Burn My Heart (9 page)

Father’s plan was that he would keep watch outside from where he would be better able to shoot anyone stealing up to attack the car. Everyone else, including Kamau, should remain inside. Mother told Mathew to try to sleep but he lay awake, cold and scared, listening for night sounds. Some jackal howls seemed to come closer, then
thankfully faded. A high-pitched squawking made him think of a large bird, an eagle perhaps, until he remembered that cheetahs sometimes imitated birds. Maybe it was the cheetah that he had seen earlier in the bush! What if it had now come to the gorge? It could have easily travelled the distance. When a gloomy moonlight began filtering through the foliage, Mathew kept checking for Father’s silhouette, terrified that at any moment Father would be fighting for his life… their lives. Sleep seemed impossible. From sounds inside the car, he was aware that Kamau and Mother were awake too. Only Mugo appeared to be asleep.

Eventually Father clambered into the car.

‘I won’t be able to pull the blasted trigger if I stay out there any longer!’ He was shivering. ‘Haven’t been so cold since I was in the army!’

Father placed his revolver on the dashboard. Mother lit a cigarette and gave it to him. She didn’t often smoke but she lit one for herself as well. Even though his parents rolled down their windows a little, Mathew’s eyes began to sting. The red tips of the cigarettes glowed like desperate signals. He wanted to say that these signals might show their attackers where they were. But instead his eyes were closing and he wanted to forget everything.

Mugo woke, shaking, in the middle of a nightmare. Men in red hats were chasing him and Baba. The two of them beat desperately on the door of a wooden house. Someone who looked like Karanja opened it, then shut it in their faces, shouting ‘Traitors!’. The men in red hats were about to grab them when Mugo opened his eyes. He was hunched up in the back seat of the bwana’s car with Baba gripping his arm, telling him to get up. The car was steamed up and stank of stale cigarettes. Mathew was curled up at the other end of the seat. He seemed to be still asleep. When Baba opened the door, Mugo scrambled out, gulping in the fresh morning air. It was still totally dark down in the gorge while up ahead, above the slope, the sky showed the first signs of light.

Bwana Grayson was standing beside the car, his revolver in one hand and a piece of paper in the other.

‘Mugo, I want you to run to the inspector bwana
as fast as you can! Show the guards at the gate that you have this message from me. Tell them to take you to the inspector bwana straight away. If they give you any bother, tell them that I shall complain to him. Can you do this?’

Mugo hesitated, looking at his father. He had been petrified in the night that a Muhimu gang would find the car. If there were an attack, he and Baba would be caught in the middle. If the gang overpowered the bwana’s family, they would probably be killed as well… and the danger still wasn’t past.

‘I told the bwana you were sick yesterday.’ Baba covered Mugo’s hesitation.

‘I’m better, Baba.’

‘Then the bwana is right. You will travel faster than me.’

Mugo held out his hand for the note. ‘I can do it, bwana,’ he mumbled.

‘Good boy, Mugo!’ The bwana sounded relieved. ‘I’ve asked the inspector bwana to bring a span of oxen to tow the car. You must come back with him.’

Mugo slipped the paper into his pocket. His fingers touched his little elephant. He needed its courage. He was not looking forward to meeting this inspector bwana.

Mugo set himself a steady pace. As he came out at the top of the gorge, he saw the two purple
peaks of Kirinyaga rising above the low-lying morning mist that covered the bush. Already the sky behind Kirinyaga was starting to change to the colour of ripe mangoes. His spirits lifted a little remembering how Mami said that the sun brings a new beginning. Last night, in the car, he had tried to block out from his mind the horrible events of the day. But they had followed him into his sleep. It was Karanja’s jibes that hurt most of all. Even Gitau, while arguing with Baba, hadn’t called their father a traitor! To stop his mind returning to yesterday’s misery, Mugo listened to the birds waking up. He liked how they took turns with their early morning songs. The doves had started with their throaty cooing, followed by some noisy chattering hoopoes and then the mousebirds with their tiny squeaks. He had learned to know them all as a herd boy. Life had been simpler then.

A flurry in the long grass beside the road startled him. He had disturbed a bunch of guineafowl. Without breaking his rhythm, he turned his head to watch them scatter. He even smiled to himself at their alarm. But seconds later, it was his turn to feel panic. Two men stepped out of the bush on to the road ahead of him. He had seen no movement at all. They just silently appeared and stood waiting for him. Even though it was Sunday, they did not look like labourers on a day off.
One of them wore a long army coat like Gitau’s and the other, with his hair in short spiky dreadlocks, wore a blanket. Mugo thought he glimpsed a knife tucked into a strap underneath the blanket. There could also be a gun under the coat. He stopped a few feet away and greeted them politely, trying not to show any fear.

