CHAPTER ONE

1

"Go to hell! You ain't gonna christen me! I grew a beard long before you!" That is Jackson Kabuthu addressing me. He is simply called Jack by his few friends. He has only a handful of friends; me included. Jack is always telling me to go to hell. I think one of these fine days I'll make a tour of the place. I'll ask Jack the way. Jack is again always reminding me the time he grew a beard. That is long before me, but he has never bothered to tell me exactly when. I think he has forgotten. He is very absent-minded ... always forgetting this and that.

With his constant friend, 'Mr. Hangover', the bangs and clangs at the workshop, it is no wonder that Jack forgets a lot of things so easily.

I also forget things, easily. Take Rose, for example, my only girl-friend. I don't quite remember when she had her last flow and I am feeling in a tumbling mood now. I am afraid of asking her because she has told me repeatedly that that is one of the silly questions that men should avoid asking. So what? I'll ask her, all the same. If she tells me it's silly, but then removes her pants, I will easily forget the insult and consume the goods. Sweet, oh sweet; my Rose. But I am not suggesting that you do a bed-test with her. Oh no! That would earn you a black eye from my fist.

Jack is among my few friends—Rose aside. When I say a friend, I mean a faithful friend. Like him, I have very few friends. Guys don't like me because, as they say, I am a bit too rough, especially after a drink.

Right now, Jack is stroking his beard and giving me the most terrifying look he can manufacture with his eyes, nose, mouth and, of course, beard. I have just been preaching to him on the evils of drinking but Jack is not a person to be told what to do and what not to do. Not by me anyhow. I guess if he were told by a woman to stop drinking for two days at the end of which he would be allowed a lay.

he would go through the two days a teetotaller just to show 'love'. He can really love a woman, so much so as to help her remove her pants when he wants a lay. He loves lays and drinks like nothing else.

I also love women. The two of us are real bird-chasers. Don't have any funny ideas about us, though. We don't remove one another's pants like I hear some guys do.

Last night, Jack came to my house and asked me to accompany him to Wananchi Bar. He had two pounds that he wanted to do away with. Two pounds of dough that could afford some few Tuskers and White Caps. We went to this bar and Jack ordered two beers. We swallowed those as soon as they were opened and Jack ordered some more which again soon disappeared. More and more and we were getting juiced. Then came the inevitable. Women. Two came in ; had a look around and then perched their arses on the stools at the counter. They ordered Cokes and Jack told me that, by their looks, they could do with a beer each but maybe they did not have the money. Jack is always sympathising with these women. He beckoned the waiter and told her to go and serve the two 'ladies' with the drinks they preferred and foward the bill to our table. That was immediately done and the women took Guiness and soda. They were also 'kind' enough to join us at our table.

After some more drinks. Jack suggested that we move out of the bar and look for another as we had been in that one for too long. After some weak protestations, the women agreed and we moved to Malaika Bar.

A few more drinks and a new face entered. He just walked to our tabic and yanked the girl, the girl Jack had an eye on, on to her feet. We were all silent.

1 hen the intruder opened his mouth: "I can't go looking for you all over Nakuru like you are my wife or father while you are just here prostituting to mugs what 1 claim to be mine!" He would have done

himself a favour if he had not made the mistake of calling Jack a mug. Mug! And Jack hates the word like you would hate a boil on your scrotum!

All eyes in the bar were focussed on us. I guess some trouble lovers were wondering what action we would take. I felt insulted alright but before 1 could plan my line of action, Jack acted.

He deliberately rose to his feet and politely asked the guy to withdraw the remark 'mug', or face it, but the guy was not in an apologising mood. He simply dragged the woman from right in front of our eyes and was heading for the door when Jack, in four hurried steps reached them, pulled the girl free and gave the guy a stunning blow right between the eyes. The guy fell, but not before Jack had landed a horse-kick right between his falling thighs.

There was no official announcement that war was on but within seconds of the guy falling, a bottle flew over my head missing me by inches and exploded against the wall. I was looking for the source of the missile when a punch landed on my right ear and threw me over the table to the floor. I got up, and the nearest boozer to me received my vengeance punch on his nose. Everybody seemed to be taking on everybody else and the situation was getting out of hand.

Then the bastard smashed the light bulb. Darkness—Jesus! I couldn't see a thing. I had to get out of the place. But where was the way? Someone was screaming while others overturned tables and chairs. Objects were wheezing past my head. I ran one way and hit the wall full-length. I groped in the darkness and found the window. I tried to escape but the bloody thing was wired. Noise, screams, bangs, clangs, howls and yells were competing. The bar-room was like hell. The only thing that was ringing in my ears was 'Get out—get out'.

Then there was the sound of a whistle. The cops! They had arrived. We were in for one hell of a night. In a cooler! Someone flashed a torch and I saw the door. Just a short glimpse and I made for it. No kidding. I did not care whether the cops shot at me or not but I beat them to it. I shot out through the door. Freedom! 1 ran like mad ignoring all the shouts at me to stop. I ran all the way home. Once in to my house, I bolted the door, jumped into bed, panting. I did not care where my friend Jack was.

For the whole of today, I have been expecting the cops to come for their interrogation but, fortunately, they have not come. I spent a very nervous day at the workshop. Here at home, I am jumpy and have got to peep through the key-hole every time there is a knock on my door. I even skipped lunch. I would not like to eat while going to the copper yard. I might puke in the 'bed' there. There is a smell there that you cannot compare to anything else. Not even the stench from the sewage cleansing works.

Jack, however, ate his lunch and swallowed a beer after that. He was not worried about anything. Last night he was not arrested and so, he does not care whether he was in the bar or not, when the fight was going on. He has just come and told me that, since those two women had drunk our beer, we should go out and look for them, so that they may 'pay' for the beer. He is convinced that the girl he had wanted had fully fallen for him and is sure that she also would be looking for him. When I ask him what place we should start looking for them, he suggests Malaika Bar. Malaika? The place we wrecked last night? Jack is not worried that we created a distrubance and so much property was destroyed in the place. He is again not scared that the cops will most likely be lurking around the place, looking for us and so it should be best that we lie low until the heat is off. Jack is a beast sometimes. He has this lousy mentality about self-defence that one day will lead him to the dock—on a charge of murder. He has told me that we were merely 'defending our honour'. No man has the right to call another a mug. Jack has gone further and told me that, if I don't go with him, he will go alone and will not speak to me any more. That's him alright. He is always sending me to Coventry; then he forgets! He is so forgetful.

One day, when he was drunk, he forgot to unbutton his trousers while pissing and after he had made a mess of himself, he unbuttoned the trousers for his prick to dry. But again he forgot to button up when the prick was dry.

Jack and I come from the same place. Maybe this accounts for our behaviour. I am a mechanic and so is Jack. We are both employed by an Asian. A pink-faced, onion-eating cheat. His name is Premji. He is the owner, manager, and all the other proprietory titles, of Premji Auto Garage. We repair all kinds of motor appliances and sell all kinds of spare parts. Some are new while others are old. Some of the used ones are, of course, stolen but that is not our bother.

I am a Grade II Mechanic while Jack is a Grade I. By all rights, Jack is supposed to get a higher pay than me but the blighter does not get a cent above me. This Premji does not care what Government Trade Test one has passed. He employs you as a mechanic and as a mechanic you are paid. Since I am single, I am supposed to be better off but then, I am not. Jack is cheated alright. When he budgets his wife's pants, I bugdet nothing and yet, when he complains that he is broke, I do the same.

. When the finances are low and the demands at home rise, Jack ruefully laments why he ever got married. He then tells me that if women were like cars, he would be very happy because you can run a car when you have the money and when you do not, all you do is park it somewhere and wait for money. But women are not cars. Neither can they hibernate at given intervals—say between 5th and 25th of each month—as he would wish and then wake up only when the financial doldrums have been passed. I sure sympathise with him.

"Fred, I am telling you this for the last time. We either go together or I go alone and if I go alone, don't say hello to me any more," Jack again. He calls me 'Fred' when he wants me to do something in his favour. I like it when people call me Fred. You see Fred sounds like friend and I love friendship. I'd give anything to be your friend especially if you would buy me a drink if you are a man or allow me a lay, if you are a woman. I love beer and women. I don't know what I would do without them. I am a stinking addict of the two.

"Okay, big boy," I assent, "we shall go but meanwhile, why don't you spray that beard of yours with some kind of insecticide, the way you keep stroking it... you might be having mites for all I know. The miguu sita, you know . . ."

"Miguu sita or miguu nane, I don't care, let's go!" He insists. When he learns that you are softening to his request, he tries to make out that, all along, you really had no choice but to concede and toe his line. He at such times talks like a teacher in front of a standard one class. If he tells them that two plus two is three, the poor children have no alternative but to agree.

We start our walk to Malaika Bar. We are friendly again, but I am looking hither and thither in case a cop decides to jump on us. Jack is telling me how he escaped the coppers last night.

The cops had barred the door for everyone. They were now in charge of the exit, taking down people's names and addresses. Jack was simply left out when the names were read out outside the bar. Those whose names were taken were shephered into a waiting police van and driven off. Jack looked for the two women but they must have gone before the police arrived. So, Jack walked home, a free man.

We cautiously enter Malaika Bar and call for two beers. The waitress delivers them to us without taking any particular interest in us. The other few mugs who are here and at the counter don't even seem to see us. The atmosphere is very friendly today except that my heart is beating faster than normal. I am afraid that the cops might arrive any time and, well... We finish our beer and we go on and on with the next and the next. As the beers sink into me, I also discard the fear of the police. After all, I muse, cells are made for men.

Sure as hell, at around 22.30 hrs., the two women we lost last night just walk in. They head straight for our table and I am about to tell them to go and look for other company some place else when Jack beams and is already on his feet.

"Welcome dears," he says, "I hope all was well with you last night. Sit here. Hey. waiter! bring these ladies a drink!"

Sometimes Jack is too fast, even for me. I only have my mouth open as 1 shake the girls' hands. Jack has the situation like he had rehearsed it before.

"So what happened°" he is asking them. "1 tried to look for you immediately after the commotion but you were nowhere to be seen."

I left him several months ago on account of cheating me. Then the fool had the guts to come and announce our love—in a bar! And really, I have nothing to do with him!" she concludes.

"Well, I hope he learnt his lesson last night and will not interfere today, otherwise, he might land himself in a ditch too deep to climb out." That's Jack's reassurance. I wish I could believe him.

After a few drinks, we are wise and move out. Not towards another bar but towards home. My home, where I have two beds, one for Jack and one for me. I don't need to tell you what we do there.

When I have almost exhausted myself, I start thinking of the life that I am living. I live one hell of a life. I don't think of the future. I live for today only. When I look back at the past, I hate myself. Who am I, and what am I living for anyway?

I remember that both my parents are poor and needy and that I am the one who is supposed to fend for them. It is not written anywhere but then, I am their only living child. My parents were poor even when I was a small child. They had only two children: me and my small sister who got herself drowned at the age of eight. I was ten then. She drowned in Gura River when she was trying to retrieve her only nylon dress from the savage waters.

I recall that day very vividly. My father had just come home from a week's manual labour he had gone to do somewhere and he had brought us a bar of some hard blue soap. We did not ask him where he had gone to and he did not volunteer to tell us. We had been a whole week without soap. So, when this one was brought, we cut off a piece and ran towards the river.

On arrival, we jumped into the water, clothes and all and swam for about twenty minutes. We were swimming just next to the banks because there were some very unfriendly rapids at midstream. If you drifted towards the rapids, you would be a goner. For ever.

We cleaned our clothes, and put them on the granite rocks at the river bank to dry. Then we jumped into the river again, naked. We

knew no nakedness anyway. My sister had only a nylon dress and poor quality pants and a nylon petticoat. I had a khaki shirt and shorts just to stop my small balls from falling to the ground. We had cleaned all these.

After swimming for about an hour, a cursed wind blew. I saw my sister's dress fly over our heads and being blown towards the middle of the river. I shouted to her that her dress was going and, at the same time, swam towards it hoping to catch it. My sister followed me. I had not noticed the rapids until I was right in their midst. I was tossed and rolled over. I dreadfully realised where I was and the only thought that came to me was how to get out of the waters.

I frantically tried to swim towards the bank but was making no progress at all. The waters had me and I was completely helpless in their midst. I was sucked under and twirled helplessly until I surfaced again, having swallowed about five mug-fuls of the evil water. Then, I banged against a stone and held there. 1 pulled myself onto the stone and panic gripped me. Where was my sister? Where? I turned this way and that way and what I saw was just the savage waters swirling and twirling around me. I also could not get out. I was right in the middle of the river and the waters looked wilder than I had ever seen them.

I started calling my sister in the loudest yell I could make but 1 guess she could not hear me above the roar of the waters. Then I started screaming and calling Mum and Dad to come and rescue me but, apparently, no one heard me. Maybe they thought we were having a swell time at the river. I shouted until I was hoarse and then decided that if I kept quiet and prayed silently to God, He would hear me. I did just that but my sister did not appear. I started crying.

1 staved perched on that stone until dark. That's when I heard a voice calling my name from very far. 1 shouted back and, the voice, which turned out to be my Mum's asked where I was.

"Here d-o-w-n!" I answered. Then I saw her silhoutte on the river bank She also saw me. "Where is Wairimu?" she asked. "I -er-don't -ei- know-mother please get me out of here!" 1 begged and started crying again. Crying because 1 knew 1 was going to be blamed for all

that had happened simply because I was older than my sister; and now I was right in the middle of the river and Mum could not get me out. She did not know how to swim. "What happened and where is Wairimu?" she asked me. "Mother please, take me out of here, I am feeling very cold," I wailed. "We were swimming and she got drowned!", I said through tears.

"What?" Mum asked as she tried to put her right foot into the river. The particular place was deep and her leg sank up to the knee without touching the river bed and I shouted; "Mum—watch out! That place is too deep for you".

I could not see her face but could hear her voice muttering something like "... God ... why? ... what?. .. why?" Then she raised her voice, "When did this happen?" and although I had no sense of time, I told her it happened 'a long time ago'.

