~~TUMAINI~~

As far as the eye could see, herds of wildlife congregated near misshapen baobabs and under flat-topped acacia. How many of these silly creatures were out there? Ten thousand? Fifty thousand? Perhaps, even five hundred thousand? What did it matter? It was already too many and, next year, close to a quarter of a million calves would be born, far more than the predators could eat and far more than the waterholes accommodate.

Tumaini brushed irritably at a fly seeking moisture in the corner of his eye.  Why did goddamn m’zungu think such senseless animals warranted exclusive usage of the land?  Land that belonged to God, not to the white man. The Governor’s latest offering would confine his people to areas too small to sustain them.  His people were well aware that it was nothing more than a British ploy to stamp out nomadism.  To turn the Maasai into worthless agriculturists and in the process effectively obliterate the role of olmurrani, warrior.

These British m’zungu had completely ignored the Maasai heritage of struggle as they fought to confiscate his people’s language and to take away their environment.  These m’zungu knew that annihilation was the surest weapon in making his people conform to imperialist ways; they had used this weapon for many centuries on many cultures.

A glint of sun on metal drew Tumaini’s attention to a cluster of nearby trees.  He saw five young men idly chatting beneath the sparse shade and began to feel a familiar sense of envy.  There was a time when he had been like them and, just like those ilmurran, warriors, he too had worn a shuka, hanging toga-style from his shoulder; his limbs smeared with clay and grease and his hair braided and rubbed red with ochre.

The fact that ilmurran spent long hours grooming themselves and adorning their bodies with a girlish vanity had not deterred him; he had felt only admiration, for he fully understood the brave heart of an olmurrani, warrior.

A burst of laughter from the men brought a rueful smile to Tumaini’s lips.  They were young and newly circumcised and he guessed their humour involved a woman.

As he watched the young men, memories began to sift like sand through his mind.  He once had been an olmurrani.  Had represented the Maasai people; his people.  Olmurrani were expected to embrace with pride the tests of endurance set by the elders.  Courage was of paramount importance, weakness never tolerated.  With the discipline of any modern army, young olmurrani were deployed by the elders to attack neighbouring tribes.  At night they would return triumphant to their manjata with the captured cattle and while away the hours of darkness dancing and making love to the young maidens of their tribe.

Except, it wasn’t like that anymore.  Nowadays, tests of stamina were the only thing the young warriors could participate in.  The game park officials forbade them to kill lion and fined them if they stole cattle.  Should they dare to attack a neighbouring tribe they would be thrown into jail by the local white commissioner.

What it boiled down to was that ilmurran were no longer able to impress their age-mates or young maidens with their courage.  Instead, ilmurran whiled away the daylight hours in poetic recitations, ballads or war songs, as they recounted the bravery and escapades of past heroes.

Yet, for him, it had been different.  For that one year, before he had betrayed the brotherhood, he had led the life of a young god, roaming the plains with his age-mates in search of lions and adventure.  He had felt the adoration of the tribe, had held their hopes and their future firmly in his hands.

Then, everything had changed.  He was sent to a white man’s university.  In the eyes of his age-mates, he had become olashumpai orok, black European.  ‘You are tainted by olashumpai.  You no longer think like Maasai,’ his age-mates had taunted.  ‘You shrug off Maasai as degenerates, unable to meet your “white levels” of conduct’.

It could not have been further from the truth. It was not his choice to attend the university and their alienation had affected him deeply.  Age-mates built manjatas together.  Fought as a unit.  Married. Shared everything,.. even wives.  That was the way it was… had always been; for as long as the Maasai had been.

The contempt of his fellow ilmurran - his age-set – the men initiated with him – returned to Tumaini in a searing flash of agony and slamming his fist into the jagged rock behind him, he felt his skin tear and pain rush up his arm.  Blood dripped from his knuckles as he reminded himself that the opinion of his age-mates had changed radically of late. That nowadays, rather than condemning him as a traitor, he was, in fact, respected for his tenacity.

As so often happened, when his thoughts turned to the past, he saw her face, began to drown in her liquid brown eyes, felt her soft breath fan his face, and the memory of her dung and wattle hut stabbed at him with a deep longing.  Cocooned in the billowing smoke that hid the half-light of evening, she would kneel on her mat honouring him.  She, matriarch of the tribe, revered and feared by all.

While the others of his tribe danced or drank mead around the communal fire, his grandmother’s softly spoken words commanded his attention.  ‘You will hunt like the leopard, my little chui. You will be a shadow stalking them in the forests.  Like rushes in the wind, their weapons will bend useless against you. The Slave Masters will lie in their beds wakeful and afraid, listening for your soft footfall.  They will not hear you or know when you come.’

So often, sitting like that in her hut, he had resented her importunate demands.  Felt that she burdened him with a responsibility too heavy for his young shoulders.  At times, his eyes would focus on his father drinking and smoking contentedly around the fire with the other men and he would yearn for that same freedom.  But, she would see the look and her voice softly wove its magic spell, drawing him back, her tone light as the evening breeze.

