a month, allegedly for drunkenness and persistent violence against his fellow recruits. He moved from job to job, from swineherd to primary school teacher, from which he was dismissed after accusations of violence against his pupils. His close associates however said he was dismissed for ranting about the school administration. Mau Mau movement Around 1947 or 1948, whilst working in Ol Kalou, Kimathi came into contact with members of the Kenya African Union (KAU). By 1950 he had become secretary to the KAU branch at Ol Kalou, which was controlled by militant supporters of the Mau Mau cause. The Mau Mau began as the Land and Freedom Army (KLFA), a militant Kikuyu, Embu and Meru army which sought to reclaim land, which the British settlers had gradually stripped away from them. As the group's influence and membership widened it became a major threat to the colonial government. Upon taking the oath of the Mau Mau, Kimathi in 1951 joined the Forty Group, the militant wing of the defunct Kikuyu Central Association. As branch secretary, Kimathi presided over oath-taking. He believed in compelling fellow Kikuyu by way of oath to bring solidarity to the independence movement. To achieve this he administered beatings and carried a double-barrelled shotgun. His activities with the group made him a target of the colonial government, and he was briefly arrested that same year but escaped with the help of local police. This marked the beginning of his involvement in the uprising, and he formed the Kenya Defence Council to co-ordinate all forest fighters in 1953. Capture and execution Kimathi's fight for an independent Kenya came to an end in 1956. On 21 October of that year, Ian Henderson, a British colonial police officer who had been on an "obsessive hunt" for Kimathi, managed to trap him in his hide-out in the forest. Kimathi was shot in the leg and captured by a Tribal Policeman called Ndirangu Mau who found Kimathi armed with a panga (a bladed African tool like a machete). His capture marked the beginning of the end of the forest war; the image of Kimathi being carried away on a stretcher was printed in leaflets by the British (over 120,000 were distributed), to demoralise the Mau Mau and their supporters. Kimathi was charged with possession of a .38 Webley Scott revolver. A court presided over by Chief Justice O'Connor and with an all-black jury