The African Queen

by C. S. Forester

  The coming of the evening and the sudden descent of night did nothing towards enfeebling their attacks. It seemed impossible to hope for sleep in that inferno of sticky heat under the constant torture of those winged fiends. The memory of yesterday’s fairly cool, insect-free bed, when they had lain side by side in happy intimacy, seemed like the vague recollection of a dream. Tonight they shrank from contact with each other, writhing on their uncomfortable bed as if on the rack. Sleep seemed unattainable and yet they were both of them worn out with the excitement of the day.

  Sometime in the night Allnutt rose and fumbled about in the darkness.

  “ ’Ere,” he said. “Let’s try this, old girl. It can’t be no worse.”

  He had found the old canvas awning, and he spread it over the two of them, although it seemed as if they would die under any sort of covering. They drew the canvas about their faces and ears, streaming with sweat in the stifling heat. Yet the heat was more endurable than the insects. They slept in the end, half boiled, half suffocated; and they awoke in the morning with their heads swimming with pain, their joints aching, their throats constricted so that they could hardly swallow. And the insects still attacked them.

  They had to wallow ashore through stinking mud to find wood, although it seemed agony to move; it took half a dozen journeys before the African Queen was fully charged with fuel again, sufficient to get them through the day. Already the sun was so hot that the floor boards seemed to burn their feet, and it was only Allnutt’s calloused hands which could bear the touch of metal work. How he could bear the heat of the fire and the boiler was inconceivable to Rose; the heat which was wafted back to her in the stern was sufficient for her.

  Yet being under way at least brought relief from insects. The speed of the African Queen was sufficient to leave that plague behind, and out in the middle of the river, half a mile broad here, there were no new ones to be found. It was worth enduring the sledgehammer heat of the sun for that.

  The character of the river and the landscape was changing rapidly. Overside, the water, which had regained its familiar brown tint of the upper reaches, was growing darker and darker until it was almost black. The current was noticeably less, and quite early in the day they ran the last of the rapids of the type they had encountered so frequently yesterday. That indicated the last rocky ridge extending across the bed of the river; they were definitely down the slope and in the bottom of the Rift Valley now. There were no snags now; the river was far too deep. With its half-mile of width and sixty feet of depth the current slackened until it was almost unnoticeable, although a river engineer could have calculated that the volume of water passing a given point in a given time was equal to that higher up where the constricted shallow channel had raced between its precipices.

  On either bank now appeared broad fringes of reeds—papyrus and ambatch—and beyond them belts of cane indicated the marshy banks, and beyond the cane could be seen the forest, dark and impenetrable. Out in the centre of the river there was silence save for the clatter of the engine and the breaking of the wash; the African Queen clove her way through the black water under the burning sun. In that vast extent of water they seemed to be going at a snail’s pace; there were loops and bends in the river’s course which they took a full two hours to get round—motiveless bends, to all appearance, for there was no alteration in the flat monotony of the banks.

  Although there was no need now to keep watch against snags or rapids, there was still need for some degree of vigilance on Rose’s part. Much of the surface of the river was cumbered with floating rubbish, tangles of weed and cane, branches and logs of wood which might imperil the propeller; the current was too slow here to force this flotsam out to the banks and strand it there. It was a relief from the monotony of steering to keep a lookout for the dangerous type of log floating entirely submerged; and soon Rose began to lay a course which took her close to each successive floating mass, and she and Allnutt were able to select and pull in those bits of wood of a size suitable for use in the fire. It comforted Rose’s economical soul in some inexpressible way to render the African Queen by this means still more independent of the shore, and in point of fact, as Rose observed to herself, it was quite as well to maintain the supply of fuel as fully as possible, having regard to the marshiness and inaccessibility of the banks. The fuel they gathered in this way was sufficient to help considerably towards maintaining their stock in hand, even though it did not compensate for their whole consumption.

  That day of monotonous sun and monotonous river wore slowly towards its close. Allnutt came aft with a surprising suggestion.

  “We needn’t tie up to the bank tonight, old girl,” he said. “It’s a muddy bottom, and we can use the anchor agine. I vote we anchor out ’ere. Mosquitoes won’t find us ’ere. We don’t want another night like last night if we can ’elp it.”

  “Anchor here?” said Rose. The possibility had not occurred to her. Five yards had been the farthest from land they had ever lain at night, and that was in the backwaters of the upper river—months ago, she felt. It seemed queer to stop in that tiny boat a quarter of a mile from land, and yet obviously there was no reason against it.

  “All right,” she said, at length.

  “I won’t stoke no more then, and where we stops we—”

  “Anchors” was the word Allnutt was going to use, but he did not have time to say it, some minor crisis in the engine summoning him forward on the jump. He turned and grinned reassurance to Rose after he had put matters right.

  Gradually the beat of the engine grew slower and slower, and the African Queen’s progress through the water died away until it was almost imperceptible. Allnutt went forward and let go the anchor, which took out its chain with a mighty rattle that echoed across the river and brought flights of birds out from the forest.

