by Unknown
‘Go, Mr Malik! Go!’
Mr Malik was still trying to go. He took his foot off the throttle just enough to feel one of the tyres grip an exposed rock. The car stopped sliding to the left and jerked forward. Careful to accelerate more gently this time, Mr Malik pointed it towards where he hoped the road would be. As he emerged from the cloud of brown dust he found his judgement had been correct. Faster and faster he drove, changing up into third gear then fourth, away from the billboard, the dust and its sinister occupants. But not fast enough. He didn’t hear the crack of the first 7.62mm round as it left the gun, but he heard the smack of it piercing his rear window and hitting the dashboard, right between him and Benjamin. He didn’t hear the second round being fired either, but he heard the bang of a bursting tyre and felt the back of the Mercedes drop. How far can you drive an old green Mercedes 450 SEL on a burst tyre? Now was the time to find out.
I have mentioned that ever since 1947, when Mikhail Kalashnikov designed the AK47, this semi-automatic rifle has been popular for its reliability and ruggedness. These are qualities that come at a price. One reason that the mechanism of the AK47 does not get easily fouled with mud, water or pale brown dust is that there are relatively generous clearances between its various moving parts. These same clearances also mean that its accuracy is not all it might be. Beyond about a hundred metres, hitting your target becomes as much a matter of luck as skill. The two bandits knew this. Puncturing the car’s tyre had been one such lucky shot. Thanks to that lucky shot the car and its passengers would not get far and there was no use wasting ammunition. I should further point out here something that Benjamin suspected but Mr Malik did not. These men were not after Mr Malik, nor his wallet or his car. They were not local men, they were not even Samburu or Turkana come down from the wild north. Benjamin had immediately recognized them as Somalis. And though there is a long history of Somali tribesmen raiding far into Kenya for cattle, these modern raiders had other booty in mind – human booty. In Somalia, as in neighbouring Chad and parts of Ethiopia, a very good price can be had for a fit young man to sell as a soldier. Benjamin did not want to be a soldier.
‘Go, Mr Malik! Go!’
The old Mercedes rattled and bumped along for about two hundred metres until the blown tyre broke free from the rim. Mr Malik saw its shredded remains in the wing mirror, and still he drove on. He had the idea that if Benjamin could move over to the opposite corner it would somehow balance the car back on to three wheels. The trouble was it had been the rear left tyre that had been shot and the opposite corner was occupied by the driver’s seat, which he was himself sitting in.
‘Benjamin,’ he yelled above the rattles and shakes. ‘Can you climb on to my lap?’
Without questioning, Benjamin wriggled across. The car did not tip up on to three wheels as Mr Malik had hoped, but the manoeuvre should take a little weight off the damaged wheel. Now he had to decide how far he could drive on a bare wheel rim without doing permanent damage either to wheel or axle. If he could get far enough from the gunmen to give him time to stop and fit the spare they still had a chance. Except that he had never changed a car wheel in his life.
‘Have you ever changed a wheel, Benjamin?’
‘Only on a bicycle, sir. But on a bus I have seen it done.’
The back wheel was sounding worse and worse.
‘We’ll have to try it. If I can get round the corner then they won’t be able to see us. With luck they won’t realize that we’ve stopped.’
As soon as the gunmen were out of sight of his rear-view mirror Mr Malik eased off the throttle, changed down and gently braked.
‘Come,’ he said, opening the door. ‘We need to find the spare wheel, and that thing – the thing that lifts the car.’
‘Jack?’
Mr Malik winced.
‘Yes, that’s it. Somewhere in the back, I think.’
Benjamin scuttled round to the back of the car where the boot was already open.
‘Can you see it? That thing, and the wheel?’
Benjamin found the spare wheel beneath a flap at the bottom of the luggage space. Jack there was none.
‘It’s no use, Mr Malik. They will be here soon. You must come, sir. Come with me.’
‘But… where to? What do you mean, come?’
‘Come, sir. I will hide you, then I will go to get help.’
Benjamin was right. There was no point in waiting for the Somalis to arrive. Though Mr Malik hadn’t seen a vehicle and supposed the men must be on foot, they couldn’t be more than five minutes behind. Benjamin began scrambling up the hillside.
