Death in the Silent Places

by Peter Hathaway Capstick

  The current was, happily, very swift, carrying the wounded man quickly behind a reed bed, where he was hidden from the still wildly firing enemy soldiers only thirty yards away. Encouraged to be momentarily out of the line of water-whipping slugs, he almost forgot his leg wounds in his struggle to keep from drowning, dragged down by the weight of his bandoliers of ammunition. Twice he hit bottom before being able to shrug off the load which weighed him down like a diver’s belt. The pain in his legs came back in a blinding burst of agony as he found a shallow bar and tried to stand up. The right shin was smashed by the bullet, which had passed through the muscle of the left and gone on, completely through both legs.

  Gagging down waves of nausea, he paddled softly into a shallower place, sitting still for an hour, the water up to his neck, as German lead continued randomly to comb the reeds. With the growing legion of red pain devils in his legs and skull, he had no time to worry about the crocodiles that infested the Ruvuma, every moment consumed in trying to keep away a school of minnows that were torturing him by darting up to his wounds and eating the raw, live flesh from the edges of the bullet holes.

  Throughout the next day he remained in the reeds, always within ninety feet of the enemy, listening to them talk about him. Finally, he overheard somebody say in German that he had surely drowned or died of his wounds, and that it wouldn’t be worthwhile to conduct a further search. Whew!

  That night the German force broke camp on the island, and at last, the voices faded away into the blackness back to their own side. So far, so good, thought P.J. At least he was alive. But what a spot to be in: crippled and unable to walk, without food or arms, well over a thousand miles from the nearest friendly lines. Even if there had been survivors of his party who had not been captured, they would draw the same conclusion as the Germans—that he was dead.

  Pretorius’ desperation mounted as he considered his position. Losing strength through hunger and continually oozing blood, he had decided at least to attempt the suicidal swim across the Ruvuma to the Portuguese side, when, at first to his shock and then exhilaration, he heard voices in the local native dialect of KiSwahili, accompanied by the perfect rhythm of the dip of paddles. As river natives who knew him well and had no love for the Hun, they picked him up and ferried him to the southern Portuguese side of the river. Here began one of the most remarkable journeys ever even contemplated by a half-dead man a thousand miles behind enemy lines, wounded, alone and with some of the most hostile terrain in Africa between him and his goal. He was to endure capture, engineer an escape, suffer extended, awful pain and even be forced to self-mutilation. Nonetheless, one thought continued to burn in the brain of P.J. Pretorius: revenge. And he would have it.

  On the third day after his arrival on the Portuguese bank of the Ruvuma, Pretorius awoke from a delirious sleep in great pain to find himself alone, lying in a sandy spruit near a village. Stubbornly refusing to give up hope of completing his journey, and only too bloody aware of the death sentence placed on his head by the Germans, he somehow fashioned a simple bamboo crutch and started hobbling toward Nyasaland. Unarmed and too sick to hide, he was almost immediately captured by a pair of Portuguese native soldiers, who had orders to turn him over to the Germans. In itself this doesn’t make much sense, as the Portuguese were fighting with the British and South Africans against the Germans. Perhaps these chaps and their officers hadn’t gotten the word. With the possibility of some medical treatment, Pretorius put up no fuss, hoping that on the trip down to Palma he would have a chance to escape. His heart sank, though, on reaching the post at Ngomano, at the confluence of the Ruvuma and Lujenda Rivers. There was neither a doctor nor medial supplies. In a stretcher carried by porters and flanked by armed guards, the Portuguese commandant sent him along to his appointment with a blindfold and a wall.

  Two more days of agony crawled by, every moment spent with the shriveling chance of escape. And then, while resting at a village in the shade of a hut while his captors ate thirty yards away under a tree, Lady Luck appeared in a most unusual form. Pretorius looked up and saw his old gunbearer, Saidi, walking straight across the compound to him, his face charcoal gray with fright. He came up to the white man and told his story of having survived the fight on the island and being captured with Hemming and Mare, both of whom had been sent down to the coast for formal execution three days ago. When he had heard a rumor that his Bwana was alive, he had escaped at the first opportunity and come to find him.

  “Have you any weapons?” P.J. asked hopefully.

