Madimba hurried to tightly wrap the pipe in white lead and long strips of fabric, but the steam continued to leak. I was so focused on trying to help the stoker with the repairs that I was completely surprised when Verhoeven shouted for us to hold tight.
I looked up, and it wasn’t until then that I realized we were a few yards from the first trees of the bank, which rose imposingly high above us and threatened to spear the ship with their lower branches. Some were thicker than a man’s torso. Slowly, we slid toward the bank until the first branches started to scrape our side.
The river current against our port side pushed us farther into the bank until we finally stopped completely, skewered by a dozen great branches, some of which entered the starboard side and left through the port, passing through the two decks from one end to the other.
Fortunately, none of us were hurt, thanks to the slow speed at which it all happened. But when the boat finally stopped moving and all was still, we realized the magnitude of the problem. Even if we managed to repair the boiler, it wouldn’t be easy to free ourselves from the jungle’s mortal embrace.
An added inconvenience was that when those branches came onto our decks, they pushed everything out with them. Half the hammocks, some of the equipment and provisions crates, along with the two tables and the chairs, fell in the water and were taken away by the current. Half the clothes we had hanging disappeared from their lines too, though some were caught in the branches, and I think we’ll be able to save them. The outcome, in sum, is not good, but we know it could have been a lot worse.
The first thing we did was tie the boat to one of the trees to keep it from moving, then each of us with the tools at our disposal started to cut away the branches on the two decks.
I learned something the hard way (for a change). In Africa, trees aren’t just trees. They’re colonies of animals and insects that use them like people do apartment buildings. The Roi des Boers was overrun by countless beetles, butterflies, frogs, centipedes, spiders (some the size of my hand), and above all, ants—thousands of siafu ants that rushed the ship and took over like an invading army. Once I had to climb a particularly large branch to cut it at the base, and a swarm of sharp little red jaws attacked my legs and arms. Like a man who finds himself covered in flames (the pain isn’t much different), I jumped down to the deck and threw myself in the water without worrying if there were hippos or crocs waiting for me.
The boiler was being repaired well into the night, until they sealed the steam leak, but we were so tired we decided to stay tied and leave in the morning.
It’s stopped raining again, and because of our proximity to the bank, the croaking of the tree frogs and the hooting of the nocturnal birds penetrates the night, blocking even the constant echo of the drums. We’ve made do with the hammocks we were able to salvage, and I think I’m the last one still awake, writing these lines in oil-lamp light.
Carmen’s cabin light went out just a moment ago, but no matter how hard I try, I can’t stop glancing at her little window. Simply being aware of her presence a few yards away keeps me awake more than the noise of the jungle and the irritating buzz of the mosquitoes. God knows I’m trying, but I can’t stop thinking about her.
Blanchard
Congo River
The streamlined sixty-three-foot-long patrol boat cut through the waters of the Congo River like a hot knife through butter—dark green butter spattered with plant debris, fallen trunks, and animal corpses. That profusion of jetsam had forced them to slow down in the last few hours, but they still kept up a good twenty-one knots, which without a doubt made the Charlotte the fastest invention to ever travel those waters.
Clinging to an observation railing halfway between the 20 mm machine guns and the bow, Julie wore a long flower-print dress that fluttered in the wind, Fleming a linen suit he’d brought in his backpack, and Commissar Blanchard the same clothing he had on the day before. The three of them faced the bow and looked at the river’s left bank.
“How far to Mobeka?” Julie asked Blanchard, turning right.
“Less than the last time you asked,” the commissar answered drily.
In response to the tone, Fleming turned toward him. “Don’t forget you’re here because we’re allowing you to be,” he said harshly. “We could have made you get off in Lukibu with the rest of your men.”
“I’m responsible for the men that are still on the boat,” he responded, grimly.
“For the captain and the mechanic?” Julie asked, amused by the claim and pointing back with her thumb. “We paid them to take us upriver, almost as much as they earn in a year. I’d say they’re thrilled to have met us.”
