The Quick Boat Men, page 23
From behind the trees a raft appeared. It consisted of two logs fitted with a small outboard motor. Between the logs was a torpedo.
‘For God’s sake,’ Crump yelled. ‘Talk about Fred Karno’s navy. Starboard your helm!’
Fortunately the German torpedo was no more accurate than the British one. It swung round in a circle so that the Germans had to heave their raft to port as it whisked past them to run up on the mud and explode against a tree.
Both sides hooted with laughter. ‘Ve exchange you,’ one of the Germans yelled. ‘Yours for ours. Zey are all as bad.’
It looked as though torpedo attacks were out of the question. To run the gauntlet of concealed defences through the maze of channels presented unacceptable risks to the boats’ crews and the likelihood of getting close enough for a clear shot at the cruiser was remote. But the admiral in command, chivvied from Cape Town and London, refused to accept defeat. As they sweated uncomfortably through the following weeks, two Sopwith seaplanes arrived. Loaded, they couldn’t get off the water and, stripped down almost to their spars, the pilots found themselves aloft without observers or bombs and with only an hour’s supply of fuel. In that steaming corner of Africa the glue that helped hold the machines together started to run. The laminated propellers warped and the fabric of wings and fuselage shrank and became brittle.
Two weeks later, two strange-looking vessels appeared off the delta. They were around 300 feet long and 50 feet wide but they had only three feet of freeboard. Even fully laden they drew little more than six feet. Each had a single funnel and an 80-foot mast amidships.
‘Severn and Mersey,’ Crump said as he came back after a visit to the strange new ships. ‘Built for the Brazilian Navy for use up the Amazon and taken over by us when the war started. Slow as snails and can’t be long away from port, but they have two six-inchers and two four point sevens. They’ve seen some action off the Belgian coast and were going to be used at Gallipoli.’
More ancient aircraft arrived soon afterwards, but they were in bad shape. Edward’s expertise with engines was called on. They experimented with fuel blends and adjusted the carburettors until the threads of the screws were worn. They trimmed and retrimmed the aircraft, and even removed the exhaust systems to build new ones. In the murderous heat tempers frayed quickly. On the other side of the world, ships were being lost on both sides from shells, torpedoes or mines, among them great battleships and liners. But under the roasting sun of East Africa, hundreds of men were doing nothing but pursue one small German raider, struggling with out-dated equipment because everything else was being held in England for the expected clash in the North Sea with the German fleet.
Men began to go down with malaria and Edward was one of them. Taken to Goliath’s sick bay he eventually emerged weak and pale. But he continued to work on the engines, until they began to get something like a show from the aircraft.
‘Let’s go and have a look at this wretched tub,’ said the pilot to Edward. ‘And don’t jerk around too much or we’ll be crocodile meat.’
It was a great deal cooler at 1000 feet. The clatter of the engine made conversation impossible but Watkins soon pointed out the German cruiser that had defied their efforts for so long. It looked like a grey-green cigar covered here and there with foliage. Her side-screens and awnings were spread, smoke was rising from her funnels and she looked surprisingly smart, considering how long she’d been there.
As they returned, the engine began to make clattering noises mixed with breathy sighs and choking coughs. Then it stopped altogether. The propeller came to a jerky halt. But the pilot knew his stuff, and they glided safely down to where a group of British whalers waited in case of trouble.
Returning to the mouth of the delta, Edward found shipwrights and seamen being drafted to the monitors to prepare them for battle. Their decks were being built up with sandbags. The compass and hand-steering wheel were protected with more sandbags and the bridge was screened with piled hammocks, while scores of men hung over their sides painting them the same green as the mangroves.
On Edward’s birthday the monitors steamed down the coast, as close inshore as they could manage, to familiarise themselves with the landmarks and the route through the river maze. The following day there would be a high tide which would carry them over the mudbanks. All unnecessary equipment had been removed. Galley fires had been extinguished. Every man was issued with four meat sandwiches, and baskets of oranges and buckets of oatmeal and water were placed about the ships.
