Day 120

Writing exercise – the wilds of Africa.

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The ship took what seemed a long time from the ship’s last approach to being tied up at the wharf in Mombasa, Kenya.

I had watched the proceedings from the upper deck, the wharf swarming with people servicing other ships, and the groups waiting to take the ropes and tie us in between two similar ships to our own.

I had come for a safari, intrigued with the notion of coming face to face with a place called the Serengeti, to see native Africans and rich British and American tourists here to hunt wild animals.

By all accounts, they’d killed all their own and were branching out to new pastures.

We’d come from Southampton via the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal and down the Pacific side of Africa, what I would have called a wonderful voyage, but for others a torturous trek.

If you travelled steerage.  For those with money, it was the perfect way to spend a month away from the hectic life of living in a city.

For me, even though I’d travelled steerage, it was an experience, culminating in the arrival, enjoying the breeze that tempered the heat and the exhausting conditions that had prevailed after we left Port Said.

The moment I walked down the gangplank and onto the wharf, the heat suddenly increased in intensity.  It was only going to get worse.

I looked back on board and saw Louisa Bently, Lord and Lady Bently’s eldest daughter, along with the governess and two sisters.  He was here to join the Embassy.

She had wanted to stay in England and resented the fact she had to leave all her friends and acquaintances to come to some ‘God forsaken he’ll hole’.  She looked thoroughly miserable.

I was going to give her a wave, we had become friends of a sort during the voyage, but at her insistence, a secret from her parents and limited to stolen moments.  It was a friendship that would not go anywhere; we were from different ends of the social spectrum.  I saw her glance in my direction, then back to taking instructions from the governess.  Their car had just arrived on the dock.

There were four other American families who were here for a safari, the safari that I had been requested to join as one of three security officers.

There were rumours of a war between the natives and troubles along the way in the villages, and reported reprisals against the whites, trouble borne of interfering missionaries, and railway magnates trying to open up parts of the country.

It wasn’t the first time or the last that the native might attach their so-called British superiors.

The Americans had disembarked and were filing into a coach arranged to take them to their hotel.  I had to find my own way to the first campsite with the other officers.  My overnight hotel would not be posh, but it was not far from the wharf.

They would be taken to Mombasa itself.

The recruiting agent in London had told me that Africa was mostly hot and dusty, the cities bustling, the countryside wide open, grassy and limited shade.  It was hot, he said, but moderately so with temperate breezes, and sometimes it rained, sometimes torrential.  It was no worse than the Midwest of America in summer.

It was like that overnight, raining heavily, and when dawn came, the sky had cleared and the sun was bearing down, a hint of a hot, dry day to follow.  It didn’t take long for the water to disappear.

I had just enough time to get to the agent’s office and collect my ticket on what was known as the lunatic express from Mombasa to Kimusu on Lake Victoria, the gateway for the safari. I joined the advance party heading to set up the first camp. Five other men were there, fellow security guards, and a catering staff.

It promised to be two days of travel from British South Africa to Uganda, the perfect introduction to the conditions we would experience. However, after a few hours, once we left the coastal city and headed deeper inland, the heat and desolation increased noticeably.

Perhaps it would be the heat, the dry, dusty air and the look on the faces of the natives who all looked quite fierce, that would be more of a problem than the wild animals.  Those thoughts occupied my mind for most of the morning of that first day.

It only got worse from then on.

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©  Charles Heath  2025