by John Wilcox
‘Ah, that sounds more like it. Now, let me tell you the background concerning this bloody ship and what I want you to do.’
For the next ten minutes the little admiral, his eyes blazing, described the events of the last year concerning the German cruiser, the search for her, the failed attempts to bomb her from the air, the abortive attacks with light craft up the channels, and the fact that she had now disappeared once again into the tracery of waterways in the delta.
‘We’ve sunk a blockship at one of the delta mouths,’ he continued, ‘but there are plenty of other ways she can get out. We’ve also laid some dummy mines in the other channels but I don’t think for a minute that these would fool anyone – not least a crafty operator like Captain Looff.’
Fonthill nodded. ‘So what exactly do you want of me?’
‘Three main things.’ He banged his hand, palm extended, onto the map. ‘Firstly, find this damned ship. She has retreated further inland, we know that, but we can’t pin her down. Wherever she is, she will be protected by the shore defences in the jungle, which this man Looff – first-class feller, by the sound of him – has erected. So the second task is to find out where these are, their armament and so on. Thirdly, I would like you to put forward whatever suggestions you have about destroying this bit of naval Germany in Africa. Simple, eh? Quite straightforward, in fact.’
Simon grinned. ‘Oh, absolutely. A bit of a summer cruise up seventeen rivers by the sound ot it.’
‘Quite so. Now,’ the admiral led him back to his chair, ‘I can’t tell you how to go about this. But it seems to me that a bit of light sculling or canoeing up the channels is required. The jungle roundabout the channels is quite impenetrable by land, I am told. Oh!’ He held up his hand. ‘One other thing. We will need to have details of the depths of the various channels. Can’t have our vessels stuck in shallow waters, allowing old Looff to fire on them from the jungle.’
He stood, held his head to one side, thrust his right hand into the pocket of his uniform jacket in admiral style and looked at Fonthill quizzically. ‘Quite a job, actually, Fonthill. Think you can do it?’
Simon paused for a moment before replying. ‘To be honest, I don’t know until we try it. You said you had tried sending small craft up the various channels?’
‘Oh, yes. Most of ’em had to turn back under fire. The Germans are well entrenched and keep a careful look out, of course.’
‘Hmm.’ Pause again. ‘It sounds to me as though this is a task that does not demand sending in, say, a platoon, or a couple of boatfuls of Jacks. Stealth is what will be required – and not from a large party. I think the three of us – Jenkins, Mzingeli and myself, are probably the ideal number. When will you want us to start?’
‘Soon as possible. I am fed up with keeping half of the British Navy in the southern ocean steaming up and down doing guard duty at the mouth of the delta. I want to get in after this bloody ship as soon as you can come up with the information we require. Can you – soon?’
‘Do you have good maps of the delta?’
‘Wouldn’t say they are exactly comprehensive or up to date. But you can have what we have. You might even find better snooping around the backstreets of Mombasa.’
‘Very well, Admiral. I will need, say, three days to find the right light craft – no naval longboats, thank you – and to provision, and then we will be off. I presume we can have a ship to drop us off at the mouth of the delta?’
The admiral sniffed. ‘Me dear feller, you can have a whole bloody fleet. They are all steaming about, looking for something to do. Take yer pick.’
‘Very well, sir. Thank you. We will do our best.’
The two men shook hands and Fonthill swung on his heel and walked out into the hot sun, his head swimming but his heart singing. Just the sort of task he revelled in: out with his two tried-and-trusted comrades, on their own, behind or crossing enemy lines. Then he frowned. He hoped to God that Mzingeli could guide them through the channels. Without that sort of knowledge they would be lost – metaphorically and literally!
Back at the hotel he summoned his two colleagues to meet in his room – Alice was out on some mission of her own. He described the task and gave them a brief rundown on the recent attempts to winkle out the German ship from her jungle shell. Then he paused. Jenkins and Mzingeli remained silent.
‘A tough assignment, lads, I know – and much will depend upon you, Mzingeli. You said the other day that you had fished in those waters …?’
