MAHOMED FARA
As body servant--Safari troubles--Mahomed of the lion's
heart--Mahomed to the rescue--The duel--Mahomed on field
service--The parting.
It is more than twelve years ago now since I first met him at
Adas-Ababa. I wanted a servant, a strong fellow. Mahomed Fara,
Somal, was nineteen years of age, tall and slender; looked delicate,
and bore traces of having suffered from smallpox; not enough to
disfigure him, for he was a nice looking boy. He wanted to get out
of Abyssinia; I do not know how he came there. He also wanted to see
the world. I was going on to the Bahr-En-Nil, which was new country
to him, and whether that was the chief attraction, or whether, as I
like to believe, he had acquired a sneaking regard for my person,
only Mahomed knows, but he asked for the vacant post. Physically he
was far from the type of man I required, but he had good manners and
impressed me. Looking back on the years that have passed I know now
why Mahomed impressed me sufficiently to engage him for a trip I
feared he might not be up to. It was because he was a gentleman at
heart; there was more in him than the good manners I liked so well.
My impression that he was delicate soon became a certainty, but
the boy had the heart of a lion, and whatever he turned his hand
to was done with the best that was in him. We had a rough trip.
Crossing the low Abyssinian territory that borders on the Soudan we
found the whole country in flood, and covered with elephant grass
ten to fifteen feet high. The transport animals could not, and the
transport drivers would not, go on. Somals and Abyssinians alike put
their feet down and said we were mad to continue. We only replied
that, as far as we were concerned, there was no turning back, but
that if they wished to do so we acquiesced. My friend, with whom I
was travelling, had some Bantu servants, and a couple of Arabs, who
stayed by him, and of all the others I was left only with Mahomed
Fara. There was no hesitation or doubt on his part.
"Do you wish to return or will you follow me, Mahomed? You have a
free choice."
"I shall follow you," said Mahomed.
Stores were thrown away and burnt, and our sadly diminished little
party pushed on. What happened does not greatly concern this story,
but, among other things, we ran short of food, and passed through
mostly uninhabited country. It was a miserable trek, and we were
nearly always hungry. Once, when we met with natives, we purchased
dug-out canoes, and as the country was one mass of waterways it
looked as if our troubles might be nearing an end. But the canoes
were heavy and there was little current to help them along.
Sometimes, when worn out with the day's paddling and we wished to
camp, not a dry spot could be found for miles and miles. When we
found it it was nearly always infested with red ants that resented
our intrusion, and made our lives a hell upon earth. When there
were no red ants there were mosquitoes. As we pushed through the
long grass, seeking something dry to burn, these latter attacked us
in swarms. Then the day came when we were all on edge, and little
unimportant things began to look out of all proportion to their
size. As for Mahomed he was nearing collapse.
We were paddling down stream, my friend with a couple of Bantu in
one canoe, Mahomed, an Arab, and I in another. The canoes were
almost side by side, and the Bantus jeeringly called our attention
to Mahomed, who, with closed eyes and limp body, was automatically
dipping his paddle in-and-out of the water.
I looked at him. When a man has been suffering pure, unadulterated
misery for days and nights on end the devils that are in his heart
wax strong, and on the slightest excuse take charge. The sight of
the forlorn, delicate Mahomed, instead of exciting pity within my
breast, made me see red. Why should my man be flopping about like a
dying duck in a thunderstorm, whilst these other fellows were still
putting their backs into it? It was disgraceful!
"Curse you, and curse you, and curse you again! Pull yourself
together, you apology for a man, and try at least to look like one!"
Mahomed was done--all in--but there was a something in the fellow
that kept those lean arms moving spasmodically, and gripped the thin
fingers to the paddle-handle. There was no gallery there to play to
remember. If he had put the paddle down and said, "I am beaten; I
can't go on," nothing would have happened. But he just carried on.
That there was no change in his attitude annoyed me, and the Bantus
laughed. Then, to my eternal shame, I sprang forward and struck him;
struck him savagely as I would not strike a horse were it as tired
as he. He did not flinch from the blow, but just pulled himself
together and looked at me. The incident is twelve years old, but I
have never forgotten that look. When I think of it I feel as ashamed
of myself now as I did when I faced it.
The next day we camped on a dry piece of ground, and it was a
case of shooting something for the pot. We had our choice of
two varieties of game, doves and elephant, both with the rifle.
