As time went on, attacks by Mau Mau activists on Europeans and their families intensified. Some were hacked to death by pangas (long slashing knives). All those living in threatened areas went armed, and fortified their houses.
On this occasion there was a large cocktail party in the Settlers’ Club just outside Kiambu. These events were not common and people from all over the local Settled Area had flocked in to attend. Most of those present were coffee farmers who were living with their families on isolated estates round the edge of the Native Reserve. It was easy enough to tell that they were living under a shadow from the uproarious way in which they were enjoying their evening out. A few were a bit drunk perhaps but the majority were just relaxing from the tension. I did not stay late because I wanted to make up for lost sleep, so I went back to Kamiti soon after eight o’clock.
As I was driving the last few yards up to my house I heard a burst of firing from another house about half a mile away, which belonged to an elderly couple. As it happened, I knew that the man was away in Nairobi for the evening. Eric Holyoak had also heard the shots and had come running out of his room. Together we drove round as fast as possible.
We arrived at about the same moment as some other neighbours. The sight that greeted us was appalling. The windows were broken, the door knocked down and bits of clothing and other oddments littered the yard. After a moment we summoned enough courage to go inside. The lights were all out but the beam of Eric’s torch revealed a more frightful shambles even than had appeared outside. We all knew what it would be like to find the old woman. Often enough we had seen pictures of similar scenes taken by daylight next morning. As a result I hoped that it would not be I who came across the corpse. I was horrified to think that I might at any moment put my hand on it when turning up a chair or be the first to see some bleeding remnant picked out by the torchlight moving from side to side of one room after another.
In this way we passed through the dining room and the living room and had just started our search of a bedroom when we heard a faintly apologetic little voice calling out from the room through which we had just come. We went back and made our identity known but still we could see nothing. After a moment or two there was more of the little voice and then the gallant old lady appeared from under the floor. She had apparently taken the precaution of loosening some of the boards and as the gangsters hacked down the door she had disappeared under the floor. She turned out to be quite unharmed and hardly troubled by the affair. In fact her friends had difficulty in persuading her to go home with them for the night.
Gangs and Counter-Gangs Frank Kitson.
The Kikuyu people mere split in two by the Emergency which became, in effect, a civil war.
Those who resisted Mau Mau did not necessarily do so out of loyalty to the Government but because they just could not tolerate degradation and depravity and they also foresaw that the Mau Mau would bring nothing but sorrow and ruin to the tribe. The elders of the Kikuyu tribe, personified in and led by Senior Chief Njiri, resisted because they saw that Mau Mau violated all their traditions and background. Those who had embraced Christianity resisted because they saw that there could be no compromise between their faith and the teachings of Mau Mau.
On 26 March 1953 the Lari massacre shocked much Kikuyu and other African opinion as well as that of Europeans. A Mau Mau gang wiped out the entire village of Lari, killing ninety-seven men, women and children in ghastly ways. The chief was tortured to death and many houses burnt down with their occupants inside. A Kikuyu Guard was set up to resist the gangs and protect, so far as possible, those “loyalists” who had refused to take the oath.
The Home Guard, or Kikuyu Guard, had been built up slowly and carefully over a period of months by the administration in the Central Province, from loyal members of the Kikuyu, Embu and Meru tribes. A very large percentage of the Kikuyu had taken the first oath and in so doing they swore not to give away Mau Mau secrets; if they did they were told they would die and this the vast majority believed implicitly. One or two came into a chief or an officer and confessed what they had done or been made to do. Gradually people realized that those who confessed did not come to harm from supernatural causes as they had expected. Others who wished to resist the Mau Mau came forward to confess. The Kikuyu called it Kahungwa muhori or “to have the lungs cleaned”. Before any Kikuyu could be a member of the Guard he had to confess fully in this manner; only then was he eligible to be taken on probation into the Guard as a junior recruit.
Initially the movement was based on volunteer effort and self-help. There was no pay for them; activity and interest were maintained by the Guards’ own desire to fight against the forces of Mau Mau. Special funds were available, however, to cover incidental expenses and for the payment of occasional reward money for such special items as arms and ammunition recovered. Officers in charge of Kikuyu Guard units were encouraged to learn Kikuyu and gain the trust of the men.
The Charging Buffalo Guy Campbell.
As the raids grew better organized, so did the defence.
The gang had evidently gone into the assault with great determination and they had done a lot of damage. The reason why they were not entirely successful was that they had chosen the wrong settler to attack. Mr and Mrs Grimwood had hit back hard.
Mr Grimwood met me when I arrived and showed me what had happened. The gang had come out of the forest and split into two parties. One party had destroyed the African labour lines and the other had attacked the house. This group had advanced shouting and blowing whistles. I saw innumerable bullet marks on the house and a scar on the floor of one of the rooms where a hand grenade had exploded. Mr Grimwood, aided by his wife, had moved from window to window firing at the gang until a very brave police inspector came tearing up the drive in his Land-Rover. The gang, not knowing that he was by himself, made off.
