three hundred miles of the caravan route. Roger was entrusted with the largest, heaviest piece: the ship’s hull. He did everything, from supervising the construction of the enormous wagon onto which it was hoisted to recruiting the hundred or so porters and trail cutters who hauled the immense load across the peaks and ravines of the Crystal Mountains, widening the trail with machetes. And constructing embankments and defenses, building camps, treating the sick and those hurt in accidents, suppressing disputes among members of different ethnic groups, and organizing shifts of guard duty, the distribution of food, and hunting and fishing when supplies ran short. It was three months of risk and worry, but also of enthusiasm and the awareness of doing something that signified progress, a successful battle against a hostile nature. And, Roger would often repeat in years to come, without using the chicote or permitting its abuse by those overseers nicknamed “Zanzibarians,” either because they came from Zanzibar, capital of the slave trade, or behaved with the cruelty of traffickers.
When, in the great fluvial lagoon of Stanley Pool, the Florida was reassembled and ready to sail, Roger traveled in the ship along the Middle and Upper Congo, securing depositories and transport for the goods of the Sanford Exploring Expedition in localities that, years later, he would visit again during his journey to hell in 1903: Bolobo, Lukolela, the region of Irebu, and, finally, the Equator Station, renamed Coquilhatville.
The incident with Lieutenant Francqui, who, unlike Roger, felt no repugnance at all toward the chicote and used it freely, occurred on his return from a trip to the line of the Equator some thirty miles upriver from Boma, in a wretched, nameless village. Lieutenant Francqui, in command of eight soldiers of the Force Publique, all of them natives, had carried out a punitive expedition on account of the eternal problem of laborers. More were always needed to carry goods for the expeditions that came and went between Boma–Matadi and Leopoldville–Stanley Pool. Since the tribes resisted handing over their people for that exhausting work, from time to time the Force Publique or private concessionaires undertook incursions into refractory villages where, in addition to taking away the able-bodied men tied together in lines, huts were burned, hides, ivory, and animals confiscated, and the chiefs whipped soundly so that in the future they would live up to their contractual obligations.
When Roger and his small company of five porters and a Zanzi-barian entered the hamlet, the three or four huts were already ashes and the residents had fled. The exception was a boy, almost a child, lying on the ground, his hands and feet tied to stakes, on whose back Lieutenant Francqui was easing his frustration with lashes from his chicote . Whippings were generally administered not by officers but by soldiers. But the lieutenant undoubtedly felt offended by the flight of the entire village and wanted revenge. Red with fury, sweating profusely, he gave a small snort with each lash. His expression did not change when he saw Roger and his group appear. He simply responded to Casement’s greeting with a nod, not interrupting the punishment. The boy must have lost consciousness some time earlier. His back and legs were a bloody mass, and Roger remembered one particular detail: a column of ants marching close to his body.
“You have no right to do that, Lieutenant Francqui,” he said in French. “That’s enough!”
The officer, a short man, lowered the chicote and turned to look at Roger’s long silhouette, bearded, unarmed, carrying a staff to test the ground and move aside debris during the march. A little dog scampered between his legs. Surprise made the lieutenant’s round face, with its trimmed mustache and small blinking eyes, pass from bright red to ashen and back to red again.
“What did you say?” he roared. Roger saw him
When, in the great fluvial lagoon of Stanley Pool, the Florida was reassembled and ready to sail, Roger traveled in the ship along the Middle and Upper Congo, securing depositories and transport for the goods of the Sanford Exploring Expedition in localities that, years later, he would visit again during his journey to hell in 1903: Bolobo, Lukolela, the region of Irebu, and, finally, the Equator Station, renamed Coquilhatville.
The incident with Lieutenant Francqui, who, unlike Roger, felt no repugnance at all toward the chicote and used it freely, occurred on his return from a trip to the line of the Equator some thirty miles upriver from Boma, in a wretched, nameless village. Lieutenant Francqui, in command of eight soldiers of the Force Publique, all of them natives, had carried out a punitive expedition on account of the eternal problem of laborers. More were always needed to carry goods for the expeditions that came and went between Boma–Matadi and Leopoldville–Stanley Pool. Since the tribes resisted handing over their people for that exhausting work, from time to time the Force Publique or private concessionaires undertook incursions into refractory villages where, in addition to taking away the able-bodied men tied together in lines, huts were burned, hides, ivory, and animals confiscated, and the chiefs whipped soundly so that in the future they would live up to their contractual obligations.
When Roger and his small company of five porters and a Zanzi-barian entered the hamlet, the three or four huts were already ashes and the residents had fled. The exception was a boy, almost a child, lying on the ground, his hands and feet tied to stakes, on whose back Lieutenant Francqui was easing his frustration with lashes from his chicote . Whippings were generally administered not by officers but by soldiers. But the lieutenant undoubtedly felt offended by the flight of the entire village and wanted revenge. Red with fury, sweating profusely, he gave a small snort with each lash. His expression did not change when he saw Roger and his group appear. He simply responded to Casement’s greeting with a nod, not interrupting the punishment. The boy must have lost consciousness some time earlier. His back and legs were a bloody mass, and Roger remembered one particular detail: a column of ants marching close to his body.
“You have no right to do that, Lieutenant Francqui,” he said in French. “That’s enough!”
The officer, a short man, lowered the chicote and turned to look at Roger’s long silhouette, bearded, unarmed, carrying a staff to test the ground and move aside debris during the march. A little dog scampered between his legs. Surprise made the lieutenant’s round face, with its trimmed mustache and small blinking eyes, pass from bright red to ashen and back to red again.
“What did you say?” he roared. Roger saw him
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