The tracker slowly nodded; he rarely did anything quickly. ‘Oh yes, Nkosi,’ he said eventually. ‘But it was a long time ago. Perhaps thirty years.’
‘Yes, but will you remember the channels?’
Another pause. ‘Probably not. But I think I know a man who help us.’
‘Ah, splendid. Who is he?’
‘He is fisherman who live there. I fish with him years ago. Local native. His son lives in Mombasa. I meet him the other day. He says his father still alive and fishing. If there is big ship hiding upriver, he will know where.’
Jenkins lifted his eyebrows. ‘Blimey, Jelly. That’s the most I’ve ’eard you say in years. You must be gettin’ verbal diaroh … deareah … the shits.’
Fonthill stifled a smile. ‘Will you be able to find this fellow?’
‘Oh, I think so. Long time ago I see him, but his son say he is in same village, near mouth of little rivers. Yes, I think I find him.’
‘That’s good. Now—’
He was interrupted by Jenkins. ‘One thing, bach sir.’
‘Yes?’
‘Exactly ’ow do we go up these rivers, then?’
‘That’s what I was coming to. Mzingeli, we will need native craft – canoes or whatever they use in the delta. Probably two. One for us and one for our supplies. Where would be the best place to buy them, d’you think? I would be worried about trying to get them in the delta. Word could get out to the Germans. They are bound to have made contact and even have working arrangements with the local natives to supply food etc. to the ship.’
‘Yes, Nkosi. But I see plenty of small boats here in Mombasa like those used in the delta. We buy them here, I think.’
‘Good, now—’
Again he was interrupted by Jenkins. ‘Would … er … these be very small boats, then, Jelly?’
‘Oh yes, 352, bach.’ A faint smile began to creep across the usually impassive face of the black man. ‘Quite small. Trouble is, they easily overturn. So we must be careful.’
‘And … er’ – Jenkins own features now assumed a nonchalant air – ‘would there be any … crocodiles in these rivers, then?’
Mzingeli’s face had reassumed its normal impassivity, but there was a sparkle to his black eyes. ‘Oh, teeming with them, yes.’
‘And … er … ’ow big would these crocs be, then?’
‘Oh, very big, 352, bach. Maneaters.’
A silence fell on the little room and Fonthill bit his lip to hold back a smile.
Jenkins shrugged his shoulders. ‘Not that I’m worried about crocs, look you. Seen plenty of ’em in my time. Stood on one once in Egypt.’
Mzingeli shook his head slowly. ‘They alligators in Nile. These crocodiles. Much more fierce.’
Tiny beads of perspiration were now standing out on Jenkins’s forehead. ‘Well, bach, it’s no concern of mine. I don’t worry about ’em now. Once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen ’em all. Just don’t fall in the bleedin’ water, that’s my motto.’
‘Quite right, too.’ Simon now allowed his grin to lighten his features. ‘Firstly, Mzingeli, see if you can buy two reasonably unsinkable,’ he turned the grin onto Jenkins, ‘craft in the harbour – the sort that would be used by the natives in the delta. Say you want them for fishing.’
He turned to Jenkins. ‘352, sniff around the marketplace – you are the best scavenger I have ever met – and see if you can buy three reasonably serviceable German Mauser rifles …’
‘Oh no.’ Jenkins’s face fel
l. ‘Why do we want them old things when we’ve got our much better Lee Enfields?’
Simon sighed. ‘Because, if we are questioned by the Germans, the British guns would be a dead giveaway. There should be plenty of Mausers coming across the border from German East Africa and, if we are stopped, we can say we bought them there.’
Mzingeli’s forehead now carried a faint frown. ‘If we stopped, who do we say we are? We not local natives of the delta, that would be clear.’
‘Quite so. I think we’d better be Portuguese – the border of their colony is not far away. We would have to say that we were looking to set up a franchise in the delta for fishing when the war is over and we are prospecting to judge the fishing stocks. What do you think? Does that sound plausible?’
