The young man tied his shuka on his shoulder one day and took his shield and his spear and went to war. He thought war was made of spears and shields and courage, and he brought them all. But they gave him a gun, so he left the spear and the shield behind him and took the courage, and went where they sent him because they said this was his duty and he believed in duty. He believed in duty and in the kind of justice that he knew, and in all the things that were of the earth - like the voice of the forest, the right of a lion to kill a buck, the right of a buck to eat grass, and the right of a man to fight. He believed in many wives, young as he was, and in the telling of stories by the shade of the singiri. He took the gun and held it the way they had told him to hold it, and walked where they told him to walk, smiling a little and looking for another man to fight. He was shot and killed by the other man, who also believed in duty, and he was buried where he fell. It was so simple and so unimportant.
( Beryl Markham )
[ West with the Night ]
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