‘This way, sir. There is a hole. You will hide there while I go and get help.’
‘Get help – where?’
‘At my school, sir. It is just over the hill here. It is a very good school.’
Mr Malik had no alternative but to follow him up the hill to a small cave, just large enough for him to crawl inside.
‘Wait here, sir. Do not come out until I come back.’
34
The clock at the Asadi Club ticked towards eight. Where was Mr Malik? Where was the list of birds he had seen that day? The crowd on the steps outside was joined by Mr Patel, Mr Gopez and Tiger Singh. Surely Malik would not let them down, surely he would not tarnish the honour of the club? A strange sound was heard, sounding first like the growl of a distant lion, then the thunder of a thousand hoofbeats on the hard dry plains. As it grew nearer the sound resolved itself into the painful crunch and graunch of a car that has not only lost most of its exhaust system but whose rear axle is damaged beyond any hope of repair. Mr Malik’s green Mercedes limped into the car park just as the clock began to chime eight. There was not a man in the Asadi Club – no matter who his money was on – who was not cheering Mr Malik’s arrival. Not least among them was Mr Patel. He bounded down the steps and flung open the car door.
‘Malik, just in time. What happened to your car? It looks as though a rock’s fallen on it. Oh, never mind. Come on in. Have you got your list?’
Mr Malik reached into the back of the car for his notebook and thrust it into the hands of Mr Patel.
‘Here, count those. And would someone please get a drink for my friend – my guest – here. Coca-Cola, I think – a large one.’
Benjamin, sitting in the front passenger seat, grinned.
‘I say, old chap,’ said the Tiger, shouting to make himself heard over the hubbub, ‘is that a bullet hole in the back window?’
‘Getting desperate, eh Malik?’ said Mr Gopez. ‘Been taking potshots at the little blighters. Against the rules, you know.’
‘I’ll tell you all about it later. Right now, I need to wash.’
Shampooed and showered, and with clothes which a good brushing had made not exactly spotless but certainly more respectable, Mr Malik appeared at the bar to renewed cheering. Even Harry Khan was cheering.
‘Wouldn’t want to win by a scratching.’
While Patel rechecked his score and tallied up the total, Mr Malik told them of his day’s adventures. First he told them about the birds. Benjamin had been right about seeing more birds in his village than in Nairobi. It was not only an oasis for humans and their livestock in the parched landscape, it was an oasis for birds. At a little puddle near where the old people lived, he and Mr Malik seemed to have seen all the birds of the desert. They were mostly small birds, birds that eke out a living from the seeds and insects of the dry country, but a species is a species no matter how diminutive its representatives. Various finches, waxbills, pipits and wagtails were the commonest, but there were starlings and weavers too. Doves were frequent visitors to the puddle – tiny Namaqua doves, larger laughing doves and small flocks of ring-necked doves – and although not a single great blue turaco had put in an appearance a gang of their close relatives, go-away birds, arrived at one point bleating their strange cries. In the early afternoon a sandgrouse flew down, which according to Benjamin was unusual as these birds normally appeared only early in the morn
ing. From the black patch around its beak and its white eyebrow Mr Malik was able to identify it as a black-faced sandgrouse. They watched enthralled as the bird waded into the puddle, fluffed out its feathers and squatted as low as it could go.
‘I have often seen them do this, but only the fathers,’ said Benjamin, and Mr Malik, though he had never seen a sandgrouse before, remembered something Rose Mbikwa had once said on the Tuesday morning bird walk.
‘It is for their chicks,’ he said. ‘They take water back to the nest for their chicks to drink. They have special feathers underneath, you see, like a sponge.’
Benjamin was impressed, both with the bird’s behaviour and with Mr Malik’s knowledge.
Perched in trees and bushes at varying distances around the puddle were several kinds of shrikes and hawks. A female shikra, the smallest African sparrowhawk, never seemed to leave its thorn tree while a larger hawk, the pale chanting goshawk, made frequent flyovers on the lookout for unwary prey. In all, according to Mr Patel’s calculations, Mr Malik had seen sixty-two new species that day.