  “I have the old Lee-Metford, Bwana,” announced Saidi, “and twenty cartridges.” (This was an antiquated rifle for which Pretorius had made a bad trade when short of ammo for his .303 rifle.)

  Excitement poured through Pretorius like an injection of adrenalin. “Wapi?” he asked in KiSwahili. “Where?”

  “Hidden in the corn, five hundred yards over there,” said Saidi, starting to gesture. Pretorius snapped at him not to point; his guards would get suspicious. Telling the frightened but loyal man that if he could get the rifle and cartridges to him, P.J. could get out of this, the Bwana sent him off into the corn.

  Fifteen minutes later, incredible as it sounds, Saidi walked brazenly right through the village with the loaded rifle against his leg and handed it to Pretorius. None of the guards had even noticed him. Getting the drop on his captors, Pretorius told the guards to clear out, leaving the porters who were carrying his stretcher, or hammocklike machila. Knowing Pretorius’ reputation with a rifle, nobody argued.

  Back on his escape route, Pretorius had himself carried until it was too dark to see and then made camp. In the morning, despite both his and Saidi’s vigilance, all but two of the porters had slipped away, again leaving him in a spot. After some consideration and consultation with his gunbearer, it was decided to return to a village they had passed through the previous afternoon to “enlist” some new labor. Arriving there, Pretorius found the place empty of all men, only women and children in sight. Asking where the men were—knowing full well they had seen his approach and had scattered into the bush, rather than be conscripted as porters—he was told by the oldest woman that they were all at a beer-drink sixteen miles away. Ever practical, and with enough years of applied African psychology to open a clinic, Pretorius promptly comandeered twenty of the strongest-looking females to carry his machila and the supplies he “requisitioned” at the village. Sure enough, after a half hour on the trail, Saidi reported that they were being followed by a man whom Pretorius let come up and demand the return of his wife, who was one of the ladies carrying the machila.

  “Take her place and she may go,” said P.J. The man did so, and the woman returned to her village. Within an hour, all the women had been reclaimed and replaced by their husbands!

  By midday, they were back at the Lujenda River, where Pretorius washed off his wounds and had the men plait strong bark fiber ropes with which he had them tied together. In a blood-and-thunder speech, he firmly planted the idea that anybody trying for a bit of unauthorized leave would catch a bullet from the Lee-Metford before they were out of sight. Pretorius wasn’t fooling around. As he was to put it: “It was a matter of life and death to me; why shouldn’t it be the same for them?”

  After six days of unspeakable pain while being carried over the rough terrain, Pretorius’ leg became so stiff, swollen and infected that he instinctively knew he would never live to reach Nyasaland on a direct route; he decided to chance a trip up to a Portuguese fort at Mazewa, on the Ruvuma, where an old friend named Dr. Da Costa ran the show. However, after the distance had been covered to within a mile, Saidi, who had scouted ahead, returned with the disheartening news that the Germans had raided the place and murdered both Da Costa and his wife when they opened the door.

  Not a very nice little war.

  Pretorius continued on to the fort to see for himself. Both Dr. and Mrs. Da Costa had been buried inside the walls, and anything of any use had been carried across the river to German soil. Horri
fied and furious at the atrocity, Pretorius turned his safari back south along the Chulesi River for three days, then branched off for the headwaters of the Emtapiri and across the semidesert nyika to the Luwatezi. At this point, despite some apprehension, hunger forced the party to head directly for the villages of the infamous Chief Mwembe.

  Chief Mwembe was not reputed to be the most genial of hosts. Fort Valentine, which was in this district (although apparently deserted at this time, or Pretorius would have made for it), had been named for a Lieutenant Valentine, who had been one of the vanguard British officers into the area. Valentine had been taken prisoner at the first village, where Mwembe had ordered his hands cut off. He had been placed at the head of a parade through the rest of the villages to demonstrate how ineffective the whites were, compared to Mwembe’s might. It had probably been his good fortune to be stabbed to death only, at the end of the grisly tour. P.J., his party having been without food for two days, had no choice but to try to obtain supplies here. Once more his luck held as his safari blundered into a hunting party of which the chief himself was a member. The chief was captured and stocked Pretorius with food in exchange for his freedom.

