With equal suddenness the water released me and I found myself being swept on to some rocks just below the fall. All three of us had narrow escapes. Ian Macleod somehow hung on to the upended boat and was swept down through some huge falls before managing to grab an overhanging branch on the bank and pull himself to safety. Chris Edwards was swept down on to the brink of another fall, and was only rescued with difficulty and considerable risk by another member of the team going out to him on the end of the line.
It took twenty-four hours for the full shock of our narrow escapes to hit me. Wendy and I had lost our first child by drowning only two years earlier and this compounded the horror. I was so badly shaken that I asked Roger Chapman to drop me from the white water team. Another member of the group also withdrew and Chris Edwards was so badly lacerated that there was now no question of his going on. Both Roger Chapman and John Blashford-Snell were faced with a major crisis. The day’s events had highlighted the very real dangers of the river and the inadequacy of the rubber boats in the rapids. Roger Chapman took off on foot to make a lightning reconnaissance of the river below the Tissisat Falls, where the rapids seemed even more dangerous, while the rest of us were left to work the boats down, close to the bank, to the head of the falls. The Tissisat Falls are as impressive as Niagara, plunging in a great curtain interspersed with forested islands over a sheer wall that bounds the side of a narrow gorge, opening into a wide valley below. A modern hydro-electric station lies just below the falls, and just below this is an old bridge, one of two built by the Portuguese in the eighteenth century.
Since we were short of manpower I had agreed to help bring down the boats and while edging them through narrow channels, often dragging them over waterlogged grass to avoid the worst of the falls, I began to recover my peace of mind. I could not help worrying over my decision to pull out, particularly as two other members of the team who were married had elected to carry on. When Roger returned from his recce, I asked to be reinstated in the white water team, but he had already found a replacement for me and, anyway, I suspect he was quite relieved to lose an argumentative and troublesome subordinate who used his power and independence as a representative of the press to get his own way.
Roger Chapman had now reduced his white water team to six, spread between two boats. As a result of his lightning recce, he had decided that a number of stretches of the river were too dangerous. They portaged the boats to a stretch of the river some miles below the Tissisat Falls, then paddled about twelve miles to a point where the banks closed into a narrow neck, through which the entire volume of the Blue Nile was squeezed, hurtling into a cauldron of bubbling effervescent water. Below this the river plunged into a sheer-sided gorge that stretched for six miles to the second Portuguese bridge below which things appeared to become a little easier. Roger Chapman, therefore, decided to send the boats down by themselves to be picked up by a party already in position at the Portuguese bridge, while the two crews walked round the top.
It is one of those tragic ironies that our SAS man, Ian Macleod, lost his life while taking what had seemed the safest course. We had nearly finished our march to the Portuguese bridge and had to cross the river Abaya; it was only thirty feet wide, but very deep and fast-flowing, opaque brown waters swirling past the sheer rocky banks in the bed of the gorge. Macleod went across second after tying on a safety line. He was so proficient in everything he did, we just assumed he was a strong swimmer, but before he was halfway it became obvious that he was in difficulties. The rope around his waist tended to pull him under and sweep him further downstream. Soon it was all he could do to keep his head above water. The others paid out the rope as he was swept along but in a matter of seconds they came to the end of it. If they held on, he would be pulled under; if they tried to pull him back the same would happen. Someone shouted, ‘Let go the rope!’ They did, and at the same time Roger Chapman, with considerable heroism, his boots still on, dived into the river to try to help Macleod. He managed to grab hold of him and towed him to the other side, reaching it just in time before the river plunged into the next cataract. But the rope tied round Ian’s waist now acted like an anchor and he was torn from Roger’s grasp and dragged under. We never saw him again and his body was never recovered.
John Blashford-Snell was waiting for us at the Portuguese bridge. The flotilla was now to be enlarged to three Redshanks and two inflatable army recce boats powered by outboard motors. Blashford-Snell was to assume command once more and I had elected to return to the river. Though still badly shaken, I could not possibly cover the story from the bank.
The water was never as bad as it had been above the Tissisat Falls, but it was like going down a liquid Cresta run, never sure what was round the next bend and barely able to stop. There was no more exhilaration, just a nagging fear and taut concentration as we spun the boats out of the way of boulders or edged round the worst of the waves. Now the river began to take on a new character hurrying in a solid smooth stream between sheer rock walls. It was at last possible to relax and marvel at the rock architecture around us. Slender towers jutted hundreds of feet out of the riverbed, while huge natural arches spanned its tributaries. We stopped that night in an idyllic campsite by the tree-covered banks of a side stream. The walls of the gorge towered 150 feet above us.
We were intrigued by two caves in the sheer cliff opposite, which had obviously been inhabited at one time. Next morning we succeeded in climbing to them from the boat and discovered a number of broken pots and old grain silos well covered in bat dung. We were all excited by the discovery as we packed up camp. I was drinking a cup of coffee when John ran into the camp and shouted, ‘Hurry up, it’s time we got out of here.’ At the same time, there was a sudden, high-pitched keening from above, followed by a volley of rifle fire. We were completely taken by surprise, finding it impossible to believe that people were actually trying to kill us.
