Thirty-three

 

‘Dearest Gussie–’ as Edward wrote the sweat dripped off the end of his nose ‘–I appear to be in the navy. I’m not sure how. I think I’m a pressed man, and it seems I won’t be coming home as soon as I expected.’

Even as he looked at what he had written, Edward knew Augusta would never believe he hadn’t engineered it.

By this time there was a small fleet of ships off the mouth of the Rufiji, with attendant colliers, supply ships and a fleet of small boats scuttling about between them like water beetles.

Edward had settled down uneasily aboard the Goliath. She was a 17,000-ton ship, with four tall funnels and a colossally wide beam reminiscent of the brass and white paint ships of the previous century. She looked every day of her age, out of date, slow and useless. The ship’s company could have been specially selected. They were overweight reservists, for the most part, none of them happy at being recalled to sea. Her officers, with very few exceptions, were of much the same vintage. Among them Edward was regarded as some strange sort of primeval creature who had actually seen war at close quarters. With the exception of an occasional bombardment, the navy had not been in battle since Nelson’s day. Most of the men didn’t have the first idea about what war entailed and didn’t seem over-eager to find out.

The temperature had passed the 100-degree mark and, with no wind, it was like being in the mouth of an open oven. When a wind did blow, it was as if it came direct from hell. Everybody was suffering from prickly heat, tinea or some other form of skin complaint caused by excessive sweat. Writing letters was difficult even when you could raise the energy, because they were always smudged by the drops of sweat. It was necessary to place a towel or a blotter under the wrist to prevent the paper sticking to the skin. Swimming would have been pleasant but there were crocodiles and a fish like a pike that was liable to take a bite out of your legs.

All day the sun blazed down on them. It was almost impossible to stay in the cabins, and to risk exposure on deck was plain stupid. Awnings had been rigged up but they didn’t reduce the sweltering heat. The air they breathed was sweltering. They could only console themselves that it must be a thousand times worse on the Königsberg, which was lying hard up against the river bank somewhere, its company a prey to mosquitoes and mangrove flies.

The hardships were made more irritating because the German ship had disappeared again. The first attempts to get near her had failed, with river mud choking condensers, pumps and evaporators. Goliath’s trudging launch, with its dropping gear for two 14-inch torpedoes, was, it turned out, Covington’s idea of a fast motor boat. There had been a number of unrealistic suggestions for getting the torpedo to the Königsberg, including doing it with a skiff or even a dug-out canoe, but none that looked like having the remotest chance of success.

The heat remained intense. The crew was so unhappy that the prospect of action was actually welcomed. Goliath moved close inshore, and set her steam launch and four motor boats in the water. They were all full of red-faced men, their clothes saturated with sweat, cursing under the load of weapons and equipment.

Edward studied them from the well of the launch. Nobody had asked his views – in fact, he hadn’t got any – and the lieutenant in command of the launch, an older man called Crump, who had been in the navy for some time, could not hide his resentment about the way Edward had been instantly promoted to a rank it had taken him years to achieve.

They were dazzled by the glittering water as they left the cliff-like sides of Goliath. The object of the mission was to make an attack on the shore defences thrown up by the German commander. No one was very keen because no one fancied setting up camp in the mangroves.

At low tide the land was a maze of creeks and brown mud and the constant threat of malaria, blackwater fever, yellow fever, elephantiasis and other unmentionable diseases. In the searing heat of the day you could hear the silence. At night the delta came to life with the splash of jumping fish, the strange groaning sound from the trees and the sighing cough of crocodiles.

There was no talking as the little flotilla drew closer to the shore. The water was the colour of milk chocolate, and not far away a flock of grey pelicans bobbed up and down on the wavelets.

The sudden burst of firing made Edward jump and the pelicans vanished in a noisy clatter of wings. Edward saw splinters leaping from the gunwale of the steam launch within a few feet of his face. Tucking his head down, he peered across the water under the brim of his pith helmet, wondering exactly where the firing was coming from. Then he saw wisps of smoke among the trees and realised the Germans had lined the whole of the shore on both sides of the creek. A man yelped in pain and fell backwards into the bottom of the boat. There was blood on his face but, judging by the oaths he was using, he wasn’t badly hurt. A line of bullet splashes in the water indicated they were under fire from machine-guns.

The boats began to turn away and several more men were hit. There was a sudden flash on the side of the steam launch and Edward saw the starboard torpedo chocks drop away and the missile they were supporting belly-flop into the water. The line of bubbles veered erratically through the fleet and he saw one boat after another take desperate evasive action.

From behind the trees a raft appeared. It consisted of two logs fitted with a small outboard motor. Between the logs was a torpedo.

‘For God’s sake,’ Crump yelled. ‘Talk about Fred Karno’s navy. Starboard your helm!’

Fortunately the German torpedo was no more accurate than the British one. It swung round in a circle so that the Germans had to heave their raft to port as it whisked past them to run up on the mud and explode against a tree.

Both sides hooted with laughter. ‘Ve exchange you,’ one of the Germans yelled. ‘Yours for ours. Zey are all as bad.’

