‘He is talking about leopards,’ the sergeant told him.
‘What is he saying about them?’
‘He says, among other things, that they are the excrement of dead lepers.’
Proust looked stunned, he had expected Walaka’s speech to have at least some bearing on-the business in hand. He rallied gamely.
‘Tell him that he is a wise old man, and that I look to him to lead the others to their duties.’
And the sergeant gazed upon Walaka sternly.
‘Bwana Heron says that you, Walaka, are the son of a diseased porcupine and that you feed on offal with the vultures. He says further that you he has chosen to lead the others in the dance of the rope.’
Walaka stopped talking. He sighed in resignation and started down towards the waiting launch. Five hundred men stood up and followed him.
The two vessels chugged sedately down to Blücher’s moorings. Standing in the bows of the leading launch with his hands on his hips, Ensign Proust had the proud bearing of a Viking returning from a successful raid.
‘I understand these people,’ he would tell Lieutenant Kyller. ‘You must pick out their leader and appeal to his sense of duty.’
He took his watch from his breast pocket.
‘Fifteen minutes to seven,’ he murmured. ‘I’ll have them aboard on the hour.’ He turned and smiled fondly at Walaka who squatted miserably beside the wheelhouse.
‘Good man, that! I’ll bring his conduct to Lieutenant Kyller’s attention.’
– 86 –
Lieutenant Ernst Kyller shrugged out of his tunic and sat down on his bunk. He held the tunic in his lap and fingered the sleeve. The smear of blood had dried, and as he rubbed the material between thumb and forefinger, the blood crumbled and flaked.
‘He should not have run. I had to shoot.’
He stood up and hung the tunic in the little cupboard at the head of his bunk. Then he took his watch from the pocket and sat down again to wind it.
‘Fifteen minutes to seven.’ He noted the time mechanically, and laid the gold hunter on the flap table beside the bunk. Then he lay back and arranged the pillows under his head, he crossed his still-booted feet and regarded them dispassionately.
‘He came aboard to try and rescue his wife. It was the natural thing to do. But that disguise – the shaven head, and stained skin – that must have been carefully thought out. It must have taken time to arrange.’
Kyller closed his eyes. He was tired. It had been a long and eventful watch. Yet there was something nagging him, a feeling that there was an important detail that he had overlooked, a detail of vital – no, of deadly importance.
Within two minutes of the girl’s recognition of the wounded man, Kyller and the surgeon commander had established that he was not a native, but a white man disguised as one.
Kyller’s English was sketchy, but he had understood the girl’s cries of love and concern and accusation.
‘You’ve killed him also. You’ve killed them all. My baby, my father – and now my husband. You murderers, you filthy murdering swines!’
Kyller grimaced and pressed his knuckles into his aching eyes. Yes, he had understood her.
When he had reported to Captain von Kleine, the captain had placed little importance on the incident.
‘Is the man conscious?’
‘No, sir.’
‘What does the surgeon say his chances are?’
‘He will die. Probably before midday.’
‘You did the right thing, Kyller.’ Von Kleine touched his shoulder in a show of understanding. ‘Do not reproach yourself. It was your duty.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘You are off watch now. Go to your cabin and rest—that is an order. I want you fresh and alert by nightfall.’
‘Is it tonight then, sir?’
‘Yes. Tonight we sail. The minefield has been cleared and I have given the order for the boom to be destroyed. The new moon sets at 11.47. We will sail at midnight.’
But Kyller could not rest. The girl’s face, pale, smeared with her tears, haunted him. The strangled breathing of the dying man echoed in his ears, and that nagging doubt scratched against his nerves.
There was something he must remember. He flogged his tired brain, and it balked.
Why was the man disguised? If he came as soon as he had heard that his wife was a prisoner he would not have had time to effect the disguise.
Where had the man been when Fleischer had captured his wife? He had not been there to protect her. Where had he been? It must have been somewhere near at hand.
Kyller rolled on to his stomach and pressed his face into the pillow. He must rest. He must sleep now for tonight they would go out to break through the blockading English warships.
