Assault on Zanzibar

by E. C. Williams

  Life for Maddie and Sam fell into an idyllic pattern, as the Amour made her way north around Cape Bobaomby, then southward along the western Madagascar coast, it’s central massif just visible away to starboard.

  Nine

  “Chief, some of our people seem to think that, with Commodore Bowditch away, the war has been temporarily suspended,” said acting commodore Ennis, sitting behind his desk in his day cabin aboard Albatros.

  Chief Landry stiffened, and replied in his best deadpan fuck-you-sir voice, the one senior petty officers used to convey to a commissioned officer that he has just said something stupid and/or insulting. Ennis recognized the tone – he had after all served as Sam Bowditch’s XO, and had often been the target of it:

  “It certainly doesn’t seem to be suspended for me or my people ashore, sir – we had a couple of skirmishes yesterday and another one this morning. And another gunner wounded, but, ons dank God, it was only a minor one. Sir.”

  “Oh, you misunderstand me, Frank – I certainly didn’t mean to include you or your men in that category, not at all. I know how active you’ve been in seeking out Pirate guerillas on the island, at any risk. No indeed!”

  Senior Warrant Officer Landry was irritated because he had been urgently summoned by SOPA away from a complex field exercise with both his own Gunners and the pick of the Mafia militia, mainly for the benefit of the latter, but also to habituate his own boys to working as a team with Mafian warriors.

  And then the meeting began with the acting commodore pointing out the bleeding obvious in an insulting manner!

  “Frank, I’ve actually called you from the field to discuss a possible mission, one that could, if successful, clean out the Pirate hidey-hole up the Dar es Salaam Creek, and perhaps even discourage them from using it again. It’s high-risk, but it just might work.”

  “Sounds good, Commodore. What is it?”

  “First, I need a detailed report from you on the readiness of the island militia. I’m ‘specially interested in whether, in your opinion, they’re capable of manning Camp van der Merwe, and maintaining an effective defensive stance in the north, while your men take part in this mission. They’re the key. What do you say?”

  Landry thought for a moment, composing his answer, and said, “Well, sir, as it happens, the exercise running today is sort of a graduation for an elite subgroup of the militia. We – our Nosy Be noncoms, their CSM, and I – handpicked sixty men for intelligence, marksmanship, fitness, and, particularly, leadership potential; the latter because we hope most of them will prove to be NCO or officer material after some experience in the field. They’re divided into six sections, each led by one of the Nosy Be non-coms. When I left them, they seemed to be doing well, maybe even better than their section NCOs expected – but during the training they had become strongly identified with their sections, as is only right, so we can discount a bit of positive bias.

  “Nonetheless, I’m confident that this force, led by CSM Richburg, could certainly defend the Camp, and patrol aggressively. But we gotta make it plain to them that we’re not abandoning them, just going on an away mission.

  “The rest of the militia can be expected to fiercely defend their villages against Pirate parties who evade the northern force. To add to their defenses, most villages have thorn bomas around ‘em.”

  “The hell is a ‘boma’? And why thorn?”

  “’Boma’ is Swahili for a defensive stockade, or sometimes a corral to keep livestock in and predators out, and the best wood for it is something that translates as ‘whistling thorn’. The thorns on this bush are hollow, and usually occupied by stinging ants that defend the bush in return for their lodging. In addition to the sharp thorns themselves, the ants make breaking through the boma painful for man or beast, and thus add to its defensive character.”

  “Okay. But why ‘whistling’?”

  “The ants bore tiny holes in the thorn for access, and the wind blowing across these holes makes a whistling sound.”

  “Wah! You know a lot about Africa, Frank.”

  “It comes with working with the Mafians daily. I’ve come to respect them very much, sir.”

  “They’re a key part of the mission I have in mind, Frank. Let me tell you about my idea, and feel free to interject with your opinion on its feasibility.

