by Wilbur Smith
The trucks driving over the sodden track had left ruts that slowed Benjamin down so badly that he frequently found it easier to take to the open country. He came to a halt over a mile from the Estate House, not wanting whoever had gone ahead of him to hear his approach. When he turned off the engine, the first sound that came drifting towards him on the gentle breeze was the explosive crack of gunfire.
Benjamin was alarmed, but also uncertain. Just as a hunter could determine the breed, number and even size of animals he was tracking by the spoor they left on the ground, so a trained soldier could hear gunfire and know what kind of weapons were being fired, even roughly how many there might be. But Benjamin had not served in the war and, unlike their counterparts in Britain, young Kenyan men were not required to do two years’ National Service.
Still, he was a Maasai. He could move soundlessly, invisibly across country, particularly land he knew as well as this.
He decided to reconnoitre the area around the house and work out what was going on.
You are a doctor, Benjamin reminded himself. First examine the patient. Make your diagnosis. Then come up with a treatment plan.
Up in his sniper’s eyrie on the first floor, Gerhard spotted the second truck making a frontal attack on the house: up the drive towards the front door. Its lights were out, so he could only detect a vague, moving mass against the pale grey colour of gravel in the moonlight that now gleamed from a cloudless sky.
When the truck was about a hundred metres away he fired a three-shot burst, aiming at the windscreen. There was little hope of putting such a large vehicle out of action with rifle rounds. But he might just hit the driver, and the firing would at least alert the other couples that the enemy were approaching.
The truck rolled on a little further, then came to a stop. Gerhard was clipping a fresh magazine into its housing when the truck’s headlights were switched on, shining towards the front door and the rooms on either side. He detected shadowy flurries of movement which resolved themselves into the outlines of armed men, silhouetted against the lights. He counted fifteen of them.
The driver’s door opened and a sixteenth man fell to the ground, attempted to get up and collapsed again.
‘Got him!’ Gerhard muttered to himself.
It was a lucky shot. But they would need all that luck and more to survive. Three sixteens made forty-eight Mau Mau, against the ten men and seven women in the house.
As the Mau Mau came closer, Gerhard saw that several of them were carrying Sten guns, giving them a huge advantage in firepower. A single Sten magazine carried thirty-two rounds. That was more than all Leon’s rifles put together. And the Sten could fire them in under five seconds.
I had better make every shot count.
From Gerhard’s perch, fifteen feet off the ground, the headlights illuminated his targets perfectly. He took careful aim at the biggest, slowest-moving man in the group and fired a single shot, taking him at the top of his chest, below his right shoulder. The man dropped his gun and fell to his knees with a howl of pain that carried to Gerhard on the gentle breeze. Nature’s violence had given way to a beautiful night. Now it was man’s turn to wreak havoc.
Several of the Mau Mau aimed their guns up at the house and fired where they thought the shots had come from. Gerhard noticed that at least half of them fired one round, then had to retire to reload. If they only had single-shot weapons, that cancelled out some of the advantage of the Sten guns. The bullets all spattered harmlessly against the stone walls, save one which smashed the other bedroom window.
The attackers concentrated their fire on the ground floor. A couple of the Sten gunners fired long, wild bursts, smashing a lot of glass, but achieving little else. But the others were more precise. They advanced in quick sprints, threw themselves to the ground, fired quick bursts of half a dozen shots, then moved again.
They were trained soldiers. But so were the two British gentlemen beneath him and neither had fired a single round. Were they really waiting until their targets were just a couple of paces away?
And then Gerhard realised.
The lights! They can’t see to take aim!
He nestled the butt of his Winchester against his shoulder, sighted, breathed out and fired at the left-hand light.
Got it!
He missed the second shot, hitting the truck’s radiator, aimed again and heard the click of an empty magazine.
As another fusillade of shots crashed into the stonework and frame around his window and shattered one of the panes above his head, Gerhard spat out a couple of pithy, foul-mouthed German curses, wishing he still had a warplane and the firepower that went with it.
