2004 - Mimi and Toutou Go Forth (12 page)

Water was growing scarcer and scarcer, and the
miombo
began to feel like a desert. The lorry brought back just enough water to quench the thirsty boilers of the steam engines, and the men frequently had to sacrifice their drinking and washing supply for the same. Occasionally, they were driven to seek out rare patches of swampy ground where they would dig down deep and squeeze the mud through mosquito nets to extract the moisture. But for the time being, there was just enough.

There were plenty of other difficulties. The traction engines kept tumbling over on their sides. Or they bogged down in streams. Or sand silted up their boilers. There were bridges to build, rivers to ford, trees to uproot with dynamite. What’s more, the oxen that helped shift the engines when they got stuck began to die—from tsetse fever, tick fever, exhaustion. There was nothing the Boer driver or his Zulu assistant could do.

Contrary to everyone’s expectations—including his old adversary, Engineer Lieutenant Cross—Spicer kept his cool. Only two signs of stress showed: the constant smoking of the monogrammed cigarettes in his long holder and the nervous tic of letting his beard grow for two days, then shaving it off again, week after week. ‘Throughout all these difficulties and apprehensions,’ writes Byron Farwell in
The Great War in Africa
, ‘Spicer-Simson remained calm and confident, undismayed by present difficulties or thoughts of future problems. Micawber-like, he trusted to his luck, sure that something would turn up—as, indeed, frequently happened.’

Without warning one day a sunburnt Belgian officer emerged from the scrub at the head of a column of
askaris
. He introduced himself as Lieutenant Freiesleben↓ and explained (for he spoke fluent English) that he had been sent by the Vice-Governor-General of the Katanga back in Elizabethville.

≡ Freiesleben was actually a Dane in the Belgian service. Coincidentally, a man of the same name was the river captain Joseph Conrad was sent to relieve on the trip up the Congo in 1890 that inspired his
Heart of Darkness
(1902). In the novella he is called Fresleven.

Some of the men in his column, he announced, could supplement the expedition’s existing guard, provided Commander Spicer-Simson was willing to accept them. The new
askaris
unhooked their bandoliers, set up their rifles in tripods and sat down on the dusty ground, tired out after their hard march. They wore shorts, so their knees were covered in tsetse bites or with ticks they had gathered as they passed through the long grass.

As
Mimi
and
Toutou
were laid up for the night, a sentry was posted. The oxen were driven out to pasture by the Boer and his Zulu, and the steam locomotives—their boilers emitting strange pings and clanks as the heat dissipated—were washed down and their gauges checked. A broken gauge glass would spell disaster, as steam would escape through it and the metal plates in the combustion chamber below the boiler would buckle. While these nightly chores were completed, Freiesleben was invited to join the officers’ mess.

At first he declined, then changed his mind. He turned up at the little dining area the British officers had created under some trees carrying two bottles of wine, and he proved to be very convivial company. During dinner, accordingly to Shankland’s account, Spicer gave his formal reply to the Belgian officer. He thanked the Vice-Governor-General for sending men to guard
Mimi
and
Toutou
as they got closer to the German lines, and accepted the extra troops to protect the expedition.

Freiesleben burst out laughing (he had very white teeth, Dr Hanschell recalled).

‘You think we are here to protect you?’ he asked. ‘No,
mon Commandant
, we are here to protect the Congo from you!’

His cigarette-holder poised halfway to his mouth, Spicer was for once rendered speechless and it fell to Dr Hanschell to step into the breach.

‘I don’t think the Congo is in much danger from us,’ he said. ‘We’re nearly all amateurs, you know, except for the Commander.’

‘Exactly!’ replied Freiesleben triumphantly. ‘That’s precisely the point. You English have a genius for amateurism. That’s what makes you so dangerous. It’s always pretty obvious what professionals are going to do, but who but amateurs could have dreamed up an expedition like this?’

Spicer recovered his voice. ‘You appear to think better of our prospects than most of your colleagues,’ he said. He was probably thinking of the Belgian sporting gentlemen in Elizabethville who had laid 100–1 against them making the lake.

