The African Queen

by C. S. Forester

  It was not long before Allnutt, moving restlessly about the boat, began to occupy himself with overhauling the engine. For a long time that engine had not had so much attention as Allnutt lavished on it to-day. It was greased and cleaned and nurse-maided, and a couple of the botched joints were botched a little more effectively. Then Allnutt found he was thoroughly dirty, and he washed himself with care, and in the middle of washing he thought of something else, and he went to his locker and got out his razor, and cleansed it of the thick grease which kept it from rusting, and set himself to shave. It was only sheer laziness which had caused him to cease to shave when the war broke out, and which accounted for that melodramatic beard. Shaving a beard like that was painful, but Allnutt went through with it, and when it was over he stroked his baby-smooth cheeks with satisfaction. He put cylinder oil on his tousled hair and worked at it until he had achieved the ideal coiffure, with an artistic quiff along his forehead. He replaced his things in his locker with elaborate care, and sat down to recover. Five minutes later he was on his feet again, moving about the cramped space, wondering what he could do now. And all round him was the silence of the river; that in itself was sufficient to get on his nerves.

  Chapter 5

  A MAN of stronger will than Allnutt, or a more intelligent one, might have won that duel with Rose. But Allnutt was far too handicapped. He could not do chess problems in his head, or devote his thoughts to wondering what was the military situation in Europe, or debate with himself the pros and cons of Imperial Preference, or piece together all the fragments of Shakespeare he could remember. He knew no fragments of Shakespeare at all, and his mind had never been accustomed to doing any continuous thinking, so that in a situation in which there was nothing to do but think he was helpless. In the end, it was the noise of the river eternally gurgling round the tree roots which broke down his last obstinacy.

  Allnutt had made several attempts to get back on a conversational footing with Rose, and only once had he managed to induce her to say anything.

  “I hate you,” she had said then. “You’re a coward and you tell lies, and I won’t speak to you ever.”

  And she had shaken herself free. The very first advance Allnutt had made had surprised her. All she had hoped to achieve was revenge, to make Allnutt suffer for the failure of her scheme. She had not believed it possible that she might reduce him to obedience by this means. She had no idea of the power at her disposal, and she had never had to do with a weak-willed man before. Her brother and her father were men with streaks of flintlike obstinacy within their pulpy exteriors. It was only when Allnutt began to ask for mercy that it dawned upon her that she might be able to coerce him into obeying her. By that time, too, she had a better appreciation of the monotony of the river, and its possible effect on Allnutt.

  Her one fear was lest Allnutt should become violent. She had steeled herself to hear unmoved anything he might say to her, or any indelicate expressions he might employ, but the thought of physical force undoubtedly gave her a qualm. But she was a well-set-up woman, and she put unobtrusively into her waistbelt the stiletto from her workbag. If he should try to rape her (Rose did not use the word “rape” to herself; she thought of his trying to “do that to her”) she would dig at him with it; its point was sharp.

  She need not have worried. Physical violence, even towards a woman, was a long way from Allnutt’s thoughts. It might have been different if there had been any gin left to give him the necessary stimulus, but providentially all the gin was in the river.

  Just as Rose had underestimated her power, so had Allnutt underestimated his offence. At first he had taken it for granted that Rose was angry with him because he had got drunk. Her scheme for going on down the river was so ludicrously wild that he hardly thought about it when the silence began; it was only by degrees that he came to realize that Rose was in earnest about it, and that she would give him no word and no look until he agreed to it. It was this realization which stiffened up his obstinacy after his preliminary apologies, and strengthened him to endure another twenty-four hours of torture.

  For it was torture, of a refinement only to be imagined by people of Allnutt’s temperament who have undergone something like his experiences. There was nothing to do at all, except to listen to the gurgle of the river among the tree roots and to endure the attacks of insects in the crushing heat. Allnutt could hardly even walk about in the cumbered launch. Silence was one of the things he could not endure; his childhood in shrieking streets, and his subsequent life in machine shops and engine rooms, had given him no taste for it. But the silence was only a minor part of the torture; what Allnutt felt more keenly still was Rose’s presence, and her manner of ignoring him. That roiled him inexpressibly. It is possible that he could have borne the silence of the river if it had not been for the continuous irksomeness of Rose’s silent presence. That hurt him in a sensitive spot, his vanity, in a manner of speaking, or his self-consciousness.

  In the end it even interfered with Allnutt’s sleep, which was the surest sign of its effectiveness. Insomnia was a quite new phenomenon to Allnutt, and worried him enormously. Days without exercise for either body or mind, a slightly disordered digestion, and highly irritable nerves combined to deprive Allnutt of sleep for one entire night. He shifted and twisted and turned on his uncomfortable bed on the explosives; he sat up and smoked cigarettes; he fidgeted and he tried again, unavailingly. He really thought there was something seriously wrong with him. Then in the morning, faced with yet another appalling blank day, he gave in.

  “Let’s ’ear wotcha wanter do, Miss,” he said. “Tell us, and we’ll do it. There, Miss.”

  “I want to go on down the river,” said Rose.

