by Wilbur Smith
Saffron then made Benjamin’s and Wangari’s eyes widen in amazement, as she opened a series of greaseproof paper packages to reveal piled slices of smoked salmon and roast beef, fresh tomatoes, a crusty loaf of home-baked wholemeal bread, half a dozen large brown hard-boiled eggs and a punnet of strawberries.
‘How did you get hold of food like this?’ Wangari asked. ‘The food in England is terrible and the rationing . . . ugh!’
‘I have English and Scottish cousins who live on large farms. I rang them a couple of days ago and said I needed emergency supplies, and they sent them on the overnight trains.’
‘How long are you over here?’ Wangari asked.
‘We’re only in England for a couple more days,’ Saffron said, ‘and then we’re moving to Germany.’
‘I have family business that needs attending to,’ Gerhard said. ‘And I fear that, unlike this delightful occasion, it will be no picnic.’
Cricket was traditionally seen as a peculiarly English sport, played by gentlemen dressed in white, who interrupted the game with breaks for lunch and tea. The rules were baffling, but impeccably observed. The spectators watched in silence, with polite applause for good play, even by the team they opposed. But what was also English, though less obvious to the casual spectator, was that beneath its civilised veneer, cricket was a dangerous, even brutal sport. The bowler was perfectly entitled to aim a very hard ball at the batsman’s head, or the more delicate parts of his anatomy, with the specific intention of hitting them as painfully as possible.
Such a battle was taking place in the Kenyan White Highlands at the Wanjohi Country Club, or ‘the Wanjo’ as it was known to its members, where the annual match between the club’s First Eleven and a team of officials from Government House, the colonial administration in Nairobi, was taking place. The African sun blazed down upon the immaculately mown turf of the club’s cricket pitch. The rolling brown hills stretched away towards the Aberdare Mountains on the horizon. Uniformed native servants offered the elegantly dressed spectators afternoon tea, or something stronger if they preferred.
Meanwhile, in the middle of the pitch, a large, angry man called Billy Atkinson was walking towards the end of his run-up, pushing a stray shank of sweaty black hair from his forehead. Billy Atkinson was the Wanjo’s secret weapon. A Yorkshireman by birth, he was the quickest bowler in East Africa and the meanest, too.
The man facing him appeared to be as outmatched as an elderly spinster climbing into a boxing ring to face the world heavyweight champion. Ronald Stannard was short, skinny and narrow-shouldered. His eyes peered out from a round pair of National Health spectacles. His thinning, reddish-blond hair was covered by a moth-eaten old cricket cap.
Leon and Harriet Courtney were standing in the shade of the verandah that framed the cricket pavilion to one side of the ground.
‘Look, darling. Stannard’s about to get his fifty,’ Harriet said. ‘Mind you, Atkinson doesn’t seem very impressed.’
A short while earlier, as Stannard had walked out to bat, Atkinson had come up to him, a towering mass of muscle and menace and growled, ‘I’m going to knock tha’ bloody block off.’
Stannard had not responded. He was used to dealing with bullies. From his first day at school the rough boys had used him as a human punchbag. At the age of eleven, forced to take part in cricket lessons against his will, he had discovered, to his amazement and everyone else’s, that he had a natural gift for the game: a combination of hand–eye coordination, balance and timing that can’t be taught. That talent put him in the school team and silenced his persecutors. Now he was putting it to good use in adult life.
No matter how fast Atkinson had bowled, Stannard smashed him to every corner of the ground. The least sporting spectators were roused from their refreshments and gossip to pay attention as this unlikely paragon rattled up forty-eight runs, two shy of the landmark score of fifty.
Leon had been glad of the distraction. He visited the Wanjo as seldom as possible. The place held too many memories. He could still feel the pride of watching Saffron, aged seven, compete here in a showjumping event in which she was the youngest competitor and came within a hair’s breadth of victory. But likewise he had never rid himself of the terrible pain of watching his first wife, Eva, suffer a fatal miscarriage. He could see her as she lay in agony on a wooden dining table, her limbs thrashing in a fit brought on by eclampsia, her lifeblood draining away before his eyes. Every time he came back to the Wanjo that image was more vivid than the time before.
