Review: Dancing the Death Drill by Fred Khumalo

France 1958 - mild-mannered waiter Jean-Jacques Henri kills two people in full view of other patrons. He doesn't run but stays to await his fate. Journalist Thierry Bousquet thinks there is more to the story, especially when he tracks down the artist Jerry Moloto - who claims there may be extenuating circumstances to consider. What is revealed is that Jean-Jacques Henri is really, one Pitso Motaung, a South African, with a story to tell.

Author Fred Khumalo recounts our fictional character's life as a youth of mixed-race growing up in South African at the turn of the century. His father is off fighting against the British in the Anglo-Boer War, whilst his mother, the granddaughter of a local chieftain, died when he was but a child of 10, leaving him to literally fend for himself. Only when aged 16yo, and more to escape the conflicting cultural aspects of his childhood, did Pitso join the war effort when he enlisted in the 5th Battalion (South African Native Labour Corps) in Cape Town. 

Khumalo writes:

The First World War broke out in 1914. By 1916 it had reached a stalemate. The Allies were desperate for more manpower. Thus the Imperial government sent out a clarion call to its subjects in all colonies, which included the Union of South Africa, still a colony and its citizens subjects of King George V.

When the call reached South African shores, many black men stood up and said they were ready to serve. But white South Africans suddenly complained that arming blacks to fight against whites would set a bad precedent. There was a growing fear that this would break down what was then called the “colour bar”. The recruitment of people of colour (which also included Indians) would embolden the black man to demand true equality with the white man in South Africa once the war was over, a thought too ghastly to contemplate.

It was then agreed that the blacks would not be armed. They would be part of a labour contingent supplying services such as: wood-collecting, water-carrying, laundry, the loading and cleaning of mechanical transport, camp sanitation and cleaning. Thus was the South African Native Labour Contingent born.  (Source: New African Magazine)

This is then was the world of Pitso Motaung - and how he found himself aboard the SS Mendi.  Khumalo continues: 

The men on the ship came from a wide range of social backgrounds – some of them were peasants, yet others were traditional chiefs, men of the cloth, and educated men, graduates of the famous Lovedale College, which, in later life, would produce the likes of Nelson Mandela and other illustrious African leaders. 

Tragedy of the SS Mendi: 

On 16 February 1917, after its last night in Cape Town, the SS Mendi sailed towards the port of Le Havre, in France via Plymouth, England. Onboard were 33 crew members and a contingent of the South African Native Labour Corps (SANLC), composed of 805 black soldiers, 5 white officers, and 17 petty officers. They were heading to France to contribute to the Allies World War I efforts. In the early morning of 21 February 1917, while crossing the English Channel, the SS Mendi was hit by a merchant vessel, the Darro, south of Isle of Wight. The SS Mendi sank in only 20 minutes. The Darro was sailing at full speed in dense fog without any light signals. Six-hundred-and-sixteen people died. Among them, 607 black soldiers. Only some of the bodies were found, those that were recovered were buried where they were found.  The larger ship initially did not stop to help the SS Mendi and its beleaguered, drowning passengers and crew. They would ultimately be rescued by their escort, the British destroyer H.M.S. Brisk, which provided protection from German U-boats and mines.

So now to the title of the book: dancing the death drill. This phrase how now entered the annals of legend. Khumalo continues:

According to oral accounts from the survivors, as the ship was sinking, their chaplain Reverend Isaac Wauchope Dyobha ordered the men, many of whom were frightened to jump overboard, to stand in formation as they had been taught on joining the army. He raised his arms aloft and cried out in a loud voice:

“Be quiet and calm, my countrymen. What is happening now is what you came to do…you are going to die, but that is what you came to do. Brothers, we are drilling the death drill. I, a Xhosa, say you are my brothers…. Swazis, Pondos, Basotho, so let us die like brothers. We are the sons of Africa. Raise your war-cries, brothers, for though they made us leave our assegais in the kraal. Our voices are left with our bodies.”

