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diff --git a/old/10362.txt b/old/10362.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5211760 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10362.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4568 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Sketches of the East Africa Campaign, by +Robert Valentine Dolbey + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Sketches of the East Africa Campaign + +Author: Robert Valentine Dolbey + +Release Date: December 1, 2003 [eBook #10362] + +Language: English + +Chatacter set encoding: US-ASCII + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SKETCHES OF THE EAST AFRICA +CAMPAIGN*** + + +E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, David King, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +SKETCHES OF THE EAST AFRICA CAMPAIGN + +BY CAPT. ROBERT V. DOLBEY, R.A.M.C. + +AUTHOR OF "A REGIMENTAL SURGEON IN WAR AND PRISON" + + +WITH ILLUSTRATIONS + +1918 + + + + + + +TO +L.A.D. AND C.B. + + + + + +PREFACE + + +The bulk of these "Sketches" were written without any thought of +publication. It was my practice in "writing home" to touch upon +different features of the campaign or of my daily experiences, and only +when I returned to England to find that kind hands had carefully +preserved these hurried letters, did it occur to me that, grouped +together, they might serve to throw some light on certain aspects of the +East Africa campaign, which might not find a place in a more elaborate +history. + +For the illustrations, I have been able to draw upon a number of German +photographs which fell into our hands. + +I should like to take this opportunity of thanking Mr. H.T. Montague +Bell for the care and kindness with which he has grouped this collection +of inco-ordinate sketches and formed it into a more or less +comprehensive whole. + +ROBERT V. DOLBEY, + +ITALY, + +_February_, 1918. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +INTRODUCTION +THIS ARMY OF OURS +THE NAVY AND ITS WORK +LETTOW AND HIS ARMY +INTELLIGENCE +GERMAN TREATMENT OF NATIVES +GOOD FOR EVIL +THE MECHANICAL TRANSPORT +THE SURGERY OF THIS WAR +MY OPERATING THEATRE AT HANDENI +SOME AFRICAN DISEASES +HORSE SICKNESS +THE WOUNDED FROM KISSAKI +MY OPERATING THEATRE IN MOROGORO +THE GERMAN IN PEACE AND WAR +LOOTING +SHERRY AND BITTERS +NATIVE PORTERS +THE PADRE AND HIS JOB +FOR ALL PRISONERS AND CAPTIVES +THE BEASTS OF THE FIELD +THE BIRDS OF THE AIR +BITING FLIES +NIGHT IN MOROGORO +THE WATERS OF TURIANI +SCOUTING +"HUNNISHNESS" +FROM MINDEN TO MOROGORO +A MORAL DISASTER +THE ANGEL OF MOROGORO +THE WILL TO DESTROY +DAR-ES-SALAAM (THE HAVEN OF PEACE) + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + +RHODESIANS CROSSING A GERMAN BRIDGE OVER THE PANGANI RIVER, NEAR MOMBO, +WHICH THEY HAD SAVED FROM DESTRUCTION + +BRITISH SHELLS EXPLODING A GERMAN AMMUNITION DUMP. + +EXCITEMENT OF THE NATIVES + +OUR FIRST WATER SUPPLY AT HANDENI + +MY OPERATING THEATRE AT MOROGORO. TWO WOUNDED RHODESIANS AND MY TWO +OPERATING-ROOM BOYS + +SISTER ELIZABETH. THE GERMAN SISTER + +HUNS ON TREK + +AN ENEMY DETACHMENT ON TREK. MACHINE-GUN PORTERS IN FRONT + +NATIVES BUILDING A BANDA + +A TYPICAL STRETCH OF ROAD THROUGH OPEN BUSH + +THE NATIVE VILLAGE OF MOROGORO + +A GERMAN DUG-OUT + +OLD PORTUGUESE WATERGATE, DAR-ES-SALAAM + +MAP OF GERMAN EAST AFRICA + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +These sketches of General Smuts' campaign of 1916 in German East Africa, +do not presume to give an accurate account of the tactical or +strategical events of this war. The actual knowledge of the happenings +of war and of the considerations that persuade an Army Commander to any +course of military conduct must, of necessity, be a closed book to the +individual soldier. To the fighting man himself and to the man on the +lines of communication, who helps to feed and clothe and arm and doctor +him, the history of his particular war is very meagre. War, to the +soldier, is limited to the very narrow horizon of his front, the daily +work of his regiment, or, at the most, of his brigade. Rarely does news +from the rest of one brigade spread to the troops of another in the +field. Only in the hospital that serves the division are the events of +his bit of war correlated and reduced to a comprehensive whole. Even +then the resulting knowledge is usually wrong. For the imagination of +officers, and of men in particular, is wonderful, and rumour has its +birthplace in the hospital ward. One may take it as an established fact +that the ordinary regimental officer or soldier knows little or nothing +about events other than his particular bit of country. Only the Staff +know, and