At four in the morning, with the other warships in position to give support, the monitors began to creep forward, each towing a motor boat.
A mist shrouded the river and flotillas of pelicans clattered into the air with the first shot.
‘Forty-seven millimetre,’ someone said laconically. ‘Over there. On the bank.’
As the firing started the motor boats drew back, ready to pick up survivors. Taking his boat to the sheltered side of the Severn, Edward waited as the three-pounders began to crack away to keep German heads down. Through lulls in the din, he could hear the high-pitched buzzing of the spotting aeroplane overhead. By 6.30, with the sun well up and the heat tremendous, the monitors slowed to a stop.
‘Let go anchors.’
They were around 10,000 yards from the target and the first shots were short. The monitors were soon being straddled.
‘They’re firing four to every one of ours,’ someone commented.
‘It’s a good job they’re not hitting anything.’
A piercing yell came from one of the look-outs on the Severn.
‘Torpedo!’
They could see the line of bubbles quite distinctly but couldn’t work out from where the torpedo had been launched. Every gun in the area opened up and the torpedo leapt broken-backed from the water.
The din was terrific. Overhead Watkins was trying to drop bombs on the German ship. None of them scored a direct hit. But puffs of smoke rose from the water and the mangrove tops shook under the blasts.
The Königsberg’s shells were falling on the river banks, hurling mud and bushes into the air. The Mersey had been struck twice and her forward 6-inch gun had been knocked out. The next shot hit her motor boat and Edward saw it disappear in a shower of spray, planks, pieces of metal and human limbs.
Severn was also taking heavy punishment. The anchor was weighed and she began to move. The firing continued throughout the day. And, as the sun began to drop towards the horizon, the monitors headed back to the river mouth. As they came alongside Goliath, there were cheers from the men lining the rails as the exhausted boats’ crews climbed back on board.
‘Finish it tomorrow,’ Crump said, knocking back a gin in the wardroom.
‘It’ll be nice to be in at the death,’ Edward said drily.
‘Not you, old boy,’ Crump grinned. ‘You’re away.’
‘Where to?’
‘Some business on Lake Tanganyika, Number One says. They’ve got two motor boats. Real ones. That sounds more like your cup of tea.’
Thirty-four
Edward climbed aboard the steamer, Trent, heading with sick and wounded for the field hospital on the Mbuni River. The monitors were preparing for another engagement, and as Trent reached the open sea, Edward heard the dull thudding of guns. A little while later, there was a tremendous explosion. A huge column of yellow smoke rose over the distant trees. At lunchtime the signals officer confirmed it was the Königsberg.
‘Thank God for that,’ Edward said. ‘I hope the next job’s a bit easier.’
When they landed under the shadow of Table Mountain, Edward was hurried to the base at Simonstown where the job was outlined by a pink-faced captain.
‘Lake Tanganyika,’ he was told. ‘Thirteen thousand square miles of water and one of the longest lakes in the world. German East on one shore, Belgian Congo on the other, a bit of Northern Rhodesia in the south. The Germans have two gunboats on the lake based at Kigoma. We, as usual, have nothing. By attacking unarmed craft, the Germans control the lake. The tribes on the Belgian shore, having been treated like slaves by the stupid bloody Belgians, favour the enemy.’
Edward waited patiently for his role to be explained.
‘We’ve discovered that a large motor boat can be carried from England to Cape Town and transported 1800 miles by rail to Elizabethville and Jadotville in the Belgian Congo. It can then be dragged by oxen and traction engines through the bush to Sankisia where it can again be loaded on a train to the Lualaba River on the Upper Congo. It can be floated down to Kabalo and from there go by rail again via Lukuga to Albertville on the shore of the lake.’
‘Seems a hell of a long way round to fetch me all this way south and then send me back north again!’
The captain smiled bleakly. ‘Unfortunately, we couldn’t see any simple way of getting you across German East Africa to rendezvous with the boats. We’re not sending one boat, but two. They’ve assigned an officer to command the expedition, and qualified petty officers and technical ratings will accompany them. The boats are already on their way. We want you to catch them up. I presume you’ve been vaccinated and inoculated against smallpox and typhoid.’