  “As you know, at least a half-dozen dhows, and maybe more, carrying fighters and supplies for their efforts to re-take Mafia, are hiding up the Dar es Salaam Creek. They’re well camouflaged from the air, and most, if not all, carry high-angle AA guns. An aerial attack will be hazardous at best, since our planes would have to fly very low to find them, and be especially vulnerable to triple-A. My notion is that a surprise attack from landward by your boys, the seamen-gunners, might flush some or all of them out. As they emerge from their cover, a couple of gunboats – more than two, if we can manage it – will blast ‘em from short range with 75 mm HE. Barring the fog of war, it might be possible to take out all, or at least most of ‘em.

  “Obviously, this is a mere skeleton of a plan – it’ll need a lot of meat on it to be workable. Before I go any further I wanted to put it to you, and ask: is it remotely doable?”

  “Well, off the top of my head, Commodore, I’d say yes – with some big ‘ifs’. Mainly two: if my force can get into position undetected, and if the gunboats can do the same.

  “That’ll take careful planning, and a lot more intel than we have presently. I would like detailed, low-level photos of the entire approach; the boat skippers will probably also want the same of the mouth of the creek, so they can suss out hidey-holes to wait for my attack. I can’t see any way we can synchronize the attacks, other than having the gunboats hiding near enough to hear my gunfire when I’m in position and begin my attack. That would mean within less than two miles -- but, come to think of it, we could also fire off a couple of flares to alert them.

  “You understand, I’m simply talking off the top of my head, Commodore – once we consider it in more detail we may find info that will scupper the mission as you’ve described it.

  “But ... with those reservations, I’d say, yes, it’s doable. Certainly, it’s worth pursuing further, in terms of planning.”

  “Geweldige! Hoping you’d say that, Frank! I’ll get Todd Cameron to start the detailed planning, and confer with Dave Schofield on the aerial reconnaissance.”

  “Commander Schofield is back?”

  “Ja. It was just a re-fuel and turn-around for him.”

  “And Commodore Bowditch?” Everyone of course knew of Sam’s absence, because of the shift of flag and command. But there was much speculation below the level of vessel captains about where he had gone and for how long.

  “Sorry, Frank. That’s strictly need-to-know. All I can tell you is that at last report Commodore Bowditch was well.”

  Just before dawn the next day, Dave Schofield, who had insisted on flying this dangerous mission himself, took off in a Puffin. In his right-hand seat was a newly- fledged LPO, le Roux, flying as photographer.

  Le Roux was something of a self-taught expert on photography. It was his hobby and all-consuming pastime. He had a jury-rigged darkroom tucked away in the bowels of Joan of Arc, and his photos of shipmates and their life aboard a RKG vessel were so highly prized by all who saw them that he began to charge a fee for each photo; a fee, however, which only covered his cost for film, developing chemicals, and photographic paper. This business, which became brisk, attracted the attention of his division officer, who worried that it was distracting him from his official duties, and perhaps amounted to exploitation. Since no regulation covered this unique situation, the issue went all the way up the chain to the Commodore.

  Dave Schofield happened to see some of his photos, and quickly offered a solution: He would promote le Roux to LPO in a brand-new rate Dave made up on the spot – Aviation Photographer. As a condition, he would have to give up his thriving, but not actually remunerative, part-time photography business. The notion of being
able to practice his beloved hobby as a full-time duty, with all expenses paid by the Navy, was so charming to le Roux that he accepted at once.

  Le Roux was something of a tinkerer, as well. He had designed a readily-demountable swiveling camera bracket for the cockpit coaming, which could hold the camera fixed in any position. He had also come up with a clockwork automatic shutter, with settings for different air speeds, so that he could take a steady stream of photos, with some slight overlap, to avoid inadvertent blank spaces on the photo montage. The days of the co-pilot, knowing little or nothing of photography, struggling to hold a camera steady in the slip stream, and getting random photos, were over. Staff officers praised Le Roux’s crisp, high-definition photo montages of a target area.

  Dave flew to an altitude of only fifty feet or so. When he reached the creek, in a matter of minutes, he flew up the right bank slightly inshore, at treetop level; he hoped to prevent the AA gunners on the dhows from getting enough of a glimpse to get off an aimed shot. With the low morning sun illuminating the bush, le Roux took a series of photos almost straight down through the trees. At the end of this run, Dave banked and flew at the same altitude up the left bank of the creek. He then turned toward home, but stayed low enough for le Roux to get a series from the mouth of the creek and along the shoreline to the south, so Chief Landry could get an idea of the conditions of his approach march. Then it was home for breakfast, the entire flight taking less than two bells.