they will not tell. Sometimes we have thought that all the +real news lives in the cloistered brain of the General and his Chief of +Staff. Be this as it may, we always got fuller and better correlated and +co-ordinated news of the German East African Campaign from "Reuter" or +from _The Times_ weekly edition. + +But if the soldier in the forward division knows nothing of the +strategical events of his war, there are many things of which he does +know, and so well too that they eclipse the greater strategical +considerations of the war. He does know the food he eats and the food +that he would like to eat; moreover, he knew, in German East Africa, +what his rations ought to be, and how to do without them. He learnt how +to fight and march and carry heavy equipment on a very empty stomach. He +learnt to eke out his meagre supplies by living on the wild game of the +country, the native flour, bananas and mangoes. He knew what it meant to +have dysentery and malaria. He had marched under a broiling sun by day +and shivered in the tropic dews at night. He knew what it was to sleep +upon the ground; to hunt for shade from the vertical sun. These and many +other things did he know, and herein lies the chief interest of this or +of any other campaign. + +For, strange as it may seem, the soldier in East Africa was more +concerned about his food and clothing, the tea he thirsted for, the +blisters that tormented his weary feet, the equipment that was so heavy, +the sleep that drugged his footsteps on the march, the lion that sniffed +around his drowsy head at night, than about the actual fighting. These +are the real points of personal interest in any campaign, and if these +sketches bear upon the questions of food, the matter of transport, the +manner of the soldier's illness, the hospitals he stayed in, the tsetse +fly that bit him by day, the mosquitoes that made his nights a perfect +torment, they are the more true to life. For fights are few, and, in +this thick bush country, frequently degenerate into blind firing into a +blinder bush; but the "jigger" flea is with the soldier always. + +But this campaign is far different from any of the others in which our +arms are at present engaged. First and of especial interest was this +army of ours; the most heterogeneous collection of fighting men, from +the ends of the earth, all gathered in one smoothly working homogeneous +whole. From Boers and British South Africans, from Canada and Australia, +from India, from home, from the planters of East Africa, and from all +the dusky tribes of Central Africa, was this army of ours recruited. The +country, too, was of such a character that knowledge of war in other +campaigns was of little value. Thick grass, dense thorn scrub, high +elephant grass, all had their special bearing on the quality of the +fighting. Close-quarter engagements were the rule, dirty fighting in the +jungle, ambushes, patrol encounters; and the deadly machine-gun that +enfiladed or swept every open space. We cannot be surprised that the +mounted arm was robbed of much of its utility, that artillery work was +often blind for want of observation, that the trench dug in the green +heart of a forest escaped the watchful eyes of aeroplanes, that this war +became a fight of men and rifles, and, above all, the machine-gun. + +In this campaign the Hun has been the least of the malignant influences. +More from fever and dysentery, from biting flies, from ticks and +crawling beasts have we suffered than from the bullets of the enemy. +Lions and hyaenas have been our camp followers, and not a little are we +grateful to these wonderful scavengers, the best of all possible allies +in settling the great question of sanitation in camps. For all our roads +were marked by the bodies of dead horses, mules and oxen, whose stench +filled the evening air. Much labour in the distasteful jobs of burying +these poor victims of war did the scavengers of the forest save us. + +The transport suffered from three great scourges: the pest of +horse-sickness and fly and the calamity of rain. For after twelve hours' +rain in that black cotton soil never a wheel could move until a hot sun +had dried the surface of the roads again. Roads, too, were mere bush +tracks in the forest, knee-deep either in dust or in greasy clinging +mud. + +Never has Napoleon's maxim that "an army fights on its stomach" been +better exemplified than here. All this campaign we have marched away +from our dinners, as the Hun has marched toward his. The line of +retreat, predetermined by the enemy, placed him in the fortunate +position that the further he marched the more food he got, the softer +bed, more ammunition, and the moral comfort of his big naval