Blanchard turned halfway toward the bridge, where Captain Lambert chatted animatedly with César while he managed the wheel.
“Perhaps,” the commissar admitted. “But still, this boat is property of the government of the Belgian Congo. It’s my duty to return it to Léopoldville and bring you all before a tribunal to answer for this act of piracy.”
“Piracy . . . ,” Fleming said with a smile, imagining himself with a wooden leg and a parrot on his shoulder.
“Why are you so angry with us, Commissar?” Julie asked frankly.
He turned toward her, looking for a sign of humor but didn’t find it. “Are you serious?” he asked. “Don’t you think being suspected of murder, escaping from a police van, stealing government property, and kidnapping three officers of the law is enough reason?”
“Well, no,” Julie said with a shrug. “We never kidnapped anyone. We just rented the Charlotte, and what happened with our friends the other day has already been explained.”
The commissar looked at her a moment, disarmed by the airtight innocence. “The law must be followed, Miss Daumas,” he said, looking at her over his mustache. “A judge must decide how to interpret it, and I’m in charge of enforcing it. That’s why I’m here on board this ship.”
“I don’t believe you,” Fleming objected. “You’re here because you’re curious to know how this all ends and how much of what we told you is true.”
“The only thing I’m curious about is how long you’ll all be in jail.”
Julie laughed. “Who are you trying to fool, Commissar?” she asked, giving him an easy elbow to the ribs. “Stop playing the tough cop with us. I talked with Meers, the mechanic, yesterday, and he told me deep down you like us and don’t think our captain or Jack killed Van Dyck.”
Blanchard shook his head dejectedly. “That Meers talks too much,” he murmured. “But even if it were the case, you have committed enough crimes to spend a long time in the shadows.”
“That could be,” Julie said jokingly. “We’ve been really bad.”
The commissar looked at the young woman again. With her loose floral dress and flowing hair she seemed more like a high school student on her day off than a felon. Blanchard admitted to himself that it wasn’t easy to stay authoritative with these four people no matter how he tried. Above all, he thought, with that dangerous-looking Serb they’ve put in charge of watching me and who, to top it all off, found the secret drawer where we keep the bottle of Gordon’s for emergencies.
“We’ll keep up our end of the deal,” Fleming offered, “if you keep up yours.”
Blanchard turned toward the Englishman, the only one of the four of them who seemed half-proper, though he hadn’t figured out his relationship with the other three. “I’ll help you bring your friends back and you will voluntarily turn yourselves in when we get back to Léopoldville,” the commissar recited.
“Exactly,” Fleming agreed.
“The truth is, I have trouble believing you’ll turn yourselves in voluntarily,” Blanchard said. “No one likes to go to jail.”
“Us either, and I’m confident we’ll be able to avoid it.”
“How?”
The Englishman shrugged. “We have contacts,” he answered.
“That can keep you out of jail or put you in it,” Julie said.
Blancha
rd looked back and forth between them. “Who are you all, really?”
Fleming put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it, using his free hand to cover the flame. When he was done, he took a long drag and turned toward the commissar. “I could tell you,” he said with a smile. “But then I’d have to kill you.”
Blanchard stared at him, trying to figure out if he was being serious or pulling his leg. It was very hard to tell with that man. Finally, he shook his head, and the hint of a smile hovered around the corner of his mouth.
Just then Captain Lambert sounded the boat’s horn.
The three turned to the bridge and saw César raise a hand from the cabin to point forward.
They looked past the bow to find a settlement of adobe houses and some wooden buildings to their left, just at the point where the Mongala River turned into the Congo.
“That’s Mobeka?” Julie asked, wrinkling her nose.
“That’s Mobeka,” Blanchard confirmed, recalling that he’d never been beyond that point. “The last ember of light before we enter the darkness.”
