The African Queen
Page 19
When the Königin Luise was hull down over the horizon and the dhow was close in-shore the lieutenant left his post and went down to the jetty to meet his senior officer. The dhow ran briskly in, and the native crew furled the sail as she slid alongside the jetty. The lieutenant-commander was there in the sternsheets. Lying in the bottom of the boat were two new passengers, at whom the lieutenant stared in surprise. One was a woman; she was dressed in a skirt of gay canvas—once part of an awning of the Königin Luise—and a white-linen jacket whose gold buttons and braid showed that it had once belonged to a German naval officer. The other, at whom the lieutenant hardly looked, so astonished was he at sight of a woman, was dressed in a singlet and shorts of the kind worn by German native ratings.
“Get a carrying party,” said the lieutenant-commander, proffering no further explanation. “They’re pretty far gone.”
They were both of them in the feverish stage of malaria, hardly conscious. The lieutenant had them carried up on shore, each in the bight of a blanket, and looked round helplessly to see what he could do with them. In the end he had to lay them in one of the tents allotted to the English sailors, for Port Albert is only a collection of filthy native huts.
“They’ll be all right in an hour or two,” said the surgeon lieutenant after examining them.
“Christ knows what I’m going to do with ’em,” said the lieutenant-commander bitterly. “This isn’t the place for sick women.”
“Who the devil is she?” asked the lieutenant.
“Some missionary woman or other. The Königin Luise found her castaway somewhere on the Lake, trying to escape over here.”
“Pretty decent of the Huns to bring ’em over.”
“Yes,” said the lieutenant-commander shortly. It was all very well for a junior officer to say that; he was not harassed as was the lieutenant-commander by constant problems of housing and rations and medical supplies—by all the knotty points in fact which beset a man in command of a force whose lines of communication are a thousand miles long.
“They may be able to give us a bit of useful information about the Huns,” said the lieutenant.
“Can we ask them?” interposed the surgeon. “Flag of truce and all that. I don’t know the etiquette of these things.”
“Oh, you can ask them, all right,” said the lieutenant-commander. ’There’s nothing against it. But you won’t get any good out of ’em. I’ve never met a female devil-dodger yet who was any more use than a sick headache.”
And when the officers came to question Rose and Allnutt about the German military arrangements they found, indeed, that they had very little to tell them. Von Hanneken had ringed himself about with desert, and had mobilized every man and woman so as to be ready to strike back at any force which came to molest him, but that the English knew already. The surgeon asked with professional interest about the extent of sleeping sickness among the German forces, but they could tell him nothing about that. The lieutenant wanted to know details of the Königin Luise’s crew and equipment; neither Allnutt nor Rose could tell him more than he knew already, more than the Admiralty and the Belgian Government had told him.
The lieutenant-commander looked for a moment beyond the battle which would decide the mastery of the Lake, to the future when a fleet of dhows escorted by the motor boats would take over an invading army which would settle Von Hanneken for good and all. He asked if the Germans had made any active preparations to resist a landing on their shore of the Lake.
“Didn’t see nothing,” said Allnutt.
Rose understood the drift of the question better.
“You couldn’t land any one where we came from,” she said. “It’s just a delta—all mud and weed and malaria. It doesn’t lead to anywhere.”
“No,” agreed the lieutenant-commander, who, like an intelligent officer, had studied the technique of combined operations. “I don’t think I could, if it’s like that. How did you get down to the Lake, then?”
The question was only one of politeness.
“We came down the Ulanga River,” said Rose.
“Really?” It was not a matter of great interest to the lieutenant-commander. “I didn’t know it was navigable.”
“It ain’t. Corblimey, it ain’t,” said Allnutt.
He would not be more explicit about it; the wells of his loquacity were dried up by these glittering officers in their white uniforms with their gentlemen’s voices and la-di-da manners. Rose was awkward too. She did not feel at ease with these real gentlemen either, and she was sullenly angry with herself because of the absurd anticlimax in which all her high hopes and high endeavour had ended. Naturally she did not know who the officers were who were questioning her, nor what weapons they were making ready to wield. Naval officers on the eve of an important enterprise would not explain themselves to casual strangers.
“That’s interesting,” said the lieutenant-commander, in tones which were not in agreement with his words. “You must let me hear about it later on.”
He was to be excused for his lack of interest in the petty adventures of these two excessively ordinary people who had made fools of themselves by losing their boat. To-morrow he had to lead a fleet into action, achieving at this early age the ambition of every naval officer, and he had much to think about.
In fact he had everything to think about
“They may be all right,” said he when they came away. “They look like it. But on the other hand they may not. All this may be just a stunt of old Von Hanneken’s to get a couple of his friends over here. I wouldn’t put it past him. They’re not coming out of their tents until the Königin Luise is sunk. They don’t seem to be married, and although they’ve lived together all those weeks it wouldn’t be decent if the Royal Navy stuck them in a tent together. I can’t really spare another tent. I won’t have the camp arrangements jiggered up any more than they are. As it is I’ve got to take a man off the work to act sentry over them. Can’t trust these Belgian natives. Not a ha’p’orth. You see to it, Bones, old man, will you? I’ve got to go and have a look at Matilda’s gun mounting.”