  “Not sure that it’s touching bottom,” said Allnutt philosophically. “But it doesn’t matter. If we start driftin’ near trouble, that ole anchor’ll stop us before the trouble gets too near. There ain’t nothing that can ’urt us in sixty foot o’ water. Now for Christ’s sake let’s rig up something to give us a bit o’ shade. I seen enough o’ that sun to last me a lifetime.”

  The sun was still blazing malignantly down on them, although the day was so far advanced, but Allnutt stretched the remains of the awning overhead and a rug along the awning stanchions, and there was a blessed patch of shade in the sternsheets in which they could recline with their eyes shielded from the persistent glare. As Allnutt had predicted, they were nearly free from the mosquito curse here; the few insects that came to bite were almost unnoticeable to people who had endured the assault of millions yesterday.

  Rose and Allnutt could even endure contact with each other again now; they could kiss and be friendly. Rose could draw Allnutt’s head down to her breast, and clasp him to her in a new access of emotion. Later on when peace had descended upon them they could talk together, in quiet voices to suit the immense silence of the river.

  “Well,” said Allnutt. “We done it, old girl. We got down the Ulanga all right. I didn’t think it could be done. It was you who said we could. If it ’adn’t been for you, sweet’eart, we shouldn’t be ’ere now. Don’t yer feel prard o’ yerself, dear?”

  “No,” said Rose, indignantly. “Of course not. It was you who did it. Look at the way you’ve made the engine go. Look how you mended the propeller. It wasn’t me at all.”

  Rose really meant what she said. She was actually beginning to forget the time when Allnutt had been found wanting, to forget the time when she had to coerce him by silence into continuing the voyage. In some ways this was excusable, for so much had happened since then; if Rose had not known that it was only three weeks since the voyage had started she would have guessed it to be at least three months. But her forgetfulness was due to another cause as well; she was forgetting because she wanted to forget. Now that she had a man of her own again it seemed unnatural to her that she should have forgotten her femininity so
far as to have made plans, and coerced Allnutt, and so on. It was Charlie who ought to have the credit.

  “I don’t think,” she said, very definitely indeed, “there’s another man alive who could have done it.”

  “Don’t think anyone’s likely to try,” said Allnutt, which was a very witty remark and made Rose smile.

  “We’ll have a good supper tonight,” said Rose, jumping up. “No, don’t you move, dear. You just sit still and smoke your old cigarette.”

  They had their good supper, all of the special delicacies which the Belgian manager of the mine received in his fortnightly consignment—tinned tomato soup, and tinned lobster, and a tin of asparagus, and a tin of apricots with condensed milk, and a tin of biscuits. They experimented with a tin of pâté de foie gras, but neither of them liked it, and by mutual consent they put it overside half finished. And, swilling tea afterwards, they were both of them firmly convinced that they had dined well. They were of the generation and class which had been educated to think that all good food came out of tins, and their years in Africa had not undeceived them.

  The night came down and the river stretched on either side, immeasurable and vast in the starlight. The water was like black glass, unruffled by any wind, and deep within it the reflection of the stars glowed like real things. They fell into a dreamlike state of mind in which it was easy to believe that they were suspended high above the earth, with stars above and stars below; the gentle motion of the boat as they moved helped in the illusion.

  “Coo!” said Allnutt, his head on Rose’s shoulder. “Ain’t it lovely?”

  Rose agreed.

  Yet for all this hypnotic peace, for all the love they bore each other, in the hearts of both was the determination of war. Rose’s high resolve to clear the lake of England’s enemies burned as high as ever, unexpressed though it might be. Von Hanneken would not continue long to flaunt the iron cross flag unchallenged on Lake Wittelsbach if she could prevent it. Every little while she thought of those gas cylinders and boxes of explosive up in the bow with a quiet confidence, in the same way as she might in other circumstances think of a store-cupboard shelf full of soap laid up ready for spring cleaning. There was no flaunting ambition about it, no desire to rival the fame of Florence Nightingale or Grace Darling or Joan of Arc. It was a duty to be done, comparable with washing dishes. Rose asked nothing more of life than something to do.

  For details, Charlie would have to attend to those—fuses and explosives were more in a man’s line. Charlie would see to it all right. It was a perfectly natural gesture that at the thought of Charlie making an efficient torpedo she should clasp his arm more tightly to her, evoking in response a grunt of peaceful satisfaction.

  That uxorious individual had no will of his own left now. What little there was had evaporated by the second day of shooting the rapids, the day when Rose had miraculously admitted him to her arms. He was content to have someone to admire and to follow. Even though Rose had no thought of rivalling Joan of Arc she resembled her in this power she exerted over her staff. The last few days had been one long miracle in Allnutt’s eyes. Her complete fearlessness in the wild rapids which had turned his bowels to water affected him indescribably.

