The African Queen (10 page)

Yet he stood staring down between the cliffs for a long minute. Von Hanneken would be furious at the news of the loss of the launch, but what more could he have done? He could not justly be expected to have foreseen this. No one in his senses would have taken a steam launch into the cataract, and a reserve officer’s training does not teach a man to guard against cases of insanity. The poor devils were probably dead already, dashed to pieces against the rocks; and the launch was gone for good and all. He could not even take steps to recover fragments, for the tall cliffs between which the river ran were overhanging and unscalable, and not five kilometres from Shona the country became so broken and dense that the course of the lower Ulanga was the least known, least explored part of German Central Africa. Only Spengler—another born fool—had got through it.

The captain of reserve was not going to try; he formed that resolve as he turned away from the cliff top. And as he walked back to Shona, bathed in sweat, he was still undecided whether he should make any mention of this incident in his report to Von Hanneken. It would only mean trouble if he did; Von Hanneken would be certain it was all his fault, and Von Hanneken was a tyrant. It might be better to keep quiet about it. The launch was gone, and the poor devils in it were dead. That little worm of a missionary and his horse-faced wife—or was it his sister? Sister, of course. And the English mechanic who worked at the Belgian mine. He had a face like a rat. The world would not miss them much. But he was sorry for the poor devils, all the same.

When he came up through the gate again into Shona he was still not sure whether or not he would inform Von Hanneken of the incident. The Askaris would gossip, of course, but it would be a long time before the gossip reached Von Hanneken’s ears.

T
HE
rivers of Africa are nearly all rendered unnavigable along some part of their courses by waterfalls and cataracts. The rivers on their way to the sea fall from the central tableland into the coastal plain, but the Ulanga is not one of this category. Its course is inland, towards the Great Lakes, and its cataracts mark the edge of the Great Rift Valley. For in the centre of Africa an enormous tract of territory, longer than it is wide, has sunk bodily far below the level of the tableland, forming a deep trough, of a total area approaching that of Europe, in which are found the Great Lakes with their own river system, and, ultimately, the source of the Nile.

Along much of their length the sides of this trough are quite steep, but the Ulanga, as befits the noble river it is, has scoured out of its bed and cut back along it, so that nowhere in its course is there an actual waterfall; its cataracts indicate the situation of strata of harder rock which have not been cut away as efficiently as have the softer beds. The natural result is that in its course from the tableland to the valley the Ulanga flows frequently through deep, sunless gorges between high cliffs; overhead is rough, steep country, untraveled and unmapped, in which the presence of a river could hardly be suspected.

At Shona the river begins its descent; because this is the last point at which the river may be crossed by raft or canoe, the old slave caravan route along the edge of the rift passes the Ulanga here, and Shona grew up as the market at the point of intersection of caravan route and river route. The choice of site at the top of the cliff overlooking the river, where the gorge has actually begun, was of course due to the need of protection from slave raiders, who, being quite willing to sell their own fathers if they saw profit in it, were never averse to snapping up business acquaintances should they be so careless as not to take proper precautions.

It was down the outside of the great bend on which Shona stands that Rose steered the
African Queen
. It was convenient that on this course they not merely kept in the fastest current but also were as far away as possible from the village. She looked up the steep bank, across the wide expanse of water. The forest came to an end halfway up the slope; near the crest she could see high red walls, and above them the thatched roofs of the huts on the very top of the hill. It was too far to see details. She could see no sign of their coming being noticed. There was no sign of life on the banks; and as they went on down the river the banks grew rapidly higher and steeper into nearly vertical walls of rock, fringed at the foot with a precarious growth of vegetation.

She looked at the red walls on the top of the cliff; she thought she could see a movement there, but it was half a mile off and she could not be sure. Perhaps Von Hanneken had swept off the inhabitants here as he had done along the rest of the river, to leave a desert in the possible path of the approach of the English. They were practically opposite the town now, and nothing had happened. A glance at the near bank showed her the speed at which they were moving; the river was already running much faster in its approach to the cataracts.

Suddenly there was a peculiar multiple noise in the air, like bees in a violent hurry accompanied by the sound of tearing paper. Rose’s mind had just time to take note of the sound when she heard the straggling reports of the rifles which had caused it. The volley echoed back from cliff to cliff, growing flatter the longer the sound lasted.

“They’ve got us!” said Allnutt, leaping up in the waist. His face was lopsided with excitement. Rose could pay no attention to him. She was looking keenly ahead at the swirls on the surface. She was keeping the
African Queen
in the fastest water along the very edge of the back eddy off the bank.

There came another volley which still left them untouched. Rose edged the tiller over so as to get more in midstream, in order to take the reverse bend which was rapidly approaching. Allnutt remained standing in the waist; he had forgotten all about taking shelter behind the woodpile. Rose swung the tiller over for the bend; so absorbed was she in her steering that she did not notice the bullet which whipped close by her as she did so. A moment later the whole boat suddenly rang like a harp, and Allnutt turned with a jump. The wire funnel stay on the starboard side had parted close above the gunwale; the long end hung down by the funnel. Even as Allnutt noted it there was a metallic smack, and two holes showed high up in the funnel. Rose had brought the tiller over again, straightening the launch on her course after taking the bend. The next moment Shona vanished behind the point, and Allnutt stood shaking his fists in derision at the invisible enemy and shouting at the top of his voice.

“Look after the engine!” screamed Rose.