There were, however, some events at the club that could not be avoided if one wished to remain part of Kenyan society, and this was one of them. Every major landowner in the region had arrived to see the match, along with wives and children. Many of the most senior men from Government House had come to watch their team. The Chairman of the Wanjohi Country Club, Sir Percival Potter, was hosting a dinner-dance afterwards. Business would be conducted over whiskies, brandies and gin and tonics. The latest political gossip would be spread. The opportunity for Leon to gather intelligence and make his own opinions known was too good to miss.
The talk so far had been about the unrest in the Kikuyu community and the growing influence of the Mau Mau, especially among the young men of the tribe. Leon had spent much of the afternoon lost in thought, wondering whether his own Kikuyu workers would fall under their sway. Ronald Stannard had managed to make him think of something else.
Leon watched as Atkinson pawed the turf a couple of times, then started moving, gathering pace until he was sprinting as he approached the wicket.
‘I’d rather face a charging bull elephant,’ Leon muttered as Atkinson hurled the hard, red ball at Stannard, twenty-two yards away. The ball was travelling at almost ninety miles an hour as it hit the ground. It reared up off the sun-baked, heavily rolled pitch and sped like a missile towards the centre of Stannard’s face.
Harriet gasped and she raised her hand to her face in horror at the sheer hostility of Atkinson’s attack.
Stannard hit the ball when it was barely two feet from crashing into the bridge of his nose. A sharp crack echoed like a gunshot around the ground as he sent it hurtling across the emerald-green outfield until it collided with the boundary fence in front of the pavilion: four runs.
The spectators burst into wild applause. Those who were sitting jumped to their feet to register their admiration as the Kikuyu boy changing the metal numbers on the scoreboard moved Stannard’s score from forty-eight to fifty-two.
The captain of the Governor’s XI, Arthur Henderson, was the non-striking batsman. Amid the applause, he walked down the wicket to have a word with his team’s hero.
‘Damn well played, my boy,’ Henderson said.
‘Thank you, sir,’ Stannard replied respectfully, for his skipper was also the most senior member of staff on the team.
‘Now, we don’t want to make the local chaps look foolish. Not good for their morale, or their authority with the natives. I’d be grateful if you didn’t linger too long at the crease.’
Stannard understood what his captain was saying. He was being ordered to get out. He played three more venomous shots that were his own, unspoken way of telling Atkinson what he thought of him. Then he lobbed an easy catch back to the next bowler, the local vicar, who was so amazed that one of his slow, innocuous deliveries might have deceived the mighty batsman that he almost dropped it.
Henderson gave a nod of approval.
As Ronald Stannard left the field, raising his bat to acknowledge the applause, he thought of how proud his widowed mother would be when she read his letter describing the match. Here he was, a grammar-school boy, the son of a factory foreman and a sorter on the production line, being cheered from the pitch by the smartest men and women in Kenyan society. Even the native servants were cheering his performance, along with their masters and mistresses.
This, Stannard thought, was one of the happiest days of his life. The happiest would be when he was allowed to score a centur
y. He had no doubt he would achieve it.
‘Ah, Courtney,’ said Sir Percival Potter, waving him over with a hand whose first and index fingers were wrapped around a cigarette, ‘come and say hello to the hero of the hour.’
‘My pleasure,’ said Leon.
He glanced around, to make sure he was not deserting Harriet, spotted her engrossed in after-dinner conversation with three other wives, and strolled over to join the chairman of the Wanjo.
A waiter appeared holding out a tray of drinks. Leon took a brandy and soda and nodded his thanks as Sir Percival said, ‘Stannard, this is Leon Courtney, a man worth knowing.’
‘I’m very pleased to meet you,’ said Stannard, blinking nervously.
His handshake was soft and damp. His dinner jacket was ill-fitting and obviously second-hand. He was holding what looked like a glass of orange squash. It hardly seemed possible that he was the same young man as the fearless batsman who had been the sensation of the day.
