The attacking flotilla was composed of the launch, under Mr Smellie, with me for an aide; the first cutter, in charge of Mr Armitage, the third lieutenant; and the second cutter, in charge of Mr Williams, the master’s mate; the force consisting of forty seamen and four officers—quite strong enough, in Captain Vernon’s opinion, to give a satisfactory account of the three slavers, which, it was arranged, we were to attack simultaneously, one boat to each vessel.
The last parting instructions having been given to Smellie by the skipper, and rounded off with a hearty hand-shake and an earnest exclamation of “I wish you success;” with a still more hearty hand-shake and a “Good-bye, Harold, old boy; good luck attend you!” from Mr Austin, the second lieutenant motioned me into the launch; followed me closely down; the word to shove off was given, and away we went punctually at half-past nine to the minute.
The fog was still as thick as ever; so thick, indeed, that it was as much as we could do to see one end of the boat from the other; and, notwithstanding the care with which, as I had had an opportunity of seeing, the second lieutenant had worked out all his calculations, I own that it seemed to me quite hopeless to expect that we should find the place of which we were in search. Nevertheless, we pushed out boldly into the opaque darkness, and the boats’ heads were at once laid in the required direction, each coxswain steering by compass, the lighted binnacle containing which had been previously masked with the utmost care. Our object being to take the slavers by surprise the oars were of course muffled, and the strictest silence enjoined. Thus there was neither light nor sound to betray our whereabouts, and we slid over the placid surface of the river almost as noiselessly as so many mist-wreaths.
In so dense a fog it was necessary to adopt unusual precautions in order to prevent the boats from parting company. We therefore proceeded in single file, the launch leading, with the first cutter attached by her painter, the second cutter, in her turn, attached by her painter to the first cutter, bringing up the rear. The cutters were ordered to regulate their speed so that the connecting rope between each and the boat ahead should be just slack enough to dip into the water and no more, thus insuring that each boat’s crew should do its own fair share of work at the oars.
Once fairly away from the ship’s side we were immediately swallowed up by the impenetrable mist; and for a considerable time the flotilla glided gently along, without a sight or sound to tell us whether we were going right or wrong; without the utterance of a word on board either of the boats; and with only the slight muffled sound of the oars in the rowlocks and the gurgle of the water along the boats’ sides to tell that we were moving at all. The silence would have been oppressive but for the slight murmuring swirl and ripple of the great river and the chirping of the countless millions of insects which swarmed in the bush on both banks of the stream. The latter sent forth so remarkable a volume of sound that when first told it was created by insects alone I found my credulity taxed to its utmost limit; and it was not until I was solemnly assured by Mr Austin that such was the case that I quite believed it. It was not unlike the “whirr” of machinery, save that it rose and fell in distinct cadences, and occasionally—as if by preconcerted arrangement on the part of every individual insect in the district—stopped altogether for a few moments. Then, indeed, the silence became weird, oppressive, uncanny; making one involuntarily shuffle nearer to one’s neighbour and glance half-fearfully over one’s shoulder. Then, after a slight interval, a faint, far-off signal chirp! chirp! would be heard, and in an instant the whole insect-world would burst into full chorus once more, and the air would fairly vibrate with sound. But the night had other voices than this. Mingled with the chirr of the insects there would occasionally float off to us the snarling roar of some forest savage, the barking call of the deer, the yelping of a jackal, the blood-curdling cry of a hyena, the grunt of a hippopotamus, the weird cry of some night-bird; and—nearer at hand, sometimes apparently within a yard or so of the boats—sundry mysterious puffings and blowings, and sudden faint splashings of the water, which latter made me for one, and probably many of the others who heard them, feel particularly uncomfortable, especially if they happened to occur in one of the brief intervals of silence on shore. Once, in particular, during one of those silent intervals, my hair fairly bristled as the boat was suddenly but silently brought up all standing by coming into violent collision with some object which broke water directly under our bows; the shock being instantly followed by a long moaning sigh and a tremendous swirl of the water as the creature—whatever it was—sank again beneath the surface of the river.
The men in the launch were, like myself, considerably startled at the circumstance, and one of them—an Irishman—exclaimed, in the first paroxysm of his dismay:
“Howly ropeyarns! what was that? Is it shipwrecked, stranded, and cast away we are on the back of a say-crocodile? Thin, Misther Crocodile, let me tell yez at wanst that I’m not good to ate; I’m so sthrongly flavoured wid the tibaccy that I’d be shure to disagray wid yez.”
This absurd exclamation appealed so forcibly to the men’s sense of the ridiculous that it had the instant effect of steadying their nerves and raising a hearty laugh, which, however, was as instantly checked by Smellie, who, though he could not restrain a smile, exclaimed sharply:
“Silence, fore and aft! How dare you cry out in that ridiculous fashion, Flanaghan? I have a good mind to report you, sir, as soon as we return to the ship.”
“Who shall say how many of us will live to return?”