  Once more appalling visions swept across Allnutt’s imagination, of machine guns and rocks and whirlpools, of death by drowning, of capture by the Germans and death in the forest of disease and exhaustion. He was frightened, and yet he felt he could not stay a minute longer in this backwater. He was panicky with the desire to get away, and in his panic he plunged.

  “All right, Miss,” he said. “Carm on.”

  Some time later the African Queen steamed out of the backwater into the main river. It was a broad, imposing piece of water here. There was more wind blowing than there had been for some time, and up the length of the river ran long easy waves, two feet high, on which the African Queen pitched in realistic fashion, with splashes of spray from the bows sizzling occasionally on the boiler.

  Rose sat at the tiller in a fever of content. They were on their way to help England once more. The monotony of inaction was at an end. The wind and the waves suited her mood. It is even possible that the thought that they were about to run into danger added to her ecstasy.

  “That’s the ’ill Shona stands on,” Allnutt yelled to Rose, gesticulating. Rose only nodded, and Allnutt bent over the fire again, cursing under his breath. Even when they had started Allnutt had still hoped. He had not been quite sure how far down Shona was. Something might easily happen to postpone the issue before they reached there. He really meant to burn out a water tube at the right moment, so that they would have to lie up again for repairs before making the attempt. But now they were in sight of Shona unexpectedly; if the engine were disabled the current would bring them right down to the place, and there was no shelter on either bank. They would be prisoners instantly, and, appalling though the choice was, Allnutt would rather risk his life than be taken prisoner. He began feverishly to nurse the engine into giving its best possible performance.

  The waist of the launch was heaped with the wood collected that morning; Allnutt crouched behind the pile and hoped it could stop a bullet. He saw that ready to his hand were the chunks of rotten wood which would give an instant blaze and a quick head of extra steam when the moment came. He peered at the gauges. The African Queen came clattering majestically down the river, a feather of smoke from her funnel, spray flying from her bows, a white wake behind her.

  The Askaris on the hills sa
w her coming, and ran to fetch the white commandant of the place. He came hurriedly to the mud walls (Shona is a walled village) and mounted the parapet, staring at the approaching launch through his field glasses. He took them from his eyes with a grunt of satisfaction; he recognized her as the African Queen, the only launch on the Ulanga, for which he had received special orders from Von Hanneken to keep a sharp lookout. She had been lost to sight—skulking in backwaters, presumably—for some time, and her capture was desirable. The German captain of reserve was glad to see her coming in like this. Presumably the English missionaries and the mechanic had tired of hiding, or had run short of food, and were coming in to surrender.

  There could be no doubt that that was what they intended, for a mile below Shona, just beyond the next bend, in fact, the navigation of the river ceased where it plunged into the gorges. She would be a useful addition to his establishment; he would be able to get about in her far more comfortably than by the forest paths. And if ever the English, coming up by the old caravan route, reached the opposite side of the river, the launch would be of great assistance in the defence of the crossing. The mere mention of her capture would be a welcome change in the eternal dull reports he had to send by runner to Von Hanneken.

  He was glad she was coming in. He stood and watched her, a white speck on the broad river. Clearly the people in her did not know where the best landing place was. They were keeping to the outside of the bend in the fast current, on the opposite side to the town. They must be intending to come in below the place, where there was a belt of marshy undergrowth—it was silly of them. When they came in he would send a message to them to come back up the river to the canoe landing place, where he could come and inspect them without getting himself filthy and without having to climb the cliff.

  He walked over to the adjacent face of the town to observe her further progress round the bend. The fools were still keeping to the outside of the bend. They showed no signs of coming in at all. He put his hands to his helmet brim, for they were moving now between him and the sun, and the glare was dazzling. They weren’t coming in to surrender after all! God knew what they intended, but whatever it was, they must be stopped. He lifted up his voice in a bellow, and his dozen Askaris came trotting up, their cartridge belts over their naked chests, their Martini rifles in their hands. He gave them their orders, and they grinned happily, for they enjoyed firing off cartridges, and it was a pleasure which the stern German discipline denied them for most of their time. They slipped cartridges into the breeches, and snapped up the levers. Some of them lay down to take aim. Some of them kept their feet, and aimed standing up, as their instincts taught them. The sergeant chanted the mystic words, which he did not understand, telling them first to aim and then to fire. It was a ragged enough volley when it came.

  The captain of reserve looked through his glasses; the launch showed no signs of wavering from her course, and kept steadily on, although the fools in her must have heard volley, and some at least of the bullets must have gone somewhere near.

  “Again,” he growled, and a second volley rang out, and still there was no alteration of course towards the town on the part of the launch. This was growing serious. They were almost below the town now, and approaching the farther bend. He snatched a rifle from one of the Askaris and threw himself on his stomach on the ramparts. Someone gave him a handful of cartridges, and he loaded and took aim. They were right in the eye of the sun now, and the glare off the water made the foresight indistinct. It was very easy to lose sight of the white awning of the boat as he aimed.

