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."