The Lerouxs were still in Cape Town. They had just returned from Johannesburg where they had been attending the funeral at Vereeniging of their son-in-law. He had been an early casualty in the defeat of the rebel Boers.
Krissie insisted on picking Edward up in her father’s car and taking him to Sea Point for dinner.
‘I didn’t love him,’ she confessed. ‘He was only interested in beer and cricket. Marrying him was Pa’s idea. His family had money. They were in shipping. It all linked up with the business.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Edward couldn’t think of anything else to say.
‘Next time it’ll be my choice.’
She put a hand on his thigh and Edward turned towards her. He was fully aware by this time that he had married Augusta on the rebound from her more worldly elder sister. Attractive and loving as she was, she didn’t manage to ring bells. There could never be the deep-seated passion he had felt for Rafaela and – he had to admit it – continued to feel.
He kissed Krissie gently on the cheek. ‘I think we’d better go,’ he said.
Next morning Edward started the long journey north.
It wasn’t full summer, but enough dust drifted through the slatted shutters of the railway coach to veil every surface. He caught up with the expedition at Elizabethville. Morale wasn’t exactly high.
One of the officers, a slight but energetic man called Dudley, had seen service in the Boer War. He had qualified as a second mate in the merchant service and had ridden 200 miles on a bicycle along roads and native paths to join the expedition. He took to Edward at once.
‘The commanding officer’s a bloody lunatic,’ he said bluntly. ‘The last decent job he had was commanding the Downs Boarding Flotillas and he managed to have one of his gunboats torpedoed in broad daylight while he was ashore showing off to a bunch of women. Ended up in command of a desk at the Admiralty.’
Edward met Spicer-Simpson at dinner that evening. He was a large man with a beard, close-cropped hair and a twangy drawl. He wore a uniform he had designed himself for the expedition. It included a tunic like an army staff officer but with blue tabs in place of the usual red ones, a grey-blue flannel shirt, a navy blue tie, a naval cap badge and buttons, but army rank insignia. He studied Edward’s medals with undisguised curiosity.
‘I see you’ve had a bit of experience,’ he said. ‘But I don’t recognise this one. What is it?’
‘The Italian Order of the Crown, sir.’
‘What did you get that for?’
‘For sinking the Huda in Arina harbour in 1911, sir.’
Edward was aware of a few sidelong glances around him.
‘I think you’d better show Bourdillon the boats,’ Spicer-Simpson said to Dudley.
‘Forty foot,’ Edward said when he saw the Thorneycroft launches. ‘Eight foot beam, three-eighths mahogany. Two hundred-horse Z6 engines, twin screws, nineteen knots.’
‘Okay. I’m impressed,’ Dudley confessed.
‘Bourdillons built a few under contract.’
Called Mimi and Toutou, the boats were on cradles. With them, parked alongside the railway, were two huge trailers with solid rubber tyres.
‘They’d better be good and strong,’ Dudley said. ‘We’ve got a long way to go.’
The trail had already been surveyed, and hundreds of Africans had cleared and levelled the track. Boulders had been removed, trees felled, and firewood stacked for the traction engines.
The two traction engines arrived soon afterwards, tall vehicles with huge steel-spoked driving wheels, high smokestacks, whirring flywheels and canopies to shelter the driver. They each came with a ten-ton trailer that had been constructed to carry the wood the machines would burn.
Two days later they set off. There were a 150 bridges in front of them, all old and rickety. It took twelve hours to cross the first stream they came to. The following day one of the traction engines, manoeuvring near a drainage ditch, was pitched sideways as the ditch crumbled. It took an age to get it upright. By the end of the month they found the specially constructed cradles for the boats were collapsing. Thirty miles from the place where they could join the railway again they foundered completely.
‘We’ll have to send back to the coast for help,’ Spicer-Simpson said.
‘Why not adapt the wood trailers?’ Edward suggested.
