The Storm That Shook the World

by Walter Soellner

  He was in a hut, he realized, but had no sense of time. He heard voices, but it pained him to move even a little. He lay still, listening to a strange language, not like the Herero or other tribes he was familiar with. A woman’s voice, and then a man’s, spoke softly, in a hush. He turned his head; they saw him move. She came closer and said something. He just stared at her, and after a moment, she reached her hand to his eyes and brushed them closed.

  The rainy season was in full force. Water pounded down on the shelter, but he was dry. Markus still had no sense of time, but he felt he must have been in the hut for a very long while because his beard had several weeks’ growth. He surmised he must have been given something to be able to sleep for such long periods, awake only to eat and drink. He noticed the branches tied firmly to his right leg, from his hip to his ankle.

  I must have broken my leg, too. He sensed, during those several weeks of semi-consciousness, that he had been visited many times. Probably the whole village saw me at least once, he thought, with a slight inward smile. He was sure he was starting to think clearly again as he tried to reconstruct his last minutes in the air. Well, I obviously crashed. I wonder how it happened. And my aeroplane and the wireless parts?

  A day came with a break in the rains; the sun shone brightly. He had been up a few times to hobble around the small hut, but this was his first time to venture out.

  Several young boys apparently had been assigned to him, so he used them, one on each side, as crutches, with his hands on their shoulders and the woman behind him, with her hands on his back and shoulder. He still had short splints on his leg.

  The sun was intense as he shuffled out into its brightness. It blinded him for a moment. He heard the laughter of little voices. As his eyes adjusted, he saw a village of a dozen or so huts in a kraal, made up of upright limbs and branches for walls and thatched roofs. Kids ran in circles around him and reached out to touch him. The two boys supporting him felt proud of their special duties.

  Markus recognized several hunters who had visited his hut. They came up to him with two other of their fellows. They also were wearing the strange pendant he had seen earlier on thongs around their necks. One of the strangers surprised Markus when he spoke in broken German.

  “Guten Tag, German soldier. I portage for askari German,” he said with a broad smile. “I portage … make German silver.” He produced from his leather pouch seven Imperial German silver marks. Probably a month’s wages for a porter, Markus surmised.

  “Very good. Yes, very good,” he replied as he exaggerated his interest in the money in the extended black hand.

  “BaTonga mens carry Germany man from tree … Big boom; bird fall down; you sleep long time.”

  “So, you’re telling me your people rescued me … from a tree?”

  “Storm toss big bird in tree.”

  “Will you ask them to take me to the tree?” The porter had trouble understanding the question, but after changing a few words and speaking more slowly, Markus got his idea across. The translator relayed the request to the other two men, and they enthusiastically agreed.

  “Hunters say sleep till half-moon; long walk tree.” Markus calculated that meant about two weeks of rest before departing. He didn’t want to wait but knew he needed more time to heal his leg.

  “Good, very good … Thank you.” The black men were about to leave when Markus asked, “Why do the BaTonga people wear that pendant around their necks?” He pointed to the nearest example.

  The translator smiled, “BaTonga peoples believe in Nyaminyami, river monster. Many peoples wear Nyaminyami so no eat BaTonga peoples!”

  Two weeks had passed with heavy rains and a few sunny days. Living with the BaTonga was a profound experience for Markus—unlike living with Le Ling and her father Wan Ling in China, who were educated, highly refined, and had a living standard approximately the same as in Europe.

  The BaTonga were basically simple fishermen and hunter gatherers living near the Zambezi River, probably no different from people of five or ten thousand years earlier.

  Markus realized these people, of such primitive means, were as kind and gentle and loving with one another as any people he had ever met. As he got to know them and watch them each day, he perceived a beauty in them, unique to his experience.

  The children were playfully happy; the men had beautiful bodies and carried themselves with dignity in their fishing canoes and on their hunting parties. The young women were fetching and had a raw sensuality.

