

  CHAPTER 57

  A knock on the door of his cabin woke Jelani shortly after midnight. The previous evening had been long and demanding with the meeting of union members running late into the night. He was groggy with sleep; he lay there for a moment unsure if he’d heard the sound or dreamed it. The knock came again and he was instantly awake.

  A member of the Home Guard, a Luo by the look of him, stood at the door.

  ‘Yes?’ Jelani said. ‘What is it?’

  The reservist pulled a notebook from his pocket and flicked open a page.

  ‘Are you Karura?’

  ‘Yes. What is this about?’

  ‘The sergeant said I’m to bring you to Fort Hall Road.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Sergeant Boothby just said to tell you to come and then shut up.’

  Jelani mumbled that he should wait while he put on some clothes.

  In the car, Jelani nervously wrung his hands. He desperately wanted to know why he’d been collected in the middle of the night and what was happening on Fort Hall Road at that time of the morning. The Home Guard was a paramilitary force consisting of black Africans, led by white officers, some of whom had criminal convictions. Many of them were callous thugs, pleased to be paid to inflict misery on their fellow humans. They used torture to extract a confession from anyone they suspected was a member of the Mau Mau and brutally beat people who stood in their way or complained to the authorities about their tactics.

  ‘What’s this about?’ Jelani asked again.

  ‘The sergeant said to just bring you, and that’s what I’m doing.’

  Jelani’s first concern when the man appeared at the door was Beth, but she was in Lari, where she should be quite safe.

  If it was about his association with the Mau Mau, then he was in serious trouble. Torture and incarceration in one of the notorious concentration camps outside Nairobi was likely.

  Maybe it was about the union. Some leaders of the movement, Chege Muthuri in particular, had begun to warn their members to resist pressures from the Mau Mau and to support their unions instead. It was the main item on the agenda of the meeting at the Ainsworth Bridge earlier that night — Chege had made his strongest condemnation of the Mau Mau yet.

  The guardsman drove past the meeting place at the bridge over the Nairobi River and continued along Fort Hall Road to the end of the tarmac where a number of vehicles were parked with their headlights trained onto a featureless mass on the side of the road.

  The driver took Jelani by the arm and led him to a burly Home Guard sergeant.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

  ‘He’s Karura, sergeant.’

  ‘Did I ask you, kafir?’ he snarled.

  ‘I’m Jelani Karura.’

  ‘Good. Come over here.’

  ‘What do you want of me?’

  ‘Just do what you’re bloody well told, and come over here.’

  He took Jelani to the focus of the headlights. The lump was a body covered by a gory sheet. The sergeant pulled back the sheet and asked Jelani if he could recognise the man.

  Jelani was blinded by the headlights. He shielded his eyes and peered at the mangled mess on the roadside. He felt sick to the stomach. The body appeared to have been run over by a truck. He turned quickly away.

  ‘How could anyone recognise that? Why do you think I can help you?’

  ‘You’re a union man, ain’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but —’

  ‘Well, this is one of your mob. The car is registered to the Transport and Allied Workers’ Union, and he’s wearing a Trades Union Council badge on his shirt.’

  Jelani strained his eyes against the glare. There was a mass of torn flesh and bone where the face should be, but he recognised the watch. It was Chege Muthuri.

  ‘My God …’ he said. ‘It’s my boss, Chege Muthuri.’

  ‘Muthuri,’ the sergeant said. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure. W-was it an accident?’

  ‘Hah!’ the sergeant said. ‘Not unless you call a twelve-gauge to the face an accident.’

  ‘Who would do this?’

  ‘That’s what we want to know, but I can guess. Have your blokes been stirring trouble with the Mau Mau?’

  Jelani remembered his conversation with Muthuri in the duka a few weeks earlier, and his boss’s speech the night before. Fort Hall Road was on Muthuri’s way home. Whoever did this was at the meeting and followed him until they reached this quiet part of the road. He felt sick. And angry.

  How could Kimathi turn so quickly against Muthuri? Were they also suspicious about Jelani in view of his close association with his boss? They could be watching him speaking to the police right now. They might have spies among t
he Home Guard. He looked around. Dozens of men moved about in the darkness. Any one of them might be listening to his conversation.

  ‘Do you have anything that might help us find the person or persons responsible for this?’ the sergeant asked.

  ‘No.’

  The sergeant shook his head. ‘I thought as much.’

  He closed his book and slipped into his pocket.

