Whitethorn

by Bryce Courtenay

  It soon became evident to anyone who cared to look at the situation that the Mau Mau or the Land Freedom Army never had a chance. They were loosely organised into two main groups, Mount Kenya and the Aberdares, and their raids and subsequent actions were opportunistic in nature. By the time we got to Kenya, properly organised resistance along military or even guerilla lines was impossible. The combination of British Forces, 55 000 troops, the Kenya Regiment and Special Forces together with the Home Guard completely controlled Kikuyu territory and the slums of Nairobi as well as the native reserves. The Mau Mau were effectively restricted to starvation within the forests.

  It had taken a mighty army and air force to reduce the Mau Mau to the state they were now in. A lesson to be learned from this exercise, and something I picked up as part of the training I received, was that given the right terrain to hide in, along with strong motivation to fight for freedom and support from the indigenous population, a small guerilla force could stand against the might of a powerful and well-equipped military force. The Mau Mau had been all but defeated but it had taken a considerable effort to do so. Rhodesia would do well to sit up and take notice.

  The cost in suffering was truly enormous. By the time the state of emergency was lifted, 100 000 Kikuyu had been imprisoned in detention camps. More than a million Kikuyu and Embu civilians had been shifted into ‘secure’ areas, such as the gulags and other camps. Up to 11 500 suspected Mau Mau had been killed already. If you counted deaths from disease and starvation in these ‘protected villages’, the total death toll was thought to be close to 150 000.

  I was to discover that during the process of capture and interrogation Mau Mau prisoners and suspected terrorists were being beaten and tortured systematically by the British military, especially by the Kenya Regiment, headed by Mike Finger’s nemesis, Colonel Chris Peterson. Peterson’s regiment comprised, in the main, young locally born whites and British settlers who now owned the land the Mau Mau believed belonged to the Kikuyu people, and they had every reason to want to fight the terrorists. Under the direction of Peterson and a military intelligence officer, Major Dickson, a method of fighting known as pseudo gangs was initiated. These pseudo gangsters, as they referred to themselves, were made up of white Kenya Regiment officers and converted Mau Mau. They would enter the forests of the Aberdares and Mount Kenya to harass, search for and destroy the Mau Mau camps and, whenever possible, capture and kill the terrorists. The gangs, much praised within the white community for their bravery and commitment, were known to be notoriously cruel and unremitting in their harsh treatment of the prisoners they took alive.

  It was in this area of the pseudo gangs that Mike Finger had come unstuck and the bitter disagreement between him and Chris Peterson had occurred. Peterson was a charismatic leader and a highly admired operator. He was said to have found an effective way of inducing Mau Mau terrorists to change sides and join one of his pseudo gangs to return to the forests to hunt down their former comrades. The news media at the time wrote extensively about Peterson’s prowess and his deep knowledge of the psychology of the Kikuyu and the Mau Mau. This was reported in the London Guardian as ‘completely mysterious to the Western mind, defying logic, fascinating and confusing and defying full comprehension’. Peterson was seen as some sort of white witchdoctor by the media and when asked would never reveal his technique for obvious reasons, implying that if he spoke about his methods this would alert the terrorists to them. When questioned he’d laugh disarmingly and say, ‘That would be letting the cat out of the bag, old chap!’

  Mike Finger was infuriated by this deception because all Peterson was doing was promising the interrogated terrorist freedom and a grant of land, in effect giving him the right to be a human being at last.

  Mike explained, ‘The poor, starving bastard has spent years in the misery and cold of the Aberdares or within the forests on the slopes of Mount Kenya. He is then persuaded by Chris Peterson that his cause is utterly lost, but by agreeing to take a cleansing oath he will be granted a pardon. Moreover, he becomes human by dint of being a landowner and the future father of many tribal sons. In return for this he is armed and returned to the forests to hunt down his former comrades.’ Mike shrugged. ‘It’s not exactly a difficult decision to make when the alternative to taking a cleansing oath and a rightful place in the tribe is execution.’

