No Picnic On Mount Kenya - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

Detained at P.O.W. Camp 354 near Nanyuki, Kenya, Felice Benuzzi from Trieste, together with two fellow-prisoners Dr. Giovanni ('Giuàn') Balletto from Genova and Vincenzo ('Enzo') Barsotti from Lido di Camaiore, escaped in January 1943 and climbed Mt Kenya with improvised equipment and meagre rations, two of them reaching a point on the north face of the Petit Gendarme, at about 5000 metres, high up the NW ridge. After an eventful 18-day period on the mountain (24 January – 10 February), and to the astonishment of the British camp commandant, the three adventurers broke back into Camp 354. As reward for their exploit, they each received 28 days in solitary confinement, commuted to 7 days by the camp commandant in acknowledgement of their "sporting effort".

From the flyleaf of the 1952 William Kimber edition of the book:

"One of the most unusual adventures of the war years has now been written by the man who led it, and who has the ability to tell his story with the accuracy and vividness that compels the readers to live through it with him. Felice Benuzzi was a P.O.W. in a British Camp facing Mount Kenya (5,199 m – 17,058 ft). The depressing tedium of camp life and the fascination of the mountain combined to inspire him with a plan. He first put the prospect of escaping to climb it to a fellow prisoner who was a professional mountaineer. The expert told him that the idea was mad, that they would need six months' training on first-class food and porters to carry equipment to a base camp. But Benuzzi was not to be put off. Eventually he got two others to conspire with him, a doctor and a sailor. Surreptitiously they improvised scant equipment and saved what food they could from rations. Their only 'map' of the mountain was a sketch of it on the label of an Oxo tin.

"And then they escaped, and went to climb the mountain. The sailor was ill immediately after break-out but decided to carry on. The lower reaches of Kenya are jungle and forest infested with big game. They were unarmed, and their encounters with the animals are some of the most exciting passages in the story. But Benuzzi writes with a simplicity and vigour that take you with him every yard of the way. At the foot of the highest peak the sailor was too ill to go further, and Benuzzi and the doctor went forward to the climax of their adventure. Their way back was as hazardous as the ascent, and the tension never relaxes until they at last break back into the P.O.W. camp from which they had escaped and give themselves up to the British Commandant."