A Matter of Time

by Alex Capus

  He had become reconciled with the Wissmann. It wasn’t true that she was the lousiest ship in Africa. She wasn’t to blame for the fact that she hadn’t seen the inside of a dry dock for seventeen years, that she drew only a metre-and-a-half and was far too narrow in the beam, or that any pistol shot could have pierced her steel plates, which were only three millimetres thick. To the unprejudiced eye, the Wissmann was a pretty little ship. Built by Jansen & Schmilinsky at Hamburg in 1897, according to the brass plate on her boiler, she was well suited to plying the Alster or the Titisee as a pleasure steamer. It was doubtful if Jansen & Schmilinsky had known that Lake Tanganyika, which lay in a deep rift between two precipitous mountain ranges, was prone to violent storms that often created mountainous waves in the rocky narrows, nor could they have foreseen that the Wissmann would be subjected to many years of maltreatment by colonial landlubbers. Last but not least, she had been laden down with tons of ordnance and her boiler was being fired with green wood because the coal had run out again. Taking all these things into account, the little old ship was acquitting herself very bravely.

  Anton Riiter checked the furnace and the steam pressure while two askaris manned the bilge pumps fore and aft of him. There was still

  almost no wind and the lake was as smooth as glass. The Wissmann was rolling a trifle but maintaining an even keel by her standards and making nearly five knots. After sunrise the rock faces would warm up and create powerful updraughts, and by afternoon the lake would get choppy and the askaris manning the pumps would have their work cut out to keep the bilges dry.

  Above the steps leading to the bridge Anton Riiter could see the back of the captain, Oberleutnant Moritz Horn. He was standing at the wheel, an erect and solitary figure, jaws working as he stared through his binoculars in the direction in which the shores of the Belgian Congo would soon appear. A flock of parrots flew over the ship, flying fish skimmed the surface. In the east the lake was pink, in the west pale blue. A cormorant circling high overhead went into a dive. It landed on the Wi'ssmanns awning and hitched a brief ride. The soldiers were drinking tea. The world was a cheerful place that morning. Riiter tried to persuade himself that all was not yet lost. The longer the patrol lasted, the more unlikely it seemed to him that a world war would break out in the midst of this all-encompassing innocence. Perhaps it wouldn’t come to a fight at all. Perhaps the Belgians still didn’t know there was a war on. Perhaps they would surrender the Delcommune without firing a shot. And even if they did know, there was a chance they hadn’t armed her. Perhaps the Delcommune had vanished without trace and was sheltering somewhere along the lake’s 700 kilometres of coastline. Perhaps the Belgians still lacked any coastal batteries that could wreak death and destruction at long range. Perhaps Oberleutnant Horn would see sense and sheer off at the last minute, and perhaps, if shooting started despite everything, no one would - by some miracle - get hurt.

  And so the day dragged by. Night fell and passed without incident, and at dawn the next morning the dark green shores of the Belgian Congo loomed up, alarmingly close.

  All hands’ yelled Oberleutnant Horn, sing!’

  Anton Riiter couldn’t believe his ears. Almost simultaneously, the little expeditionary force bellowed an acknowledgement of his command. Then, issuing from the throats of twenty-five servicemen, black and

  white, came a rendering of the German national anthem so lusty that it rang out across the lake for kilometres and sent flocks of startled birds soaring into the air from the dark forests along the shore. They sang all three verses, not once or twice but four, five, eight times. They were still singing half an hour later, when the Alexandre Delcommunes plume of smoke came into view to the north-west, and they continued to sing after the Wissmann had come within range. They didn’t stop singing until Oberleutnant Horn shouted ‘Action stations!’ There was much jostling and a clatter of boots, and Riiter suddenly found himself on his own.

  He leant on the starboard rail and watched the Delcommune, which was heading as fast as she could away from the Wissmann and towards the Belgian coast. But the distance between the two decrepit old vessels, which had been lying peacefully by side only two weeks earlier, diminished at an alarming rate because one had since undergone a rejuvenation cure at Anton Riiter’s hands and the other hadn’t. The Belgian coastline drew steadily nearer until the mouth of the Lukuga River was clearly visible, together with the cluster of ramshackle wooden buildings the Belgians called Albertville and the dense, dark green forest beyond them. The Delcommune had reached the mouth of the river and was lying motionless, having possibly dropped anchor. The Wissmann was still some two kilometres away.