  Mike’s problem was one of betrayal. Chris Peterson was making a promise he didn’t intend to keep. The governor, Sir Evelyn Baring, had repeatedly insisted that the edict that no Mau Mau be given land under any circumstances was to be absolutely adhered to. The converted terrorist would never be granted a pardon or land of his own, and when the state of emergency was over he would be imprisoned. This subsequently proved to be true. What extra land was granted to the Kikuyu went to British-appointed Kikuyu loyalist chiefs and murderous Home Guards who, together with the Kenya Regiment and the Kenya Police Reserve, killed infinitely more innocent civilians than the terrorists did themselves. The Mau Mau who survived the gallows and imprisonment returned to being the non-people they’d been before the struggle. Mike felt strongly that Chris Peterson was using his deep knowledge of the Kikuyu people to betray their trust. ‘I know the argument exists that the end justifies the means,’ he protested to me, ‘but I’m Kenyan-born and bred, so is Chris Peterson, and after this is all over we are going to have to live in this country with these people. While it may be my duty to kill the terrorists, I will not betray their tribe, their god or their ancient beliefs any more than I would my own.’

  Mike had taken his complaints directly to Sir Evelyn Baring. He had pointed out that the Mau Mau were very much a spent force and could easily be defeated using conventional methods, that the idea of brainwashing and the cleansing oath was morally wrong and white Kenyans would live to regret the concept of the converted terrorist and the pseudo gangs. The result was that Mike was despatched to Rhodesia to recover from a particularly bad bout of malaria, where his high-minded principles could do no harm and the absence of the anopheles mosquito would cure the raging fever that was causing him to lose his judgement.

  I recall saying at the time, ‘Mike, don’t you think you were being a little naïve when you went to the governor to complain about Peterson? He was never going to listen to you. Peterson is a big-time hero. He’s been given the credit for the interrogation and confessions of the Mau Mau leader, General China, which provided the military with the inside knowledge of how the Mau Mau on the slopes of Mount Kenya were organised. Now he’s captured General Kimathi who controls the Aberdares. The Mau Mau are being routed, and the pseudo gangs are proving to be an enormous success. They’ll probably give Peterson some sort of medal before this is over. Governor Baring and the colonial administration don’t give a shit about your sensibilities over betraying the Kikuyu people. Peterson and his secret methods are excellent propaganda and make bloody good newspaper copy, and besides, they’re being made out to be a resounding success. They’re not going to censure him over some sort of Boy’s Own Annual idea of how to behave towards a bunch of restless natives who have the hide to ask for the land they traditionally owned to be returned to them.’

  Mike sighed. ‘Of course you’re right, Tom. But there’s enough Kikuyu in me to know that this is something I mustn’t and cannot do. Call it superstition if you like, but Peterson will never be forgiven for this betrayal, not by me, and not by the Kikuyu people as a whole. This wasn’t simply a promise of freedom and land, it involves a contra-oathing ceremony devised by Doctor Louis Leakey, the famous anthropologist, and is solidly based on Kikuyu sacred law. It’s called a “cleansing oath” where the terrorist, now given human status at last, together with a promised pardon and a grant of land, swears upon githathi, the sacred stones, for a reversal of the Mau Mau oath. In Western terms this may seem justified mumbo jumbo, colonialism gone cleverly native, but to the Kikuyu, not to keep the promise made when the oath is taken is tantamount to destroying the whole tribe by insulting their god, Ngai.
In Christian terms it is the equivalent of committing religious sacrilege of the worst possible kind. The Kikuyu are a deeply superstitious people but much of what we call ignorance and superstition is no different to our concept of religion.’

  In the eyes of most white Kenyans, the once popular Mike Finger had become a laughing stock; people sniggered as he passed them in the street of the small town of Thika. He was openly called a Kuke apologist and a nigger lover. The inside-out man had brought his black inside out into the open. I was observing first-hand the Kenyan and English settler version of the Afrikaners who had called me a kaffirboetie when my friendship with Mattress had become known. The racism shown by the English-speaking whites in Kenya and the British colonial administration was every bit as bad as it was among the diehard Boere in South Africa. Only in this place they were free to put their hate into daily practice, not by murdering a Mattress in the dark of night and then hiding from the law, as I now knew for certain the Van Schalkwyk brothers had done, but by killing hundreds of black civilians without fear of official prosecution under the dual euphemisms of ‘suspected Mau Mau’ or ‘attempting to escape’. It was open season on the blacks and it brought out the worst instincts in many whites. For a white man to possess a conscience in Kenya during the time of the Mau Mau was seen as a contradiction in terms. As a consequence Mike was often shunned in the officers’ club, at a cocktail party or in the club in Thika. Many of his old schoolmates openly refused to talk to him.