There was no other animal-life fit for food. Mahomed and I found
an elephant standing near an ant heap in long grass. I could not
shoot from the side as the grass hid the animal when I stood on the
ground, and when I sat on the ant heap his head was at an angle
slightly pointing away from me. The one shot offering any hope of
success was the frontal head one. This offered but a poor chance
of success, but I wanted to get it over, and decided to take it.
Mahomed stood behind me with a spare .303, and I, with a .318 in
my hand, watched the big brute swaying on his legs as he dozed in
the sun. On his head lay a great bunch of grass, which now and then
fell to the ground, only to be picked up in his trunk and sleepily
returned to its place as head-covering.
Then I fired, and as I had feared, the bullet struck at too great
an angle and lodged harmlessly in the mass of forehead-bone. Then
things moved. The brute saw me: I whipped back the bolt of my
magazine rifle, and, as I pushed it home, the end of a bandage I
was wearing on my hand fouled, with the inevitable consequence--a
jam. So there I was, perched on an ant heap, in full view of an
infuriated elephant, who, with uplifted trunk, came to investigate.
The rifle was worse than jammed, because it was fast to my hand
with a bandage that seemed to have the strength of a hundred ropes.
Mahomed was behind and below with the spare rifle, and could neither
see nor do anything. There was room for but one man on the heap to
which I stuck, trying frantically to clear my hand. With a shout of
"Hold on," Mahomed reached up, tore clear the rifle, bandage and
all, and passed the .303 just in time. When it was all over--it was
a matter of seconds--I came down and looked at him. Just looked at
him, for I could not speak. Mahomed Fara looked back and smiled. We
were even. In return for the cowardly blow I had dealt him yesterday
he had, by his coolness and presence of mind, saved my life. When I
did find my tongue I said, "By God, you are a man," and that closed
the incident between us for ever.
Long afterwards, whilst Mahomed was still my servant, we met again
one of the Bantus who had laughed at him from the canoe. It was
Christmas day, I remember, but he and Mahomed broke the peace
outside my bungalow. My friend, he of the canoe, and I ran out
together to separate them, but the native head-man told us we would
only delay matters by interfering. They had to fight until one was
broken.
"Let them fight," said my friend, "let them fight it out."
I looked at Mahomed and saw that he was as thin and delicate as
ever, and, to my mind, it seemed his nine stone of flesh and blood
must be beaten to pulp by the fourteen stone brute who stood before
him.
"Aye, let us fight it out, Sahib," said Mahomed, reading my
thoughts, "things have gone too far; we _must_ fight."
"Very well," I reluctantly assented, "but your blood be on your own
head."
As I expected the Bantu simply smothered the Somal. Although we
barred sticks, knives, or stone-throwing (don't smile, Africans use
those things in preference to bare fists) there were many foul blows
given and received--more often received by Mahomed--until at last
the weaker man was in dire straits. Again and again he staggered to
his feet only to hit the ground immediately afterwards.
"Stop. Give in, Mahomed. He's a better man physically, and he'll
kill you!"
"I shall never give in," replied Mahomed. "He is a slave and I am
his master!"
And then the spirit in him began to triumph over his adversary, who,
though quite unhurt, now showed signs of fear. Once he fell to the
ground, and seizing Mahomed's leg bit it to the bone. For this act
he was rewarded by a kick on the face that gave him the wished-for
excuse to "play possum." The battered Mahomed now began to kick his
adversary feebly on the body with bare feet, and the latter cried
out to us to save him.
"Admit you are beaten!" said Mahomed.
"I am beaten!" said the Bantu.
Afterwards I married. The change of life from the single to the
blessed state affects not only the European dweller in Africa, but
also his servant. Where a wipe here and a flick there with a duster,
in the old days, constituted tidying up the house, everything now
must be cleaned and polished with scrupulous care. There are also
ever so many things that were never done in the old times more than
twice a year--and that a record year--that now call for attention
every day. A bachelor's servants rarely remain long with him after
he marries. But Mahomed was one of the exceptions. When the first
baby came he was as delighted as I, and when others followed he
seemed to share the heavy cares of family life equally with me. I
can pay him the greatest compliment a white man can pay the native.
Wherever the children might be I felt that if Mahomed were there,
and alive, they were safe. His own marriage to an older woman was
unhappy, and one day, yielding to her importunities, he allowed
her to go. She left him a young son. His mother had been rendered
destitute as the outcome of a wild raid by the Mad Mullah, and
Mahomed brought her, and a young brother, to Jubaland, where we
lived. I had then an opportunity of learning that he was a good son.