  The next day, after le Roux had spent the day before and into the evening in a marathon developing session, Ennis, Schofield, Landry, and Cameron scanned the photo montage pinned up all round the bulkhead of the Commodore’s day cabin on board Charlemagne. Midshipman Eloy, the ASO, and Midshipman Konyn, the staff Intel officer, stood modestly in the corner to avoid obstructing the views of their betters.

  “I don’t get it,” said acting commodore Ennis. “I don’t see any dhows at all. Could the mission have been a failure?”

  “Not at all, sir,” said Eloy, noted for his skill in interpreting aerial photos. “If I may…?”

  “Certainly, Gadget. Go for it.”

  Eloy picked up the large magnifying glass and approached the montage. “The dhows are indeed well camouflaged – their best effort yet – but they still give themselves away in little ways.

  “Here, for instance, sir; see these little patches of brown among the green? No, sir, on the east bank.”

  Ruined godowns and ancient steel wrecks, sunk alongside and rusting away in the humid tropical air, lined the western bank.

  “Mm … yes,”

  “When you look at them through the glass, you can see that they are dead cut branches the Pirates have strewn on the deck, as a disguise, but they have neglected to renew them before they turned brown. And now you know what to look for, you can also see this suspiciously straight, bare, branch-less tree – obviously a mast.

  “Mister Konyn and I took the liberty of taking a quick look at these last night, when LPO le Roux brought them to the CSO. We’ve identified at least six dhows hidden at irregular intervals, where the forest is densest, along this stretch here.”

  The rest of the officers took turns carefully examining the photos with the big glass, and each saw the six dhows the gadgets had found. No one found any more dhows.

  “We’re agreed, then. There are six dhows hiding in the creek, and we know their locations, at least at the time of yesterday’s photo recon,” Ennis said finally. The others murmured “yes, sir”, or nodded approval.

  “Let’s move on to the approach phase.” Eloy removed enough of the that montage to make room for a shorter one of the approaches to the creek.

  “Here, you see, the creek makes a sharp turn to the south as soon as you enter the mouth from seaward. On this point here, where the west bank makes the turn, it looks like there’s the ruin of a small port facility, perhaps a ferry terminal, with wrecks all round it. If your gunners land on the seaward side of the point, it looks like good footing between the ruins and the forest – perhaps because of the soil, the vegetation looks somewhat less dense there. Sir.”

  Chief Landry carefully studied the area through the large glass. After a long pause, he said, “You’re right, Gadget. It’ll be slow going through that growth, which seems pretty dense to get through on foot, but it looks like only a hundred meters or so to the nearest dhow.”

  “But sir, remember that the bush may conceal ruins of buildings – foundations, piles of rubble,” Midshipman Konyn interjected. “Most residential construction in Dar es Salaam was probably flimsy and wooden, so there’s not much left – but maybe enough to be a hazard to your men in the dark.”

  “Yeah, right. I hadn’t thought of that.” Landry paused for a moment, staring at the relevant photo.

  “Commander Schofield, do you think you can get me one more photo – a very low shot of the stretch between the creek mouths and along this stretch here?”

  “No sweat. I can fly to the north of the creek mouth, then turn around and fly back very low. That’ll give le Roux a good look at the whole stretch.”

  “And don’t forget, we need a spot to land the gunners that doesn’t make them slog through marsh to reach solid ground, if possible.”

  “We’ll make sure we get good shots of the seaward shoreline of that point.”

  “Gentlemen, I have now resolved to proceed with this mission, with the intent to take, burn, or destroy the enemy dhows hidden in Dar es Salaam harbor,” Commodore Ennis said formally, for the record. “Have you any remarks or recommendations?”

  No one did.

  “Todd, given available resources, how soon can we mount this assault?”