  We were driving down to the Fingers’ coffee plantation on the first weekend leave pass I’d managed to wangle when Mike said, ‘The hardest part is that I know both my father and my mother feel they have to apologise for me. Although she’d never say so, Sam, my sister, constantly jumps to my defence. She’s naturally feisty and has practically come to blows several times defending me at the Gymkhana Club. I’ve begged her not to do so, but that’s just not Sam, the Midget Digit, who hasn’t a disloyal bone in her body.’

  Mike spoke often of his sister and always in a fond and somewhat admiring voice so that I was now anxious to meet her. I confess when I first saw her, after the stunning Pirrou, I was momentarily disappointed when I was introduced. I guess when you’re young every initial impression of a female is physical. (And I’m not so sure this only applies to when one is young.) Mike’s sister certainly wasn’t plain, far from it, but she wasn’t glamorous either. She wore no make-up, not even lipstick, and had a light sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose and dusting her cheeks. She had straight blonde hair cut in a no-nonsense style with a side parting, and falling just short of her shoulders, nice deep blue eyes, a generous well-shaped mouth, even teeth and a nose perhaps a little too straight, maybe even a fraction too sharp for her oval face. She wore baggy khaki shorts that reached down to her knees and somewhat scuffed plain leather sandals. What may well have been one of Mike’s old school shirts, faded blue and too large for her small frame, was worn open to the third-top button and hung down to almost the bottom of her shorts. While she was small, five feet and one inch, she had an athletic body, nicely shaped calves and, because the shirt was too big for her, I couldn’t see the bulges, if any, of her breasts. If she could be termed the girl-next-door type, she would also have to be described as a very nice-looking neighbour. Sam Finger, if not glamorous or beautiful, was nevertheless what you might call a very neat package, one that came fully equipped with a generous and infectious laugh and an open, direct and unpretentious manner. I would learn that she was an excellent horsewoman, a good shot – but only for the cooking pot – an all-round tomboy and a good sport. In terms of my previous experience of females, which only included Pirrou alias the temperamental La Pirouette, Sam was about as opposite in nature as could be, except that she too possessed a temper, though not one that ran to tantrums when she couldn’t get her own way.

  Mike’s family must have heard the sound of the army Land Rover Mike had commandeered for the weekend, because as we came up the rather splendid driveway lined with flame trees, or as they are known in South Africa, Lucky Bean trees, Mike’s mother and sister came out onto the terrace to meet us. Mike’s father, it turned out, was attending a meeting and lunch for the local coffee planters at the Thika Sports Club.

  The farmhouse, I observed, was like many I’d noticed in rural Kenya: three round thatched-roof rondavels or houses built together to form a single unit. The advantage, Mike had once explained to me, of a thatched roof is that it’s always blissfully cool inside; the downside was that it needed to be replaced every five years or so, and, of course, during the state of emergency was very susceptible to fire. But it was far more practical than the ubiquitous corrugated iron favoured in most parts of rural South Africa. Thatch was plentiful and harvested on the estate and African labour was cheap. I must say a Kenyan farmhouse with its whitewashed walls always sat comfortably on the landscape. For once the European settler had adapted something appropriate to Africa instead of importing an architectural misfit entirely alien to place or climate.

  Mrs Finger was a small, slim, good-looking woman in her late forties, with prematurely white hair cut into a soft bob that went well with her startlingly blue eyes, even more intensely blue than her daughter’s. Her skin was deeply tanned (I would later learn from playing tennis) and was beginning to show the leathery effects of the African sun on what was once, no doubt, a perfect English-rose complexion. She wore bright-red lipstick, a plain blue cotton dress and a pair of leather sandals similar to Sam’s, though hers were polished and neat. I noted that her toenails had been painted to match her lipstick, while, curiously, her fingernails were clipped short and remained unpainted; they were practical hands, or perhaps it was because she was a tennis player.