"Okay, you stay right where you are while I go and fetch your Dad", and she left me. I looked around at the rolling waters and the darkness that was closing in fast. I could feel the cold getting right into my marrow but I could not do anything except shiver, sneeze and feel like the most miserably wretched creature on earth. I just wept and wept and wept.

Then she came back with Dad, and by then, I had exhausted my tears and was just whimpering away the seconds and minutes. Dad threw a rope end at me which I grabbed with both hands and I was towed back onto the bank, and safety. But when I stood next to Mum, she slapped me. That triggered off another stream of tears. I wanted to cry anyway. I wanted to speak through tears because 1 could not trust my mouth to tell all that had happened.

After I explained what I thought had happened, we went to where we had left our clothes and I struggled into mine. We picked sister's pants and petticoat and walked home. I was shivering and snee/tng and I knew too well that I had caught a cold.

We arrived at home. Home, where maybe Dad would skin me alive. But, Dad left us and went to look for his two friendly neighbours and they went to the river again. They were going to try and comb the banks with a hope of finding my sister. They carried

torches and Mum also went with them. I was left at home alone, to face myself. I reconstructed all that had gone on at the river and concluded that wherever my sister was, she was either dead or dying. There was some food on a plate by the hearth-stone but I did not touch it. 1 could not eat when my sister was not there. I just folded my legs and slept right there in the kitchen

Mum and Dad did not return that night. They spent the whole night combing the banks for either my sister or her body, but they did not trace her. They did not even trace the nylon dress that had caused the whole mishap. They came home at around 0900 hrs the following day and when I saw them, I started crying again. 1 expected Dad to beat me to death. If he believed, like Mum did, that I was the one responsible for sister's disappearance, then I knew I was in for some hiding with that bamboo cane that he kept under his bed.

When he came to me, I wanted to run away but on looking closely at his eyes, and noticing that they were wet, I stood my ground. He asked me in a very distant voice whether anything had happened in the night and 1 told him that all had been well. I asked him whether they had traced my sister and he answered in a single word: "No". Mum asked me whether 1 had eaten anything and when I told her, "No", she held my hand, led me to the kitchen and gave me food. It was a difficult process—eating, because I had a lump in my throat and try as I would, I could not swallow it. Mum was crying and cursing. I was almost surprised because none of them blamed me for what had happened. It was a feeling of relief, so intense that I thought it was not comfortable.

Mum was trembling all over. She must have been feeling hit so much It was a wound that could not be fully healed. Death is forever. Death is never amended or simplified. When you die, you are dead. Maybe you will be lucky to go to the place they call heaven but that is neither here nor there. You are dead and that is all there is, to me.

I he scaieh tor nn sister lasted two weeks. Two long and painful weeks that left Mum looking ten years older; Dad—a wreck, and me, as thin and shaky as a reed 1 hey were two weeks that taught me that we human beings arc \cr> tond of the dead and hate the living.

Each morning, Dad and Mum accompanied by scores of others would set out for the river, stay there the whole day, combing every inch of the cursed bank and coming back each evening, more sorrowful than they were when they left in the morning. People I had not even seen before would come and help in the search. Our home which was usually dead asleep by nine at night would be awake until past midnight and on some nights, when the searchers had come from very far, we would sit until morning, with only the talk of the rivers and drownings. People who usually chased me from their shambas when we went to steal oranges would come and hold my hand in the most sympathetic and loving way. All this sympathy added to my tears and I formed a habit of going to hide behind the house every time some new faces came. This world is funny. I experienced some ups and downs during the two weeks. But still there was nothing. Neither my sister nor her body was found. Not even the nylon dress.

One evening, when the search had been abandoned, we were sitting around the fire. There was me, Dad and Mum and one neighbour. We had just had supper and I was dozing but not feeling in a mood to go to bed. Dad was tense and pulling his moustache this way and that. Then he started talking. He was addressing God:

"God, you gave me these two children and I have been trying to look after them in my very poor state. Why did you take one away? Why didn't you allow me to stay with them, poor as I am? What have I done to you to deserve such a severe punishment? Oh God, God, God". He was beating his chest and his eyes were closed. Then he started weeping and gnashing his teeth. Mum and the neighbour followed suit, and I was.the last one to cry with a loud wail. I w as v er\ unhappy.

Each night, in dreams, 1 was seeing her. With her innocent face and timid eyes. In one particular dream, we were chasing butterflies and she was faster than me. I tried to get her but she ran ahead of me. Then we came to a river. She was running on the water and was not sinking. She kept running on it and she was calling me to follow her. but I was refusing 1 started walking baek home, but she called me

back and said that she knew of a place across the river where there were some very beautiful flowers; and urged me to accompany her and see for myself. I refused to get into the river but then she held me and started dragging me towards the waters. I was scared stiff but too weak for her. When we got in the waters, I started sinking and she was laughing at me. I screamed ... and woke myself up. I was panting and sweating, like a pig. Mum asked me what it was and I pretended to be dead asleep. I shelved that dream in my memory and prayed that it should continue some day, but it never recurred.

CHAPTER TWO

At the age of twelve, Dad decided that I should start going to school. The school fee was not very high those days and, if he continually got the manual labour that he was doing, he could afford the money.

I joined the village primary school and the change from my daily routine of looking after our one cow to going to school each weekday was both exciting and taxing. I was bought new khaki shorts, a shirt and a vest. The first Monday morning when I put the clothes on, I eyed myself in the mirror and I felt so excited that I had to wink at the shaven head that gaped at me in the mirror.

I was escorted to the school by Dad and, on arrival, we went to the Headmaster's office where several parents were standing, waiting to go in and pay fees for their children.

There were so many children of different sizes and colours and I felt very small and scared in their midst. Some were laughing and chasing one another around the flower beds and when one big boy came to me and said hello, I lost my voice and just gaped at him. He looked at me contemptuously, spat at my feet and pinched my nose before running away towards other children who were playing foot ball with ?.n orange.

I touched my nose, where the brute had squeezed and felt some wetness. At first, I thought it was blood but felt both relieved and ashamed when I noticed that it was only mucus and tears. I decided that I would tell Dad of the episode but abandoned the idea when I realized that I would not be able to pinpoint the bully brute from among the hundreds of khaki-clad brats in the school compound.

Dad came out of the Headmaster's office smilling and holding a pink printed piece of paper—the fees receipt—which neither he nor I could read. He told me that he had paid my fees and that he hoped that I would benefit from the sacrifice. Then, he left me and went home. I felt desperately lost without him or Mum around me. It was

only through sheer strain that I did not run after him and return home to the cow-herd routine.

The Headmaster, a brown tall man with a bald patch on his pate, wearing a gaunt face with a whiskery moustache, his height well-slid in a dark brown suit, a white shirt and a string tie, emerged from his office flanked by liutenants, a horde of some seven men and three women in different colourful drapes. They stood outside the office. A hush fell among us even without anyone telling us to keep quiet. The Headmaster cleared his throat and placed a large file in front of his eyes.

"Except the children who have arrived today", he said "I want the rest of you to go to your classes and wait for your teachers there. If any of you makes noise, the prefects will note the names down and, you don't need to be reminded of what will happen to such people."

There were a few giggles from among the girls as the children tripped to their classes.

The Headmaster and the teachers then gazed at the miserable crowd that was left. We looked like drowned rats. Long, thin arms and legs and hobnobbed heads with funny ears and vacant but hopeful faces. The lot that had taken up arms against illiteracy.

The Headmaster smiled at us. A very welcome and re-assuring smile, especially for me.

"Good morning, children," he said in a loud baritone. A voice completely different from the one he had used while sending the other children to their classes. He was answered by a few giggles and titters from a few of us. I held my breath.

Undaunted, he waved his right hand to cover the whole bunch of us, saying: "You have now started school. I am glad that you have come and I wish even your brothers and sisters who are of school age but were left at home were here. My first word to you is, 'Welcome'. I hope that you will gain something from the teachers here and that none of you will be braving the cold to come here each morning and go home each evening without gaining a thing.

"These, here," he continued, facing the teachers, "will be your teachers. 1 will tell you their names so that when you want to speak to

them, you will not refer to them as 'Hey, you'." There was more giggling and even the teachers smiled. "Immediately on my left, here, is Mister Elijah Muthama. He is my deputy and also the school Geography Master, but you will not need him until you reach Standard Three.

"Next to him is Miss Rosemary Wanjiru. She is the English teacher for Standards One to Four and is also the Standard One mistress." On and on he went but after introducing Miss Rosemary Wanjiru I did not follow on to the others. I allowed my eyes to pore over Wanjiru.

She looked very small and young. She had long braided hair and a round innocent face. She looked like she would be sorry to hurt anyone. I immediately developed very intense liking for her. The Headmaster was still running his monologue: "You will be told about the basic rules about attendance at school, cleanliness and lessons, etc by your class mistress.

"Meanwhile, you will be shown your class by Miss Wanjiru and I hope that you will obey her. Once again, welcome." Somewhere behind me, a child started clapping hands and we all clapped our cold hands loudly.

Miss Wanjiru took us to a class and seated us two at each desk. She did this calmly and with a perpetual smile on her lips. Then she left us in the class and went away.

We had a chance to look at one another. Most of my classmates were complete strangers to me but there were a few faces which I could swear to have seen before. My deskmate was a total stranger, a tiny girl who shuffled her feet and bit her fingernails when I stared at her.

"What is your name?" I whispered. She looked at me warily and then hid her face in her hands, tittering. Just then Miss Wanjiru came back to the class, holding a bundle of exercise books both red and

green covered. Then, she issued us with two books each—a red one and a green one, a pencil and a rubber.

"Open the red books," she said in a soft sweet voice, and we all obeyed. 1 looked at mine and it had feint-ruled squares. "That is your Arithmetic book. Now, if you close it and open the green one, you will notice that it is ruled and not squared; and that is your handwriting lessons book. The pencil will be your sole writing implement until Standard Three, when you can use ink-pens. The rubber is to erase mistakes." My deskmate had started gnawing at her pencil.

"These books should be kept clean and tidy and, if anyone tears his or hers, they will be punished severely. You will also take the greatest care that you do not lose them, or the pencil or the rubber that I have issued to you. Is that clearly understood?" she paused and we all said, "Yeees!" as she walked out.

The day dragged on and by eleven I was so hungry I would have given away my exercise books for a meal. We had done no lessons and the atmosphere in the classroom had been so tense that I was still unaware of my deskmate's name. I had not asked her again.

At about 12.30 hrs, Miss Wanjiru came back to the class and told us that we could go home and report the following morning. I was already on my feet, ready to run home and even before she had left the class she noticed me. She smiled at me and asked me: "What's your name?" and I started trembling. I could not even speak. My deskmate was giggling again and that kind of gave me some courage. How can such a tiny girl laugh at me? So I told Miss Wanjiru my name and even my Dad's name. She walked over to me, patted me on the head and that very touch re-assured me so much that I felt that, given Miss Wanjiru, I would do without Mum or Dad. "Don't be afraid of me, okay?" she soothed me and I nodded my assent.

When I got home from school, I showed both Mum and Dad the books, pencil and rubber. I also told them about the wonderful teacher I had met. Mum told me that 1 should exploit her kindness by extracting e\ery bit o\ book knowledge that Miss Wanjiru could spare for me I hen. Mum presented me with a khaki bag for my books.

The weekdays were monotonously routine. I would be roused at about 0600 hrs, wash my face and have a hurried cup of tea, strap my school bag over my shoulder and half-run-half-walk all the way to school; do my lessons and enjoy the P.E. lessons more than Arithmetic and go home at 12.30 hrs. I was hopefully looking forward to weekends when I would not need to rise at 0600 hrs and would spend the day looking after our cow.

At home, I would boast about my lesson and put extra emphasis on the P.E. lessons which Dad sagely described as laxatives when the brain was tired of other lessons. I should not give P.E. lessons priority. I acceded. I tried as much as I could to put more effort into book lessons and less in P.E. lessons. My young brain was porous and I could absorb the lessons without much difficulty.

It was always my pleasure to stand in front of the class while other pupils clapped their hands for me, after the teacher declared me number one in a test. I was the smallest in the class and when the big boys threatened that they would beat me, I always told them to try and beat me on the pen and paper game, but I would not dirty my hands fighting fists. Anyway, it was not dirtying my hands that I did not want but some of the boys could knock off my teeth with one blow. I had to keep away from them when we were going home especially after a hand-clapping session.

Each evening, Mum would hold me in her arms and beg me to take all my intellect, plus that of my sister and put it together. She would beg me to put all efforts into education so that our poor unknown home could one day grow big and known. Then she would lead me to bed. I would sleep. I would sleep and dream that our home was multi-floored and Mum and Dad were in beautiful clothes and that we ate meat every day. Such dreams made me very happy.

Life in primary school was hardly anything to talk about. You went to school in the morning, did your lessons and came back home in the evening. The girls were there and yet not there. They were for the big boys. The big boys were the ones who followed the girls to the toilets. I don't know what they did inside there, but each time a boy and a girl did that, they came out about five minutes later, running in

different directions. Later in the class, the girl would not raise her eyes to the teacher and the boy could not answer any questions put to him. What they did must have a very bad effect and so I did not want it. I came there to learn and would do just that. I would learn and fulfil the promise I had given Mum and Dad.

I sat for and passed Kenya Preliminary Examination very well. I was among the first lot to receive invitation letters to a government-aided secondary school. I was invited to Kiangoma Day Secondary School. There were some hostels, but they were for the children of the rich. There was a separate payment for the hostels. My first term school fees were obtained through donations from friends and relatives and, needless to say, if there was any remainder, it was being reserved for my next term. I had to take a twelve-mile journey each day. Six miles going in the morning and six miles in the evening. The journey was long and I was wearing my heels flat, fast. I don't know how many kilometres I was making since the metric system was still unheard of then; but I don't even know why I did not become a national walking champion. Maybe it's because nobody was timing me. I was wearing my heels because I had no shoes. They were a costly luxury which a poor farmer's son could not afford.