  The woman—her name, he found out, was Sisibeco—who nursed his wounds and cared for his needs was particularly attractive. He lay there in the dark on his mat, through the long, lonely nights, and fantasized about making love to her. He thought about the morality of his erotic dreams. Was it some kind of betrayal of Helena? He finally decided to blank that question out of his mind, unresolved.

  CHAPTER 30

  January 1915, Nyaminyami

  Markus estimated it was sometime in early January 1915. He couldn’t be sure, but he looked to the moon for guidance as the ancients did. “Yes,” he said to himself, “it must be early January.”

  The day finally arrived for him to search for his wrecked aircraft. I’m not leaving the village for good, only going out to retrieve what I can from the crash site, he thought. He knew he was still too weak to trek alone across the unknown Africa that lay ahead of him.

  “I feel good,” he mumbled to himself as he limped along, two hunter guides ahead of him and two behind. He still had pain in his leg, but his chest was not bothering him anymore.

  “If I don’t overdo it, my leg will heal correctly.”

  It was a long walk, with a half dozen stops he knew his guides didn’t need. Before they arrived at the wreck, he could see it way off on a rise in the land. One wing was pointing straight up, the fuselage upside down in the tree and badly crumpled.

  “Good God! I survived that?” he said aloud. “I hope the radio parts are still undamaged somewhere in there.” His BaTonga guides ignored his comments.

  A mixed herd of zebras, wildebeest, and four kinds of antelope grazed on new grass among the scattered trees near the aeroplane. A leopard leaped down from a nearby tree and slinked away in no hurry. When his four guides arrived, they sat down and waited. Markus walked around the tree, looking up, inspecting his erstwhile transportation.

  “Christ, I was lucky to survive this.”

  The German askari porter was one of his guides, so Markus asked if there was a way to bring down whatever was still in the aircraft. This took a lot of explaining and gesticulating and a drawing in the dirt. The translator finally understood and told the three other men. Two of them shimmied up the tree trunk in surprising fashion and were at the wreck in moments. They rocked the fuselage back and forth. Parts of debris fell off.

  “No, no, don’t rock it!” Markus shouted. “Just bring down what’s inside.” He gestured to the translator to repeat the command, which he did, and the two tree climbers gave a mighty shove that brought the entire wreck plunging to earth.

  “Christ, all mighty! I said just the contents!”

  He hurried over to the pile of what was left of his aeroplane and pulled away the fabric, wires, and broken wooden struts. There in the remains was his knapsack. He pulled it out gently and heard glass tinkling inside. He pulled out the wooden box from the knapsack. His hands trembled a bit as he pried it open.

  The wood shavings were packed tightly around vacuum tubes and other electronic parts. He slowly removed the stuffing and laid the wireless parts on the flattened knapsack. Only one tube was broken.

  “Thank God! I’ll bet they’ll have this type of tube at the East African transmitter. What luck, only one loss!” He was grinning from ear to ear and the four black men joined in with smiles on their faces.

  The next few days Markus spent in the village of the BaTonga, resting after the long trek back from the wreck. He cleaned the wireless parts, his binoculars, and his revolver and repacked them in hi
s knapsack. He had also retrieved his map and hat from the wreckage and leisurely spent his time organizing his gear.

  Early one morning as Markus prepared for his final departure, Sisibeco hurried into the hut with the translator guide.

  “White soldiers found big bird tree,” he began. “Them tracking toward village. Come village, high sun. BaTonga mans watching soldiers.” Markus thanked his friend, the black translator, nodding his head to him.

  Now Markus had to decide: hide somewhere in the village or head out quickly and cover any traces of his presence? He knew the soldiers would have expert native hunters, capable of detecting the slightest impressions made by a human in the wild. He thought for a few moments. He knew he was ready. He knew he had to take his chances in the bush.

  He turned to his translator and said, “Please tell Sisibeco,” he gestured toward the woman, “I must leave at once. Please tell her that.”

