Tag: Wolseley

Chapter 28 – More Difficulties

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We were called at 5 and at 6.15 we left Kapiri M’poshi, with pleasant memories of a comfortable jolly little hotel. We were in good spirits and felt very fit. At last, the poisoning caused by the mixture of artemisinin and the drug I had taken at Nairobi seemed to have been expelled from my system and for the first time I felt something like my own old self. The sun shining in a cloudless sky may have had something to do with our improved spirits: anyway, we felt thoroughly cheerful as our good Wolseley sailed over the excellent road towards the South. Our host had told us that the road was good as far as Broken Hill but had warned us to be careful of a dangerous bridge which lay in wait round a corner at the end of a long straight. But he had not specified exactly how far this bridge was from Kapiri M’poshi, so that each time the road curved we slowed down cautiously. We crossed several bridges over streams and at last concluded that me must have meant one of these, though we had not seen any particular danger in any of them. The rain of the day before seemed to have bound the road surface into a solid hard surface and we were sailing gaily along at about 50 miles an hour when the road took a gentle left-hand curve. As the road straightened, we saw what was undoubtedly the dangerous bridge before us, and a nasty looking affair it was. The road sloped steeply down to a river and crossed it by a wide plank bridge with no guard rail of any sort, and the road itself was deep in slimy mud, for the sun’s rays had not reached it owing to the shade cast by the forest bounding the road. Humfrey braked and the tail of the car slid round: he released the brakes to straighten the car, but it was obvious that we were travelling far too fast to cross the bridge with any degree of safety. He braked again and made a lovely snap change down to third while the tail of the car was sliding: an instant later he managed to get down to second gear and this helped to steady the wildly skidding car and to slow it down. The bridge was horribly near, and we were by no means facing straight for it as the tail of the car swung from side to side on the slimy treacherous surface. At least, just at the last moment when I was beginning to visualise a real whole-hearted smash, Humfrey got the car under control and we dashed across the wood planks. I had a glimpse of racing water twenty feet below: then we were across and rushing up the opposite slope which was equally slippery. We had no trouble in climbing it because the impetus of our comparatively high speed, probably about 30 mph, carried us some distance up it and the engine was well able to cope with the remainder. When we reached the top, we looked at each other and laughed. I said, “Well done, Humfrey” and he replied “Nasty, wasn’t it?” It was at a more sedate gait that we continued our journey but we ran into Broken Hill without further incident, having taken an hour and 13 minutes for the 39 miles. A lot better then yesterday!

Broken Hill was a delightful surprise. I had heard of it as a mining centre and had conceived in my mind’s eye a composite picture made up, shall we say, of the Rhondde Valley and one of those ghastly mining villages of the worst part of Yorkshire. Instead, we found a pleasant smiling township with wide streets and broad expanses of green grass around which were, sparsely scattered, the fine residences of the local gentry with the delightful airy spaciousness of a country where land is cheap and where buildings do not have to be crammed tightly against each other.

We had decided to breakfast here – we had only had a cup of tea before leaving Kapiri M’poshi – and while breakfasting, to have our car thoroughly greased and checked over. We found an excellent garage and set them to work while we sought the hotel. The large panelled dining-room was pleasant with the early morning sun pouring in through its open windows and as we looked out across the wide park-like meadows in front we felt that fate might hold worse things than being compelled to pass one’s days in Broken Hill. We were shown to a bathroom, to reach which we were conducted out at the back of the hotel where bedrooms were built round a garden of flowers with a fountain playing in the middle. A delightful spot, this hotel at Broken Hill.

We dawdled lazily over a hearty breakfast and Humfrey, having spotted a photographer’s shop, went out to buy a camera as he feared that his own cameras had suffered from the ducking they had received when they had lain under-water for 12 hours. It was for this reason that we brought back so few photographs of the portion of our journey between Juba and Broken Hill. He felt it was a waste of time to take photographs with a camera that was not working properly. He later discovered that his small “Retina” was in perfect order, and we regretted particularly not having any pictorial record of the crossing of those fantastic swamps where the tall grass grew all across the road a foot above the level of the radiator.

We wasted a lot of time at Broken Hill but we were content to laze a few hours in the pleasant sunshine and it was not until 10.13, after a stop of nearly 3 hours, that we set off on the road to Lusaka 91 miles away. The road belied its early promise, so that it was 1.15 when we drove into this growing town. Lusaka is the new capital of Northern Rhodesia. It having been decided to move the seat of government here from Livingstone, as it had been found that this was not sufficiently central. I have no doubt that the new part of Lusaka where the government buildings are and which lies away to the left of the through road is pleasant enough, but the parts that we saw resembled nothing so much as the pictures of early American townships. It was a jumble of corrugated iron and wooden shacks, with broken bottles and old tins forming prominent features of the landscape. We stopped here at a modern-looking garage, which was on our list as being a Morris agency, as we wanted to get a small repair job done. The two rods which stay the radiator cowling to the dash and which had been broken in the crash had been welded at Nairobi. They had now broken again, and this had left the radiator cowling free to work backwards and forwards at the top; so that we found some difficulty in persuading the bonnet to stay in place as it was only held by one broad strap since the fixing clips had been torn away in the crash. Also, these rods annoyed us by rattling on the metal of the dash and we felt that we must try and get them repaired. We found that we had unfortunately arrived at lunch time and the repair shop would not be open again until 2 o’clock. We did not want to waste more time so we contented ourselves with tying rags round the broken ends of the rods to stop them rattling and went on.

Outside Lusaka, we bore to the right and came on a most unpleasantly slippery piece of road. It ran on a sort of causeway above the surrounding marshy land and it was covered with a particularly glutinous and slimy film of mud. I had quite a struggle to keep the car from sliding off the causeway into the fields below. About 5 miles out we came to a definite stop. Across the road ahead was a barrier and a notice “Bridge down. Road closed.” There was also a signpost pointing down a road to the right which said “Chilongabonga” or some such word. We consulted a map and Humfrey said that was all right, that it was on our road though it did not appear in our logbook. So we turned off and slithered along for another 5 miles or so. There were various roads turning off which appeared to lead to farms – indeed we saw a car ahead turn away down one of these. Suddenly, without any warning, our road deteriorated into what I can only describe as a combination of a river bed and a cattle track! It was deep in red mud and ran between high banks of earth. There were no tracks of vehicles on its surface, no marks at all except the hoof marks of cattle. We didn’t like it and as it grew narrower and narrower we liked it even less. It in fact, it was quite plain that something was wrong. This was not a road at all: it was a cattle-path leading to some farm.

There was nothing for it to turn back. It wasn’t easy. The track was very narrow, not much wider than the length of the car and the surface was deep and soft, so that while I moved gingerly backwards and forwards I was in terror lest the wheels should begin to spin and we should get stuck. Gentle manipulation of clutch and throttle managed it at last and I drove slowly back along the slippery road. As the road, which was apparently the one we wanted, was closed for a broken bridge Humfrey decided that the only thing to do was to return to Lusaka, get our broken tie rods repaired and find out if there was any way of circumventing the broken bridge. I hated going back along that slippery causeway, but it was so obviously the wise thing to do that I submitted, though with ill grace.

