For 67 days Private Sikaniso Mtolo's body drifted on the currents that swept through the English Channel. The sea through which Mtolo's corpse passed was a battleground, as World War One continued into its third year.The German U boat campaign had left its harvest of corpses in the English Channel, but Mtolo had ended up in these cold waters not from enemy action, his death had come from human error.On the morning of February 21, 1917, the British troopship SS Mendi was inching its way through heavy fog to the French port of Le Havre. The fear that morning was that they would stumble on a German submarine that were known to be prowling the Channel. On board was Mtolo, and 831 other members of the 5 battalion of the South African Native Corps. Men recruited from throughout southern Africa who had signed up to fight the Germans.We dont know what Mtolo looked like, for there are no surviving photographs but from documents we know he was of medium build, five foot 7 inches in height, and had no distinguishing marks.He had kept this journey to France a secret, according to his grandchildren.When Mtolo left his kraal, that sat high above the Nsingozi river, near Richmond , probably in late 1916, he told his wife Thoko he was leaving to look for job.He didnt mention joining the army.The family tell another story of his leaving, that is perhaps more lore than fact.In this story, Mtolo's brother had committed a murder, for which Mtolo took the blame. He was sentenced to hang, but when the trapdoor opened, the rope around his neck broke. Mtolo was given a stay of execution and left looking for work. But there appears to be is no record of this happening.On January 16, 1917 The Mendi sailed from Cape Town, called at Lagos,Nigeria before stopping over in  Plymouth in the UK.Next stop would be France, where the men would disembark. Unlike white soldiers, the men of the fifth battalion would not be armed.They would be tasked with non combative roles, building roads, working in allied ports or digging trenches.The race divide was too great to allow black soldiers to carry rifles.That fateful morning the SS Mendi was 19 kilometres from the Isle of Wight.Her captain had reduced her speed because of the poor visibility.Not far from the Mendi the Darro, a 11,484 ton cargo ship was cutting full speed through the same bank of fog.At 5am the Darro slammed into the Mendi's starboard quarter.The Mendi took 25 minutes to sinkIn those frantic minutes, oral history tells that the men of five Battalion met their death with dignity and bravery.That former minister and interpreter Isaac Williams Wauchope rallied the men on deck, got them to drill the death drill and told them that they must die like brothers.Researchers question this. The sinking Mendi's deck, they believe, would have listed quickly, been cluttered and dark. There would have been no time to gather the men.It is not known if Mtolo made it on deck or if he died in the impact.The winter cold waters, would have killed in minutes, even for the few men that could swim.He was one of 646 who died in the sinking.What is known is that Mtolo's body broke free from the wreck.The corpse that had floated for 67 days made landfall in Holland, near the town of Zandvoort.Such arrivals werent uncommon in neutral Holland. The dead from both sides of the war frequently called . Most arrived with nothing on them to provide an identification and they went to their graves nameless.Mtolo was lucky.On April 30 1917 the public Prosecutor in Haarlem in a letter declared that there was no objections to the burial of a male “presumably kaffer” whose name was Sikanisu Mtolo and whose death may be assumed to be drowning.Mtolo went to his grave with his name, thanks to a remarkable piece of paper.The same sheet of paper would later bring a family happiness and a lot of turmoil...