Once Upon the Congo

by Applewhite, Claire; Harper, Chap

  Cover and Interior Design by Smoking Gun Publishing, LLC

  Copyright © 2015 Chap Harper. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the copyright holder, except for brief quotations used in a review.

  This is a work of fiction, and is produced from the author’s imagination. People, places and things mentioned in this novel are used in a fictional manner.

  ISBN: 978-1-940586-22-9

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2015937541

  Visit us on the web at www.smokinggunpublishing.com

  Published by Smoking Gun Publishing, LLC

  Printed in the United States of America

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank Nancy Gibson, Bill Schuler, Gene Forsyth, Carole Fox, Gail Paul, Carole Katchen, Patricia Hanard, Susan Harper, Nannette Crane-Post, David Rose, Taylor Foss, Leslie Foss, Madelyn Young, Kerry Lockwood Owen, Kim Everhart, and Diane Daniels for suggested changes, encouragement, and edits. No one completes a project like this without the help of many good friends. Thanks to all!

  My editor, Claire Applewhite, earns special thanks for her diligent review of each and every chapter. She always encouraged me to create the best book possible.

  The cover and interior design was done by graphic artist, Lois Mans, who created the unique and outstanding African design for my book. Hopefully, it will attract those who love a good adventure. To them, I say, “Pick up ONCE UPON THE CONGO and start reading!”

  Chap Harper

  April, 2015

  Dedication

  I dedicate this book to my late mother

  Freda Earle Lewellyn Harper

  When I was a kid, I would come home from school and find my mother sitting on her feet in a large stuffed chair reading a book. She loved to read and because of her membership in every “Book of the Month Cub” known to mankind, our home was pretty much a storage facility for books. Every room except for the kitchen and bathroom (does a magazine rack count?) had at least one bookcase. She encouraged me to read and helped me to write short stories. When I was in high school, I signed up for The Famous Writer’s School with her support. I had to drop out though, since I couldn’t continue the eighteen dollar monthly tuition. I’m not sure the books I have written so far would have been her type, but someday, I would like to write a book she might have ordered from her book club and enjoyed.

  Starvation was so great just before we left that the native slaves seized one of their comrades, who had gone some distance to draw water, cut him in pieces, and ate him. In conclusion, I may mention that Captain Nelson and myself did everything we could to preserve a good feeling with the Manyuema chiefs and people, and we parted on friendly terms.

  T.M Parke

  To H.M. Stanley, Esq., Commanding E.P.R. Expedition.

  (Excerpt from Henry Stanley’s In Darkest Africa.)

  Chapter 1

  Oct. 9, 1887 – Aruwimi River, the Congo, West Africa

  The early morning mist beside the river had burned off, only to be replaced by wet, thick and sticky air. The air did not move, and appeared to have been put in place a thousand years ago. The village next to the hanging tree sat on the banks of the Aruwimi River in the Congo basin. A foul smell emitting from the settlement suggested the natives’ latrines were fresh and ripe. Combined with the heat, it was difficult to breathe.

  The skinny porter stared without emotion or expression into Henry Stanley’s eyes. Stanley stood with his arms crossed, occasionally wiping the sweat from his face with a dirty handkerchief. He had an “I take no pleasure in this” look on his face, while he slapped his ears in a vain attempt to kill attacking insects.

  In the shade of a large mahogany tree, the stoic Zanzibar native waited, his hands bound behind him. Stanley asked him if he had anything to say. He shook his head. Death was sometimes a reason to rejoice when starvation and sickness are the payments for shouldering sixty pounds of supplies every day. Stanley’s men placed the noose around his neck.

  Giving the signal with a wave of his hand, forty sweating wide eyed porters pulled on the other end of the cord and hoisted the black man’s body high beneath a large limb, until he no longer jerked and kicked at the air. He had drawn the short piece of paper distributed among three of his fellow bearers who had deserted with their Winchester rifles. Their crimes had been discovered when neighboring tribesmen delivered them that morning bound with ropes. The Zanzibar porter was told he would be the first of three to be hanged. The others would meet their fate on subsequent days.

