by Wilbur Smith
‘Rub it into the creases round your eyes – and under your chin,’ said Flynn, and Sebastian obeyed. ‘Now, let’s go over it again, Bassie, so you don’t get it all balled up. One of Mohammed’s cousins is boss-boy of the gang loading the timber into the launches. They are camped on the bank of the Rufiji. Mohammed will slip you in tonight, and tomorrow his cousin will get you on to one of the launches going down with a load for Blücher. All you’ve got to do is keep your eyes open. Joyce just wants to know what work they are doing to repair her; whether or not they’ve got the boilers fired; things like that. You understand?’
Sebastian nodded glumly.
‘You’ll come back up-river tomorrow evening, slip out of camp soon as it’s dark and meet us here. Simple as a pimple, right?’
‘Right,’ murmured Sebastian.
‘Right then. Out you get and dry off.’
As the dry wind from the uplands blew over his naked body, the purply tint of the dye faded into a matt chocolate. Rosa had modestly moved away into the grove of Marula trees behind the camp. Every few minutes Flynn came across to Sebastian and touched his skin.
‘Coming along nicely,’ he said, and, ‘Nearly done,’ and, ‘Jeez, you look better than real.’ Then finally in Swahili, ‘Right, Mohammed, mark his face.’
Mohammed squatted in front of Sebastian with a tiny gourd of cosmetics; a mixture of animal fat and ash and ochre. With his fingers he daubed Sebastian’s cheeks and nose and forehead with the tribal patterns. His head held on one side in artistic concentration, making soft clucking sounds of concentration as he worked, until at last Mohammed was satisfied.
‘He is ready.’
‘Get the clothes,’ said Flynn. This was an exaggeration. Sebastian’s attire could hardly be called clothing.
A string of bark around his neck from which was suspended a plugged duiker horn filled with snuff, a cloak of animal skin that smelled of wood-smoke and man-sweat, draped over his shoulders.
‘It stinks!’ said Sebastian cringing from contact with the garment. ‘And it’s probably got lice.’
‘The real thing,’ agreed Flynn jovially. ‘All right, Mohammed. Show him how to fit the istopo – the hat.’
‘I don’t have to wear that also,’ Sebastian protested, staring in horror as Mohammed came towards him, grinning.
‘Of course you’ve got to wear it.’ Impatiently Flynn brushed aside his protest.
The hat was a hollow six-inch length cut from the neck of a calabash gourd. An anthropologist would have called it a penis-sheath. It had two purposes: firstly to protect the wearer from the scratches of thorns and the bites of insect pests, and secondly as a boost to his masculinity.
Once in position it looked impressive, enhancing Sebastian’s already considerable muscular development.
Rosa said nothing when she returned. She took one long startled look at the hat and then quickly averted her gaze, but her cheeks and neck flared bright scarlet.
‘For God’s sake, Bassie. Act like you proud of it. Stand up straight and take your hands away.’ Flynn coached his son-in-law.
Mohammed knelt to slip the rawhide sandals on to Sebastian’s feet, and then hand him the small blanket roll tied with a bark string. Sebastian slung it over one shoulder, then picked up the long-handled throwing-spear. Automatically he grounded the butt and leaned his weight on the shaft; lifting his left leg and placing the sole of his foot against the calf of his right leg, he stood in the stork posture of rest.
In every detail he was a Wakamba tribesman.
‘You’ll do,’ said Flynn.
– 71 –
In the dawn, little wisps of river mist swirled around Commissioner Fleischer’s legs as he came down the bank and on to the improvised jetty of logs.
He ran his eyes over the two launches, checking the ropes that held down the cargoes of timber. The launches sat low in the water, their exhausts puttering and blowing pale blue smoke that drifted away across the slick surface of the river.
‘Are you ready?’ he called to his sergeant of Askari.
‘The men are eating, Bwana Mkuba.’
‘Tell them to hurry,’ growled Fleischer. It was a futile order and he stepped to the edge of the jetty, unbuttoning his trousers. He urinated noisily into the river, and the circle of men who squatted around the three-legged pot on the jetty watched him with interest, but without interrupting their breakfast.
