The first years of the Great War in the colonies, especially in eastern Africa, presented an inconclusive set of affairs from either side’s point of view. The British had led with a haymaker of a naval bombardment on August 8, 1914, at Bagamoyo and Dar es Salaam in German East Africa (later Tanganyika, literally “Where One Walks in the Wilderness,” and now Tanzania). But they were badly mauled in an attempted invasion the following November by a far smaller force of defenders under the brilliant German General von Lettow-Vorbeck, who bloodied the Allies’ collective nose at the Battle of Tanga, between Dar es Salaam and Mombasa. After this action, the campaign broke down into limited skirmishing on a small but ferociously bloody scale through the 1914-1915 period, neither side gaining any decisive advantage. In fact, the hunt for the Königsberg, besides being one of the most colorful operations of the war, was also one of the first Allied successes in Africa on a tactical basis. Its inception and ultimate execution constitute one of the most outrageous one-man exploits in the history of warfare. As so often is the case when Fate gets involved, that man was also one of the most unlikely chaps available.
He was P. J. Pretorius, later Major, with C.M.G., D.S.O. and Bar. A descendant of the famous Boer Voortrekker general who gave his name to Pretoria, South Africa, and the son of a man who had twice fought against the British, he was nonetheless loyal to the Crown, which turned out eventually to be some of the best news since Waterloo for the British and the Allies. But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves; there’s far more to the story of P. J. Pretorius than his hunt for the Königsberg, both before and after that incredible adventure.
A small, lean, dark-complected man whom Prime Minister Jan Smuts thought looked more like a Somali or an Arab than a European, Pretorius was just sixteen when sent by his father to ride transport for the British South Africa Company in 1893, during the war with King Lobengula of the AmaNdebele Zulu. The B.S.A. Company, as it was called, was a quasi-military land conquest and development company put together by Cecil Rhodes. The company had its own troops, who put down the uprising, Pretorius arriving in Lobengula’s captured capital of Bulawayo only two days after the great Rhodes himself. As things simmered down, P.J. was called home to his parents’ farm in the Transvaal and told to remain there. But he’d seen the local equivalent of Paree and, determined to make his fortune in the interior, pulled up stakes and left. It would be twenty-five years before he saw the farm or his parents again. Becoming a member of the B.S.A. forces, he soon demonstrated his phenomenal eyesight during a fight with the MaShona people and was elected guide to his company, commanded by Rhodes’s own brother.
Over the years that seemed to flow by like rapids, Pretorius wandered over much of the Zambezi region, even penetrating as far as “King Khama’s Country,” modern Botswana. He lived in the Congo with Pygmies, fought cannibals, dug for gold and, most critically for his future as a soldier, became an ivory hunter and later poacher in German East Africa. These latest extralegal activities were centered around the Rufiji—where the Königsberg was to hide—and the Ruvuma River, which now forms the border between Tanzania and Mozambique, then Portuguese territory.
That Pretorius held no fondness for Germans is historically not open to speculation. From his first brushes with various colonial officers, it seemed a case of hate at first sight. Early incidents were minor, but a full ten years before the Great War, there came a confrontation with the Huns which would cost the young South African two years of his life, much of his health and almost all of his worldly chattels which, by 1904, were not insubstantial. Here’s what happened … .
Pretorius, after years of wandering, found himself in the Ituri Forest of the Congo, living with Pygmies as he hunted ivory and, as abominable as the idea seems today, was one of the first to kill a huge male gorilla. Deciding to take his large party of hired porters on a route out of the country which would bring him to Ruanda-Burundi, land of the towering, fabled WaTutsi, he had to pass through the eastern Congo region, infamous for its cannibal tribes. As he had been supplying plenty of meat, a couple of dozen Pygmies had come along with his safari, to accompany their windfall meal ticket as far as possible.