We found the garage open now, for our little tour down the cattle track and back had occupied about three quarters of an hour. The manager, a keen young fellow, himself undertook to weld new ends on to our broken rods and meanwhile he telephoned to the local civil engineer about the broken bridge. The reply was consoling if annoying. It was “Oh yes, the bridge is broken but a way has been made for a car to get down the bank and ford the stream. No. He was sorry he didn’t know about the “Road closed” notice which was still there. He though it had been taken away. Humfrey and I looked at each other. We wondered what we should have done if we had arrived at this “Bridge Down” notice in the middle of the night when there was no one from whom to make inquiries. It was funny that, that thought should have occurred to us, because in the early hours of the next morning we had that very problem to solve! Rhodesia in the rainy season is a nice motoring country! It is certainly rarely dull!!

It was not until 3.35 pm that we finally got away from Lusaka, the radiator stay-rods having been repaired. It was 2 hours and 20 minutes since we passed through it for the first time on our little excursion along the cattle track and once again, we drove along that slippery causeway which we had come to hate exceedingly. We drove boldly around the “Road Closed” notice on the pass and continued. In a mile or so we came to a stream with its bridge washed away. It was not a serious obstacle. A track had been cut in the bank and we drove down this, forded the stream on a bed of logs laid in the water, climbed up the bank on the other side and regained the road.

It was a pleasant country through which we drove after leaving Lusaka, well-wooded and friendly looking country, and the road wound in gentle curves around the shoulders of little hills. The surface was dry, hard, and not too bad. Perhaps the weather was a trifle too hot for the sun blazed down from a clear blue sky but even overpowering heat was preferable to the ghastly downpour we had driven through the day before. We had no anxieties, though we were disappointed at our slow progress since we left Kapiri M’poshi that morning: we had spent more than 5 hours at Broken Hill and Lusaka and had only covered 130 miles. Nevertheless we were not worried and after our exhausting struggle with bad roads and worse weather the day before I think that our leisurely progress that morning probably did us an enormous amount of good.

The next point in our log was Kafue River, where there was a ferry which, we knew, only ran during daylight hours but we had no anxiety about that. It was still early afternoon when we had left Lusaka and the ferry lay only 37 miles away. Eventually we arrived on the riverbank at 4.52, having averaged exactly 30 miles an hour from Lusaka. There used to be a bridge over the Kafue River some six or eight years before it had been carried away by unusually heavy floods and since then the crossing has been carried out by a native ferry. It has not been thought worth while in view of the paucity of through traffic, to rebuild the bridge. It only took 16 minutes to cross the river, a fairly considerable tributary of the great Zambezi, and I only remember it because of the intense heat that surged up in great waves around us while the car was stationary. It was bearable while we were on the move and the heat-proofing of the Wolseley double bulkhead system was perfect. Never at any time did we feel any heat or suffer from any fumes from the engine, even though we passed through abnormally high temperatures. Yet one remembers certain cars which are almost undrivable in warm weather even in England because of the appalling heat of the driving compartment. The road remained reasonably good and we made good time to Mazabuka. We had intended to stop here for dinner and to drive straight through the night, for our morale had completely recovered and I personally was feeling quite well again. Humfrey had always been ready for a night drive, with the possible exception of the night at Mbeya after our nerve-shattering journey over the slippery mountain pass. He had, however, realised that I was quite unfit for the fatigue of a night drive and had wisely suggested stopping each night. It had been a sad waste of time but the soundness of his judgment was shown by the fact that, although our days had been fairly strenuous ones, I had now completely recovered. There was a nice looking little hotel at Mazubuka but as it was only 6.35 when we passed it having coveraged 31 miles an hour from Kafue River, and it was not yet dark, we decided to go on. It was only 67 miles to Pemba where we had had reports of a good hotel and if the road remained as good as it had been we should be there soon after 8.30, not too late for a meal of sorts.

We were to meet with a sad disappointment. Less than a mile from Mazabuka we were sliding about on villainous black cotton soil of the very worst type!  We agreed that it was probably only a short patch, probably caused by the fact that we appeared to be crossing a swampy track. For five miles or so we skidded violently from side to side as we crawled along over the vile black slime, and if it had not been for our good knobbly tyres I am sure we should have slid bodily off the road altogether. As it was, it was a terribly slow business. Ten miles an hour seemed a racing speed and our visions of dinner at Pemba began to recede into the dim distance. After about five miles we met another car and the driver signalled to us to stop. It was a Ford and we noted that he had chains on his rear wheels. He leaned out of his window and “You can’t get through,” he called. “I’ve been bogged for an hour and have decided to turn back.”

We looked at each other and the same thought was in both our minds. “Thanks very much,” answered Humfrey, “but we’ll go and have a look at it, I think.” We drove on. We were not going to admit defeat without a struggle: we believed that our Wolseley could get through anything with the possible exception of water over the radiator and our friendly adviser had only spoken of being bogged. We went on. The road was no worse and no better than it had been for the last five miles until at last, just after darkness fell, we came to a really bad bit. The black soil seemed to have no bottom and we waltzed and curtsied as the tyres skidded and spun in the bottomless stuff. Two yawning chasms opened before us as we slithered sideways along that detestable road. “A Graveyard” we exclaimed with one breath. With a great effort Humfrey managed to avoid the great holes where our friend had stuck, for under these conditions a car always evinces an insane desire to follow the course of its fore-runners and drive into the holes it has made. We sidled ungracefully past the danger spot and crawled along. We’d got further than he did, anyhow, and we did not relish the prospect of going back. After all, if the worst came to the worst, we had plenty of food in the car, could sleep comfortably in our beds in it, and dig ourselves out in the morning.

We went on and gradually the road improved. It was still dangerously slippery but the danger points were now more in the nature of mud holes than of continuous slime. At last, the road began to rise slightly and as it rose the surface definitely improved. The black cotton soil disappeared and ordinary yellow mud took its place. We began to hope that the worst was passed and that we had left the swamp behind as we climbed onto higher ground.

At nine o’clock we drove into Monze, a small township clustering round a railway station and, to us, a railway station seemed to betoken the end of our journey. No longer for us the wild solitude of French Equatorial Africa or the forest belts of the Congo, but a journey through civilisation, the beginning of the end of our struggles. A railway station seemed so very homelike, stable, and solid.

It was nine o’clock when we reached Monze and it was clear that dinner at Pemba, 23 miles on, was a dream. People go to bed early in these parts and it was hopeless to expect a meal at 10 o’clock at night: 10 o’clock if we were lucky with the road, 11 o’clock if we were not! You see, we had grown humble in our estimate of probable average speeds! Before that stretch of black cotton soil we had reckoned an average of something over 30 miles an hour respectable, now we were contemplating an average of 23 or even half that as a possibility! The reason for this sudden access of humility was quite simple. The 44 miles from Mazabuka to Monze had taken us 2 hours and 25 minutes! 18 miles an hour!

