FARMER, 80, SEIZED

Mau Mau Spared Him

This is the sixth in a series by Jack Scott, Sun writer, on the Mau Mau war in Kenya

May 14, 1953

10 Mau Maus Killed, Arms Cache Taken

NAIROBI, Kenya, May 14 (BUP) British and loyal native police killed 10 Mau Maus and captured "large stores" of arms and ammunition in a series of surprise raids on terrorist hideouts during the last 24 hours, it was announced today.

NANYUKI, Kenya. – Fred Thorpe is an old man. and a brave one. At 80 he looks at you quizzically from under hairy white eyebrows and tells you of his escape from the Mau Mau as other men might tell you of a minor traffic accident. 

Thorpe has 4000 acres in the "White Highlands," the Cariboo-like country some 150 miles north of Nairobi, in the long shadow of Mount Kenya. 

For 32 years he has made, a modest living from his cattle and, latterly, from fields of pyrethrum, a white, daisy-like flower used in the manufacture of insecticide.

 In early March, when the Mau Mau terror was at its height, Thorpe and his wife moved down to Nyeri to sit out the emergency in the flowered garden of the White Rhino Hotel. 

His Guns Out of Reach 

On March 13 he returned alone to the farm for a look around, The walk tired him and he sat down for a pipe In a banda, a sort of thatched summer house. 

It was there, at two o'clock of a warm, bright afternoon, that he met the Mau Mau. 

Without warning 20 of them appeared at the cottage door and ran into the room. Thorpe's pipe fell to the floor and he stood up. His revolver was on a table across the room. A rifle stood behind the door. Both were out of reach. 

"One of the gang carried a shocgun and I watched him lift it to his shoulder. I felt strangely detached from the whole affair. I thought, W11, Fred, this is the end of all things.' The blast shook the whole banda and I felt the charge go past my left shoulder." 

The others then rushed the old man and dragged him into the sunlight. One of the natives who was obviously the leader commanded him to "stand here." The others were looting the banda. 

A native emerged triumphantly with a bottle of whisky and a bottle of brandy. When another came out with a reading lamp and a wall clock the leader commanded him to take them back. 

Ready to Chop Him Up

 "One of the more excitable men " rushed up to me and shouted, 'Lie down!' He swung his panga through the air. I knew then they were going to cut me to pieces. 

"I stood my ground. I knew if I were to lie down it would be all up with me. 

"Then I heard the leader speaking to them. 'No,' he said, 'he is an old man; he does not harm his labor.1 I felt oddly grateful. I remember thinking, 'This is very, good of the fellow'." 

"At that moment another native, who had been wearing field glasses about his neck, emerged from the banda with' Thorpe's prized binoculars. 

"I was surprised to hear myself objecting. I said, "Look here, my friend, you've already got a good pair of glasses. Why take mine?' The man laughed and came up to me and put out his hand. We shook hands. But he kept the glasses. 

"When they had gone I sat down for a long time. My pipe was still alight and I smoked it. I remember feeling oddly depressed when I suppose I had every right to feel relieved. I was thinking that things would never be the same again in Kenya ..." 

They are certainly-not the same these days in this beautiful ranch country. 

When I sat yesterday having tea in one of the world's most beautiful country homes we could hear the spat-of distant rifle-fire. A police ' patrol was going through a swamp, firing ahead of them, on the tip that the swamp was infested with Mau Maus. (It wasn't.)

Lavish Home Like Fort 

This is the Kenya home of Sir Alfred Biet, an Irish millionaire. The immense Jiving room is cedar beamed. There is a great stone fireplace. Leaded windows look out over lawns and flower gardens to the distant fields where 9000 dairy cattle graze under a cloudless blue sky. Two pet giraffe lope about a nearby field. 

 Sir Alfred is prudently sitting things out in Ireland. His manager, James Littlewood, a short, ruddy-faced man, very capable-looking in his tweed jacket and corduroy trousers, has moved in with his family. The place is like a fort. 

Littlewood wears a .45 Wil-kinson-Webley, his wife, Rosamond, has a .25 automatic. Her mother, who is visiting them from England, carries a small collector's gun. Michael, who is five, "'plays "Mau Mau" with a wooden toy rifle as children ?at home play "cowboys and " Indians." '

"Thorpe's case is a good j Wesson," the manager said. "You don't risk putting down i your gun for an instant. 

"We carry our firearms wherever we are, whatever we're doing." He laughed and his wife joined him. "I mean everything," he said. "We Sleep .with a revolver beside our bed. We have it on a . stool beside us in the bathroom. 

"When sundown comes we use this main room as a sort of redoubt. The bolts are locked. None of the Kikukyu boys who work for us are permitted inside after dark. We -cook for ourselves. We never turn our back to the window.

"You can't trust them, even those you've known years, because they are so easily intimidated by the Mau Mau. If it came to any trouble we'd try to defend this one room." 

Can't Relax at Night 

I guessed that this constant pension might be a strain on them all." 

"It is that." Littlewood said. "A farmer likes to relax at night or to do his I'office work.' There's no 4 more of that. We're always listening for some unexpected sound. A bad business all around." 

Two violent encounters with the Maus Maus have taken place on the pleasant acres of the Biet farm and there Is evidence that a considerable traffic of Mau Mau move across it on their way from hideouts in the Abedare Mountains to the lower slopes of Mount Kenya. 

Littlewood believes that the danger of attack lies in the gangs' need for guns and ammunition if they are to keep on equal terms with the forest patrols. 

"They seem to be in gangs of 10 or 15,", he said. "We know that some of them come down into the farms at night and that they are get-getting some help from the Kikuyu labor who work for us. . 

"We know that lately they've been after information about what arms are to be picked up on the farms. That's reason enough to be on a constant alert." 

Five Natives Shot Dead 

Recently one of Little-wood's  Kikuyu workers, a boy of 12, reported that he had been ordered by a Mau Mau gang to take food to a hut some distance from the house. The manager, and a 10-man police patrol found three Mau Mau in the hut. 

"They carried simis you ' could shave with," he said. I "Farther' along we came across eight more hiding in the brush and called upon them to surrender. They made a break for it and we opened fire. We shot five of them- dead, took two prisoners and one got away." 

A week later another farm worker reported seeing five natives, one armed with a rifle. In the subsequent encounter two Mau Mau were killed. 

The Mau Mau then threatened reprisals against the 160 Kikuyu employed on the farm and two of the volunteer white "farm guards" were delegated with 10 native constables to patrol the area. Since then there's been no further trouble.

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