by Wilbur Smith
There were men battering at the door; more Mau Mau were emerging from the rooms at the front of the house.
Gerhard headed to a point where the hall was at its narrowest, a few feet in front of the kitchen, by the door to the basement. In front of him, Dorian Courtney and Tommy Sharpe were almost blocking the way. That gave him an idea.
‘Dorian! Sharpe! We must form a line here, where they can only attack with two or three men at a time. Mpishi! Get something from the kitchen to shelter us. Chairs, boxes, sacks, anything!’
Two more Mau Mau appeared by the foot of the stairs. Others joined them, carrying pangas rather than guns. They looked down the tight, hemmed-in space between them and the three white men and saw what Gerhard had: anyone who went down there would be shot before they had gone a single step.
‘Don’t shoot,’ Gerhard said to the two men beside him. ‘They have more men, but we don’t have many more rounds. Save them for Mau Mau with guns.’
Mpishi and a couple of the women reappeared and assembled a ramshackle pile of junk across the hall for Gerhard and the others to crouch behind. There was a pause in the assault, with neither side able to make an attacking move.
Gerhard saw one of the Mau Mau speak to another, who dashed away through the front door and into the open.
He was giving him a message, Gerhard thought, his chest heaving as he caught his breath. My God, there are more of them out there!
In the brief moment of stillness he heard shooting down in the basement. All Gerhard could think was, No . . . please, God . . . not the children!
‘Be very quiet, children, and stand behind me,’ Harriet whispered as she got to her feet.
She stood a foot away from the wall, with Zander clinging to one of her legs and Kika to the other. She cocked the revolver and held it out in front of her in both hands. Leon had let her fire it occasionally in the past and she knew that the recoil was too powerful for her to manage in one hand.
The footsteps were getting closer.
‘I’m scared,’ Kika whimpered.
‘Hush . . .’ whispered her brother. ‘Don’t let them know we’re here.’
Suddenly a deafening fusillade of shots pounded their ears. The bullets passed through the flimsy door and smashed the bottles in the racks beyond.
A single kick smashed the door in. Two men entered the room, both tall, strapping Kikuyu. One of them carried the gun that had peppered the door. The other was armed with a panga.
The men saw Harriet and the children and grinned, knowing that they had stumbled upon a great prize.
Harriet was holding the gun. The men were so close she could not possibly miss. And yet she froze, unable to pull the trigger, paralysed by fear and a fundamental inability to take the life of another human being, even when her own was in danger.
Mwangi knew that this woman did not have it in her to kill. He reached forward and took the gun from her hand.
‘Like candy from a baby, eh?’ he said to her, speaking in English so that she would know that he was as good as her.
Roosevelt asked Mwangi a question in Gikuyu.
He replied and then told Harriet, ‘He asks me if we should kill you now, or wait until our leader, General Kungu Kabaya, arrives. I told him we must wait – but you know . . .’ He stroked the hot tip of the Sten gun’s barrel along the underside of Harriet’s chin, making her wince. ‘I am not sure I will wait. I want to kill you, and them –’ he nodded towards the children – ‘very much.’
Just then Mwangi heard footsteps racing down the passage.
‘Who is it?’ he asked.
Roosevelt turned towards the open doorway. Before he could say a word, a single shoot rang out and he staggered backwards, hit the wine racks and fell dead to the floor.
Mwangi reacted in an instant. He grabbed Harriet and put a gun to her head.
Zander grabbed Kika and pulled her to the ground.
Gerhard walked into the room with his rifle to his shoulder, ready to fire.
He saw Harriet, and Mwangi behind her with his left arm around her throat and the right hand pressing a Sten gun up against her temple.
Harriet was shielding most of Mwangi’s body. All Gerhard could see was his gun arm and the small sliver of his face that was not hidden behind Harriet’s head.
Zander and Kika were sitting on the floor beside them.
He was about to tell the children to stay put when they saw him and dashed across to him with cries of ‘Daddy!’