  Actually, Stanley wanted to set an example. Later, he set the other two men free, and called it an act of God. Stanley walked to the front of the line of emaciated bearers. Holding his handkerchief over his nose to filter out their ferocious body odor, Stanley instructed the men to tie off the body to the tree with rattan vines and save the rope. “Guns are the soul of our expedition,” he said as the porters dispersed and picked up their loads. In fifteen minutes the entire expedition, except for some rear guards, marched under the body hanging in the tree and made good time to their next camp.

  Stanley’s expedition to Africa centered on the rescue of Emin Pasha, governor of the Egyptian province of Equatoria, four hundred miles farther upstream. For reasons known only to Stanley and King Leopold of Belgium, the expedition traversed one of the most difficult inland passages in the world. Stanley had decided against using a much easier route leading inland from the east coast of Africa. He was truly in the wilds of the Dark Continent, traveling through the unexplored jungles of the Congo basin. Crude maps shed little light on this region of West Africa. Stanley was killing his men the way fire burns up kindling, and reaching the Ituri River and Lake Albert Nyanza appeared all but impossible. His men were dying of starvation, poisoned arrows, disease, and accidents; when Stanley was really pissed, by hanging to set an example for the natives.

  The next day, on October 10th, a hundred men volunteered to swim across the river to a huge island in search of food. Stanley went upriver by boat while one of his officers, Captain Robert Nelson, went downstream to see if he could raid a village of hapless natives for food. Other men stayed close and hunted the nearby forest in search of wild fruit and forest beans. The men who looked for food in the jungle ran the risk of getting stomped to death by herds of forest elephants.

  Two of Captain Nelson’s tent boys, Baruk and Abdalla, tagged along with the group who swam to the island, if for no other reason than to get away from their white European masters. Most of the boys assigned to the British explorers ranged in age from twelve to seventeen years old. They cooked, carried water, set up camp, and in general, were personal servants to expedition officers. Without a “boy,” the officers would be close to helpless and would lose a great deal of status as bona fide African explorers. Henry Stanley carried it a step further, since he also brought along a personal manservant. How ignoble it was to have to pitch your own tent, get your water, cook, and dress yourself. The agony was obvious. Along for the ride was Dr. Thomas Parke’s main boy, Binza, and Stanley’s cook, Zikomo.

  Binza was on his second expedition in the service of a doctor. He estimated his survival rate was about ten times greater than the average native load humper. Binza had observed that Dr. Parke was an avid naturalist. When given a little freedom, Binza collected samples of anything he thought would please his master. On this day he was more intent on getting plant and rock samples than looking for food, so he stayed with the other boys who were not taking the hunt seriously. As the older men turned to the left of an outcropping, the boys headed
directly up the side of the escarpment using their youthful energy and monkeylike climbing skills. None of the men stopped the climbing youth since a boy had an invisible halo of protection, based on their connections to the British. This tie kept the older men at bay, and in fear of their safety if they bothered one of them.

  From atop the high bluff, which was about five hundred feet tall, the boys watched the men break into groups and disappear into the wooded sections of the island. The boys began to explore the rock-strewn landscape. Captain Nelson’s tent boys, Abdalla and Baruk, headed to the left where a path went around the edge of the bluff. After a while they stretched out, exhausted, and fell asleep from the cumulative effect of hard work and little nourishment to sustain them.

  Binza and Zikomo took an opposite route. After climbing farther up the rocky bluff, they found a wooded area that appeared unnatural. The vegetation was so thick with wet ferns, vines, trees and large leafy plants they had difficulty getting through it. Binza thought these trees might have been planted, since the trees were so close to one another. After an hour of fighting the dense jungle, they noticed the growth was in a depression, perhaps trapping water and creating an environment for plants to grow in great profusion.