River Diary
DAY SEVEN
February 1, 1942
Ebola River
I write these lines with my hand still trembling. I don’t want anyone to notice, since some people on board believe in me almost irrationally, but today I was afraid for all our lives.
Everything started at dawn, when a hand shook me hard, and I immediately woke up, trying to reach for the Colt I didn’t have. It was Jack.
“They’ve left,” he said, worried.
“What?” I babbled, sleepy, trying to figure out what the hell he was talking about. “Who’s left?”
“The cannibals,” he answered, pointing downward. “They’re all gone.”
Even after the clarification, it took me a few seconds to understand he was talking about the eight natives who worked as shipmen and stayed on the lower deck.
Then I realized something else had changed.
“The drums,” I said, listening hard, unable to believe it. “You can’t hear the drums anymore.”
What should have been a moment of relief suddenly turned into a sinister threat. The two events were probably related, and my old soldier’s instinct from fighting for years in trenches was shouting that nothing good would come of it.
Just then, the thought still in my head, something whistled in the semidarkness next to my head. For a second I thought it was a particularly large insect, but then it whistled again, now a hundred times louder.
Projectiles rained down on the Roi des Boers, rending the air like a swarm of angry bees.
Then someone shouted, “They’re attacking us,” and chaos broke out.
I jumped up in time to watch an arrow stick right where I’d been a moment before. “Take cover!” I shouted, pulling Jack to the other side of the ship, where we crouched behind the cabin.
By then the deck of the boat had turned into a mad rush of people shouting and running for cover. The boom of a rifle next to me left me temporarily deaf. Hudgens had barricaded himself there behind some sacks of rice. He fired ruthlessly at the brush, though the thick foliage only revealed flickering shadows here and there.
I shouted over the gunfire to warn Carmen not to leave her cabin. In exchange I got an angry response from her asking me if I thought she was an idiot.
The rain of arrows intensified, flying and sticking in the floor and roof. I reached out and grabbed one of the arrows. It was nothing more than a simple sharpened stick with a feather on the end. I’d made arrows for my bow more threatening than that as a kid.
“Maybe it’s poisoned,” Jack said, huddled next to me.
Just then Verhoeven appeared in the gate to the wheelhouse, urgently ordering us to cut the bow and stern moorings. Jack and I exchanged a knowing look, and like we did when assaulting a fascist trench, nodded and counted to three before we headed to our targets: him to the bow and me to the stern.
When I went to cut the rope, I could tell the boiler was running and Madimba and Mutombo were focused on feeding it wood, ignoring the arrows falling around them like their lives depended on it. They probably did.
As soon as Jack and I cut the lines, the boat was pushed by the water, while the wheel started to turn lazily, not moving us forward but keeping the current from impaling us on the trees lining the bank.
I heard a shout behind me, and when I turned I could see Jack on the bow, raising his fist and shouting with rage toward the bush. “Fuck all! Sunnuvabitch bastards!” An arrow had landed in his left leg.
I ran toward him, taking cover behind the wooden boxes on the lower deck, and after making him sit, I cut his pant leg to see how serious the injury was.
The arrow had gone through the thin pant fabric and entered as far as the muscle, but luckily not deeply, so it wasn’t hard to remove it. Jack snorted when I did, though I think he was more hurt I’d ruined his best pants. Then after tying a strong knot with that same pant fabric over the wound, I ordered him to stay still until we’d treated him. I remembered the possibility that the arrow was poisoned but didn’t say anything.
Though we’d gotten a few yards away from the bank, we were still within range of the arrows.
The stern paddles that should have driven the Roi des Boers were rotating on their axis but not fast enough to overcome the force of the river. What’s more, to keep the current from overpowering us (it was stronger in the middle) Verhoeven had to keep the boat close to shore.