‘He is not the one, my little chui.’ He was just the means by which my little leopard was born.  Remember always, oloiboni kitok, great prophet Mbatiany.  How he told of pink people riding iron rhinoceros.  How they would kick our people down and no matter how brave or how strong, our warriors would not rise.  But, now you have been given to us and through you they will rise.’

Yes, he knew all about that; had heard her say it many times.  Yet, it was not the prophecies of the great Mbatiany that concerned him but her prophecy for him.  Tumaini, means “Hope”, she said.  ‘Your blood is like two mighty rivers that flow with the ancestral spirits of our two tribes.  It is as the great prophet Mbatiany foretold. You, my little leopard, have the bravery of a lion, will be wiser than the hawk and will fight with a leopard’s cunning.  Your wisdom will be taken from those you are destined to destroy.’

Tumaini’s thoughts returned to the present and his features folded into an ominous scowl.  The continual loss of communal land for olng’esherilmurran would eventually force the Maasai into becoming mere farmers.  No longer would they be a proud warrior race.  Or worse, for those young Maasai who lacked the education to do “white” jobs, they would end up guarding the herds of other tribes or be forced to become watchmen for the Arab and Indian businesses in the towns. A lack of olng’esherilmurran and other ceremonies would eventually have the Maasai believing their past to be a fruitless waste of spiritual and tribal non-achievement.

The droning of an engine had Tumaini shading his eyes as he peered into the diamond-bright sky above.  At first, he saw only a bank of cumulonimbus.  Then he spotted it on the outer fringe of the monstrous cloud.  With a force many a white schoolboy would have envied, he spat his disgust at the great ndege, leaving a shiny trail of spittle a good twelve feet away.  This was followed by a loud snort, not dissimilar to an enraged zebra.  Whilst no longer superstitiously afraid of “metal birds”, having flown, many times, in recent years, to Scotland, Ireland, the Middle East, Europe, and Asia, he still viewed most planes as a symbol of the white man’s dominance over his kind.

‘Goddamn white man,’ he muttered irritably.   Raising a clenched fist, Tumaini shouted to the young men under the trees, ‘Uhuru – freedom, my people.’

Satyagraha had been Gandhi’s way, but passive resistance was not a warrior trait.  Not in his eyes and these young men knew it.  On hearing his voice they raised their spears and shields towards the rock face on which he stood.  Saluting him, they shouted back, ‘Uhuru – freedom.’

The sound of a small pebble bouncing across the ledge sent a prickling sensation down Tumaini’s spine.  His calf muscles immediately tensed and bending slightly he swung towards the rock wall ready to defend himself.

He saw a body drop the last few feet from the vertical wall of the escarpment, the knees bent to take the impact. The man straightened, dusted off his hands, and looked at Tumaini.  ‘Touching.  Most touching,’ he murmured.

Tumaini shook his head in admiration.  ‘You not only look like a baboon but I see you also climb like a baboon,’ he growled.

A broad smile eclipsed the man’s face.  ‘Orang-utan.  I keep telling you baboons are brown, orang-utans are orange, like me.’

Tumaini let out an appreciate chuckle, for it was very close to the truth.  Compared to his own sylphlike build, chiselled features and well-defined jaw, the Irishman could not have been more opposite with his arctic blue eyes, wild flaming red hair, pockmarked face and unseemly long arms that hung like a chimpanzee’s from his muscular body.

‘You were deep in thought.  Admiring your kingdom, my friend?’

Tumaini glanced upwards.  ‘On my return to Africa, I watched those European bastards looking on this unspoiled land with greed in their eyes.  I saw moisture break out on their brow, for they saw not a country inhabited by the black man but a gold nugget for their taking.’

‘For sure they did, boyo.  Have I not told ye the English sons of Cain will return to revenge ye people… as they did mine?’

Tumaini nodded gloomily.  ‘If m’zungu Cain could slay his own brother, he will think nothing of doing that to my people too.’

‘For sure he will and no less than he did te mine.  Ye can be sure of that.’

Tumaini turned to stare out over the plains, a deep frown rippling his forehead.  Then the frown cleared and he said softly, ‘”The successful pursuit of a people’s war must have popular support and be carried out over a great extent of broken, inaccessible terrain”.’

Patrick sighed with pleasure.  ‘Ah… von Clausewitz’s treatise On War. We have the terrain, my friend, when do we get the men?’

‘Ahmad hopes to confirm their arrival in six days.’

‘A shipment of arms too, he promised me.  Men without the arsenal is of little use to me.’

‘I believe the armament will arrive on the same ship.’

The Irishman frowned.  ‘It leaves me little time to train them.  I have told ye we cannot go into this unprepared.’

‘I am told they are already highly trained … for just this purpose.’

