Marche au supplice


I was not much more than a boy entering my first years of manhood.  Being a hard worker, I was 
forced to make up for my younger companions' laziness.  The others pulled their weight too, but I 
know that the captain noticed I was the one who readily accepted my task without malice.  
Working in the boiler room was always the worst of the jobs, and since I was the only one to not 
verbalize my disdain for my assignment,  I got it.  It was not so much the hard labour of stoking 
the boiler that I disliked, but that it took me into the bowels of the steamer.  That meant I did not 
get a view of the river and surrounding jungle.
	When I was old enough, I had joined a trading company that had business in importing 
ivory into Europe.  Being well familiar with ships, I was assigned to a restored steamer with an all 
new crew, most of whom were men my age, or slightly younger.  Only our captain had the 
slightest hint of gray hair, and his first officer was only a few years older than myself.  There were 
six of us Europeans onboard.
	The Congo is considered one of the largest rivers in the world, but traveling it was no easy 
task.  It took at least two pilots to navigate the shallows and direct a course that would not trap the 
steamer.  As a result our progress was slow and extremely dangerous. As we navigated a stretch of 
river we had scraped bottom once before, I was not surprised as I felt a deep shutter and a loud, 
dragging thud accompanied by pops and spits.  That was the sound of the strong rivets of the keel 
snapping and the loosening of the submarine outer hull.  The boiler room was in the fore, so I had 
only seconds to climb the ladder to the deck before the first wave of river water started to seep up 
from the bilge.  As I came on deck, the first mate appeared from the hatch from the engine room.  
I noticed that the engine was still engaged, pushing the ship further up the shallow and further 
tearing the bottom out of the steamer.  The captain released the steam whistle, not quite drowning 
out a gun.  One of the pilots stood in a cloud of smoke, clutching a rifle in firing position, aimed at 
the thick trees.  The other pilot stood priming his own weapon.  The first mate brushed past me, 
running to the steering house where he took his own weapon from the captain's outstretched hand.  
He immediately started loading and priming it.  The captain returned to sounding the whistle and 
watched the border of trees with intent eyes.  All I saw were trees.
	I had never received instruction on the use of firearms but felt it my obligation to aid in the 
defense of our vessel against this unseen enemy.  As I stepped up to the steering house to receive 
my own weapon, the whistle screeched to a stop as I regarded the captain step back clumsily, 
fumbling at something.  He fell back against the short wall.  The whistle must have hidden sounds 
before, but now I heard a high-pitched swish and saw the captain recoil as an arrow launched into 
his chest.  He was trying to pull the first one out of his left shoulder, but then fell to the floor, 
wide-eyed.  Hearing several other arrows flying at the steamer, I quickly hid as best I could behind 
the short wall of the steering house.  As the ship was pelted with arrows, several men yelled, firing 
off their guns.  Several more arrows flew into the steering house, but all missed me as I hugged 
against the wall.
	The steamer's engines were continually pushing the ship forward, but as the bow was 
lodged against a shallow, the engines pushed the ship around, pivoting it in the water.  This 
effectively ripped the bottom clean off the ship, and started exposing myself to the wall of trees 
from where the arrows flew.  My shelter was no longer safe.  It was then I decided the proverbial 
flight of the "fight or flight" just by sheer instinct.  Crouching low, I crawled across the deck to the 
ship's side, and squeezed between the iron railing, sliding down the side of the ship and into the 
shallow water.  As the ship continued to pivot, I quickly waded to the rear, watching out of the 
single screw still propelling forward.  Taking a deep breath, I slowly sunk completely into the 
water, slowly swimming to the middle of the river where the depth hid me from all eyes.