With leather cloaks folded around their shoulders against the chill air off the water, they reached in turn into the pot and took a handful of the thick white maize porridge, moulding it into a mouth-size ball and then with the thumb forming a cup in the ball, dipping the ball into the smaller enamel dish and filling the depression with the creamy yellow gravy it contained, a tantalizing mixture of stewed catfish and tree caterpillars.
It was the first time that Sebastian had tasted this delicacy. He sat with the others and imitated their eating routine, forcing himself to place a lump of the spiced maize meal in his mouth. His gorge rose and gagged him, it tasted like fish oil and new-mown grass, not really offensive – it was just the thought of those fat yellow caterpillars. But had he been eating ham sandwiches, his appetite would not have been hearty.
His stomach was cramped with apprehension. He was a spy. A word from one of his companions, and Commissioner Fleischer would shout for the hanging ropes. Sebastian remembered the men he had seen in the monkey-bean tree on the bank of this same river, he remembered the flies clustered on their swollen, lolling tongues. It was not a mental picture conducive to enjoyment of breakfast.
Now, pretending to eat, he watched Commissioner Fleischer instead. It was the first time he had done so at leisure. The bulky figure in grey corduroy uniform, the pink-boiled face with pale golden eyelashes, the full petulant lips, the big freckled hands, all these revolted him. He felt his uneasiness swamped by a revival of the emotions that had possessed him as he stood beside the newly filled grave of his daughter on the heights above Lalapanzi.
‘Black pig-animals,’ shouted Herman Fleischer in Swahili, as he rebuttoned his clothing. ‘That is enough! You do nothing but eat and sleep. ‘It is time now for work.’ He waddled across the logs of the jetty, into the little circle of porters. His first kick sent the three-legged pot clattering, his second kick caught Sebastian in the back and threw him forward on to his knees.
‘Rasch!’ He aimed another kick at one of them, but it was dodged, and the porters scattered to the launches.
Sebastian scrambled up. He had been kicked only once before in his life, and Flynn O’Flynn had learned not to do it again. For Sebastian there was nothing so humiliating as the contact of another man’s foot against his person, also it had hurt.
Herman Fleischer had turned away to chivvy the others, so he did not see the hatred nor the way that Sebastian snarled at him, crouching like a leopard. Another second and he would have been on him. He might have killed Fleischer before the Askari shot him down – but he never made the attempt.
A hand on his arm. Mohammed’s cousin beside him, his voice very low.
‘Come! Let it pass. They will kill us also.’
And when Fleischer turned back the two of them had gone to the launch.
On the run down-river, Sebastian huddled with the others. Like them, drawing his cloak over his head to keep off the sun, but unlike them, he did not sleep. Through half-hooded eyes he was still watching Herman Fleischer, and his thoughts were hate-ugly.
Even with the current, the run in the deep-laden launches took almost four hours, and it was noon before they chugged around the last bend in the channel and turned in towards the mangrove forests.
Sebastian saw Herman Fleischer swallow the last bite of sausage and carefully repack the remainder into his haversack. He stood up and spoke to the man at the rudder, and both of them peered ahead.
‘We have arrived,’ said Mohammed’s cousin, and removed his cloak from over his head. The little huddle of porters stirred into wakefulness and Sebastia
n stood up with them.
This time he knew what to look for, and he saw the muzzy silhouette of the Blücher skulking under her camouflage. From low down on the water she looked mountainous, and Sebastian’s spine tingled as he remembered when last he had seen her from this angle, driving down to ram them with those axe-shatp blows. But now she floated awry, listing heavily.
‘The boat leans over to one side.’
‘Yœ,’ agreed Mohammed’s cousin. The Allemand wanted it so. ‘There has been a great carrying of goods within her, they have moved everything to make the boat lean over.’
‘Why?’
The man shrugged and pointed with his chin. ‘They have lifted her belly from the water, see how they work with fire on the holes in her skin.’
Tiny as beetles, men swarmed on the exposed hull, and even in the bright glare of midday, the welding torches flared and sparkled with blue-white flame. The new plating was conspicious in its coat of dull brown zinc oxide paint, against the battleship-grey of the original hull.