Little did Leon know, but Harriet and her friends were at that moment speculating whether Stannard’s performance in bed would be as athletic and daring as his batting, or as meek and mild as his off-the-field demeanour. This was, however, an entirely theoretical debate. Ronald Stannard was a virgin who had never so much as kissed a woman.
‘Congratulations,’ Leon said. ‘Splendid innings.’
‘Thank you very much, sir,’ Stannard said.
‘How long have you been on the staff at Government House?’
‘About three months. I joined the Colonial Office a year ago. This is my first overseas posting.’
‘And what do you make of Kenya?’
Stannard looked from Leon to Sir Percival, trying to balance his desire to give Leon a straight answer with the knowledge that both he and Sir Percival were highly influential men whom a young, junior official would be unwise to offend.
‘I think the situation is more complicated than I realised before I arrived.’
‘Well played,’ said Leon, with an appreciative nod of the head, for he could see how carefully Stannard had dealt with the question and how unsure the young man must be feeling at an occasion such as this.
Having been born, bred, raised and educated in Africa, Leon did not give a damn about the nuances of the British class system. But he could hear that Ronald Stannard spoke with a regional accent, rather than the clipped, upper-class tones of the other colonial officers who had played in or attended the match. They would have had their jobs fall like ripe fruit into their laps. Stannard must have had to work his way up. To many members of white Kenyan society, not least those who were hiding their own humble origins, that would make Stannard an object of disdain. To Leon Courtney, it was an achievement to be applauded.
‘I was just explaining to young Stannard that I am considered to be quite the liberal by some of my club members,’ Sir Percival said. ‘As you know, I regard the white man’s purpose in Africa to be a moral one. We have a duty to prepare the natives for the day when they will be ready to run their own nations. I doubt it will be in our lifetimes, but even if we do not see the fruits of our labours, we must still plant and nourish the seeds, eh?’
‘I completely agree, sir,’ Stannard said. ‘To me, the only justification for empire is the good it can do for people less fortunate than ourselves. What do you think, Mr Courtney?’
‘We have that duty, certainly. But we need to move a lot faster towards granting Kenya its independence.’
Stannard looked surprised. ‘How interesting. Why do you say that?’
‘Partly as a matter of principle. I’ve always had more faith in the native peoples’ abilities than most in these parts.’
‘You should be aware, Stannard, that Leon’s views make mine seem positively conservative. He is looked on as a dangerous radical by every other white man in this room,’ Sir Percival said, chuckling. ‘He’s just so damnably rich that no one dares say so to his face.’
‘A few of them have said so, loudly . . . and rudely,’ Leon said. ‘But I’m not as bleeding hearted as they think. I reckon it’s in our self-interest to give more control to the people and keep their goodwill. Better that than have Kenya torn from our hands and lose everything.’
Stannard frowned. ‘Do you really think there’s a chance of that?’
‘Bloody Mau Mau animals . . .’ Sir Percival muttered. ‘They’re a bunch of savages. Apes in human form.’
‘Well, I certainly don’t condone what the Mau Mau are doing,’ Leon said, ‘though their victims so far seem to be restricted to their own people.’
‘They’ll be coming after us next, mark my words.’
‘They may well, Percy, but if we want to outwit our enemy, we should pay attention to what he says and wants, and why he’s here in the first place.’
‘I can tell you exactly why he’s here. Ingratitude, greed and the pernicious influence of Bolshie agitators.’
‘Do you think there’s more to it than that, sir?’ Stannard asked Leon, and suddenly Leon saw a hint of the brave batsman in the young man’s watery eyes.
You think there’s more to it, don’t you, lad? he thought. Right then, I’ll tell you what these other stuffed shirts won’t.
‘In my opinion the Kikuyu have genuine grievances, and the reason that some of them have resorted to violence – which, I say again, I deplore – is that when they tried to make their case peacefully, no one paid a damn bit of attention.’
