In my book Utterly Immoral I write about Robert Keable’s experiences during the First World War working as a chaplain for the South African Native Labour Contingent. Almost 100,000 black labourers volunteered to serve with the SANLC in France with the first unit of 1,479 labourers arriving Le Havre in November 1916. Robert Keable, as a parish priest then working in Leribe in Basutoland, (now Lesotho), helped recruit men for the SANLC before volunteering himself.

As I explain in my book the labourers were not well treated in France. They were forced to live in closed compounds with no freedom of movement as if prisoners-of-war, and led by, mainly racist, white officers.

Before the end of the war Robert Keable wrote a short account of the SANLC called The First Black Ten Thousand. It was accepted for publication by SPCK, was set up ready to print and was then banned by the British censures. Although the manuscript was returned to the author it was lost, so we will never know what Robert Keable wrote.

I do wonder whether one of the reasons the book was banned was because of Robert Keable’s account of the sinking of the SS Mendi. The title – The First Black Ten Thousand – suggests this. When the Mendi left Plymouth (having started its journey in Cape Town) there were already over 9,000 African labourers in France. The 800 men aboard would have taken the total up to ten thousand.

Was the sinking of the SS Mendi hushed up?

The sinking of the SS Mendi was one of the great tragedies of the First World War. The ship was travelling to France in thick fog when it was struck accidentally by the SS Darro. The Mendi sunk with the death of over 600 men. The sinking occurred on February 21^st but was only reported in the press after the premiere of South Africa, General Louis Botha, announced the sinking in the South African parliament on March 9^th.  

An official announcement stated:

              Difficulty in obtaining authentic information caused the delay in making the announcement.

One wonders whether a statement would have been made in Parliament if some white officers had not also drowned. A typical headline from an American paper ran:

               HUNDREDS PERISH AS TRANSPORT SUNK

        Ten Europeans Among 625 Persons Abroad British Vessel Lost off isle of Wight

        REST AFRICAN LABOURERS

There was an investigation into the accident with a formal hearing held in London that summer. The Master of the SS Darro was found guilty of travelling at a dangerously high speed in fog and not emitting the necessary fog sounds. His punishment? His licence was suspended for one year.

Although the news of the death of so many men led to memorial services attended by huge numbers of people across southern Africa, the story of the sinking of Mendi received little notice or recognition in Britain. It was only after the end of the apartheid regime in South Africa that the story has become more well known.

Robert Keable and the SS Mendi  

For Robert Keable the sinking of the SS Mendi was a disgraceful tragedy. He knew, and probably recruited, at least one man who died in the accident. Although his account of the sinking, in The First Ten Thousand, was banned I am sure he used part of it in the chapter he wrote in Standing By (published in 1919) called Michael and Agnesi. He described how Michael left his pregnant wife Agnesi at home and travelled to Cape Town to join the SANLC. Michael travelled on the SS Mendi and Robert Keable imagined what happened to him.

The Mendi stood out to cross the Channel at dawn on the last stage of that journey from the far Maluti village. She was full of boys, her troop-decks packed, her officers very hopeful of the landing at long last. But the heavy, sullen seas about her were very cold. And then the Channel fog enveloped them, and there was a crash and a jar, and she heeled over ever so slightly and lay like a log. I picture it that Michael was below, in the crowd. Only dimly, perhaps, he and others realised the danger, but so short of training and the hidden grit told, and there was none of that rush which had been feared. They tramped up on deck in their heavy boots and unlovely blue uniforms and lifebelts and formed up on parade. The swish of the sea, the shriek of the siren, the voices of the officers, were heard, but the boys were silent, except to call now and again to mates to ask if their particular friends were there. Michael stood with difficulty on the sloping deck, now shaken a step forward as the ship rolled, now dressing back to the line as he had been taught. He watched the efforts made to get the boats, and must have wondered how they would all get aboard. It was chill; he shivered slightly; surely he saw again the cheerful fire and warm sunlight; surely the Lekhotla at home. Agnesi would have her baby, perhaps, by now; maybe it was at her breast this moment. But the officer is speaking.

‘Boys,’ he called, ‘at the word of command march forward and jump overboard. Your belts will keep you up; don’t fear. Then the boats around will pick you up in the water. Are you ready? March!’

It is easy to write heroics, but I am not ashamed to do so here. That steady jump of those black boys ought to still the slander in more white throats than it does, and at least for me I am not ashamed to say that I honour the race that did it. And in the cold water the warm African blood of six hundred of the King’s black people chilled for ever.  

In Utterly Immoral I try to show why Robert Keable felt it necessary to write about the ‘slander’ in ‘white throats’. I have no doubt Robert Keable's anger about the treatment of the labourers, and not least the unnecessary death of so many on the SS Mendi, would have led the British censors to ban his book. He would have been even angrier if he had known at the time that the South African government decided not to award war medals or ribbons to the black men on the Mendi – survivors or those who died, whilst all the white officers did receive medals.