My first reaction was that perhaps they just wanted to warn us off. John Blashford-Snell ran out with the loudhailer shouting, ‘Ternasterling, ternasterling,’ the conventional form of greeting, but one of the men on the cliff opposite replied by firing at him. I can remember running out myself, trying to wave to them, and then noticing a rifle pointing straight at me. While some of us tried appeasement others raced out from cover to load the boats. We were still arguing in the shelter of the trees about what we should do, but no one recommended firing back at this stage. One party wanted to make a break for it; the other, of which I was one, felt we should stay put and try to reason with our attackers, or call up support on the wireless. The deciding factor was a huge rock, the size of a kitchen table, that came hurling down from above.
‘Gentlemen, someone has got to make a decision,’ said John Blashford-Snell, in a remarkably cool voice. ‘When I say “go”, run for the boats.’
The next thing I remember is pushing out our boat through the shallows. Glancing up the whole sky seemed full of rocks; bullets spurted in the water around us. We were gathering speed in the main current when I suddenly felt a violent blow on my back and was hurled across the boat. I had been hit by a rock.
John Blashford-Snell had now got out his revolver and was taking potshots at our attackers, though the chances of hitting anyone with a pistol at a range of 150 feet, shooting upwards from a moving boat, must have been slight. It did, perhaps, cause them to duck, for it seems a miracle that not only were none of us hit but neither were the large targets presented by the boats. If an inflated side had been punctured it could have been serious.
Fortunately we travelled much faster on the river than they could possibly manage on the banks and as a result were soon out of range. That night we stopped on an island off the Gojjam shore. Just before dark a youngster swam the channel, chatted with us and no doubt had a good look at all our possessions. We were all nervous and, before going to bed, I made sure I had everything to hand, even contemplating keeping my boots on. Roger Chapman was standing sentry in the middle of the night. He had just walked
out of the camp to check the boats and shone his torch casually at the water’s edge. The light picked out the head of someone swimming across from the other bank. Then he heard a rattle of stones and swung the torch on a group of men gathered on the water’s edge, spears clutched in their hands. He shouted out; one of them fired at him and suddenly it was bedlam.
I can remember waking to the shrill war-whoops of our attackers. I did not feel afraid, just keyed to a high pitch. I had been worried the previous night about the boats, which were pulled up on to the beach about 200 feet from our camp. If the bandits managed to release or capture these, we should have no chance of survival. Grabbing my pistol and my box of cameras and exposed film, I shouted, ‘For God’s sake get down to the boats,’ then started running, crouched, towards them. Roger Chapman heard me and did the same, while the others formed a rough line across the island, firing back at our attackers. It was a confusion of shouts and yells, of gun flashes and the arc of mini-flares which John Blashford-Snell, with great resource, was aiming at our attackers. I paused a couple of times, pointed my pistol at some of the gun flashes and fired. There was little chance of hitting anyone and suddenly I realised that only two bullets were left in the chamber and there were no spare rounds in my pocket. What on earth would I do if some of our attackers had sneaked up on the boats? I ran on down to them and was greatly relieved to find no one there.
Then, as suddenly as the noise had started, there was silence – just an occasional rustle from the bank showed that our attackers were still there. We packed up in the dark and withdrew to the boats. We stayed there for a couple of hours hoping to wait until dawn before descending the river, but at 3.30 in the morning a bugle blared, almost certainly heralding another attack. John Blashford-Snell was worried about our shortage of ammunition and gave the order to cast off.
In complete silence we drifted into the main stream – it was an eerie experience, for we were able to see only the sheen of water and the dark silhouette of the banks. Then we heard the thunder of a cataract ahead and tried to pull into the bank, but were helpless in the current. Suddenly, we were in white water; we climbed a huge wave, came down the other side and were through, but the other two boats were less lucky.
‘We seemed to stand on end,’ Roger Chapman told me afterwards. ‘I jammed my leg under the thwart and somehow managed to stay in the boat, but the other two were thrown out. I realised immediately that if I couldn’t grab them we should never find them in the dark. They came to the surface just alongside the boat, and I dragged them in.’
Meanwhile, the boat which had us in tow, was sinking; the air valve had developed a fault and the front compartment was completely deflated. They had no choice but to release us and we drifted away in the dark. It was a good half-mile before we managed to pull on to a sandbank in the middle of the river where we sat until dawn, feeling very lonely and vulnerable.
The drama never seemed to end. John Fletcher had damaged the propeller of his boat immediately after being thrown out in the cataract. As soon as they reached a sandbank he got out his tool kit to change propellers while the party waited for the dawn. A few minutes later he walked over to Roger Chapman.
‘A terrible thing’s happened. I’ve lost the nut holding the propeller,’ he whispered.
The outboard motor was essential for our escape and they tried fixing it with a bent nail, but that was no good. Then, as a last resort, they mixed some Araldite glue and stuck it back on the shaft, but the glue needed at least an hour to stick and by now it was beginning to get light.