After seeing the house I went to the charred remains of the labour lines. There had been no great loss of life because the Grimwoods had organized a safety drill to be carried out by their Africans in case of emergency. Even so, one or two had died, and I noticed a woman who had been hit by a small calibre bullet just above the breast. The gang had later hacked her around in the usual way but there was no hiding the bullet hole.
Having seen all I could, I looked at the bodies of the four terrorists killed by Mr Grimwood during the action and had a talk with one of the Rift Valley Special Branch officers who had come along to investigate. He reckoned that the gang must have been about seventy strong; it had been armed with rifles, stens, a small calibre weapon of some sort, shotguns and grenades.
Gangs and Counter-Gangs Frank Kitson.
An elderly retired couple offered less resistance.
21 March 1954
Just after my last letter we had the Bruxnor Randall murder which really was the most horrible thing. Poor old harmless things; do you remember them at Thika? She had a lovely collection of Waterford glass, very unusual in the early colonial period: I wonder whether that got slashed to death with pangas too …
Nellie: Letters From Africa ed. Elspeth Huxley.
The heartland of Kikuyu country lies between the forests of Mount Kenya on one side and those of the Aberdares (Nyandarua) on the other. In these dense forests, mostly pathless save for tracks made by wild animals, the Mau Mau gangs set up their camps.
In addition to large rivers such as Chania, Gura and Marewa, the forests of Nyandarua are filled with many smaller rivers and streams. It is not surprising to find twenty or more such streams in an area of one mile. Usually we set up our camps near one of these cold, clear, silent flowing streams, which provided us with cooking water as well as fish from the big streams. High in the mountain these rivers and streams are extremely cold and freezing to death or drowning was a danger of which we were all aware – particularly when one of the larger rivers had to be crossed during the flooding season.
All the various types of wild animals in the forest became our friends with the exception of the rhi
nos, which we called “Home Guards” because of their brutality and willingness to destroy human life. They became accustomed to our presence and smell and, after a few months in the forest, they treated us as simply another form of animal life and we in turn learnt all their habits and calls. This proved extremely useful to us in detecting the presence or approach of strangers. Security forces entering the home of the animals smelling of soap, cigarettes and laundered clothing were greeted with many danger and warning signals or calls from the animals. In many cases they were charged by rhinos, elephants and buffaloes.
The deer, monkeys and ndete birds, with their acute sense of smell and sight (respectively), were our best guards against the encroachment of strangers or enemies. Whenever we observed these animal warnings we sent out our scouts to investigate. Almost without exception, we found the warnings of our “allies” to be accurate and because of this assistance they rendered us, we passed a strict rule prohibiting the killing of friendly animals who had kindly welcomed us into their home.
These forests then, while cold and damp and with thunder storms and heavy rains during most of the year, became the home of over 20,000 men and women revolters fighting for the Kenya African Freedom. Many, like myself, lived and fought in Nyandarua for two, three or even four years. For us, these forests became a home and a fortress as well as the provider for our most basic needs.
Mau Mau From Within Donald Barnett and Karari Njama.
British soldiers in boots and smelling of soap and cigarettes had little chance of success against forest gangs in league with the local fauna. Increasingly the security forces came to rely on locally born young men of the Kenya Regiment and Police Reserve who operated in patrols in the forest.
Every man going into the forest had to be able to kill silently, by knife, rope or hands, and all carried a length of blind cord for securing prisoners. It was important that each man should know exactly where all his equipment was; for instance that his torch was on his left, handkerchief in his right trouser pocket etc., because any movement had to be swift and silent. The sound of a voice, or a sneeze, could carry far in the forest. Hand signals were used for communication and sometimes, when moving in the dark, a patch of luminous paint on the back helped one man to follow the next along the track. Frequently the patrol would halt and move off the track since there was always a danger of being followed and surprised from the rear. Constant vigilance was needed, however weary one felt, in order to be able to cope with a burst of rifle fire from an unseen source, or a sudden charge by startled game. Patrols were often obliged to follow game tracks through the dense bush, which was the home of buffalo, elephant and rhino, to name but a few animals which could also be a serious hazard.
Breath becomes short at heights of eight to ten thousand feet and each man had to carry a sleeping bag, water, ammunition and rations. Sometimes torrential rain could drench both load and clothes, so adding to the weight. At the same time the severe heat combined with the altitude was very inducive to sleep during the day, while nights were often tense and sleepless, but to have given in to the temptation to doze on patrol could have meant not only that the chances of contacting a gang would be lost, but the patrol itself would be rendered vulnerable.
Patrols could last from three to fourteen days at a stretch: hot days of climbing up and down deep gulleys, and freezing cold nights. The entire operation was mentally and physically tense, to such a degree that some men suffered hallucinations and most became jumpy and short-tempered. Because it was vital for teams to act in harmony, friends were posted to the same patrols whenever possible. Certain men would be detailed off for safeguarding prisoners or assisting the wounded. Leaders had to develop understanding and the power to command instant obedience in moments of crisis.
Edwin Bristow recalls that patrols were “tough – we weren’t allowed to wash, weren’t allowed to clean our teeth, we had to grow beards, and smelt terrible at the end of three weeks but it was the only way to combat the chaps we were trying to catch, who smelt even worse”.
