My list of boyhood heroes - Doctor Albert Schweitzer, Thor Heyerdahl ("The Kon-Tiki Expedition"), Heinrich Harrer ("Seven Years in Tibet"), and Heinz Helfgen ("Ich radle um die Welt") - has kept growing well into adult life.
When I lived and worked on Thursday Island, I added Oskar Speck who paddled in a tiny "Faltboot" all the way from Germany to the Torres Strait, and even in my retirement I found new inspirations when in an op-shop I picked up a copy of Tom Neale's book "An Island To Oneself".
Long before then though, I added to my list the amazing story of Henno Martin and Hermann Korn who for two years hid out in the waterless Namib desert to avoid being interned during the Second World War.
I first came across the Afrikaans translation of their book "The Sheltering Desert" under its Afrikaans title "Vlug in die Namib" in 1968 when I lived and worked in South-West Africa, or what is now called Namibia.
The heavy iron gates of Windhoek Prison fell to behind us with a clang. I turned round for a moment. Above the inner arch of the gates was an inscription, a little faded but still legible: "Alles zur Besserung!" Those reassuring words had obviously been left over from the days of German rule. So we were to be improved, reformed, rehabilitated as its inmates! In the ordinary way I should have laughed, but we didn't feel much like laughing.
The formalities were soon settled. Our names: Hermann Korn and Henno Martin. Profession: geologists. Then our belts and bootlaces were taken away. After that the cell doors closed behind us.
We were separated now and my sick comrade lay in the next cell. I didn't feel too good myself; we had been on the move all day in order to reach our destination before nightfall. The feeble light of a lamp in the prison yard fell through the bars of my cell window. I could not sleep.
I lay on my back and stared into the semi-darkness. How narrow and confined this small space was after the wide horizons and the high heavens of the desert in which we had lived for so long!
Its German original, "Wenn es Krieg gibt, gehen wir in die Wüste" ("We hide in the desert when war comes"), seemed to be little-known beyond the borders of South-West Africa then, and is lost in total obscurity now.
However, its English translation is now long out of copyright and freely available on the internet - click here. And, best of all, this classic tale of African adventure and man's survival in brutal circumstances was made into a movie in 1992 which is also freely available on YouTube.
Enjoy!