The hatred of bloodshed that had possessed him since the end of the war had vanished. He was fighting to save his children’s lives, his family and friends. If men had to die so they might live, so be it.
He reached for his shotgun.
One cartridge was all it took to extinguish the second light. But as darkness fell upon the scene the combat took on a new intensity. Half a dozen shots rang out from the house, finding two more targets and causing the rest to throw themselves to the ground and scrabble for cover behind the bushes and stonework that dotted the final approach to the house.
A few more rounds fired from the windows were answered by the attackers. Gerhard still had a cartridge in his shotgun. But the moment he rose up high enough to push his gun out of the window and get a decent sighting, he was met by a volley of fire that forced him to duck back down again.
On this side of the house at least, a temporary stalemate had been reached. But it would not last for long.
Four hundred yards away, on a small hillock, topped by a copse of flame trees that gave him a view of the property, Kungu Kabaya put down the binoculars through which he had been watching the opening exchanges with a satisfied nod of the head.
‘It is all proceeding as I expected,’ he said.
Beside him, Wilson Gitiri said enthusiastically, ‘Your plan is very fine. But can the men carry it out in time, before Bwana Courtney’s farmers come running to see what is happening?’
‘They won’t,’ Kabaya answered. ‘They are too frightened. They will hide behind their bomas and wait until it is over.’
‘But what if they do?’
‘Then they cannot get here for at least fifteen minutes. And then it will be too late.’
‘You are sure of it?’
‘Of course,’ Kabaya beamed. ‘Look around you . . .’
Kabaya had crammed sixteen men onto each of his trucks. A dozen of the very best had been held in reserve. They were clustered by Kabaya and Gitiri.
‘We will attack them, weaken them, make them fire all their ammunition. That may be enough. But let us pray that it is not. For then you and I will lead these men into that house. We will kill everyone we find. And we will bathe in white men’s blood.’
Two blasts from Leon’s .470 rifle knocked out the headlights of the truck attacking the garden room. But his fifty-year-old rifle was a breech-loader and there was no time to put in two fresh rounds. He took out his revolver and prepared for the Mau Mau onslaught.
A second later, the rebels charged the house like a storm wave on a cliff. A deafening crackle of gunfire smashed every pane of glass in the French windows and thudded into the cabinet.
Sophie had taken up a position at one end of the cabinet. Instead of trying to stick her head up above its surface, she darted from the side, fired off three rifle rounds, then got back under cover before anyone could respond.
Clever girl, thought Leon, deciding to do the same thing at the other end of the cabinet. He rolled out and was shocked by what he saw. One of the Mau Mau was down, but half a dozen were almost within touching distance of the wrecked French windows.
They were close enough that Leon could see the expressions on the attackers’ faces. Their wide eyes and grotesquely contorted features exuded an aura of frenzied hatred unlike anything he had ever before encountered.
The intensity of their loathing hit Leon like an electric shock, sending a jolt of raw terror through his system. He gritted his teeth, shot twice, thought he saw a Mau Mau go down, then had to throw himself back behind the cabinet as a burst of Sten gun bullets chewed up the floor where he had been crouching.
Only Dorian had not fired. Leon looked around. At first he could see no sign of his brother, and then he saw him lying face down on the floor with his arms stretched out in front of him so that they were underneath the cabinet.
Leon’s first thought was that his brother had been hit. But then he saw Dorian’s feet move as he adjusted his position. A second later, the shotgun Dorian was carrying went off. It was followed an instant later by a sound Leon hadn’t heard in almost forty years: the scream of a man who has been grievously wounded. But there was more than one voice generating this hellish cacophony.
Dorian’s head and shoulders reappeared.
‘Got ’em in the legs,’ he grinned, reaching for two fresh cartridges.