Life for first formers at Kiangoma was not very pleasant. The Form Two boys, calling themselves 'Seniors' called us'Monos'. And they believed that we had no feelings whatsoever and that, unlike them, we were created like mules. Monos were there for the sole pleasure and amusement of their masters, the seniors, anytime, anvu here. I hey believed this like a piece of Gospel. They would force us to Clean their uniforms; hard khaki uniforms. They would wait until lunch break and then gather us into one hostel and do all the abominable things that one could think of. They would insult, beat, spit on, pinch, kick and torture us in any way they wished to. You name it. and they were doing it. After cleaning about ten khakis of

shorts one would be left to nurse one's aching biceps, if not bleeding knuckles.

I remember this one very obese mono, who was forced to run round the hostel naked. On account of his obesity, the seniors had doubted his sex and wanted to see the organs, just to ascertain. Then he was forced to run, with his shrunk prick hitting both thighs, alternatively. The seniors were laughing. Laughing like monkeys, or was it like hyenas? But we, the other monos were quiet. In fact we were sweating. We did not know who would be the next one to run round the hostel, naked. Me, I was thin. Very thin indeed, but you never could tell. If the seniors were deriving pleasure out of a fat mono running round the building, there was no reason why they should not want to see how a thin one would run. After that, the seniors would promise us a drink in the evening. But as I was a day-scholar, I did not have to wait for their drink.

Every evening, at home, I would take out a book and bury myself in it, revising all that I had learnt during the day. I did not go out to where some other boys went; but they were telling me some funny things that they did to girls.

At the end of the first term, I got a shock. I was not at the top of my class as I used to be in primary school. I was number six. Six! Gosh! Even without going with the other boys to do the funny things to the girls! I had to put more time in study. I could not believe that I had slackened my pace so fast.

When Dad asked me what number I was, I at first thought of telling him a lie, but then my integrity prevailed and 1 honestly told him the truth. Number six! He gasped, looked a the clouds above, and asked why I had "deteriorated so much"? I told him that most of the lessons had assignments which required references to books that were only available at the school library. I explained that we were allowed access to the library only after normal lessons in the afternoon and as I was a day-scholar, I could not afford the time for evening references and as such I had to be content with teachers' lectures. He shook his head in sympathy and promised that he was going to do all that was in his ability to see to it that I got what the

other children were getting. Meanwhile, he advised me to dig deeper into the available text books. And, that's exactly what I did. I dug deeper into study.

At the beginning of the second term, Dad was able to afford my hostel fees. I did not know where he had got the money from until I saw some people fencing the lower part of our small piece of land. Dad have sold it to them. I could not believe it and so I asked him. He sadly told me that he had sold it so that I might not get too tired each day going to and coming back from school. He told me that he had sacrificed it so that I could learn comfortably, pass my examinations, get a good job and re-buy the same land from those people. It was no joke. The rich bought the lower part. The part that bordered the river. The river that had swallowed my sister. Really, I wished they would all drown.

The proceeds from the sale of the land furnished me with the requirements for the hostelers. Besides the cash payments, I was required to buy myself a bed, a mattress, two blankets, a pillow and a pair of sheets. I accompanied Dad on this shopping tour and we selected all the items from among the cheaper ones on display in the dukas. I was bought a 2'/2-f° ot banco bed and a 2 1 / 2 -inch foam mattress. The blankets and sheets were of the same low quality but they did the job that was envisaged.

On the opening day of the second term, I was escorted to school like royalty. There was Mum carrying the bundle that comprised my bed and mattress while Dad carried my wooden box, full of clothes and books as 1 carried the lighter piece of luggage—a carton in which were my blanket and sheets. A neighbour had also consented to accompany us to the school so that he could see for himself, the institute which taught children of the village how to speak English like Englishmen. We trekked the six miles and, on arrival, Mum could not but declare that the journey was the main cause of my retardation in the class.

As we entered the school compound, there was the usual hullabaloo created by students on such occasions—just like monkeys trooping back into the forest after a successful raid on an unprotected shamba.

A few seniors were glaring at me enviously and hostilely as we entered the hostel; and one of them forbade me to make my bed before I was properly allocated a place by the school captain. So I kept my belongings at the extreme corner of the hostel and then escorted Mum and Dad and the neighbour to the gate; but no sooner had they waved me good-bye than I felt my heart sink. The few remarks I had heard from the seniors around the hostel had already scared me. At least I realized I was still a mono.

I wasted a good number of minutes with the gate-keeper before gaining enough courage to brave the short, yet long walk back to the hostel.

For monos, the hostels meant much more than just buildings with several beds inside. It was like living in a cobra's hole, expecting venom any time. The seniors had more amusement in the night than during the day. They wouW-give us the drink that they had promised during the day. Brine. A very sweet drink for a cow or a heathen goat. Bitter, salty brine. Brine that was served in big mugs. They told us that since most of us were young and capable of wetting our beds, they were giving us brine so that such 'accidents' may not occur. We would be made to sit on our beds each evening and the brine administrator would come to each of us individually. He would force us to swallow a full mug and this normally left us vomitting or crying for water. Water that we wouldn't get.

After the brine ceremony, they would pour water in our beds and then force us to go to sleep, in the wet beds- and cover our heads with our blankets. Then, they would pass by the beds and we would receive strokes of the cane, ranging from one to ten. Then they would pull the lower part of our folding beds and the beds would collapse and they would laugh, and tell us that they were taking us to 'Kampala'. We got so much of this that I felt like lea\ iag the hostels and becoming a day scholar once again. But then there was this

twelve mile journey. God! What a nasty life!

One evening, a senior ordered me to accompany him to the shops. The shops were outside the school compound and there was this rule that we should not leave the compound after dusk, but when I pointed this to Waciira, he told me that I was too green to lecture him on what to do and what not to do. He even promised me a double ration of brine if I did not go with him. "The choice is yours," he told me. "You either come with me and miss the brine or stay behind and . . ." and he walked away. I stood there, hesitantly, considering the implications of the choices in that statement; and then, reluctantly walked after him. I felt awful, but walked on, a step or so behind him.

When we reached the gate, we found the watch-man and he stopped us. Waciira gave him some excuse that I was not too keen to hear and we were allowed out. And just a few yards from the gate, Waciira told me that I was going to buy him some cigarettes at the shops. I stopped abruptly on hearing that. He also stopped. Cigarettes! I wondered. Spend my money on cigarettes? Those damned sticks! The money I had, yes; because Dad used to spare me some five to ten shillings for my pocket money. But I never spent it on luxuries. I spent it sparingly and usually by the end of the term I used to have spent just about a half of it. But now. Well—I had two shillings in my pocket, and I was not ready to part with them. Two shillings; convertible to twenty ten-cent coins. No. Oh no! I would not part with them. Not even with a double or a treble ration of brine. They were my shillings and I was going to keep them; come what may!

Despite the protestations in my mind though, I didn't have the courage to tell Waciira so. "I haven't got the money," I told him, as I fumbled the coins in my pocket. I wanted to hold them tight in my hand lest they make any noise and betray me to this brute. But the damned silver pieces did it; and Waciira heard it. He heard the sound and went berserk. He jumped on me, swearing that a mono should never tell a lie to his senior in all his life and, before I could say 'Kiangoma', he slapped me so hard on the mouth that I thought I had lost some teeth There was a salty taste in my mouth. He gave me a

kick on my balls and I felt my prick shrink. But I thought quickly. Why did I deserve any kick—more so on my balls? I had not committed any crime. Was it an offence to defend myself from a robber, a person who, being my senior ought to have been coaching me on how to conduct myself in a secondary school rather than treating me like a slave?

I decided to take no more of this; and the pain in my mouth gave me the courage I needed to answer back to this intimidation. As if what he had done to me was not enough, Waciira came for a follow-up with his fists, but this time he met with some resistance. I whacked him with my-strength punch on the mouth and he thudded on his back on the road. He tried to get up fast, but I landed a kick on his balls and he crouched. Then he started to scream—screaming loudly, hoping that at least the watch-man would hear him, and come to his rescue. The watch-man did not come; maybe he didn't hear the scream or heard it and thought it must be a mono facing the routine music. Besides, even the watch-man could not expect a mono to have reversed the trend. And 1 also did not expect Waciira to scream in the first place; the way he had always led other seniors in torturing us had put him at nearly the top of the loathed gang. Was he this weak? I asked myself, as I tried to pull him up so that we could have a fair fight, but the bastard could not get up. I left him there, walked back to the gate, told the watch-man a lie and was allowed in.

But I couldn't go to the hostels. No. That would be tantamount to sliding the noose around my neck and only patiently waiting for Waciira or his fellow-torturers to come at will and pull the rope. I went straight to the Headmaster's house. I knocked on the door and, even before there was an answer, I was already inside. The Headmaster looked at me from his table and either was too slow in asking me what I wanted or was familiar with such surprise visits by monos, or I didn't give him the time to decide which words to use in finding out my problem. I looked him straight in the eyes and. without

mincing words, told him that I had been kicked on my balls and for all I knew, I was impotent. I also outlined the kind of life we were bemg forced through down at the hostels, exaggerating it so much I thought the Headmaster was just going to pick the phone and call the police immediately to come and carry out some investigations if not to arrest our oppressors. But 1 was wrong. He was only slightly moved by the story and told me that he would warn the seniors against such acts of indiscipline the following day and that, meanwhile, 1 "should go back to the hostel and sleep."

Sleep? Had I heard it clearly? What a teacher! A headmaster! Or was he half asleep while I told my story? How could I go to the hostel, where, at the time, Waciira might have mobilised all the seniors, and now lay in waiting or maybe looking for this mono who had dared to do the incredible? Sweat was oozing out from my forehead, my armpits, my back and beneath my pants. I wanted to ask the Headmaster whether he was sober and knew what he was asking me to do, but the question could not get through my vocal cords. A lump had blocked the way. He waved me out of his house, and I did step out of the house and shut the door behind me, cursing as I stealthily tried to lift each of my feet, putting one in front of the other, in well-calculated steps that took me to the hedge that surrounded the Headmaster's house.

1 stopped, stooped, detected no silhouttes of human beings, then straightened, pulled out my prick, pissed on the hedge and tried to remove the lump in my throat. I might need a clear throat for a big scream, I told myself, as I resumed the short, yet long walk to the . . . well, to the hostel'.' Yes and and no!

One thing made me go back to the hostel, though. I remembered that I never had a big brother and 1 had to fight my way through thick and thin and, it going back there meant death I would have to face it die lighting tor my rights

Back in the hostel. I found my beddings soaked, either with water or brine, and a note placed on the bed. It read: "You have struck a Senior with your cursed hand. Make sure you do not come here because when we get you, only the Lord may have mercy on you."

Well, how stupid! How would I have known they were hunting me down, without coming over and reading the note? Anyway, I tiptoed out of the place since I did not know when the intended threat would be implemented—whether in the night when I was already going through a dream or the following day before or after the Headmaster— himself a part of the torture system—had given his warning. Time was not in my favour either. I would have preferred to face the ordeal then, when I had the courage. But I couldn't. It was already 22.30 hrs and noise was strictly prohibited after 2200 hrs. And, as expected, every one else was in their beds—the seniors possibly wishing that if only the clock could be turned back were it for one hour, now that I was in; and fellow monos heaving sighs of relief, thanking the Lord for having had mercy on them and brought the hour to 2200, ending the day's brine session, and hoping that the following day would be a hastier one, the week—faster, and the term and year lifted off by a space vehicle, just to ensure they woke up in the not too distant future to find themselves in Form Two—the liberator of all Form Ones from the savage seniors.

Standing out there, at the entrace to the hostel, I realised that I was breaching hostel regulations and going back to the hostel was still 'another breach'—of a threat, but after pondering over the two, the regulations prevailed over the threat. So I tiptoed back, watching out for any possible pounce from the seniors, although some kept clearing their throats as I passed by their beds and even as I undressed while sitting on my wet bed. I removed my shoes, but my slippers were not there, under the bed and, as I scanned around for them, there was more throat clearing which was getting into my nerves. My heart was actually racing.

I decided to do without the damned slippers and continued to undress, but something stopped me. Something thudded heavily on my back. I turned with such quickness as might have scared the would-be attacker, but it turned out to be an old shoe, hurled at me from behind by one of the mugs. The source of the missile could not be located as the shapes of all the students while in their beds were all similar and as still as dummies.

The missile launcher must have been a coward, I told myself, as I picked the shoe and put it on the floor. But before I could resume my now-nearly-ceremonial undressing . . . another bang! This time a stone, landing right on my head! And the blow bruised my temple and started a tom-tom in my head. I couldn't wait for more. I rushed barefoot and reached outside before other two bangs-on the door behind me.

Out there, under the security light, I stood shaking with fright and rage, clenching my fists, wondering why most of the bad things on earth never happened at the right time. The duty-teacher ought to have been there then, to see it for himself, to confirm my story to the Headmaster, to facilitate the revelation of torture in the hostels. I stood there, hoping that some telepathy would work on him, but it didn't. Instead, a stray dog, on its usual nocturnal missions, came sniffing around the dustbins, turning them over in a bid to secure a bone, a bite, an item on its menu; but finding not much, it looked up, saw me, growled, but curled its tail between its hind legs and scampered into the shrubbery below the hostels. I watched it disappear into the shrubbery, wished it luck, and imagined I could fare as well if I walked behind it, into the bush. At least it was luckier than I. It didn't have to go to school to be eventually independent in life!

I wasted a good half an hour before finally making up my mind on what to do; and I, at last decided to go and wake up the cook. Maybe he could be of some help, I thought, as I walked through the lawns to his house. If the cook refused to accept me, I would join the watchman at the gate. What I was not going to do was to spend the night in the hostel receiving missiles from unkown sources.

1 knocked at the cook's door and he opened without hesitation. I entered, sat down and told him briefly what had happened. He understood my position and sympathised. At least he was better than the Headmaster. And he went on to tell me how he, and some other farm-hands, had tried to talk to the school captain about stopping the torturing initiation, but the captain had maintained that there was'monoism' in ever) school; that he had been a mono himself and received the same kind ot treatment, etc., that appeals to the school

administration had been fruitless and that any other approach to the subject had been met with stubbornness and so the cook and the other would-have-been liberators had despaired and hoped that things would sort themselves out and settle in time. A very hopeless hope by any standards, but considering who the anti-monoism advocates were, I felt they had probably done their best.

