Echoes From a Distant Land

by Frank Coates

  Jelani thought he was joking, but when he looked at Kimathi, his eyes were blazing. He laughed again: this time it was high-pitched and forced.

  ‘Come,’ Kimathi said after taking a moment to regain his self-control. ‘The house is not far. I will introduce you to my fellow warriors.’

  Jelani was tempted to follow, but he felt he’d narrowly avoided a catastrophe and was not ready to take any further risks.

  ‘No, I’d better be getting back.’

  Kimathi stared at him. It was impossible to read what thoughts lay behind those wild eyes. After a long moment he laughed again.

  ‘Of course, my friend. You have work to do.’

  He made a move to open the door, but turned back to Jelani.

  ‘Let me tell you this before I go. I have seen inside your heart. I know you, my friend. I know there will come a time when you realise too much injustice has been done to you. You will become angry and you will shake with shame because you have let too much happen. It is then that you will want to strike out. You will remember all the wrongs committed against you and your family. You will want to fight. And you will be defeated, because one man cannot defeat the British invaders. That is when you will come and join us. The Land and Freedom Army. That is when you will come to us.’ He nodded down the track. ‘And be welcomed here — up this road — with our other recruits.’ He smiled and nodded. ‘I know this about you.’

  Jelani said goodbye and drove back to the city.

  In the car park at the rear of the union’s rented office, he turned off the motor and explored the thoughts that had played in his mind on the drive back.

  His rescue of Kimathi in the market and their escape from the police had been very exhilarating. But it was more than the excitement of the moment that had lifted his spirits. For the first time in his life he felt he was doing something to strike back at the authorities that had been responsible for so much of the injustice he had seen and experienced. His act of defiance that day had gone some way to even the score, and it made him feel good.

  However, he knew it wasn’t enough because Kimathi’s parting words had left him feeling unsettled: ‘You will shake with shame because you have let too much happen.’

  When the Kenyan government applied to the Colonial Office to grant a Royal Charter to the city of Nairobi, rumours spread that it was an attempt to expand the boundaries of the city to include the surrounding districts. One of those districts was the White Highlands, so named because only whites could own land there. The fear among those agitating for a return of their land was that Nairobi would become a whites-only city — even further entrenching the colonial grip on native land.

  Chege Muthuri sent messages to all the Transport and Allied Workers’ Union representatives all over the country to call on the membership to attend a mass rally in Nairobi to protest against the granting of a Royal Charter. He stressed the need for numbers so that the administration would not have the nerve to arrest the rally leaders.

  Two days before the rally, Muthuri gave Jelani a copy of his speech to include in the edition of the Uhuru newspaper that would be made available on the day of the rally.

  Jelani went to Muthuri’s office before he’d completed the transcript.

  ‘Chege,’ he said. ‘You can’t say these words.’

  Muthuri looked up at him from his desk, which was covered in papers.

  ‘They need to be said,’ he replied, then returned to his papers.

  ‘Asking for land reform will anger the government. They will be prepared for that. But calling for independence will have you thrown in gaol.’

  ‘They won’t dare to touch me in front of a mass rally.’

  ‘Do you really think that our members out there in Nanyuki and Eldoret and Voi will come to Nairobi because of something like a Royal Charter?’

  ‘They will come. It is important.’

  ‘Chege, they won’t come and you cannot say these words.’

  Muthuri sat back in his chair and placed his pen on the desk. He sighed. ‘Karura, have I taught you nothing? Ah? Have you heard nothing I’ve been telling you these last few months?’

  ‘It’s been more than a year, Chege, and yes, I have heard everything you’ve told me. But this is madness. You know they will arrest you. They will have no choice.’

  ‘The whites have been asking for independence for some time,’ he said, returning to his papers.

  ‘That is different. The white Kenyans think they own this country. And they are quarrelling with their own back in Britain when they demand this and demand that. But if you say something similar, they will be afraid of our millions against their thousands. Their fear will force their hand.’

  Muthuri nodded; a smile slowly spread across his grizzled, unshaven face. ‘Ah, Karura … you have been listening after all.’

  ‘So why are you doing this?’

  Muthuri stood and came from behind his desk to sit on the edge of it, facing Jelani. He folded his arms.

  ‘When you have done everything that you think is right to make the other side understand — when even your own people turn against what they know is right so as to please their masters — then it is time to force the issue. Then it is time to act.’

  ‘But how will going to gaol help?’

  ‘There has never been a good cause won without a fight. Soon there will be many like me in the gaols. Then the British, and the world, will take notice.’

  Chege Muthuri stood on the platform erected on the flat bed of a borrowed truck, and addressed the crowd scattered around the City Council forecourt. There were perhaps no more than three hundred people present, but if Muthuri was disheartened by the numbers, he didn’t show it.

  He had none of the eloquence of Jomo Kenyatta, but there was no doubting his passion as he railed against the administration’s heavy-handedness and the dangers if the city were allowed to declare a charter covering the surrounding districts.

  Following Muthuri’s orders, Jelani kept apart from the crowd. ‘I don’t want you arrested if it comes down to it,’ he’d said. ‘Someone has to keep the office open if I and the others are taken away.’