Humfrey said, “We’ll get something to eat here.” “What a hope!” I answered pessimistically. And it certainly seemed as if my pessimism was justified. No hotel at Monze had been mentioned on any of the data I had studied for so many weeks before our departure, and anyway the whole place, a very tiny place by the way, seemed to be dead. Not a light showed.

“Look!” exclaimed Humfrey, triumphantly and pointed to where, in the headlamp beam, the word “Hotel” showed up painted in large letters on the side of a building. It was in pitch darkness. Humfrey got out and went to the door – we always planned to avoid my having to move about more than was absolutely necessary because of my leg. He knocked. Knocked again. He tried the door. It opened and he went inside. “Anybody about?” he called and a woman’s voice answered. “Who’s there?” it said.

Humfrey replied that we wanted something to eat and, for he is never anything but courteous, explained why we were so late with apologies for disturbing her. A woman appeared in a dressing gown. She was a good sort. She was alone now, she said, all the native boys had gone home but she could give us something cold, and she explained that she couldn’t cook for us because the fires were out. We said that anything would do and, after showing us where we could wash, she ushered us into a clean wood-panelled dining room. We ate heartily excellent cold meat and salad for we were hungry. We had eaten nothing for 12 hours. It had been an unsatisfactory day and we seemed to have wasted a lot of time since we left Kapiri M’poshi nearly 15 hours before: yet in spite of all our delays we had covered 258 miles. Livingstone was only 190 miles away and we hoped to be there early in the morning. This would bring our 24 hours’ total to 450 miles and would at least be something knocked off the diminishing number of miles that lay between us and our objective, Cape Town.

Chapter 25 – Iringa – Mbeya 243 miles 16 January 1939

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Next morning we pushed the car across to the garage, dug out the old voltage control from among our spare parts, had the battery put on to be given a quick charge – it was completely flat, as we expected – and returned to the hotel for breakfast.

After breakfast Humfrey went over to the garage, insisting that I should lie on a sofa and do nothing. My leg was very painful, and I still felt very ill. I was very upset because I felt that I was holding Humfrey back, though actually it was the voltage control going wrong that had stopped us the night before. I was conscious that, partly due to the poisoning from the mixture of drugs, and partly to the nerve shock, I was quite unfit, and I was sure that I ought really not to have gone on from Nairobi. I was acutely miserable. Humfrey came back at intervals to tell me how the work was going on and, most characteristically, told me not to be an ass when I hinted at my feelings. He said, “I’m only sorry you aren’t enjoying it.” Not a word about the worry of having a sick whining co-driver, only that he was sorry I wasn’t enjoying it.

At 12 o’clock he came over to say that the work was nearly finished, and he thought we ought to have a quick lunch before we started. The proprietor agreed to give us something at once – we found these British hotel proprietors a very kindly and obliging lot – and at 12.42 we left Iringa. It was a sad waste of nearly a day, but it could not be avoided. Once in the car and underway, I felt better as I usually did. Heavy rain had been falling all night and most of the morning, though it had stopped now. This rain made a precipitous, winding descent immediately outside Iringa doubly dangerous owing to the slippery state of the road. But once down this we found a good sandy road that would have been a fast one if it had not been for the deep sand that made anything like high speed out of the question. We bemoaned our fate that we had not struck this road when it was dry.

The country soon changed and we began to climb again. Up and up wound the road till we reached the summit of 6600 feet. I think that I have forgotten to mention that after we left Nairobi we had re-set the carburettors to compensate for the high altitude and this had made a tremendous difference. The engine was twice as lively as it had been before and had quite regained its old rigour while our petrol consumption which had remained steady at 14½ to 15 mpg. all the way across Africa, immediately improved to 18½, 19 and later to 19½. With our 31 gallon tank, this gave us a range of over 500 miles without re-fueling and we felt much happier, besides enjoying the increased power of the engine. We went on and on through pleasant, wooded country, though the road was so winding and steep that we felt we were getting along very slowly. Our progress was not assisted by meeting several native-driven lorries, these carry on a goods service as a feeder to the German-built railway line running through Dodoma, eastwards to the coast at Dar-Es-Salaam, and westwards to Mwanza on that great inland sea, Lake Victoria. The drivers of these lorries were as utterly reckless as native drivers always appear to be and instilled such terror into us by their method of travelling as fast as they could go round every bend, blind or not, quite regardless of the possible approach of any other traveller from the opposite direction that we became reduced to a pitiful crawl round each corner with frequent blasts on our twin horns to give advice of our presence. Nevertheless, we had averaged over 30 miles an hour when we passed a delightful looking little hotel standing in beautiful wooded country on the banks of the pretty Tchimala River. The hotel was called the Tchimala River Hotel and we wished we could spare the time to stop. If it was half as delightful as its lovely surroundings made it appear, it was a shame that we could not stop there. But time pressed and we were anxious to get as far as possible over the mountains which separated us from Mbeya before darkness fell. We had no idea then of the terrors of that mountain passage and were enjoying the wooded glens and the beautiful hill views as we began to climb steadily into the gathering darkness. As we emerged from the forest line into the bare rock country, darkness began to fall and the road, wet from the heavy rains, began to get exceedingly slippery.

Driving very cautiously on a steep down grade, I rounded a shoulder where the narrow road swerved sharply to the left, with a precipitous and unguarded drop in front, when to my horror I saw about 100 yards ahead, stationary in the middle of the narrow road, a lorry with several men around it. I said to Humfrey “I can’t stop,” to which he replied in a calm conversational tone “You’ll have to.”

I changed down hurriedly but gently – for fear of starting the rear wheels sliding – into third and then into second and with a mere caress of the brakes, for I didn’t like the look of the slimy road and the hideous open precipice on my right, I managed to pull the car up about 10 feet short of the obstacle which was completely blocking the road. “Well done, Bertie,” said Humfrey as we got out to survey the prospect of getting by. The owner of the lorry, a German farmer, said” Ze road is very dangerous. I put on ze chains.” He had calmly stopped in the middle of this narrow road to put chains on his rear wheels!”

We had no intention of putting on chains – we trusted to our good Dunlop tyres. All we thought of was getting past. With Humfrey guiding me from in front, I managed to squeeze by with an inch to spare between the lorry and our Wolseley and not much more on the precipice side. We had no idea that the road was truly as dangerous as the German had said it was, but we were soon to know! Immediately beyond the lorry, the road shelved sharply down to a wide hairpin corner followed by a step ascent. Starting slowly in second, I braked gently to steady the car and immediately the tail slid round. This having been corrected, the car swung the other way, and so in a succession of broadside skids we reached the corner. It felt to me as though the car was travelling at 100 mile an hour and was quite out of control. Actually, I suppose our speed was about 15 or 20 mph and the car was obviously not completely out of control because I managed to slide her in a huge broadside skid, round the corner. Immediately I opened the throttle to pull her straight for a run at the steep climb ahead, she skidded across the road and I had to ease the accelerator. How we got to the top, I don’t know, but it took all the skill I had acquired in years of competition driving at home to get the car up that slope and to control the violent skids that anything more than a mere whiff of throttle produced. At the top I thankfully handed over to Humfrey for we had always agreed that if there was anything particularly difficult to be done, he as the skipper, was the one to do it. Anyway, if this agreement had not been made long before we started, I have no doubt that, as my confidence had been somewhat shaken by the crash at the bridge.