A single ship against a squadron. Their chances of slipping through unchallenged were small. There would be a night action. His imagination was heightened by fatigue, and behind his closed eyelids he saw the English cruisers, lit by the flashes of their own broadsides as they closed with Blücher. The enemy intent on vengeance. The enemy in overwhelming strength. The enemy strong and freshly provisioned, their coal-bunkers glutted, their magazines crammed with shell, their crews uncontaminated by the fever miasma of the Rufiji.
Against them a single ship with her battle damage hastily patched, half her men sick with malaria, burning green cordwood in her furnaces, her fire-power hampered by the desperate shortage of shell.
He remembered the tiers of empty shell racks, the depleted cordite shelves in the forward magazine.
The magazine? That was it! The magazine! It was something about the magazine that he must remember. That was the thing that had been nagging him. The magazine!
‘Oh, my God!’ he shouted in horror. In one abrupt movement he had leapt from his prone position on the bunk to stand in the centre of the cabin.
The skin on his bare upper arms prickled with gooseflesh.
That was where he had seen the Englishman before. He had been with the labour party – in the forward magazine.
He would have been there for one reason only – sabotage.
Kyller burst from his cabin, and raced, half dressed, along the corridor.
‘I must get hold of Commander Lochtkamper. We’ll need a dozen men – strong men – stokers. There are tons of explosive to move, we’ll have to handle it all to find whatever the Englishman placed there. Please, God, give us time. Give us time!’
– 87 –
Captain Otto von Kleine bit the tip from the end of his cheroot, and removed a flake of black tobacco from the tip of his tongue with thumb and forefinger. His steward held a match for him and von Kleine lit the cheroot. At the wardroom table, the chairs of Lochtkamper, Kyller, Proust and one other were empty.
‘Thank you, Schmidt,’ he said through the smoke. He pushed his chair back and stretched out his legs, crossing his ankles and laying his shoulders against the padded backrest. The breakfast had not been of gourmet standard; bread without butter, fish taken from the river and strong with the taste of the mud, washed down with black unsweetened coffee. Nevertheless, Herr Fleischer seemed to be enjoying it. He was beginning his third plateful.
Von Kleine found his appreciative snuffling distracting. This would be the last period of relaxation that von Kleine could anticipate in the next many days. He wanted to savour it along with his cheroot, but the wardroom was not the place to do so. Apart from the gusto with which the Herr Commissioner was demolishing his breakfast, and the smell of fish – there was a mood among his officers that was almost tangible. This was the last day and it was heavy with the prospect of what the night might bring. They were all of them edgy and tense. They ate in silence, keeping their attention on their plates, and it was obvious that most of them had slept badly. Von Kleine decided to finish his cheroot alone in his cabin. He stood up.
‘Excuse me please, gentlemen.’
A polite murmur, and von Kleine turned to leave.
‘Yes, Schmidt. What i
s it?’ His steward was standing deferentially in his path.
‘For you, sir.’
Von Kleine clamped the cheroot between his teeth and took the note in both hands, screwing up his eyes against the blue spiral of tobacco smoke. He frowned.
This woman, and the man she claimed was her husband, worried him. They were a drain on the attention which he should be devoting entirely to the problem of getting Blücher ready for tonight. Now this message – what could she mean by ‘could save your ship’? He felt a prickle of apprehension.
He swung around.
‘Herr Commissioner, a moment of your time, please.’
Fleischer. looked up from his food with a smear of grease on his chin.
‘Ja?’
‘Come with me.’
‘I will just finish …’
‘Immediately, please.’ And to avert argument von Kleine stooped out of the wardroom, leaving Herman Fleischer in terrible indecision, but he was a man for the occasion, he took the remaining piece of fish on his plate and put it in his mouth. It was a tight fit, but he still found space for the half cup of coffee as well. Then he scooped up a slice of bread and wiped his plate hurriedly. With the bread in his hand he lumbered after von Kleine.