  Around the perimeter of the quadrangle was a thin line of administration police, most of whom were black Africans. There were only three or four white officers in sight. Clearly, if there was going to be any physical force applied, it would not be by white officers. It didn’t look good from the very start.

  When the rally commenced despite the low attendance, the police gathered into small platoons. The white officers moved among them, issuing orders. Jelani wanted to rush to Muthuri and warn him, but he knew it was too late. He also knew Muthuri would not thank him.

  At a signal, the police charged into the centre of the rally, wielding their batons, and scattering the crowd in a panic. They cut through the small knot of union officials standing around the truck, and hauled Chege Muthuri from it.

  The last Jelani saw of his boss, he was being dragged away by two heavy Kikuyu policemen — two of the people he was trying to protect from exploitation.

  The Trades Union Council acted swiftly and called a general strike in protest against the union officials’ arrests. Large numbers of black workers stayed away from their places of employment in spite of their employers’ threats of fines and dismissals.

  The government was rattled by the unexpected show of solidarity by the black Africans. Newspaper headlines shrieked Anarchy, and business and political leaders harangued the strikers.

  Days passed without either side conceding ground. Meanwhile the union leaders remained in gaol. The Trades Union Council decided to increase the stakes and called for a massive show of strength. Convoys of trucks and buses ferried hundreds of rural workers to the city where they joined thousands of their urban counterparts.

  The demonstration quickly turned violent; police were unable to quell the spread of the disturbances as the more extreme groups, without the knowledge or approval of the march organisers, broke from the main c
rowd and attacked shops and places of business. They smashed windows and set fire to a number of buildings.

  The police chief called in members of the armed forces who were stationed a short distance from the city centre. Their reaction was swift and brutal.

  The soldiers barricaded the road to Government House with their vehicles, standing behind them in a show of strength. Jelani was among the union officials in the first rows of the march. When they rounded a corner they saw the barricade for the first time. There were black faces among those manning the barricades, and the union leaders called on their followers to proceed in a peaceful show of solidarity.

  When the first shots rang out, the marchers faltered, but the volley flew well over their heads. They pressed on.

  Suddenly the man next to Jelani fell to the road. Jelani hadn’t even heard the shot that felled him. There was a scream from somewhere behind him; more shots rang out. Men were falling all around him, some crying in agony, others dropping without a sound — dead before they hit the ground.

  Jelani was frozen in shock, but a moment later he and the others were bolting away in terror, crashing through fences and gardens, running for their lives.

  Tears of anger and outrage streamed down his face.

  The matatu rattled along the rutted, potholed road towards Ngong town. When it reached the track leading into the forest where he’d left Kimathi some days before, Jelani called on the driver to stop.

  It was late afternoon and the forest was dark, made more ominous by the flat sky that had hung like a grey blanket over the city all day.

  An armed guard met Jelani on the track, then after checking his kipande, led him deeper into the forest to a group of a half-dozen or so other men standing and sitting in the fading light. Several looked as though they had been waiting in the clearing for a long time.

  Nobody spoke.

  After a lengthy silence, one of the men nodded a greeting to Jelani. He asked Jelani where he was from.

  ‘Nairobi,’ he said, then realised he’d meant what district. ‘Kobogi. Near Embu.’

  The man nodded. ‘Meru,’ he said.

  They didn’t exchange names, but their home villages were widely separated and this seemed to give them freedom to exchange information while keeping their identities safe.

  Jelani learned that the man had decided to join the Mau Mau after his local chief had confiscated most of his maize crop for an invented misdemeanour. When the man protested the chief had the tribal police throw him in gaol. While his wife was bringing him food, the chief invaded his house and raped his oldest daughter — a girl of twelve. His complaints to the district office went unheeded, however the local Mau Mau leader took revenge on his behalf: he had the chief’s legs broken. It was then that he decided to join the movement and to convince his other male family members to do likewise.

  Jelani said that his story was pale by comparison. He told him about his Kikuyu friend who had been murdered by a vindictive manager and that, more recently, he’d been in a march where peaceful protesters were shot down like dogs.

  There was more to it than that, but Jelani didn’t want to appear too philosophical. He’d thought long and hard about his decision to accept Dedan Kimathi’s invitation. The violent reaction to the march was simply the catalyst.

  He knew that orators were respected in times of peace, and were heeded on social matters, but in times of war the Kikuyu people always turned to the strongest among them. Jelani believed that no matter how eloquently Muthuri or Kenyatta spoke, unless they were prepared to show aggressive leadership, they would be ignored by the Wakikuyu. He also knew that the Kikuyu were the largest tribe in Kenya and, since the leaders of the Mau Mau were Kikuyu, they were the best able to mobilise the numbers needed to challenge the white government. Jelani had come to the enclave the previous day, hoping to be allowed to take his oath at the next ceremony and so make a real difference for his people.

  After a further fifteen minutes, the guard returned and led them through the darkened forest to a wattle and daub house with a large makuti roof and shuttered windows. A newly constructed hut of bush materials stood at a short distance. A goat, making an occasional nervous bleat, was tethered to a stake inside the hut.