This was an important point: smoking, washing, shaving, talking – all the daily habits one takes for granted in normal life had to be abandoned in the forest. Iain Morrison, who was attached to Special Branch in Nyeri, quotes the following Mau Mau reply he received to his standard question, “Which of the Security Forces did you fear most?”: “The Wa Johnny (British Troops) washed in perfume, their tin cans rattled, they could be heard and smelled two or three miles away, but the Kenya Gombis (Kenya Regiment) never washed. They left all their equipment in one place and patrolled quietly and were good trackers. They walked through the forest like us; that wasn’t fair….”
Forest patrols worked virtually blind, as map coordination in the Aberdares was at best mere guesswork. If there was information from a prisoner, or if a gang were suspected of being in the vicinity, small patrols would scour the area, starting from a firm base. The Mau Mau gangs used false hideouts and laid imitation tracks, walking backwards, breaking off branches or foliage and leaving scraps of food, clothing and even blood to suggest that they were moving in a particular direction. At the same time they camouflaged their real trails brilliantly, and could hide underwater, breathing through reed pipes for hours on end without any betrayal of their presence. Such methods are said to have been used by the American Indians with equal skill, and by the Royal American Regiment (later to become the 60th Rifles), in the days of Braddock and Amherst….
Probably the most important development of all this was that the Regiment evolved what was later to be called the “pseudo-gang”. “Pseudo-gangs” were originally known in Kenya as “impersonators”. Early in 1953 Captain Francis Erskine wrote a paper requesting official permission to carry out an operation with loyal Kikuyu disguised as Mau Mau. This did not receive the attention it merited, but was supported by the Kenya Regiment and Erskine went on to develop the method. He was subsequently awarded a well-deserved Military Cross. From this early start the regiment developed its own methods of defeating Mau Mau terrorists. The first regimental pseudo-gang consisted of Bill Woodley, Steve Bothma and Gibson Wanbugu from Squairs Farm, where I Force was stationed under Major Neville Cooper. Gibson was decorated for gallantry.
The Charging Buffalo Guy Campbell.
By the end of 1955 the 12,000 to 15,000 guerrilla fighters in the forests had been whittled down to about 1,500, but the most influential of the leaders, “General” Dedan Kimathi, was still at large. Karari Njama had joined him while at the zenith of his power, and describes him thus:
Kimathi, aged 33, stood almost six feet, strong and healthy; his long self-woven hair hanging over a fair brown oval face; his big grey-white and brown eyes protruding below black eyebrows separated by a wide short flat nose. A very little moustache grew above the thick lips; his large teeth with a wide natural gap on the center of the upper jaw and a wider gap on the lower jaw in which two middle incisors had been customarily removed; his oval round chin covered with little beards; his long neck shooting out of his wide shoulders, dressed in a suit of whitish-grey corduroy jumper coat, on which three army stars were fixed on both shoulders, and long trousers. Three writing pens were clipped on his top right hand jumper coat pocket, a heap of exercise books in his left hand, in which the ring finger had been cut off at the second joint, an automatic pistol hoisted at his leather waist belt, a metal bracelet on his right hand wrist – which he told me had been given him by Paul Njeru Gicuki, a close friend and Thomson’s Falls KAU official who had been captured and detained several months earlier. His L-shaped curved brown walking-stick, touching the ground, stood vertically and parallel to his trousers. His black shoes prevented him from feeling the damp frozen soil.
Mau Mau From Within Donald Barnett and Karari Njama.
Early in 1955 Dedan Kimathi summoned his followers to witness his installation as Prime Minister of the “legitimate interim government of Kenya”, with Karari Njama as its Chief Secretary.
We entered in my hut and dressed. Abdull
ah and I dressed like elders. We took off our clothes, remaining with undershorts only, and smeared all over our body with castor oil. I then put on a sheep cloak, tied a sword around my waist with its bright red sheath, put munyeni on my head – a feather- or fibre-made beret, rattles on my legs, rubber sandals, an elderly leather satchel under my left shoulder, a black honorary walking staff – muthegi, made of mungirima tree – in my right hand, together with mataathi leaves – elders’ handkerchief – a flywhisk and a traditional three-legged stool in my left hand.
Being fully dressed, we walked out of the hut pretending to be really old men. We had so greatly changed that our comrades could not recognize us. Amid cheers and laughters and doubts, we went to Kimathi’s hut and found that he and Ndururi had dressed like ourselves, but didn’t have muthegi, mataathi, flywhisk or satchel, for they were juniors. We exchanged greetings: “Wanyua,” “Wanyua” – father, Mwangi, to son, Irungu. “Wanyua wakine” was exchanged between persons of the same [generation] age.
While sitting down, Kimathi took his ndahi – a little gourd half the size of a glass – and filled it with the pure honey beer which he had brewed. After each of us had drunk one ndahi, we filled two itete with beer to be used in the ceremony and the rest we put in nyanja, gourds for storing beer. Wang’ombe Ruga took one gitete, a little gourd with sheep’s fat, blood and abdominal dung, and went to the main entrance where he stood cleansing all the fighters as they entered the ceremonial hall.
Nine Faces Of Kenya Page 27