  Oberleutnant Moritz Horn lowered his binoculars, throttled back, and brought the Wissmann to a halt. That was when Anton Riiter s hopes revived. Horn, who was unhurriedly descending the steps from the bridge, must have come to his senses - he must have realized that it was time to turn around and sail back to Kigoma. They must give the overheated engine a rest, then steam leisurely home and act as if nothing had happened, and the Belgians would never learn how close to death they had been. Riiter was highly relieved that common sense had triumphed over insanity at the last minute.

  But he was mistaken, of course. Oberleutnant Horn made his way along the starboard side to the bow. Moments later the two Hotchkiss revolving cannon were barking away - ACK-ACK-ACK-ACK - at fortythree rounds a minute each - ACK-ACK-ACK-ACK - and the startled

  cormorant fluttered off the awning and fled for the shore, and the recoils made the Wissmann shake as if she were having an epileptic fit - ACKACK-ACK-ACK, twice times forty-three rounds a minute - and rapidly expanding concentric circles took shape on the water around them. The epileptic fit lasted two minutes, then the cannon fell silent. Oberleutnant Horn reappeared amidships, laid a friendly hand on Riiter’s shoulder in passing, and said quietly: ‘Keep stoking, won’t you?’

  Just as the Wissmann got under way again, the dark green forest above the Lukuga estuary emitted a bright flash. A puff of smoke ascended into the cloudless blue sky, followed by a muffled detonation and a highpitched whistling sound that swiftly rose to a high-pitched screech. Then a shell hit the surface and exploded, sending up a geyser that deluged the Wissmanns deck. Sopping wet and ankle-deep in water, Riiter clung to the rail, rigid with nameless horror. Red-hot needles seemed to transfix him when Oberleutnant Horn, back on the bridge once more, shouted ‘HIP-HIP!’ and his beardless crew, as one man, yelled ‘HURRAH!’ ‘HIPHIP-HURRAH!’ they bellowed again as another bright flash issued from another part of the forest, followed by another detonation, another screech, another fountain of water, and another chorus of ‘HURRAH!’ BOOOM-SCREEECH-SPLAAASH. Then dead silence. Then ‘HIPHIP-HURRAH!’ The askaris’ response to every enemy shell was the same, and so it went on: BOOOM-SCREEECH-SPLAAASH, HIP-HIPHURRAAAH! BOOOM-SCREEECH-SPLAAASH, HIP-HIP-HURRAAAH! BOOOM-SCREEECH-SPLAAASH, HIP-HIP-HURRAAAH! BOOOM-SCREEECH-SPLAAASH, HIP-HIP-HURRAAAH! Anton Riiter’s heart was pounding fit to burst his rib cage and his innards were threatening to rebel. Wide-eyed, he stared into space. What he saw was the mouth of hell, an abyss of insanity, the hideous face of the Evil One. BOOOM-SCREEECH-SPLAAASH, HIP-HIP-HURRAAAH! And betweentimes, over and over again, the ACK-ACK-ACK-ACK of the Hotchkiss cannon. The Belgian gunners’ aim was poor. Their shells either fell short or overshot, landing astern or ahead. The Wissmann maintained her zigzag course as calmly as if she were ferrying Sunday excursionists across the Titisee. She tacked whenever muzzle flashes

  stabbed the forest, steamed out across the lake in a wide arc, then headed straight for the shore and the Delcommune. The Hotchkiss cannon barked again: ACK-ACK-ACK-ACK! Then the Wissmann turned away once more, to the north this time, pursued by the Belgian coastal batteries. BOOOM-SCREECH-SPLAAASH-HURRAAAH! BOOOMSCREECH- SPL AAASH - HURRA AAH!

  The engagement lasted two hours. The heavy Belgian guns failed to score a single hit on the circling, zigzagging Wissmann, although one shell passed through the flag flying from her st
ern - more precisely, through the breast of the imperial eagle. But the Delcommune, lying motionless at anchor, made an easy target for the Germans’ revolving cannon. She sustained several more fist-sized holes in her hull each time the Wissmann ran in. The Belgian askaris provisionally plugged them from the inside with billets of firewood, so many of which protruded from her hull that she looked in the end like a prickly sea monster, not a ship. Her funnel was shattered, her engine riddled, her hull full of water. With her last reserves of power, she weighed anchor and, rather than sink completely, ran aground.

