The African Queen (20 page)

They never saw the sun while they were in that twilight nightmare land, and the channel twisted and turned so that they lost all sense of direction, and had no idea at all to which point of the compass they were heading. When the channel they were following joined another one, they had to look to see which way the water was flowing to decide in which direction to turn, and where it was so dark that even the water grass would not grow, as happened here and there, they had to note the direction of drift of bits of wood placed on the surface—an almost imperceptible drift, not more than a few yards an hour.

It was worse on the two occasions when they lost the channel altogether as a result of forced detours, through pools round obstacles. That was easy enough to do, where every tangle of aërial roots looked like every other tangle, where the light was poor and there was nothing to help fix one’s direction, and where to step from the islands of ankle-deep slime meant sinking waist deep in mud in which the hidden roots tore the skin. When they were lost like this they could only struggle on from pool to pool, if necessary cutting a path for the boat with the axe by infinite toil, until at last it was like paradise to rejoin a murky, root-encumbered channel on which they might progress as much as fifty yards at a time without being held up by some obstacle or other.

They lost all count of time in that swamp. Days came and went, each with its bout of chill and fever; it was day when there was light enough to see, and night when the twilight had encroached so much that they could do no more, and how many days they passed thus they never knew. They ate little, and what they ate stank of the marshes before they got it to their mouths. It was a worse life than any animal’s, for no animal was ever set the task of coaxing the
African Queen
through those mangroves—with never a moment’s carelessness, lest that precious propeller should be damaged.

No matter how slippery the foothold, nor how awkward the angle of the towrope, nor how imminent an attack of malaria, the launch had always to be eased round the corner inch by inch, without a jerk, in case during her lateral progress the propeller should be swung sideways against some hidden root. There was never the satisfaction of a vicious tug at the rope or a whole-hearted shove with the pole.

They did not notice the first hopeful signs of their progress. The channel they were in was like any other channel, and when it joined another channel it was only what had happened a hundred times before; they presumed that there would be a bifurcation further on. But when yet another large channel came in they began to fill with hope. The boughs were thinning overhead so that it grew steadily lighter; the channel was deep and wide, and although it was choked with water grass that was only a mere trifle to them now, after some of the obstacles they had been through, and they had developed extraordinary dexterity at hooking the
African Queen
along by the branches. They did not dare to speak to each other as the channel wound about, a full ten feet from side to side.

And then the channel broadened so that real sunlight reached them, and Allnutt could wait no longer before speaking about it, even if it should be unlucky.

“Rosie,” he said. “D’you fink we got through, Rosie?”

Rose hesitated before she spoke. It seemed far too good to be true. She got a good hold on an aërial root and gave a brisk pull which helped the
African Queen
bravely on her way, before she dared to reply.

“Yes,” she said at length. “I think we have.”

They managed to smile at each other across the boat. They were horrible to look at, although they had grown used to each other. They were filthy with mud—Rose’s long chestnut hair, and Allnutt’s hair, and the beard which had grown again since they had entered into the delta, were all matted into lumps with it. Their sojourn in the semi-darkness had changed their deep sunburn into an unhealthy yellow colour which was accentuated by their malaria. Their cheeks were hollow and their eyes sunken, and through the holes in their filthy rags could be seen their yellow skins, with the bones almost protruding through them. The boat and all its contents were covered with mud, brought in by hurried boardings after negotiating difficult turns. They looked more like diseased savages of the Stone Age than such products of civilization as a missionary’s sister and a skilled mechanic. They still smiled at each other, all the same.

Then the channel took another turn, and before them there lay a vista in which mangroves played hardly any part.

“Reeds!” whispered Allnutt as though he hardly dared to say it. “Reeds!”

He had experienced reeds before, and much preferred them to mangroves. Rose was on tiptoe on the bench by now, looking over the reeds as far as she could.

“The lake’s just the other side,” she said.

Instantly Rose’s mind began to deal with ways and means, as if she had just heard that an unexpected guest was about to arrive to dinner.

“How much wood have we got?” she asked.

“Good deal,” said Allnutt, running a calculating eye over the piles in the waist. “ ’Bout enough for half a dye.”

“We ought to have more than that,” said Rose, decisively.

Out on the lake there would not be the ready means of replenishment which they had found up to now. The
African Queen
might soon be contending with difficulties of refuelling beside which those of Muller and Von Spee would seem child’s play. There was only one effort to be asked of the African Queen, but she must be equipped as completely as they could manage it for that effort.

“Let’s stop here and get some,” she decided.

To Allnutt, most decidedly, and to herself in some degree, the decision was painful. Both of them, now that they had seen a blue sky and a wide horizon, were filled with a wild unreasoning panic. They were madly anxious to get clear away from those hated mangroves without a second’s delay. The thought of an extra hour among them caused them distress; certainly, if Allnutt had been by himself he would have dashed off and left the question of fuel supply to solve itself. But as it was he bowed to Rose’s authority, and when he demurred it was for the general good, not to suit his own predilections.

“Green wood’s not much good under our boiler, you know,” he said.

“It’s better than nothing,” replied Rose. “And I expect it’ll have a day or two to dry off before we want it.”