Well into cannibal country, Pretorius’ safari came across the freshly butchered carcasses of sixteen natives, the choicer cuts of their mutilated bodies having been carried off to be prepared as food. Later in the day, the party was confronted by a cannibal force of several hundred men, led by a witch doctor. The two groups shouted abuse at each other for several minutes and, when neither would back down, the witch doctor incited his men to charge. P.J. shot him deader than easy credit, the rest of the attackers turning tail like the proverbial pin-striped primate. Where the cannibals had been gathered upon discovering Pretorius’ safari were found the half-eaten bodies of three more captives.
Not anxious to hang around to get a real inside look at cannibal culture, the safari pushed on, Pygmies in tow, reaching a large village that did not seem overinclined to eat them. Pretorius bartered for a pair of oxen in exchange for calico, to forestall any potential barbecues in which he or his men might play a starring role. He told his head man to give one ox to the Pygmies to eat and the other back to the locals. Tired, P.J. then lay down to rest but was awakened by loud peals of laughter from the center of the village. Arriving there, he found the Pygmies cutting off and eating chunks of bloody meat from the still-living ox, a performance the locals seemed to think about the most humorous they had ever seen. Having one of his men kill the agonized ox, he went back to bed, only to be routed out again by war cries and shouts. Grabbing his pistol, he ran to see what was going on and found the Pygmies and the villagers beginning a pitched battle. The little people had found the communal pea patch and raided it, pulling up the plants, roots and all. Pretorius, exasperated by the antics of his fearless little friends from the forest, was just able to make peace before anybody got speared or arrowed by offering more calico. Finally back to sleep, he was once more awakened by terrible groans of pain. It was the Pygmies, so gorged on the peas that by dawn, five had died. As they clearly could not cope with this unfamiliar world outside their dark Ituri Forest, Pretorius sent them back with the provision that he would provide an armed guard as far as the forest. The guard was back with the safari two nights later, the trip having been made without incident.
Continuing the march, Pretorius’ party pitched camp one night at a deserted village near a small lake. While his tent was being erected, a porter ran up to P.J. to report that a party of men sent to carry water from the lake had been attacked by cannibals, and that the cook and four other men had been killed on the spot. Pretorius immediately sent his head man to investigate but never saw him again, as the moment the unfortunate Swahili left, hundreds of screaming warriors poured down on the camp in a mass attack.
Although he fired into them as fast as he could load his shotgun, Pretorius’ tent was shredded and the safari stripped of everything the savages could lay hands on. Pretorius must have been killing many of the horde of attackers, numb in their bloodlust, because the volume of shells he put through the shotgun made it so hot that the solder holding the barrels together actually melted, leaving the gun useless! It was painfully clear to Pretorius that his only chance was to run for it. Many of his men had been scattered and killed by now, but he broke back the way the party had come, with five survivors, and reached heavy bamboo cover. Running as fast as they could, they disappeared into the shadows with more than one hundred cannibals whooping triumphantly on their flying heels.
Through a fluke of luck, they hit an elephant path a short distance into the bamboo and turned off onto it, dropping flat. It was the ultimate chance. Trying to restrain their heaving lungs from giving away their position, they watched and listened as the mob of cannibals streamed past them a few yards away. They had managed to give them the slip! P.J.’s relief was tremendous until he took stock of the situation: He and his five men had among them only Pretorius’ remaining Mauser pistol, down to seven cartridges,
and were deep in dangerous country aswarm with cannibals. Waiting in the bamboo until full dark, they scrambled down a mountain and floundered through an especially nasty swamp to temporary safety. One of the main problems among the charming assortment from which they had to choose was that they had been forced back into the territory they had come through and were now hiding on the edge of the valley where they had found the sixteen mutilated bodies. Surely there was nothing for it but to wait; travel by daylight would be suicide. With nothing else to do, Pretorius was watching the cannibal stronghold below at noon when, before his unbelieving eyes, twenty of his surviving porters who had gathered together walked calmly into the enemy village. His heart sank. How could they be so stupid? His hopes rose when, at first, they were nicely received and seated in the shade for a palaver with the cannibals. Then Pretorius noticed that more and more spearmen began gathering around the unarmed porters. At some unseen signal, the sun gleamed on upraised spears, and the twenty were slaughtered, stabbed and skewered to death. Not one was even able to break for freedom.