  Zikomo kept looking back over his shoulder. “Binza, don’t you think we should go back now?” he said. His voice sounded shaky.

  Binza also felt the jungle was too thick, and as he was about to turn back he noticed a change in the forest. “What is that strange darkness ahead of us?”

  They could see a large object through gaps in the trees. “In the name of Allah, what type of place is this?” Zikomo said. He rushed to Binza’s side and began to fight through the last of the jungle foliage.

  After hurrying out of the forest, they came to a shallow clearing between huge date palms that encircled a stone wall. They strained their necks to behold a twenty foot-high, expertly constructed wall that did not belong on this bluff. Only the finest mason could have cut the stone so precisely that no seams appeared between the huge blocks of black lava.

  Binza and Zikomo raced around the wall to a gate with massive ironwood doors. Enormous bronze hinges coated with an olive patina held the open doors in place. They entered slowly, their eyes drawn to the sparkling water of a large blue hole in the middle of the fort. The pool was about a hundred feet across, surrounded by giant piles of moss-colored soil. Heaps of rust-colored soil stood behind sea-green rocks. Near the walls, silver-gray ore was stacked, pyramid style.

  “Binza, what is this place?”

  “I don’t know what they were digging for, but I will take some soil to Dr. Parke.”

  They walked about two hundred yards to the edge of the crystal-clear blue hole. Along the way, snakes sunned themselves, and a few hissed as the boys passed by, yet Binza ignored them.

  “Binza, did you see that cobra right by you?” Zikomo whispered as he tugged at Binza’s shirt sleeve.

  Binza didn’t answer; instead, he approached a small stone cottage on the far side of the blue hole. The house, adjacent to the water’s edge, had steps leading down into the water. A door above the steps was sealed with stones and mortar. A forest cobra slid off the steps into the water and quickly swam to the opposite shoreline, where it coiled its wet and glistening body next to a green pile of soil. Zikomo’s gaze followed the cobra, but Binza ignored the snake and circled the house, finding the windows and doors sealed with stone. The one story structure had four stone columns in front that made a porchlike edifice supporting a sloping roof. Binza said more to himself than to Zikomo, “All the cracks and crevices have been sealed around the doors and windows. It looks like a tomb.”

  Zikomo nodded and began to look over his shoulder again, which was his signal for, “We need to get out of here.”

  Strange vegetation grew in patches and appeared mutated, stunted, and displayed sickly green leaves. Tiny miniature palm trees with a toy-like appearance dotted the enclosed area. Binza pulled from his knapsack cloth bags he used to collect plants, small animals and rocks for Dr. Parke. He scooped up moss-colored soil and emptied it into a bag. He did the same with soil and ore from other sections of the quarry. One area had rusty-orange colored ore, while heaps of a silver-gray, crystalline were next to the walls. Light green soil extended down the sides of the blue hole and into the depths of the pool. Zikomo collected colored soil, brought it to Binza and helped him fill the bags, but he was anxious to leave. Again, he was looking back over his shoulder with a painful look on his dark face.

  Dr. Parke had given Binza paper and a pencil. The boys sketched the dimensions of the cottage and the blue hole. Zikomo called out the number of steps he took to measure the length and width, to Binza, who wrote down the numbers next to his drawings.

  “Binza, let’s go—we are going to be in trouble!” Zikomo knew they had been away too long and feared that their white masters would not be pleased. Punishment could range from a beating all the way up to being shot.

  They scaled down the cliff. Their friends had already left to return to Captain Nelson, and both boys felt they had better hurry back to help prepare a meal in case the others had found food worth eating.

