Chapter 10
On the morning of Birnier’s departure there was much movement in Ingonya station. Every sign of preparation for the expedition had been carefully concealed while a stranger was in the vicinity. Trumpets blared importantly. On the great parade ground companies were formed, long lines of rigid, ebon figures, down which strolled zu Pfeiffer inspecting personally kits and rifles. Afterwards they were drawn up before the flag-pole. In an address zu Pfeiffer informed them that they served under a greater Bwana than he, the greatest Bwana in the countries of the white or the black, who was the son of Ngai (an uncertain term meaning “son of God” or the “son of nobody”); that the flag they bore, the brother of the big one upon the pole, was so powerful in magic that none could withstand it, the Totem of the Bwana Mkubwa Kuba. No wives were allowed for black or white, and he himself set them the example; for they were embarking on a war expedition to take a country which they knew was full of ivory, cattle and women.
The row upon row of eyes in black faces bulged, as from the mass came the long grunt of assent and allegiance. The three white sergeants barked at their various companies, which wheeled into column formation and marched past zu Pfeiffer beneath the flag in review order, their alignment and precision a credit to [pg 120] their drill masters. Down below the fort on the mouth of the bayou Sergeant Ludwig superintended the overhauling of the steam-launch, and a native sergeant and a file of men overseered lines of carriers bearing white men’s provisions, the bulk of which was zu Pfeiffer’s personal supplies. Around the launch was a flotilla of native canoes in charge of a small crowd of nude Kavirondo paddlers, jabbering at the prospect of a war expedition.
Most of the day zu Pfeiffer spent in the orderly room going over documents and giving detailed instructions to the grizzled Sergeant Schneider, who was to take over the station with fifty of the least competent men, pending the arrival of an officer, which again would depend upon the success of the expedition. In zu Pfeiffer’s manner was evident the controlled excitement of a boy on the eve of a house match, and indeed for him it was the game for which he was bred and lived, “das Kriegspiel.” Perpetually his long fingers caressed the sentry moustaches; an unusual glitter was in his blue eyes.
The personality of [Birnier] had been apparently wiped from his mind as a spoor in the sand by rain; indeed in addition to the competing excitement of the expedition, the previous night’s alcoholic and sentimental debauch had served to exhaust the emotions stimulated by jealousy. To him had appeared an obstruction in his emotional life in the shape of the husband of the woman whom he adored; therefore, according to his nature and training, he had endeavoured to remove that obstacle as swiftly and as efficiently as possible. Superlative confidence in himself, reflected in his pride of family and nationality, [pg 121] the apotheosis of which was the Kaiser, enabled him to devote all his energies to the business in hand, never doubting that his interpretation of native psychology would ensure the extinction of his adversary.
Beyond the mere joy of the game of war was present the fundamental impulse to win the approval of the All Highest by gaining another place in the sun as well as the half-suppressed conviction that such a distinction would naturally further his suit in love. In the orbit of these two poles revolved the life actions of zu Pfeiffer.
That evening zu Pfeiffer dined as leisurely and as sumptuously as usual; drank his port and smoked his cigar while his servants packed the last of his kitchen battery. Then at the first green of the moon he gave the order to march.
The three companies of askaris fell in, marched down to the bayou and embarked without fuss or confusion, each group under a non-commissioned officer to the appointed canoe.
The launch laboured busily out of the bayou past misty reed-girt islands into the indolent waters of the great lake, dragging after her the fleet of forty odd canoes. A cigar under the awning of the tiny poop suggested a great firefly in the blue shadows, where lounged zu Pfeiffer with his favourite brandy and seltzer at his elbow.
Resembling an enormous water-fowl leading a strange black brood, the launch towed the flotilla through the night. A war chant pulsed like a fevered heart as the moon upon her back lazily chased the stars into the dawn upon her way to her home in the Mountains of the Moon, to be in turn extinguished by a furious sun. [pg 122] And all that day, while incandescent heat tried to boil illimitable waters, the strange fowl waddled on with her noxious brood. Huddled in the cramped canoes the soldiers slept and snuffed and sang, to which zu Pfeiffer contentedly listened beneath the awning. Three times grey walls of falling water enveloped them, sending frantic black hands to bailing. Once more the moon made the skies to laugh. When the sun had played his part of a flaming Nemesis, a fringe grew upon the horizon like the stubble upon a white man’s chin.
Zu Pfeiffer had calculated to arrive at the village of Timballa just within the river at sundown. The headman came down to the strand to meet them. Immediately he was seized, and the soldiers, as joyous and as mischievous as children released from school, surrounded the village.