  The interpreter nodded, turned to Sisibeco, and relayed the message. He looked at the German and then at her, and he left them alone in the hut.

  Markus took a few steps toward her, realizing how much she had done for him over the many weeks of his recovery. Seeing her here in the shadows of the hut, in all her naked beauty—the rich, brown skin oiled to a shiny sheen, the dark eyes, full lips, and pulled-back hair—he wanted to pull her into his arms and feel her body against his. She understood his look and waited for him.

  Finally, he took her hands in his; she tried gently to pull away. He lifted her hands, palms up, and gazed into her eyes for a long moment. Slowly, he bent down and kissed each one. He lingered a moment with her hands in his, then released them.

  Their eyes were fixed on each other as she raised her left hand and placed it on his shoulder. Whatever it was she whispered in her unknown native tongue, he felt the profound meaning of it. She reached behind her neck and lifted the leather thong holding the Nyaminyami amulet that dangled between her breasts. She placed it around his neck without saying a word and backed away. Finally, Markus picked up his knapsack with its precious contents and left the hut.

  He felt he would never see Sisibeco again, but he knew she would remain forever in those deep recesses of his mind where his most private, precious memories lay.

  After several days heading approximately due east through Portuguese East Africa, limping along, still feeling a twinge once in a while, he stopped for most of a day to rest. Sisibeco packed him smoked fish and smoked meat, possibly kudu, a deer-like creature.

  He followed the river, actually walking close to the shore, in the water, to cover his tracks. He knew it was extremely dangerous, with crocodiles, thousands of them, feasting on anything that entered their world. And there was the rest of the wild carnivores, also needing the river to drink. Most times his hand rested on the butt of his revolver, and at other times, his hand had gone up inside his shirt to the Nyaminyami carving. Sisibeco had given him her good luck talisman, and he felt he surely needed it there along the river.

  Those first few days were nerve racking, stressful, and exhausting; he was always watching the shore ahead and the shadows in the water, always keeping an eye inland and behind him. Nights were especially bad as many predators hunted after sundown. He finally determined his safest bet was in a tree, or between two or three fires on the ground as he did earlier. Markus was concerned about the smoke from his fires being seen by enemy patrols, but he chanced it.

  One evening, as always, he had lots of time to reflect, and he thought about his life and how it had unfolded, growing up with Levi and the two families in the little village in Bavaria. What a wonderful youth I had, roaming the lands and woods around Kalvarianhof and hunting and the girls in the village, he smiled to himself. Joining the army—that was something! The uniform and adventures and travel and the medals and China! What an experience that was, fighting the Boxers and loving Li Ling … I really loved her. I wonder where she is now? And those other women, those Samoans in the forest!

  He smiled to himself and shook his head as he threw more wood on the fire and continued reminiscing: Ilsa, innocent, passionate Ilsa—and what a body—I loved her, too. He got up and stretched, looked around, checked the fires and his wood supply, and settled back down. Religion, how cruel to keep us apart! He felt a pang of regret as he thought of her.

  Diana Lange, well, that was nothing really, but her mother, Dorothy Lange, that was … What was that? After her daughter left and her husband died … she needed someone, for just that one night. I never would have approached her, but I was there.

  The night sounds—birds, animals, and insects—disturbed and distracted Markus’s sleep until he grew accustomed to them.

  What a mysterious, exotic place, this Africa! It’s like nothing else, both cruel and beautiful. Ah, beauty. He smiled broadly. And Helena, my lovely, precious Helena, what are you doing tonight? Should I have left, taking on this mission? I could have refused, made up some excuse, but here I am … and you’re there, darling, with little Rupert. My boy, how you must be growing. This damned war! It better get over quickly before I get myself killed.

  Late in the afternoon of the next day, Markus approached a fishing village. He studied it from a distance. He’d been thinking about the idea of entering it for some time.