‘Where are you going?’ It sounded like a casual question from Longcoat, but Mugo knew that it wasn’t.

‘I’m going home.’ He tried to breathe evenly. Instinct told him to say nothing about the bwana’s car and the message he had to deliver.

‘Where is that?’ Dreadlock’s eyes pierced Mugo through the shadowy dawn light. There was something about him and his husky tone that Mugo thought he recognized.

‘It is Bwana Grayson’s place.’

The men exchanged glances.

‘Why do you call it the mzungu’s place? Is it not your father’s place? What’s your name?’ Dreadlock demanded.

‘Mugo, son of Kamau.’

‘Is that Kamau the one who looks after the mzungu’s horses on the land stolen from his own father?’

Mugo nodded. Dreadlock knew his father! In a flash, Mugo remembered. Dreadlock was the same Muhimu guard who had wanted to search for him
in their compound on the night of the oath taking! All that had changed was his hair.

‘So! You are the wazungu’s kitchen toto!’ Dreadlock was mocking him. ‘Your father told me about you.’ He made it sound as if he knew Baba well.

‘Why aren’t you in the kitchen, making tea for the wazungu this morning?’ Longcoat asked softly. ‘Don’t they like you to make them tea?’

Mugo swallowed. ‘Ndio,’ he whispered. ‘I have to go.’

Longcoat’s hand shot out. He caught Mugo’s wrist. ‘Why are you out here?’

Mugo recoiled. If he told them the truth, anything could happen. There might be other armed Muhimu in the bush. They might make him take them to the gorge. They might steal up behind Bwana Grayson… He smothered his line of thought.

‘Tell us the truth or your father shall know that he hasn’t taught you properly,’ Dreadlock warned. It was a threat to Baba as well.

‘I went to the location yesterday with my father…’ Mugo struggled to stop himself shaking as he explained how they had gone to visit Baba’s sister because she was sick. He said nothing about their lift in the bwana’s car. Instead he spoke about how the police had seized his uncle, and how they were looking for Gitau and Maina who were
escaping to the forest to become fighters. His mind was racing ahead, thinking what to say next, when Dreadlock interrupted impatiently.

‘So where is your father now?’

‘I was going to tell you. Those red hats are devils!’ Mugo cried. He wove his story of how the police guards had realized that Baba was Gitau’s father and trapped them at the location gate. When Baba tried to argue with them, they had detained him for questioning! In the end, Baba had insisted that Mugo go home without him. However, by the time he had reached the edge of town, he was worried that he wouldn’t make it before sunset. So he had hidden behind a shop building to sleep, then set off early this morning.

‘That is why you see me now. I am running home to tell my mother.’ Mugo forced himself to look from Longcoat to Dreadlock. It felt like a herd of buffaloes were stampeding inside him.

‘Let him go,’ said Dreadlock. Longcoat released his wrist. Dreadlock turned to Mugo. ‘I shall bring you to a meeting soon, Mugo, son of Kamau. I shall come for you myself. Be ready. You will follow your brother.’

‘Ndio,’ said Mugo. He knew what kind of meeting Dreadlock meant. He too should commit himself to
ithaka na wiyathi
.

‘Next time don’t be scared of the bush when it’s dark,’ said Longcoat. ‘Our ancestors walked here,
day and night. Only wazungu should be afraid.’

‘I hear you,’ said Mugo.

He said goodbye and ran for all he was worth. His hand slipped into his pocket. The note was still there and his fingers stroked the little elephant. If they had made him turn out his pockets, there would have been a very different story. By the time he dared to turn around, Dreadlock and Longcoat had disappeared. He prayed that they hadn’t gone along the road towards the gorge. If they discovered the truth, he would be in deep trouble. He had to tell Baba about his lies as soon as possible. He hoped Baba would understand. But what would Gitau think, if he knew? Would he say that Mugo should have told the Muhimu about the bwana’s car? The questions left him uneasy. He wanted to push them away but they lingered unhappily in a muddle of doubts and fears.

By the time Bwana Grayson’s gates were in sight, sweat was trickling from his skin and his stomach ached with hunger. He hadn’t eaten since he had been sick yesterday. It was still another couple of miles to the inspector bwana’s gates but he had to keep going.