Sitting in full uniform upon the poop of the launch, together with the two sergeants, zu Pfeiffer held a shauri and demanded sufficient paddlers to man his forty canoes. The headman, to whom all white men were alike, thought they were British and hastened to proffer his services, promising that the Bwana should have the men within two days. Zu Pfeiffer curtly ordered him to procure them before the sun was overhead on the next day; and to insure that he was obeyed, detained him as hostage and forbade any man to pass his line of pickets around the village. The old man protested that they had not sufficient men in the village, but zu Pfeiffer’s spies had afforded him practically correct information. He gave the headman the right to send a number of messengers, each accompanied by a soldier, to the neighbouring villages [pg 123] and promised him fifty lashes and to rase his village, if the paddlers were not forthcoming.
Solely because he wished to give his men time to recover from their stiffness did he not insist upon starting that night upon the river trip. As a good commander he considered his men from every point of view of efficiency. They loved him. He was a warrior chief as they understood such to be; carefully he fostered their warrior pride; never were they ordered to work at menial offices, to fetch or to carry; only to drill and to fight; his punishments were ferocious, but he gave them liberty in pillage and rape. Eh! but the Eater-of-Men was a mighty chief! and of his name they boasted to every man.
With foresight he had demanded twice as many men as he needed, knowing that the panic-stricken chief would round up the halt, the blind, and the sick. By an hour after the stipulated time they were assembled in the village, a motley crew. Those of the most powerful physique he selected to man the soldiers’ canoes, and the next in competency he allotted to the baggage canoes.
They started immediately. They made about two and a half miles an hour, for although the river was swollen it was sluggish and slow streamed, tortuous. Each canoe load of soldiers was made responsible for the paddlers and the speed was set by zu Pfeiffer in a large canoe with Sakamata as guide. Never had those paddlers driven canoes so speedily and persistently. At sundown they halted in a convenient bend where there was no village near; pickets were set on the bank and no other man allowed to land, no lights and no talking. They were ordered to rest.
At the first glint of the moon they started again. The canoes were hauled by the aid of the soldiers over the slight rapids which divided the river into pools in the dry season. Throughout the night the misty forest and swamp slipped by to the perpetual rhythm of the paddles. About the hour of the monkey a hippopotamus charged the flotilla and upset two boats. Zu Pfeiffer forbade any shooting, nor would he permit the expedition a moment’s delay to pick up the occupants. Just as they heard the distant crowing of cocks from the village for which they were bound, four paddlers collapsed. The soldiers, acting on their own initiative, threw them overboard to swim if they could, and took the paddles themselves. Afterwards they were thrashed for disobedience to orders in having given a possible chance for one of the men to escape to warn the Wongolo. At an hour after sunrise they arrived at the village. The majority of the paddlers were so exhausted that they dropped in the canoes and had to be thrown ashore, where they lay inert, their backs, bloody with the urgent bayonet pricks, caking in the sun.
Beyond this point the river was not navigable, but the village was upon the Wongolo border and within two days or fifteen hours’ continuous march of MFunya MPopo’s (as zu Pfeiffer knew it). Zu Pfeiffer adopted the same tactics to procure porters. But to the chief, in case he should require his services again, he gave an extravagant present and left bales of cloth for the carriers upon their return. Zu Pfeiffer and Sergeant Ludwig travelled in machilas (hammocks) each with a crew of six; the soldiers carried nothing save their rifles, double cartridge belts, a day’s rations; the pick [pg 125] of the carriers bore ammunition and the two [Nordenfeldts] and two pom-poms slung upon poles, and the chop boxes; the men’s blankets and the heavy stuff were to follow more slowly under Sergeant Schultz and fifty men. The country between this village and MFunya MPopo’s was mostly forest and very sparsely inhabited, which afforded some shade and concealment, and lessened the risk of a warning being given.
The expedition started at noon. The carriers were kept on the native shuffling lope by the aid of attentions from the askaris. Two unfortunate small villages which lay on the line of march were surrounded and the inhabitants massacred. Twenty porters collapsed; they were bayoneted to prevent any chance of a successful ruse in escaping to give the alarm, and their loads given to relay men brought for that purpose. The column halted at sundown. The men ate their rations, but the carriers were too exhausted to eat; they drank water and lay prostrate. According to Sakamata they were within two hands’ breadth of the moon of Kawa Kendi’s.
In full uniform of white, girded with sword and revolver, zu Pfeiffer ate, drank, and smoked cigars until the forest roof was patterned against the cold pallor of the moon. Then, after giving final instructions to Sergeant Ludwig and the various native non-commissioned officers, he ordered the jabbering men to march, with the carriers staggering on at the point of the bayonet.