I reached under my blanket and found my pistol on the belt with the sling strap hanging from the holster. I washed in the bowl, rinsed my eyes with boric acid solution, combed my hair with a towel, it was now clipped so short that neither brush nor comb were needed, and dressed and shoved my right foot through the leg strap on the pistol, pulled it up and buckled the pistol belt. In the old days we never carried pistols but now you put the pistol on as naturally as you buttoned the flap of your trousers. I carried two extra clips in a small plastic bag in the right-hand pocket of my bush jacket and carried the extra ammunition in a screw top, wide-mouth medicine bottle which had held liver capsules. This bottle had held fifty red-and-white capsules and now held sixty-five rounds of hollow points. Ngui carried one and I another.
Everyone loved the pistol because it could hit guinea fowl, lesser bustard, jackals, which carried rabies, and it could kill hyenas. Ngui and Mthuka loved it because it would make little sharp barks like a dog yapping and puffs of dust would appear ahead of the squat-running hyena then there would be the plunk, plunk, plunk, and the hyena would slow his gallop and start to circle. Ngui would hand me a full clip he had taken from my pocket and I would shove it in and then there would be another dust puff, then a plunk, plunk, and the hyena would roll over with his legs in the air.
I walked out to the lines to speak to Keiti about the developments. I asked him to come where we could speak alone and he stood at ease looking old and wise and cynical and partly doubting and partly amused.
“I do not believe they would come here,” he said. “They are Wakamba Mau Mau. They are not so stupid. They will hear that we are here.”
“My only problem is if they come here. If they come here where will they go?”
“They will not come here.”
“Why not?”
“I think what I would do if I were Mau Mau. I would not come here.”
“But you are a Mzee and an intelligent man. These are Mau Mau.”
“All Mau Mau are not stupid,” he said. “And these are Wakamba.”
“I agree,” I said. “But these were all caught when they went to the Reserve as missionaries for Mau Mau. Why were they caught?”
“Because they got drunk and bragged how great they were.”
“Yes. And if they come here where there is a Kamba Shamba they will want drink. They will need food and they will need more than anything drink if they are the same people who were taken prisoner from drinking.”
“They will not be the same now. They have escaped from prison.”
“They will go where there is drink.”
“Probably. But they will not come here. They are Wakamba.”
“I must take measures.”
“Yes.”
“I will let you know my decision. Is everything in order in the camp? Is there any sickness? Have you any problems?”
“Everything is in order. I have no problems. The camp is happy.”
“What about meat?”
“We will need meat tonight.”
“Wildebeest?”
He shook his head slowly and smiled the cleft smile.
“Many cannot eat it.”
“How many can eat it?”
“Nine.”
“What can the others eat?”
“Impala mzuri.”
“There are too many impala here and I have two more,” I said. “I will have the meat for tonight. But I wish it killed when the sun is going down so it will chill in the cold from the Mountain in the night. I wish the meat wrapped in cheesecloth so that the flies will not spoil it. We are guests here and I am responsible. We must waste nothing. How long would it take them to come from Machakos?”
“Three days. But they will not come here.”
“Ask the cook please to make me breakfast.”
I walked back to the dining tent and sat at the table and took a book from one of the improvised bookshelves made from empty wooden boxes. It was the year there were so many books about people who had escaped from prison camps in Germany and this book was an escape book. I put it back and drew another one. This was called
As I opened the book to the chapter on Bar Harbor I heard a motor car coming very fast and then looking out through the open back of the tent I saw it was the police Land Rover coming at full speed through the lines, raising a cloud of dust that blew over everything, including the laundry. The open motor car pulled up to a dirt track racing stop alongside the tent. The young police officer came in, saluted smartly and put out his hand. He was a tall fair boy with an unpromising face.
“Good morning, Bwana,” he said and removed his uniform cap.
“Have some breakfast?”
“No time, Bwana.”
“What’s the matter?”
“The balloon’s gone up, Bwana. We’re for it now. Fourteen of them, Bwana. Fourteen of the most desperate type.”
“Armed?”
“To the teeth, Bwana.”
“These the lot that escaped from Machakos?”
“Yes. How did you hear about that?”
“Game Scout brought the word in this morning.”
“Governor,” he said, this was a fatherly term that he employed and had no relation to the title of one who governs a colony. “We must coordinate our effort again.”
“I am at your service.”