Free Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley & Livingstone by Martin Dugard

rage E. D. Young felt as he read the news aboard Osborne was his personal knowledge of Musa’s character. Young, a thirty-five-year-old who held the rank of warrant officer, had served with Livingstone’s Zambezi expedition between January 1862 and March 1864. He piloted Pioneer , the second of three steel steamboats Livingstone used to navigate the Zambezi delta. In Young’s opinion Ali Musa and the Johannas were nothing but thieves, layabouts and liars. It was his belief that the Johannas abandoned Livingstone because the exploration had become too rugged, then concocted the story about Livingstone’s death to collect their pay.
    Young was a thin, impulsive man. As a boy he had voluntarily joined the Royal Navy, a career infamous for its brutality, sodomy and squalid living conditions. Most men didn’t volunteer for such a life. Rather, they were coerced into service by groups of sailors roaming seaside towns, plying young men with drink, hitting them over the head or just clapping them in irons, then carrying them onto a ship. Young, however, enjoyed navy life. During his twenty years of service he worked his way up through the ranks to become a gunner and warrant officer. It was while serving as gunner on Gorgon , a supply ship plying the Mozambique Channel, that he first met Livingstone in 1860. Young admired the explorer so greatly he resigned his hard-won commission in 1862 to serve on board Pioneer . Initially, Livingstone had doubts about the sailor’s character, suspicious that Young’s overzealous workethic was an attempt to coerce him into paying extra wages. But over time Young earned Livingstone’s trust and became a mainstay of the Zambezi expedition. ‘The Pioneer ,’ Livingstone wrote in his journal on 16 June 1863, as he struck out for an overland segment of his exploration, ‘was left in charge of our active and most trustworthy gunner, Mr Edward Young, RN.’
    The time with Livingstone was a boon to Young’s naval career, which he resumed upon returning to England. The plush billet as Osborne ’s gunner was tangible evidence — the position was almost honorary, for armament on Osborne was negligible. He’d been there two years. His Africa tan had been replaced by the ruddy pallor synonymous with life in windblown Portsmouth. Her Majesty’s yacht was a far cry from life aboard Pioneer , where uniforms were washed in muddy water, food was whatever could be fished from the river or purchased from waterfront tribes, and ‘the reed fringe of the river, weariness and the monotonous hum of the mosquito’ passed for ambience.
    Though the temperature in Portsmouth reached no more than thirty-four degrees Fahrenheit the day Young read of Livingstone’s alleged murder, every other facet of serving aboard Osborne was quite comfortable. The ship docked silently, with all commands unspoken. The decks were always polished. Young was immaculately dressed every day, tucking his uniform jumper smartly into his starched trousers. He ate hot food at regular hours and quaffed a daily rum ration. Busy, blustery, nautical Portsmouth, the home of the Royal Navy, with its sailors’ pubs and ‘gunny bunny’ gunners’ groupies, was just a train ride from a good social weekend in London. There was even an offbeat charm to life aboard Osborne , one found nowhere else in the Royal Navy: it was no secret that Osborne had a preponderance of homosexual sailors — nicknamed the ‘screaming queens’ by other members of the Royal Navy. A regular highlight of shipboard life was the ‘Sods Opera’, cabarets performed by the queens in full drag. Their performances were lively andpolished, and a sight seen nowhere else on the high seas.
    Young, however, was willing to give up the luxury, prestige and high-jinks for the sake of an outlandish scheme gathering momentum in the back of his mind: the gunner wanted to go to Africa and lead a search and rescue expedition to find Livingstone. Young’s plan focused on following