‘Yes,’ agreed Freiesleben. ‘I think 28 English amateurs with guns in their hands are capable of any folly—of any heroism—and no government in its senses would allow them to wander about unwatched. We’ll be very relieved to get you out of the Katanga again, I can assure you. You nearly took it over once, with fewer men than that!’

Spicer was perplexed. ‘You really can’t believe that we have any designs against our allies?’

‘Perhaps not. I can only say that you English amateurs have been quite good in the past at taking other people’s colonies.’

Freiesleben turned his sunburnt face to the doctor. ‘And when we heard that you were already burning down government property, the Vice-Governor-General thought it was time someone should investigate.’

At this, the doctor’s own face went rather red.

A few days later, on 4 September, with Freiesleben’s men protecting their flanks, the expedition reached a place called Mobile Kabantu. Here, on an expanse of sandy ground surrounded by dense scrub, Lee had built them a thatched barn in which to store material as they prepared for their ascent of the Mitumbas. The mountain range towered above them all as
Mimi
and
Toutou
arrived at the new camp. Beyond the ridge, storm clouds were rumbling, as if some great mountain god were warning them to go no further.

That evening, as the expedition were buttoning themselves into their sleeping bags, there was a furious cry, followed by the sound of rifle shots. Spicer’s boy, Tom, sprinted into the bush as his master shot at him six times from his tent.

A
t breakfast Spicer explained that Tom had scratched his cherished razors by rubbing them in sand. The poor boy, who had somehow escaped the volley of shots, had only been trying to win his master’s favour by sharpening them. It is said (though only by white authorities) that Tom did not seem any the worse for his near-death experience. He still poured the tea with a smile as the team prepared for another day’s work. The day in question was 5 September 1915–82 days since they had left London—and they were about to ascend the Mitumbas.

Things started well. By the end of the day they had climbed 14½ miles up the mountainside on their narrow, winding road. On the 6
th
they had to wash out the boilers of the steam engines, which were silted up with muddy water, the supply of which remained a problem. On the 7
th
they reached the biggest of the bridges that Lee had built in expectation of their passage. It was 108 feet long and 32 feet below was a dried-up river gorge. Like the first bridge, which needed to be rebuilt, this one was made of timber—about 500 tons worth, said Wainwright, who was in charge of the transport train.

The bouncing pathway of logs covered with soil held up well. Pulled by the first locomotive—attached by a steel cable—
Mimi
slowly crossed the gorge. The engine was in the process of mounting the other side, which came up from the bridge at quite an incline, when the cable began to fray and suddenly snapped. The customised trailer carrying
Mimi
careered back down to the bridge, striking it with such force that the trailer bounced to one side and stopped—hovering over the rocks in the old river bed below—with one wheel in mid-air.

There was chaos as men rushed to grab the cable, while another length of twisted steel was run out from the steam engine and attached to
Mimi
. Slowly they managed to haul her back on to the bridge. The locomotive’s wheels ground the dust as she dragged
Mimi
up the incline; the men put wedges of timber under the trailer’s wheel to stop it rolling back should the cable break again. Eventually the slope was too steep. They uncoupled
Mimi
, moving her to one side, and brought the second engine over and hooked it up to the first. But even with both traction engines attached (a procedure Wainwright called ‘double-banking’) the gradient was too much. The soil was simply too soft for the wheels of the steam engines to get a grip, in spite of their six-inch treads.

After a brief discussion it was decided to bring up the oxen. The Boer herded them over the bridge and beyond the two linked engines. There were 32 animals yoked side by side, the Zulu pulling a leather cord attached to the front yoke and the Boer standing alongside with his long
sjambok
whip. He spoke to the oxen in ‘horse-whisperer’ fashion, calling each one by a special name. The meaning of the Afrikaans words
Engelsmann
(‘Englishman’) and
Rooinek
(‘Redneck’) was obvious enough to the expedition, but they found much of what the Boer said was incomprehensible.

