R.I.P. warriors of the Mendi

Relatives lay wreaths in English Channel, writes

IT’S COLD in the English Channel.

It’s just after 8 in the morning and a watery sun is peeking through an otherwise bleak grey sky. The outgoing British High Commissioner to South Africa, Dame Judith McGregor, demurs; “It’s not cold,” she says.

Don’t believe her. It’s freezing, you can choose an alliterative adjective to preface it too, it’s that cold – if you’re a South African.

The wind’s blowing and the deck’s starting to roll as the frigate picks up speed on its date to remember destiny.

A century ago and a couple of hours before, South Africa’s greatest maritime disaster played out several nautical miles ahead of where we still have to travel.

It would have been pitch dark at the time, the water might even have been colder.

In 90 minutes, 616 South Africans – 607 of them black – would have died.

They wouldn’t have stood a chance. Even had it been light, the thick fog would have rendered visibility zero.

The troops were on their way to France to serve as labourers in the South African Native Labour Corps. All in all, 25 000 would sign up to serve the empire, putting aside their own political aspirations to fight a greater evil.

Just before 5am, their troopship, the SS Mendi, would be rammed by a ship more than twice its size, the Darro. Its master would reverse, allowing the sea to pour in through the catastrophic rent that had almost cleaved the Mendi’s bow, drowning 140 men immediately.

The rest had 25 minutes as the Mendi canted over to starboard, the sea cascading in over the tops of her bulkheads. Her stern went up and she cleaved downwards to her watery grave on the ocean bottom less than 40m below.

Those who survived the initial forever at the bottom of an ocean at the other end of the world.

This week, 10 of them finally got the opportunity to say goodbye. A week in the UK to reflect at the various cemeteries, to pay homage at Hollybrook Cemetery, where the men of the Mendi who have no grave, share a wall with the man who was perhaps Britain’s most famous soldier of World War I, Field Marshal Kitchener of Khartoum. He was a man, ironically, whose burnt earth policy and concentration camps laid the seeds for generational race hatred between Boer and Brit back in South Africa, but who himself has no grave, after being lost at sea eight months before.

There are 2 000 names on the walls, a third of them from the Mendi.

For Captain Frans Roux, the outgoing commander of the Amatola, there’s no doubt about the importance of the day or who the focus should be: “It’s all about the descendants today,” he says on the flight deck as night still shrouds the harbour.

It’s the highlight of the Amatola’s entire four-month deployment up the west coast of Africa scaring off pirates and the diplomatic tour of Europe and exercises with the Royal Navy and then the Germans next week, he says. There is nothing bigger.

Before the ship departs, it’s left to Commander Cebo Gwala – who will take over command from Roux in May, when the Amatola returns to Simon’s Town – to provide some light humour with the safety briefing: The ship won’t sink, but if it does, there’s nothing to worry about. If there’s a fire, everyone’s to congregate in the helicopter hanger, if there’s a man overboard, no one must jump in to help… Whatever the crisis, the crew’s got you covered, no one’s drowning or dying today…

There’s laughter, but it’s nervous laughter because many are looking at the sea, thinking back 100 years and thinking, what if ?

Minister in the Presidency Jeff Radebe throws the first wreath into the sea; the descendants follow. The wreaths mimic their ancestors; some hit the water and disappear without trace, others break on impact. Some hit the water face down and aren’t seen past the wake, others bob majestically on and beyond, as if heading for the open Atlantic – and home to South Africa.

The atmosphere is sombre, understandably so.

For many of the descendants the week in Britain has been an emotional rollercoaster. Grown men have wept openly and unashamedly at the memorial services, at the burden not just of discovery and reflection but also of being their families’ designated representatives.

Captain Lulamile Ngesi, the Navy’s chaplain, seems to sum it up in his sermon: “Their unfulfilled dreams and hopes are ours now.”

Once the wreaths have been thrown atop the rolling waves, it’s time for the national anthems. The honour guard presents arms, all the officers in uniform come to attention and salute.

Some of the civilians place their hands on their chests. Except there’s no music. Everyone stands mute, swaying with the motion of the sea beneath and just before this can become another Ard Matthews or Ras Dumisani moment, the group where the descendants are cloistered on the port side, starts singing.

In an instant, with the exception of the honour guard, the entire company is singing Nkosi sikelel’ iAfrika. The music comes back on in cue but the singing continues.

As everyone departs for lunch in the wardroom down the corridor beyond the hangar, I ask BuyeyeMohale how she feels. She’s had a tough life. Her father served in World War II and probably came back with undiagnosed PTSD, just like the rest of his neighbours, all policemen in Masoleni, Dube, Soweto.

Buyeye-Mohale was arrested, tortured, put on trial for her life and then released to fend for herself when her trial collapsed. She’s the third generation in her family trying for that elusive better life.

“I felt cold. I thought of him swimming in the icy water. I thought of his comrades. But it’s okay now. I feel at peace. Finally.”