  The men filed through the doorway into an interior empty of any furniture and well lit by smoking lanterns. An arch made of vines and flowers stood at one end. It was similar to ones Jelani had seen used in ceremonies back home in Kobogi.

  There were three men already in the room. Two were sitting at a large table, the other stood at the window. Jelani could vaguely recall seeing the seated two at Nairobi rallies. He recognised the third, bearded and wearing metal-rimmed spectacles, as Bildad Kaggia. According to the daily newspapers, Kaggia was the Nairobi leader of the Mau Mau and principal oath-giver. After glancing around the group, Jelani turned his eyes back to the window opening outside which, by the sounds coming into the hut, the goat was being slaughtered.

  Kaggia gathered all of them into a circle, then the assistant who had slaughtered the goat came in from outside carrying a long strip of bloodied hide. Kaggia made a circle of it on the floor and the initiates entered the sacred space that it made.

  Bildad Kaggia made a long speech about the Movement. He told them that it represented the Kikuyu people and would fight their battle to regain their land. In the process they would also gain independence from the British, who had kept their booted foot on the throat of Africa for too long. He reminded them of the importance of a Kikuyu oath; how oaths had been used throughout their history as a means of solemnising undertakings and promises.

  ‘In the most serious situations a broken Kikuyu oath can condemn the taker to death,’ he said. ‘Such is the case in the oath you will be swearing tonight.’

  Jelani felt a growing apprehension. He couldn’t say exactly what he had expected that night, other than a promise to keep the rules of the organisation, but as Kaggia continued his tirade against the government, the white settlers and all who would oppose the Mau Mau, his unease grew.

  Kaggia circled the men, staring at each in turn, as he spoke. When he paused in front of Jelani, he felt Kaggia’s eyes burning into his. Jelani had the almost irresistible urge to blink or look away, but he held his nerve until Kaggia passed.

  Kaggia’s assistant reappeared carrying a wooden platter upon which were a pot and lumps of raw meat. He set them down in front of Kaggia, who then indicated that the man two ahead of Jelani should step forwards to take his oath.

  The first man swore the oath then took the pot from the assistant, lifted it to his lips, and drank. He then sliced off a piece of the raw meat and swallowed it before moving on.

  The next man stepped up and Jelani could then see that the meat was the goat’s heart, liver and lungs. With a lurch in the pit of his stomach, he realised that the pot held the goat’s blood.

  Standing under the harsh gaze of Bildad Kaggia, Jelani had no doubt that if he decided to renege at the last minute, he would not make it back to Nairobi alive.

  Kaggia intoned the words of the oath again and Jelani repeated them.

  ‘If I ever argue when called, may I die of this oath.

  ‘If I ever disobey my leader, may I die of this oath.

  ‘If called upon in the night and I fail to come, may I die of this oath.’

  Jelani took a deep breath and sipped warm blood from the pot then gulped down a slice of the heart.

  His initiation was complete.

  CHAPTER 41

  The following morning, the sun rose clear and bright in a brilliant blue sky.

  As Jelani waited for the gaoler to lead Chege Muthuri into the visitors’ meeting room, he wondered about Kaggia’s almost primeval antics of the previous night. Although the oathing was quite bizarre, he had no doubts about his decision to join the Mau Mau.

  The gaoler led Muthuri into the visitors’ room then backed out. The unionist looked pleased. ‘Ah, what a wonderful day, my young friend,’ he said, beaming.

>   ‘Haven’t you heard about the riots?’ Jelani asked, surprised.

  ‘I have. We are very close to victory.’

  ‘I don’t see how you can say that. The army are helping the police.’

  ‘Excellent. It means they are worried. And when I heard they’d used tear gas, I knew we’d won.’

  Jelani merely shook his head, thinking Muthuri had become delusional.

  ‘You don’t understand, do you?’ Muthuri said. ‘Let me explain. The administration has never before used tear gas in Kenya. It’s unprecedented and, as someone said about empires, what is unprecedented is not permitted. This story will be in all the London newspapers. The Colonial Office will have a fit.’ He was beside himself. ‘I give them two or three days before it is all over. And I will be out of this place. Now, to business.’

  Muthuri detailed what needed to be done in preparation for his release. Jelani scribbled notes, still not convinced Muthuri wasn’t deceiving himself. When the union matters were completed, Muthuri asked about his scholarship.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Jelani asked.

  ‘I’ve put you forward to the Trades Union Council. Didn’t I tell you this?’

  ‘No, not really.’

  ‘For a place on the government’s scholarship program. Someone in the Legislative Council is running it.’

  ‘A scholarship? What is that?’

  ‘A training program. In your case it would be six weeks in America with the Longshoremen’s Union.’

  ‘In America?’

  ‘If everything goes as planned. They’ll want to interview you, but that won’t be a problem. You’ll probably leave in a couple of months.’

  ‘For America?’

  ‘The person who you must see is …’ He patted his pockets and pulled a crumpled piece of paper from one of them. ‘… Sam Wangira.’

  Jelani crossed the quadrangle on Queens Way. It was still littered with the detritus of the most recent fracas — stones and empty tear-gas canisters lay scattered around the grounds.