  Mike called a greeting from the car and each woman, smiling, lifted a hand to acknowledge our arrival. An African appeared from the side of the house and came towards the Land Rover. ‘Leave your gear, Tom, Githuku will take it to your room,’ Mike instructed.

  ‘Jambo, Bwana Mike,’ Githuku said, smiling broadly as he approached us.

  ‘Ku salamu, Githuku,’ Mike replied, returning the greeting and the smile. ‘Habari yako? Jamaa endelaya mzuri? I hope you and your family are well?’

  ‘Ndio,’ the servant replied, smiling shyly.

  Walking towards the two women, Mike called out, ‘Not playing tennis I see, Mother?’

  ‘Knocked out in the semifinals by Gladys the Man-eater,’ Mrs Finger replied, laughing.

  We climbed the terrace steps and Mike introduced me. ‘May I introduce Tom Fitzsaxby,’ he said in a surprisingly formal way. ‘Tom, this is my mother and, of course, you’ll have guessed, this is my little sister, Sam.’ He suddenly lunged forward and grabbed Sam in a bear hug and kissed her while she squealed in delighted protest, then he turned and more formally did the same to his mother.

  Hug completed, Mrs Finger smiled as I accepted her hand. ‘You’re to call me Bobby, Tom,’ she said firmly. ‘Welcome to Makindi.’ She released my hand. ‘Lunch is almost ready and the cook’s baked an apple pie and there’s fresh cream.’

  ‘Sounds great,’ I said, and then added for want of anything else to say, ‘it’s some time since I’ve had a home-baked apple pie.’ Although, thinking about it, I don’t suppose I ever had.

  ‘Oh, don’t expect too much, the apples are out of a tin from the south,’ Bobby laughed, no doubt meaning tinned fruit from South Africa.

  I turned to acknowledge Sam.

  ‘You’re supposed to be much bigger!’ she exclaimed, looking me up and down. ‘Six foot, at least.’

  ‘You’re supposed to be much smaller, Midget the Digit,’ I replied, laughing.

  ‘Watch out, Sam, Tom’s a sharp-tongued lawyer,’ Mike warned, grinning.

  Sam flicked back an errant strand of blonde hair that was flopping over her right eye. ‘The way Mike described you, with a Rhodes scholarship and all, I thought you’d be, well, tall and imposing, a bit frightening,’ she said, laughing.

  ‘
I’m very unimposing, I’m afraid. There was a definite shortage of imposing, tall, frightening candidates when I applied for Oxford and I was very much the “next best” one,’ I said, dusting off my Pirrou-taught manners. Then, bowing slightly, I smiled and extended my hand. ‘By the way, how do you do, Miss Finger?’

  Sam Finger ignored my outstretched hand and took a step forward and planted a soft kiss on my cheek. ‘Lovely,’ she said, ‘at least I don’t have to stand on a chair to kiss you, Tom Fitzsaxby.’

  If I wasn’t already in love with Mike’s little sister, then I was well on the way to becoming so.

  We turned to enter the house, led by Mike’s mother. She stopped suddenly and turned back to face her son. ‘I’ve spoken to your father and there’s to be no discussing the war this weekend!’ she said sharply. I was beginning to sense she wore the pants around the place. I would soon learn that she wasn’t the only strong woman in the family.

  Mike reached out and rested his hand on her shoulder, then bent down and kissed her lightly on the cheek. ‘Sure, Mum, I promise.’ Then he said, ‘That’s if Dad doesn’t start up, you know how he is after a few Scotches.’

  ‘Your father has promised to behave,’ Bobby said firmly, brooking no further comment.

  I saw the momentary expression on Sam’s face as Mike made this remark about his father and told myself that Jock Finger might have a drinking problem.

  ‘Oh, good!’ Sam said quickly. ‘That means we don’t have to go into town to meet him for drinks, there’s bound to be some nasty drunk at the club who wants to start a fight with Mike over the beastly war.’

  ‘Does that also mean no dinner guests tonight?’ Mike asked hopefully.

  ‘Just the family, I’ve told your father no strays from the club, we want the two of you all to ourselves,’ Bobby said without smiling. ‘Drinks on the terrace as usual at sunset.’