Gerhard noticed Mwangi’s mouth widen in a grin. The barrel of his gun swung down. He was going to shoot the children.
Gerhard had a fraction of a second in which to aim and a tiny target to hit.
If he waited too long, the children would die.
If he missed, Harriet would die.
Gerhard shot. He blew the smile right off Mwangi’s face.
As Zander and Kika grabbed hold of him, shrieking, and Harriet stepped aside, overwhelmed by all that had happened, Gerhard muttered something under his breath.
‘What did you say?’ Harriet asked.
He gave a harsh, cruel smile, an expression from another time as he said, ‘It was German. I was telling him, “I shot down a hundred fighter planes, you dumb swine. Of course I was going to kill you.”’
He picked up Zander and hugged him tight, while Harriet grabbed the revolver Roosevelt had taken from her and the evening bag of ammunition, hooking the trigger of the gun and the handle of the bag around her middle finger. She took Kika in her arms.
As they went upstairs to the hall, Gerhard turned and told Harriet, ‘Shield her eyes.’
He held his son’s head against his chest so that the little boy would not see the makeshift barrier; the men in their black dinner jackets and starched white shirts, now stained with the blood, sweat and grime of battle; the two women in their ruined evening gowns; and beyond them the line of Mau Mau, watching and waiting for the order to attack.
But Harriet saw them and gave a gasp of alarm as she followed Gerhard into the kitchen.
He looked around, searching for any kind of refuge. By the sink, Mashraf was shouting, ‘Hold your fire!’ to one of the totos, who had wasted a bullet firing at one of the Mau Mau, who were popping up at random intervals in the window or the doorway, tempting the defenders to waste ammunition. The stove was once again the site of great activity as the maids heated up any liquid they could get their hands on to fling at the enemy.
Gerhard decided that the storeroom could offer sanctuary, and let Harriet in.
He stopped and tried to warn her. But it was too late. Harriet had seen Leon lying in one corner of the room and heard him moaning in pain as Mary tried to staunch the flow of blood from his belly with nothing more than a pitcher of water and a pile of old dishcloths. Mpishi was trying to get Leon to drink some brandy to lessen the pain.
Harriet put Kika on the floor and rushed to her husband’s side, while Gerhard took the children to the other side of the room.
‘What’s the matter with Grandpa?’ Zander asked.
‘He’s hurt himself,’ Gerhard replied.
‘Did the Mau Mau do it?’
It was a bit late now to shield the children from the truth, so Gerhard said, ‘Yes.’
‘Were the men in the cellar Mau Mau?’
‘That’s right.’
‘But you shot them.’
Zander held out his hand like a pistol, with two fingers for the barrel, and made shooting noises.
‘That’s enough,’ Gerhard told him. ‘You settle down here. I’ve got to go back outside.’
‘Are you going to shoot more Mau Mau?’
‘Probably – but don’t think about that. You just look after Kika, and Granny Harriet will soon be back to take care of you both. All right?’
‘Yes, Daddy.’
‘Kika?’
The little girl’s thumb was in her mouth and she couldn’t talk, so she nodded.
On the way out he said to Harriet, ‘
I’m so sorry.’ He added, ‘Do you still have the gun. I’m going to need it.’
‘Take it,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t use it. And this . . .’ She passed Gerhard the bag.
‘Thanks.’ He grabbed the spare rounds from the bag and stuffed them into a pocket. ‘I’ll make sure I keep three spare. One for you too, if you need it.’
Harriet gave a nod of the head, caught Mpishi’s eye and said, ‘You go with Bwana Meerbach. I will take care of Bwana Courtney.’
‘Yes, memsahib,’ Mpishi said and hurried to catch up with Gerhard.
There was a sudden firecracker burst of gunfire from the hall. A woman started screaming.
Jane Sharpe was lying across the floor, outside the kitchen door, stone dead from the bullet that had blown her brains out. Sophie Courtney was desperately trying to regather her composure. Tommy Sharpe was screaming insults up the stairs as he emptied a three-round magazine and reached for another.
