Chapter 18

Hell broke loose at two in the morning.

Mary Graves had been sleeping but Henderson had been out, on account of the imaginary hyena he could feel prowling about when he slept. He burst into Mary's tent in a frightful state. Pale, cold, with dry lips, and a look of despair, his whole body agitated by an imperceptible quiver and an unprecedented occurrence, and said to Mary, with hunted eyes but a firm voice:

"It began." He levelled her. "It began."

"Who?"

"Gerbrandy."

"Tendaji?"

"We don't know."

"He's a traitor, in their eyes. They'll know."

"So—"

"Where's van t'Sand?"

"If she hasn't woken, still in her tent."

"Wake her up." Mary struggled with her boots. "I'll get Silva and Bates. Jackson will join Leigh, Cools, and Wilson in the Minerva."

"McBryne and Canmore?"

"How old's Canmore?"

"Twenty-two."

Mary took up the Remingtons from their scabbard. "McByrne's with us. Canmore in the Minerva."

Henderson nodded, and then stepped out, only just calling back: "Charles—?"

"He'll be awake."

They parted ways. In the abyss of the night, the sounds of violence were indistinct and loud. Far too loud. Chaos reigned. Bates had awoken. He stood, leaning heavily on his cane and looking resigned, as Mary ran past. A certain melancholy had perpetrated his carefully maintained facade of joviality and he stood now, neither smiling or joking, in bitter contemplation. Then he rose his head from where he had been staring at the ground, and continued down the tents.

The once serene wadis had transformed into a theater of war, where life and death danced their brutal waltz. The distant fires cast dancing shadows upon the ground, stretching its reach like bony fingers of the Grim Reaper himself.

Silva and Jackson were still sleeping. Mary Graves got them both out of their cot, and, handing him one of the Remingtons, sent Jackson to join the kids.

"Be silent." She told him. "And be on your guard. I will see you tomorrow morning. There is a road that leads down to Lokichar. You know it from when we first arrived here. If worst comes to pass, follow it to Eldoret and from there to Nairobi," she placed a hand on the back of his neck and bade him to make eye contact, "keep them well. Make contact with the embassy and ask for Frederik Hayes. Name myself and Henderson." And now she pushed him onwards, and bade him to go to the heavyweight truck.

Fires had risen up from Gerbrandy's main encampment. Cries were distant, and singular. The smoke rose.

Yellow and black.

Mary reared back when the realisation forced itself into her consciousness, and was consequently struck, with an overwhelming sense of horror.

Yellow and black.

Rodrigo Silva, running beside her, a hounded look in his eyes and oversensitive to her every move, halted and otherwise regarded her uncomprehending. Nailed to the ground and worried and panting.

Yellow and black.

The explosion threw them against the cabin they used as outhouse. Silva took the brunt of the fall. It had been a distant discharge; still the smell of ammonium was overwhelming, and the air coloured ocher.

Mary scrambled upright, ears ringing, heart beating, pulling Silva along by the shirt. His elbows lay open, and he favoured his left leg, but he was otherwise alert and well.

Jacques Henderson was at the natural protrusion that separated their encampment from Gerbrandy's. McBryne and van t' Sand had moved to the angled roof of the kitchen, but a little distance from where Mary now knelt by the ledge of rock. Bates was rooting through the squat heavy-duty coffer. A cartridge belt lay at his feet. Charles was at his side, kneeling in the sand and watching the fires spreading. He was voiceless, tearless, but there had never been anything on his mind which he had not also on his countenance, and Mary hurt to see the raw acceptance now wash over her husband.

Silva fell to his haunches beside Bates. He was handed a rifle, and the young man held the long weapon with shaking hands.

Jacques Henderson's eyes had steeled over, and the ever present good-natured affinity of the man had retreated to the background. His jaw was set. His back was straight.

"Did they sent someone?" He asked Bates.

"Tendaji's man passed by not three minutes ago. The insurgents got the headquarters surrounded and the labourers locked in their barracks. They put fire to the barracks. They are putting up a fight but they've got no weapons." And here Bates followed the rising ammonium cloud with his eyes, "what the hell's Gerbrandy been using ammonium nitrate for?"

Mary grunted. "Any strays yet?"

"No." Henderson spoke.

"You see that outlet?"

Henderson followed her gaze and nodded.

"How long do you figure?" Mary said.

"Two minutes."

"You got anything?"

"Not much."

"In total?"

"Eleven."

Mary checked her own cartridges. "Eight."