I implored Humfrey to go slowly and he replied, “my dear old chap, I have no intention of doing anything else,” and we crept slowly off along that perilous road. Humfrey handled the car like an angel as we climbed higher into the mountainous, rarely attempting more than about 10 miles an hour and frequently doing much less, while I sat beside him with nerves quivering.

At last, we came to one long ascent that still lives in my memory forever. It was not very steep, probably about 1 in 8, it was quite straight, and the surface was covered with slimy glutinous mud. On Humfrey’s side there was a sort of rocky hillside rising gently while on my side there was a smooth stretch of muddy earth sloping steeply downwards to a precipice edge and through the gloom, I could see the top of lofty trees 1000 feet or more below. Slowly we started to climb and almost at once Humfrey had to get into bottom gear. Then ensued a struggle between a magnificent driver and the vile road that was trying to send us hurtling down over that precipice to certain death. We ascended the hill at about 4 miles an hour, with the car first broadside on in one direction and then the other. The least hard touch on the accelerator pedal would have sent us sliding over the smooth mud and down into the treetops: the slightest insufficiency of throttle opening would have brought us to a stop and would have sent us slipping backwards with locked wheels and out of control, for the brakes could not have held the car on that surface.

It was a wonderful piece of driving and I sat, literally sweating with fear, as we gradually neared the summit. Backwards and forwards swung the tail of the car as we gained a yard at a time and each time Humfrey brought it back, panting with the intense mental strain but at last the summit was gained and he bought the car to rest.

“Bertie,” he said, “we must put on chains. It’s far too dangerous to try and get down the other side without the.” I agreed and got out of the car to find, to my utter astonishment, that I could not stand without holding on to the car for support. Humfrey, though decidedly shaken, was not so utterly unnerved as I was but we both felt the need of a good stiff drink of whisky.

Owing to Humfrey’s broken hand, he could not be of much assistance in fitting the chains, and I viewed with a feeling of considerable helplessness the task of fitting the chains to these 9 inch tyres single-handed, particularly as, even after the whisky, I was still so shaky that I was hardly able to stand. Just as we had spread one of the chains out on the ground and I was about to commence fitting it to the wheel, lights appeared over the crest of the hill and a lorry pulled up facing us. Humfrey went over to it, hoping to get some information from the driver as to the state of the descent and returned in a minute or two with a more cheerful expression. “Look here, Bertie,” he said “I can’t make the native driver understand what I mean, but I’ve had a look at his back wheels. He hasn’t got chains on and his back tyres are absolutely smooth. If he can get up like that, surely, we can get down without chains. What do you say?”

I said I was quite agreeable to try if he liked. I think at that moment, I would have been prepared to face anything rather than the prospect of attempting to fit those colossal chains single handed in the darkness. And of course, as usual, there was sound common sense in what Humfrey said. We replaced the chains in the car and took our seats. Edging past the lorry we started on the descent, noting at the same time, that the driver of the lorry and his mate were getting busy putting chains on their rear wheels. This convinced us that the driver, presumably a local, knew of the dangers ahead and confirmed us in our opinion that we should find the descent less bad than the climb we had accomplished.

Once again, I begged Humfrey to go slowly and he repeated his previous remark, that he had no intention of driving anything else. Slowly we crept down the steep winding road, using second gear all the time to obviate, as far as possible, the necessity for using the brakes. It was now pitch dark and we crawled slowly down, rounding corner after corner, but meeting with no serious difficulty. I was frankly terrified, but Humfrey, as usual, considerate of my unnerved condition continued to creep slowly along. He did not dare to take his eyes from the road, but from time to time he would ask me if I could see anything out of my side window. At first, I could see nothing but a dark cloudy sky, but as we descended, I told him I thought I could see, far below, hills and even trees. There was evidently still a considerable drop on my side. I asked him what the surface felt like and he replied “Quite all right.” We agreed that what would probably happen would be that we should continue to go crawling along over bone dry hard roads on level ground long after we had left the mud and the mountains far behind. Nevertheless, we decided to continue our invariable policy of “Safety first.” Eventually, it was clear from the view out of my window that we were definitely out of the mountains and back in the region of trees and vegetation and in a few miles, we turned off the southward road into the township of Mbeya, lying a mile or so off the direct road. We stopped at the hotel and I got out, still feeling my knees wobble. Humfrey, directed by the hotel proprietor, went off to find the Shell agent and re-fuel while I, after a wash, sat down in the comfortable dining-room to wait for him. I felt very ill and shaky. Soon he returned and showed me the telegram that had been awaiting us from the Shell representative at Salisbury. It read “Nyasaland Trail impassable. Great North Road probably passable with care.” This sounded ominous but it was clear that in face of this advice we should be foolish to attempt the shorter route through Nyasaland and Portuguese East Africa and we must make up our minds to the detour via Broken Hill and Victoria Falls.

When dinner was brought, I took one spoonful of soup and then my stomach revolted. Please don’t think that the soup was bad: it smelt and tasted most appetizing, but I was quite convinced that if I attempted to touch it, I should be sick. So, I sat smoking and sipping a whisky and soda while Humfrey ate a hearty meal and we discussed our plans for the night run. I was miserably conscious that I felt utterly unfit for it, but I was quite determined not to admit it.

After Humfrey had finished his dinner, he left the room rather hurriedly and returned in a few minutes with a serious face. He sat down. “Look here, Bertie,” he said, “I don’t think either of us are up to going on tonight and I booked rooms here. I felt perfectly all right and I feel perfectly all right now, but I have just been sick. I think we should be very unwise to go on. What do you say?”

I admitted then that I was not looking forward to a night journey and shortly afterwards we retired to bed. It was horribly disappointing. Each morning we would start off feeling refreshed and well after a good sleep, but, towards evening, we would both begin to feel that a night drive was undesirable, to say the least of it. I was in a much worse state than Humfrey, but I know that he was feeling the strain; the long, drawn-out strain of continuous travelling coupled with the after-effects of our crash was telling on our reserves of nervous energy more than we had appreciated. We deplored the waste of time, but, under the circumstances, time was not really of such vital importance, as we could not now, after having lost so much time – ten days to be exact – hope to put up the sensationally fast time from England to Cape Town that we had hoped for when we started. The important thing now was to get the car there and the only way to do this was to husband the reserves of energy still left to us.

Chapter 23 Kenya and Tanganyika. Nairobi – Arusha 183 miles 14 January 1939

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Depositing our luggage at the hotel, we went straight on to the Wolseley agents where we arranged with the manager for them to start work on the car right away. We wanted the edges of the plate, made by Hetchen to hold the torn off spring hanger, spot-welded to the chassis. Although the bolts had held it perfectly, we thought it would be safer to have it welded in addition. We wanted glass cut to fit the rather odd shape of our windscreen frame. We were told that safety glass could not be cut to a special shape so that we should have to be content with ordinary plate glass. We wanted glass cut to fit the windows broken in the crash and a pair of headlamps to replace our lost ones. Also, we told the manager about the trouble with the voltage control. He said he would extract the spare one from our stock and fit that as the one we were using was obviously faulty.