The beasts were attached to the front of the first locomotive, so that the chain now ran: oxen, first traction engine, second traction engine and finally
Mimi
on her trailer. The other trailer, bearing
Toutou
, was still back down the mountain, below the bridge. In the rough soil on either side of the road stood Spicer—smoking obsessively, he simply let Wainwright take charge—and those members of the expedition not directly involved with the transport, such as Dr Hanschell. They were joined by dozens of Africans who had come out of the bush to watch the fun. Shankland takes up the story:

The oxen, with backs arched and hooves gripping the soft surface better than the wheels, seemed at times to be dragging the two locos and
Mimi
and her trailer as well. ‘
Engelsmann! Rooinek!
‘ the Boer shouted. ‘
Boschmann! Chaka!
‘ and as each ox heard his name he hurled his weight forward, but he got the lash just the same—it seemed to the doctor that
Engelsmann
and
Rooinek
, because of their names, got an extra vicious lash.

This struggle continued for another day, as mile by mile they crept towards the top of the Mitumbas. Every hour threatened the arrival of the rains, which would make their ascent impossible. Neither wheels nor hooves would be able to cope with deep mud. When the steam engines and the oxen failed to do the job, another method was used, known as ‘cabling’. The locomotive was uncoupled and driven several hundred yards up the slope into a specially dug pit. A hawser was then attached to a drum on the engine and
Mimi
and
Toutou
were drawn up.

Near the top of the mountain range, however, neither cabling nor double-banking was feasible: the road was too winding for the first, too narrow for the second (there was no room for the steam engines to go back and forth without falling over). Magee describes the method devised by the ingenious Wainwright to get round this problem:

A stout tree was selected about 20 yards ahead of the spot where the boat stood on its carriage in the trail. A block and tackle—that is, a pulley block with rollers, such as is used aboard any ship—was fixed to the tree. One end of the rope was attached to the boat carriage, the other end passed through the pulley block and attached by a cross-bar to the rearmost pair of oxen. The oxen faced downhill, in the opposite direction from and parallel with the boat.

Spicer later took personal credit for this plan. ‘Then the idea occurred to me of balancing the weight of the oxen against the eight tons or so which had to be pulled up…and in that way the boat came slowly up.’

Drawn in this manner, 50 yards at a time,
Mimi
and
Toutou
reached the top of the mountain. There, 6,400 feet above sea level, they came to rest on a pleasant meadow-plateau. The African bearers could lay down their loads at last, unwinding the thin cotton blankets with which they protected their heads from the heavy wooden crates and steel boxes they carried. Repairs were made to the steam engines and the trailers—
Mimi
and
Toutou
were intact, that was the important thing. The naval volunteers could congratulate themselves on a job well done and even Spicer was pleased, though he knew they still had a long way to go.

Crossing the 20-mile plateau was easy enough, except that now a great many lions surrounded the camp at night. On 12 September they reached the other side and saw far down below them the Lualaba River or Upper Congo River, on which they would soon enough continue their journey. Or so they thought. In fact, going down the Mitumba Plateau proved no easier than climbing up it. On the first day the hawser broke and the leading steam engine, suddenly relieved of its burden, shot downwards, unable to stop. Slewing wildly, it struck a tree, almost catapulting the driver out of his seat. It was a lucky escape, for he narrowly avoided a drop of several hundred feet into the gorge below. After that,
Mimi
and
Toutou
were lowered down the steeper gradients by teams of men, until they reached places where the steam engines could take over again. Sometimes, says Spicer, the gradient was so steep they had to bury a ‘dead man’, that is—‘several blocks of timber 20 feet long—about 8 or 9 feet in the ground, with a wire strapped round them and brought up to the surface, thus acting as an anchor; then by means of a hawser and bollard we managed to ease the traction engine gently down the slope.’

And so the precarious descent continued, hindered considerably by the constant search for water for the engines’ boilers. They tracked down only slimy pools here and there, until one day the inevitable happened. The engines ran out, but before the expedition’s drinking water was plundered once more they discovered that more than 400 people—including porters, road-builders, camp servants and the naval volunteers themselves—had a mere ten gallons left to share. There was nothing left for the oxen, who had begun to paw the dust in frustration.