They exchanged a glance when she said that. All the voyage so far had been designed for one end, the torpedoing of the
Königin Luise
. That end, which had seemed so utterly fantastic to Allnutt once upon a time, was at hand now; he had not thought about it very definitely for weeks, but the time was close upon him when he would have to give it consideration. Yet even now he could not think about it in an independent fashion; he could only tell himself that quite soon he would form some resolve upon the matter. For the present he had not a thought in his head. He moored the
African Queen
up against the mangroves and took his axe, and cut at the soft pulpy wood until there was a great heap piled in the waist. And then at last they could leave the mangroves for the happy sanctuary of the reeds.

I
T
was a very definite mouth of the Bora by which they had emerged. There was a fair wide channel through the reeds, and they had no sooner entered it and turned one single corner than the limitless prospect of the lake opened before them—golden water as far as the eye could see ahead, broken by only one or two tree-grown islands. On either side of the channel were shoals, marked by continuous reeds, extending far out into the lake, but those they could ignore. There was clear water, forty miles broad and eighty long, in front of them, not a rock nor a shoal nor a water lily nor a reed nor a mangrove to impede them—unless they should go out of their way to seek for them. The sensation of freedom and relief was absolutely delicious. They were like animals escaped from a cage. Moored among the reeds, with the
African Queen
actually rocking a little to a minute swell coming in from the lake, they slept more peacefully, plagued though they were with frogs and flies, than they had for days.

And in the morning there was still no discussion of the torpedoing of the
Königin Luise
. To Rose with her methodical mind it was necessary to complete one step before thinking about the next.

“Let’s get the boat cleaned out,” she said. “I can’t bear all this.”

Indeed, in the glaring sunlight the filth and mess in the boat was perfectly horrible. Rose literally could not think or plan, surrounded by such conditions. They jangled her nerves unbearably. No matter if the
African Queen
were shortly to be blown to pieces when she should immolate herself against the
Königin Luise
’s side, Rose could not bear the thought of passing even two or three days unnecessarily in that dirt.

The water overside was clear and clean. By degrees they washed the whole boat, although it involved moving everything from place to place while they washed. Allnutt got the floor boards up and cleaned out the reeking bilge, while Rose knelt up in the sternsheets and gradually worked clean the rugs and the clothing and the articles of domestic utility. It was a splendid day, and in that sunshine even a thick rug dried almost while you looked at it. Such a domestic interlude was the best sort of holiday Rose could have had; perhaps it was not only coincidence that they both missed their attacks of malaria that morning.

Rose got herself clean, too, for the first time since their entry into the mangroves, and felt once more the thrill of putting on a fresh clean frock on a fresh clean body. That was literally the case, because Rose had taken the step which she had tried to put aside in the old days of the mission station—she was wearing no underclothes. Most of them had been consumed in the service of the boat—as hand shields when the propeller shaft was straightened, and so on—and the rest were dedicated to Allnutt’s use. His own clothing had disintegrated, and now he moved chastely about the boat in Rose’s chemise and drawers; the modest trimming round the neck and the infinite number of tucks about his thighs were in comical contrast with his lean, unfeminine form.

Perhaps it was as a result of these civilized preoccupations that Rose that night thought of something which had slipped from her memory utterly and completely from the moment she had left the mission station. She herself, later, believed on occasions that it was God himself who came and roused her from her sleep, her breast throbbing and the blood pulsing warm under her skin, although when she was in a more modest mood she attributed it to her “better self,” or her conscience.

She had not said her prayers since she joined the
African Queen
; she had not even thought about God. She woke with a start as this realization came upon her, and she lay with wave after wave of remorse—and fear, too—sweeping over her. She could not understand how it was that the God she worshipped had not sent the lightning, which had so frequently torn the sky about her, to destroy her. She was in an agony lest He should do so now, before she could appease Him. She scrambled up to her knees and clasped her hands, and bowed her head and prayed in a passion of remorse.

Allnutt, waking in the night, saw the profile of her bowed figure in the starlight, and saw her lift her face to heaven with her cheeks wet with tears and her lips moving. He was awed by the sight. He did not pray himself, and never had done so. The fact that Rose was able to pray in tears and agony showed him the superiority of her clay over his. But it was a superiority of which he had long been aware. He was content to leave the appeal for heavenly guidance to Rose, just as he had left to her the negotiation of the rapids of the Ulanga. It took a very great deal to deprive Allnutt of his sleep. His eyes closed and he drifted off again, leaving Rose to bear her agony alone.

In that awful moment Rose would have found no comfort in Allnutt anyway. It was a matter only for her and God. There was no trace of the iron-nerved woman who had brought the
African Queen
down the Ulanga, in the weeping figure who besought God for forgiveness of her neglect. She could make no attempt to compound with God, to offer future good behaviour in exchange for forgiveness of the past, because her training did not permit it. She could only plead utter abject penitence, and beg for forgiveness as an arbitrary favour from the stern God about whom her brother had taught her. She was torn with misery. She could not tell if she were forgiven or not. She did not know how much of hellfire she would have to endure on account of these days of forgetfulness.

Worse still, she could not tell whether her angry God might not see fit to punish her additionally by blasting her present expedition with failure. It would be an apt punishment, seeing that the expedition was the cause of her neglect. There was a biblical flavour about it which tore her with apprehension. In redoubled agony she begged and prayed to God to look with favour on this voyage of the
African Queen
, to grant them an opportunity of finding the
Königin Luise
and of sinking her so that the hated iron cross flag would disappear from the waters of Lake Wittelsbach and the allies might pour across to the conquest of German Central Africa. She was quite frantic with doubts and fear; the joints of her fingers cracked with the violence with which she clasped them.