This was really all that was required, except for routine greasing and verifying gear box and back axle oil leaks. “Mr Dunlop”, this was the precise title we gave to the various Dunlop representatives whom we met en route as we found it impossible to memorize all their names. Mr Dunlop had arrived in the meantime and we arranged with him to have our tyres changed for the Trackgrip type sent out from England for us. These are the type used by British Army vehicles: they have huge bars across the treads and are specially made for cross-country work. They were of 9-inch section, the same size as we had been using up to date. Having left our Wolseley for attention, Graham Bell drove us to the hospital where the doctor was waiting for us, Bell having phoned him in advance. He looked at Humfrey’s left hand and immediately pronounced the little finger to be broken and not merely strained as we had thought. He arranged to have it to be X-rayed the next morning and also wanted an X-ray photograph of the wounds on my left leg, which were still very painful.

Leaving the hospital, we called on our old friend, Finn, of the Shell Company, being received by him in his usual cordial manner. He is a great chap and is completely typical of the fine type of man selected by the Shell Company as their overseas representatives. We took him along with us to the hotel as he wanted to hear about what had happened to us and why we were so late in arriving. We had expected to reach Nairobi on the 3rd of January, whereas it was the 12th when we got there, so we were already nine days down on our schedule. At the hotel a reporter from the East African Standard was waiting as he duly had heard we had arrived (in the magic way newspaper people everywhere seem to know everything that happens) and he had been sent to interview Symons. This he did while Humfrey also undertook to write an article describing our experiences for the next day’s issue. Cables and telegrams then had to be sent off to Thomas, to the Sunday Times, to Stanton at Juba and to Humfrey’s South African papers. At last we managed to get to our rooms for a bath and a change, but it was very late before we sat down to dinner, Finn and Graham Bell keeping us company. After dinner we went off with Bell to find his pal Rolson whom we had met on the Rolls Royce trip and who was detained at his coffee mill as this was their busy season.

It was very late when we got to bed, certainly well after midnight, but we were not at all tired. We were in very good spirits; we were delighted with the car and how it had behaved on our 800 miles trial run and full of hope that we should reach Cape Town without further trouble. Our 800-mile run from Juba had actually taken us exactly 30 hours, including all stops and the little difficulties we had had in finding the way. When we complained to Bell about his road from Mile 66 to Molo, and explained what it was like, he told us that we had taken the wrong road and that we should have gone on another 200 yards before we turned off the road to Eldama Ravine. We should then have had the same magnificent road all the way that we struck from the last 10 miles into Molo. We then forgave him.

Next morning, we were up really early. Got X-rayed and later saw the doctor. Humfrey’s finger had been broken but had now mended, though it had set itself though not quite straight and it was a quarter of an inch shorter than the same finger on his right hand. He was very distressed about this and was not all comforted when I told him no one would ever notice. He was also worried because he could not stretch it out straight, but only in a sort of eccentric movement towards the other fingers. When I asked him why he wanted to stretch it out straight he seemed to have no answer ready but only said it would be a nuisance not being able to!

The doctor was not pleased with my leg – neither was I, as a matter of fact – and ordered me to take M&B 693, a new drug which is a powerful anti-toxin, in order to counteract the poison that had undoubtedly got into it. He also told me – a thing I never heard before – that the best dressing was cod-liver oil! I am bound to confess that this acted admirably. I used it daily for several weeks and it certainly helped the deep wounds to heal. The only disadvantages were the fact that I went about smelling like a fried fish shop and that any cat in the neighbourhood winced and marked predilection for my company!

Once again, as at Juba, the doctor asked me how I felt and when I said I never felt better in my life, strictly the truth, he shook his head and said he couldn’t understand it! I could not stand about much, because of my leg, so I stopped in the hotel while Humfrey went along to the Wolseley agents to see how work was progressing, as we were hoping to start for Cape Town that night. When he returned, he told me that we should not be able to start before the following morning as several things remained to be done and anyway another night’s rest would do us good. One very annoying thing had happened. The expert with the acetylene flame, while spot welding the plate onto the chassis, had directed his flame straight on a big bunch of wires coming from the main switchbox. I think there were 27 of them – and the insulation had promptly resented this treatment by instantaneously vanishing in a cloud of fumes, causing a complete short circuit. I believe that it took the electrical expert 6 hours to trace all the wires and to replace them! They were also having trouble with the voltage control.

Later Humfrey sat down with a typist friend of Graham Bell’s and dictated articles for his various papers while Mrs Robson, a charming young lady whom our friend Robson had met and married when he was in England two years before, kindly ran me out to show me a Kenya residence. When we got back to the hotel, there were two pleasant surprises waiting for me. Graham Bell, delighted that we were staying another night, insisted on giving a party for us at a restaurant and a cable had come from Thomas. His first words of this cable ran: “Tell Bertie all forgiven.” This was obviously in answer to the rather desperate letter I had written to him from Nianpara the day after our crash and – well, I was more than happy to get this very sporting message. The sending of it was completely Thomas-like. I prefer to say no more than that. He also said “Films arrived” but maddeningly did not say whether they had come out well or not. We had been very anxious about these pictures as they were documentary evidence of great importance as showing the amazing escape we had had and the frightful accident the car had survived. The sense of Thomas’ cable was that he was more than pleased at our being able to continue, but it was not until our escape and the photographs had been eagerly accepted as news by the daily paper in England. Such is the craving for sensation of some newspaper readers that when Thomas, who in addition to being a brilliant General Manager is also an accomplished journalist, rang up the news department, who are always on the lookout for ‘good stories’, then leapt at the tale of our escape with avidity. I cannot refrain from adding that the reaction of at least one editorial department (the newspaper concerned shall be nameless) was as follows: “Anyone killed? No? anyone injured? Not seriously, eh? Well, are they married? Can we have photographs of their wives?”  Such is modern journalism at its worst!

Graham Bell’s party that night was a huge success and our young host – he reminds me of nothing so much as a perky little Scotch terrier! – at the head of the table beamed through his spectacles as laughter reigned supreme. Suddenly half way through dinner, an awful feeling of illness came over me. I can’t describe it. I didn’t feel sick or faint but just awfully ill and when we came out Humfrey, who has some sort of sixth sense in these matters, said, “What’s up Bertie?” “I feel ghastly,” I answered, “I can’t think what’s the matter. I felt ill the night before. I must have eaten something that’s disagreed with me.”

