In every detail he was a Wakamba tribesman.
"You'll do," said Flynn.
In the dawn, little wisps of river mist swirled around
Commissioner Fleischer's legs as he came down the bank and on to the improvised jetty of logs.
He ran his eyes over the two launches, checking the ropes that held down the cargoes of timber. The launches sat low in the water,
their exhausts puttering and blowing pale blue smoke that drifted away across the slick surface of the river.
"Are you ready?" he called to his sergeant of Askari.
"The men are eating, Bwana Mkuba."
"Tell them to hurry," growled
Fleischer. It was a futile order and he stepped to the edge of the jetty, unbuttoning his trousers. He urinated noisily into the river,
and the circle of men who squatted around the three-legged pot on the jetty watched him with interest, but without interrupting their breakfast.
With leather cloaks folded around their shoulders against the chill air off the water, they reached in turn into the pot and took a handful of the thick white maize porridge, moulding it into a mouth-size ball and then with the thumb forming a cup in the ball,
dipping the ball into the smaller enamel dish and filling the depression with the creamy yellow gravy it contained, a tantalizing mixture of stewed catfish and tree caterpillars.
It was the first time that Sebastian had tasted this delicacy. He sat with the others and imitated their eating routine, forcing himself to place a lump of the spiced maize meal in his mouth. His gorge rose and gagged him, it tasted like fish oil and new-mown grass, not really offensive it was just the thought of those fat yellow caterpillars.
But had he been eating ham sandwiches, his appetite would not have been hearty.
His stomach was cramped with apprehension. He was a spy. A word from one of his companions, and Commissioner Fleischer would shout for the hanging ropes. Sebastian remembered the men he had seen in the monkey-bean tree on the bank of this same river, he remembered the flies clustered on their swollen, lolling tongues. It was not a mental picture conducive to enjoyment of breakfast.
Now, pretending to eat, he watched Commissioner Fleischer instead.
It was the first time he had done so at leisure. The bulky figure in grey corduroy uniform, the pink boiled face with pale golden eyelashes,
the full petulant lips, the big freckled hands, all these revolted him.
He felt his uneasiness swamped by a revival of the emotions that had possessed him as he stood beside the newly filled grave of his daughter on the heights above Lalapanzi.
"Black pig-animals," shouted Herman Fleischer in Swahili, as he rebuttoned his clothing. "That is enough! You do nothing but eat and sleep. It is time now for work." He waddled across the logs of the jetty, into the little circle of porters. His first kick sent the three-legged pot clattering, his second kick caught Sebastian in the back and threw him forward on to his knees.
"Rasch!" He aimed another kick at one of them, but it was dodged,
and the porters scattered to the launches.
Sebastian scrambled up. He had been kicked only once before in his life, and Flynn O'Flynn had learned not to do it again. For
Sebastian there was nothing so humiliating as the contact of another man's foot against his person, also it had hurt.
Herman Fleischer had turned away to chivvy the others, so he did not see the hatred nor the way that Sebastian snarled at him, crouching like aleopard. Another second and he would have been on him. He might have killed Fleischer before the Askari shot him down but he never made the attempt.
A hand on his arm. Mohammed's cousin beside him, his" voice very low.
"Come! Let it pass. They will kill us also." And when Fleischer turned back the two of them had gone to the launch.
On the run down-river, Sebastian huddled with the others. Like them, drawing his cloak over his head to keep off the sun, but unlike them, he did not sleep. Through half-hooded eyes he was still watching
Herman Fleischer, and his thoughts were hate-Ugly.
Even with the current, the run in the deep-laden launches took almost four hours, and it was noon before they chugged around the last bend in the channel and turned in towards the mangrove forests.
Sebastian saw Herman Fleischer swallow the last bite of sausage and carefully repack the remainder into his haversack. He stood up and spoke to the man at the rudder, and both of them peered ahead.
"We have arrived," said Mohammed's cousin, and removed his cloak from over his head. The little huddle of porters stirred into wakefulness and Sebastian stood up with them. all This time he knew what to look for, and he saw the muzzy silhouette of the Blucher skulking under her camouflage. From low down on the water she looked mountainous, and Sebastian's spine tingled as he remembered when last he had seen her from this angle, driving down to ram them with those axe-sharp blows. But now she floated awry, listing heavily.
"The boat leans over to one side."
"Yes," agreed Mohammed's cousin. "The Allemand wanted it so. There has been a great carrying of goods within her, they have moved everything to make the boat lean over."
"Why?" The man shrugged and pointed with his chin. "They have lifted her belly from the water, see how they work with fire on the holes in her skin." Tiny as beetles, men swarmed on the exposed hull,
and even in the bright glare of midday, the welding torches flared and sparkled with blue-white flame. The new plating was conspicious in its coat of dull brown zinc oxide paint, against the battleship-grey of the original hull.
As the launch approached, Sebastian studied the work carefully.
He could see that it was nearing completion, the welders were running closed the last seams in the new plating. Already there were painters covering the oxide red with the matt grey final coat.
The pock marks of the shell splinters in her upper-works following had been closed, and here again men hung on the flimsy trapezes of rope and planks, their arms lifting and falling as they plied the paint brushes.
An air of bustle and intent activity gripped the Blitcher.
Everywhere men moved about fifty different tasks, while the uniforms of the officers were restless white spots roving about her decks.
"They have closed all the holes in her belly?" Sebastian asked.
"All of them," Mohammed's cousin confirmed. "See how she spits out the water that was in her womb." And he pointed again with his chin. From a dozen outlet vents, Blitcher's pumps were expelling solid streams of brown water as she emptied the flooded compartments.
"There is smoke from her chimneys," Sebastian exclaimed, as he noticed for the first time the faint shimmer of heat at the mouths of her stacks.