As the launch approached, Sebastian studied the work carefully. He could see that it was nearing completion, the welders were running closed the last seams in the new plating. Already there were painters covering the oxide red with the matt grey final coat.
The pock marks of the shell splinters in her upper-works had been closed. and here again men hung on the flimsy trapezes of rope and planks, their arms lifting and falling as they plied the paint brushes.
An air of bustle and intent activity gripped the Blücher. Everywhere men moved about fifty different tasks, while the uniforms of the officers were restless white spots roving about her decks.
‘They have closed all the holes in her belly?’ Sebastian asked.
‘All of them,’ Mohammed’s cousin confirmed. ‘See how she spits out the water that was in her womb.’ And he pointed again with his chin. From a dozen outlet vents, Blücher’s pumps were expelling solid streams of brown water as she emptied the flooded compartments.
‘There is smoke from her chimneys,’ Sebastian exclaimed, as he noticed for the first time the faint shimmer of heat at the mouths of her stacks.
‘Yes. They have built fire in the iron boxes deep inside her. My brother Walaka works there now. He is helping to tend the fires. At first the fires were small, but each day they feed them higher.’
Sebastian nodded thoughtfully, he knew it took time to heat cold furnaces without cracking the linings of fireclay.
The launch nosed in and bumped against the cliff-high side of the cruiser.
‘Come,’ said Mohammed’s cousin. ‘We will climb up and work with the gangs carrying the wood down into her. You will see more up there.’
A new wave of dread flooded over Sebastian. He didn’t want to go up there among the enemy. But already his guide was scrambling up the catwalk that hung down Blücher’s flank.
Sebastian adjusted his penis-sheath, hitched up his cloak, took a deep breath and followed him.
– 72 –
‘Sometimes it goes like that In the beginning everything is an obscene shambles; nothing but snags and accidents and delays. Then suddenly everything drops into place and the job is finished.’ Standing under the awning on the foredeck, Commander (Engineering) Lochtkamper was a satisfied man, as he looked around the ship. Two weeks ago it looked as though we would still be messing around when the war was over – but now!’
‘You have done well,’ von Kleine understated the facts. ‘Again you have justified my confidence. But now I have another task to add to your burdens.’
‘What is it, Captain?’ Lochtkamper kept his voice noncommittal, but there was a wariness in his eyes.
‘I want to alter the ship’s profile – change it to resemble that of a British heavy cruiser.’
‘How?’
‘A dummy stack abaft the radio office. Canvas on a wooden frame. Then mask “X” turret, and block in the dip of our waist. If we run into the British blockade squadron in the night, it may give us the few extra minutes that will make the difference between success or failure.’ Von Kleine spoke again as he turned away, ‘Come, I will show you what I mean.’
Lochtkamper fell in beside him and they started aft, an incongruous pair; the engineer swaddled in soiled overalls, long arms dangling, shambling along beside his captain like a trained ape. Von Kleine tall over him, his tropical whites crisp and sterile, hands clasped behind his back and golden beard bowed forward on to his chest, leaning slightly against the steeply canted angle of the deck.
He spoke carefully. ‘When can I sail, Commander? I must know precisely. Is the work so far advanced that you can say with certainty?’
Lochtkamper was silent, considering his reply as they picked their way side by side through the milling jostle of seamen and native porters.
‘I will have full pressure on my boilers by tomorrow night, another day after that to complete the work on the hull, two more days to adjust the trim of the ship and to make the alterations to the superstructure,’ he mused aloud. Then he looked up. Von Kleine was watching him. ‘Four days,’ he said. ‘I will be ready in four days.’
‘Four days. You are certain of that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Four days,’ repeated von Kleine, and he stopped in mid-stride to think. This morning he had received a message from Governor Schee in Dar es Salaam, a message relayed from the Admiralty in Berlin. Naval Intelligence reported that three days ago a convoy of twelve troop ships, carrying Indian and South African infantry, had left Durban harbour. Their destination was not known, but it was an educated guess that the British were about to open a new theatre of war. The campaign in German West Africa had been brought to a swift and decisive conclusion by the South Africans. Botha and Smuts had launched a double-pronged offensive, driving in along the railroads to the German capital of Windhoek. The capitulation of the German West African army had released the South African forces for work elsewhere. It was almost certain that those troopships were trundling up the east coast at this very moment, intent on a landing at one of the little harbours that dotted the coast of East Africa. Tanga perhaps, or Kilwa Kvinje – possibly even Dar es Salaam itself.