guns that +he fought to a standstill and then abandoned. Heavy artillery meant +hundreds of native porters or dove-coloured humped oxen of the country +to drag them; and heavy roads defied the most powerful machinery to move +the guns. + +In order to appreciate the great difficulty with which our Supply +Department has had to contend, we must remember that our lines of +communication have been among the longest in any campaign. From the +point of view of the railway and the road haul of supplies, our lines of +communication have been longer than those in the Russo-Japanese War. For +every pound of bully beef or biscuit or box of ammunition has been +landed at Kilindini, our sea base, from England or Australia, railed up +to Voi or Nairobi, a journey roughly of 300 miles. From one or other of +those distributing points the trucks have had to be dragged to Moschi on +the German railway, from there eastward along the German railway line to +Tanga as far as Korogwe, a matter of another 500 miles. From here the +last stage of 200 miles has been covered by ox or mule or horse +transport, and the all-conquering motor lorry, over these bush tracks to +Morogoro. Can we wonder, then, that the great object of this campaign +has been to raise as many supplies locally as possible, and to drive our +beef upon the hoof in the rear of our advancing army? Nor is the German +unconscious of these our difficulties. He has with the greatest care +denuded the whole country of supplies before us, and called in to his +aid his two great allies, the tsetse fly and horse sickness, to rob us +of our live cattle and transport animals on the way. + +At first we thought the German in East Africa to be a better fellow than +his brother in Europe, more merciful to his wounded prisoner, more +chivalrous in his manner of fighting. But the more we learn of him the +more we come to the conclusion that he is the same old Hun as he is in +Belgium--infinitely crafty, incredibly beastly in his dealings with his +natives and with our prisoners. Only in one aspect did we find him +different, and this by reason of the fact that we were winning and +advancing, taking his plantations and his farms, finding that he had +left his women and children to our charge. Then we saw the alteration. +For I had known what eight months in German prisons in Europe mean to a +soldier prisoner of war, and now I had German prisoners in my charge. +Anxious to please, eager to conciliate, as infinitely servile to us, now +they were in captivity, as they were vile and bestial and arrogant to us +when they were in authority, were these prisoners of ours. + +Nor was this the only aspect from which the campaign in German East +Africa appealed to those of us who had taken part in the advance from +the Marne to the Aisne in September, 1914. Then we saw what looting +meant, and how the German officer enriched his family home with trophies +looted from many chateaux. We knew of French houses that had been +stripped of every article of value; we saw, discarded by the roadside, +in the rapid and disorganised retreat to the Aisne, statuary and +bronzes, pictures and clocks, and all the treasures of French homes. Now +we were in a position to loot; but how differently our officers and men +behaved! The spoils of hundreds of German plantations at our mercy; and +hardly a thing, save what was urgently needed for hospitals or food, +taken. Every house in which the German owner lived was left unmolested; +only those abandoned to the mercy of the native plunderer had we +entered. It pays a great tribute to the natural goodness of our men, +that the German example of indiscriminate looting and destruction was +not followed. + +To people in England, and, indeed, to many soldiers in France, it seemed +that this campaign of ours in German East Africa was a mere side-show. +It appeared to be a Heaven-sent opportunity to escape the cold wet +misery of the trenches in Flanders. To some it spelt an expedition of +the picnic variety; they saw in this an opportunity of spending halcyon +days in the game preserves, glorious opportunities for making +collections of big game heads, all sandwiched in with pleasant and +successful enterprises against an enemy that was waiting only a decent +excuse to surrender. + +How different has been the reality, however! The picnic enterprise has +turned out to be one of the most arduous in our experience. Many of us +had served in France and the Dardanelles before, and we thought we knew +what the hardships of war could mean. If the truth be told, the soldier +suffered in East Africa, in many ways, greater hardships, performed +greater feats of endurance, endured more from fever and dysentery and +the many