Echoes From A Distant Land Part 58

'You may address me as Field Marshal Kimathi.'

Jelani guessed he would have to choose his words carefully. This was not the young man he had helped escape from custody and who had sat with him in the Ngong Forest discussing philosophy and freedom.

'I'm sorry. Of course. Field Marshal Kimathi.'

'A long time, my friend,' Kimathi said. 'You are looking very prosperous. Life in Nairobi must be good, ah?'

One of his guards placed Jelani's holstered revolver on the ground beside Kimathi.

'Oh-ho! What is this, my friend? Have you brought me a gift? No? Or were you planning a hunting expedition?'

He looked at Jelani, but he made no response.

'Green eyes. That's it. I always wondered about that little bit of green in your eyes. And your fair skin.' He took the revolver from its sheath, and twirled it around like a Hollywood cowboy. He pointed it at Jelani. 'Bang!' he said, grinning. Then he pointed it at his own head. 'Bang!'

He flicked off the safety and pointed the pistol in the air and let off a couple of quick volleys.

Two of the guards fell to the ground.

Kimathi roared with laughter. 'Look at them!' he said, pointing to the men now climbing to their feet, abashed. 'Cowards. And they are meant to protect me. Hah!'

He narrowed his eyes at Jelani. 'And look at you, my friend,' he added with venom. 'You are a spy.' He spat on the ground beside him. 'And I sentence you to death.'

Sam heard two quick reports of a firearm. The sound echoed around the valley. He strained to hear anything more, but the low belly rumble of a distant elephant was all he heard.

He hurried on, trying to imagine what might have prompted the shots. His gut was in a knot; he pictured his son confronted by armed Mau Mau thugs, struggling with them, attempting to flee. Falling. Bleeding.

A gasp of exasperation and anxiety escaped him. He was panting, straining every fibre of his body to get to the camp while he could still help him.

The rumble came again on the wind. This time it was more of a roar. But it was not an elephant as he had imagined.

'Oh, no!' he groaned.

Like soaring vultures high in the heavens, the Lincoln bombers appeared.

He dashed on, missing the turn in the track, plummeting into the thick understorey, bounding, falling, rolling, rising and running again. He sobbed with the effort and he knew he would be too late. The deep droning of the heavy engines were above him, but he kept going.

The first thousand-pound bomb struck the hillside a half-mile ahead of him. The ground shook. Moments later another fell. And another. The ground heaved with every ear-shattering explosion.

From immediately ahead came a trumpeting shriek. Moments later, the forest was torn apart as a herd of stampeding elephants crashed from the undergrowth, shattering saplings and small trees in their path.

Sam dived for the cover of a large tree and cringed at its base until the herd had thundered past.

Scrambling to his feet, he returned to the track.

A high-pitched whistle hurt his ears and, an instant later, the earth erupted in a fireball ahead of him. He was thrown backwards by the concussion. He was oblivious to the shower of splintered plant debris, rock and dirt that fell on him.

When the first bomb came whistling from the sky, Jelani remained standing as Kimathi and his guards dived to the ground. It struck an enormous tree a hundred yards away, splitting the ma.s.sive trunk into kindling. A succession of bombs caused chaos and men dashed about in all directions.

After his initial shock, Jelani regained his senses and darted for the bush. Amid all the surrounding noise he didn't hear the pistol shots, but Kimathi's bullet zinged close to his ear. He ran on in a crouch and rolled into the concealment of the forest.

Behind him were screams and explosions. The whole jungle seemed alight with star bursts. Trees shattered. Rocks bounced around him like basketb.a.l.l.s as he ran.

He was about a mile away when, as abruptly as it had started, the bombardment ceased.

As he continued his dash through the forest, the ringing in his ears slowly abated and the sounds of the bush returned. He stopped when he came upon a forest hog snorting and snuffling in the newly turned earth of a bomb crater. It looked at him with baleful red eyes before it grunted and turned away. Jelani waited until its bristly ridged back disappeared into the undergrowth.

Jelani looked to the sun to gain his bearings, then continued down the mountain at a brisk walk.

Sam climbed from the abyss of unconsciousness into a realm of searing light and a deafening ringing in his ears. He was on his back, looking at the sky through tree branches that had been stripped of their canopy of leaves. His head pounded and his body was numb and heavy.

He looked around him. It took him a moment to regain his bearings. He was in the forest. Near Mt Kinangop. The Mau Mau camp.