Chapter 18
THE next day the Königin Luise as she steamed in solemn dignity over the Lake she had ruled so long saw two long grey shapes come hurtling over the water towards her, half-screened in a smother of spray. The commander who had been President of the court martial of two days before looked at them through his glasses as they tore along straight towards him. Beyond the high-tossed bow waves he could see the fluttering squares of white. He saw red crosses and a flash of gay colour in the upper corners. They were White Ensigns, flying where no White Ensign had ever been seen before.
“Action stations!” he snapped. “Get the gun firing!”
The prosecuting officer ran madly to the gun; the defending officer sprang to the wheel to oversee the coloured quartermaster and to make sure the commander’s orders were promptly obeyed. Round came the Königin Luise to face her enemies. Her feeble gun spoke once, twice, with pitiful slowness. H.M.S. Matilda and H.M.S. Amelia swerved to one side. At thirty knots they came tearing round in a wide sweep, just outside the longest range of that old six-pounder. The Königin Luise was slow on her helm and with a vast turning circle. She could not wheel quick enough to keep her bows towards those flying grey shapes which swept round her in a decreasing spiral. Their engines roared to full throttle as they heeled over on the turn. They had four times the speed and ten times the handiness of the old gunboat. The prosecuting officer looking over his sights could see only their boiling wake now. He could train the gun no farther round, and the gunboat could turn no faster.
The lieutenant-commander stood amidships in the Matilda. A thirty-knot gale howled past his ears. The engine bellowed fit to deafen him, but he eyed coolly the lessening range between him and the Königin Luise, and the curving course which was bringing his ship fast towards the enemy’s stern where there was no gun to bear. It was his duty not merely to win the easy victory, but to see that victory was won
at the smallest cost. He looked back to see that the Amelia was in her proper station, looked at the range again, shouted an order into the ear of the man at the wheel, and then waved his hand to the sub-lieutenant in the bows by the gun. The three-pounder broke into staccato firing, report following report so that the ear could hardly distinguish one sound from the next. It was a vicious, spiteful sound, implying untold menace and danger.
The three-pounder shells began to burst about the Königin Luise’s stern. At first they merely blew holes in the thin plating, and then soon there was no plating left to explode them, and they flew on into the bowels of the ship spreading destruction and fire everywhere, each of them two pounds of flying metal and a pound of high explosive. The steering gear was smashed to fragments, and the Königin Luise swerved back suddenly from her circling course and headed on in a wavering straight line. The lieutenant-commander in the Matilda gave a new order to the man at the wheel, and kept his boats dead astern, and from that safe position sent the deadly little shells raking through and through the ship from stern to bow.
The Königin Luise had not really been designed as a fighting ship; her engines and boilers were above waterline instead of being far below under a protective deck. Soon one of those little shells came flying through the bulkhead, followed by another, and another. There was a deep, sullen roar as the boiler was hit, and the Königin Luise was wreathed in a cloud of steam. The engine room staff were boiled alive in that moment.
The lieutenant-commander in the Matilda had been expecting that moment; his cool brain had thought of everything. When he saw the steam gush out he gave a quick order, and the roar of the Matilda’s engine was stilled as the throttle closed and the engine pulled out of gear. When the steam cleared away the Königin Luise was lying a helpless hulk on the water, drifting very slowly with the remnant of her way, and the motor boats were lying silent, still safely astern. He looked for a sign of surrender, but he could see none; the black cross was still flying, challenging the red. Something hit the water beside the Matilda with a plop and a jet of water; he could hear a faint crackling from the Königin Luise. Some heroic souls there were firing at them with rifles, and even at a mile and a half a Mauser bullet can kill, and on the great lakes of Africa where white men are numbered only in tens, and every white man can lead a hundred black men to battle, white men’s lives are precious. He must not expose his sailors to this danger longer than he need.
“Hell,” said the lieutenant-commander. He did not want to kill the wretched Germans, who were achieving nothing in prolonging their defence. “God damn it; all right, then.”
He shouted an order to the gun’s crew in the bows, and the fire recommenced, elevated a little so as to sweep the deck. One shell killed three coloured ratings who were lying on the deck firing with their rifles; the prosecuting officer never knew how he escaped. Another shell burst on the tall bridge, and killed Lieutenant Schumann, but it did not harm the commander, who had gone down below a minute before, venturing with his coat over his face into the scalding steam of the engine room to do his last duty.