Bates listened to their exchange. Attentive, mute, ready to weigh in, but otherwise silent. Mary thought him to be on the verge of speaking several times, but the man remained kneeling two paces away from them, and did not verbally react when Henderson and Mary Graves moved away. The older man then put a heavy hand between Silva's trembling shoulder blades and held it there for several seconds. Then he shouldered his weapon. And waited. Eyes fixed into the dark. Refusing to look into the distant fires.

Jacques Henderson and Mary Graves had gone and seated themselves, rifles in hand, near the outlet. They no longer addressed each other, they listened, seeking to catch even the faintest and most distant sounds.

All this was accomplished without immediate haste, with that strange and threatening gravity which precedes engagements. The fires made it impossible for their eyes to attune to the dark and Mary watched without seeing, simply listening. Adrenaline roared in her chest. And the violence with which she ground down her teeth nearly destroyed them.

The acrid and stifling smoke rose higher.

A sound, faint at first, then precise, then heavy and sonorous, approached slowly, without halt, without intermission, with a tranquil and terrible continuity, against the backdrop of chaos and violence.

Then a pause ensued.

Both Henderson and Graves held their breath.

A flash reddened the barren rocks as though the door of a furnace had been flung open, and hastily closed again. A fearful detonation burst forth. Dust and rock razed down. The discharge had been violent and dense, and it had crumbled the rock.

Sand fell down upon them. Henderson held in a cough with difficulty, and Mary bit in the fabric of her sleeve to the same goal. The impression produced by this first discharge had been freezing. The attack rough, and of a nature to inspire reflection in the boldest.

Mary relaxed her jaw. Breathed out. And took aim.

The cry that resounded was darkly satisfying. And once more the sand rained down upon them. Henderson shoved his elbow between her ribs.

Mary nodded.

They moved.

❧

The man was a silent one. He was slightly built, with a runners physique and long muscle. His hair was worn longer than was traditional, and he moved as if he had acquired the nightly vision of one of the great African cats. His breath was slow. His mouth determined. His gaze strong. Out of the dark, the outline of the heavyset Minerva cleared up. The orange light from within was telling, and the hushed voices were evident to one who listened as keenly as the man did.

He marched on the truck with his eyes fixed.

Jackson had in his arms the Remington, and levelled it resolutely at the man, and fired. No discharge followed. The gun had not been loaded.

"Waingereza! Englishmen!" Cried the man, aiming his weapon.

He had hardly uttered this word, when he felt a hand laid on his shoulder with the great weight of a mother bear's paw, and he heard a rough voice saying to him:—

"On your knees."

The man turned round and saw before him Bates' cold, ashen face. He had seized the man's collar, pleated necklace, and cartridge belt with his left hand. His pistol lay where skull met neck.

"On your knees!" Bates repeated with hard coldness. "I know you understand me. On your knees."

The command executed, he grasped the man by the hair, as the latter coiled himself into a ball at his knees. Bates growled, and placed the muzzle of his pistol to his ear.

"Turn away." He commanded of the young people in the truck, but did not look to see whether they followed his order.

Three turned aside their heads. Two did not.

An explosion was heard, the man fell to the dirt face downwards.

❧

Three times Jacques Henderson and Mary Graves moved and reloaded in silence. Three times Jacques Henderson and Mary Graves each shot twice. Three times a cry filled the air.

Then, all at once, a thundering noise was heard, the rumbling of engines: —the sound of heavy machinery.

Henderson turned in the direction whence the roaring sound proceeded. Mary did not.

"They are here." Henderson spoke. It was sufficient. And Mary let her head hang and her jaw relax. Her heart still beat wildly, and the adrenaline would not let her rest. But her mind was clear. And her stomach at ease.

"Grigg has them from the back." Henderson said, face twisted. It was, if Mary were inclined to morbidity, like a rictus.

They kneeled, and listened.

The 11th division of the KAR fell upon the insurgents with the vindication and blindness of the Greek Themis. Brute force and order where there had once been chaos and anarchy. Hours passed, each one a lifetime within the smoky haze of battle. The torrent raged on. And Mary and Henderson waited and listened, as the night ended in blood and the smell of cartridges and the cries of retreat and surrender.

The fate of many labourers would be unknown till morning. Mobs, certainly frightened mobs, are like an avalanche, and collect as they torrent along, a throng of tumultuous people. These people did not ask each other where they were going. Among the mob, men, women, and children, were all treated equally. Those that faltered and fell were trotted upon upon. And those that fled did so blindly.

Most would survive the night.

Those that did not were near unrecognisable.