After our warm discussion the cook gave me some food and then allowed me to share his bed with him. I slept very soundly except for the few occasions in my sleep that a bug or a flea would startle me awake. And I dreamt most of the time. A wonderful dream I had; that the cook was our Headmaster and that the Headmaster was . . . not the cook, but rose flower, planted at the flower garden beside the hedge that surrounded the Headmaster's house; and that everytime I went around to see the now friendly Headmaster, I pissed on the rose flower on my way out of the house. But everytime I had pulled out my prick and aimed the jet on the highest petals, the Headmaster would call me back to the house. Oh! only to find that the call was being made by the bug or a flea.

Things did change and, I felt the hero of the day. My report to the Headmaster did not go unheeded; and we had peace for the rest of the year.

CHAPTER THREE

1

It is during the Christmas holidays and I am feeling fine. I will be away from hell for at least a month and a week. There is nothing like a transfer from hell to heaven. You ask anyone who has undergone such a transfer and they will confirm my words to the dot! I am at home with Mum and Dad and other young men and women who are also on their holidays. The atmosphere is so friendly around here. No one wants to hurt another and apologies for trifling wrongs are exaggerated. I was at number three in the terminals and Dad actually smiled at that, and then told me that he would like me to be number one always. I promised him that I would do my best and be just that.

I am feeling very highly educated. The other day, I told Mum in English to make tea for me and some friends who had come to see me; "Tea for three, Mother, I've visitors,"—those were my very words. She looked at me and then told me to repeat what I had said. She told me through laughter that she did not go to school and as such she did not understand the English language. I pitied her and said that there was still a chance for her. Mum smiled and told me that, if she by a miracle would be young like me again, she would study so hard that she would obtain all the academic degrees that there were in the world. Dad had the same view. I didn't argue with them.

It was during those holidays that I met Gladys. Gladys Muthoni. She was then a Form One student at TumuTumu Girl's School. She was a first former and as such I did not fear her so much.

I was scared of girls who were in higher classes than me. There was this one who was m Form Six and I dreaded her like death. I did not want to even go near her. I feared that I would contaminate her with m\ 'small' education One day, she-asked me to dance with her and I pretended that I was having a headache. When she asked me why I had gone to the ^\.\n<:K: hall knowing that I had a headache. I smiled stupid 1\ at her and she caught m\ hand and dragged me onto the dance floor It was a cold night but after onh two minutes of waltzing

I was sweating all over. I stepped on her toes as she tried this and that movement and at last she gave up. She patted me on the head, the way you pat a small dog and I felt absolutely a cad. From that day onwards, I kept out of her way, despite her seeking me diligently, especially during those dances.

Yeah, I was telling you about Gladys. I met her at one of those dances. They were being organised by a secondary school students' association, for the sole entertainment of and attendance by secondary school students. It was my third dance to attend but it was Gladys' first. I was getting used to hopping all over the dance floor, not caring whether I was taking the steps of rumba when the song was intended for waltzing or vice versa. On the contrary, Gladys was very nervous. I was dancing and generally feeling groovy and what have you. Then, I spotted her. She was all alone at a corner, just sitting and sipping a coke. She did not seem to be really drinking. It was like kissing the bottle because she did not seem to be swallowing anything after each kiss. I walked over to her.

"Good evening, miss," I said.

She looked at me, turned her head away and then continued kissing her bottle. She did not as much as answer my salutation. I wondered where I had gone wrong but then, I could not figure it out. I had to try once more. I don't usually give up the first time.

"I say, miss, care to dance with me, just one dance and then you can sit down again?" That was even more crude, but then, she res-pondend. Not positively anyway; but I just wanted her to open her mouth. I wanted to see what was inside those lips. I guessed she had gold in her mouth.

"I don't want to dance!" she said so fast and readily that I was not even able to see what I wanted to see.

"Why?" I asked. I was standing in front of her and I was feeling the first rays of embarrassment.

"Should there be a reason why?" She asked, her voice having an

edge. I started regretting my intrusion into other people's affairs but then, because I had started it all, I had to carry on, possibly to the end, sweet or bitter.

"Well, maybe, may I please sit next to you?" I begged. She looked at me, sipped her coke again, and moved sideways to make sitting room for me at her side on the bench. I sat down but made sure that we were not touching at all. She had finished her coke and placed the empty on the floor. The way she swallowed the last gulp made me feel thirsty.

"Tell you what, I will go and get two cokes, one for me and one for you and I think, as we drink, I might as well get to know you." I said. That was meant to save my face. I pactically knew zero of the proper procedure to approach a woman. The truth is, that was the very first girl I had asked for a dance. The previous two dances had been a success for me just because I had been asked to dance by the girls themselves.

I walked to the counter where, for the convenience of the dancers the students had organized a mini kiosk and had aptly named it "DARWIN'S CORNER" and then below that, in red letters, "SURVIVAL FOR THE RICHEST". They were selling soft drinks and cheap cakes and chocolates. As I was walking to the kiosk, my brain started calculating how much money I had and how much would remain after doing the purchases that I was intending to do. Dad, on this day, had given me five shillings and I had already used one for the gate fees. The sodas were at ninety cents each. Thus, two would cost me a shilling and eighty cents! The chocolates were fifty cents each and I was planning to buy two. So, after the purchases, I would remain with only one shilling and twenty cents! Poor pocket! Dad would not give me another five shillings if he would know how I was spending it.

When I went back to where the girl was sitting, another boy I knew was sitting just where I had been seated before but the silence surrounding the boy and the girl told me that the boy was also not making any progress at all. 4 felt relieved. It's good to fail on one thing but the whole situation turns sour if another person succeeds

where you have failed. The boy, on seeing me with the two cokes walked away. I offered one of the cokes to her but she declined saying: 'Tve had enough of cokes!"

"But. .. but..." 1 could not go on. What a peculiar woman! After all the sacrifice! 1 could not believe it. She was not looking at me. She was looking at a small note-book she held, completely oblivious of my presence. 1 was standing, flabbergasted, still with my peace offering in my hands. 1 looked like a sinner who had gone to confess but had found the confession priest out! Two or three minutes passed before she raised her eyes and seemed almost surprised to see me standing there. 1 also found my voice again.

"Just take it, please. It's not meant for any ill motive—it's just ..." I did not finish. I looked closely at her eyes and noticed that they were misty. Her lips started trembling and before I could querry the reason for the sadness, a tear rolled down her cheek from her right eye, followed by another from her left. Then she sobbed once.

"Please, go away, leave me alone!" she was waving her right hand at me. 1 at once changed from an offended suitor to a nursery school matron.

"What's wrong?" I asked frantically. The tears were then rolling freely down her cheeks.

Just then, Florence came to my rescue. Florence Murugi. She was another Form one girl that 1 knew. She was going to primary school with me and she was kind of friendly to me in a remote way.

"What is it, Fred? You two look unfriendly. Have you met Gladys before?" she asked looking friendly towards me but really being more concerned about the plight of her friend than about the previous coming-together. I started to lose my temper. I like to handle mustangs like Gladys alone. That way, when she finally removes her pants, I congratulate myself without having any thoughts that so and so helped me up the ladder. My successes on that line were few. \ er\ few indeed in practice.

"Nothing is amiss, Florence. We are just getting acquainted with ... what did you say her name was'"

"Gladys," the girl herself said and then hastily added: "we arc

alright." She had wiped the tears from her face and had undergone a complete change from a snivelling baby to a mature school-girl. I wanted to kiss her just for her words. She could have been another me who wants to work things out alone !

Florence hurriedly left us and was immediately swallowed by the dancing mob. I perched myself awkwardly on the bench next to this 'queen' because I still had the cokes and the chocolates in my hands. But one thing was certain: I was sure I would advance rather than retard.

"Well, Gladys, why are you so unhappy?" I asked not knowing whether that was the best form of opening a dialogue with a total stranger. She stretched her hand and I proffered the coke and chocolate to her. That settled one score. She looked at me, placed the coke on the floor but remained with the chocolate in her hand. Then she spoke.

"I would not say that I am really unhappy, but I am not in my happiest mood." She was smiling. "This is the first public dance that I have attended. I do not know how to dance. Now, you men have been pestering me all along to dance with you so that you may see how awkwardly I will dance and then tomorrow, you may have a joke to share with your friends. Isn't that so?" She asked matter-of-factly.

"Not really, let me tell you something," I said after a long pull of my coke I started unwrapping the chocolate eyeing her from the corner of my eye and saw that she was doing exactly the same. She was eyeing me furtively and unwrapping her chocolate! I felt a surge o! triumph in my chest.

"When 1 attended my very first dance here, 1 was also very nervous and, to tell you the truth, it was a girl who saved me. She took me to the floor and slowly told me how to follow the beats which I successfully did. You see. this is not a dancing competition and so there is hardly anybod) who is really interested in the way you dance. Do you see all these jovial guys jumping up and down here . . . 7" 1

\2

asked, waving a dismissing hand at the helter-skelter dancing mob, "None of them is really bothering to follow the beats. Their main idea is to relax their muscles and sweat. If you say you will step into the floor after 'you know how to dance', you never will!" I sounded philosophical even to myself.

"But. . . but—if you yourself do not know how to dance, then we are going to form a very clumsy couple." She giggled. "Besides, I am not in a dancing mood I have other problems. She sighed and once again, her face started to cloud. It was fascinating to watch the rapid changes on her face as mood after mood took effect.

"What other problems? Surely at your age, which I note is still under sixteen, you don't have such problems as can stop you from dancing when you are already in the hall?" I could not understand her. She was an enigma!

"I came here to get away from it all! To feel at least some freedom—I mean—just to free myself from the claustrophobia—you will not understand even if I try to tell you. I. . .

"No! No! Maybe I would understand. Besides, sharing a problem with a friend has been known to be a sure way towards solving it." I advised. I particularly used the word 'friend' to see how she would react. I was keenly observing her but she did not seem to have taken any particular note of the word.

Her eyes misted again. She opened her mouth to say something but then closed it again. Then she started weeping. Not yelling or howling all over the place, but a tear rolled down her young cheek. It was followed by another and then another. She was weeping alright. Shedding them goddamned tears. Something she had in her mind must have upset her so terribly. Or was it me? But, what I had said and done did not warrant any tears. She had accepted my coke and chocolate in what looked like good faith and I had just suggested that she open her heart for me. Surely weeping is not the best way to express one's problem. Or, maybe she wanted me to see the tears and guess the weight of the problem in her heart!

The tears were then joined by spasmodic heaving of her chest and choking sobs. I was moved. I was so moved that I felt a lump stuck fast in my throat. I was dumb.

Through her sobs, she slowly opened her cheap handbag, produced the small note-book again and threw a passing glance at some pages. Then she slowly closed it and replaced it in her handbag. She then raised her eyes at me and I immediately understood what she wanted. She wanted me to comfort her but then, where was I to start? I did not know what she was weeping for. She might have been weeping because she had missed her boy-friend at the dance and that would not be my funeral at all. She might have been weeping because she did not have a boy-friend but then . . . there I was! All she needed to say was, 'love me' and then I would have shown her how much I can love instead of weeping and whining and whimpering and snivelling and wetting her cheeks like a boy at his father's funeral.

She looked at me again and this time, she was a real pitiable sight. All around us, the other people were still dancing and generally forgetting that we—that is me and the girl—were in the hall. I wished I had not in the first place joined this mourner. I would have been among the dancers— utilizing my shilling! She looked at me and must have noticed that I was at sea and she gave me a cue:

"If you want love and you have none, you cry. If you have love and then you lose it, you cry too. Life is miserable but I wish—oh how I wish I knew! Look at me." She inclined her head towards me. "At my age, this is the first dance I have attended. My father is so ... 1 mean he does not think that I am even old enough to use hair oil." I automatically looked at her hair and noticed that her father's refusal to buy her hair oil had not been very effective. Her hair looked good enough to me She continued; "And here I am, not knowing where I am heading to or when to start heading where . . . !" She told me between sobs. She was at breaking point.

"Please stop crying. You are going to break your heart as well as mine." 1 told her. It was meant as a warning. If she continued shedding them goddamned tears, 1 was simply going to walk out on hei 1 was going to leave her at the mercy of Providence. At that age, I did not know how to go about solving problems or disputes between lathers and daughters

"\1\ heart is alread\ broken and if you know what love is, then you

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would share my sorrow—that is— if you love me.' 1 She whispered. Were my ears failing me or had I heard right? Did she say 'if you love me? 1 This is the evening of all evenings !!

"I love you but, please, look here. If you do not tell me what's making you cry, I simply cannot know by just looking at you. If I don't know the problem, then I would not possibly look for a solution. Please do tell me what's so adversely affecting your heart," I begged. My heart was beating twice as fast as normal. I had got myself a girl so easily. Trouble was, the girl I thought I had won over was just weeping. That's not love, by my standards.

"Please take me home, I can't bear it any more." She told me.

"Finish up your drink and then let us get going!" I urged her. I was not ready to waste another shilling just like that.

"Let's share it," she said. Then as abruptly as she had started, she stopped weeping and her face again brightened.

There was an interval in the dancing and everyone started looking for a place to rest their weary bones. Florence came galloping towards us but found us too busy. She shied away and we finished our drink.

We walked outside the hall and only a few paces from the door, she sat on her haunches and pissed. Just a foot from where I was standing. Gosh!! I started getting very uncomfortable. Then she pulled her pants up and released the waist band and the tap it make almost drove me crazy! Then we started our walk with my mind completely blank.

That is when she related her story to me. She told me how she had been repeatedly insulted by her girl-friends because she did not have a boy-friend and how it was not her wish to stay as she called it 'unloved' but no boy dared approach her for love or anything else. Her Dad was so cruel and had threatened to slit the throat of an> ho\ who would be found lolling around their home or u histling past the home. She was promised a severe beating it seen e\en walking with

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any boy except her brother. She had actually received several strokes of the cane when she had been seen handing a text book to a boy and the father had gone through the book, looking for Move letters' as he had said.