  9i

  10

  Stoking till Judgement Day

  for the first time in his life, Geoffrey Spicer-Simson felt he was permanently stranded. Instead of transferring him to a desk job, the Admiralty might just as well have sentenced him to be a galley slave. He wore mufti, not uniform. Bereft of a ship and a crew, he was merely a junior bureaucrat chained to a shabby desk fifty nautical miles from the open sea. His office was a stuffy ground-floor cubby hole some five metres long, wide and high with walls the colour of rotting cauliflower. The only form of heating was an empty grate. A photograph of George V hung above the tray on the mantlepiece, which held a cracked teapot and two empty cups. Visible through the barred window were dustbins, coal chutes and the wheels of passing horse-drawn traffic. Sometimes a pigeon with a crippled right leg would land on the window sill. The naked twenty-watt bulb that dangled from the ceiling swung to and fro in the slightest draught, bringing to life the shadows cast by the office furniture, which comprised a filing cabinet, two desks and two swivel chairs. Seated at one of the desks was an elderly major of marines named Thompson, who chewed pistachio nuts with silent satisfaction and spat the shells into the grate. The other desk was occupied by Geoffrey SpicerSimson. Their work consisted in reviewing the personal records of Merchant Marine officers and ratings and recommending suitable candidates for transfer to the Royal Naval Reserve.

  Day in, day out.

  It was no consolation to Spicer-Simson that his office was situated on the ground floor of the Admiralty in the heart of Whitehall, the powerhouse of the British Empire, or that Winston Churchill, First Lord of

  the Admiralty, was making decisions of historic importance three floors above him. Although only three floors separated him from honour and renown, he had never felt so hopelessly remote from immortality, even in the muddiest backwaters of the Gambia River. He was one junior bureaucrat among hordes of them. He wore down-at-heel shoes and shirts with frayed cuffs, and the elbows of his jacket were already becoming a trifle threadbare. He was a slave among slaves, one among of millions of anonymous individuals in Londons vast metropolis, and the monotony of his days would not, in all probability, end until he was run over by a delivery van or left in the lurch by his ageing heart muscles. Every morning and evening saw him striding morosely along the same pavements. He lunched on a sandwich and drank a cup of musty-tasting tea in the afternoon. He performed his work conscientiously, but filled with resentment and weary distaste. He sifted through personal records, filled in forms, stapled files together, adorned them with index numbers, and laid them aside.

  He was infinitely remote these days from the great achievements, bold decisions and truly profound emotions he yearned for. If he experienced any emotions worth mentioning that winter, they were disgust, contempt and hatred for his desk-bound colleague. Spicer-Simson found it incomprehensible that Major Thompson could vegetate in that cauliflower-coloured office for day after day and month after month, drowsing away the time until he qualified for his pension. Why didn’t the man lose hope? How was it possible for him, at peace with himself and the world, to spend the irrevocably dwindling remainder of his life transferring merchant seamen to the Royal Naval Reserve? Why hadn’t he long since hurled his chair through the barred window, set fire to the mountains of paper in his in-tray, or chopped up his desk with an axe?

  Instead, the major contentedly hummed decades-old ballads, filled in an endless succession of identical forms with grotesque deliberation, and incessantly nibbled pistachio nuts. Spicer-Simson couldn’t endure the sight of his bared teeth and was driven to distraction by the explosive hiss as he spat the shells into the grate. At first he had tried to rouse Thompson from his lethargy by telling him tales of the Yangtse or the

  wilds of Canada, or describing how, as captain of HMS Niger, he had sunk a whole flotilla of German U-boats. But the major merely smiled, muttered ‘You don’t say!’ and went on chewing nuts. Spicer-Simson felt like killin g him. This being prohibited and out of the question, he occasionally, when time hung particularly heavy on his hands, contemplated killing himself. Not, of course, that he seriously entertained the idea of doing himself a mischief - he was far too fond of his own anatomy for that - but he liked to picture his suicide in the most melodramatic detail and visualize the most heart-rending versions of his funeral. That was balm to his soul.