‘Do you know anything about it?’ he was asked icily.
‘Enough.’
‘So what are we waiting for?’
It took several days to do the work, since not only had the trailer to be rebuilt but rudimentary A-frames rigged with block and tackle had to be constructed from local timber to lift the boats. Dudley was growing increasingly anxious. ‘The rainy season’s almost on us,’ he said. ‘If we don’t get a move on we’ll sink out of sight in the mud.’
But after the oxen arrived, the expedition managed to travel six miles during the day. Tsetse fly and disease-carrying ticks pursued them all the way to the Mitumba Mountains. The loads were hauled uphill by the traction engines, the oxen and by the sheer muscle power of hundreds of Africans. The descent was even more treacherous. The launches threatened constantly to run away and wreck everything. But thanks to the inventiveness of a grizzled petty officer, a series of blocks, tackles and ropes made it possible to lower the boats inch by inch to the valley below.
The constant worry was water, both for drinking and for the boilers of the traction engines. When search parties failed to produce enough, Edward and Dudley recruited a party of 150 African women from the local villages and, having found a tiny stream, led them back in a straggling column, each woman carrying a clay water pot filled to the brim on her head.
Sankisia, a wretched, fly-blown village, was the terminus for the narrow gauge railway to Bukama. The expedition was sweaty, dusty and exhausted, but there was a sense of mounting optimism. It took only two hours to cover the fifteen miles to Bukama on the banks of the River Lulaba. However, the steamer that was to carry them down-river was not there because the river hadn’t been as low for six years.
‘Why not float the boats down?’ Edward suggested. ‘We build ’em to float after all.’
‘Too deep a draught,’ Spicer-Simpson decided solemnly.
They went ahead nevertheless. Towed by barges rowed or poled by Africans, they set off downstream, with a fleet of dug-out canoes following with supplies. The heat was appalling. The air was heavy with the dank, decaying smell of the river and the mud that was stirred up as the African labourers worked chest-deep in water, hoisting the launches shoulder high in the shallows to move them to deeper water.
A river steamer waited at Musanga. The launches were lifted aboard by dint of great effort and in constant peril of swinging out of control, and the steamer trudged off with traders, chickens, goats, elephant tusks, provisions, crates, boxes and bags, every spare inch of space stacked with wood for the steamer’s fireboxes.
Reaching Kabalo, they transferred again to the railway which would take them via Lukuga to Albertville on Lake Tanganyika. The rains were still holding off. Nobody had succumbed to sunstroke or any of the abundant tropical diseases. And miraculously they reached the lakeside in working order.
‘It was nothing,’ Spicer-Simpson said, absorbing the praise like a sponge. ‘Only required a little thought and effort.’
By this time, he was flying a vice-admiral’s flag and, against the heat, had taken to wearing a skirt which was a cross between a sarong and a kilt. Edward was amazed to see his legs were covered in tattoos.
With the rains late, the tropical storms started. At first there was nothing more than a breath of wind that lifted little whorls of dust. This was followed by rumbles of thunder in the distance. Then the sky changed from grey to yellow to purple, and the storm burst in a hurricane of wind, thunder and slashing lightning. Enormous breakers rose on the placid lake, to crash ashore uprooting trees and demolishing native huts. They couldn’t leave the boats unprotected and more long columns of Africans were engaged to haul tons of rock to the water’s edge to construct a breakwater.
As they worked, the German gunboat, Kingani, steamed past on patrol. She looked like an out-of-date tug, but she did carry a six-pounder gun and tried a few speculative shots. But she was way out of range.
‘Hadn’t we better start arming our boats?’ Edward asked.
‘My thoughts entirely,’ Spicer-Simpson said. ‘Get the machine-guns out.’
‘You’ll not stop anything with machine-guns. Why not three-pounders?’
‘The boats won’t take three-pounders.’
‘They did at Arina.’
Spicer-Simpson frowned but agreed.
During the first weeks of December the storms continued to lash the coast but Toutou was slipped into the water just before Christmas. The engines were tested and the first trial run was made.