And so the men stamped their feet on the floor as they twisted and gyrated in a macabre Death Dance as it was Christened by oral historians. 

In a moment of defiance, maybe of death itself, these men were said to have marched as one, showing their willingness to die as warriors, proud of their African heritage. 

Back to our story. Pitso Motaung is one of the few survivors to be rescued, taken to France and deployed to the native labour camp. There is an inquest.  On August 8, 1917, a British court found Darro’s master, Henry W Stump, guilty of having travelled at a dangerously high speed in thick fog, and of having failed to ensure that his ship emitted the necessary fog sound signals. Stump must have heaved a huge sigh of relief when his licence was suspended for a only year.  History has since recorded that Stump did receive a report that he had collided with the ship which was transporting native troops aboard, and that it was sinking, but he chose sail full steam ahead.

In our story, whilst the captain of the SS Darro is held to account, another escapes justice ..... What happens next is Pitso flees after a violent altercation, and ultimately finds refuge in Paris (1918), marries, fathers a son, get a job as a waiter, meets the artist Jerry Moloto, and ultimately - and fatefully - encounters two enemies from his past.

As for the actual survivors of the disaster, for the most part, they were treated ingloriously. In the months before the Mendi left port, South Africa’s black leaders had actively supported the government’s recruitment campaign; many had signed up for the labor contingent themselves, hoping that their participation would help them argue for equal rights once the war was over. Instead, when they returned, their work was barely acknowledged, much less rewarded. Not one member of the contingent, not even survivors of the Mendi, got so much as a ribbon or a medal. They weren’t paid pensions, nor did they receive promised grants of land or cattle. 

While the Mendi was not the only labour corps transport to be lost at sea, in the total of South Africa's war dead of 9 500, the disaster was the second worst single loss after the attrition of Delville Wood six months earlier.

There is no evidence from survivors' accounts of the death drill, or of Dyobha's speech. In fact one eye-witness, boilermaker Jacob Malti said:

“As it sank it made a great hollow and many men were not far from it,” he later wrote. “By the time the water covered that empty space, many had gone down with it.” 

And yet Dyobha's speech has become central to understanding the indelible meaning of the tragedy – the fraternal bond, the willing sacrifice, the claim to history.

The Mythos

One of Karl Marx’s most repeated quotes is that history repeats itself “the first time as a tragedy, the second time as farce”. Like history, the interpretation of history also gets repeated, first as myth – and then in service of the political agenda of those in power.  According to Albert Grundlingh, professor in history at Stellenbosch University, in his book, War and Society: Participation and Remembrance – South African black and coloured troops in the First World War, 1914-1918:

“Until the 1980s, the sinking of the SS Mendi was commemorated regularly,” said Grundlingh in an interview with the Mail & Guardian. “But then black participation in the war was regarded with suspicion. Those black people who had participated were seen as sellouts. However, in the 1990s the ANC rediscovered the Mendi with a vengeance. And it became a symbol of heroism for the ANC. 

Grundlingh also emphatically states that mythologising is a common occurrence in all wars and in all countries. (Source Mail & Guardian)

This is a fascinating lost episode of history, thankfully not told from a European point of view. Whilst the book itself is not solely about the tragedy of the SS Mendi, it is used as part of the backstory of the main character of Pitso Motaung. However, having said that, it could quite easily have been so. If you condensed the first fourteen chapters, what you would have would make for a plausible historical mystery. 

On a final note, for me, this story has somewhat eerily similar overtones to that of the RMS Titanic - a ship in distress, a captain who did nothing, a lack of lifeboats, a tragic loss of life.

read more here 

@ Wessex Archaeology

@ Wrecksite - RMS Mendi

@ Forgotten Wrecks of the First World War

@ National Archives

@ South African Military History

@ Historic England

@ History Extra

@ South African History Online

@ BBC News