He was still masticating as he entered the sick-bay behind von Kleine. He stopped in surprise.
The woman sat on one of the bunks. She had a cloth in her hand and with it she wiped the mouth of a black man who lay there. There was blood on the cloth. She looked up at Fleischer. Her expression was soft with compassion and sorrow, but it changed the moment she saw Fleischer. She stood up quickly.
‘Oh, thank God, you’ve come,’ she cried with joy as though she were greeting a dear friend. Then incongruously she looked up at the clock.
Keeping warily away from her, Fleischer worked his way around to the opposite side of the bunk by which she stood. He leaned over and studied the face of the dying man. There was something very familiar about it. He chewed stolidly as he puzzled over it. It was the association with the woman that triggered his memory.
He made a choking sound, and bits of half chewed bread flew from his mouth.
‘Captain!’ he shouted. ‘This is one of them – one of the English bandits.’
‘I know,’ said von Kleine.
‘Why wasn’t I told? This man must be executed immediately. Even now it might be too late. Justice will be cheated.’
‘Please, Herr Commissioner. The woman has an important message for you.’
‘This is monstrous. I should have been told …’
‘Be still,’ snapped von Kleine. Then to Rosa, ‘You sent for me? What is it you have to tell us?’
With one hand Rosa was stroking Sebastian’s head, but she was looking up at the clock.
‘You must tell Herr Fleischer that the time is one minute before seven.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Tell him exactly as I say it.’
‘Is this a joke?’
‘Tell him, quickly. There is very little time.’
‘She says the time is one minute to seven,’ von Kleine, rattled out the translation. Then in English, ‘I have told him.’
‘Tell him that at seven o’clock he will die.’
‘What is the meaning of that?’
‘Tell him first. Tell him!’ insisted Rosa.
‘She says that you will die at seven o’clock.’ And Fleischer interrupted his impatient gobbling over the prone form of Sebastian. He stared at the woman for a moment, then he giggled uncertainly.
‘Tell her I feel very well,’ he said, and laughed again, ‘better than this one here.’ He prodded Sebastian. ‘Ja, much better.’ And his laughter came full and strong, booming in the confined space of the sick-bay.
Tell him my husband has placed a bomb in this ship, and it will explode at seven o‘clock.’
‘Where?’ demanded von Kleine.
‘Tell him first’
‘If this is true you are in danger also – where is it’
‘Tell Fleischer what I said.’
‘There is a bomb in the ship.’ And Fleischer stopped laughing.
‘She is lying,’ he spluttered. ‘English lies.’
‘Where is the bomb?’ von Kleine had grasped Rosa’s arm.
‘It is too late,’ Rosa smiled complacently. ‘Look at the clock.’
‘Where is its’ Von Kleine shook her wildly in his agitation.
‘In the magazine. The forward magazine.’
‘In the magazine! Sweet merciful Jesus!’ von Kleine swore in German, and turned for the door.
‘The magazine?’ shouted Fleischer and started after him. ‘It is impossible – it can’t be.’ But he was running, wildly, desperately, and behind him he heard Rosa Oldsmith’s triumphant laughter.
‘You are dead. Like my baby – dead, like my father. It is too late to run, much too late!’
– 88 –
Von Kleine went up the companion-way steps three at a time. He came out into the alleyway that led to the magazine, and stopped abruptly.
The alleyway was almost blocked by a mountain of cordite charges thrown haphazard from the magazine by a knot of frantically busy stokers.
‘What are you doing?’ he shouted.
‘Lieutenant Kyller is looking for a bomb.’
‘Has he found its?’ von Kleine demanded as he brushed past them.
‘Not yet, sir.’
Von Kleine paused again in the entrance to the magazine. It was a shambles. Led by Kyller, men were tearing at the stacks of cordite, sweeping them from the shelves, ransacking the magazine.
Von Kleine jumped forward to help.
‘Why didn’t you send for me?’ he asked as he reached up to the racks above his head.
