Maiden Voyages (59 page)

Our day was heaven. It was peaceful drifting along in the gentle current, and every now and then when I had nothing better to do I would paddle lazily, listening to the riot of jungle noises, and watching clouds of large yellow and black butterflies against a sunny blue sky.

At dusk we moored
La Pirogue
to a fallen tree. It was another horrific night of mosquitoes and the darkness rang with their evil blood-frenzied song. This time I didn’t use thick coverings, I climbed into my sleeping bag, but the sweat bath was just as bad and somehow the mosquitoes found a way inside the sleeping bag. I screamed a long anguished howl. Lesley didn’t go to sleep; she sat up inside her mosquito net and used the torch to spot the mosquitoes, clapping her hands on five or six at
a time and announcing the death toll in a monotonous voice all night long, while far away we could hear pounding drums of people celebrating in the forest. We opened the whisky bottle but took only a small drink, knowing that there would be many more nights when we would need it again.

As the sun rose we floated off downriver. Dawn in an iridescent world, hushed as the inner wall of a shell. Mist floating suspended in a never-ending sky, vulnerable as all beautiful things. The water was like glass; purple flowering hyacinth cast reflections as true as life; we drifted silently; it was not for us to disturb the tranquillity. The wide flat river went snaking through dense tangled mighty forest; trees tall and majestic, roped together with knotted vines, strung with white flowering creeper; branches hung shaggy with green trailing lichen, and enshrouded in cobweb; straight trees with pale luminous pinky-yellow bark, short squat trees with leaves like fans, or feathers; trees with leaves the size of umbrellas; gnarled old and crooked trees; immense trees 100 feet tall with roots like the fins of rocket ships; impenetrable dark undergrowth; monkeys fighting and thunder rumbling; parrots and horn-bills flying overhead; hot and sultry sun; the smell of sweating earth in the forest, and the perfume of flowers hanging heavily in the air.

I caught sight of a movement on the water; it was a dugout going across the river to an island where there was a group of six small round huts. The dugout was paddled by a woman returning from her vegetable garden; she came over to look at us, steering close alongside. She sold us twenty maize cobs and a branch of plantain bananas for 50 CFA (11p), although what she really wanted in exchange was
La Pirogues
rudder.

I really enjoyed being helmsman and learning how to handle our dugout. There was a variety of factors which affected our course and every change in each small element altered our direction. I had to take into account the river currents, the breeze, what clothes were hanging up to dry, which side Lesley was paddling, and how strongly we were paddling. When we both paddled powerfully the dugout responded far more quickly to the rudder and was much easier to control. The kink in the middle of
La Pirogue
meant that it always looked as if it were moving crabwise. Navigation was no problem; we either aimed for the
furthest river horizon between the islands, or else we chose a particuarly beautiful water hyacinth and followed wherever it went.

We reached the junction of three countries, Central African Republic and Congo on our right, and Zaire on our left. It was about noon so we stopped on an island, made fire, roasted some corn and plantain, and finished off the fish from the previous day. We dug under the trees looking for worms to bait our fishing lines. Our tackle was rather primitive, just hooks tied onto nylon thread and wound round bits of wood, but then our fishing wasn’t very skilful either. Generally I just dropped the hooks overboard and looped the lines through my toes.

Lesley fell asleep in the sand, she hadn’t slept at all the previous night, and I went off to chase big colourful butterflies. A swarm of flies appeared which didn’t bite but tried to crawl into my ears, eyes, nose and mouth. They had also besieged Lesley, so we jumped into the dugout and fled. One island that we paddled past produced an echo, and we started clapping, tapping and drumming on the sides of the dugout, the rhythm resounding back and forth punctuated by the screeches of the monkeys and the haunting song of the hornbills which sounded like the ringing of a crystal wine glass when you run a damp finger fast round its rim. Our melody ended with the hiss of rain which swept upriver, made the water bubble and drenched us. We tried to take shelter under the tarpaulin, but it was full of holes and totally porous.