He must have his ship seaworthy and battle-ready to break out through the blockade squadron, and destroy that convoy.
‘The big job will be readjusting the ship’s trim. There is much to be done. Stores to be manhandled, shell from the magazines, the guns remounted …’ Lochtkamper interrupted his thoughts. ‘We will need labour.’
‘I will order Fleischer to bring all his forced labour down to assist with the work,’ von Kleine muttered. ‘But we must sail in four days. The moon will be right on the night of the thirtieth, we must break out then.’ The saintly face was ruffled by the force of his concentration, he paced slowly, the golden beard sunk on his chest as he formulated his plans, speaking aloud. ‘Kyller has buoyed the channel. He must start clearing the minefield at the entrance. ‘We can cut the boom at the last moment – and the current will sweep it aside.’
They had reached the waist of the cruiser. Von Kleine was so deep in his thoughts that it took Lochtkamper’s restraining hand on his arm, to return him to reality.
‘Careful, sir.’
With a start von Kleine looked up. They had walked into a knot of African porters. Wild tribesmen, naked beneath their filthy leather cloaks, faces daubed with yellow ochre. They were man-handling the faggots of cordwood that were coming aboard from the launch that lay alongside Blücher. One of the heavy bundles was suspended from the boom of the derrick, it was swaying twenty feet above the deck and von Kleine had been about to walk under it. Lochtkamper’s warning stopped him.
While he waited for them to dear away the faggot, von Kleine idly watched the native gang of workers.
One of the porters caught his attention. He was taller than his companions, his body sleeker, lacking the bunched and knotty muscle. His legs also were sturdier and finely moulded. The man lifted his head from his labours, and von Kleine l
ooked into his face. The features were delicate; the lips not as full as, the forehead broader and deeper than, the typical African.
But it was the eyes that jerked von Kleine’s attention back from the troop convoy. They were brown, dark brown and shifty. Von Kleine had learned to recognize guilt in the faces of his subordinates, it showed in the eyes. This man was guilty. It was only an instant that von Kleine saw it, then the porter dropped his gaze and stooped to take a grip on the bundle of timber. The man worried him, left him feeling vaguely uneasy, he wanted to speak with him – question him. He started towards him.
‘Captain! Captain!’ Commissioner Fleischer had come puffing up the catwalk from the launch, plump and sweaty; he was pawing von Kleine’s arm.
‘I must speak with you, Captain.’
‘Ah, Commissioner,’ von Kleine greeted him coolly, trying to avoid the damp paw. ‘One moment, please. I wish to …’
‘It is a matter of the utmost importance. Ensign Proust …’
‘In a moment, Commissioner.’ Von Kleine pulled away, but Fleischer was determined. He stepped in front of von Kleine, blocking his path.
‘Ensign Proust, the cowardly little prig …’ and von Kleine found himself embroiled in a long report about Ensign Proust’s lack of respect for the dignity of the Commissioner. He had been insubordinate, he had argued with Herr Fleischer, and further he had told Herr Fleischer that he considered him ‘fat’.
‘I will speak to Proust,’ said von Kleine. It was a trivial matter and he wanted no part of it. Then Commander Lochtkamper was beside them. Would the Captain speak to the Herr Commissioner about labour for the handling of ballast? They fell into a long discussion and while they talked, the gang of porters lugged the bundle of timber aft and were absorbed by the bustling hordes of workmen.
Sebastian was sweating with fright; trembling, giddy with fright. Clearly he had sensed the German. officer’s suspicions. Those cold blue eyes had burned like dry ice. Now he stooped under his load, trying to shrink himself into insignificance, trying to overcome the grey clammy sense of dread that threatened to crush him.