‘Yes, yes,’ said Mr Gopez, ‘but never mind about the birds, what happened to your car?’
Ah, the car.’
So Mr Malik told them all about the two Somalis and the AK47s and the missing thing, and what had happened then.
From the shadows of the cave Mr Malik could see his stranded car on the road below. All was quiet. Not a cricket chirped, not a bird sang. After what seemed like an hour but Mr Malik knew from his watch was no more than fifteen minutes, around the corner came the two bandits. They were laughing and joking with each other, confident in the knowledge that their quarry wouldn’t get far and that they and their guns were a match for an old man and a boy. After checking the car they laughed again. They must have seen that though the spare tyre had been taken out, there was no jack. One of them spoke a few incomprehensible words and they split up. It was clear they were going to search the area. How long would it be until they found him? They had not gone more than a few steps when one of the men shouted to the other and pointed up the hill towards him. They had seen him. All was lost.
But then Mr Malik heard the crack of a gun and a rumbling sound. From the slopes above him came a large rock, followed down the hill by another, then more. The rocks bounced and tumbled past the entrance to his cave, smashing down on to the road below him. One of the bandits raised his gun only to find it knocked from his grasp by a flying boulder. Another gunshot came from the hill above, followed by a barrage of blood-curdling whoops. To Mr Malik’s astonishment the two gunmen took one more look, then fled.
‘Sir. Mr Malik, sir. Are you there?’
Mr Malik had never in his life been so glad to see the boy. He crawled from the cave and looked around for the armed posse that Benjamin seemed somehow to have summoned from nowhere. What he saw was Benjamin surrounded by a group of about fifty children. Behind them, grinning widely and wielding what appeared to be a starting pistol, stood an older man.
‘Mr Malik, sir, this is my teacher, Mr Haputale, and these are my cousins and nephews and nieces and friends from the school. They have come to help us.’
The children giggled, the schoolmaster gravely shook Mr Malik’s hand. Benjamin directed a dozen or so of the bigger children down to the car.
‘Now my friends, when I say lift, lift.’
In no time at all the wheel was changed and they were on their way.
‘Benjamin,’ said Mr Malik as, to waves from the children and the schoolmaster, they headed down the road towards Nairobi, ‘Benjamin, you are quite right. It is a very good school.’
35
‘My dear fellow,’ said Mr Gopez draining the last drops from his glass, ‘do you really expect us to believe that not only did you see – how many did you say, Patel, sixty-two? – new birds, but you found time to fight off a bunch of bandits?’
‘Yeah,’ said Harry Khan. ‘Are you sure you didn’t just get a flat on the Uhuru Road?’
‘Mr Gopez,’ said the Tiger. ‘Are you questioning the word of a member of the Asadi Club?’
‘Not at all, Tiger, not at all. Just wondering, that’s all.’
‘Good.’
And Mr Malik suddenly remembered.
‘There is another matter I must raise before the Committee. I apologize for not doing it sooner.’
He cleared his throat.
‘I have not yet told you how I got my car back. This morning I spoke to Mrs Mbikwa on the telephone. It was she who told me where to find it.’
There was a short silence.
‘Hey,’ said Harry Khan. ‘No contact, right? Sounds like contact to me. Looks like you might be in a bit of trouble here, Jack.’
Tiger Singh looked from one to the other, took from his briefcase the printed sheets containing the rules of the competition and began reading.
‘Both parties also agree that between now and the moment when the Wager is settled, neither will initiate contact – personal, telephonic or epistolary, nor through any third person nor by any other means – with the aforementioned lady.” Is this what is concerning you, Malik?’
‘Yes,’ said Mr Malik. ‘It was inadvertent on my part, but this morning I was undoubtedly in telephonic contact with Mrs Mbikwa.’
‘But my dear chap you’ve already told us that she phoned you. Ergo you did not initiate contact, ergo you have – as I’m sure my learned friends will agree – no case to answer.’
His friends nodded their assent. Harry Khan frowned. Mr Malik gave a sigh of relief.
‘But,’ continued the Tiger, ‘I think there may be a graver matter for our consideration. Mr Khan, I have been thinking. Did I hear you correctly earlier saying something about a bird bath?’