  Jelani wasn’t sure what to do. He waited until the sergeant turned back, surprised to see him there.

  He gave him a firm push in the chest.

  ‘Go on,’ he snarled. ‘Get out of here. You’re all the same … too shit-frightened to talk.’

  The dimly lit duka at the end of the tarmac on the outskirts of Naivasha was quiet when Sam entered. It was the night before the civil servants’ payday, and only a handful of men, each as shabbily dressed as Sam in his patched farmer’s overalls and felt hat, sat sipping their cheap, illegal grog.

  He spotted Collins Mutisa — his most important source of information west of the Aberdares. Mutisa was a double agent, feeding information to Sam for cash, and to the Mau Mau for security. As a Kisii, he was a fringe dweller, never entirely accepted by the predominantly Kikuyu Mau Mau. He trod a very dangerous line, syphoning favours from each side. He was grateful to Sam because his loan had saved him from ruin in 1927, though he ultimately lost his farm when the local chief cheated him out of his title. Thanks to the income he received from Sam, he was able to rent a small house in Naivasha for his family, and to ease the pain of his memories with changa’a.

  Sam joined Mutisa, who was impatiently tapping his fingers on the rough timber of their usual table.

  ‘Jumbo.’

  ‘Habari.’

  Sam needed Mutisa, but didn’t like him or approve of what he did. He was impatient to hear whatever the spy had found in recent weeks, and be gone.

  ‘Have you heard anything?’ he asked Mutisa.

  ‘Oh-oh, bwana,’ Mutisa said with an ingratiating smile. ‘Are we not friends? Ah? And is it not true that friendship needs warming before comes business?’

  Sam was irritated, but called for two drinks, and they sat in silence awaiting them.

  When the drinks arrived and Mutisa had taken a thirsty swig, Sam again asked his question.

  ‘Kimathi and his gang have moved camp,’ Mutisa said.

  ‘Do you have any details this time?’ Sam asked.

  ‘I do. They are camped a day’s march west from Barako, on the swampy land to the north of Mt Kinangop.’

  Mutisa had never been able to get exact details before, and it was timely. General Erskine now had at his disposal nine Lincoln heavy bombers on loan from the Royal Air Force. The existing Harvard light bombers had been chosen because they were slow enough to fly low over the mountainous terrain without overshooting their targets. They carried only eighteen-pound bombs that did little more than scare Mau Mau and animals alike. The Mau Mau soon learned to stand at the base of the largest trees to avoid injury. Because of their low flight paths, a few Harvards had been lost when strong downdrafts caught them, meaning the Mau Mau could spread the rumour that they had brought one down with their primitive rifles.

  The Lincolns carried one-thousand-pound bombs, enough to blast the largest trees out of the ground, but dropping them from a greater height required better coordinates. Sam would pass this new information on to Erskine as soon as he returned to Nairobi.

  ‘Anything else?’ Sam asked.

  ‘Lari. It is becoming a hot place.’

  ‘What do you hear?’

  Mutisa took a swallow from his glass and coughed. ‘I hear there are many men from the mountain gathering there.’ His voice was rough from the raw alcohol. ‘They are waiting for something and then they will make a big problem in Lari.’

  ‘What are they waiting for?’

  ‘I don’t know. They keep very quiet about this. I don’t think the Mau Mau soldiers know about it. If they do they are afraid to talk, but when it happens Lari will be in big trouble.’

  ‘They have chosen Lari because of Chief Luka,’ Sam said.

  Mutisa nodded, and took another drink from his glass, emptying it.

  The village of Lari, perched on fertile farming land above the Great Rift Valley, was a mixed community of loyalist Kikuyu under Chief Luka and landless squatters sympathetic to the Mau Mau cause. The white government had compulsorily acquired the community’s original land in Kiambu in 1940 for use by white farmers. Many Kikuyu refused to leave their farms, resisting the acquisition by force, but they were eventually beaten and gaoled for several years. Meanwhile, Chief Luka and his loyalist followers, who had cooperated with the administration, received first choice of the land at Lari that was offered in compensation. By the time the antagonistic farmers were released all the land had been allocated and a simmering animosity had continued between the two groups ever since. Occasionally, the resentment burst into attacks and counterattacks until the police imposed a return to the uneasy peace.

  ‘Do you know when it will happen, this big trouble?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. Nobody will speak of it.’

  Mutisa lifted his glass and pointedly studied it.