Leon peered round the side of the cabinet. Two men were lying on the ground. One of them was clutching at a foot that was lying at a grotesque angle to the rest of his right leg, held on by a sliver of skin and flesh. The other was gazing in horror at the lone, booted foot that was standing on the floor about an arm’s length from the rest of his body.
Blood was spurting from the wounds.
A third man was hopping away, supported by two of his comrades. The rest of the Mau Mau had vanished. The mutilation of their comrades seemed to have disheartened them more than their deaths would have done.
Leon watched them go. He didn’t fire. He told himself it was because he had to save every round he could. But the truth was he couldn’t do it. Firing on wounded men and their bearers was against the rules by which he went to war.
Sophie, however, had never been taught these rules. She saw two wounded men who needed putting out of their misery, and dispatched them with feminine ruthlessness. She had a single round left in her magazine and used it on one of the men who was helping his wounded comrade.
‘No point getting the one who was hopping. He was already out of the fight,’ she said.
‘“And she knows because she warns him, and her instincts never fail, that the female of her species is more deadly than the male”,’ said Dorian, proudly. ‘Dear old Kipling knew what he was talking about.’
‘She’d better reload,’ said Leon bluntly. ‘They’re coming back.’
He had heard the truck engine starting. Now it was revving and he knew what was coming next.
But there might be time . . . he thought.
He dashed out from behind the cabinet and grabbed the two Sten guns that the men killed by Sophie had been carrying. He threw one towards Dorian and kept the other for himself. A spare magazine was lying on the floor. It must have fallen from one of the men’s pockets. Leon picked it up, then raced back behind the cabinet.
The truck was coming straight at them.
‘Shoot at the tyres!’ Leon yelled. ‘It’s our only hope!’
As a fourteen-year-old boy soldier, Mpishi had been among the Sudanese troops who served in General Kitchener’s army. He had fought at the Battle of Omdurman where the Mahdi, lord of an Islamic empire in the heart of Africa, was defeated.
Mpishi loved to remind anyone willing to listen that this made him a comrade of none other than Winston Churchill, who had also fought at the battle. Now, he called upon this experience to rally his troops in the kitchen at Lusima.
‘If there are more of them than of us, do not let fear strike your hearts,’ he declared. ‘At Omdurman, the evil Mahdi had five times as many men as Kitchener Sahib, and yet Kitchener defeated him. In our army, just fifty brave souls went to Paradise. But twenty thousand of the ungodly foe were sent to join Shaitan in the blazing fires of punishment. Now we will send these wicked Mau Mau to join them in hell.’
The house staff had been forced to listen to Mpishi give so many accounts of his finest hour, that they could recite it by heart. They knew he had exaggerated the scale of the Mahdi’s army and its casualties. But the spirit with which the old man spoke impressed them deeply.
Mpishi confronted the approaching Mau Mau without fear. He seemed certain that the people of Lusima would prevail, and this gave courage to the assembled cooks, maids and totos, as the male servants were known. So when Mpishi started shouting his orders, they obeyed him with a will.
In swift succession the totos loaded their weapons, slung them over their shoulders and took three spare ammunition clips per man. While the women set to work preparing scalding liquids, the men went to the storeroom and took out all the large sacks of flour, millet, rice and potatoes. Two wooden serving trays were placed over the sinks, then half a dozen of the provision sacks were put over the trays and the drainers to either side. These would act like sandbags to protect the pair of totos Mpishi assigned to that position.
The rest of the sacks were placed in front of the kitchen table, which had been turned on its side, with the tabletop facing the door. This, Mpishi explained, would be their fortress, in the unlikely event that the Mau Mau ever got into the room. He told his men to check their weapons. Kiprop was stationed beside the door, with orders to fire at anyone who tried to get in. Ali Mashraf was given the honour of joining Mpishi behind the table.
The women went around them handing out an assortment of meat cleavers, carving knives, and other blades capable of butchering, filleting or slicing and dicing a man. Mpishi ordered the lights to be turned out, for the brighter the light inside the kitchen the harder it would be for the defenders to see out, and the easier for the attackers to see in.