Back at the hotel, I was given brandy and put to bed. Next morning Humfrey came to my room early and anxiously asked me how I felt. I replied that I felt awful. Humfrey told me that he had just rung up the Wolseley agents and they had told him the car would not be ready til midday, so I had better stay in bed. I know now that he also rang up Graham Bell and asked him to stand by to go on to Cape Town that day in case, I was not well enough to travel. We had arranged with Bell before we left England that he would be ready to go on with the survivor in case one of us, on arriving at Nairobi, was so exhausted by the journey that he was unable to continue. This he had agreed to do. We had considered this arrangement prudent in case of the possible breakdown of one of us under the strain of a long hard journey of this kind and in view of the importance of the issue if we had made a really fast run as far as Nairobi. I am quite sure that when this was arranged the same thought was in both of our minds though it was never voiced between us. I was quite determined that whatever might happen to Humfrey, I should certainly last the course; and I am certain that he had exactly the same feeling about himself!

He did not on this morning of the 14th of January tell me that he had rung up Graham Bell to warn him to be ready because he did not want to disturb my mind and I am sure he knew what my immediate reaction would have been. He was, as ever, the wise skipper who wanted his crew to get all the rest possible, so I took his advice and stayed in bed.

He came in again in an hour or so in neat perturbation. “Bertie,” he said, “I’ve just been round to see the doctor again about my hand and I told him you were feeling rotten. He said it was extraordinary as you said you felt so well. I suggested that it might have been something you had eaten or something he had given you. He replied that was not possible, because MB 693 agrees quite well with quinine,” (the common prophylactic against malaria), “when I said you were not taking quinine but atabrine he was horrified. Apparently, this MB 693 is very tricky stuff and combined with atabrine (and a good many other things), it is a rank poison. He said you must stop it at once and go on to quinine. So that accounts for you feeling so rotten.”

I believe I said, “Thank Heavens! I thought I was going to be ill.” Anyway, now that I knew what was the matter, I was at any rate certain I wasn’t going to die and when Humfrey said “So you think you’ll be able to go on?” I replied with vigour that of course I could go on and that I was getting up now.

Chapter 22 – Juba – Nairobi 742 miles 11 – 12 January 1939

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It was fifteen minutes after midnight when we reached Mbale. I stopped at a cross roads in the middle of the town, or village. There was a large obelisk there which I have since discovered is a war memorial, but I didn’t stop to look at the obelisk. I stopped to see if there was a signpost showing the way to Tororo. There was not. Humfrey sat up. “Grrrh” he said. “By Jove, I’m cold.” I said that I was frozen. Shorts and a shirt had been too ample a costume for the extreme heat we had met with during the day, but in the middle of the night, nearly 4000 feet up, and with no windscreen except a piece of wire gauze they were not nearly enough, even though I had on a jacket before leaving Soroti. But the immediate business was to find the way and we had simply no ideas. The obvious thing seemed to be to go straight on over the cross-roads. We did so and in 200 yards arrived at another cross-roads. Over this too we went slowly, to arrive at a dead end with native huts facing us. We turned back, and frankly we had no idea what to do. We went back to the big cross roads with the obelisk and as a venture took the right hand turning. We went down this for a quarter of a mile and found that it ended in a garage. We got out and tried to wake someone but apparently no one slept on the premises. Once more we turned the car. As we did so, we saw an Askari, a native policeman. We stopped. Humfrey said “Tororo?” The Askari smiled and made a long oration in what was probably Swahili, not a word of which we understood, of course. Humfrey tried again, saying Tororo in a questioning voice each time as he pointed north, south, east and west. This brought forth another long oration.

Humfrey tried again. He made a sign to show that he did not understand. Then he pointed in one direction, “Tororo?” he queried. The native shook his head. This seemed promising. Humfrey pointed in another direction “Tororo?” he questioned. The Askari shook his head again and then pointed and waved his hand along and the roads past the obelisk, with a lot of native words among which we caught the “Askari”. From this we concluded that that was our way and that if we went along there, we should meet another Askari, who would direct us further. We went off but we saw no other Askari. Perhaps he was busy in that dark silent hour with whatever is the native equivalent for a cigarette in a quiet corner! Anyway, we never saw him.

The road we were following left the town behind and we both had a hideous feeling that we were going in exactly the opposite direction to the correct one. One is apt to develop this sense after many journeys in strange lands such as both Humfrey and I have undertaken during the course of our motoring careers. I stopped. “I’m sure this is wrong,” I said. “I think it is too,” said Humfrey. He shone a torch on our Hughes compass. “East,” he said, “a little north of east.” Now we both knew well that for another 27 miles we should go due south on the Tororo road, where we were to turn off for Malakisi. A turning appeared to the right and unhesitantly I swung the car into it. “That’s better”, said Humfrey, “really due south.” It didn’t look a bit like the sort of road I had been following before I entered Mbale. It was altogether smaller, more sandy and unused-looking and not corrugated. It was more a track than a road. “I don’t like this,” I said.

“Neither do I,” said Humfrey, “but I think we’d better go on a bit and see what it does.”

Suddenly another track appeared coming from the left and crossing our track diagonally. Humfrey ejaculated “Steady, Bertie: a signpost.” I stopped with the light shining on the arm. ‘Tororo!’” we both exclaimed and turned off right. We went on for about half a mile and suddenly came to another road, coming from our right and going due south as our compass showed when without hesitation, I turned left into it. Half a mile farther on we found a stone by the side of the road on it was T 40. this we interpreted as “Tororo 40 miles” and we were quite happy again. Apparently, the main road from Soroti to Tororo does not go through Mbale at all but leaves it on the left, and by our circuitous centre and steering by compass and the sixth sense to which I have referred we had regained it beyond the town. We had wasted a lot of time and got worried. The only real difficulties that we encountered during our whole journey in finding our way were in such circumstances as these, generally in getting out of a village on the correct road.

I had stopped at this milestone to change over. Humfrey said “Look here, Bertie. We can’t go on like this. I vote we get out suitcases and find some more clothes. We are going up a lot higher presently and it’s going to be much colder.” It was as well we did so! We put on trousers, pullovers, jackets, overcoats and even then, we were frozen. Absence of a windscreen makes a lot of difference and in addition the nearside front window and one of the off side rear windows had no glass. Covering myself with everything I could find I lay down, but I was too cold to sleep and eventually I gave it up and sat up.

After Mbale we had a choice of two roads. Graham Bell had written a long letter from Nairobi which we received before we started advising us to go by Tororo and Kakamega but had told us of an alternative via Malakisi and Eldoret. On the Rolls Royce, travelling in a route to the south of our present one, we had gone via Malakisi and Eldoret and we thought it would be better to join this road from the north rather than try a completely unknown road in the darkness. So, we were going to turn off the road to Tororo 14 miles after Mbale and go across to Malakisi. It was a mistake because this road has fallen into disuse and is no longer kept up, but we did not know this.

14 miles after Mbale, a turning duly appeared on the left and we took it. Then our troubles began, for according to our map we had to make another turning to the right when we arrived at a  point due south of Mount Elgon. Mount Elgon towered up into the starlit sky and for what seemed like hours we circumnavigated it. When we reached a point where Mount Elgon was due north of us, we began to look out for our turning. We had felt we could not go wrong because the map showed the turning as the main road while the one straight on became a track and eventually ended at a small village. So, we had not anticipated any difficulty.