John Blashford-Snell waited as long as he dared before giving the order to move. John Fletcher had tied a polythene bag round the propeller in an effort to keep the glue dry and the boats were pushed off and drifted down the river.
The only noise was the gurgling of the smooth, fast-flowing water. The wan light of the dawn coloured the fluted rocks and pinnacles on either side of the gorge a subtle brown. In contrast to the night’s violence it was unbelievably beautiful. As we swept down the river, it was all so peaceful and yet so full of lurking threats.
Later on that morning we met up with one of the big flat-bottomed assault boats that had driven up against the current to escort us down to the Shafartak bridge. Our adventures were nearly over and, that afternoon on 25 September, we pulled the boats up on to the shore just below the bridge. We had descended most of the upper reaches of the Blue Nile, though we had avoided two long sections of difficult cataracts.
The expedition had achieved a great deal, covering more of the river than any previous expedition and completing some useful zoological work. It had also proved more adventurous than any of us had anticipated. John Blashford-Snell had tried to foresee every possible eventuality, running the expedition like a military operation with the backup of support parties and the Beaver aircraft, but once on the waters of the upper river the backup could have been on another continent for all the help it could give. In some ways his approach was that of the leader of a large siege-style expedition in the Himalaya, with the security of fixed ropes and camps. His management was that of a military commander with a clear chain of command, with orders being given and obeyed. It undoubtedly worked well, both in the general running of the expedition and at the moments of crisis on the river itself. It could be argued, however, that the very size and ponderousness of the party created some of its own problems. In addition, the Redshanks proved totally inadequate for the task in hand. They were too easily capsized and also insufficiently manoeuvrable to pick their way down the rapids with any kind of control.
A very different style of expedition was to attempt the Blue Nile in 1972. I became involved indirectly, when a group of young white water canoeists came to a lecture I gave on our descent of the river in 1968. They wanted to canoe down the reaches of the river Inn, and hope that I would be able to gain them the support of the Daily Telegraph Magazine. I took to them immediately. They had a boyish enthusiasm yet, at the same time, seemed to know what they were talking about. Next day I watched them canoe down some small rapids in Yorkshire and was impressed by the way they handled their craft. Whereas we had been bits of flotsam at the mercy of the Blue Nile, they were like water animals or mermen, encased in the shells of their canoes, flitting in and out from one eddy to the next, choosing their course down a section of rapids, capsizing just for the hell of it, and then rolling back effortlessly into an upright position.
I persuaded the Telegraph Magazine editor to back them and spent an invigorating and at times inspiring week in Austria, photographing them as they shot the most terrifying rapids I had ever seen and the most difficult water any of them had ever attempted. Of the five who started down the river Inn, only two got all the way down to the end of the difficult section – Dave Allen, the oldest and most experienced of the five, and Mike Jones, the youngest. Mike was sixteen at the time, had just finished doing his GCEs at school and was treated by the rest of the team as the apprentice and tea boy; but they could not keep him down. He had an irrepressible quality and this combined with a powerful physique and complete lack of fear got him all the way down the river, when some of the others were forced out either through their boats sinking or a healthy sense of caution. This tremendous feat has not, and never could be, repeated, owing to the diversion of the river from these gorges.
After leaving school Mike decided to become a doctor, going to medical school in Birmingham; but he did not allow this to interfere with his canoeing. He was in Division 1 slalom racing, but though his canoeing was extremely powerful and completely fearless he lacked the precision to get into the British team. Essentially he was an adventurous canoeist. In 1971 he joined Chris Hawksworth, an outstanding Yorkshire canoeist, on another white water adventure, this time to canoe down the Grand Canyon. It was a big team numbering fifteen canoeists. As soon as this was over he began to look round for new challenges and was immediately attracted by the lure of the Blue Nile. He was now twenty, in the middle of an exacting degree course, and yet plu
nged into the organisation of a full-scale expedition with the same drive and enthusiasm that had taken him down the river Inn.
He was in his element, an extrovert, a born showman with immense self-confidence and boundless energy. He wanted a lightweight trip, both for the aesthetic reason that it would be more of an adventure and also for the practical one that it would cost less. He settled on a team of six. There were to be five canoeists, three of whom were top-class white water men who had been with him to the Grand Canyon, also Mick Hopkinson, another competitive slalom canoeist from Bradford who was making a name for himself on British and Continental white water rivers. Glen Greer, a less powerful canoeist and a friend of Mike’s at Birmingham University, was to be the one-man support team.
Mike flung the expedition together in six months, doing practically all the work himself, but with remarkable family support. Reg and Molly Jones, his parents, became deeply involved in Mike’s adventures, supplying encouragement and practical secretarial backup to his mercurial schemes. He was very much a one-man-band, conceiving an idea and then carrying it through with an explosive enthusiasm which made it very difficult for him to delegate jobs to others. But it was the very force of this drive, however exasperating it might have been to his team members, that overcame a whole series of hurdles which could have stopped a more meticulous and thoughtful planner.
Quest for Adventure Page 16