As the day drew to a close I started thinking about the night ahead and I shuddered with fear. The dugout was too wet to sleep in, the river banks were sheer clay cliffs topped by thick forest, there was nowhere to stop, and we hadn’t seen any villages or huts since early morning. We kept moving, hoping to find a stopping place; sunset became twilight, and the night arrived, but we still hadn’t found anywhere, and then it was too dark to see. We knew that if we went along near to the shore the current would push us onto rocks and half-submerged trees, so we pulled further out into the river. In the dim moonlight and with the aid of our torch we could just make out the line of the cliffs; the torch batteries were failing, so we put in new batteries, but they didn’t work. Obviously we weren’t going to be able to spot a camping place. A couple of miles later Lesley called out that
she had seen distant flickering light and our hopes soared: the flickers of light turned out to be moonlight glinting on waves, white waves; soon we could hear the roaring noise of fast-rushing water, though we couldn’t see what was happening. Time stood still, and we kept moving.

The noise grew louder, and my eyes ached from straining to see in the darkness. The river became choppy, then it was churning and foaming, as we both paddled desperately; the dugout veered to the left and began to swing round; I pushed the tiller out against the current, a wave flooded in over my legs, the dugout responded, and we slid into calm water. Whatever it was back there, we had missed it. I was terrified.

It started to rain, and the miles stretched on. Then we heard voices, real voices, somewhere on the Congo shore ahead of us. We shouted to them, “Help, help, please get us off this river,” and we kept yelling until we were hoarse. Lamps appeared, and we were guided to the bank by the light. We tied the dugout to a tree, staggered up the rough clay steps hewn in the cliff, and into a small clearing with a
campement
of three huts. Five people wearing grass skirts stood in the lamplight staring at us in astonishment. We shook hands with them all and when we smiled they beamed back at us with their old and wrinkled faces.

The language of the river tribes was Likouala. It was a harsh-sounding tongue but easy to understand from tones and expressions, and some of the words were derived from French. Many of the local fishing folk we had met spoke simple French, but here they only spoke Likouala.

“What are they?” one asked.

An old woman replied something to the effect of, “I think they are girls.” Whatever it was she had said, the other disagreed and they took us to the fire to observe us more closely. We sat down by the fire. Since we couldn’t converse with them in French we drew some pictures instead. They were delighted with the pictures and put them proudly in their huts. They gave us supper of highly peppered fish, which was so hot that I felt as though I was breathing flames. We slept on mats on the floor; more rain cooled the night, but the mosquitoes still tormented us.

A sore-throated rooster woke us at dawn. We thanked the people for their kindness and as we clambered into our dugout we found that they had put a pile of fish and cassava there as a present to us.

* * *

We drifted and paddled leisurely onwards, ran up against a submerged sandbank, climbed out and pushed, glided on, then hit another sandbank, climbed out and pushed again, but every inch only wedged the dugout tighter and higher on the sand. Soon it was stuck firm. The water was only a few inches deep. We pushed and pulled and dug away the sand from underneath, but got nowhere. A strong fisherman paddled up, gave our dugout a hearty shove, refloated it, and handed us another fish.

In a short time, we were out of the sandbanks and onto a fast straight stretch of river. We raced along feeling elated with the wind blowing through our hair as we sped the paddles in short rapid strokes through the water. We zigzagged among the clumps of hyacinth which floated spinning lazily in the swirling movement of the current. Then the surface of the river suddenly erupted and we shot head-on into the bank. The surface of the river could change abruptly; one moment the water would be flowing strongly but placidly, and the next instant it became a raging, bubbling mass of wide circles which spun with uplifted edges. I presumed that they must have been caused by the powerful underwater currents hitting rocks or shoals on the riverbed, and as the current veered to a specific angle, so the surface erupted in turmoil. The local people called them whirlpools. Many were permanent whirlpools, like the ones round every headland, some were small and weak, others were very large and very strong. Being caught in them produced a feeling similar to driving a car on ice; suddenly you were out of control, skidding and sliding weightlessly.