Exactly at the place we had expected to find it, there was a turning. We viewed it with some distaste and a good deal of disbelief. We agreed that that couldn’t be the main road, that narrow rutted little lane running steeply downhill. We stopped to look at it and then, by common consent, went on. We were not pleased because Mount Elgon, of the sight of which we were by now heartily sick, began to recede rapidly behind us while our road bent towards the north: in other words, we appeared to be completing our circuit round this now hated mountain. While we were discussing the unpleasing prospect of being lost, we ran into a native village and the road stopped. So that was that. We turned round and started back again. I was studying the map. “Humfrey,” I said, “I believe that was our turning after all. The map shows that the road crosses a stream soon after it turns off and you will remember that that turning went steeply down. It might have gone down to a stream.”

Humfrey agreed and when we got back to the turning, we stopped and had another look at it. It looked thoroughly unpromising, but Mount Elgon was in the right place, and, full of misgivings, we turned down the wretched little lane. Soon enough, at the foot of a steep hill, it crossed a narrow wooden bridge over a stream. But the road did not belie its appearance and our distaste for it grew. It was narrow, not much more than a path, winding and rough: in addition, it wound up and down considerable hills, so that it was altogether a very slow and uncomfortable journey. On and on we went through the darkness, round sharp corners where trees appeared to be growing out into the middle of the road, and eventually it seemed hardly worth while even to get into top gear at all, as the track twisted and turned, descending into little valleys and climbing out of them. At last, after carefully crossing a narrow bridge we came to a winding hill so steep that Humfrey, much to his disgust, had to have recourse to bottom gear. We looked upon this as a crowning insult and thereafter we frankly hated this road. In addition, we could hardly believe that this could possibly be the correct road, so badly marked on our map with a thick double line. While we were arguing about this, we suddenly arrived at a point where another road came in from our right and on a patch of grass stood an enormous signboard. After a good deal of maneuvering, Humfrey managed to get our lights to shine on it – owing to the low mounting it necessitated getting the front wheels up on to the verge in order to throw the beam high enough – and there we saw reassuringly CHEMALIL 27, ELDORET 85. We then knew where we were. This was Malakisi and the road we had joined was the one we had followed in the Rolls Royce. It was not a great improvement: if, in fact, it was hardly any improvement at all. It was perhaps a little wider, but the surface was worse: alternating between rough and stony going and soft deep earth. The cold was fearful and in spite of our warm coats, we were perished. It seemed incredible to think that yesterday we had been far too hot in a shirt and a pair of shorts! Humfrey, who had continued to drive as he said he was not tired, now caved in and said “I simply can’t stand the cold any more. Do you think you can drive a bit?”

I said, “I can’t possibly be any colder than I am now and if I drive, I might be able to forget the cold.”

I took over and Humfrey, wrapping himself in anything he could find, lay down. I had my leather coat with its fur collar buttoned right up round my neck and thick gauntlets on my hands, but I fairly shivered with the cold. We were over 5000 feet up and climbing slowly all the time. At last day broke and I hoped that the rays of the sun would make things a bit warmer. They did not succeed in doing this but only added another difficulty. We were now travelling due east and as the car topped each rise the level rays struck straight into my eyes, so that I could see literally nothing. I am not usually troubled by the sun, in fact I can drive comfortably into a setting sun, when other motorists are brought almost to a  standstill, but this morning fairly defeated me. I could manage to keep the car to the road, but I was afraid all the time of meeting some early morning lorry and running head on into it. For anything on the road would have been quite invisible to me. I could not use our green celluloid strips which were still in their supports fastened to the roof because there was no windscreen to stick them to and at last, in sheer desperation, I stopped, got my sun helmet from its straps inside the roof and pulled it right down over my eyes. I must have presented a most ludicrous spectacle if there had been anyone to see. Blue with cold and crouching over the wheel, muffled in a leather coat buttoned up to the neck and with a sun helmet topping the lot! But I didn’t care. I was too cold to care, and I could at any rate get along somehow: get along towards Eldoret, breakfast and, I hoped, warmth. Let us draw a veil over the rest of that hideous drive. At last Eldoret was in sight. Before we had considered it rather an unpleasant place and had always spoken somewhat disparagingly of it but now it appeared to us as the Promised Land must have appeared to the Israelites. It may have been straggling, unfinished-looking and tawdry, but it represented food, a hotel and shelter from the cold. We vowed that we would not go on again till the sun had warmed the air. I remember Humfrey saying, with chattering teeth, “It seems ridiculous to think that in 3 or 4 hours time, we shall be too hot!!”

The hotel was not very warming and had the definite appearance of a summer resort with its clean boarded floors and wide windows, but we were able to wash in hot water and I managed to put a fresh dressing on my leg which had been making itself most uncomfortable. We consumed an immense breakfast while we gradually thawed our frozen bodies. The 130 miles from Mbale had occupied us no less than 6 hours and 10 minutes, so we had averaged only just over 20 miles an hour! Of course, we had wasted a lot of time at Mbale trying to find our way through and also in our excursion round Mount Elgon.

However, in spite of our slow speed during the night, we had traveled 525 miles from Juba in 23 hours and we considered this quite satisfactory as a test run. And we had been far too cold to worry about time. After breakfast, when we had partially thawed out, we set out to find the Shell depot. This was one of our re-fueling points and we knew that they would have been advised to expect us 10 days before. Whenever possible we always made a point of calling at such depots in order to say “How-do-you-do” and to allay any anxiety they may have been feeling as to our whereabouts. After a lot of difficulty and wandering about over perilous railway tracks, we managed to find the Depot and were thankful that we had not arrived in the middle of the night, for in that case I do not know how we ever should have discovered its locality. We were warmly welcomed. The Shell representatives are a wonderfully picked crowd, where ever one goes – and had to explain again the cause of our delay and the battered appearance of the Wolseley.

We were annoyed to find that the engine appeared to have used some oil; not very much but the sump would take nearly a quart. At each re-fueling stop after our re-start from Juba we had to add a little oil to bring up the crankcase level and it was not until some days later that we discovered a slight leak from the top cover of the oil filter. As the cover appeared to be quite tight, we put this down to the immersion in water having hardened the washer, thus allowing a small quantity of oil to escape. The leak was so slight that we did not bother to attempt to fit a new washer but merely continued to top up the sump each time we re-fueled. It was moderately warm when we left Eldorek at 8.45 in the morning, having wired Graham Bell that we expected to arrive at Nairobi at about 3 o’clock: it was only 220 miles away and we felt that we were almost there.

The road from Eldoret climbs steadily towards the highlands of Kenya and the Equator. Eldoret itself is just above the 5000-foot line and at Equator Station the road has risen to 7700. It was not at all too hot and we continued to wear jackets, though we could dispense with our overcoats. Our eyes were getting very tired and ached badly from having no windscreen. It is a good road from Eldoret up into the hills, but we found that the altitude was seriously affecting the power output of our motor and we were compelled to have frequent recourse to 2nd and 3rd gears on the steeper gradients. We had noticed this, though of course to a lesser degree owing to its colossal reserve of power, in the Phantom III Rolls Royce but it had become a serious matter with our overloaded Wolseley. There are many sharp corners on this part of the road and the acceleration  owing to the over rich mixture was much worse than it had been at lower levels, so that we seemed to make very slow progress. Nevertheless, we averaged 35mph over the first 50 miles.