  More searing, endless days. Sleepless nights of throbbing agony. Fainting and delirium. Then, at last, the low, mottled profile of the Livingstone Mountains, on the eastern shore of Lake Nyasa. They were a welcome sight; beyond them lay British territory and safety. But Pretorius knew he would never live through the last of the ordeal unless something was done about his right leg. Another day or two, and gangrene or blood poisoning would unquestionably squeeze the last life from his fevered, emaciated body. The left leg, with no more than a flesh wound, had healed nicely, but the other was in a nauseating condition. The entrance and exit holes of the wound had healed over, but with the smashed, fractured bone and horridly swollen and festering flesh, his entire leg from toe to knee was a deadly black. P.J. knew that only if this was opened and drained would he have even a small chance to live. Dreading what he knew he had to do, he prepared to open the wound.

  Choosing the sharpest of the party’s knives, he probably filled his head with thoughts of his time in prison, his dead friends—Hemming, Mare, Da Costa—and his stolen farm. Placing the point of the knife on the tremendous lump between the two bullet holes, the mere weight of the cutting tool was enough to make him reel. Saidi held his foot, and, with sweat pouring down his face, Pretorius made the first cut.

  Almagtig! God! Even the years of privation and pain of a bushvelt life could not prepare him for this. He fainted dead away, falling on his back and waking in a few seconds with screaming agony rocketing throughout his body. So terrific was the self-torture that he forced himself to sit up and grip the leg around the knee, squeezing the mangled flesh as hard as he could.

  As he looked down, he almost gave up. Despite a long, deep gash in the leg, only a little black, smelly blood was oozing out.

  He would have to do it all over again.

  It took Pretorius a full five minutes to steel himself for the new torment he was forced to inflict upon himself. Rather than chance another ineffective slash, he bound the blade of the knife in cloth so it would not slip out of his hands as it had the first time, leaving an inch of the sharp tip exposed. With a deep breath and clenched teeth, he inserted the point into the top of the last cut and slammed the hilt with the heel of his right hand. Once more, waves of gagging agony slapped him back into blackness, yet, when he awoke, he could see thick rivulets of foul pus running from the wound. Too weak to do it for himself, he ordered Saidi and another man to grip the leg and squeeze hard to force out as much of the putrefied matter as they could. This caused even more pain, if possible, than the two cuts. When they were finished, he washed the leg in water despite the unceasing, excruciating torture, and, two hours later, the pressure much relieved, he fell into a sound sleep, the first since he was wounded.

  After more weeks of traveling, what had seemed impossible began to come close to hand. Behind them were the Livingstones, and, on a bright, clear morning, suddenly they were at Malindi on Lake Nyasa, British Central Africa. As they collapsed to rest and drink, a priest from the mission station happened by on his bicycle, stopped and walked over to Pretorius, who certainly must have been an interesting-looking person after his ordeal. “Jambo,” said the priest. “Greetings.” Pretorius felt the first niggle of humor for a long, long time. The priest didn’t recognize him, although they were, in fact, old friends. Not until being told who the dark, painfully thin man was did the father dream it might be his old pal. At the mission station, when Pretorius looked into a mirror, the humor faded. He didn’t recognize his own reflection, either. Small wonder. It had been a full twenty-six days since he had been shot and had jumped into the river.

  After a short rest, Pretorius made his way down the lake to Fort Johnson, where he was finally able to get medical attention for his smashed leg. An operation was performed by the post doctor, who concluded that had the awful bit of bush surgery not been done, Pretorius would not have lived another day. As it was, he spent the next forty days completely immobile, there being no feeling in the leg at all (probably a relief after the past sensations), until it began to regenerate. After another three weeks, he was strong enough to be moved to Blantyre, where, after a final two weeks of recuperation, he was able to hobble.

  All together, almost four months had gone by from the night of the fight on the island until he was able to reach Pretoria, South Africa, the nearest British recruiting post, to join up.

  When he presented himself at the recruiting office, he was flatly refused!