Going out of her home compound was strictly forbidden after six in the evening. It was lucky on that day because, as she informed me. her father had gone to see his brother in Nairobi. That was why she had been able to attend the dance. Her mother had promised her that her Dad would not know. Poor woman, she surmised, she also received a slap from the Mion of man' w hen she had tried to intervene during one of Gladys 1 beatings. 1 understood her plight.

When we got near her home, which was about two miles from the dance-hall. I asked her for a lav but she told me that she was in her k red days'. I informed her that 1 would not mind the redness but she insisted that it was unhygienic to do it then. She was mine and I could have her as many times as I wanted when the storm abated. 1 swallowed hard but did not argue any more.

When we reached her home, 1 told her that I would leave her .there because 1 did not want anything to happen to her: but 1 meant happen to me. But she assured me that my throat would not be slit because the old man was not in and further that her brother had on that da\ gone to see their aunt who lived in another village about ten miles from Gladys' home.

1 would have liked to hang around the place but then, there was still the journe\ home, my home to be undertaken by me alone.

1 did not even return to the dance-hall. 1 went home and slept. That night. 1 dreamt that I was laying Gladys and wetted myself terribly. 1 was always dreaming doing the act andwettmg myself every other night. 1 hardl\ laid an\ women and so it was satisfying to dream. Served m\ purpose. Shuts me!

I met Gladys on two othei occasions during that holiday, but I did not la) her. We were always meeting in awkward situations. Once, 1 met hei .it the shops She was with her mother. I just winked at her ami she winked in response. 1 he next time I met her. I was with my old man We were coming from Gakmdu. a bigger market town than

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my home trading centre. We had gone there to sell a goat so that the proceeds could be added to the little money Dad had, for my school and hostel fees. I did not as much as look at her. She was loving alright. She even sent me a Christimas gift; a coloured hanky, through Florence. I kissed the hanky and kept it in a very special place; my wooden box. I would go to the box while looking for anything and kiss it. It was to me a very special gift from a very special person.

She did not attend any other dance. I went to the dance-hall each time with a hope that she would be there but, I was constantly disappointed. I guess her father did not go to Nairobi again. I was so mad at him that I wished him dead!

CHAPTER FOUR

Back to school—back to books—to lessons! to timed wakings and sleepings! That is what I am saying as 1 am walking down this road with

my wooden box on my shoulder and a small carton in my hand. The holidays are over and though I felt them short—that is—they kind of ended before they began—I still have got to toe the line!

Back to brine? Ay; but not as a receiver because I am going to Form two now. But instead I will be a brine administrator. I wll make sure that those poor monos have it real rough and sour down their throats. It will be done in secret, of course, because all those initiation rites were banned after I had reported to the Headmaster. I had thought that he would not take any action but then I was wrong. That night, when I was talking to him, he must have been having a very cute girl that he was thinking about.

The following day, we were all assembled in the foot-ball field. The Headmaster warned the self-styled seniors that if any reports of 'monolisation' reached his ears, there would be no alternative but to send that 'senior' who had done it home,"... for an endless holiday." He went on to tell us that the institution was only a secondary school and not an Army training college. "Anyone who feels that he must fight is free to leave school and join the army or G.S. U." He closed his address with a glare that left us all quailing.

The senior were scowling but we, the monos were smiling. I wanted to go and shake the Headmaster's hand but then abandoned the idea because 1 did notjenow whether the seniors would heed his warning.

1 hrec days later, a senior was caught being carried 'pick-a-back' b\ a mono and was so unceremoniuslv expelled that monolisation died a sudden death.

No one evci touched us after that. Even my punishment was not meted out Of course there were verbal threats that they would do it, but the tune never came. 1 only experienced open hostilities in minor

incidents. One time my wet clothes were thrown from the drying line onto the dusty ground and I had to wash them again. On another, I found my Mathematics book crudely painted—a whole bottle of ink had been splashed through all the pages. On yet another occasion, I found my slippers cut to pieces. Very cowardly acts, I thought.

On arrival at school, there were the usual holiday stories that students tell. One tries to quieten the others by telling them how many new girl-friends he had acquired, and how many he had left high and dry. How many screws he managed etc, etc. Not to be left out, I told them the story of how I acquired Gladys and even showed them the hanky that she had given me. It convinced them.

Others declared that they were men—no longer boys—because they had been circumcised over the holidays while others doubted it, yet others went to the toilets to show the Thomases that they were really men.

As I was not yet circumcised, I changed the subject quickly, by asking them what they thought we should do to the monos when they arrived. There were many suggestions but they all led to one thing: pain to the monos.

We were still chatting and exchanging pleasantries when the first batch of monos arrived. They were unlucky. Very unlucky indeed.

"Monos!! Monos!! Come here!! You will be our horses tonight!! We shall circumcise all those who are not circumcised! We shall...!! We were running and shouting at them like vultures running towards a carcass. They wanted to run away but it was too late. We were on them! No more formalities—we pinched their ears and kicked their asses. We made them have one hell of a rough time. We were enjoying ourselves at the monos' expense when, wao! The headmaster's Volkswagen appeared at the corner—coming at full speed. There were very slim chances of running away but then, we all knew that he did not carry a gun. We all beat it. If he had recognised any particular

face, then, that person would have been in trouble. I ran all the way and hid in the shrubs below the hostel. No one could see me there. Most of the other boys were hiding there with me. No one was talking but you could hear the hearts of some pounding. Nasty situation to be caught in—that one! I crouched very low and listened. There was not a single sound except the songs of birds in the bushes, which had been temporarily halted by our hurried entry into the shrubbery.

Then, the sound of a car starting came to my ears and some of us sighed in relief while others still held their breaths. We waited until the sound had faded away and then, one by one, we raised our heads from our covers and cautiously walked towards the hostels.

As we learnt from some of the seniors, the monos did not complain of being terrorised. One of them had explained that we had just been welcoming them. Very wise of him. Anyway, the Headmaster had told them to report anything that they found irregular in the 'welcoming'.

That night, the monos who had arrived had it hot. We gave them all the torture that we ourselves had received from our seniors and even invented some new methods of 'initiation' which were more painful.

We invented a new game in which two monos of almost similar gait and strength woud take part in a fist fight in a fake arena. The one who would be beaten would receive a mug of brine while the victor would be slapped by a senior—whom he himself chose.

We also warned them that, if they reported these incidents to the Headmaster, they would be expelled. We convinced them that they were no longer primary school children and that, in every school, there were rules of initiation which were laid down by the school committee! We further told them that, in some other schools, the initiation was far much worse than what we were doing! Did they believe it or didn't they!! None dared report to the headmaster for fear of being expelled and so we had a nice time. Nice but short-lived. Everything that has a beginning must come to an end some time, and that includes school days.

On the second day of my second term in the second year, I was expelled from school. I beat up an epileptic mono and I was sent away. The Headmaster had stuck to his warning. Strictly no mercy for mono teasers. I went home. Not alone, of course. We were eight. We were real tough mono disciplinarians and we made sure that they suffered in our hands. We were eight mugs forming an extremist group calling itself'Mugg's Group'. The leader of the gang was a big bully named Mugugu and we had derived the name of the gang from his name.

The epileptic mono whom we beat without knowing he was epileptic had refused to clean the uniform of one of us and so justice had had to be meted out without delay! I had given him a slap that you could have heard from Nyeri, and he had fallen, tightened and started foaming at the mouth and farting foul gases. Me, I thought he was dying and the heroism I had felt while administering the 'justice' had rapidly turned from fear to dread.

You should have seen us. We scattered in all directions like locusts in the wind. We left the mono still lying there on the ground at the mercy of the other monos who had no idea what was happening to their friend. The matter reached the headmaster's ears and he summoned us all to his office.

The mono was able to identify us all, not without the help of the other monos and of course some unscrupulous seniors who would rather have cleaned their hands than be condemned with us.

We went to the Headmaster's office. He was very bitter about the incident. He told us that we were not even fit to live in this world, leave alone in that particular school. He called us human mistakes without putting it in so many words. Then, he expelled us. We had thought that there would be the usual sending us home to return with our parents, like he did when we went wrong before. We even thought that we would be given a chance to defend ourselves but this was not to be. There was only the refund of the caution money and then we waved bye-bye to Kiangoma secondary school.

I went home. I had to carry all my baggage, bed and mattress included because, as the Headmaster put it, he did not want anything that would remind him of us in the school. The load was too heavy for me and I had to leave the beddings at a house which was just outside the school compound, to be collected later.

The headmaster had killed me. Really, what kind of job woud I get with the amount of education I had?

On arrival at home, I told Dad a lie. I told him only some truth about the epileptic mono but when it came to the role I had played, 1 said that it was some other boys who had done it but tr^at the victim had picked on me just because of the colour of my skin. I went further and told him that the Headmaster did not like me very much. When he asked me why the Headmaster should hate me, I told him that he had a small brother who was attending the same class with me and that I used to beat the brother in every subject that we were taught. The headmaster was envious of this and so he had a remote hatred for me. The case of the epileptic mono served very well as the chance the headmaster must have been looking for all along to put me in trouble, which he had done.

Dad did not argue. Neither did Mum. Mum believed almost everything I told her but I could sense some doubts in Dad. He was only half-convinced. When he suggested that he should go to the school and at least try to plead with the Headmaster about my re-admission, I protested and told him that such an act would only earn him foul words from him. I told him that re-admission on such basis would cloud my future school days and darken them completely. He agreed with me. Gosh! What a mess!!

That evening, as 1 slipped between my blankets, I wept. I wept bitterly and wondered what I was going to do. I could not hope for any job other than maybe that of a farm-hand. My age was not good enough for that. There was no chance of going back to school. Where would I go? I wept and cursed these hands of mine for taking part in

the beating of the epileptic mono. I cursed all my friends in the Mugg's Group for having involved me in the fight. I cursed everybody and everything but excluded Mum and Dad. They were the only people I felt were innocent in the whole world.

Dad suggested that the only thing I could do was to take a jembe, go to the shamba and dig. And that is exactly what I did. I took a jembe, went to the shamba and dug. I blistered my palms and still got on digging. I wanted to prove to myself, Mum and Dad and the world at large that I was not a born failure in all aspects.

I was such a hard working boy that Dad did not hesitate to make preparation for my circumcision. I became a man; or did I?

Digging is a pleasant job if you are a born-peasant. I bet I was not, because I was getting bored and exhausted. Stiff bored by the daily routine of getting up in the morning, taking a jembe, spending the whole day throwing dust all over myself, taking a swim before going back home to eat maize and beans, day in day out. I could not go on much longer. I was straining my tether every single day.

After eight months of digging, I gave up. I ran away from home and swore never to go back there. I would go to the towns and see what the other men see there. The trouble was, although I felt a man—that is because I was circumcised, I otherwise did not feel a man at all. What had I accomplished successfully in this world? Nothing at all. I had even failed to complete my school days. What a failure! But all the same, I would not dig any more.

I decided that towns like Nairobi and other Provincial Headquarters were for real men. I picked on Nyeri. Nyeri was till very small and the fare back home was only a shilling and fifty cents; so that, any time I felt like playing the prodigal son, I would afford the fare back. Worst point was, I did not have any money of my own. I had to wait until Dad kept his money within reach so that I could steal. This chance came one day when he hung his over-coat behind the door and went to look for a friend of his. Ten minutes later, 1 was heading for Nyeri with ten shillings, which I had picked from the over-coat. There was a total of a hundred and thirty and it's only that I felt 'honest' otherwise I would have picked more.

On arrival at Nyeri town, I got hooked to a butcher. This butcher came from near our home and he had no objection to my helping him roast meat at the rear of the butchery. He also showed me his hides and skins store where I would be sleeping. The place had a stench like rotting carrion but I just pinched my nose and slept comfortably nevertheless. The butcher also promised me that he would be giving me all the assistance that I would need as long as I served him. He would be giving me twenty shillings—depending on the market—and would raise it after observing my performance. Not bad for a beginner anyway. He would also provide me with meals.

Besides tea and half a loaf of bread in the morning, Mathuku, my employer had made arrangements with the owner of an adjacent hotel that I should be taking my meals at his hotel. The arrangement was that I should have fried maize and beans (githeri) for lunches and ugali and sukuma-wiki for suppers—strickly no meat. I felt that, as a roaster of meat, at least I had a right to have meat. I also felt that the exlusion of meat from my meals by Mathuku was because he was expecting me to steal it.

So I roasted meat and ate it. If a guy brought a pound of meat for roasting, I made sure that 1 ate a piece out of that pound. I was not going to starve when guys, sons of men like me, were eating their full and giving the left-overs to dogs. I was also starting to put on weight. Nice job, that one. You never go hungry.

I was beginning to know my way around town and had even, moved from the hides and skins store and was Living with a friend 1 had met. We were sharing his single room at Blue Valley and he had started to show me what he called 'routes'

These were whore-hunting expeditions which occasionally rewarded us with sonic inexperienced young girls who did not demand too much from us for 'services*. Maximum charge was two to three shillings a tumble. The problem was. no matter how much I scrubbed m\ skin and clothes. 1 still retained a faint smell of meat.

I he butcher also moved me from the rear of the butchery to the

counter. He employed another mug who had not gone to school at all at the kitchen. Because I could do some addition and subtraction, I was to stay at the counter, helping him in the selling.

I could miss the meat eating mischief alright but then, I was fully employed. My meals at the hotel were also improved, to include meat for supper but the lunches remained the same. My pay was raised from twenty shillings a month to sixty and Mathuku helped me open a Post Office Savings Bank account. He told me to at least be saving twenty shillings a month for a rainy day, because, as he put it, there is an end to business sometimes.

He also warned me against stealing his money. He told me that if he discovered that I had stolen anything from the till, he would take me to the police station where, he threatened, I would be put in a dog kennel overnight, with a police dog as a companion! He did not need to exaggerate so much. I was not going to steal from him. I swore that to him and to God.