  Dr. Parke scolded Binza for being gone so long and put him to work scraping wood beans and preparing plantains for dinner. Binza sliced a few banana-shaped fruits into thin pieces and deep-fried them into chips, a treat the doctor enjoyed. After dinner, Binza told the doctor about their find. Impressed, Dr. Parke studied the drawings that young Binza had made and marveled at the colorful ores he had recovered. He suggested that Binza may have happened on to an ancient quarry which might have been mined and abandoned. With no time to examine the ore samples, because the expedition members were so ill, the doctor made notes in a small journal including their approximate location of south latitude 1 degree 24 minutes and 22 degrees 35 minutes east longitude. He placed Binza’s drawings carefully inside the journal. Eager to save the men Stanley was killing at a steady pace, Dr. Parke tucked the journal and bags of ore samples into a pocket of his leather valise. He zipped shut the expensive piece of luggage and hurried off to tend to his patients.

  That night, several men stole items from their expedition. One of the thieves, Wadi Adam, stole Dr. Parke’s entire luggage kit and headed into the forest. He was never to be seen again by the expedition.

  Chapter 2

  The Luggage

  The four black men decided not to stay close to camp after dark. Two of them had stolen whole cases of Winchester 44.40 ammunition. One had the doctor’s luggage. The other one had run off with hiking boots. All risked possible death in the jungle, instead of more probable death by starvation while carrying sixty pounds of gear on their backs. If Henry Stanley caught them, they had little doubt they would be hung. They hadn’t packed out a rifle but planned on stealing one after dark. Porters didn’t take care to hide rifles at night and hated lugging around the extra ten pounds per weapon. After careful consideration, the four former expedition porters chose to flee downriver, where they could trade with natives who had stolen rifles, but lacked ammunition.

  Wadi Adam was a Somali, hired both as a porter and a backup mercenary fighter. The real warriors on the expedition were the Sudanese, who carried only their rifles and ammo. Many Muslim men were called “Wadi,” a first name as common as Joe or Bill among the English. Wadi Adam was more experienced with firearms than the Zanzibar natives, who, according to Stanley and his officers, were not much help in battle. The two men who had stolen crates of ammunition were Bull Neck Uchungu and Kajeli from Zanzibar, slaves of the wealthy Arab trader, Tippu-Tib, who rented them out to Stanley. Lives of natives were considered cheap and a tradable commodity in Africa. Salim, one of the few Swahilis on the expedition, from the British East Africa Protectorate, had grabbed a leather kit that contained three pairs of expensive hiking boots. Two were Stanley’s and one was a custom pair for the Emin Pasha, who apparently expected this expedition to rescue him. A fifth porter fled about the same time as the othe
r four. His name was Swadi, whose country of origin was a mystery. Swadi had dropped what he was carrying and disappeared into the jungle. At this point, the expedition had lost over sixty men by desertion or death. More than thirty rifles had been stolen or lost.

  After pushing through steamy forests for several hours, the four men stopped to rest by an elephant trail that paralleled the Aruwimi River. Rope handles on each end of the ammo boxes made it possible to share the load, if necessary. Each crate had twenty boxes of fifty rounds for a total weight of about sixty pounds. Porters used thick pads on their shoulders to keep the rough wood from cutting their flesh. In addition, the men had their own private kits, usually small home-made knapsacks or sometimes a roll attached around their waist. Everyone knew the ammunition was valuable. One fifty-round box of rifle ammo would bring $2.00 in the States and twice that halfway around the world. Remington repeaters sold for only $17.00 in America and of course more in Africa, but still much less than a case of ammo. The four men expected to trade one case of ammo for two lever action rifles. But first, they must survive, at least until they found a trading partner.

  After resting a few minutes, the men moved slowly along the jungle path. The men’s stomachs growled with hunger when they resumed their trek, as the berries and fruit along the trail lacked protein and did not provide real substance. Although they could hear monkeys overhead in the tall trees, there was no hope of bagging one for dinner, unless they threw some bullets at them.

  Wadi Adam held on proudly to Dr. Parke’s kit, hoping it contained something of value. He was reluctant to open the bag in front of the others, in the fear they might steal the contents for themselves. The satchel was heavy and soft, yet very thick, and made of beautiful polished leather. Rare and recently invented brass zippers enclosed numerous compartments and pockets. The kit must have cost a fortune!