  A thousand metres was a long range for a Martini rifle with worn rifling. He fired, reloaded, fired again, and again, and again. Still the launch kept steadily on. As he pointed the rifle once more at her something came between him and the launch; it was the trees on the farther point. They were round the corner. With a curse he jumped to his feet and, rifle in hand, ran lumbering along the ramparts with his Askaris behind him. Sweating, he galloped down across the village clearing and up the steep path through the forest to the other side. Climbing until he thought his heart would burst, he broke through the undergrowth at last at the top of the cliff, where he would look down the last reach of the river before the cataract. They had almost reached the farther end; the launch was just swinging round to take the turn. The captain of reserve put his rifle to his shoulder and fired hurriedly, twice, although, panting as he was, there was no chance of hitting. Then they vanished down the gorge, and there was nothing more he could do.

  Yet he stood staring down between the cliffs for a long minute. Von Hanneken would be furious at the news of the loss of the launch, but what more could he have done? He could not justly be expected to have foreseen this. No one in his senses would have taken a steam launch into the cataract, and a reserve officer’s training does not teach a man to guard against cases of insanity. The poor devils were probably dead already, dashed to pieces against the rocks; and the launch was gone for good and all. He could not even take steps to recover fragments, for the tall cliffs between which the river ran were overhanging and unscalable, and not five kilometres from Shona the country became so broken and dense that the course of the lower Ulanga was the least known, least explored part of German Central Africa. Only Spengler—another born fool—had got through it.

  The captain of reserve was not going to try; he formed that resolve as he turned away from the cliff top. And as he walked back to Shona, bathed in sweat, he was still undecided whether he should make any mention of this incident in his report to Von Hanneken. It would only mean trouble if he did; Von Hanneken would be certain it was all his fault, and Von Hanneken was a tyrant. It might be better to keep quiet about it. The launch was gone, and the poor devils in it were dead. That little worm of a missionary and his horse-faced wife—or was it his sister? Sister, of course. And the English mechanic who worked at the Belgian mine. He had a face like a rat. The world would not miss them much. But he was sorry for the poor devils, all the same.

  When he came up through the gate again into Shona he was still not sure whether or not he would inform Von Hanneken of the incident. The Askaris would gossip, of course, but it would be a long time before the gossip reached Von Hanneken’s ears.

  Chapter 6

  THE rivers of Africa are nearly all rendered unnavigable along some part of their courses by waterfalls and cataracts. The rivers on their way to the sea fall from the central tableland into the coastal plain, but the Ulanga is not one of this category. Its course is inland, towards the Great Lakes, and its cataracts mark the edge of the Great Rift Valley. For in the centre of Africa an enormous tract of territory, longer than it is wide, has sunk bodily far below the level of the tableland, forming a deep trough, of a total area approaching that of Europe, in which are found the Great Lakes with their own river system, and, ultimately, the source of the Nile.

  Along much of their length the sides of this trough are quite steep, but the Ulanga, as befits the noble river it is, has scoured out of its bed and cut back along it, so that nowhere in its course is there an actual waterfall; its cataracts indicate the situation of strata of harder rock which have not been cut away as efficiently as have the softer beds. The natural result is that in its course from the tableland to the valley the Ulanga flows frequently through deep, sunless gorges between high cliffs; overhead is rough, steep country, untraveled and unmapped, in which the presence of a river could hardly be suspected.

  At Shona the river begins its descent; because this is the last point at which the river may be crossed by raft or canoe, the old slave caravan route along the edge of the rift passes the Ulanga here, and Shona grew up as the market at the point of intersection of caravan route and river route. The choice of site at the top of the cliff overlooking the river, where the gorge has actually begun, was of course due to the need of protection from slave raiders, who, being quite willing to sell their own fathers if they saw profit in it, were never averse to snapping up business acquaintances should they be so
careless as not to take proper precautions.

  It was down the outside of the great bend on which Shona stands that Rose steered the African Queen. It was convenient that on this course they not merely kept in the fastest current but also were as far away as possible from the village. She looked up the steep bank, across the wide expanse of water. The forest came to an end halfway up the slope; near the crest she could see high red walls, and above them the thatched roofs of the huts on the very top of the hill. It was too far to see details. She could see no sign of their coming being noticed. There was no sign of life on the banks; and as they went on down the river the banks grew rapidly higher and steeper into nearly vertical walls of rock, fringed at the foot with a precarious growth of vegetation.

  She looked at the red walls on the top of the cliff; she thought she could see a movement there, but it was half a mile off and she could not be sure. Perhaps Von Hanneken had swept off the inhabitants here as he had done along the rest of the river, to leave a desert in the possible path of the approach of the English. They were practically opposite the town now, and nothing had happened. A glance at the near bank showed her the speed at which they were moving; the river was already running much faster in its approach to the cataracts.

  Suddenly there was a peculiar multiple noise in the air, like bees in a violent hurry accompanied by the sound of tearing paper. Rose’s mind had just time to take note of the sound when she heard the straggling reports of the rifles which had caused it. The volley echoed back from cliff to cliff, growing flatter the longer the sound lasted.

  “They’ve got us!” said Allnutt, leaping up in the waist. His face was lopsided with excitement. Rose could pay no attention to him. She was looking keenly ahead at the swirls on the surface. She was keeping the African Queen in the fastest water along the very edge of the back eddy off the bank.