To begin with we were not very good at managing the dugout; we spent a lot of time hurtling downriver broadside or backwards, both shouting instructions to each other that neither could hear. We were growing expert at spreading out our soaked belongings to dry in the sun. The tarpaulin was constantly wet because it lay in the bottom of the dugout, and as soon as we dried it, something unfortunate would happen. Accidents such as once when Lesley was carrying the freshly dried tarpaulin down to
La Pirogue
, which had moved out slightly from the shore. Lesley took two paces in ankle deep water, and at the third
step she fell up to her neck in the river. The tarpaulin was soaked again, and we laughed until we cried.

Nights were less horrifying after Lesley suggested that we try sleeping on the shore in the breeze and not too close to the water’s edge. The first night we tried that we found a riverside glade on the Zaire bank and made camp there. Within half an hour three men arrived in a dugout, and one, who claimed he was a member of the militia, came ashore. He wanted to see our papers and examine our boat. We were rather anxious because we didn’t have visas for Zaire, but we needn’t have worried—he didn’t know how to read. After looking intently at the pictures he turned to
La Pirogue
, started pulling all our gear out of the tin trunk and ordered us to tell him what it was for. We knew from experience that if we explained the items then every time he saw something he fancied he would demand it. So we offered him coffee and sat chatting with him instead. He was very pleasant and he left after dark. We dug the tent poles into the ground, draped our mosquito nets over them, and settled down to sleep. The mosquitoes invaded us but it was not as bad as before. Then it started to rain so we got up to pull the tarpaulin over the dugout. The rain was followed by the noise of monkeys fighting, squealing in anger and throwing nuts at each other which landed on us. Finally, there was peace and quiet, except for the eerie howling of a wildcat hunting nearby in the forest.

In the middle of the night the militia man returned. This time it was a social call—he had brought a huge smoked catfish to eat as a midnight feast. It was delicious, but the man showed no signs of going away. I had an inspiration. I started to scratch. I scratched my arms and legs and head as though I was thick with fleas; Lesley joined in. It had a potent psychological effect and after five minutes the militia man bade us goodnight.

Our second visit to Zaire was more fun. We stopped at a village to refill our giant water container which was almost empty and we found that the local water supply was of course the river. The river was a muddy brown colour from the rains which were falling here and to the north, but if the villagers could drink it then so could we. A huge crowd had gathered round us the moment we stepped ashore, the atmosphere
was friendly, but they stared and stared. The bolder ones spoke to us in simple French and asked if they could touch our hair, exclaiming with wonder at its softness. Others peered curiously at the colour of our skin, assuming that the whiteness was due to a disease. Several people wanted to know if we were girls. Then they brought out two stools, sat us down, and stared at us for a long time. I was equally curious about them. Most of the people wore grass skirts, and I noticed some remarkable tribal brands, including many narrowly-spaced parallel lines which gave their faces a weird stripey look. At first I felt embarrassed about wanting to stare at Africans, I had always considered it impolite. But in Africa it is not rude to stare and by tradition a newcomer was usually expected to sit or squat while he was scrutinised for half an hour. When the people were satisfied having looked at his appearance, they would formally demand to know his tribe and destination.

“What tribe are you?” asked a big man standing at the front.

“English,” I answered.

“Where are you going?”

“To Brazzaville.”

A murmur ran through the crowd, and the big man who was obviously their chief observed (in all seriousness) that we would not reach Brazzaville before nightfall, so we had better stay the night in his village.

They were gregarious affable people; they wanted to know about the countries we came from and why we were paddling down the river. Lesley noticed a young girl with some infected sores on her arms and asked if she could help her. Our medical kit consisted only of aspirin, nivaquine and a tube of antibiotic cream, but Lesley couldn’t bear to see untreated injuries or people in pain. The girl took us to her parents’ hut where we boiled some water and someone brought a piece of cloth to tear into bandages. Then someone else came and requested Lesley to go and look at his sick father, and several people turned up who seemed to have malaria, so Lesley dispensed some nivaquine to them. Quinine was the only cure for malaria; I was surprised to learn that quinine trees did not grow in Africa. For white people malaria could be a killer, but it seemed that the Africans had adapted to some extent and only suffered from a mild form of it.