The African Queen

This book is set before and during WWI in Africa. Rose and her priest brother are sent to Christianize the natives. At the time, central Africa was occupied by the Germans, of which Rose and Samuel highly detested. Samuel dies early on in the book and Rose is devastated. Through her brother’s death Rose becomes highly patriotic and wants to help with her blow for the British Empire. Allnutt comes along and helps her bury him. To get her away from her brother’s grave he invites her on his boat the African Queen. The boat is very rickety and full of high explosives, mainly blasting gelatin. Allnutt tells her of the Köigin Luise (Louisa), a police steamer which the German government maintains. Rose suddenly gets the idea of torpedoing it. With all the explosives, she figures, they could create torpedoes. Allnutt says it’s crazy and tells her of rapids and other dangers that they could come upon. She persuades him to go and he agrees reluctantly. He thinks that once she sees a real ...