It was pleasant to handle hundreds and hundreds of shillings at the counter but, unfortunately for me, out of all the thousands that passed through my hands each month, only sixty shillings belonged to me. I was getting bored with the whole muck. I guess 1 was born a rover.

CHAPTER FIVE 1

"By the left, quick maaarrch!! Left, right, lef, rai, lef, rai, ay, ay,..." That is Sergeant Wilfred Kago. He is our Segeant. Our drill instructor. Kago is a brown lean man. Shorter than the average cop with a very handsome face. Especially with his trimmed moustache. His uniform is always impeccable and it fits him so nicely that I always envy him. He looks likeable. He is also very lenient and does not punish us so much when we go wrong.

"Haaalt!!!" there is a lot of dust raised by our abrupt stop and we are all silent now. We are all at attention and our unloaded guns are pointing menacingly at the sky.

"Left tuurn! Order Arms!! Stand at ease!" We do a different thing at each order. Everything here is so systematic. I wish you would see us. We are sweating but no one dare wipe the sweat. Even if it comes right into our eyes, all we do is blink and blink.

"Stand easy!" Now we can wipe our sweat, adjust our caps and scratch where one itches. We cannot, however, move even an inch from where we are standing. That is against the rules of this place, rules which are enshrined in one major and dreaded phrase—'Force Discipline*.

I am at Kiganjo, Kenya Police College. I am training to be a cop. I want to be a cop and besides other things, arrest all my enemies. I think I will first arrest the headmaster who expelled me from school and then Gladys, that girl who was once mine but just faded into thin air even before I laid her. I will arrest her and fine her one lay.

Gladys' arrest will not be as legal as the Grey Book. What I will do is, go to whatever place she lives and invoke the powers of entry into almost any premises that cops have, and see her. Then I will talk to her and I think my five common senses plus the sixth police sense will be able to convince her that she still owes me allegience and that her affirmation of loyalty can be realized or expressed in the form of a

lay. I hope I will remember a few legal terminologies to impress her with like 'cognizable and non-cognizable offences', 'equivocal and unequivocal pleas' and maybe even a few sections of the law like 40 of the Penal Code for Treason and 275 of the Penal Code for Theft. But the way I will spell them out will be different; I might as well say, 'Section 275 of the Penal Code, cap. 63 of Ihe Laws of Kenya' and might even tell her that cap 63 is in Volume 2!!

I am no longer a blinking butcher. I got tired of that. 1 guess I am a drifter. I will gather no moss, maybe no riches either!!

Just when I was about to act the prodigal son, at the butchery, I heard through meat eaters, that the Police recruitment team was coming to Nyeri to recruit constables. I did not know what constables were and so I asked: "Do they wear the crown?" Stupid question, though.

"Yes—of course, a constable is like the one you just saw here sometime ago buying meat, that one who had a white cap on. That one is in traffic duties. Lots of dough, man," a wise-acre told me. I pressed on: "What do they need* I mean like education standard and such?"

"C.P.E. and above—they don't need much," was the reply.

If constables were like the cop who had just bought meat at the butchery then there must be a lot of money in being a cop. That guy had a fat roll of bank notes. I made up my mind.

I asked where the recruitment was taking place and as soon as I was told, I informed my employer that I was going to try my luck and he told me to feel free. I went to the rear of the butchery and discarded my white overall and then ran to Blue Valley where I discarded my working clothes. Then I put on some smart clothes, eyed myself in the mirror and decided that I was passable. Before I left I told my employer that should I fail I would go back to the butchery and continue serving him. He promised me that my vacancy

would be there until I went back to tell him the outcome of the interview.

At the Ruring'u Stadium I was astonished to find hundreds of young men. It must be a very good job, being a cop. All this time I had not really come face to face with a cop. I had not been arrested and 1 really knew zero about them; but how I wished I was one. Luck would fall on me, I told myself. God bless me.

Hundreds of us were lined up, without our shirts and shoes on, and a uniformed cop came measuring our height with a yard-stick disqualifying most of the job-seekers. I passed the height interview.

Then we were grouped into two, those with academic certificates and those that had never seen the inside of a classroom. Those of us with certificates were then taken for an aptitude test that included sixty one-minute questions that I found easy but tricky; before the whole lot of us were subjected to a medical examination. I had not expected and neither could I have shunned it but I really don't like the idea of having someone make my prick a toy. I mean milking it just to find out if I had had a rotten woman of late. They should just have asked me about it and believed my honest answer—that I had had nothing to do with rotten women. 1 was clean.

Anyway, I went through all the tests without a hitch and got my blue card, admitting me into the college for training. Then we were told the few things to carry with us when reporting to the college.

On the following day, I returned home for the first time in over a year. 1 had stuck to my word of not going back there until I could afford a pound of sugar. I carried some presents for Mum and Dad, but on seeing me, Mum shed real tears and accused me of being a bad boy for having left them without a word not long after my sister's departure. I felt I had wronged her and the way Dad was eyeing me and trying to assess my perception of Mum's remarks, told me something awful was going to come out of Dad's mouth, if not from his walking stick.

This is what I wanted to avoid. I had to stop it, and in time. But Mum didn't seem to want to allow me to say anything, in defence of my absence. She continued, even reminding me how I had stayed

wriggling inside her tummy for nine months and that whatever the case was, I was, by blood, supposed to go and see them more often. I decided to cut her short, and break the news that I had been recruited into the Police Force, that I had gone home to inform them that I would be employed, be on regular pay, on which we could all count for the improvement of our home, and would be in a better position of seeing them more often.

This worked. Mum kept quiet for a moment, then sighed with relief, and held her chin in her hand, before half-gazing, half-shying at Dad. Dad kept nodding at my explanation, stealing a wink every now and then to express a wish to Mum that maybe she should not have rushed to condemn me, but I apologised instead, on my own behalf and on behalf of Mum. Then he started to explain proverbially how people sometimes leave home thinking it would not take them long before they went back, but how certain s unforeseen problems kept them away from the very home for periods beyond imagination. "But," he conclusively told Mum, "as the saying goes,. . K na ni ma gutikiri i kahii itagaakiriguo mutwe'.

Mum later escorted me to the road where I kept promising I would go back to see her soon. And when the bus eventually came and I boarded it she kept waving good-bye until I could not see her any more, behind the cloud of dust that covered her as the bus sped off.

Kiganjo. This is where I have been for the past four months. Four months of toil. Four months of hard labour. Four months of soul hunger. While training you, the guys at Kiganjo make sure that you become a real cop. They ensure that you completely forget the easy time you might have been having outside those guarded gates. They want you to walk, talk, look, hear, see, smell, think and even dream like a cop. I wonder whether they do not want to make a robot out of you? They would probably also want you to lay women like a cop. I wonder what dreams cops dream—must be something to do with the Law or Discipline. Two words that form the very essence of a cop.

Training to be a cop is not an easy task. It means more than just six months of no woman and six months of no smile. Oh, they would like

you to feel at home there; but, how can you feel at home when all the things you are supposed to do are new to you and the teacher who is trying to teach you supposes that you knew them all along?

After three months however, we were given some seven days freedom; mid-course holiday. They allowed us to get out of the gates then, to go and empty our over-full balls anywhere we wanted.

During that mid-course leave, I went home. I arrived at about 1000 hours in the morning and spent the whole day with Mum and Dad, telling them the wonders of the Kenya Police Colege. Mum even commented that I was walking like a cop. I felt great. There are some remarks which are very pleasing especially when they come out of one's mother's mouth.

Then, in the evening, I went to the shops to see whether there would be any faces that I would recall. But, there were no friends of mine. The few mugs who were lolling around the bars were too old for me. We could not amiably mix. Besides, I was not a boozer then, so, I got fed up with the trading centre very fast. I started for home.

Only a few yards from the shops, I overtook a girl. I was not in a talking mood but she greeted me. I answered her and to show her that I was not interested in her, I accelerated my pace but she called after me and told me not to leave her behind. As it was getting dark, she asked me whether I was going to Mutwe-wa-thi so that I could accompany her. Although my home was in a different village, I told her that that was where I was going and so we started walking side by side towards the destination. We were talking about this and that and she convinced me that she knew me well.

When we came to Nyaguathi river, I asked her for a lay. She told me to go to hell. I said that I was capable of laying her even without making the damned request and she threatened that she would scream. To counter that, I told her that I would strangle her. I had then stood infront of her and she was glancing right and left, looking

for an escape avenue. I placed on the ground the small parcel I was carrying comprising the few items I had bought at the shops, which I had thought would be required at home; soap, sugar and tea, and held her hands firmly, with both my hands. She did not scream and I quickly wrestled her to the ground. Her parcel flew into the bushes.

She lay on her back and after a bit of struggle, I had my way.

I was so excited that only a second after I entered into her, I had my eclipse. Gosh! That was wonderful! Nothing better than a woman's softness after three months of celibacy. She was muttering some word to me, telling me to do it again, which I did. She told me that even if I had not used any threats, she would have thanked me anyway, when we reached near her home. That touched me somehow, and I half-heartedly apologised. I dismounted and helped her to get onto her feet and dress.

I walked her all the way near her home and when we reached there, she allowed me to do it again. She even removed her pants and we used my coat as a carpet to lie on. I wished I had not in the first place used force on her. It was her own offer and it was beyond all description. She knew how to give it to me and I accepted her. I really did enjoy her. She even booked me for a later date but my time was running out. I was due back at Kiganjo in only a week's time.

That week was spent mainly in helping Mum and Dad in the farm chores. I promised Dad that I would save enough money to re-buy that lower part of our land which I had forced him to sell to get my school fees. I felt so ashamed of myself.

CHAPTER SIX

1

After recruitment, we were all gathered in 'C Mess and our posting orders read out. I really do not know what method they use to choose places for trained recruits but I found that I had been thrown to Western Province. Western!! Such a hell of a distance from home!

My dream of ever arresting the Headmaster faded into the distant blue; but, after all, the police were going to cover my expenses for the journey. Besides I had sworn,with the Bible held high in my hand, that I would serve the Republic as a Police Officer, anywhere where I would be posted within the Kenyan soil or outside. I had to accept Western.

Mum and Dad were there to see me off and I had given them a hundred shillings each out of the four that I had been given. That is the time when I learnt that the authorities had been keeping something for me each month. It was explained that since we were going out into the world, where we would be required to cater for ourselves, it was only appropriate that they should keep something for us, to give us a comfortable start. I thanked them.

I arrived at Kakamega twenty hours after leaving Kiganjo. We had to take a train ride all the way to Malaba, and then board a bus to Kakamega.

We boarded the train at Nairobi Railway Station at about 1400hrs. and the policemen we found on board told us the train would arrive at Malaba the following day at 0800hrs. A whole 18 hours later.

I was accompanied by three other graduates, two Luhyas and a Mkamba. The Luhyas had travelled in a train before but the Mkamba and I had not.

We had to travel third class—according to our Rail Travel Warrants, but the cops who were on board, and who we came to learn belonged to the Railways and Harbours Police Department,

told us that cops should not mix with the sundry who travelled third class. There was a second class coach reserved for them and, because they'd be on duty throughout the night, we could sleep in the coach if we wanted.

My Luhya companions happily agreed to sleep in the coach but I requested the cops if I could accompany them on their 'duty rounds' so that I would familiarize myself—so to speak. They exchanged glances and nodded their assent. My heart was overjoyed.

The train came to life and started crawling slowly out of the station, with the two cops hanging at the doors, checking whether there would be any 'jumpers'. These, they told me, were people who jumped into the luggage compartment when the train started, so that they would not pay the fare and, because the goods coaches were not checked after the train left the station, they would arrive at their destinations safely, unmolested. I asked them what action was taken if one was found stowing that way and they told me that those with money were charged double, while those without money were forced to do dirty chores on the train—like cleaning the bogies and loading and unloading the train.

Trees, buildings and the land-scape rolled by as the 'iron-caterpillar' wound its way, meandering in and out of what the cops told me were the rolling hills of Limuru, through farmlands and then into ... I thought it would plunge right down into a ravine, but the cops said we were now entering into the escarpment—the land of beauty. It was scaring to me!

I threw my pair of eye-balls across, to see nature's mighty power of creation and destruction, imagining what it would be like, were this iron caterpillar to roll on its side, towards the beautifully-shaped pieces of agricultural land down the valley. And what, I asked myself, may have prompted the white man to cut through the side of this escarpment, spending all the money, the labour and not minding the risk, in a foreign land?

The proverbial snake rattled on, down into the base of the escarpment, beside Longonot, the mountain of fire, crawled on past indifferent gazelles and zebras and the wild, stopping at few stations,

past tors, and eventually made a full halt at Nakuru; reputedly the cleanest town in East Africa.

A few passengers disembarked and an almost equal number boarded the train which whistled shrilly as we left the station.

After Nakuru, my cop friends told me that it was high time that we accompanied the Ticket Examiner in his rounds, to check whether all the passengers had paid their fares. The ticket-man turned out to be a lean, oldish railway employee. He walked with an easy gait and carried out his duties nonchalantly. He declined to check the tickets in the First Class coaches because, as he put it, First Class coaches were numbered right from the originating station. Besides, no first class passenger would allow swindlers on board.

The second class coaches were checked meticulously and one old couple asked why there were so many cops on the train on that day. He was not answered by anyone and we proceeded to the third class where on entry into the first coach, I was met by smothering heat and a blend of stenches from that offish to ripe bananas. The passengers were in such a haphazard state, each trying to get room where they could stretch their legs and, at the same time, keep guard over their belongings. There was an incessant buzzing like in a bee hive, interrupted frequently by a squeal or a shout by one of the passengers. Our entry reduced the volume of the noise and some of the passengers eyed us hostilely while others went even to the extent of clicking their tongues. The ticket examiner was over-meticulous in his job here and seemed to doubt even the very tickets that were shown to him.

From the third class coaches, we picked four youths who had no tickets, despite their protests and pleas that their tickets had been picked from their pockets at Nairobi. We shepherded them into the guard-room where they were to be detained until we reached Bungoma Station where stowaway cases were dealt with.