He had almost exhausted himself when the shrill cries of an eagle made him alert again. It arced through the sky above him, disappeared and returned. It was circling. Was it expecting something? Waiting for him to drop? The inspector bwana’s
metal gates glimmered in the distance. Mugo heard his own panting. He was as loud as Duma when the red setter had run herself out. The soles of his feet smacked the ground, making the dust rise as he pushed himself on in a final burst.

Two frighteningly tall figures stood rooted behind the bars of the gate ahead. Each Turkana guard, wrapped in sun-bleached cotton against night-black skin, raised his rifle. Mugo heard the shout to halt and he tried to call out that he had a message. But he had no breath left and his words came out mangled like groans. He was falling, struggling to keep upright. One hand managed to grasp the gate. With the other, he dug into his pocket and pulled out the paper. He thrust it through the bars. Strong narrow fingers brushed his palm as the note was lifted away. Mugo closed his eyes and sank to his knees.

On their first evening back in school after the Christmas holidays, it was Lance who spread the story of Mathew’s night stranded in a gorge. Mathew would have preferred to forget it, but Lance had already collected a cluster of boys in pyjamas around Mathew’s bed in the dormitory to hear the full tale.

‘My dad wanted us to travel home in convoy, didn’t he, Mat?’

Mathew nodded, a little sheepish.

‘Did he have a premonition?’ asked one of the younger boys.

‘He’s not superstitious, idiot! It’s army training – all that stuff he did in Abyssinia – he knows about ambushes!’ Lance answered sharply. ‘That’s why he thought it was crazy when Mat’s dad said he was off to the location – giving a lift to his labour! You tell the next bit, Mat.’

There was no stopping Lance now. Mathew felt
himself blushing and tried to keep his account as short as possible, making the most of how his father had stationed himself outside the car to protect them. But the other boys had picked up on Lance’s tone.

‘Is your labour Kikuyu?’

‘Yes, but they weren’t just anyone from the labour lines. Kamau is Father’s syce and his son Mugo is our kitchen toto.’

‘Weren’t you scared they could be part of an ambush plot?’

‘Not every Kikuyu supports the Mau Mau, you know!’

‘If an attack started, they could have strangled you and your mother inside the car!’

‘How could they know where our car was going to break down?’ Mathew said irritably. ‘Anyway, we’ve known them for years.’

‘I think Lance’s dad is right. You can’t trust anyone these days,’ an older boy asserted. His comment stirred up a chorus.

‘How do these gangs get right into people’s lounges, if someone isn’t letting them in?’

‘A house servant let in the gang who killed the Meiklejohns!’

‘He’s charged with murder like the rest of them.’

‘What if the gang forced him to open up?’

‘Doesn’t matter because he still helped them.’

‘My dad locks our servants out of the house at six o’clock.’

‘Mine too!’

Lance’s face said ‘I told you so!’. Mathew was silent. When the flurry of voices died down, Lance continued the story. Inspector Smithers had closely questioned Mugo when he arrived with the SOS note. According to Lance, even the message might have been a ‘set-up’. Lance had plainly enjoyed being part of the rescue mission. But he kept his most dramatic voice for telling how, later that day, his dad with his own team of police guards had discovered a Mau Mau hideout in the same gorge less than half a mile away. There were signs that it had been freshly used.

‘Dead lucky that we didn’t find you all dead, hey, Mat?’

Lance’s words rang through the hushed dormitory. Mathew’s tongue was about to desert him, but Matron’s footsteps on the stairs and her call of ‘Lights out!’ saved him. Lance’s audience scattered and Mathew dived between his sheets, his face smarting.

A few weeks later, after a weekend home, Lance began intimating that he knew something that would really wake Mathew up. He said things like ‘If you saw what I’ve seen, you’d get the fright of your life…’ and ‘If your dad knew what my dad
knew…’ before adding, ‘But I can’t tell you, it’s secret…’ Lance’s comments drifted into Mathew’s head when he lay in bed at night. He began worrying about his parents on the farm. Josiah and Mugo usually didn’t leave the house until eight o’clock. What if a gang killed the guards at both the outer and inner security gates? Mathew couldn’t imagine Josiah willingly helping a Mau Mau gang. But what if someone got hold of Mercy and threatened to kill her if Josiah didn’t open up? Mathew wasn’t so sure what Josiah would do then. He was even less sure about Mugo. Since the night in the gorge, Mugo had hardly smiled. His eyes had seemed more distant. Whenever Mathew had asked if he would come out, whether it was to target bulbuls in the orchard, play cricket or even get ticks off Duma, Mugo had made an excuse even before Josiah could say anything. Mathew worried that something in Mugo had changed and he resolved to discuss it with his parents on his next visit home.