In despair, there was nothing Pretorius and his men could do but watch and, at dark, sneak past the village feast to begin the 400-mile escape route that would take an agonizing, starving eight days—an unbelievable fifty miles per night on virtually no rations.
When, sick and half-dead of disease and exhaustion, he and his men finally reached the WaTutsi country, he found that a German warrant had been issued for his arrest for killing forty-seven natives.
Certain he could explain his actions as self-defense, he marched for several more days to give himself up. Upon doing so, he found he saw things a bit differently from the colonial officials. The Germans placed him under detention and shipped him down to the coast at Dar es Salaam, where he spent most of the next year in the local cooler while inquiries were made back into the bush. At last, still without a trial, he was released on bail when evidence clearly established that he had acted in his own and his men’s defense. However, red tape and sheer maliciousness denied him his full freedom until a total of two full years had passed in the stinking, steaming “Haven of Peace.” When he was finally released from bond, he’d lost more than two prime years of his life; during his confinement, the German authorities had sold off his entire cattle herd of 774 head to favored politicians for the unthinkable pittance of the equivalent of 150 English pounds. The affair left the twenty-nine-year-old Pretorius bankrupt, with only enough to start life all over, including a used 8mm rifle, a few blankets, an ability to speak fluent German and a glowing hatred of the Huns that would cost them thousands of men killed and captured when the war broke out, not to mention the only effective ship they had in the Indian Ocean. No, Pretorius did not like Germans. Not at all.
Several years later, when he had ivory-hunted his way back to prosperity and had acquired a beautiful farm on the upper Rufiji, Pretorius received a letter from the German authorities ordering him to sell the farm to a certain Hauptmann (Captain) Blake, a German officer. Blake offered 400 pounds for the place, an insanely low bid as the house alone had cost 800 pounds to build, not including the land or cost of clearing it. The letter further stated that, as a foreigner, if Pretorius did not sell to Blake, the place would be confiscated and given to the officer! Something less than pleased, Pretorius sent a sizzling note back to the powers-that-were by native runner which read to the effect that if this happened, he would happily poach German ivory in their territory until a considerably higher price—plus interest and expenses—had been repaid.
Nobody was bluffing. The Germans confiscated the farm and gave it to Blake, and Pretorius began professional ivory poaching in German territory, crossing the river on extended raids and making damned fools on any and all occasions of the German askari police sent against him. Over the months and years, Pretorius recovered the cost of his farm and considerably more, becoming a very long, sharp thorn in Hun flesh that worked ever deeper. The Germans did not realize how firmly the barb was embedded until the guns started booming and the war came on in August of ’14.
It was late in the afternoon of August 14, 1914, on the Ruvuma River, the lowering sun gilding the comfortable camp shared by Pretorius and his two friends, Captain Hemming and another wanderer named Mare, a fellow Afrikaaner. The three white men and their staff had been loafing for months after a last deep strike into German territory for ivory, now shooting only for food while they planned a grand lark of a trip across the breadth of Africa to Liberia. Having sent their porters out with ivory to exchange for extensive supplies for the journey, the men were relaxed and expectant that the supply safari would be along any day. The three were sitting, smoking in the twilight, when the sweating form of a post runner dashing madly into camp broke their easy conversation. The runner was incoherent with excitement and, at being asked what was going on, blurted out that the English and the Germans were fighting. Astonished, the hunters managed to gather from the details that this was not some sort of skirmish, but a major confrontation which had caused the Germans to remove all the native plantation labor from along the coast, many thousands of Africans. Realizing the meaning of the news, they were exultant at the prospect of war with their hated enemies, until Pretorius soberly suggested that they had to remember that they were at that moment on German soil. They had to get to the nearest British post to enlist, and, although it lay deeper into the enemy regions than they were on the marginal Ruvuma, they decided to reach the town of Lindi, where fighting had been reported and the British Navy most likely in charge by this time.