‘Yeah, at the guest house. There’s a bird bath set up right next to the veranda.’
‘A bird bath – are you sure?’
‘Yeah. You know, with water. The birds come down to drink there.’
‘Then, gentlemen, I feel I should call your attention to Rule Five.’
‘Rule Five?’ said Harry Khan.
‘Rule Five?’ said Mr Malik.
‘Rule Five, gentlemen. Which clearly states that the use of bait, lures, tethered birds or pre-recorded sound to attract birds is strictly forbidden. I’m afraid that if a bird bath full of water isn’t bait, I don’t know what is.’
A hush descended on the bar.
‘I think that you may well have a point, Tiger,’ said Mr Patel.
Mr Malik said nothing. Yes, the Tiger did have a point, but it was a point that might not only apply to Harry Khan.
‘If the Committee will allow me, I would like to interject here,’ he said. ‘If the birds that Mr Khan saw today are to be ruled out, then I think mine must be too.’
‘What?’ said Mr Gopez. ‘Why? How?’
And so Mr Malik explained again how he had driven with Benjamin down on to the plains, where it was dry as dry could be. But that the little village they went to was like an oasis.
‘Why? Because of a spring. Water is pumped from the spring into a large tank, and pipes take the water to the houses and to the fields.’
‘But what on earth’s that got to do with bird baths?’
‘Because, A.B., one of the pipes has a small leak, just near where the old people live. But nobody minds about this leak because the puddle that collects there is where the birds come to drink. In the dry times the people like to know that the birds have somewhere to drink.’
‘So you’re saying…?’
‘That it is just like the bird bath at the guest house. It is there for the birds, but not to attract the birds, if you see what I mean. Just like the bird bath. They are the same.’
The Tiger looked round at his two fellow Committee members.
‘Gentlemen, shall we discuss this further?’
‘I don’t think there is any need,’ said Mr Gopez.
‘If it’s all right with you two, and with Malik and Khan, of course,’ said Mr Patel, ‘it’s
all right with me.’
‘In that case,’ said the Tiger, ‘any objections are overruled. Mr Patel, will you please double-check the scores.’
‘Khan, one hundred and ninety-nine. Malik, one hundred and ninety-eight.’
‘Whoa,’ said Harry. ‘Getting close.’
‘And I need hardly remind you, gentlemen, that tomorrow is the last day. I look forward to seeing you both back here at the club at noon for the final tally. Now if you will excuse me, I have promised to take my wife to the Bar Association dinner.’
‘I’d better be going too, guys,’ said Harry. ‘It looks like I’m going to need an early start.’
And please excuse me too,’ said Mr Malik. ‘It has been a tiring day.’
‘Good night, Tiger. Night, Khan,’ said Mr Gopez. He turned to Mr Malik and lowered his voice. ‘Now they’ve gone, Malik old chap, tell us. What really happened to your car?’
36
‘You would have thought,’ said Harry Khan, brushing away a mosquito, ‘that people had better things to do on a Friday night.’
‘Saturday morning, actually, Harry,’ said David, swatting at another with half-hearted hand.
‘Bloody oath, Davo,’ said George, sitting down beside them on the hard wood bench. ‘Friday, Saturday, what’s the difference?’
Outside a hadada called from a nearby fever tree. A guineafowl gave its weird, loud cry. Through the thick iron bars of their cell they watched a pink dawn breaking.
There are, as all keen students of African ornithology are aware, four species of guineafowl native to Kenya. Though they all sound much the same they can be distinguished by slight differences in size and plumage. The commonest is the helmeted guineafowl, whose distinctive dark grey, white-spotted shapes are often seen in small groups in the drier parts of the country. Less common are the vulturine and common crested guineafowl, while rarest of all is the Kenyan crested guineafowl – now found only in the Sokoke Forest just north of Mombasa (should you ever be lucky enough to see one you will be able to recognize it by the bluish tinge to its spots and a little more red around the eye). Coming as he did from the coast at Takaungu, this last species was the one with which Private William Hakara was most familiar and of which he was most fond. Roast, fried or stewed, there was nothing William Hakara liked more than a fine fresh guineafowl, and from childhood he had developed considerable skill in obtaining them.