  “Well, Commodore, if we make do with only two gunboats, we could do it in a matter of forty-eight hours. But if we wait a week, I’ve been assured that our first locally built gunboat will be ready.”

  “Good. I hadn’t realized it had come along so quickly.”

  “We’re building her to a design CSM Richburg got for us from Nosy Be. It’s one they came up with for coastal defense – all wooden, local materials, easily built with hand tools. It’s half again as big as our converted boats, so it will be useful for landing the Chief’s assault party.”

  “What about armament?”

  “In hand, sir. Between our order of ‘spare parts’ from Nosy Be, and the ingenuity of our engineers, using Charlie’s machine shop, we’ve got a 75mm plus a one-incher for her. And an engine, of course.

  “One major difference: both guns are smooth-bore weapons. We were unable to do precise rifling.”

  “Is that an important limitation?”

  “Not for this mission, sir, since it will be at pistol-shot engagement range. The one-incher will be in effect a big shotgun, and very effective as an anti-personnel weapon. The armorers are busy fabricating both canister and solid shot for the 75.”

  “Sounds good, then. Let’s tentatively set D-Day for a week from today. You may have as many hands as you need to finish the new boat, Todd. Stir them up – I want to carry out this mission ASAP, before the Pirates move the dhows, or pull some other trick out of their bag.”

  “Aye, aye, sir. I’ve been assured that the Mafia Utukufu will be ready within a week, and with extra hands from carpenter’s crew we should be certain to make that deadline.”

  “The Mafia WHAT?”

  “Utukufu, sir. It’s Swahili for ‘Glory’. The vessel’s too big to carry aboard a seagoing vessel, so it needs a name. That’s not official, of course – it’s what the Mafian boat builders have called it from the laying of the keel. Everyone else just started calling her that, too.”

  Commodore Ennis thought a moment, and then said, “That’s well. Good name. Commodore Bowditch will have to approve, of course, and commission her into the Navy, but I doubt if he’ll veto that name. Make it so, Todd.”

  Exactly one week later, in the wee hours of D-Day, Chief Landry found himself sitting in a very crowded Mafia Utukufu, a crate of improvised fire bombs
cradled carefully on the deck between his feet. Most of his men were dozing; unsurprisingly, because to make it to the assault point before dawn, as planned, meant leaving Chole Bay early the previous afternoon. The three gunboats had left first under their own power, and then Joan of Arc took them under tow, to conserve their fuel for the coming action. Joan was motor-sailing with the south-easterly breeze on the starboard tack, making good speed, but Landry had no way of knowing if they were on time or not, for he could see nothing to port but featureless bush, slightly darker than the night, with a sliver of new moon and a nearly unbroken overcast.

  The Utukufu, not yet painted, smelt pleasantly of freshly-sawn wood and the frying-food aroma of the palm oil fuel. Landry was being so careful of the fire bombs because they held aviation fuel, with an exposed wick by now fully soaked in the flammable stuff. An improvised igniter, consisting of the head of an ordinary sulfur match and a striker activated by pulling a string, was next to the wick. If the igniter failed, each man had a supply of matches to light the wick by hand. Landry had wanted a cap over wick and striker, but there had been no time to fabricate and fit them. The armorers had finished making the bombs, and testing them, just before sailing. Landry feared an accidental ignition of one bomb, igniting all the rest, thus destroying the boat. Keeping them all together was a risk, but he had decided that issuing them to his gunners before departure multiplied the odds of an accident threatening all three boats, so he decided to take very great care of them himself, and issue one to each man on landing.

  The three boats, crowded with all the gunners he could muster who were not on the binnacle list as sick or injured, a held a total of forty-eight, including himself. Every man had a red flare in addition to his rifle, to let off at a dhow during the action, which would add another opportunity to set it afire; if nothing else, they would dazzle and confuse the enemy. Maybe.

  This number added up, conveniently, to six fire teams, one to each enemy dhow, each led by a leading hand, a PO, or an LPO, except for team number one, headed up by Landry. His team also had the experimental SLAR automatic weapon, carried by the seaman-gunner who handled it best in a hasty competition.