Jelani.

He lifted his head, but the remainder of his body refused to respond. He looked down to his feet. His leg looked very strange.

Bomb craters pock-marked the forest around Jelani as he hurried down the track. He thought it unlikely that Kimathi would bother rallying his troops to pursue him, but, unarmed and revealed, he knew he was best to leave retribution to the administration's heavy weaponry.

He picked his way through the remains of a huge podocarpus tree that blocked the track. It had been shattered by a bomb, and the ragged stump, four feet thick, stood defiant and alone at the centre of a s.p.a.ce denuded of all vegetation. The deep crater had exposed even the roots of the once mighty monolith.

He saw a man lying off to the side of the track. Most of his clothes had been torn from him and he lay unmoving, an arm shielding his face.

A splintered section of tree trunk had smashed and partially removed his leg below the knee, severing an artery. Blood continued to weakly pump from the mutilated stump. There were no other wounds, except one ear that oozed blood.

Jelani looked around, then kneeled by the body, and reached to take the man's pulse. The figure lifted his arm from his face.

'Sam!'

He opened his eyes.

'Jelani,' he whispered. 'Thank G.o.d. I was coming to get you, before ... before ...'

'It's all right,' Jelani said, but knew it wasn't. He was amazed to find his father still alive. He stared at his leg. He knew little of medical matters, but it was obvious his father would not make it out of the forest.

'It's not good,' Sam said.

For a moment, Jelani thought he should lie. Wasn't there something about making a dying man comfortable in his last moments? But looking into Sam's eyes he could see that attempting to deceive him would be useless. And in the case of someone as smart as his father, demeaning.

'No,' Jelani conceded. 'It's not good.'

'I can't hear you,' Sam said, 'but I'd say you agree with me.' He smiled and added, 'For once.'

Jelani reached for his hand and held it. He was surprised to feel the strength in his father's grip.

'There's so much to say,' Sam said. 'So much time to make up, and yet ... there's no time.'

'Sam,' Jelani said. 'Father.'

'Shh,' Sam said, gripping his hand tightly again. 'I can't hear you, remember?' He closed his eyes and struggled to take a breath before continuing.

'I didn't know about you. I didn't know I had a son. Tell Dana, your mother ... tell her it's all right. Tell her I understand. I only wish she could have told me. It might have been different. I could have ... I could have ...'

His hand went limp in Jelani's grip.

There had been too much death in a short s.p.a.ce of time, and it took Jelani a few moments to accept that his father was gone.

He didn't weep. Sam had been too remote; too far removed from his life until recent times. Even then, he'd emerged as a figure more easily identified with his enemies than with his friends and family. He couldn't weep for his father, but he could weep for a man who'd lost his life while trying to save another.

And he could weep for the other lives lost in the savage war to win precious Kikuyu land. The war - which he could now see was a long way from over - was between white and black; between the colonial government and the Mau Mau, with idealists bent on compromise trapped and immobilised in the middle. It was a war that would have no winners.

Jelani decided that he, and all the combatants, would simply have to find a path to peace that as many Kenyans as possible could accept.

EPILOGUE.

13 DECEMBER 1963.

Nyayo Stadium was buzzing with excitement. In the section of the grandstand decorated with national flags and red, green and black bunting, was the podium that awaited Jomo Kenyatta, the recently elected Prime Minister of Kenya.

The Duke of Edinburgh chatted with the Governor and in the tiered seats at the back of the stand were members of the Kenyan government, seated in strict order of seniority.

Jelani had reserved Dana's seat among the special guests immediately she agreed to come to the independence celebrations. She was grateful for it. Her health had not been good since her heart attack; and standing among the crowd, even in the cool of the Nairobi night, would have challenged her. But she would not have missed seeing Jelani take his place, seated about midway among the government seats of this, the world's newest independent nation.

The muted monotone of crowd sounds rumbling around the packed stadium suddenly changed. It was as if the night had become charged with static electricity. A camera flashed at the foot of the stairs to the podium, followed by a dozen others - one of them undoubtedly Emerald's.

A collective sigh escaped the twenty thousand throats before everyone was on their feet, roaring as Jomo Kenyatta mounted the steps to the podium.

It had been ten years since their last reunion. On that occasion no one had been joyful. And although it took something as monumental as Kenya's independence to draw the three of them together it gave Dana enormous joy to witness her two children reunited.