Gerhard put an arm out to stop him.
‘Save your bullets. You’ll need every one of them.’
‘The filthy Kuke savage just ran down the stairs, fired his damn gun and ran away again. And poor Janey . . . My lovely Janey . . .’
Sharpe moved towards his wife’s corpse, but Gerhard blocked the way.
‘There’s nothing you can do for her. Go back to your position.’
‘Is this what it’s come to, eh?’ Sharpe sneered. ‘Englishmen taking orders from Krauts?’
Gerhard did not rise to the bait. He kept his voice calm and said, ‘Please, for all our sakes, concentrate on the enemy.’
‘He’s right, old man,’ Dorian said to Sharpe. ‘We’ve got at least thirty of them to deal with.’
‘Well, let’s do it. Let’s deal with them now!’ Sharpe shouted, raising his gun towards the Mau Mau who were standing with menacing stillness ten paces away, in the broader area of the hall closer to the front door.
‘No,’ Gerhard insisted, knocking Sharpe’s gun barrel down with his hand. ‘Wait.’
‘For what exactly, eh? What’s the great moment we’re waiting for?’
There was firing from the kitchen and the clamour of combat as Mpishi’s men fought off another assault.
‘Stay here,’ Gerhard said. He stopped by Sophie. ‘Are you all right?’
She nodded. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be right by Dory. And I’ll make every shot count.’
Gerhard went into the kitchen. The fighting had subsided as quickly as it had begun, a wave of violence and death that had flowed in and immediately out again. There were two dead Mau Mau, and a third lying injured and helpless on the floor.
The staff had suffered casualties too. One of the totos was dead, as was Tabitha the housekeeper, her neck sliced open by a Mau Mau panga.
‘What’s the situation?’ Gerhard asked Mpishi.
The old man shrugged. ‘We fought them off this time. And we will fight them off next time. But we have fewer bullets now and two of my friends are dead. If they attack a third time, we will not be able to hold them.’
‘How much ammunition do you have?’
‘Most of my boys are down to their last clips. No one has more than two. But we will beat them. Allah, the merciful, the all-knowing, the all-powerful, will show us a way.’
‘Good man,’ said Gerhard, patting Mpishi on the shoulder.
He thought of the last days at Stalingrad. The food, the medicine, the guns and ammunition were all gone. Defeat was inevitable. But he had had a Messerschmitt to fly him away.
If I could get to the plane, he thought. Maybe I could get the kids out, at least. But even if that were possible, how could I desert everyone else?
And he remembered there was hardly any fuel left.
Mpishi had better be right. Because if Allah doesn’t come to our rescue, no one else will.
He turned at the sound of Dorian calling his name. Gerhard went back into the hall.
‘There’s been a development,’ his brother-in-law said. ‘Take a look. There’s more of them.’
In the storeroom, Leon opened his eyes and his bloodless face, contorted into an agonised rictus, managed the faintest hint of a smile.
‘Hattie,’ he whispered. ‘My love . . .’
Leon struggled to say more, but no sound emerged from his mouth.
‘Yes, my darling,’ Harriet said softly, leaning closer to him.
Leon took three gulps of air and then gasped, ‘The children . . .’
His eyes closed. Harriet could not hear him breathe. His chest did not move. When she took his wrist in her fingers, there was no pulse.
Harriet did not allow herself to compose the word for what had just happened to her husband. That would only bring her grief without limits and there was no time for that. Leon had told her his final wish and she would obey it.
She got to her feet, forced herself across the storeroom, and with a superhuman effort of will summoned a smile to her face and said, ‘Hello, children, how have you two been getting on?’
Benjamin had almost completed a full circuit of the Estate House. He had spotted Gerhard’s plane, buried in a hedge, and the three empty trucks. It had struck him that generals very often did not lead their men from the front, but stood behind the lines, observing what was happening and giving their orders accordingly.
If that were the case now, and Benjamin could find that leader, he might yet make a decisive contribution to the fight.
I only have one gun, he told himself, but that is enough to kill one man.
