Echoes From a Distant Land (49 page)

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 space 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 God. 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 space 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.

13 D
ECEMBER
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 …'

This book is a work of fiction. Many of its events are historically accurate, but all characters are fictitious 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 attitudes 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.

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 assistance 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 assistance 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 assistance in matters of period dress.

Ms Wangari Maathai for her recollections of a Kikuyu childhood in her memoir,
Unbowed.

Mr Ian Johnson, formerly an employee of East African Airways, for his assistance 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.