During WWI, the Germans armed several steamers on Lake Tanganyika in Africa and dominated the region. The British armed two motor boats (Mimi and Toutou) and, under the command of the eccentric Geoffrey Spicer-Simson, sent them up from South Africa by rail and ox team. The Germans had no idea the British were in the area, and Spicer and his crew had no trouble capturing the smallest German steamer, the Kingani. A short time later, the Germans sent another steamer, the Hedwig, up to look for the Kingani, the British sent the Mimi and the Kingani (now named the Fifi) out to battle. The Germans fled, but the British chased and sank the steamer. The local Holo-holo tribesmen decided Spicer was some kind of god because of his victories, his many tattoos and his habit of wearing a skirt. The remaining German steamer, the Gotzen, was much larger than the other two and dwarfed the British motor boats. Spicer lost his nerve and spent the next several months traveling around Africa. Meanwhile, a British army expedition arrived on the shore of the lake. When Spicer returned, he was ordered to take his boats and cooperate with the army. He fired two token shots and fled. He was ordered to port and his part in the battle for the lake was over. The Belgians attacked the Gotzen with planes, and the Germans scuttled her. Spicer returned to anonymity in England, although he liked to tell wild stories of his exploits. The Gotzen was raised and still operates on the lake. The expedition was the basis for C.S. Forester’s The African Queen. Foden ends his book with a short history of the movie and his own travelogue of a trip he made to the lake to look for evidence and people who remembered the battle (without much luck).

I read this over the weeks when we were packing to move across Cary, so I usually only managed a few pages a day. But it kept my interest. It lost a rating because of the flat way the battle ended, not because of the writing. Foden occasionally lapses into overly-flowery writing, but for the most part he was easy to follow.