plagues of the country than in either of the other campaigns; +the soldier marched and fought and suffered and starved for the simple +reason that time was of the essence of the whole campaign. From June +until Christmas we had to crowd in the campaigning of a whole year; for +once the rains had started all fighting was perforce at an end. Once the +transport wheels had stopped in the black cotton soil mud the army had +to halt. All the time the great aim of the expedition was to get on and +farther on. We had to advance and risk the shortage of supplies, or we +would never reach the Central Railway. And there was not a soldier who +would not prefer to push on and suffer and finish the campaign than wait +in elegant leisure with full rations to contemplate an endless war in +the swamps of East Africa. + +The early history of the war in this theatre had been far from +favourable to our arms. In late 1914 our Expeditionary Force failed in +their landing at Tanga, a misfortune that was not compensated for by our +subsequent reverse at Jassin near the Anglo-German border on the coast. +The gallant though unsuccessful defence of the latter town by our Indian +troops, however, caused great losses to the enemy, and robbed him of +many of his most distinguished officers. But against these we must +record the very fine defence of the Uganda Railway and the successful +affair at Longido near the great Magadi Soda Lake in the Kilimanjaro +area. But when South Africa, in 1916, was called in to redress the +balance of India in German East Africa, the new strategic railway from +Voi to the German frontier was only just commenced, and the enemy were +in occupation of our territory at Taveta. To General Smuts then fell the +task of co-ordinating the various units in British East Africa, +strengthening them with South African troops, pushing on the railway +toward Moschi, and driving the German from British soil. In so far as +his initial movements were concerned, General Smuts carried out the +plans evolved by his predecessors. After a series of difficult but +brilliant engagements, the enemy were forced back to Moschi, and to the +Kilimanjaro area, which, in places, was very strongly held. From this +point he mapped out his own campaign. Colonel von Lettow was +out-manoeuvred by our flanking movements, and forced to retire partly +along the Tanga railway eastward to the sea, and partly towards the +Central Railway in the heart of the enemy country. + +Two outstanding features of this campaign may be mentioned: the faith +the whole army had in General Smuts, the loyalty, absolute and complete, +that all our heterogeneous troops gave to him; and the natural goodness +of the soldier. As for the latter, Boer or English, Canadian, East +African or Indian, all showed that they could bear the heat and dust and +dirty fighting, the disease and privation just as gallantly, +uncomplainingly, and well, as did their British comrades on the Western +front. + +Finally, there is one very generous tribute that our army would pay to +the Germans in the field, and that is to the excellence of the +leadership of Lettow, and the devotion with which he has by threats and +cajolings sustained the failing courage of his men. Nor can one forget +that in this war the mainstay of our enemy has lain in the discipline +and devotion of the native troops. Here, indeed, in this campaign the +black man has kept up the spirit of the white. Nor does this leave the +future unclouded with potential trouble, for, in this war, the black man +has seen the white, on both sides, run from him. The black man is armed +and trained in the use of the rifle, and machine-gun, and his +intelligence and capacity have been attested to by the degree of fire +control that he mastered. It must be more than a coincidence that in the +two colonies--East Africa and the Cameroon--where the Germans used +native troops they put up an efficient and skilful resistance, while in +South-West Africa, where all the enemy troops were white, they showed +little inclination for a fight to a finish. In Colonel von +Lettow-Vorbeck the German army has one of the most able and resourceful +leaders that it has produced in this war. + + + + +THIS ARMY OF OURS + + +Since Alexander of Macedon descended upon the plains of India, there can +never have been so strange and heterogeneous an army as this, and a +doctor must speak with the tongues of men and angels to arrive at an +even approximate understanding of their varied ailments. The first +division that came with Jan Smuts from the snows of Kilimanjaro to the +torrid delta of the Rufigi contained them all. + +The real history of the war begins with Smuts; for, prior to his coming, +we were merely