‘Not very.’ The black man gave a rare smile, revealing his array of white teeth of tombstone proportions. ‘Might work with stupid Germans. We must make sure we only captured by stupid men.’
‘Oh, I can arrange that. Now, I must withdraw money from the bank. Stay here, I won’t be a moment. It’s only next door. Ah, just one more thing.’
Simon put a hand to his brow and looked a little embarrassed.
‘What’s that?’ asked Jenkins. ‘Shall we go in on a battleship, then? Much better idea.’
‘No. Now, listen. I don’t want Alice to know anything about this. If she hears what we are up to, she will want to come with us and that is impossible.’ He blew out his cheeks. ‘I don’t want another row with her. They are more debilitating than the actual work itself.’
‘What do we do, then? Just say we’re paddlin’ up the bloody ocean, fishin’ for sardines?’
Simon frowned. ‘I’ll have to think about it. But say nothing now. Stay here until I come back with the money.’
He returned shortly with a bundle of notes, which he shared with the others. ‘Off you go and see what you can get. But whatever you do, don’t spread suspicion. Alice tells me that this town is buzzing with German spies. Oh, and Mzingeli, see if you can pick up an up-to-date map of the delta, showing the channels. If you are questioned, say it is for your master, who collects this sort of thing.’
The thought of what to tell Alice now consumed Simon. In the end, he decided that they would just slip away, after she had left to do her researching. He would leave a non-commital note and then write to her more fully from the British warship.
The admiral made arrangements for one of his ships to pick them up and Simon despatched Mzingeli once again into the markets to buy some old clothes – cotton shirts, trousers, bandanas for their heads – that Portuguese fishermen might wear, and he also shopped at the local pharmacist himself for a stock of anti-malaria tablets. In the delta channels, overhung with jungle vegetation, he felt that mosquitoes would be as big a threat as the Germans.
Within two days, the trio were ready. Importantly, the resourceful Mzingeli – who was turning into as good a provisioner as the arch-scavenger Jenkins – had been able to find an old Arab map that looked remarkably detailed. It showed four main channels opening out into the delta, among the mass of streams and rivulets that made a patchwork quilt of the area. Each of them looked wide enough to offer passage to the Königsberg. But how deep were they and which would take them far enough into the interior?
Simon scribbled a brief note for Alice:
Been called away without notice to carry out a scouting job inland. It’s just routine and not dangerous. Will write more fully later.
Not to worry.
Love you.
Simon
Then they boarded a small steam launch and headed out to where their long, low, grey warship waited for them, fully coaled and with steam up. Looking back at the bustling, steamy port they were leaving, Fonthill wondered how long it would be before he would see it – and his wife – again.
CHAPTER SIX
The three of them huddled together in the clinging, early morning mist in the lead canoe while Mizango, Mzingeli’s old friend from fishing days, paddled behind in the craft carrying their supplies. They had picked him up the preceding day from one of the villages on the banks of the Kikunja Channel, on the seaward edge of the delta. He was a very old, thin, wiry man, with white, tightly curled hair and an engaging, toothless grin. He had willingly agreed to serve Fonthill because, he confessed through Mzingeli, he disliked the Germans ‘who ordered him about and had flogged his nephew for refusing to sell them fish’.
‘Sounds a promising bloke,’ commented Jenkins at the time. ‘Give ’im one tooth and a vest and ’e could be a British general.’
Today, however, 352 was in a less amenable mood. Two crocodiles had swum past their fragile canoes that morning and hauled their scaly lengths up into the mangrove roots, causing their vessels to rock in the swell they had created. He had gripped the sides of the canoe until his knuckles gleamed white in the half-light and perspiration stood out on his brow.
‘Ah, bach,’ called out Mzingeli cheerily, ‘if you not interfere with them they not interfere with you.’
‘I ’ave no bleedin’ intention of interferin’ with them. But do they know that?’