At 0300 hours, the following day, I was feeling so sleepy that I begged leave from my friends to take a nap, at least for the remaining hours of the night. They allowed me to retire and I went and joined my Luhya friends and stretched myself on the bunk. It

was very comfortable, especially with the rocking of the train and I must have slept so heavily because I did not stir until we arrived at Malaba and I was roused by the duty cops.

Me and my friends alighted from the train after intermittently waving the other cops and found a Police van waiting for us just next to that station platform. We rode on that and it took us to Kakamega.

I arrived at Kakamega and my six hours assessment of the place branded it lousy. I did not know what was coming but I felt that somehow, I was not going to enjoy the stay very much.

Only thirty minutes after booking my arrival in the occurrence book at Kakamega Police Station, the lines sergeant marched me to the office of the officer-in-charge where I was given a copy of the station standing orders.

A list of seventeen 'don'ts' which included one underlined 'don't 1 prohibiting me from bringing to the lines, any visitors, male or female, without prior consent from the officer-in-charge.

"Even at night?" I querried. The officer-in-charge looked at me and told me that, to avoid having to take visitors to him for scrutiny, either during the day or night, I should avoid bringing any visitors to the lines.

My first deployment in duty was a night beat in which I had to patrol the town from 22.00 hours each evening to 0600 hours the following day, stopping, questioning, searching and arresting suspicious characters. This I found to be very difficult because there were no special differentiating marks betwen an honest and a dishonest night-walker.

The cop who was supposed to acquaint me with this job was an old timber, his force number having only three digits, and apparently, he had some extra role to play every time we stopped a reeling drunkard.

He would tell me to stand aside and then take the drunkard to a distance, always out of my earshot, and whisper some things to him. Most of the times when he did this, money would change hands; from the drunkard to the cop and then he would rejoin me complaining about the cold night; but then I would notice that his eyes were twinkling with new light.

Each morning, before we reported off-duty, the cop would hand to me anything from twenty to thirty shillings, telling me to go and have a warm cup of tea, to thaw the cold from my bones. I would thank him profusely and think what a magnificient god-father he was, until much later when I came to know the real source of the money.

On the eighth day of my stay, I went for the fist operation, which opened my life into the police world and gave me what must have developed into a police heart.

I had spent the night on beat and was dozing in bed, resting. I did not want to fall into heavy sleep and yet I wanted to rest my weary self before preparing for another night on beat. A half-doze which was creeping into me was blasted into nothingness and full alertness by the station alarm, screaming full blast.

In a Police Station, the alarm is the last resort to a dangerous situation and its sounding is only done or ordered by the most senior officer in the station. Even the booking in the O.B. is done in red, to show that it is not an every day event.

That realization made me jump out of bed, and into my trousers. I donned the police over-coat and cap in less than three minutes. I slipped on the boots, without socks or even lacing them and joined the other cops who were all running towards the Police Station.

At the report office, I found a corporal who was waving his hands frantically, showing us all the way to the armoury, without saying a thing. I arrived at the armoury door and the lines' sergeant was issuing every new arrival with a self-loading rifle and three clips of

ammunition. There must have been a dire urgency in whatever was happening because even the sergeat did not seem to worry very much about our force numbers, ranks or names as is usual in handing out arms and ammunition.

We then paraded in front of the station and the deputy station commander came running. The lines' sergeat welcomed him to the parade and then the second-in-charge took over. He cleared his throat and stated:

"A bank robbery with violence has been committed at Kisumu. The vehicle used is believed to have been stolen from Kericho this dawn. It's a Peugeot 504 saloon, white in colour, registration number [CLH 776. I repeat the number; KLH 776. The vehicle is believed to be headed for south Nyanza but you never know with criminals, they might decide to come this way. If they do, they are our game.

"The occupants are believed to be five, including the driver. They are armed with what is believed to be a revolver or pistol. These people are killers and they gunned down a security guard at the bank during the robbery. We will mount road-blocks at Shirere and Kaberengo but, as I said earlier, this is just as a precaution because the bandits were last seen heading for South Nyanza.

"The following will man the Shirere road-block, Number ...." he called out five names, headed by a corporal and then five other names for the Kaberengo road-block. My name was called in the second detail.

My heart was already beating wildly. I had a feeling that I was going to confront the gangsters for the first time and was very anxious to 'meet' them and at the same time, I was scared stiff at the prospect of the gangsters gunning me down.

I had had time then to lace my boots and load the rifle and feh almost ready for anything. The other four officers who were to accompany me were familiar faces but due to my newness to the place, I had not had any chance to work with them and as such, I hoped and prayed that they would be crack-shots with the rifles and brave enough not to start looking for cover when the bandits fired at us—if they ever came our way. I was not very sure that I could fire at

anyone, bandit or no bandit.

The only firing of guns I had done was at the Kenya Police College range and then, I had been firing at standing card-board targets which I was sure would not fire back at me. The very prospect of meeting an armed robber, who would definitely aim and fire at me was very scaring and I said a silent prayer that the gang would go to South Nyanza or anywhere else, but not the Eldoret/Tororo road.

The corporal in charge of our group ordered me and another constable to load the spikes on the back of the land-rover, a difficult job due to the weight of the spike-boards and the noon-day sun which was beating mercilessly down on us. Wearing the Police caps was intensifying the heat instead of lessening it.

We also carried reflecting signs written 'POLICE CHECK' on one side and 'ACCIDENT AHEAD' on the other plus hurricane lamps with red chimneys. That made my heart sink even further. It was only 1230 hours and carrying the lamps meant that the operation might continue even after dark. It's one thing confronting an armed robber in daylight and quite another doing so in darkness.

The preparations, that is from the time the alarm sounded to the time we were ready to move to Kaberengo, took almost thirty minutes and I wondered whether that is what is usually referred to by the Press as 'quick police action'. However, I did not ask anyone because what I would have actually preferred was a longer delay so that by the time we arrived at the road-block place, the bandits would have passed and gone their way.

The Land-rover at last took off with me and two other constables sitting in the rear while the corporal and another constable sat at the front with the driver. The corporal was armed with a revolver and an ultra-high frequency set; the only means of communication with the Station as the very high frequency set in the Land-rover was out of order.

"Scared?" a fellow cop asked me, smilling slyly. I guessed he had

attended several road-blocks before.

"Why?" I asked him, scowling and trying to put on a bold front although I knew that my hands were actually trembling and I had to grip onto the rifle tightly to steady them!

^Nothing... you just look like you have swallowed a bee ... alive," he chuckled and was joined by the other cop in laughing at me. I bit my lower lip and cursed my anatomy and physiology for showing my adrenal feelings so openly.

"Have you ever swallowed one?" I asked the cop, looking at him with hostile eyes. My glare put him down to size and he muttered a hasty apology and added; "Let's reserve all the fight we have in us for the robbers. Be of courage ... the bandits might not even turn up and we shall have no need to be scared." Coming from someone else, the words were very reassuring to me and I even sighed in relief— inaudibly though.

Amid the bumps and clatters of the road-block paraphernalia, we reached Kaberengo and chose a spot, about seventy yards from the FCakamega/Eldoret/Tororo junction road and parked the Land-rover on the left hand side of the road. We jumped out and the cop who had almost riled me earlier helped me in removing the spikes.

We placed one spike-board on the left-hand side of the road and the other some fifteen yards from the first on the right hand side of the road.

The reflecting signs were placed each fifty yards from the spikes on either side.

When the road-block was thus mounted, the corporal called Kakamega Police Station on the U.H.F. set and informed the control that all was set and ready. He also told two cops to go each to the reflecting signs while I, the corporal and the other constable were to remain at the spikes, checking on cars. The driver was to stay in the vehicle, which he had then turned to face the way we had come, ready to chase any vehicle whose driver refused to stop at the road-block.

The first vehicle to come was a matatu from Turbo, as over-loaded as it could carry. When the corporal saw it, he orderd me to get into the Land-rover while he signalled the matatu driver to stop and park on the side of the road.

I hastily did as told and waited, not knowing what for.

Three minutes later, the driver of the matatu came to the Land-rover, grinning and holding some crumpled notes in his hand.

"I've been told to come and see you by the corporal," he told me even before I had had time to open the door of the vehicle. He had stood against the door, apparently barring me from getting outside and he dumped the crumpled notes on my lap before muttering thanks and running back to his matatu.

I opened my mouth to call him back but, before I uttered a word, our driver, who had been watching me intently, put his right hand palm on my mouth with his left hand.

"How green are you?" he asked me. "Have you never worked as a Traffic Police Officer?" He looked so surprised.

I physically removed his hand from over my mouth and wiped his 'touch' from my lips.

"What d'you mean by that?" I asked him harshly. He just looked at me, straightened the notes and then counted them. There was a total of seventy-five shillings, all in five shilling notes and, as I watched him counting the money, something slowly opened in my brain. This, I realized, was what was termed in loose terms as 'chai' and in harder terms as 'bribery and corruption'!! Seventy-five shillings for the six of us. I did a quick mental calculation and found that, shared equally, each of us would get slightly more than twelve shillings. I also leafed through my law memory book and was so appalled to realize that those same twelve shillings could land me in jail for a period of as long as three years!

"Keep it," the driver said, handing the money to me, but I quickly withdrew my hand.

"No! You keep it— and I don't want any share of it!" I said quickly as I got out of the Land-rover. 1 walked to where the corporal was inspecting yet another matatu, while the first matatu driver was driving off, waving at me and smiling.

"Go back to the Land-rover!" the corporal barked at me, looking at me with admonishing eyes.

"No, sir, send someone else. I'd rather stay here at the spikes . . . please," I pleaded with him although I had made up my mind that I was not going back to the Land-rover. I had left the station to come and wait for armed robbers and not for my first lesson in corruption.

"Why?" he asked me smiling.

"Well . . . nothing. I just . . .," but I did not finish. There came, through the U.H.F. set, the call sign of the set we had:

"Kakamega mobile two from control." At first, the corporal did not seem to know what was going on.

"Kakamega mobile two—Kakamega mobile two—from control— how do you read me over?" The voice seemed agigated and urgent.

"We are being called," I told the corporal, who quickly unhooked the mouth-piece.

"Control from Kakamega mobile two—you are coming fine—go ahead." His hand was trembling as he held the mouth-piece.

"Kakamega mobile two—flash SITREP—vehicle registration number Kilo Lima Hotel figures seven seven six—I repeat Kilo Lima Hotel figures seven seven six—earlier reported stolen and used in a robbery is heading your way after jumping a road-block at Maili Tisa—are you with me over?" The corporal had to swallow twice before he could answer. I was so shocked that I was trembling from head to foot!

"Roger—roger—control—go ahead."

"I go ahead—Charlie India Delta personnel from Eldoret are on chase stop—detain the vehicle and occupants stop shoot if necessary stop—are you with me over?"

'Roger."

"Reinforcement has been dispatched from Kakamega stop-confirm arrival of car and action taken stop over."

"Wilco—wilco, over."

"Good luck, over." Good luck? Yes. Even the fellow at the control

knew that I needed the luck.

Then followed the most frantic efforts by all of us to completely block the road. We hurriedly placed the spikes together, end to end, thus completely blocking the road on either side. The corporal

shouted to the matatu driver to 'get the hell going!' and to the police driver to 'Kaa chonjo' and then turned to the rest of us.

"You heard control? These bastards are armed and may try their target practice on us. Don't fire in the air. Shoot straight at them and ..." and before he could finish, there sped towards us, from Turbo direction, a yellow car. The driver must have noticed the spikes just in time because he applied emergency brakes, making his tyres screech, just a few yards from us.

I had leapt some five feet from the spikes towards the grass verge, cocked my rifle and my finger was itching to press the trigger of the rifle which I had levelled on the car with surprisingly steady hands. The other constables were all aiming at the car but the corporal was pressing the mouth-piece of the U.H.F. set without saying a thing.

The driver of the yellow car, a Datsun 1600, came out of the car with his hands reaching for the skies muttering "Please, don't shoot... pleas don't shoot..." If only the corporal had as much as started to say any word which started in 'sho . . .' I would have blasted the daylights out of the driver's universe.

"Where the hell do you think you are?..." Corporal started asking him but, before he could finish his question, from the same Turbo direction, there appeared a fast moving white car, which had its head-lamps on as was its klaxon, full blast.

All my attention was diverted to the new arrival and my heart performed a double somersault when 1 noticed that the car was a Peugeot 504. I immediately decided that it was the gang's car and 1 held my breath, as I sentenced the occupants to death!

The car came on, without checking its speed and was on us even before I could pull the trigger or read the registration number. It was heading straight for the spikes as the other officers dived out of its way. I heard myself shout a warning to them as the front wheels of the Peugeot smashed into the spikes, bursting in a cloud of dust as the

vehicle swerved out of control, staggered on the road from left to right with its fractured fore legs and in its crazy swaying, headed straight for the police Land-rover which it smashed into, so heavily from the side that the Land-rover was physically lifted off the road, hung for three undecided seconds in the air and then landed on its side on the road-side gutter. The Peugeot followed the Land-rover and landed on top of it.

I was watching the horror scene, which had taken less than ten seconds, with my mouth very open, my ears full of buzzing bees and my brain completely muddled.

A movement at the pile of both vehicles snapped me back into consciousness and I found myself blundering, heavy booted towards the cars. The first thought I had was of our driver, whom I had left in the Land-rover, holding seventy-five shillings, and I was determined to go and see what had happened to him.

When I was about twenty yards from the pile-up, a full blast of a self-loading rifle from my right stopped me short. I watched for the movement which I had seen at the pile-up, just in time to see a man, who was trying to get from the Peugeot's driver's door, hold his chest momentarily before another blast of the S.L.R. crumpled him to the ground.

The left-hand side door of the Peugeot was flung open and a man, with a black object in his hand, came out. He looked right and left and started blundering towards me. I braced myself, shouted at him to stop but, instead, he raised his right hand and the black object was instantly 'transformed' into a hand gun. I closed my eyes and pressed the trigger of my S.L.R., and its vomit of lethal death sent my whole body shaking like a man with palsy. I released the trigger and opened my eyes. The noise around me was like a replay of a soundtrack from 'The Berets'.

