National Geographic: The Jungle Navy Page #2

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leadership.

Undaunted, Spicer has chief engineer

Wainwright come up with a plan.

Wainwright has more trees cut,

reinforces the bridge,

and the convoy plods forward.

"The work was completed at 2:30 p.m.

and the trailers were towed across

and a start was made along

the road at 3.

good progress was made along

the road

and at 6 p.m. a camp was formed

for the night."

Spicer knows there are more than

The path they are following

continues uphill for 60 miles,

then they reach the Mitumba

Mountains, a 6,400 foot range.

Day by day, mile by mile, the former

desk officer grows more confident

- his boasts more outrageous...

the men love him.

"...he appealed immensely to

the ratings...

They all appreciate a commanding

officer who's a bit mad, eccentric.

And he was obviously mad.

Therefore he was marvelous.

"I'd say he could not refrain from

telling absurd stories

about his prowess at shooting

the lions he'd shot,

although I'd never heard of any

lions in Gambia."

The caravan survives on the skill

of its African hunters,

living off wild buck and guinea fowl.

As for water,

Hanschell and a team of Africans

find the nearest water source.

Much of the water is for the steam

tractors.

The rest is filtered, boiled,

then filtered twice more and

used for tea, cooking

and the next day's water rations.

The steam engines are insatiable

consumers of water and firewood

- advance parties prepare

storage caches of lumber.

"The journey through the Bush was

divided up into three 50-mile stages,

and at the end of each stage was

built a depot

to keep the sun off the provisions

and ammunition."

The Englishmen, many of them

new to Africa,

fear lions and crocodiles,

but Doctor Hanschell's duty is

keeping the men healthy

in a region plagued by unseen

killers.

"One very valuable thing was the

paymaster.

He began to get some boils on his

shoulders,

and out of the boils popped worms,

big maggots rather.

The men all saw this, I showed it,

and I said, "Now see, here you are

going through a country

where the danger's from insects,

not from wild animals but insects.

You see what they can do."

From the spies, crude telegraph

lines convey fragments of news

to Kapitan Zimmer

- he believes that Spicer has

come to help the Belgians

build new warships at Lake

Tanganyika...

"Around Lukuga and south of

there by Kalemie

there seemed to be only

defensive building going on."

But, about Mimi and Toutou

, Zimmer knows nothing.

While the confident Germans wait,

the English plod on... one

agonizing mile at a time.

"Three and a quarter miles a day

was the average for the boats.

Occasionally we did rather more,

and on one occasion we covered

but there were many days

when we were lucky if we did a

mile and a half.

One day, we did only three-quarters of a mile."

By late August, Spicer knows he needs help

if he is to outrun the rains.

At a village called Mwenda Makosi,

the British commandeer 42 oxen

to help

drag the boats up the Mitumba Range.

When the rains begin,

they will turn the plains into a

quagmire

too shallow for ships, too muddy

for wheels.

Until then, heat is the deadliest

enemy

- the thirst for water is

unquenchable

- water for the engines... water

for the oxen...

a few cupfuls a day for the

men.

Then, in early September... a

sudden storm of fire.

Spicer has his men create a fire

break.

He then orders that the precious

mahogany boats

must be protected from flying embers.

For Doctor Hanshell, it is a day of

sheer terror.

"...we nearly lost the whole thing

by fire...

Here was this war train bearing

down on us at a terrific rate.

We'd burnt off, we set fire to it,

only just in time, just in time,

we moved the guns, the wagons

and everything onto the burnt place,

and the thing stopped... it was so

damn near it came."

In the weeks that follow, the oxen

prove their worth.

"The top of the plateau was

reached on September 8, 1915,

and this was a very triumphant

moment for the expedition,

for there were some who had said

that it was impossible to get there.

Our difficulties were by no means

at an end,

for on the downward trek from this point to Sankisia

there was some risky work to be done

in lowering the boats down the

sharp spurs of the mountain..."

They are still weeks away from

the combat zone.

Using 42 oxen, 2 road locomotives,

and hundreds of men,

the expedition struggles to get

down the mountain.

"On more than one occasion

the wheels of the boats dropped

into ant-bear holes.

The only way to get out was to fill

up the hole with logs,

gradually jacking the boat up until

it reached the level.

It was only by good luck that they

received no damage."

"There is a great deal of thunder

and it appears the rains are not

far away.

The journey now, has become a

race to get to the railway

before the rains brake and the

roads become impassable."

Finally, the land is level, but the

dangers remain deadly.

This is the country of the tse tse

fly

- carrier of the sleeping sickness

that kills both men and beasts...

villages are nearly deserted

- the ghost towns of central Africa.

No rain falls... this is a dreadful

blessing -

drought scorches the plains.

"At one point the traction

engines came to a standstill

for want of water,

and the members of the expedition

were getting only half a pint a day."

Lt-Commander Spicer offers local

women a bolt of colored cloth

if they will trek eight miles to the

nearest well

- hundreds accept the bargain,

and the convoy moves on.

For the first time since he tested

them on the Thames,

Geoffrey Spicer's two-boat flotilla

reaches water deep enough

to sail upon

- Mimi and Toutou are reassembled

and lowered into the Lualaba River.

October 1, 1915.

Stage Four.

They will float, or drag their boats,

- strange apparitions to the

resident wildlife.

"Progress on the river is very slow.

I think Mimi and Tou-Tou hold the

record for grounding,

as on October 7 they were

aground 14 times

in twelve miles."

Even on water, Spicer's flotilla

manages barely ten miles a day

- then, at the rail depot at Kabalo,

Mimi and Toutou must be

- packaged safely for another

journey by rail.

October 22, 1915.

Stage Five.

The final phase of the long

odyssey

- 173 miles across precarious

trestles and crumbling bridges

- to the Belgian shores of Lake

Tanganyika.

Spicer rivals are already

preparing their reception

- Gustav Zimmer has followed every

mile of Spicer's incredible trek,

still unaware of the unlikely cargo.

"...the effort to find out more

about the area around Lukuga and

Kalemie was resumed in earnest.

...we took down a lot of telegraph

wires,

and blew up telegraph stations.

As soon as the British reach their

final destination,

he will send his gunboats to

destroy Geoffrey Spicer

and his half-mad dreams.

October 28, 1915.

After four months and over 9,000

miles of travel,

the unlikely odyssey of

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