‘Oh really, Leon, that’s a bit much!’ Sir Percival protested.
‘Well, how would you feel if all your land was taken by people from another country?’
‘You’ve taken a large slice of it yourself!’
‘Yes – which is why I do my damnedest to respect the traditions and knowledge of the people who live on it.’
‘How do you do that?’ Stannard asked.
‘The Kikuyu have farmed here for centuries. They’re better at it than half the damn fools who came out to this country from England without the first idea about local conditions. Those same fools refused to learn from the Kikuyu. Instead they prohibited them from selling most of their crops on the open market, giving white farmers a virtual monopoly.
‘I think that’s wrong. Worse, it’s plain stupid. We should use their knowledge to everyone’s advantage. So I let my farmers work land of their own, within my estate, alongside the work they do for me. I buy their crops off them at a fair price. I take it all to market and, yes, I sell for more than I paid, but not much more, and my people know it. And another thing . . .’
Leon paused for a moment. Oh hell, I’ve really mounted my hobby horse now, he berated himself. What the hell, might as well ride it.
‘Young Kikuyu men can only get a wife once they have land of their own, with which to support a family. But there isn’t enough land on the territories set aside for the Kikuyu. That means the young men can’t acquire any, and so they can’t marry. It’s hardly a surprise if they become frustrated and angry. I make sure that my young Kikuyu get land, so they can start their own families. The result is I have much happier, more productive workers.’
‘Like the Cadbury family,’ Stannard said. ‘They gave their workers houses, playing fields, schools . . . everyone loved them. My father was a foreman at the Bournville factory. He thought the Cadburys were royalty.’
‘Did you say your father worked . . . in a factory?’ Sir Percival asked.
‘Well, I don’t claim to be royalty,’ Leon said, ignoring the chairman’s expression. ‘But I like to think my people are content and don’t see any reason to rebel.’
‘And that’s good for business,’ Stannard said.
‘Exactly . . . Tell me, Stannard, were you in the war?’
‘No, sir, I was too young. I was called up in March ’45, but by the time I’d completed my training the war in Europe was over. There was talk we were going to be shipped to the Far East, but the Americans dropped the bomb before that happened.’
‘Well,
a lot of young Kikuyu men served in the King’s African Rifles. In the first couple of years of the war they saw action in East Africa against Mussolini’s mob. Then they were shipped out to Burma. They saw some tough action against the Japs, conducted themselves damn well. You’d agree with that much, at least, Percy, surely?’
‘Can’t deny it, they made first-class soldiers.’
‘Quite so. And when the war was over, they had the same reaction as their white comrades. They’d gone to fight for the Empire, now they wanted something in return. That’s why so many British soldiers voted Labour in the ’45 election and kicked poor old Winston out of Number Ten. I’d never in a month of Sundays do any such thing, I might add—’
‘Thank God for that,’ sighed Sir Percy.
‘. . . but I could see their point. And I can see the Kikuyu veterans’ point, too. They stuck their necks on the line and when they came back, nothing had changed. Bear in mind, these men spent time in India during the war. They know about Gandhi and they’ve seen India gain its independence. Hardly surprising they think, “I’d like a bit of that.”’
‘But Indians are civilised,’ Sir Ronald objected. ‘They had cities, writing, mathematics and all that long before we got there. They were far readier for independence than the African.’
‘The African doesn’t agree,’ said Leon. ‘He may be wrong, but he wants the chance to find out. That’s why this is a matter of self-interest. I’m a businessman and I don’t want to lose my business. So I say, let’s make a deal – they get more say in governing the country, we keep most of our land. Trust me, if we don’t make that deal we’re liable to lose the lot.’
‘No we aren’t,’ Sir Percy insisted. ‘That’s the point. They don’t have the means or the might to beat us.’
‘Gandhi beat us.’
Before Sir Percival could argue the point further, the club’s maître d’, a stately, bald Kikuyu in a sharply pressed charcoal grey suit, walked up to the three men, waited until Sir Percival had acknowledged his presence and then whispered a few words in his boss’s ear.