  “This may be my opportunity,” he whispered to himself. He waited until dark, skirted the village inland, and came out down river of the kraal. He snuck back up stream until he found what he was looking for, a canoe with a paddle. He easily slipped it into the river and was off. Markus had been studying the river and particularly the crocs. Most of them stayed pretty close to shore where their prey was. He headed farther out.

  “I might do what we did in China, sail all the way to the coast!” He smiled at that as he recalled the time when he and Sun Yet Sen commandeered the Imperial Chinese Navy mail boat and sailed away to freedom. Ha! That might work again!

  There was netting in the canoe, so Markus was able to hook up a drag net with branches as he flowed with the current. There was almost always something in the net when he stopped. He most often had fish roasted on a stick, but one evening, he found a piece of thin slate rock and heated it up and more or less fried his filets.

  The Zambezi got wider and wider as it coursed now southeast toward the Indian Ocean. He had no way of knowing how close he was to the ocean, but he figured at least another two hundred miles, a staggering distance to paddle a dugout canoe.

  “If the plane just hadn’t crashed … I should have put her down earlier … Well, I was pretty much out of gasoline anyway. Don’t beat yourself up about it now.”

  After a few more days of traveling down river, often at night in bright moonlight, he saw another village ahead. It was late evening, very quiet except for the bugs buzzing and the bats and birds chasing them. He slowed, letting the gentle current carry him along. Should I lay low and pass as I’ve done several times before? Or should I land, skirt the village, and steal a boat on the other side? What would Levi do? He pulled on the paddle and headed into foliage along the shore.

  Grabbing his gear, he headed inland very quietly, watching for both humans and animals. As he made his way round, Markus was surprised to see military tents at the far edge of the village. Tents! He studied them for a time, quietly swatting flies as best he could.

  He moved to a different location to have a better look and was again surprised. This time, it was horses. It appeared there were two dozen or so in a corral made of piles of thorn bushes to keep predators out. He knew instinctively that there had to be guards around the camp.

  Looks like Portuguese; must be. I would love to be back in a saddle again. Let’s see what I can do about that. He knew guards, being guards, get bored and sleepy and inattentive, especially at night. He knew he had the advantage, assuming there was only one guard. If they doubled the guard, the game was probably up. He edged closer to the horse enclosure, trying not to startle them. They could smell him, and he hoped they would accept the smell of a human without
too much alarm.

  He heard a smack! A slap. Guard and bug, he thought. Markus slipped out of his knapsack and took his revolver out of its holster. In the dark, it appeared the guard was wearing an askari uniform. He’s black, much more aware of his surroundings, and probably very fit, he figured.

  As he approached the shadowy figure, he realized the guard was very short—a young kid, probably. He came up on him, and the child-guard turned and stared at Markus.

  He thinks I’m Portuguese! Markus touched the brim of his hat as a greeting. I can pull this off. He held up two fingers and pointed to the horses. The boy spoke in a native dialect. Markus put his hand over his own mouth, indicating silence and made a sweeping gesture with his other hand, ordering the makeshift gate opened. The boy complied.

  Markus walked past a row of saddles on a large log and slowly moved in among the horses. He selected two, went back to get two bridles and a lead rope, and returned to the mounts. The boy, seeing the man select two horses, picked up one of the military saddles and approached Markus. Markus took the saddle from the boy and cinched it up on the first horse. He walked the horses to the gate where the boy stood with a second saddle.

  “Nein.” Markus said, and then he realized he had spoken German! He stared at the boy for a moment, but there was no reaction from him. Markus gestured toward the gate, and the boy opened it. He walked the horses out as quietly as possible, and the boy closed the gate. Just before Markus turned to leave, he dug into his pocket and retrieved a one-half mark silver coin he knew he had. He handed it to the boy. The child-guard held it in his hand and raised it up to his eyes to see it better in the moon light. A broad smile appeared on his face. He again spoke in his native tongue. Markus made the sign for silence and left to retrieve his knapsack.