There was a snort of disgust.  ‘Most Arabs, I know, are highly trained in how to splatter a hillside with AK-47 bullets.  That’s about the extent of it. They think if they shoot enough of the god-damn things they are bound to hit something.  That is not good enough.  These men will be up against the best.  Against Special Services people specifically and thoroughly trained in counter-insurgency.  I need men who can fight with their brains not just their balls.  If they have one but not the other I’m not sure I’ll be willing to go ahead.  I’ll not risk my life for a bunch of fools.’

A dangerous light flared in Tumaini’s eyes, then it was gone and he gave Patrick one of his rare, sweeping smiles.  ‘In three months, Patrick, a very important man takes his Christmas break.  He believes he is coming to his Shangri-La.  It is for you and I to make sure it is not the paradise he is expecting.’

The Irishman gave a vicious whoop and punched the air with his fist.  ‘Most surely you are right, my friend.  That is what we are here for.’

Tumaini’s gaze locked onto Patrick’s.  ‘Don’t mess it up, Aaron.’

Patrick noted the deliberate use of his alias; a name well known to MI5.  He smiled with all the Irish charm he could muster.  ‘Do not fret, black brother.  Money gains entry into inaccessible places and turns many a white soul black… no offence.’

‘Better a black soul than a white traitorous heart,’ retorted Tumaini, his eyes glinting.

Patrick’s smile broadened.  ‘Ye’re right.  When a commissioner of police is willing to line his pocket with gold it leaves a bitter taste in ones mouth and has me wondering who there is left to trust?’

‘Them, we can trust,’ Tumaini said with pride, indicating the warriors under the trees.  ‘They’ll not let us down.’

‘Trust no one, is my motto.  It prevents complacency.’  Seeing Tumaini about to snap back a reply, Patrick quickly pointed to a herd of Zebra grazing close to a sleeping lioness, her cubs curled up beside her under the branches of a dead tree.

‘Those Zebra presume that in the heat of the day the lioness has no desire to hunt.  Men make presumptions like that all the time.  It’s what gets ‘em killed.’

Tumaini nodded slowly.  ‘St Claire said a similar thing.’

Patrick grimaced.  ‘I have my doubts about that hunter, so I do.’

Tumaini’s eyes raked the other man’s face sharply.  ‘Don’t be tempted into anything stupid, Patrick.  We cannot do it without him.’

There was a burst of laughter from the Irishman. ‘Don’t tell me that after all these years and all our escapades, ye still have ye doubts about me, brother?’

Tumaini’s face relaxed and he slowly shook his head.  Their friendship went back many years.  Patrick had been sent to Edinburgh to sever him from the influence of his communist friends in Ireland.  Tumaini was sent by a grandmother who believed that in order to rid their country of the white man he needed to think like olashumpai.  Where she obtained the money to educate him at such an expensive university was a closely guarded secret, one which she had never revealed.

A shared hatred of the British had brought them together, along with Joe Singana, now one of the wealthiest black doctor’s in South Africa.  Their motivation to “save” their respective countries was kick-started by an article, written by an 1840s revolutionary sect, known as The Young Ireland Group (YIG).  What they read had them eagerly seeking other insurrectionary articles, not only in the Edinburgh University library but also in the National Library of Dublin, which they visited at every opportunity.

“Change is not possible through constitutional means”, was the YIG war cry.  “Put an end to the charade of negotiation”, their slogan.

Post University, Joseph Singana had succeeded in becoming president-general of the largest non-white opposition group in South Africa.  Patrick had trained as an élite SAS commando – it was that or jail, he later told them.  Now, highly trained, Patrick was widely sought after by dissident armies for his expertise and marksmanship.

Tumaini knew his own achievements to be equally as impressive.  Channelling his abundant energy into a scheme of this magnitude had brought the young Maasai warriors a sense of worth… well, almost, if it were not for one white m’zungu.

The name seeped into his thoughts like pus from an open wound and a dark scowl eclipsed Tumaini’s features.  Not pus, he decided, but the fly that settles on the pus, bringing with it germs capable of causing disease and eventual blindness.  He had never known an insect so hard to get rid of or one that infected his men with such despondency.

‘This m’zungu,’ they wailed, ‘he is a white man protected by the gods’. The gods protect no white man, he had raged at them.

‘What burns you up so, my friend?’

Tumaini ground out Trevenen’s name through clenched teeth.

‘Ahhh…,’ Patrick nodded.  ‘What ye want me te do abot him?’

Ignoring the expensive watch on his wrist, Tumaini glanced up at the sun and did a quick calculation.  ‘Do not worry about the Bwana Trevenen,’ he said grimly.  ‘Half an hour ago he has landed his plane.  Now, he is on his motorbike headed for his farm…’ a rare smile twitched at the corners of Tumaini’s mouth, ‘…but he will not arrive.

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Chapter 2….

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