About five yards from me was what was left of the man who had held the black gun. My blast had caught him around his middle and, although he was still on his feet, his whole front looked like it had been soaked in red paint.

I saw him take a hesitant step forward, both hands holding his belly, with blood oozing through the fingers and flowing down his

thighs and legs. I looked at his face and noticed that his mouth was tightly shut but his eyes were open. It was such a horrible sight! His hair seemed to be standing on end and his breathing, through his nose only, was wheezy and laboured.

Then, he opened his mouth and released a sound, half-human and half-animal and then spat out a mouthful of blood, before his knees sagged and he fell head-long onto the tarmac. A die-hard. He had been on his feet for more than five seconds!

On the ground, his hands and legs twitched for only three to four seconds and then all was quiet. Even the other officers had stopped shooting. The war was over, the victors still standing on their feet while the losers lay on the ground.

'You have killed a man!" I heard my conscience accuse me but, immediately, the same conscience defended me, "He could have killed you if you handn't killed him!" And for the first time I felt a burning sensation on my thigh. I looked down on my thigh, parted the police over-coat and noticed a small hole on my trousers. It was quickly filling with blood which was spreading onto the cloth and making a very conspicuous carmine on my grey trousers.

I touched the hole and my finger felt the hollow in my body and pain started in the wound. I was just about to scream when the corporal came to my side.

"Are you hurt?" he asked urgently. I looked at him and noticed that he was levelling his pistol at me. I didn't know whether he wanted to give me the mercy shot or what but the last thing I remembered was me telling him, "I think he nicked me . . . ." Then I

felt my legs give way. I dimly saw the corporal, dropping his gun and stretching his hands to hold me.

I was jerked back into conciousness by a jolt from my head banging against something. I felt like I was swimming in the air and before I opened my eyes, I heard voices and the persistent scream of a siren. 1 realized that I was in a car which was moving fast, and that the bang 1 had flet was my head hitting against the thigh of someone who was cradling my head on his lap.

"It's not serious, it's just a scratch but I think what scared him was the blood," one voice said.

"Or the fear of death. I bet that was the very first time he has shot at someone ..." There was soft laughter from both of them.

Then the scream of the siren slowly petered off and I warmly welcomed the silence that followed.

"But you should have seen him," the first voice said. "I've never, in my twelve years of Police work, seen a man confront an armed gangster the way he did. He just stood there, emptying the whole magazine on the thug even though the thug had shot him first!" There was pride in the voice. Then, they laughed softly again. "That's one for the record . . ." More laughter.

I opened my eyes slowly and discerned the inside of what must have been a small car. I was on my back on someone's lap and my legs were slightly touching the floor boards of the car. I racked my brain and tried to connect the past events and remembered that I had been at a road-block and had been shot. I activated my brain and tried to feel the pain in my thigh but apparently there was none. I tried to move the leg and that is when I felt a leaden weight on the whole of the leg and a very remote ache on the thigh, which was more of an itch than pain. I closed my eyes again as the vehicle started on a series of twists and turns with the siren coming on and going off in short blasts. I decided that I would feign unconsciousness and hear what my companions would say.

"Does this place have a casualty entrance?" I heard a voice ask.

"No. Just drive to the main entrance and clear the path with the siren ..." and he trailed off in laughter. I had all along been trying to place that voice and attributed it to the corporal who had commanded the operation at Kakamega. I automatically knew the voice which had questioned about the casualty entrance. It was that of constable Otoigo, the C.I.D. driver at Kakamega. There was only one voice which I could not place but the knowledge that I was in the hands of my own station personnel made me feel really at home.

The car came to a halt and I heard the doors open before I was physically lifted by one person. I must have been very light or the person must have been very strong. Another hand was holding my leg, keeping it straight. I dared not open my eyes but I could feel the late sunshine burning onto my face. A short distance and then we started climbing stairs. Then, the unmistakable smell of hospital precincts; ether, iodine, methylated spirit and disease!!

"This way," I heard a female voice.

"Good afternoon, sister," I heard my carrier say.

"Good afternoon, officer—this is the victim of the gang?" the same female voice. Kakamega Police must have called the hospital.

"Yes, sister, but, he isn't very seriously wounded," the corporal replied.

"Then, why doesn't he walk?" The sister asked as I felt myself placed on a trolley which someone started to push.

Another short distance and I was transferred from the comfort of the trolley and put on a hard surface. Here, the smell of disinfectant was smothering. Someone was removing my trousers and, except that I was 'unconscious', I would have stopped them.

"Go and wait next door. We shall tell you of the findings," the nurse addressed someone and I heard a faint 'O.K.' followed by the thud of boots, slowly fading away. A door closed and opened somewhere.

The person who was removing my trousers had got them to my knees and then, I heard her gasp and murmur, 'Oh!'

"What is it?" Another voice—female too, asked.

"Nothing. It looks like a burn—he must have been shot from very close quarters—what the police call point-blank range ..." The voice giggled.

Then, I felt a maddening pain on my thigh as someone was dabbing it with something and I could not hold my 'unconsciousness' any longer. 1 opened my eyes and tried to sit up but a gentle hand pushed me back onto the couch. I looked at my tender and noticed that she was a young pretty nurse. She was also looking at me, smiling. Another nurse was at the corner of the room where there

emanated steam—like something was being boiled.

"How'd you feel?" The nurse asked. The question made the other nurse turn sharply. She was older than the one at the couch.

"Oh! He's come round?" She asked, at the same time hurrying to the couch.

"How are you?" She inquired, smiling reassuringly.

"Fine," I replied although the throbbing pain in my thigh was almost unbearable. "Where am I?" I asked her.

"Kisumu—New Nyanza General Hospital and your colleagues are just next door," she told me still smiling.

"Thank you. How is the wound?" I asked her.

"Not very deep. The bullet bruised you as it passed. There is only a slight burn. I don't think we need to admit you," she finished.

"That's fine with me. Can I go home, now?" I asked trying to get out of bed. I had my legs over the edge of the couch when the nurse rushed to me and held me.

"Not so fast! We haven't even dressed your wound!" And I looked down at my thigh, having raised myself on one elbow. My shirt was open from top to bottom and my trousers were down at my knees. The only piece I had of apparel, to cover my nakedness was my pants and that sort of made me embarrassed. My eyes had been deliberately avoiding to look at the wound all this time, but I had to, at last.

I saw what looked like a burn, with unbursted blisterettes all around. There was a gaping wound in the form of a furrow, about two inches long and half an inch wide and about a quarter of an inch deep; but the main cause of my uneasiness was the angry red flesh that fringed the furrow and the blisters.

The nurses had given me all that time to examine myself and then one threw a glance at my face before dipping some lint into an open bowl, containing a yellow mixture and then dabbing the wound again. The pain was so excruciating that 1 shot out my right hand, grabbed the wrist of the nurse and shouted at her, 'Wait a minute!* 1

I guess I was holding her too tight because she winced and begged me to release her hand. The pain in me was so severe that I felt sweat breaking all over my body and my mouth turning dry.

"What is that yellow stuff?" I asked the nurse, holding onto my thigh with both hands and trying not to scream.

"Iodine; is it painful?" She was still smiling. I guessed she must have seen so many people gnashing their teeth on application of iodine.

"Painful? If you put that lint on that wound again, I am going to walk through that door!" The other nurse was looking at me with eyes that conveyed mercy, pity, concern and a tint of love, all in one. "I am not touching it again," she assured me. The pain made my memory even sharper.

"What happened to our driver?" I asked the nurse, momentarily forgetting the pain in me.

"Which driver?" the nurse asked.

"Our Police driver who was crashed in the Land-rover?" I was trying to blot out the picture of the man I had shot as he stood in front of me.

"What do you mean, crashed in the Land-rover?" She was shaking her head. She did not understand.

"You told me that my fellow Police Officers are next door?" I asked her, hope making me smile.

"Yes, they are next door."

"Could you please call one for me?" I begged.

The nurse gave the other a knowing glance and the one who had

been standing far from the bed shuffled her feet as she walked

towards a closed door on the far end. The one who remained made herself look very busy arranging and rearranging the wound

dressing. I guess to avoid having to look at me. My wound was still

agape and I felt like someone was tapping softly on it. I pulled my

trousers and covered my nakedness. The blood on the trousers had

dried but had a faint smell, like burning sugar.

The door was flung open and Cpl. Matolo came in. He was grinning from ear to ear.

"Hi! Hero of the year! Congrats, man!" He came and shook my hand vigorously and patted my back several times. "Well done, Fred!"

He at once became serious, cast an eye at the nurses who stood at

the corner and almost whispered to me, "What you did today is beyond all imagination. The truth is, I, myself, would not have done it. That's why I am calling you hero of the year. It's not sarcasm or flattery. You did what even the commissoner himself would call a perfect job. Even the Division commander had ordered that you report to his office immediately you are on your feet. Not for the usual disciplining but for a pat on the back," he looked serious alright. Then I remembered the driver.

"What happened to driver Kinyua?" I asked him.

"Why?"

"Where was he when the Peugeot rammed into the Land-rover?"

"He was with me at the spikes. The Land-rover had nobody inside."

I felt almost ashamed of the relief that came with that piece of news.

"What about the other officers?" I asked.

"Everyone of us is as fit as a fiddle . . ." and he laughed.

"The robbers...?" The picture of the dying man was again looming menacingly.

"We only got one alive—he is in Kakamega General Hospital with a broken collar-bone, out of the car-accident. He was not shot by anybody. The rest are more dead than this wall. I guess it was our round, that one. Except you, and your injury is of course not very serious, we suffered no other casualties," he finished and then beckoned the nurses over. He told them to dress my wound so that we would check whether I could stand.

Again, my trousers were pulled down to my knees and I noticed that the younger nurse could not help looking at my crotch.

Ten minutes later, I stood from the couch and felt my whole right leg very heavy and half-numbed. However, with the corporal on my right hand and one nurse on my left, I made five toddler's steps before I told them to let go of me and I tested my game leg. It was okay but when I tried to balance my whole weight on it alone, pain shot through the thigh and I had to hold onto the nurse to stop myself staggering. I wished I would stay holding her just like that!

b^

We were fully engrosed in the testing of my leg when the door burst open and five men and three women, all in white dust-coats came in. Four of the men had stethoscopes dangling from their necks while one woman had what looked like a surgical compact.

They all stopped short, in the middle of the room when they saw us. One of them spoke:

"Is that the Police casualty . . ." pointing at me.

"Yes, Doctor Adala... he just wanted to test the stability of his leg. I ... " she didn't finish.

"You mean 'he wanted*? But you are the nurse here and you should know what the patient needs and what he doesn't need. Get him back onto the couch!"

To prove that the nurse had done nothing wrong, I walked back to the couch, trying as much as possible not to limp and I sat myself on the couch. The doctor, accompanied by the whole entourage came over.

My trousers were again rolled to my knees and the doctor, without saying a word, ripped the bandage from the wound and the movement was so hasty and uncared for that blood welled up in the wound once again. I also felt pain start throbbing all over again.

"Iodine swab . . ." he said without raising his eyes, and the nurse who had treated me earlier ran to the corner and brought the required swab.

When I saw that it was the same yellow stuff, I opened my mouth to protest but the doctor assured me, even without me uttering a word, that he would not touch the wound with the lint. He did not. Instead he cleaned the surrounding area and then bandaged the wound again. His actions were quick, deft and expert and within five minutes, he had finished. He looked at his watch, took the head-chart and noted something on it.

"You may go home and go to Kakamega Hospital for a check-up after three days, Fred." He was smiling, for the first time, as he discharged me.

"Thank you doctor," I told him and, even Cpl. Matolo thanked him.

We started walking out of the small room and at the door, I turned and smiled goodbye at the nurses. I read the inscription on the door: 'Observation Ward'. I was holding onto the corporal who was muttering to himself about "The long journey from Kakamega to Kisumu . . . lousy doctors . . ." and I interrupted him by asking:

"What was the reason for my being brought here instead of being treated at Kakamega General Hospital?"

"The idea was that, because we did not know how seriously wounded you were, Kisumu was more appropriate in case we needed the Flying Doctor's Service as the airstrip at Kakamega is not in a safe condition for an aircraft to land," he told me. Stupidly enough, I felt that I should have been more seriously wounded so that I would have had the first ride in an aircraft!!

Outside the hospital entrance, I found the Police Ambulance still parked where we had left it.

I checked on my wrist-watch and noticed that it was already 1810 hours. I had been in the hospital for slightly over an hour.

The driver of the ambulance and a C.I.D. sergeant, whom I had known for a long time and I guessed was my companion-on the journey from Kakamega to Kisumu, came out of the car, at a run, when they saw us.

"How are you, Fred?" The sergeant asked.

"Fine, thanks. I just got a slight laceration which does not need a doctor's constant watch and so there is no need for admission." I answered him.

"Okay, let's get back home, and Fred ..." he pulled me to one side, away from the others and held my right hand "Congratulations Fred." He was smiling contentedly.

The journey back to Kakamega was fast and eventless. At Kakamega Police Station, I noticed that half the Police personnel from the Provincial Headquarters, Divisional Headquarters and the station were all gathered there. I at first thought that there was going to be mounted another road-block and wondered when the robbers will give the Police a rest.

However, the whole crowd surged forward when I stepped out of the ambulance and every one of them was shaking my hand, muttering something meant to tell me about ". . .a wonderful performance.. .jollygood show... congratulations.. .crack-shot.. . keep it up.. .lesson to the thugs everywhere in the world... should

be in C.I.D " and at the end of it all, my biceps was aching and my

thigh had once again started throbbing in pain.

My night-beat companion at last held my hand and led me to my house. He told me that the O.C.S. had declared two days off-duty for me and him because of what I had gone through. The way he analysed it, I noticed that he would have liked to go to the night-beat alone and thus pocket the proceeds from the job—alone.

I got to my house and when I had put on the light, my beat companion told me that I should not worry over supper, as he was going to fix something for me. Then he left me.