  Outwardly, Anton Riiter had recovered his composure by the time the Wissmann entered Kigoma harbour on the evening of the following day. His knees and chin had stopped trembling, his eyes no longer streamed with tears, and he had regained control of his bowels. When the guns at last fell silent and Oberleutnant Horn headed back across the lake, he was surprised to find that he was sodden with cold sweat and lake water, that he ached in every limb like someone subjected to great physical exertion, that he was hoarse from uttering so many screams of animal terror whenever the guns went off, and that he had soiled his pants. He felt as if he had lost his reason during that two-hour inferno, and now he seemed to have somehow lost his life as well. He was dead, and Oberleutnant Horn was dead too, and his youthful seamen and askaris were dead likewise. True, they were once more neatly seated on their benches nibbling biscuits like schoolboys, and Oberleutnant Horn was standing contentedly at the wheel as if nothing had happened. But they were all dead, even though Horn ordered them to sing and they obediently launched into the German national anthem. They were all dead - either bound for the hereafter or already there. Perhaps, thought Riiter, he would be stoking this boiler and regulating the steam pressure till Judgement Day, possibly with the German national anthem ringing in his ears to all eternity.

  But then the Belgian coastline disappeared over the horizon and Oberleutnant Horn gave orders for the singing to stop. The seamen and askaris complied, stretched their legs, and promptly fell asleep. Flying fish escorted the vessel across the lake. The cormorant that had accompanied the Wissmann on her outward voyage reappeared and landed again on the awning, where it retracted one leg and stuck its head under its wing. Anton Riiter took advantage of the lull to get cleaned up and have a bite to eat. The sun subsided into the lake and the world retired to rest, as innocent as it had been since the beginning of time. Night came, then morning. The youthful seamen and askaris woke up and breakfasted on biscuits, cleaned their rifles and the Hotchkiss cannon, and went back to sleep from sheer boredom. Late that afternoon, when Kigoma hove in sight, Oberleutnant Horn and Corporal Riiter were the only ones on board not asleep. Riiter could make out the shape of his hut on the headland. The lamps had already been lit in Wendts beer garden. Horn manoeuvred the ship alongside the quay and brought her gently to a stop, paternally at pains not to wake his men too soon. Then he came down the steps, giving his engineer an appreciative nod as he passed him.

  ‘Good work, Riiter,’ he said in a low voice. ‘For a first-timer, you acquitted yourself well.’

  ‘Thank you, Herr Oberleutnant,’ said Riiter, feeling ashamed that this military pat on the back should give him so much pleasure. They secured the bow, stern and spring ropes to the bollards on the quayside. Then they went along the rows of sleeping men and woke them one by one. The cormorant continued to roost, one-legged, on the awning.

  The last to go ashore, Anton Riiter walked down the wooden gangway and between the two askari sentries. The quayside felt good beneath his feet. Every step he took on dry land reinforced his growing certainty that he wasn’t dead after all, a
nd that the world was still in the old, familiar state it had been in when he’d left it the previous day. The quay was solidly constructed, a fine example of genuine German craftsmanship in reinforced concrete. If mankind ever developed the ability to blow planet earth into a trillion fragments, it would sail intact through the cosmos to the end of time.

  Veronika the cheetah was lying at the end of the quay, enjoying the last of the evening sunshine, and behind her stood Rudolf Tellmann and Hermann Wendt. With Riiter between them, they made their way past the shipyard and the silent, shadowy shape of the Gotzen, and climbed the hill to Wendt’s beer garden, whose lamplight could be seen from a long way off.

  ‘Well,’ said Wendt, ‘how was it?’

  ‘How do you think?’ Riiter growled. ‘They’re bloody fools, the lot of them.’

  ‘I heard the gunfire,’ said Tellmann.

  ‘Pull the other one!’

  ‘I did. I heard it.’

  ‘At this distance?’

  ‘I heard it.’

  ‘You couldn’t have, Rudi.’

  ‘It surprised me too, but I did. Around midday yesterday. Only faintly, but it was quite distinct. Two hours of it.’

  Riiter shook his head. ‘They sang the national anthem, the idiots. Over and over again.’

  ‘That I didn’t hear,’ said Tellmann.

  Just then a flock of screeching birds flew close overhead. Riiter ducked and flung up his arms protectively.

  ‘It was only birds, Toni,’ said young Wendt.