White Cargo narrative location Africa
Plot
During the early years of World War II Worthing (Richard Ainley) the “boss”, is on board a seaplane, the Congo Queen on an inspection tour of rubber plantations in remote locations in the West African jungle. The plane lands at a large, modern operation. Worthing tells the local supervisor that they must maximize production because the Japanese hold Malaya, reducing the supply of that critical war material. He points to a photograph on the wall that shows thatched shacks beside a river and remembers the old days, in 1910, before “refrigerators, electricity and air-conditioning gadgets…schools and infirmaries.” The camera zooms into the photo, which comes to life. 
Four men, the only whites within hundreds of square miles, eagerly await the arrival of the riverboat Congo Queen. Wilbur Ashley (Bramwell Fletcher) and his boss, Harry Witzel (Walter Pidgeon), have succumbed to the monotony of living and working together in isolation and grown to hate one-another. Ashley is finally going home, being replaced by the abominably green Langford (Richard Carlson), set to commence a four-year stint. The other greeters are the badly alcoholic doctor (Frank Morgan) and ineffectual missionary Reverend Dr. Roberts (Henry O'Neill). 
There is nothing Witzel hates more than breaking in a new man. He and Langford get off to a bad start, with Witzel constantly badgering Langford and insisting that he'll never stick, won't work out, and would do them both a favor by just going home. Things only go downhill from there. As it had been with Ashley, it takes all of the efforts of the doctor and Roberts to keep the two men from each other's throats. The situation becomes worse when Tondelayo (Hedy Lamarr), a notorious bauble-craving native seductress, returns. Harry, as resident magistrate, has already ordered her to leave his district, declaring her to be a disruptive, immoral influence.
Tondelayo begins to work her wiles on Langford. Despite warnings from all three of the other men (and clearly to spite Witzel), he falls for her charms - as both Ashley and Witzel had before him. And her incessant pestering for silks and bangles and gold jewelry from Lagos.  When Witzel's orders her expelled once more, Langford decides to marry her to put her past the slightly deranged but well-intentioned man's incessant rebukes. Roberts reveals that rather than being a native African, she is half Egyptian and half Arab, making marriage unpleasant to the other men's sensibilities but morally acceptable.  In spite of his better judgment, and loud and sustained protests from Witzel, Roberts feels compelled by his faith to join the couple in holy matrimony.
After five months, Tondelayo has grown bored of her husband, and he of her. Always stirring up trouble to spice up her life, she tries to seduce Harry; he refused to allow the old flame to be re-lit, reminding her that she is Mrs. Langford "until death do you part". With that she sees a way out of her bonds.  When Langford becomes sick, the doctor gives her medicine to administer to him. She obtains poison from a native in trade for a rifle and gives him that instead. Harry, suspecting her deception, hides, then ambushes her just as she is about to give Langford a fatal dose. In his dual roles of local magistrate and self-appointed avenger of wrong, Harry forces her to drink the rest of the poison. She runs away screaming and collapses on the jungle floor.
The doctor takes Langford away on the Congo Queen for better medical treatment, Witzel identifying the man merely as ‘white cargo’. From the boat comes Langford's replacement: a young, maddeningly enthusiastic, and infuriatingly naive Worthing. After trying but failing to hold his temper, Harry seizes him and forcefully tells him that he will stick around. Nothing will stop him from living, breathing, and thinking rubber 24 hours a day.
Returning to the present, Worthing observes that he did stick.