They were flying along now, for the river was narrowing and its current increasing with every yard. The wind could not reach the surface here, between the cliffs. Most of the surface was smooth and sleek like greased metal, but here and there were ominous furrows and ripples betraying the hidden inequalities of its bed. Rose steered carefully through the smooth water. She found she had to make ample allowance for leeway now; so fast was the current that the boat went flying down broadside on towards these obstructions in the course of the turn. There was another bend close ahead, a very sharp one from all appearance. She dragged the tiller across, she found she was not satisfied with her field of view ahead, and leaped up onto the bench, holding the tiller down by her right knee. With her left hand she reached up and tore the rotten canvas awning from its stanchions. They neither of them noticed the last two shots which the German captain of reserve fired at them at this moment.

The
African Queen
slithered round the corner, and lurched and rolled and heaved as she encountered the swirls which awaited her there. But the steady thrust of her screw carried her through them; that was Allnutt’s job, to see that the launch had steerageway to take her through the eddies and to enable Rose to steer some sort of course with the following current.

There were rocks in the channel now, with white water boiling round them, and Rose saw them coming up towards her with terrifying rapidity. There was need for instant decision in picking the right course, and yet Rose could not help noticing, even in that wild moment, that the water had lost its brown colour and was now a clear glassy green. She pulled the tiller over and the rocks flashed by. Lower down, the channel was almost obstructed by rocks. She saw a passage wide enough for the boat and swung the bows into it. Stretching down before her there was a long green slope of racing water. And even as the
African Queen
heaved up her stern to plunge down it she saw that at the lower end of the fairway a wicked black rock just protruded above the surface—it would rip the whole bottom out of the boat if they touched it. She had to keep the boat steady on her course for a fraction of a second, until the channel widened a trifle, and then fling herself on the tiller to swing her over. The boat swayed and rocked, and wriggled like a live thing as she brought the tiller back again to straighten her out. For a dreadful second it seemed as if the eddy would defeat her efforts, but the engine stuck to its work and the kick of the propeller forced the boat through the water. They shaved through the gap with inches to spare, and the bows lurched as Rose fought with the tiller and they swung into the racing eddies at the tail of the rapid. Next moment they had reached the comparative quiet of the deep, fast reach below, and Rose had time to sweep the streaming sweat from her face with the back of her left forearm.

All the air was full of spray and of the roar of rushing water, whose din was magnified by the cliffs close at either side. The sound was terrifying to Allnutt, and so were the lurches and lunges of the boat, but he had no time to look about him. He was far too busy keeping the engine running. He knew, even better than did Rose, that their lives depended on the propeller giving them steerageway. He had to keep the steam pressure well up and yet well below danger point; he had to work the feed pump; he had to keep the engine lubricated. He knew that they would be lost if he had to stop the engine, even for a second. So he bent to his work with panic in his soul, while the boat beneath his feet leaped and bucked and lurched worse than any restive horse, and while, out of the tail of his eye, he could glimpse rocks flashing past with a speed which told him how great was their own velocity.

“Our Father which art in Heaven—” said Allnutt to himself, slamming shut the furnace door. He had not prayed since he had left his Board School.

It was only a few seconds before they reached the next rapid, like the last a stretch of ugly rocks and boiling eddies and green, inclined slopes of hurtling water, where the eye had to be quick and the brain quicker still, where the hand had to be steady and strong and subtle and the will resolute. Halfway down the rapid there was a wild confusion of tossing water, in which the eye was necessarily slower in catching sight of those rocks just awash whose touch meant death. Rose rode the mad whirlpool like a Valkyrie. She was conscious of an elation and an excitement such as only the best of her brother’s sermons had ever aroused. Her mind was working like a machine, with delirious rapidity. She forced the
African Queen
to obey her will and weave a safe course through the clustering dangers. The spray flew in sheets where the currents conflicted.

Lower down still, the river tore with incredible speed and without obstruction along a narrow gorge walled in with vertical faces of rock. To Rose, with a moment to think during this comparative inaction, it seemed as if this must be almost as fine as traveling in a motor car—an experience she had never enjoyed but had often longed for.

It was only for a moment that she could relax, however, for close ahead the gorge turned a corner, so sharply that it looked as if the river plunged into the rock face, and Rose had to make ready for the turn and brace herself to face whatever imminent dangers lay beyond, out of sight. She kept her eye on the rock at the water’s edge on the inside of the bend, and steered to pass it close. So the
African Queen
was beginning to turn just before she reached the bend, and it was as well that it was so.

The sweep of the current took her over to the opposite bank as if she were no more than a chip of wood, while Rose tugged at the tiller with all her strength. The bows came round, but it looked for a space as if her stern would be flung against the rocks. The propeller battled against the current; the boat just held her own, and then as they drifted down, the backwash caught her and flung her out again into midstream, so that Rose had to force the tiller across like lightning, and hardly were they straight again than she had instantly to pick out a fresh course through the rocks that studded the surface in flurries of white foam.

Later she saw that Allnutt was trying to attract her attention. In the roar of the rapids he could not make his voice reach her. He stood up with one anxious eye still on his gauges, and he held up a billet of wood, tapped it, and waved a hand to the shore. It was a warning that fuel was running short, and fuel they must have. She nodded, although the next moment she had to look away and peer ahead at the rocks. They shot another series of rapids, and down another gorge where, the half-mile river compressed into fifty yards, they seemed to be traveling at the speed of a train. It was becoming vitally urgent that they should find somewhere to stop, but nowhere in that lightning six miles was there a chance of mooring. Allnutt was standing up brandishing his billet of wood again. Rose waved him impatiently aside. She was as much aware of the urgency of the situation as he was; there was no need for these continued demonstrations. They ran on, with Rose doggedly at the tiller.