12/11/2022
Our rest cut short, we had to move on again, this time to the Nyana Hills. Exhausted, we spent a brief night there before being urged on again by the General. If we were to expect safety we must consult Roda, he ordered. Covering the fifteen miles to her house took us five hours. She followed the familiar routine, tapping s***f into her left hand and rolling it with her right forefinger as she started to speak. "Things are going from bad to worse . . ." she began. She broke off. "There’s someone coming." Three minutes later the Hika Hika group, once the command of General China, arrived. Roda began again. "Things are getting worse. We must not forget to pray to Ngai. We must have committed a bad sin and Ngai is angry with us. You must all go to Nyamindi River, in Embu, to give a sacrifice to appease Ngai so that he will forgive us. If this isn’t done within three days our losses will be even greater."
We left some time after midnight to start the long journey to Embu. The day's march which followed left everyone exhausted. Even General Tanganyika was bowed with fatigue. He agreed to a rest and we sat down in the bush. "How far to go?" I asked. "We aren’t even halfway," he yawned, arching his shoulders to ease his weariness. I returned to the men and told them what the General had said. The news that we had even further to go depressed every one. At the end of thirty minutes rest the question "did Roda really mean that the sacrifice could only be made at Nyamindi?" was being asked by everyone. Our men were so utterly exhausted that in the end they flatly refused to go any further, even for the trusted Roda and against the orders of General Tanganyika. "A sacrifice can be made anywhere," the General was told. "We can stay here until the bombing ends and the planes go for good," another shouted. "Let them come! We aren’t afraid," said a third. The General, as tired as any one of us, agreed to hold a sacrifice on the spot and we made camp. That was the first time that I ever saw the General revoke Roda's instructions but he had no choice. We were all utterly exhausted. To go further was impossible. A fat ram given by some local people was slaughtered for Ngai by one of our men, Mugo Karanja, considered the most suitable for this task, and the only one allowed to burn the meat under a big mugumo tree. It was believed that no one with a scar on his body was allowed to touch such a ram or Ngai would refuse the gesture and not recognise the sacrifice.
Signs that the sacrifice had been unsuccessful were not long in coming. The next morning twenty-four aircraft bombed the Mount Kenya forest, selecting as a major target the camp site we had evacuated a few days earlier. We watched as the bombers, twelve of them bigger than we had seen before, made their runs, passing backwards and forwards in the distance, while the blast and crump of the detonations thundered and rolled over the countryside, and dust hung in the air above the shattered trees. Roda's words came back to us. We had no indication of our losses in the forest but we believed in the forgiveness of Ngai and felt that we, in our new camp, were safe—for the moment.
But food was hard to come by at our camp in the outermost reserves of Embu District, where millet was the principal crop. I went with General Tanganyika to a meeting of our leaders the next afternoon, to hear complaints from all directions about hunger. Many threatened that if nothing was done they would leave. The decision was made to return to Muthea Forest, where food was plentiful and readily available. Now that we knew where we were heading we moved fast. By 8.00 p.m. that same day, we had covered the thirty miles to Muthea and immediately, sent twenty-six of our men to bring in food from the reserves. We waited, starving. Five hours passed, then ten hours, and still no sign of them. The next day dawned, and by evening they had still not returned. General Tanganyika urged our men to stick together but two of the youngest left, vowing that they would be back before any of the twenty-six. They were. They returned within three hours carrying two big bunches of bananas. Immediately everyone except the General became very friendly with the boys, in the hope of getting at least one banana.
Some ate their share raw. Others lit small fires to roast them. At that moment one of the twenty-six walked wearily into the camp. We rushed forward to see the others following, all weighed down with huge loads. The roasting banana forgotten, their packs were hurriedly opened. There was beef, mutton, potatoes, ripe bananas which needed no roasting, chickens, arrowroot and maize, enough to keep us going for a week. As the food was cooked we sat around the fires, eyes fixed on the meat slowly cooking, our mouths watering.
I was one of the next foraging party sent out a week later. It was a Monday afternoon and all of us, as we pushed our way through the thick undergrowth of the forest, were glad to be out of camp. A few yards from the road dividing the reserves from the forest we took up positions, waiting for dusk when it would be safer to travel in the open. We heard voices. Then a number of police rounded a corner. It was too good an opportunity to miss. The guns crashed out. Taken completely by surprise some of them started to flee. The better trained among them flung themselves down as their officer, wearing khaki trousers and an army jacket, tried to organise a defence. Before they could return our fire in any volume more than half of them were wounded. The action was short-lived. Almost at once they scrambled to their feet and ran back down the road. As usual, we did not follow. Dusk was now falling. We started south, reached the reserves where we collected everything we thought we would need, and were back in camp by 8.30 next morning.
That same evening those in camp were shaken out of their lethargy by some hard words from General Tanganyika. We had grown idle and slovenly, he told us. On his orders we formed three groups and prepared immediately for offensive action. Two groups were to go to the reserves, in different directions. The third was to patrol the forest. All were to liaise with the General at Ciamirungu. For the first time since starting for Embu, I did not go with Tanganyika. My group was bound for Kaibii. From there, laden with food and provisions we had collected, we made for Ciamirungu. After three days General Ndungu’s group arrived, then the third group, arriving at the same time as General Tanganyika. With so many men to feed, the food we had collected went nowhere. It was finished on the fourth day.
It was at this time that I had my first experience of boobytraps, and of the spine-tingling experience of disarming them. From our network of informers came word that the government soldiers had laid trip-wires on many of the forest trails which they suspected we used. It was vital for our communications that these paths be cleared. With ten others I was ordered to find these booby-traps, disarm the gr***des and bring them back to the camp from where, in due course, they would be used against the men who had laid them.
Moving slowly, one foot placed carefully in front of the other, I scanned every leaf, every blade of grass, for the tell-tale line. One false step, one clumsy move and there would be at least one victim—myself. I dared not take my eyes off the path. Something gleamed for an instant in front of my foot. Then I saw it. The tiny wire stretched away from me. Other wires were spread around, like the spokes of a wheel. In the middle, cleverly camouflaged, I saw the pineapple shape of the gr***de. Gingerly my fingers closed round it. The wires were unhooked one by one. I grasped the gr***de firmly and started the work of dismantling it. After a nerve racking three minutes the bomb, now safe, was dropped into my pocket. My first one done!
War In The Forest
Kiboi Muriithi (General Kamwana), 1971.
