Chambeshi River Incident

There were five of us in the "Moonraker" which was a 30 ft. cabin cruiser belonging to the "Bwangwelu Water transport Corporation". The people on board were the district secretary of Luwingu, his orderly, the skipper of the boat and his assistant, in addition to me. The boat was on lease by the Department of Census & Statistics for their operations in the district in connection with the oncoming National Census. Being the senior census officer of the district, it was my duty to visit various parts of the district and inspect the arrangements made so far.


The Moonraker was a fairly new boat fitted with a 300 hp. Perkins diesel engine. Its blue and white paintwork gleamed in the bright African sun as the boat glided effortlessly through the dark blue waters of the Bwangwelu lake. However it took more than three hours to traverse a distance of forty-five miles from the port of Nsombo on the mainland to the port of Santa Maria in Chilubi island.


By the time we reached the island, it was late afternoon. The sky was overcast and the skipper insisted that we should spend the night at Santa Maria and continue our journey at daybreak. We moored the boat and settled down within the boat for the night. Even though the place was swarming with mosquitoes, the nets fitted on to the cabin windows gave us adequate protection. We all got up at daybreak, but it was almost 8 am by the time we pushed off from the island.


Soon we left the broad expanse of water which was part of the lake and entered the river Chambeshi. The boat slowed down as we travelled upstream. The river snaked its way through the infamous "Bwangwelu swamps". Crocodiles by the dozen basking in the sun on the river banks were seen jumping into the water as the boat came around each bend of the river.


While we sat on deck chairs and chatted on, the sights and sounds of the river and its banks warmed our hearts and we felt relaxed. I might have dozed off on my deck chair lulled by the cold wind from the river and the drone of the engine. I woke up with a start at some grating noise . I felt the boat shuddering and inching backwards. Soon I realized that the boat was stuck in shallow waters and the boat crew was trying to pull it out backwards into the main stream.


The time was about 2.30 pm. We were supposed to have reached our destination before noon. Soon it became obvious that the skipper had taken the wrong turn into one of the many canals connected to the river and we were lost in the seemingly endless swamps.


Once in the main stream, we moved forward with increased speed until we came to another turn-off. But before we travelled a few hundred yards along this new canal, we got stuck again.


We looked around as far as eye-sight would permit but could not see a single human being throughout the length and breadth of the swamps. Now we were quite certain that we were lost and our escape would not be an easy one.

We backed out into the main stream once again, but not without great difficulty this time. The boat increased speed and we proceeded further until we found ourselves in a certain part of the river where the water appeared quite still. We noticed many trees with thick foliage on both sides of the river as if we were in the middle of some forest area. There was an eerie silence that prevailed all around us, and darkness as if it was going to rain. Even the birds, if there were any, kept unusually quiet.

Suddenly it came to our attention that there was absolute silence prevailing in the boat also. The engine had stopped without any apparent reason. Even though it was cranked several times, it failed to start making all of us very apprehensive. A cold shiver ran down my spine and I could see that everyone was under the grip of some unknown fear.

It was then that we saw a boat at a little distance upstream. We all saw it together as it was not there one minute ago, but it was there now. It was a canoe with a lone paddler standing upright with a half-raised paddle in his hand. The canoe was coming towards us at a terrific speed. The paddler appeared motionless and his paddle never touched the water. Even though we hailed, he neither looked in our direction nor uttered a single word. The canoe slid past us at a distance of barely ten feet with hardly any ripple and we saw the paddler distinctly. He stared ahead with yellow eyes and his face was expressionless as that of a corpse. The canoe went on as if gliding on the surface of the water and disappeared from sight while we all stood transfixed as if under the spell of a terrible nightmare.

We do not know how long we stood like that. Suddenly we realized that it became very dark all around us. The boat was made fast on a tree trunk and all the port holes were closed.
We turned in for the night. None of us could sleep that night. The fear of the unknown had gripped our hearts and the hours of darkness dragged on.

At daybreak the skipper got up to work on the engine and to the surprise of us all, it started at the first cranking. Rays of sunlight filtered in through the foliage and we heard the cheerful cackle of the birds. It was the start of another day and we continued on our journey looking out for the right canal that would lead us to our destination.

(Note: We reached our destination late that evening with the help of two friendly fishermen who gave us proper directions and one of them accompanied us all along the way).