Gustav Mohr had come from his farm to my house, when he heard of Denys’s death, and when he did not find me there he looked me up in Nairobi. A little while after, Hugh Martin came and sat down with us. I told them of Denys’s wish, and of the burial-place in the hills, and they wired to the people at Voi. Before I went back to the farm they informed me that they would bring Denys’s body up by train next morning, so that the funeral could take place in the hills at noon. I must have his grave ready there by then.
Gustav Mohr went with me to the farm, to sleep there, and help me in the morning. We would have to be out in the hills just before sunrise to decide on the place, and to have the grave dug in time.
It rained all night, and there was a fine drizzling rain in the morning when we went away. The waggon-tracks on the road were full of water. Driving up in the hills was like driving into clouds. We could not see the plains below to our left, nor the slopes or peaks of the hills to our right; the boys who came with us in a lorry disappeared behind us at a distance of ten yards, and the mist grew thicker as the road mounted. By the sign-board on the road, we found where we got into the Game Reserve, so we drove on a few hundred yards and then got out of the car. We left the lorry, and the boys, on the high-road, until we should have found the place we wanted. The morning air was so cold that it bit the fingers.
The place of the grave must not be too far away from the road, nor where the ground was too steep to bring up a lorry. We walked together for a little while, talking of the mist, then we parted and went along by different paths, and after a few seconds we could no longer see one another.
The great country of the hills opened up reluctantly round me, and closed again, the day was like a rainy day in a Northern country. Farah was walking with me with a wet rifle; he thought that we might walk into a herd of Buffalo. The things close by, that suddenly appeared just before us, looked fantastically big. The leaves of the grey wild-olive bush, and the long grass, higher than ourselves, were dripping wet and smelled strongly,—I had on a mackintosh and rubber boots, but after a while I was drenched as if I had been wading up a stream. It was very still here in the hills, only at times when the rain came down stronger, there was a whisper to all sides. Once the mist parted, and I saw a stretch of indigo blue land before me and beyond me, like a slate,—it must have been one of the tall peaks far away,—a moment after it was again covered by the drifting grey rain and mist. I walked and walked, and in the end I stood quite still. There was nothing to do here until the weather cleared up.
Gustav Mohr shouted to me three or four times to find out where I was, and came up to me, the rain on his face and hands. He told me that we had been going about in the mist for an hour, and that if we did not settle the place for the grave now, we would not have it ready in time.
“But I cannot see where we are,” I said, “and we cannot lay him where the ridges close up the view. Let us wait a little longer.”
We stood in silence in the long grass, and I smoked a cigarette. Just as I was throwing it away, the mist spread a little, and a pale cold clarity began to fill the world. In ten minutes we could see where we were. The plains lay below us, and I could follow the road by which we had come, as it wound in and out along the slopes, climbed towards us, and, winding, went on. To the South, far away, below the changing clouds, lay the broken, dark blue foot-hills of Kilimanjaro. As we turned to the North the light increased, pale rays for a moment slanted in the sky and a streak of shining silver drew up the shoulder of Mount Kenya. Suddenly, much closer, to the East below us, was a little red spot in the grey and green, the only red there was, the tiled roof of my house on its cleared place in the forest. We did not have to go any further, we were in the right place. A little while after, the rain started again.
About twenty yards higher up than where we stood, there was a narrow natural terrace in the hillside, here we marked out the place for the grave, by the compass, laying it East to West. We called up the boys, and set them to cut the grass with pangas, and to dig the wet soil. Mohr took some of them with him to make a road tor the lorry, from the highroad to the grave, they levelled out the ground, cut off branches from the bush and heaped them on the path, for the ground was slippery. We could not bring the road all the way up to the grave, near it the ground was too steep. It had been silent up here till now, but when the boys began to work, I heard that there was an echo in the hills, it answered to the strokes of the spades, like a little dog barking.
Some cars came out from Nairobi, and we sent down a boy to show them the way, for in the great country they would not notice the small group of people by the grave in the bush. The Somalis of Nairobi came out, they left their mule-traps on the highroad, and walked slowly up, three or four together, mourning in the Somali way, as if wrapping up their heads and withdrawing from life. Some of Denys’s friends from up-country, who had had news of his death, came driving from Naivasha, Gil-Gil, and Elmenteita, their cars all covered with mud from the long fast drive. Now the day grew clearer, and the four tall peaks of the hills showed above us against the sky.
Here in the early afternoon they brought out Denys from Nairobi, following his old Safari-track to Tanganyika, and driving slowly on the wet road. When they came to the last steep slope, they lifted out, and carried the narrow coffin, that was covered with the flag. As it was placed in the grave, the country changed and became the setting for it, as still as itself, the hills stood up gravely, they knew and understood what we were doing in them; after a little while they themselves took charge of the ceremony, it was an action between them and him, and the people present became a party of very small lookers-on in the landscape.
Denys had watched and followed all the ways of the African Highlands, and better than any other white man, he had known their soil and seasons, the vegetation and the wild animals, the winds and smells. He had observed the changes of weather in them, their people, clouds, the stars at night. Here in the hills, I had seen him only a short time ago, standing bare-headed in the afternoon sun, gazing out over the land, and lifting his field-glasses to find out everything about it. He had taken in the country, and in his eyes and his mind it had been changed, marked by his own individuality, and made part of him. Now Africa received him, and would change him, and make him one with herself.
The Bishop of Nairobi, I was told, had not wanted to come out, because there had not been time to have the burial-ground consecrated, but there was another clergyman present, who read out the funeral service, which I had never heard before, and in the great space his voice sounded small and clear, like the voice of a bird in the hills. I thought that Denys would like the whole thing best when it was over. The priest read out a Psalm: “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills.”
Gustav Mohr and I sat on for a little while, after the other white people had left. The Mohammedans waited till we had gone, and then went and prayed by the grave.
In the days after Denys’s death, his Safari servants came in, and gathered on the farm. They did not say why they came, and did not ask for anything, but sat down with their backs to the wall of the house, and the backs of their hands, resting upon the pavement, most of the time in silence, contrary to the habits of Natives. Malimu and Sar Sita came there, Denys’s bold, shrewd, fearless gunbearers and trackers, who had been with him on all his Safaris. They had been out with the Prince of Wales, and many years after, the Prince remembered their names, and said that the two of them together had been hard to beat. Here the great trackers had lost the track, and sat immovable. Kanuthia, his motor-driver, came in, who had driven over many thousand miles of rough country, a slim young Kikuyu with the watchful eyes of a monkey, now he sat by the house like a sad and chilly monkey in a cage.