  ‘I’ll see you again a month from now,’ Sam said, pushing his untouched glass towards Mutisa. He then pulled some money from his pocket, tossed the notes on the table and left the duka through the back entrance.

  At the next meeting of the Colony Emergency Committee, Sam reported the Lari situation to General Erskine, who thought Chief Luka’s one hundred and fifty well-armed members of the Home Guard would be more than adequate to dissuade the Mau Mau from attempting anything serious.

  ‘We’ve never seen any sign that the Mau Mau can muster more than a score of men,’ he told Sam.

  ‘I have a number of reports from people who are afraid there is a major build-up of Mau Mau forces in the Lari area.’

  ‘Alarmists. Excitable people who imagine a Mau Mau under every banana leaf.’

  Sam knew Erskine well enough to know he would resist any advice Sam offered. He’d been difficult to deal with since Baring cajoled him into letting Sam join the Colony Emergency Committee.

  ‘General,’ Sam said. ‘I deal with all sections of the Kikuyu, not just those who support your views. On both sides of the fence I hear about groups of strangers coming in from the bush, camping for a day and then moving on. They make none of the usual courteous approaches. It’s as if they are sizing up the situation. Many people are living in fear of a blood bath.’

  Sam also knew that going behind the General’s back would further alienate him, but he was so sure there was imminent danger, he could not afford to take chances. ‘I’ve spoken to Governor Baring about it,’ he added.

  The General studied him for moment, straightened his shoulders, and sniffed.

  ‘I’ll talk to General Hinde,’ he said in a measured tone. ‘He may be able to send a company of the KAR up there.’

  The white community of Kenya waited breathlessly for the predicted massive uprising from the Mau Mau, but it didn’t come. In October 1952, Governor Baring had gazetted a State of Emergency, banning the Mau Mau. Although Kenyatta had made a speech in Kiambu condemning the Mau Mau, police arrested him, and the military purged the city, arresting nearly two hundred men. Even Sam thought this was extreme. The outcome of this trial was foregone, as it was well known within government circles that the trial judge had recently been awarded an unusually large pension.

  By the early months of 1953, many began to suspect that the Mau Mau threat was an exaggeration and the uprising would remain a series of minor skirmishes and cruel attacks on farm animals — all of which would soon be mopped up by the strong British military presence and the local Home Guard.

  In March, Sam heard that the newly arrived contingent of the King’s African Rifles was preparing to decamp from Lari. He rushed to Nairobi. In a heated exchange with Erskine, he asked if the General wanted to have the massacre of defenceless farmers on
his conscience.

  ‘I’m fighting a war on a hundred different fronts, Wangira. I can’t afford to tie up a company of men waiting for an attack from a dozen or so bushies that never eventuates.’

  Sam took a deep breath. He knew of Erskine’s record in the Second World War, and his intelligence work in Egypt and India, but he also knew it could obscure his understanding of the Mau Mau’s unconventional tactics, which were more like those used during the First World War by General von Lettow-Vorbeck in Tanganyika. The experts were starting to refer to it as guerrilla warfare.

  ‘Since talking to you last, I now believe there are significantly more Mau Mau and their supporters involved.’

  ‘Even if there were a couple of hundred, the Home Guard and the KAR can handle it.’

  ‘Make that thousands.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There may be over two thousand men surrounding Lari right now, General. You must order the company back there.’

  Erskine stiffened; and Sam cursed his choice or words as he saw the General’s blood rise.

  ‘Listen to me, Wangira,’ he growled. ‘I’ve tolerated your interference to appease Baring, but if you think I’m going to run my campaign on some … some … piece of jungle scuttlebutt, you’re howling fucking mad!’

  Sam stood, silent, before the fuming Erskine, angry at himself for handling the testy general so clumsily. He’d lost his chance to influence him and, as a result — if the rumours were true — hundreds of innocent people in the Lari area were at dire risk. He could only hope that he’d been misinformed, for there was now nothing anyone could do to prevent a massacre.

  Jelani left a union meeting early to see Beth before she left Nairobi that morning. He’d lately been troubled that he hadn’t yet told her of his association with the Mau Mau. He’d promised himself he’d do so before their wedding, but there was now a complication. Recent events, including his fear that Chege Muthuri had been murdered by the Mau Mau, meant telling her was harder than ever — but he knew that time was running out. Today he would have to start the explanation and, if the initial discussion went as well as he’d hoped, he’d tell her of his involvement and his doubts, and hope she’d understand.