Mizango had quickly acknowledged that he knew of a big three-funnelled ship moored at the Salale island deep in the Simba-Uranga Channel but he also knew that she had slipped her moorings and steamed deeper into the delta. Where she was now he had no idea, but he cheerily insisted that he could find her. They had therefore paddled across the mouth of the delta and camped at the mouth of this channel, near where the old British steamer Newbridge had been sunk to block the exit. Now, since before dawn, they had been paddling up the channel, thinking it best to establish where the cruiser had originally moored and trace her passage from there.
They had been dropped by their warship at the mouth of the delta and now entered the channel between two narrow headlands, on both of which they had caught a glimpse of cleverly camouflaged German heavy machine gun posts, their snub snouts pointing across the channel. Fonthill had been apprehensive that they might be challenged but, so near the open sea, there were many similar fishing boats paddling or sailing to and fro even at this early hour, some laying nets near the shore, others casting single lines, and they excited no curiosity from the watchers at their hidden posts.
Now, however, the channel, though seemingly quite deep, was beginning to narrow and Mizango indicated that, on their starboard side, they were approaching the big inland island of Salale where the Königsberg had been lying up until comparatively recently.
‘Let’s land on that bit of beach on the island there,’ Simon pointed to starboard. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if the Germans had left a fortified position where the ship had been moored. I would rather steal up on it and take a look before we try and paddle past. But take one of the nets, just in case they spot us and question us.’
Quietly, they slipped their craft ashore, paddling carefully between two hippopotamuses on the way. Drawing up their canoes and hiding them under bushes, they began to make their way through the thick undergrowth along the shoreline. By now, they looked nothing like a British naval party on a spying mission. Mzingeli and Mizango now wore only loin cloths and loose turbans wound around their heads. Fonthill and Jenkins were now both deeply tanned so that their ethnic origins were hard to place. They wore sandals, torn khaki shorts, grimy cotton shirts and had forsaken their white man’s pith helmets in favour of scraps of fabric wound around their heads to protect them from the sun. Mzingeli and Mizango now led the way, carrying the big prawn net between them, and the two white men followed, holding their rifles by their slings.
It was not easy going, for they were forced to pick their way over and through the great, arching mangrove roots that marked the shoreline. Overhead, a thousand chattering monkeys seemed to scream at their intrusion and warn of their progress. Snakes, large and small, slithered over the roots and into the water to give them passage. The river mist had now risen to be replaced by a steamy, shirt-clinging heat.
‘Blimey,’ muttered
Jenkins, ‘I think it would be better to swim. Not that I can, mind you.’
Fonthill hissed and held up his hand. The others clustered around him.
‘If we are stopped and questioned,’ he whispered, ‘remember that we are two Portuguese fishermen who are investigating the prospects for prawn fishing here, if we gain permission from the German authorities.’ He slapped his hip pocket. ‘Jenkins and I have rough-and-ready forged passports that I had made in Mombasa, so I hope the Germans will believe us.
‘Now, Mzingeli, ask Mizango if he thinks the Germans will speak Swahili. If so, you do the talking for us. If one of them speaks Portuguese we are going to be in trouble, but we have to take that risk. If necessary, I will ask – in my best Portuguese accent – if they speak English. But, I don’t want to get taken, so tread with great care through this damned jungle. I just want to observe their armament and placement and then get back to the canoe. If there is no German post here, then let’s see what we can pick up from where the cruiser was moored.’
Simon realised that he had no indication of where the Königsberg had originally moored. For all he knew, the three of them could be picking their way between these damned mangrove roots and slapping away mosquitoes for the rest of the day. Perhaps they should have paddled on a little further …
Then, Mzingeli, who was leading, froze and held up his hand. He gestured for the others to slip into the jungle and inched his way forward alone, brushing aside the overhanging creepers with great care.
He had disappeared for at least three minutes before he reappeared and joined Fonthill in the undergrowth. He crouched down close to Simon so that his body odour was distinctive.
‘There is German post a few yards ahead,’ he whispered. ‘They have big gun and one machine gun set onto wooden planks put onto edge of jungle and hidden by vines and so on, all pointing across water.’