at war; but when he came we began to fight. A brief +twenty-four hours in Nairobi, during which he avoided the public +receptions and the dinners that a more social chief would have graced; +then he was off into the bush. Wherever that rather short, but well-knit +figure appeared, with his red beard, well streaked with grey, beneath +the red Staff cap, confidence reigned in all our troops. And to the end +this trust has remained unabated. Many disappointments have come his +way, more from his own mounted troops than from any others; but we have +felt that his tactics and strategy were never wrong. Thus it was that +from this heterogeneous army, Imperial, East African, Indian and South +African, he has had a loyalty most splendid all the time. He may have +pushed us forward so that we marched far in advance of food or supplies, +thrust us into advanced positions that to our military sense seemed very +hazardous. But he meant "getting a move on," and we knew it; and all of +us wished the war to be over. Jan Smuts suffered the same fever as we +did, ate our food, and his personal courage in private and most risky +reconnaissances filled us with admiration and fear, lest disaster from +some German patrol might overtake him. To me the absence of criticism +and the loyal co-operation of all troops have been most wonderful. For +we are an incurably critical people, and here was a civilian, come to +wrest victory from a series of disasters. + +First in interest, perhaps, as they were ever first in fight, are the +Rhodesians, those careless, graceful fellows that have been here a year +before the big advance began. Straight from the bush country and fever +of Northern Rhodesia, they were probably the best equipped of all white +troops to meet the vicissitudes of this warfare. They knew the dangers +of the native paths that wound their way through the thorn bush, and +gave such opportunities for ambush to the lurking patrol. None knew as +they how to avoid the inviting open space giving so good a field of fire +for the machine-gun, that took such toll of all our enterprises. With +them, too, they brought a liability to blackwater fever that laid them +low, a legacy from Lake Nyasa that marked them out as the victims of +this scourge in the first year of the big advance. + +The Loyal North Lancashires, too, have borne the heat and burden of the +day from the first disastrous landing at Tanga. Always exceedingly well +disciplined, they yield to none in the amount of solid unrewarded work +done in this campaign. + +Of the most romantic interest probably are the 25th Royal Fusiliers, the +Legion of Frontiersmen. Volumes might be written of the varied careers +and wild lives lived by these strange soldiers of fortune. They were led +by Colonel Driscoll, who, for all his sixty years, has found no work too +arduous and no climate too unhealthy for his brave spirit. I knew him in +the Boer War when he commanded Driscoll's Scouts, of happy, though +irregular memory; their badge in those days, the harp of Erin on the +side of their slouch hats, and known throughout the country wherever +there was fighting to be had. The 25th Fusiliers, too, were out here in +the early days, and participated in the capture of Bukoba on the Lake. A +hundred professions are represented in their ranks. Miners from +Australia and the Congo, prospectors after the precious mineral earths +of Siam and the Malay States, pearl-fishers and elephant poachers, +actors and opera singers, jugglers, professional strong men, big-game +hunters, sailors, all mingled with professions of peace, medicine, the +law and the clerk's varied trade. Here two Englishmen, soldiers of +fortune or misfortune, as the case might be, who had specialised in +recent Mexican revolutions, till the fall of Huerta brought them, too, +to unemployment; an Irishman there, for whom the President of Costa Rica +had promised a swift death against a blank wall. Cunning in the art of +gun-running, they were knowing in all the tides of the Caribbean Sea, +and in every dodge to outwit the United States patrol. Nor must I forget +one priceless fellow, a lion-tamer, who, strange to say, feared +exceedingly the wild denizens of the scrub that sniffed around his +patrol at night. + +Of our Indian forces the most likeable and attractive were the +Kashmiris, whom the patriot Rajah of Kashmir has given to the India +Government. Recruited from the mountains of Nepal--for the native of +Kashmir is no soldier--they meet one everywhere with their eager smiling +faces. In hospital they are always professing to a recovery from fever +that their pallid faces and enlarged spleens belie, and they take not +kindly to any suggestion of invaliding. + +These