C. S. Forester · 1935 · river

C. S. Forester's 1935 adventure, set in German East Africa at the outbreak of the First World War. A missionary's sister and a hard-drinking boat mechanic take a decrepit steam launch down an uncharted river - through rapids, gunfire and fever-swamp - on a reckless scheme to torpedo the German gunboat that commands the lake beyond.

1. 1
   The mission station

   Rose Sayer keeps house for her missionary brother in German East Africa until askari raze the village; her brother dies of the shock, and the boat mechanic Charlie Allnutt arrives to find her alone.

2. 2
   The first rapids

   Rose and Charlie set off downriver in the African Queen, a battered steam launch loaded with mining gelignite - and run their first roaring rapids, Rose at the tiller.

3. 3
   The German fort at Shona

   Passing the German post at Shona, they run a gauntlet of rifle fire that punctures the boiler; Charlie patches the steam hose as the current sweeps them on.

4. 4
   The reed delta

   The river spreads into a fevered maze of reeds and mud - leeches, malaria, and a propeller smashed on a rock nearly end the journey here.

5. 5
   Lake Tanganyika

   At last the reeds open onto the great lake, patrolled by the German gunboat Konigin Luise - modelled on the real Graf von Goetzen based at Kigoma - which Rose means to sink with the African Queen herself.