  After telling the story of his fight, wounding, capture and escape, the army decided that the entire affair was just too convenient, and that Pretorius must be a German agent. As he discovered after the war, counterspies were set on him for several weeks until things were straightened out. Completely frustrated, he boiled off and traveled to his old home at Nylstroom, which he had not seen in a quarter of a century, unaware that within a matter of weeks his life was to reverse itself completely. In the street one day, he was grabbed by a policeman who asked if he was Pretorius. Admitting that he was, he was ordered by the officer to come along to the Charge Office. Wondering if this spy business had reached the prosecution point, he was taken reluctantly into tow and delivered at the station. Ready for trouble, he was astonished to find not a sheaf of formal charges against him, but—of all things—a telegram asking if he would consider accepting service with the Imperial Government and taking the train to Durban!

  Dumbfounded, he complied. From that day on, the change in his status from suspected spy to V.I.P. was absolutely diametric. He was given special coaches, attended meetings with cloak-and-dagger intelligence types and was even met, still bewildered, by a special train outside the port of Durban so that a telegram could be hand delivered. It read:

  WITH COMPLIMENTS FROM ADMIRAL KING-HALL ON YOUR ARRIVAL IN DURBAN PROCEED IMMEDIATELY TO C SHED POINT.

  As nobody seemed to know what or where C Shed Point was, there was some discussion as to the mystery with the military personnel on the special train. While this was going on, another telegram came over the wire, saying that upon arrival in Durban, a second special train would be waiting for Pretorius. It was, and before he knew what the whole thing was about, he was whisked aboard the great British battleship Goliath by the captain himself. Fed, given a private stateroom, he was left to ponder why on earth he had been chosen to meet personally with the famous Admiral King-Hall the next morning. As he lay in his bed, listening to the throb of engines as the ship got underway, he reflected on the incongruity of his being an honored guest of the Royal Navy. It was sure as hell a long way from hunting ivory in the Congo.

  The following morning, P.J. was summoned to his meeting with the admiral, whom he liked immediately for his wit and way of getting down to cases. At last Pretorius was told that it was the Königsberg the British wanted, and they had a pretty fair idea where she might be found. Fascina
ted, Pretorius listened to the redfaced, bushy-browed King-Hall brief him on all that they knew. It was thought by Intelligence that the German battle cruiser was up the Rufiji, this being confirmed in rather a negative manner, as everybody dispatched to look for her had developed a disconcerting habit of never being seen again. Two seaplanes had been sent over the delta, and neither had returned. Of a pair of armed whalers ordered to scout, the one which went up the river had also disappeared. Even an ordinary boatload of loyal local natives had vanished into oblivion on the way upriver.

  As Pretorius was the only man available to the Allies known to have spent time hunting the Rufiji area, his experience would be invaluable in scouting for the Königsberg and figuring out a way to bring her under fire by the British. King-Hall had a private scheme of constructing a sort of superraft, capable of carrying heavy guns and men, but Pretorius quickly dissuaded him from this idea; from the terrain, he knew it would be the equivalent of suicide. The Salali, as the main channel of the Rufiji is called, is deep and some sixteen miles long, threading through swamps and studded with small islands perfect for ambush. There being no reason to doubt that Königsberg still had all her big guns and torpedoes, such an attack would be completely impractical. The logical approach, suggested a thoughtful Pretorius, would be to scout her out, pinpoint her location and then decide how best to blast her to hell.

  King-Hall just smiled quietly and pressed a buzzer.

  Some twenty-two miles off the mouth of the Rufiji lies the island of Mafia, an old Arab slaving center, only a rough 160 square miles of coconut groves. Previously a German base, it had been shelled and overrun by the British in January of 1915 and now became the nerve center of Pretorius’ hunt for the cruiser. Landing with his staff of one man—a wireless operator—the brand-new Major Pretorius quickly set about selecting a native crew to assist him. He was assured by the resident commissioner of the island that he had unerringly picked the six biggest rogues on Mafia, yet he grudgingly observed that what they might lack in morality, they made up for in toughness. After a short chat with his new chaps in which Pretorius promised them faithfully in KiSwahili that loose tongues would be removed by him personally, he got the lot well whipped into shape and chose another smaller island called Koma, only a few miles from the delta, as a forward observation post and jumping-off point for his scouting forays. Before leaving Mafia for Koma, he received a wireless from Whitehall, asking how long he thought it would take to determine the Königsberg’s location if she, indeed, was up the Rufiji. Pretorius thought eight days should do it. He was right on the button.