‘No time, sir,’ grunted Kyller beside him.
‘How did you know about the bomb?’
‘It’s a guess – I could be wrong, sir.’
‘You’re right! The woman told us. It’s set for seven o’clock.’
‘Help us, God! Help us!’ pleaded Kyller, and hurled himself at the next shelf.
‘It could be anywhere – anywhere!’ Captain von Kleine worked like a stevedore, knee-deep in spilled cylinders of cordite.
‘We should clear the ship. Get the men off.’ Kyller attacked the next rack.
‘No time. We’ve got to find it.’
Then in the uproar there was a small sound, a muffled tinny buzz. The alarm bell of a travelling-clock.
‘There!’ shouted Kyller. ‘That’s it!’ And he dived across the magazine at the same moment as von Kleine did. They collided and fell, but Kyller was up instantly, dragging himself on to his feet with hands clawing at the orderly rack of cordite cylinders.
The buzz of the alarm clock seemed to roar in his ears. He reached out and his hands fell on the smoothly paper-wrapped parcels of death, and at that instant the two copper terminals within the leather case of the clock which had been creeping infinitesimally slowly towards each other for the past twelve hours, made contact.
Electricity stored in the dry cell battery flowed through the circuit, reached the hair-thin filament in the detonator cap, and heated it white-hot. The detonator fired, transferring its energy into the sticks of gelignite that were packed into the cigar box. The wave of explosion leapt from molecule to molecule with the speed of light so that the entire contents of Blücher’s magazine were consumed in one hundredth part of a second. With it were consumed Lieutenant Kyller and Captain von Kleine and the men about them.
In the centre of that fiery holocaust they burned to vapour.
The blast swept through Blücher. Downwards through two decks with a force that blew the belly out of her as easily as popping a paper bag, down through ten fathoms of water to strike the bottom of the river and the shock wave bounced up to raise fifteen-foot waves along the surface.
It blew sideways through Blücher’s watertight bulkheads, crumpling and tearing them like silver paper.
It caught Rosa
Oldsmith as she lay across Sebastian’s chest, hugging him. She did not even hear it come.
It caught Herman Fleischer just as he reached the deck, and shredded him to nothingness.
It swept through the engine room and burst the great boilers, releasing millions of cubic feet of scalding steam to race through the ship.
It blew upwards through the deck, lifting the forward gun-turret off its seating, tossing the hundreds of tons of steel high in a cloud of steam and smoke and debris.
It killed every single human being aboard. It did more than merely kill them, it reduced them to gas and minute particles of flesh or bone. Then still unsatisfied, its fury unabated, it blew outwards from Blücher’s shattered hulk, a mighty wind that tore the branches from the mangrove forest and stripped it of leaves.
It lifted a column of smoke and flame writhing and twisting into the bright morning sky above the Rufiji delta, and the waves swept out across the river as though from the eye of a hurricane.
They overwhelmed the two launches that were approaching Blücher, pouring over them and capsizing them, swirling them over and over and spilling their human cargo into the frightened frothing water.
And the shock waves rolled on across the delta to burst thunderously against the far hills, or to dissipate out on the vastness of the Indian Ocean.
They passed over the British cruiser Renounce as she entered the channel between the mangroves. They rolled overhead like giant cannon-balls across the roof of the sky.
Captain Arthur Joyce leapt to the rail of his bridge, and he saw the column of agonized smoke rise from the swamps ahead of him. A grotesque living thing, unbelievable in its size, black and silver and shot through with flame.
‘They’ve done it!’ shouted Arthur Joyce. ‘By Jove, they’ve done it!’
He was shaking; his whole body juddering, his face white as ice, and his eyes which he could not drag from that spinning column of destruction that rose into the sky, filled slowly with tears. He let them overflow his eyelids and run unashamedly down his cheeks.
– 89 –
Two old men walked into a grove of fever trees that stood on the south bank of the Abati river. They stopped beside a pile of gargantuan bones from which the scavengers had picked the flesh, leaving them scattered and white.