	How I survived the next week, I am not quite certain.  The time shortly after leaving the 
steamer is quite mixed up in my mind.  In the following days I had nothing to eat, since I did not 
know the local vegetation.  The odd fish I ate was nearly impossible to cook; I only successfully 
made one or two very small fires.
	I was caught in a dilemma:  Should I stay by the river in case another ship came along 
eventually and save me, or should I get away from the river and from the attackers?  If I went to 
the opposite bank than the attack, I might be able to avoid the assailants.  But if I were caught by 
the river by any Africans, they would know me to be from the steamer, and would no doubt send 
me to the fate that the captain had suffered.
	My comrades I never saw again.  They must have all been killed on the steamer or escaped 
like I had and died in the jungle or on the river.  But I never heard of their survival.  The vessel 
itself was discovered some time later, irreparably damaged.  No salvage attempt was ever made.
	I pondered my decision I had to make, and as I did this, I stayed hidden in the opposite 
bank from the attack, somewhat downstream.  During this week, as I said, I barely ate, and soon 
became a bit feverish, no doubt from the water.  By the end of the week I had become delusional 
and not in full control of my faculties.  This is how it came about that one day, as I lay in the thick 
bushes, rambling to myself in feverish tones, that I was discovered by an African woman.
	I do not actually recall this discovery, for the next thing I remember after the vague 
impression of lying down for that sleep by the bank was waking up in some kind of primitive 
structure.  It was made of crude raw earthen materials, but strongly put together.  I was alone 
when I first stirred, but too weak to move, I returned to rest until the woman returned with an 
African man, her husband I assumed.
	So it proceeded that I was given something to eat and a small earthenware vessel filled with 
water.  I ate eagerly, but had trouble keeping down most of it.  For several days I slept, with 
intermittent meals given to me either by the woman or the man, and on occasion by both.  Slowly I 
regained my strength, but I was not at all functioning back to normal.  As I tried to speak to them, I 
discovered they spoke not a word of my native French - the language of most white men in the 
Congo.  Their language was, as well, foreign to me.
	Within a couple of days another man came one day with the woman and her husband, as I 
lay in a half asleep.  He was decorated in a type of jewelry I had never come across before, but 
from this I ascertained he was a man of some importance.  He eyed me suspiciously, then 
exchanged a few words with the husband.  His bleak facial expression did not change as he eyed 
me.
	Finally he spoke to me directly, using very basic language.  "You, demon.  Thief."  He 
looked very accusingly at me.  Not having ever been called a demon before, I knew not how to 
react but gave a blank look back.  "You kill.  You take.  You leave.  Earth cries.  White gold.  You 
evil."  I realized what he spoke of at his saying white gold.  That was the term used by many 
traders for ivory.
	He spoke of how he saw the white man:  We come in, take what we want, often right from 
the hands of the Africans, and leave them with nothing but carcasses, taking "our" ivory.  We 
desecrate their lands and strip them of their lives as we take slaves along with us.  White man had 
invaded and was starving them.  I had not thought of that when I joined the Company.  So far on 
my voyages, I had never even met a native African, only those who had joined in the profiteering 
of the Company.  I was blind to what was actually happening to the land and the people who lived 
there.
	The attack on the steamer now had merit in my eyes.  It was a defensive attack; they were 
protecting themselves from us.  I did not even know if it were this people I was presently with that 
had attacked, but in my heart I knew it did not matter:  they all had the right.  And in realizing that, 
my aspect changed.  What wrong would it be if these Africans killed me where I lay right then?  
They had the right to do so.
	Yet they did not.  Instead, they took me from near dead, and nursed me back to a state of 
health that insured my survival.  What right did I have for that?  How many shipments of ivory had 
I been responsible for transporting up and down the river?  How many men had I seen taken by 
my captain and locked below deck?  Had I not been there to stoke the boiler, how many men 
would be free?
	I looked deeply into the decorated man's eyes, and slowly crawled across the floor to his 
feet, resting my hands gently there, and setting my face down into the dirt floor.  I offered myself 
in exchange for my sins.

	Some time later, a band of prisoner Africans marched through the small settlement, led by 
three white men all carrying guns.  The prisoners did not even glance at the local Africans, their 
brothers, but walked emptily past.  They stopped by a small stream that ran by the houses, and one 
at a time the white men put down their gun and drank from the water.
	From my hiding place I quickly emerged, walking plainly up to the unarmed white man and 
picked up his gun.  He regarded me with perplexed expression, and with his mouth full of water 
could not indicate to his companions - who were back to us and eyeing the slaves - of my 
presence.  The opportunity to fire my firearm on the steamer I now made up as I stared the 
enslaver in his blue eyes.  I received as a reward a shot in the leg, sending me to the ground in 
numbed pain.  I heard not as a dozen slaves silently sneaked away into the trees during the 
distraction.
	The trip as prisoner to the nearest station was long and painful having to walk on one 
severely injured leg.  I refused the help of a slave to aid my walking.  I walked with more dignity 
than I had in my life.  I walked with head high as I limped along the ivory-beaten path, as I do 
now, the gallows spread out before me.

December 15, 1999