We had received explicit instruction from Graham Bell not to follow the old road to Nairobi via Eldama Ravine – a romantic name that hides the identity of a hideous place: heterogeneous collection of repulsive huts built of scraps of wood, corrugated iron and flattened petrol tins and air of wildness with its heaps of refuse and its generally undesirability. We had been advised that a new road had been built branching off the right across Mount Summit to join the southern road from Uganda and we were to take this at a spot which Bell called “Mile 66”. We did not discover, and have not yet discovered, from what place Mile 66 was reckoned but at 50 miles from Eldoret we saw a signpost to the right which “Londiani and Molo”. Londiana was slightly to the west of where our road should join the southern road, but Molo was on our route, so we turned blithely down this turning, expecting to find the grand new road we had heard about. We were disappointed. The road we were following wound about up and down and round and round steep mountainous country in most disconcerting fashion and while first Humfrey, and then I when I took over at the end of two hours, tried really hard to make a decent speed we were only averaging about 30 miles an hour still, it was a lovely day and the scenery was magnificent: great peaks soaring into the clean blue sky, the wine-like air and the wonderful cleanness of the atmosphere – I can think of no other term – that to me is characteristic of Kenya – made the motoring really enjoyable. After about 20 miles of this tiresome wiggling road, we suddenly joined a tremendously wide straight road that came in from our left and simultaneously we ejaculated “This is the road we should have been on.” Sailing along with this smooth wide road at 50 miles an hour – we did not consider it advisable to travel any faster in view of the strains to which our chassis had been subjected – was a joyful experience after the tortuous bye road we had been following before. So excellent was the road that we made up time fast, to find that we had averaged exactly 40mph to Molo. Where we turned off the Eldama Ravine road.

From Molo to Nakure is a truly lovely drive. Woods clothe the steep hillsides and the road twists and turns along a narrow valley, now climbing a steep shoulder, thus descending sharply to cross a stream and wriggling again with corkscrew turns towards the uplands while, against the clear blue sky, rise giant peaks of great mountains. A lovely country this Kenya, with its beautiful climate, its considerable altitude tempering the heat of the equatorial sun. At Nakure, a pleasant town, with wide streets, good shops and an excellent hotel, one reaches the semblance of civilization and the busy life of a now prosperous colony. Very many motor cars are to be met with on the roads and these brought us a new annoyance: one that caused us immense discomfort over this last 100 miles into Nairobi. Kenya roads are, to put it bluntly, atrocious, for deep potholes and horrible corrugations are their main features. But we could have put up with these. We were used to bad roads by this time. But what was a new feature to us was the appalling dust-cloud raised by each passing car. And remember we had no windscreen except some wire gauze. By the time we reached Nairobi our eyes were bloodshot and burning, and ever time our eyelids moved the accumulated dust under them scratched our eyeballs. It was, frankly, excruciating.

A minor incident just after we left Nakure annoyed us extremely. I was driving along this deeply potholed road when suddenly there was a crash and a sound of breaking glass. I stopped quickly. Humfrey said, “What about stopping on the side of the road, Bertie.”  I had quite forgotten. We were so unused to the possibility of these being any other vehicles on the road beside ourselves that I had automatically stopped in the middle of the road! I apologised and pulled in to the side. We got out to find that the front of our fog lamp had dropped off and the glass was broken as it fell on the road. We were annoyed because, as you will remember, this was the only one of our original lamps still left on the car after the crash and we had been proud of it as having stood the crash, immersion, and everything and as still remaining undamaged and even unmarked. Now it had suddenly elected to jettison its front and break its glass, which, we were quite sure, would be irreplaceable. We put the front back in position and, with the idea of preserving the reflector; Humfrey tied a piece of mutton-cloth over the lamp. This authentic piece of mutton-cloth was still acting as a front glass when I last saw the car, some six months after our return to England!

We passed through Gilgil and Naivasha, past the famous lake swarming with pink flamingoes so that it looks like a high bed of magnificent flowers (spelling?), and on along the road towards Nairobi. Many curious glances were thrown from passing cars at our Wolseley, battered and bent and it was a battle-scared warrior. It had not looked so bad until we reached civilization and began to see clean and polished cars: shapely cars retaining their true form and their elegant smartness. But we were not ashamed of our Wolseley. We were proud of it, for was not its mettle tried and proved by thousands of miles of rough treatment and the appalling catastrophe it had survived. None of these other shining cars had endured what it had suffered to come out alive and to bear us still swiftly and completely towards Nairobi and far-off Cape Town. Yes, we were proud of our Wolseley as it flaunted its wounds for all the world to see.

We had arranged with Graham Bell that we would stop at his father’s house some eight miles from Nairobi and he had given us by letter exact instruction how to find it. We kept a careful eye on the milestones as we sailed over the beautiful, tarred road, for one of these milestones was our mark for the turning. Graham Bell’s father is a well-known Nairobi horticulturist, who wins almost all the prizes for flowers at the Nairobi Show and never shall I forget the riot of colours in that garden: with their blue and pink and gold and scarlet. The flowers dazzled one’s eyes as they flamed under the African sun. The weather was perfect, like an unimaginably perfect English summer day, with a hot sun blazing in an azure sky and a cooling breeze ruffling the brilliant petals of a million flowers: and a paradise we felt it to be as we drove up at the door and heard Graham Bell’s cheery voice greeting us warmly. He exclaimed at the condition of the car and as we washed and bathed our burning eyes, scarlet and bloodshot from the maddening dust, we had to explain again what had happened. An English tea served in a cool room, with open windows giving a vista of the incredible riot of the flowers, made us feel as though we were at home and we could hardly believe that we were indeed 6000 miles away, with two thirds of our journey completed.

While we were having tea, Bell rang up the Wolseley agents, the Overseas Motor Co, to tell them that we had arrive and would be along in an hour. Shortly afterwards we left, Humfrey driving the Wolseley with Graham Bell in his 4½ litre Bentley acting as pilot. I went with him in the Bentley and for the first time saw what our Wolseley really looked like as Humfrey drove it along behind. The angle at which the body was leaning gave it a most extraordinary appearance and could not fail to attract attention wherever it went but I was more interested in watching the wheels with their great tyres. I watched them carefully, looking over the back of Bell’s open tower, because I wanted to assure myself that they were running true and in line. There could be no doubt that they were, and I marveled at the shocks and strains that good material will stand. Humfrey didn’t like me watching; he thought I was finding something wrong and waved me to turn round. But I gave him the well-known thumbs up signal and he grinned as he grasped what my idea had been.

Our procession pulled up at the New Stanley Hotel on the corner of Delaware Avenue and, in the manner that became so familiar to us in the days to come, a crowd immediately collected round the Wolseley.