Then he saw the knot of men gathered by the flame tree copse. There – that was his target!
Benjamin knew every inch of the land around the Estate House. Not far away there was a spot, another rise in the land, covered only by shrubbery, which was closer to the copse than his current position, with a clearer line of sight. He ran to it now, telling himself that he would not be spotted, that any Mau Mau in the vicinity would surely be concentrating on the battle in the house.
He made it to his vantage point, crawled on his belly through the base of a large shrub, emerging just far enough out on the other side to be able to see the copse and aim his rifle. As his head emerged into the open, it suddenly struck Benjamin that the guns had fallen silent. Had he arrived too late? But then he realised something: If the Mau Mau had won, they would be celebrating so loudly that I would hear them from a mile away. No . . . this is just a pause in the fighting. There is still time . . .
First, though, he had to find his target.
It did not take long. The man on whose word all those around him were hanging was not the largest in the group, but he stood out to Benjamin like a professor on a ward round, surrounded by medical students. Even when some of those students were giant rugby players, the professor was always the boss.
Yes, that is him, Benjamin thought, nestling the rifle against his shoulder and looking through the sights. He thought of all the times he’d gone hunting as a guest of the Courtneys. He had found it hard enough to kill animals. But to kill another human being was immeasurably worse. It went against his principles, his training, even the Hippocratic Oath.
‘First do no harm,’ the oath demanded.
But Kabaya was surely the one doing that.
You’re just cutting out a cancer, Benjamin told himself. He calmed his breathing, let his pulse drop as low as the adrenaline in his system would allow . . . and squeezed the trigger.
Kungu Kabaya had observed the effects of the skirmishing that had taken place in what seemed like the eternity since he had ordered the trucks to advance upon the house. Yet when he glanced at his watch, he saw that barely ten minutes had passed. In that time, the regular messages he was getting from the front lines told him his men had reduced the number of white adults from nine to five, and whittled away at the black servants, too.
More importantly, each of the attacks had obliged the house’s defenders to use up ammunition. De Lancey had warned him that Mbogo had as fine an armoury as any
man in Kenya. But even he was not equipped to fight a full-scale battle. In any case, Mbogo was either dying or dead. The white herd had lost their bull. Now they would be frightened cattle.
Kabaya ordered half the men standing with him by the flame tree copse to go round the back of the house and reinforce the attacks on the kitchen.
Then the man standing next to him suddenly pitched face forward onto the earth. As he lay there, screaming, Kabaya saw the hole that had been punched in the small of his back. He heard the reverberation of a rifle shot, to his left. A single gun, one shooter. Not enough to alter the course of the fight.
Unless the next shot hits me.
‘Run!’ shouted Kabaya. ‘On me! Move, move, move!’
Benjamin swore under his breath. Another man had stepped into his line of fire at the very last second and taken the bullet intended for the leader, who was now running down the copse and onto the drive towards the house, surrounded by his men and getting further from Benjamin with every stride.
Time to find a new shooting position.
Kabaya was used to coming within a whisker of death. In the course of countless firefights, men had fallen all around him, yet he had always emerged unscathed, like a man who can walk through raging flames yet never get burned. He was not alarmed by the experience, but exhilarated.
So there was a grin on Kabaya’s face as he ran along the drive to the front door. He imagined what it must be like to own a house such as this, with so much land around it. One day, men like him would have property like this. But for that day to come, the old order had to be torn down and a new one take its place.
This fight would bring Kenya one step closer to that day.
It was time to land the killer blow.
He marched through the front door and into the house that was about to be his. He would kill the white people inside, and their servants. All of them. Every man, woman and child.
To Benjamin, the logic was indisputable: if the copse had been the best spot for the Mau Mau leader to direct the battle, then it would be the best spot for him to observe it. From there he could decide where next to move. There was no point him running pell-mell into the battle by himself. He would simply die without achieving a thing. But the principle of one target, one rifle, still held good. If he could get another shot at the leader, and kill him this time, he might yet change everything.