Harry Turtledove (Editor) - Alternate Generals III

"If you stop, I will order you put to death," says Kenyatta placidly. The mundumugu cannot tell if it is the Burning Spear speaking, or the qat leaves.

Five minutes later Kenyatta is so far gone into his trancelike state that he can no longer respond to questions. The mundumugu rolls him onto his belly and picks up the leather whip.

"May Ngai forgive me," he mutters as he brings the whip down on the old man's back. Tears roll down his face as he whips the man he worships again and again.

"I was treated fairly by my captors," Kenyatta is saying to four British journalists.

"That's not the way I heard it," replies one of the journalists.

"I have never said otherwise," protests Kenyatta.

"But a couple of your men say we tortured you."

"You are British," says Kenyatta. "Would you torture a middle-aged man who did not have the power to do you any harm?"

"No… but I'm not in the military."

"I have no complaints about my treatment."

"They never beat you?" persists another journalist, whose face practically begs him to contradict her.

"If they did, I'm sure they had their reasons."

"Then they did beat you!"

"You are putting words in my mouth," says Kenyatta. "If I were beaten, then surely I would bear the scars." He spreads his arms out. "Can you see any?"

"Would you take your shirt off?"

"Are you calling me a liar?" asks Kenyatta with no show of anger.

"No, sir," answered the journalist quickly. "But I would like to report to my readers that I have seen you shirtless and that you bear no scars."

"And then what?" asks Kenyatta with an amused smile. "Will you ask me to remove my pants as well?"

"No," says the journalist, returning his smile. "I'm sure just the shirt will be enough."

"As you wish," says Kenyatta, getting to his feet and starting to fumble with his shirt. "But I want you all to remember that I told you I have no complaints about my treatment at the hands of the British. I bear them no malice. The day will come when England will be Kenya's greatest friend and ally."

As he speaks, he removes his shirt.

"You see?" he says, facing them.

"Would you turn around please?"

Kenyatta turns his back to them. He is glad they cannot see his grin of triumph as their gasps of shock and horror come to his ears.

In the coming months he invites National Geographic to see the death throes of elephants, rhinos, and buffalo that have been crippled and torn apart by the British bombs. A ten-week-old lion cub with one foreleg blown away makes the cover of Life .

Every Kikuyu child who receives a wound from anything-a thorn bush, a jackal, a stray British bullet-is gathered into a single medical facility (it is too primitive to dignify it by calling it a hospital), and an endless parade of Western aid workers and journalists is ushered through it.

Each Kikuyu who dies from a British bullet is mutilated and photographed. Any British soldiers killed by the Kikuyu-and a number who never existed-are buried and their graves marked with crosses.

The King's African Rifles and the British Army deny all the press's charges, but the journalists know better: they have seen the carnage with their own eyes. They know the British are extracting a terrible, barbaric revenge against the Mau Mau up in the forested mountains, they know that the Kikuyu are treating the dead of the enemy with honor, they know that the old Burning Spear has been tortured in a British prison, and they know that hundreds of innocent Kikuyu children have become victims of a British army gone mad.

Within six months the American government is pressuring the British to grant Kenya its independence. The French, the Germans, and the Italians follow suit within weeks. Even the SPCA has publicly condemned the United Kingdom.

"I cannot believe it!" exclaims Kimathi as word comes to them that the British have declared a cease-fire and are withdrawing from the holy mountain. "We have killed only four of them in ten months, and they have killed thousands of us, and yet we are winning the war!"

"Different times call for different methods," replies Kenyatta, who is unsurprised by this turn of events. "There is a sentence in their Bible that says the meek shall inherit the earth. They should have read it more carefully."

Two months later the meek have inherited Kenya. It is a foregone conclusion that Kenyatta will become the first president; an election seems a waste of time and money, but of course they will hold it.

At the ceremony that makes independence official, Malcolm MacDonald, the last British governor of Kenya, introduces Kenyatta to Prince Philip, who formally invites him into the Commonwealth.

"It is a new era, and hence a time for new names," declares the prince. "Just as Kenya Colony has become simply Kenya, I think it is time to cast aside the sobriquet of Burning Spear-" he waits until a murmur of disapproval from the crowd dies down, then continues "-and replace it with M'zee , the Wise Old Man. Certainly," he adds with a rueful smile, "he is wiser than we were."

Kenyatta silently agrees that the name suits him better these days. He decides to keep it.

Dearest Brother, Everyone as far as the Mississippi will be talking of our work yesterday, but I suppose my personal account will be of some interest to you and our mother. It would have been of even more interest to William, had he not been lost aboard L'Insurgente . He certainly had more aptitude for the naval service than I do, but I shall do my best.

I suppose that word of United States leaving New York was spread abroad more widely than it would have been otherwise thanks to the accident that damaged our bowsprit and disabled our Purser. Certainly we drew the cover off the Azores to no effect, speaking no ships save neutral Portuguese ones.

As we had replenished our water at the Azores, we had in it our power to cruise off the West Indies or South America. However, Captain Decatur showed unwonted prudence, in declining to risk our bowsprit in those waters in the hurricane season. He resolved to strike at the shipping between Halifax and Bermuda, drawing British ships from the blockade of the American coast.

We met headwinds, however, which slowed our progress but drove into our arms the British ship Appleton Brothers , with naval stores for Bermuda, as well as hardtack, rum, and nearly a thousand pounds in specie. We took what we could out of her and burned her, learning from her crew that several more ships similarly laden were following in her wake. They said nothing about the ships being convoyed, but Lieutenant Allen spoke for many of us when he said the Englishmen knew more than they were telling.

We encountered the first of those ships the next day (November the twenty-sixth), but she was able to keep her distance and lose us in a rain squall. United States is a stout ship, but is named "The Wagon" for good cause. One wonders if every spare piece of timber that came into Philadelphia while she was building went into her, giving her stout scantlings and a lubberly manner of sailing.

Not all things come to him who waits, but to those who wait with a keen eye enough good may well come. At dawn this day we saw several sail to the NNW, on a course toward us, and Captain Decatur ordered us to quarters. Having no purser's business outstanding, I stowed my papers and came on deck, ready to help with the wounded.