When war broke out in August, 1914, Mahomed and I, for the first few
days, took little heed. We were too far removed from the European
world to realise what was coming. But, soon afterwards, I left
Mahomed to help bring up the children, whilst I went off to join the
King's African Rifles.
Later it was so arranged, by collusion with _someone_ who ought not
to have been so unselfish, that he might again taste the joys and
discomforts of the old wild free life on the veldt. So Mahomed came
to be my servant in the M.I. Wherever I went he followed, though he
was cautioned again and again that his duty was with the horses, or
in the column, and not in following me round like a dog, even to the
firing line. M.I. work in the early days of the G.E.A. campaign was
more than exciting, and the men could not understand why Mahomed
never failed to accompany them if he had the chance, instead of
staying behind with the crowd. But we had a secret, he and I. It
was something about a letter that had to be delivered by him under
certain contingencies; contingencies that occurred in the careers
of many good men, alas, only too often in those days.
Then, one day in March, 1915, at Mwaika Hill in German East Africa,
the M.I. ran right into it. For five minutes it was touch and go.
I was commanding Somals, and it was the first doubtful corner we
had been in together. I was not sure of them for the moment. Let me
hasten to say that I am now, sure of, and proud to have commanded
them. But on that occasion we were a bit mixed, just a little in
the air, and it was vital that we should hold a bad position whilst
the column behind deployed for action. There were swarms of bullets
about, and I had a suspicion that, mixed up as we were with the Hun
askaris, some of those same bullets were coming from our own side.
I had joined in a short rush, and was lying ready to order another,
when someone came with a run and threw himself beside me. It was
Mahomed, and a fine old storm of bullets he brought with him.
"What are you doing here, Mahomed? You ought to be back at the
horses."
"Sahib, I promised the Mem-Sahib to look after you, and I've come to
warn you that you are not taking cover properly. These people are
shooting straight and shooting to kill the officers. It is foolish
for you to keep moving about. Please take cover properly."
"Well, now you are here at the Mem-Sahib's orders, do you think you
can do anything? Can you catch one of these bullets in your hand? It
is you who are foolish."
But all the same after that warning I was more careful to take cover.
We were sending back for ammunition, and Mahomed was told off to
accompany the messenger, more to get him out of danger than anything
else. But the messenger was killed on the way, and, meanwhile, we
were relieved, and received orders to get back to the horses and
mount. On our way we met Mahomed again, returning with an ammunition
mule whose syce had also been killed; and it seemed to him as if
the German and British forces had combined to pick him off, and the
wretched mule with him. He had been "through it," and there was a
look on his face that reminded me of the day I had struck him on
the river. Two men relieved him of his charge, and we dragged the
disobedient Mahomed back with us, the men keeping an eye on him
to see that he ran into no further danger. He was not a soldier,
but he was out to risk his life to keep a promise he had made to
the Mem-Sahib, and no one would want to accuse him of being a
medal-hunter for doing it.
Then Mahomed and I parted, and it was a great breaking-up. The
kiddies to England, and he and I missed one another, and did not
meet again for more than two years. It was just luck. After the
armistice I was on my way home, and, as the train was about to
pull out of Nairobi station, we met again. Mahomed hurried on to
the platform with a basket of fruit, for he had heard I was ill.
He jumped into the carriage, and in a few seconds had arranged my
few belongings comfortably. It was a kindly thought, that little
service, and worth to me more than the gift of fruit. The memory of
it is still sweet. Mahomed, even in the stress and rush of a railway
parting, where he had to stand back whilst I spoke to more important
people than him, could find pleasure in doing little things for his
old master. He had a long memory, had Mahomed.
"If you return I wish to enter your service again," he said, when I
had time to give him a moment.
"You are a millionaire now, Mahomed. You are drawing exactly twice
the pay I can afford to give you."
"Never mind that; I want to come back on the old pay."
But Mahomed and I are getting on in life, and he has
responsibilities. I could not permit him to make such a sacrifice,
and so we parted.
Such is the tale of Mahomed Fara, Mahomed the Somal. I do not deny
that there were occasions when he kicked over the traces; that he
had within him the wild strain of his breed responsive to injury,
real or imagined, even as a barrel of gunpowder to a red-hot poker.
But I have just pictured him as I found him, and, although he is
black and I am white, I am proud to call him "friend."