“Perhaps that’ll settle ’em,” said the lieutenant-commander, signalling for fire to cease. Even three-pounder shells are troublesome to replace over the lines of communications a thousand miles long. He looked at the Königin Luise again. She lay motionless, hazed around with smoke and steam. There was no firing now, but the black-cross flag was still flying, drooping in the still air.
Then the lieutenant-commander saw that she was lower in the water, and as he noticed it the Königin Luise very suddenly fell over to one side. The commander had done his duty; he had groped his way through the wrecked engines to the seacocks and had opened them.
“Hope we can save the poor beggars,” said the lieutenant-commander, calling for full speed.
The Matilda and the Amelia came rushing up just as the German ensign, the last thing to disappear, dipped below the surface. They were in time to save all the living except the hopelessly wounded.
Chapter 19
THERE is an elation in victory, even when wounded men have to be borne very carefully along the jetty to the hospital tent; even when a telegraphic report has to be composed and sent to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty; even when a lieutenant-commander of no linguistic ability has to put together another report in French for the Belgian governor. He could at least congratulate himself on having won a naval victory as decisive as the Falklands or Tsushima, and he could look forward to receiving the D.S.O. and the Belgian Order of the Crown and a step in promotion which would help to make him an admiral some day.
His mind was already hard at work on his new plans, busily anticipating the time soon to come when he would escort the invading army across the Lake. “Strike quickly, strike hard, and keep on striking”; the sooner the invaders were on their way the less time would Von Hanneken have to recover from this totally unexpected blow and make arrangements to oppose a landing. The lieutenant-commander was urgent in his representations to the senior Belgian officer on the spot, to the Belgian headquarters, to the British headquarters in East Africa.
Yet meanwhile he could not be free from the worry of all commanders-in-chief. That long line of communications was a dreadful nuisance, and he had fifty blue jackets who expected English rations in Central Africa, and now he had some captured German wounded—coloured men mostly, it is true, but a drain on his resources all the same—on his hands as well as some unwounded prisoners. He had to act promptly in the matter. He sent for Rose and Allnutt.
“There’s a Belgian escort going down to the coast with prisoners,” he said, shortly. “I’m going to send you with them. That will be all right for you, I suppose.”
“I suppose so,” said Allnutt. Until this moment they had been people without a future. Even the destruction of the Königin Luise had increased that feeling of nothingness ahead.
“You’ll be going to join up, I suppose,” said the lieutenant-commander. “I can’t enlist you here, of course. I can’t do anything about it. But down on the coast you’ll find a British consul, at Matadi, I think, or somewhere there. The Belgians’ll put you on the right track, anyway. Any British consul will do your business for you. As soon as you are over your malaria, of course. They’ll send you round to join one of the South African units, I expect. So you’ll be all right.”
“Yessir,” said Allnutt.
“And you, Mrs.—er—Miss Sayer, isn’t it?” went on the lieutenant-commander. “I think the West Coast’s the best solution of the problem for you, too, don’t you? You can get back to England from there. A British consul—”
“Yes,” said Rose.
“That’s all right then,” said the lieutenant-commander with relief. “You’ll be starting in two or three hours.”
It was hard to expect a young officer planning the conquest of a country half the size of Europe to devote more attention to two civilian castaways. It was that “Mrs.—er—Miss” of the lieutenant-commander’s which really settled Rose’s future—or unsettled it, if that view be taken. When they came out of the lieutenant-commander’s presence Rose was seething with shame. Until then she had been a woman without a future and in consequence without any real care. It was different now. The lieutenant-commander had mentioned the possibility of a return to England; to Rose that meant a picture of poor streets and censorious people and prying aunts—that aunts should be prying was in Rose’s experience an essential characteristic of aunts. And it was terribly painful to contemplate a separation from Allnutt; he had been so much to her; she had hardly been out of his sight for weeks now; to lose him now would be like losing a limb, even if her feelings towards him had changed; she could not contemplate this unforeseen future of hers without Allnutt.
“Charlie,” she said urgently. “We’ve got to get married.”
“Coo,” said Allnutt. This was an aspect of the situation he actually had not thought of.
“We must do it as quickly as we can,” said Rose. “A consul can many
people. That officer in there spoke about a consul. As soon as we get to the coast . . .”
Allnutt was a little dazed and stupid. This unlooked-for transfer to the West Coast of Africa, this taken-for-granted enlistment in the South African forces, and now this new proposal left him hardly a word to say. He thought of Rose’s moderate superiority in social status. He thought about money; presumably he would receive pay in the South African army. He thought about the girl he had married twelve years ago when he was eighteen. She had probably been through half a dozen men’s hands by now, but there had never been a divorce and presumably he was still married to her. Oh well, South Africa and England were a long way apart, and she couldn’t trouble him much.
“Righto, Rosie,” he said, “let’s.”
So they left the Lakes and began the long journey to Matadi and marriage. Whether or not they lived happily ever after is not easily decided.
THE END
Table of Contents
CONTENTS
THE AFRICAN QUEEN
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19