Now it was a matter of waiting.
The kitchen workers heard the sounds of the fight beginning to the front and side of the house. Mpishi scanned them one by one and his heart swelled with pride at the steadfast expressions and determined eyes that looked back at him. Over the next half-minute the noise of battle elsewhere in the house rose to a deafening pitch while the kitchen remained quiet.
A single shot shattered the window above the sink, missed the two men crouching behind it and the women by the range, passed through a copper pan hanging over the cooker and embedded itself in the kitchen wall. A second later, the firing began in earnest.
The three women flung themselves to the ground as the sounds of smashing glass, gun blasts and the insect whine of flying bullets combined to ear-splitting effect. Rounds ricocheted off heavy pans and stone worktops and buried themselves in the walls or the wooden furniture. As they crawled towards the shelter of the overturned table, Mpishi was pleased to see that each woman was carrying a knife of her own. They clearly had no intention of being left out of the fight.
‘I see them!’ Kiprop called out.
A second later he was poking his gun through the empty space where the door window had been and firing his first three rounds. The two men by the sink also opened up and one of them gave a shout of triumph as he saw his target fall.
But they all ran out of bullets at the same time. As they fumbled with their ammunition clips and tried to reload in the dark, the Mau Mau had time to dash forward and suddenly the window above the sink was filled with the shadowy forms of three panga-wielding rebels. The two totos lashed out with their rifle butts, but they were being forced backwards as the Mau Mau clambered over the sacks. Mpishi and Mashraf raised their rifles to shoot, but the fighting by the window was at such close quarters that they dared not fire for fear of hitting one of their own men by mistake.
Tabitha pulled at the sleeve of the young housemaid squatting beside her.
‘Come!’
She ran across to the kitchen range, followed by the girl. A large, two-handled steel pot was bubbling and steaming on top of one of the hobs. Tabitha grabbed one of the handles, then turned the pot so that the girl could take the other. They ran together across the kitchen towards the sinks.
When they were by the totos, Tabitha yelled, ‘Get do
wn!’
The two men were used to obeying the formidable housekeeper. They dropped like stones.
Tabitha shouted, ‘Heave!’
She and the maid threw the pot upwards towards the Mau Mau.
The men on the sinks were hit by blasts of scalding hot steel and boiling water. They howled in pain and staggered backwards, tripping and falling out of the room as the totos helped them on their way with lusty blows of their rifle butts.
The men inside the kitchen roared with delight at Tabitha’s swift thinking.
‘Enough!’ Mpishi roared, cutting the celebrations dead. ‘Find your spare magazines. Load your weapons. They will be back and we must be ready for them.’
Leon used nearly half the ammunition in the Sten’s magazine and Dorian fired even more, but they did the job. The tyres were blown. The truck stopped inches from the side of the house. The dozen or so surviving Mau Mau, who had not bothered to get in the back but were clinging onto the sides of the vehicle, jumped down and ran towards the open doors and the wooden barricade.
The ones with Stens were firing as they came, shooting from the hip, not caring what they hit but forcing Leon, Dorian and Sophie to keep their heads down.
Dorian was on the floor, hoping to repeat his trick with the shotgun, but the Mau Mau had learned fast. They were coming in from either side of the truck, avoiding his line of fire. He twisted round to the right and left but couldn’t get a decent shot.
By the time Dorian extracted himself, the enemy were on them. He heard Sophie scream, turned and saw a Mau Mau coming at her.
The Kikuyu fighter was almost a foot taller than Sophie, more heavily built, and had thrown away his gun in favour of a long, sharp panga.
Dorian didn’t have time to think or aim; he fired the shotgun in the direction he was looking. The 12-bore cartridge, at point-blank range, punched a hole in the centre of the Mau Mau’s chest, killing him instantly and throwing his body against the wrecked door frame.