Breaking camp and setting off the next morning, their first objective was the mission station at a tiny bush village called Masasi. On the way, they were warned by fleeing natives that all the missionaries had been picked up and sent to Lindi. Obviously, the British Navy wasn’t in control there. With no alternative, the party then turned back for the Ruvuma with the idea of marching all the way to Nyasaland (British Central Africa of the time), a full 1,500 miles away.
Upon returning to their old camp on the Ruvuma, the party was warned of the approach of a German column some 200 men strong that had left nearby Newala and was heading in their direction. The poachers’ camp was well known to the Germans through informers, and, on the chance he hadn’t heard about the formal declaration of unpleasantries, they hoped to nab Pretorius and cut off a potential source of Allied intelligence on their doorstep. Realizing the column’s probable intentions, Pretorius moved camp to an island in the river located in such a position that any approaching force would be visible for at least 1,000 yards, while Pretorius’ men were hidden in heavy cover. With sentries carefully posted, the night was quiet until ten o’clock, when a guard came up to P.J. to report a big campfire on the enemy bank. Looking closely, Pretorius saw, from the smaller individual fires, that there was no doubt that the Germans had arrived in full strength. Although it was Hemming’s turn on sentry duty, Pretorius decided to lay awake with his rifle, plenty of extra cartridges and his shooting clothes laid out next to his bed.
By two in the morning, Hemming had been replaced by Mare, and Pretorius and Hemming sat up talking about the next day’s tactics. The porters were sleeping in a dry water cut with small fires to keep down the mosquitoes, while Mare went on his first tour of inspection. He was apparently no feather-foot, as Pretorius complained that he could be heard 200 yards away stumbling over his own big feet. Mare stopped good-naturedly to chat for a moment when he passed, and at that instant the night tore apart with a terrific yell from the porters that the Germans were in camp!
The three hunters immediately grabbed for their equipment, Pretorius able only to dress partially and arm himself by the time the enemy was ashore and shooting up the place; he was forced to leave his socks, boots and belt. Running forward, Hemming and Pretorius returned fire from as close as five yards, but, despite the deadly barrage, there were too many, and the German askaris swept onward. Loading and firing, the little force was pressed to retreat back to the camp dining table on which a paraffin la
mp was burning. Hemming tried to smash it so they would not be outlined as targets, but the fool thing only set its own fuel reservoir afire, showing the defenders up even better. Forced by the increased enemy firing to break and scuttle from shadow to shadow in a swarm of Mauser bullets, Pretorius suddenly found himself alone, separated from his friends in the confusion of the fight. Ridiculously outnumbered at more than fifty to one in terms of armed men, P.J. recalled that it had been agreed that if overrun, those who could would meet at a rock outcrop up the island some 400 yards away for a final stand. Running, dodging, Pretorius now broke for this cover, bullets churning up the dirt around him and whining through the bush as the sonic boom of their passage buffeted his ears. (Bullets do not whistle past one’s ears, despite what the pulps say; they crack like a bullwhip.) It was a terrifying, desperate run. Once he almost knocked himself unconscious crashing full-speed into a tree; a few seconds later falling over a branch and jarring his rifle loose. He scrabbled for precious seconds in the blackness, trying to find it as enemy feet swarmed toward him, the attackers firing as fast as they could. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t been hit yet but realized that, in trying to find the rifle, he had lost the time needed to reach the rocks. Gasping, he was suddenly aware that the only place from which enemy fire wasn’t pouring was the river. With the clarity of horrified realization, he knew that it must be the river—or death. He was not in uniform and would be shot as a spy if captured; as if the Germans needed an excuse, anyway.
He rose to dash for the water, legs tensing under him as he burst from cover, hammering toward the dark beach. His hopes were nearly shattered when, short of the river’s safety, he felt the tearing tug of a bullet piercing both legs and a German voice screaming: “Get him at all costs!” Pretorius personally knew the man who shouted the order, a Leutnant Wack, and saw him in the shadows only yards away. As the Germans rushed him, despite the numbing shock of the bullet wound, Pretorius lunged for the water and threw himself into its black embrace.
Death in the Silent Places Page 9