 

It looked as though torpedo attacks were out of the question. To run the gauntlet of concealed defences through the maze of channels presented unacceptable risks to the boats’ crews and the likelihood of getting close enough for a clear shot at the cruiser was remote. But the admiral in command, chivvied from Cape Town and London, refused to accept defeat. As they sweated uncomfortably through the following weeks, two Sopwith seaplanes arrived. Loaded, they couldn’t get off the water and, stripped down almost to their spars, the pilots found themselves aloft without observers or bombs and with only an hour’s supply of fuel. In that steaming corner of Africa the glue that helped hold the machines together started to run. The laminated propellers warped and the fabric of wings and fuselage shrank and became brittle.

 

Two weeks later, two strange-looking vessels appeared off the delta. They were around 300 feet long and 50 feet wide but they had only three feet of freeboard. Even fully laden they drew little more than six feet. Each had a single funnel and an 80-foot mast amidships.

‘Severn and Mersey,’ Crump said as he came back after a visit to the strange new ships. ‘Built for the Brazilian Navy for use up the Amazon and taken over by us when the war started. Slow as snails and can’t be long away from port, but they have two six-inchers and two four point sevens. They’ve seen some action off the Belgian coast and were going to be used at Gallipoli.’

More ancient aircraft arrived soon afterwards, but they were in bad shape. Edward’s expertise with engines was called on. They experimented with fuel blends and adjusted the carburettors until the threads of the screws were worn. They trimmed and retrimmed the aircraft, and even removed the exhaust systems to build new ones. In the murderous heat tempers frayed quickly. On the other side of the world, ships were being lost on both sides from shells, torpedoes or mines, among them great battleships and liners. But under the roasting sun of East Africa, hundreds of men were doing nothing but pursue one small German raider, struggling with out-dated equipment because everything else was being held in England for the expected clash in the North Sea with the German fleet.

Men began to go down with malaria and Edward was one of them. Taken to Goliath’s sick bay he eventually emerged weak and pale. But he continued to work on the engines, until they began to get something like a show from the aircraft.

‘Let’s go and have a look at this wretched tub,’ said the pilot to Edward. ‘And don’t jerk around too much or we’ll be crocodile meat.’

It was a great deal cooler at 1000 feet. The clatter of the engine made conversation impossible but Watkins soon pointed out the German cruiser that had defied their efforts for so long. It looked like a grey-green cigar covered here and there with foliage. Her side-screens and awnings were spread, smoke was rising from her funnels and she looked surprisingly smart, considering how long she’d been there.

As they returned, the engine began to make clattering noises mixed with breathy sighs and choking coughs. Then it stopped altogether. The propeller came to a jerky halt. But the pilot knew his stuff, and they glided safely down to where a group of British whalers waited in case of trouble.

Returning to the mouth of the delta, Edward found shipwrights and seamen being drafted to the monitors to prepare them for battle. Their decks were being built up with sandbags. The compass and hand-steering wheel were protected with more sandbags and the bridge was screened with piled hammocks, while scores of men hung over their sides painting them the same green as the mangroves.

On Edward’s birthday the monitors steamed down the coast, as close inshore as they could manage, to familiarise themselves with the landmarks and the route through the river maze. The following day there would be a high tide which would carry them over the mudbanks. All unnecessary equipment had been removed. Galley fires had been extinguished. Every man was issued with four meat sandwiches, and baskets of oranges and buckets of oatmeal and water were placed about the ships.

At four in the morning, with the other warships in position to give support, the monitors began to creep forward, each towing a motor boat.

A mist shrouded the river and flotillas of pelicans clattered into the air with the first shot.

‘Forty-seven millimetre,’ someone said laconically. ‘Over there. On the bank.’

As the firing started the motor boats drew back, ready to pick up survivors. Taking his boat to the sheltered side of the Severn, Edward waited as the three-pounders began to crack away to keep German heads down. Through lulls in the din, he could hear the high-pitched buzzing of the spotting aeroplane overhead. By 6.30, with the sun well up and the heat tremendous, the monitors slowed to a stop.

‘Let go anchors.’

They were around 10,000 yards from the target and the first shots were short. The monitors were soon being straddled.

‘They’re firing four to every one of ours,’ someone commented.

‘It’s a good job they’re not hitting anything.’

A piercing yell came from one of the look-outs on the Severn.

‘Torpedo!’

They could see the line of bubbles quite distinctly but couldn’t work out from where the torpedo had been launched. Every gun in the area opened up and the torpedo leapt broken-backed from the water.

The din was terrific. Overhead Watkins was trying to drop bombs on the German ship. None of them scored a direct hit. But puffs of smoke rose from the water and the mangrove tops shook under the blasts.

The Königsberg’s shells were falling on the river banks, hurling mud and bushes into the air. The Mersey had been struck twice and her forward 6-inch gun had been knocked out. The next shot hit her motor boat and Edward saw it disappear in a shower of spray, planks, pieces of metal and human limbs.

Severn was also taking heavy punishment. The anchor was weighed and she began to move. The firing continued throughout the day. And, as the sun began to drop towards the horizon, the monitors headed back to the river mouth. As they came alongside Goliath, there were cheers from the men lining the rails as the exhausted boats’ crews climbed back on board.

‘Finish it tomorrow,’ Crump said, knocking back a gin in the wardroom.

‘It’ll be nice to be in at the death,’ Edward said drily.

‘Not you, old boy,’ Crump grinned. ‘You’re away.’

‘Where to?’

‘Some business on Lake Tanganyika, Number One says. They’ve got two motor boats. Real ones. That sounds more like your cup of tea.’