She seldom saw Emerald since she'd taken up her position as the New York Times' senior photojournalist. At the tender age of thirty-one, she was considered among the best in her field. The appointment vindicated her decision to forgo the position of chairperson of the Middlebridge industrial empire. Dana had supported her in that decision, much to Oswald's chagrin. When he died a year later, Emerald inherited half his fortune anyway, and had the luxury of pursuing her career without the need for it to support her.

The last time Dana had come to Kenya was two years after Sam's death, when she'd helped Jelani set up the trust that would continue Sam's scholarships for young Kenyans. The government had buried Sam a hero who died while trying to verify the position of the Mau Mau's main camp. Governor Baring called him a true patriot. At least he got that part right.

Before that trip she had not been as close to her son as either of them were to Emerald, but during that time, as they worked together to create a legacy for his father, she knew that Jelani came to feel real love for her. He'd made two visits to London since then, one as part of the Kenyan delegation to negotiate the terms for independence, and they had used those visits to build a friendship she felt very lucky to have.

After Oswald died, Dana moved to a small house in Mayfair, where she lived a quiet, some said lonely, life. But she was content. She'd had a memorable youth and those memories kept her well entertained even now. They had been tumultuous days with Edward and the Zephyr club and her dear horses - and, of course, Sam. She had loved every minute with him. They'd been among the happiest moments of her life. To be in Kenya again, a country barely healed from a period of brutality, greed and fear, surrounded by tentative hope for the future - and her two beautiful, shining children - was more excitement than she had imagined she would experience again.

Kenyatta held aloft his signature colobus monkey-fur fly whisk and waited until the stadium was silent.

Then he began: 'This is one of the happiest moments of my life ...'

AUTHOR'S NOTE.

This book is a work of fiction. Many of its events are historically accurate, but all characters are fict.i.tious except for the British officials, some of the Mau Mau leaders and Jomo Kenyatta.

I have taken poetic licence in attributing words and actions to all historical characters in the interests of creating an entertaining story.

In this novel I have given to the character of Jomo Kenyatta certain att.i.tudes towards the Mau Mau. Many of his public utterances condemned the Mau Mau, but historians disagree on his real involvement. The viewpoint I ascribe to him in this book is a product of my imagination and is not intended to imply my views on his role.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.

Echoes from a Distant Land owes its creation to a balcony suite aboard P&O's Pacific Sun, a bottle of champagne, and the very lovely Ms Wendy Fairweather - although not in that order of importance. This is to thank Wendy for her a.s.sistance in developing the outline of this story.

Writing a novel is like walking a long and lonely road where we authors sometimes wonder why we started the journey at all. Wendy's creativity, enthusiasm, and her constant encouragement during the writing of this book made that journey far more enjoyable than it might have been and the story, in my opinion at least, considerably enriched.

I would also like to acknowledge the following people and to thank them for their valuable and expert a.s.sistance during the writing of Echoes from a Distant Land: Ms Charlotte Smith, author and the curator of the Darnell Collection (www.darnellcollection.com), for her expert a.s.sistance in matters of period dress.

Ms w.a.n.gari Maathai for her recollections of a Kikuyu childhood in her memoir, Unbowed.

Mr Ian Johnson, formerly an employee of East African Airways, for his a.s.sistance with aircraft types and schedules.

Mr Garry Keown for his enthusiastic and expert support on firearms of the period.

Finally, I'd like to thank my agent and friend, Selwa Anthony, whose support, advice and encouragement are always selflessly given; my editors Nicola O'Shea, Anna Valdinger, Kate Burnitt and Kate O'Donnell; and my friend James Hudson, whose opinions and advice on writing popular fiction I greatly respect.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.

Frank Coates was born in Melbourne and, after graduating as a professional engineer, worked for many years as a telecommunications specialist in Australia and overseas. As a UN technical specialist in Nairobi, Kenya, he travelled extensively throughout the eastern and southern parts of Africa. During his time there Frank developed a pa.s.sion for the history and culture of East Africa, which inspired his first novel, Tears of the Maasai, published in 2004, after which he became a full-time writer. Echoes from a Distant Land is his seventh novel.

OTHER BOOKS BY FRANK COATES.

Tears of the Maasai.

Beyond Mombasa.

In Search of Africa.

Roar of the Lion.

The Last Maasai Warrior.

Softly Calls the Serengeti.