There must not have been enough wood in the boiler, or maybe there was another leak, and I wondered why Verhoeven hadn’t sent one of his helpers to fix the problem right away. I looked at the nearby thicket, and in the growing light of day could make out how the jumble of plants seethed with activity. A hooting army of shadows made the branches shake amid screams of rage and intimidation.
Those men hiding in the jungle seemed to hate us beyond belief. In their cries was the same hatred and fear we’d feel when shouting at a group of monsters lurking in our neighborhood. For them, no doubt, we were the monsters.
Dodging the arrows that struck the wood with deceptively innocent clicks, I got to the boiler and immediately understood why we lacked power. The door was open, and it had consumed nearly all the wood inside, though there was an intact pile of wood in front of it.
I quietly cursed the two helpers who’d abandoned their posts at such a time and quickly went to the pile of wood, took as much as I could in my arms, and bent over the boiler.
It wasn’t until then that I found Mutombo hiding behind it, his eyes lost in panic while he muttered something in Lingala. Dropping the logs, I took his arm, ordering him to help me feed the boiler, but he was terrified, and I realized he was in shock and wouldn’t be of any help. I asked if Madimba was hiding too, and he looked at me hard, pupils dilated, and pointed behind me without stopping his incomprehensible prayer.
And then I saw.
Madimba was lying on the floor, face up, with a heavy spear stuck between his ribs and a terrible wound that was still covering the floor in red blood. He was still alive, looking at me with very wide, anguished eyes, clutching the spear with both hands as if he was afraid I’d take it away. He started to say something, but all that came out was a gargle of blood. I’d seen similar wounds during the war in Spain and knew poor Madimba was going to die drowning in his own fluids no matter what I did.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t time to do anything at all, so I just gave him a comforting look and went right back to throwing wood in that old water boiler and then closed the iron door. Almost immediately the connecting rod that activated the paddle wheel started to gain some speed. Very slowly, the boat’s power started winning the battle with the river, and we gained distance from the bank as the paddles hit the water with more speed. With my bare feet covered in Madimba’s wet blood, all I could think about was getting out of there.
Thirty minutes later we finally felt safe, tied to a sandy island in a wider section of the river, out of ra
nge from any arrow or spear.
As soon as the boat’s paddles started hitting the water hard, the natives vanished as quickly as they’d appeared. Maybe it was that iron and wood beast with its angry splashing that scared them and made them want to keep it away. I suspected that if the engine stopped during the night, they’d attack again.
Exhausted from the effort of jumping in as stoker, I went back to where I’d left Jack and asked how he was, which he responded to with a grumpy groan and a chain of foul adjectives for the natives who had just attacked us. If the arrow was laced with some kind of poison, it certainly wasn’t affecting his ability to speak.
Having him lean on my shoulder so he didn’t have to put weight on the injured leg, I helped him up the narrow staircase that led to the upper deck, where we were received with expressions of fright and worry, as much for Jack’s wound as for the blood that soaked my pants up to the knee.
I explained what had happened on the lower deck and the fate of poor Madimba as well as the state Mutombo was in.
In one morning, of Verhoeven’s two assistants, one had died, and the other seemed to be in a state of shock. Meanwhile, the eight natives who acted as crewmen had vanished in the night. In a few hours, the crew of the Roi des Boers had shrunk dramatically.
We speculated that the eight sailors belonged to the tribe that attacked us and joined them, or they’d felt the attack coming and fled without bothering to warn us, which you couldn’t really blame them for either. I don’t think Verhoeven would have let them leave. Whatever the case, because of that mass desertion we now had to do the work of the sailors, the pilot, and the mechanic.
So after saying a few words of farewell to Madimba, we buried him on the island and spent the rest of the morning cleaning the boat and removing the countless arrows that covered it.
Carmen disinfected Jack’s wound with gin and wrapped it with a strip of cloth. Hudgens had also been lightly wounded on his arm, but he didn’t even let us look at it.
Darkness: Captain Riley II (The Captain Riley Adventures Book 2) Page 32
