Read Online 2004 - Mimi and Toutou Go Forth by Prefers to remain anonymous, Giles Foden - Free Book Online
Book: 2004 - Mimi and Toutou Go Forth by Prefers to remain anonymous, Giles Foden
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Authors: Prefers to remain anonymous, Giles Foden
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discovered that the ship’s torpedoes had been sent ashore. Having disembarked, Pretorius spent a month taking readings of the tide and sounding the channel depths so that the Severn and the Mersey would have a clear passage.
The next few days would see the Königsberg attacked by the flotilla of British boats which was assembling near Mafia Island—a kind of mini version of Zanzibar off the German-held coast, all palm trees and Arab traders. From Mafia Island, with the help of some aircraft, an attack would be launched into the mangrove-choked channels of the Rufiji River where the Königsberg had been hiding for months. The mouth of the river, once the largest waterway on earth, formed an enormous delta about 500 square miles in extent. With mangrove trees occupying the greater portion of the coastline and sand filling up the channels, the Rufiji could only properly be navigated by light-draught ships, such as were assembling at Mafia Island.
It was this operation that preoccupied the British Navy down in Cape Town and not the arrival of Spicer’s expedition. Consequently, there was nobody there to greet them after their 17-day, 6,000-mile voyage. Tyrer stepped down the gangplank, squinting through his monocle, followed by Tait and Mollison in their kilts and all the officers carrying cutlasses and wearing the special grey uniform of the Naval Africa Expedition. Spicer made them parade on the quay once more, as the African stevedores carried off the ship’s cargo. Mimi and Toutou were lifted off the Llanstephen Castle by crane, their mahogany hulls swaying in the freshening wind, the so-called ‘Cape Doctor’, which blew down from the north.
Spicer informed his officers that their hotel was on Adderley Street—a long, slightly rackety thoroughfare that stretched from the lower slopes of Table Mountain down towards the sea; nearby were some formal gardens laid out by the colony’s Dutch founders. Spicer then told ‘Tubby’ Eastwood, his round-faced confidential clerk, to find cheaper lodgings in the town for the ordinary sailors. He drew Dr Hanschell to one side. They would be staying at the Mount Nelson, the town’s most salubrious establishment.
Spicer and the doctor took a hansom cab up there from the docks. An African guard in a solar topi let them through the gate, above which the glorious mountain towered with its ‘table-cloth’ of cloud. The cab horse trotted up Mount Nelson’s cobbled driveway, which was lined on either side by majestic, thick-trunked Royal palms. Another guard in a sun-helmet opened the door of the cab and Dr Hanschell stepped out and stood before one of the grandest hotels he had ever seen. Surrounded by lush gardens and painted a creamy buff, it was a kind of Gothic folly: the last bastion of European sophistication on the southernmost tip of Africa.↓
≡ The hotel, which still exists, was painted pink in the 1920 s , probably because this colour reminded the Mount Nelson’s Italian manager of the villas of his homeland.
This pillared palace had a history, too. A young journalist called Winston Churchill had stayed there while covering the Anglo-Boer War, which had ended a mere 13 years before. Were it not for the Gallipoli debacle, Churchill would have been Spicer’s ultimate superior, as head of the Navy.
This wasn’t the fallen minister’s only connection to the battle getting under way in East Africa. In 1914, as First Lord of the Admiralty, Churchill had sent a glowing message to the crew of two of the light-draught ships now assembled at Mafia Island, HMS Severn and HMS Mersey . These ‘unseaworthy steel boxes’ (originally intended as river barges for the Brazilian Navy) carried very little fuel, but earlier in the War they had played an important role supporting the Belgian Army off Calais and Boulogne. It was for this reason Churchill congratulated their crew, who, like Spicer’s men, were mainly volunteers and reservists. They would have joined the Gallipoli
The next few days would see the Königsberg attacked by the flotilla of British boats which was assembling near Mafia Island—a kind of mini version of Zanzibar off the German-held coast, all palm trees and Arab traders. From Mafia Island, with the help of some aircraft, an attack would be launched into the mangrove-choked channels of the Rufiji River where the Königsberg had been hiding for months. The mouth of the river, once the largest waterway on earth, formed an enormous delta about 500 square miles in extent. With mangrove trees occupying the greater portion of the coastline and sand filling up the channels, the Rufiji could only properly be navigated by light-draught ships, such as were assembling at Mafia Island.
It was this operation that preoccupied the British Navy down in Cape Town and not the arrival of Spicer’s expedition. Consequently, there was nobody there to greet them after their 17-day, 6,000-mile voyage. Tyrer stepped down the gangplank, squinting through his monocle, followed by Tait and Mollison in their kilts and all the officers carrying cutlasses and wearing the special grey uniform of the Naval Africa Expedition. Spicer made them parade on the quay once more, as the African stevedores carried off the ship’s cargo. Mimi and Toutou were lifted off the Llanstephen Castle by crane, their mahogany hulls swaying in the freshening wind, the so-called ‘Cape Doctor’, which blew down from the north.
Spicer informed his officers that their hotel was on Adderley Street—a long, slightly rackety thoroughfare that stretched from the lower slopes of Table Mountain down towards the sea; nearby were some formal gardens laid out by the colony’s Dutch founders. Spicer then told ‘Tubby’ Eastwood, his round-faced confidential clerk, to find cheaper lodgings in the town for the ordinary sailors. He drew Dr Hanschell to one side. They would be staying at the Mount Nelson, the town’s most salubrious establishment.
Spicer and the doctor took a hansom cab up there from the docks. An African guard in a solar topi let them through the gate, above which the glorious mountain towered with its ‘table-cloth’ of cloud. The cab horse trotted up Mount Nelson’s cobbled driveway, which was lined on either side by majestic, thick-trunked Royal palms. Another guard in a sun-helmet opened the door of the cab and Dr Hanschell stepped out and stood before one of the grandest hotels he had ever seen. Surrounded by lush gardens and painted a creamy buff, it was a kind of Gothic folly: the last bastion of European sophistication on the southernmost tip of Africa.↓
≡ The hotel, which still exists, was painted pink in the 1920 s , probably because this colour reminded the Mount Nelson’s Italian manager of the villas of his homeland.
This pillared palace had a history, too. A young journalist called Winston Churchill had stayed there while covering the Anglo-Boer War, which had ended a mere 13 years before. Were it not for the Gallipoli debacle, Churchill would have been Spicer’s ultimate superior, as head of the Navy.
This wasn’t the fallen minister’s only connection to the battle getting under way in East Africa. In 1914, as First Lord of the Admiralty, Churchill had sent a glowing message to the crew of two of the light-draught ships now assembled at Mafia Island, HMS Severn and HMS Mersey . These ‘unseaworthy steel boxes’ (originally intended as river barges for the Brazilian Navy) carried very little fuel, but earlier in the War they had played an important role supporting the Belgian Army off Calais and Boulogne. It was for this reason Churchill congratulated their crew, who, like Spicer’s men, were mainly volunteers and reservists. They would have joined the Gallipoli
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