  There was constantly present in his mind’s eye the remembered picture, a composite formed during hundreds of anxious glances over his shoulder, of Rose erect at the tiller, vigilant and unafraid amidst the frantic turmoil of the cataracts—it was the lack of fear, not the vigilance, which impressed him so profoundly. She had not been cast down when the propeller broke. Her confidence had been unimpaired. She had been quite sure he could mend it, although he had been quite sure he could not, and behold, she was right. Allnutt was by now quite sure that she would be right again in the matter of torpedoing the Königin Luise, and he was ready to follow her into any mad adventure to achieve it.

  The very intimacy to which she admitted him, her tenderness for him, confirmed him in this state of mind. No other woman had been tender to Charlie Allnutt, not his drunken mother, nor the drabs of the East End, nor the enslaved prostitutes of Port Said, nor Carrie, his mistress at the mine, whom he had always suspected of betraying him with the filthy native labourers. Rose was sweet and tender and maternal, and in all this she was different from everyone else. He could abandon all thought of himself and his troubles while he was with her. It did not matter if he was a hopeless failure as long as she forbore to tell him so.

  When she pressed his arm he held her more closely to reassure himself once more, and her kiss brought him peace and comfort.

  Chapter 10

  TO the tranquillity of the night succeeded the fever of the day. No sooner had the sun climbed up out of the forest than it began to pour its heat with insane violence upon the little boat exposed upon the broad face of the river. It demanded attention in a manner that would take no denial. The discomfort of immobility in the sun was such that the instinctive reaction was to make instant preparations to move somewhere else, even though bitter experience taught that there was no relief in movement—even the reverse in fact, in consequence of the need for firing up the boiler.

  They headed on down the wide black river. Everything was still; the surface was glassy as they approached it. Behind them the ripples of their course and their spreading wake left a wedge-shaped area of disturbed water, expanding farther and farther until a long way astern, almost as far as the eye could see, it reached the reedy banks. They went on through the breathless heat, winding eternally round the vast motiveless bends of the river. There was just enough mist prevailing to make the distance unreal and indistinct.

  Rose brought the African Queen slowly round one more bend. The mist was thicker here. She could not determine the future course of the river, whether at the end of this reach it turned to the left or to the right. It did not matter here, where the river was so wide and so deep. Tranquilly she held on down the middle of the channel, a quarter of a mile from either shore. She could be sure of seeing the direction of the next band when it came nearer.

  Only slowly did it dawn upon her that the river had widened. In that misty heat the banks looked much the same at half a mile as at a quarter of a mile. Undoubtedly they were further from both banks now. It did not matter. She kept the African Queen to her old course, heading for the mist-enshrouded forest right ahead. She was sure that sooner or later they would open up the next reach.

  Somehow even half an hour’s steaming did not reveal the channel. They were nearing the dark green of the forest and the brighter green strip of the reeds now. Rose could see a vast length of it with some precision, but there was no break. She came to the conclusion that the river must have doubled nearly back upon itself, and she put the tiller over to starboard to approach the left hand bank again. There was no satisfaction to be found here. There was only the unbroken bank of reeds and the eternal forest, and moreover, something in the contour of that sky line seemed to tell her that it was not in this direction that the river found an exit.

  For a moment she dallied with the idea that perhaps the river ended altogether somewhere in this neighbourhood, but she immediately put the notion aside as ridiculous. Rivers only end thus abruptly in deserts, not in rain-beaten forests of this sort. This was German Central Africa, not the Sahara. She looked back whence they had come, but the last stretch of comparatively narrow river was at least three miles back by now, low down on the horizon and shrouded with mist and out of sight.

  There was only one course to adopt which promised definite results. She put the tiller over again and began to steer the African Queen steadily along the edge of the fringe of reeds. Whatever happened to the river she was bound to find out if she kept along its bank for long enough.

  “D’you think this is the delta, dearie?” called Allnutt from the bows. He was standing on the gunwale looking over the wide expanse of water.

  “I don’t know,” said Rose, and added, doggedly, “I’ll tell you soon.”

  Her notion of a delta was a lot of channel
s and islands, not a lake five miles wide with no apparent outlet.

  They steamed along the fringe of reeds. A change in the character of the water became noticeable to Rose’s eye, practised through many long days in watching the surface. It was black water here, and although it had been black enough a little higher up, there was something different about it. It was lifeless, lacklustre water here. There were long curling streak upon it indicative of some infinitely slow eddy circling in its depths. There was far more trash and rubbish afloat on the surface than usual. In fact there seemed every indication that here they had reached, in defiance of all laws of nature, an ultimate dead end to the river.

  “Beats me to guess where we’ve come to,” said Allnutt. “Anywye, there’s a nell of a lot of wood ’ere. Let’s stop and fill up while we can.”

  It was not at all difficult to collect a full charge of fuel of all the sorts Allnutt liked, from the long dead stuff which would give a quick blaze to solid boughs which could be relied upon to burn for a considerable time. Allnutt fished the wood out of the water. Even here, a mile from solid land, there was insect life to be found. He shook all sorts of semi-aquatic little creatures off it as he lifted it in. With his axe he cut it into handy lengths, as well as he could in the boat, and spread it out to dry over the floor boards. Only an hour or two in that blazing sun was necessary to bring even water-logged wood into such a condition that it would burn.