battalions of Kashmir Rifles, the Baluchis and the King's African +Rifles have done more dirty bush fighting than any troops in this +campaign. The Baluchis, in particular, have covered themselves with +glory in many a fight. + +The most efficient soldiers in East Africa are the King's African +Rifles; unaffected by the fever and the dysentery of the country, and +led by picked white officers, they are in their element in the thorn +jungle in which the Germans have conducted their rearguard actions. +Known at first as the "Suicides Club," the King's African Rifles lost a +far greater proportion of officers than any other regiment. Nor is it a +little that they owe to the gallant leader of one battalion, Colonel +Graham, who lost his life early in the advance on Moschi. These +regiments are recruited from Nyasaland in the south to Nubia and +Abyssinia in the north. Yaos, known by the three vertical slits in their +cheeks; slim Nandi, with perforated lobes to their ears; ebony +Kavirondo; Sudanese of an excellent quality; Wanyamwezi from the country +between Tabora and Lake Tanganyika, the very tribe from whom the German +Askaris are recruited, and all the dusky tribes that stretch far north +to Lake Rudolph and the Nile. Nor should one forget the Arab Rifles, +raised by that wonderful fellow Wavell, whose brother was a prisoner +with me in Germany. A professing Mohammedan, he was one of very few +white men who had made the pilgrimage to Mecca. He harried the Huns +along the unhealthy districts of the coast, until a patrol, in ambush, +laid him low near Gazi. + +Last, and most important, the army of South Africans, whose coming spelt +for us the big advance and the swift move that made us master of the +whole country from Kilimanjaro to the Rufigi. A great political +experiment and a most wonderfully successful one was this Africander +army, English and Boers, under a Boer General. For the first time since +the Great War in South Africa, the Boers made common cause with us, +definitely aligned themselves with us in a joint campaign and provided +the greatest object lesson of this World War. If the campaign of German +East Africa was worth while, its value has been abundantly proved in +this welding of the races that, despite local disagreements, has +occurred. The South African troops have found the country ill adapted to +their peculiar genius in war, and the blind bush has robbed the mounted +arm of much of its efficiency. Not here the wide distances to favour +their enveloping tactics. Much have they suffered from fever, hardships +and privation, and to their credit lies the greatest of all marches in +this campaign, the 250 mile march to Kondoa Irangi in the height of the +rainy season. The South African Infantry arrived in Kondoa starved and +worn and bootless after this forced march to extricate the mounted +troops, whose impetuous ardour had thrust them far beyond the +possibility of supplies, into the heart of the enemy's country. We +cannot sufficiently praise the apparently reckless tactics that made +this wonderful march towards the Central Railway, or the uncomplaining +fortitude of troops who lived in this fever-stricken country, on +hippopotamus meat, wild game and native meal. To the Boer, as to all of +us, this campaign must have taught a wonderful lesson, for many +prejudices have been modified, and it has been learnt that "coolies" (as +only too often the ignorant style all natives of India) and "Kaffirs," +can fight with the best. + +This campaign would have been largely impossible, were it not for the +Cape Boys and other natives from the Union, who have come to run our +mule and ox transport. Their peculiar genius is the management of +horses, mules and cattle. Different from other primitive and negro +people, they are very kind to animals, infinitely knowledgeable in the +lore of mule and ox, they can be depended upon to exact the most from +animal transport with the least cruelty. Wonderful riders these; I have +seen them sit bucking horses in a way that a Texas cowboy or a Mexican +might envy. + +One should not leave the subject of this army without reference to the +Cape Corps--that experiment in military recruiting which many of us were +at first inclined to condemn. But from the moment the Cape Boy enlisted +in the ranks of the Cape Corps his status was raised, and he adopted, +together with his regulation khaki uniform and helmet, a higher +responsibility towards the army than did his brother who helped to run +the transport. They have been well officered, they have been a lesson to +all of us in the essential matters of discipline and smartness, they +have done much of the dirty work entailed by guarding lines of +communication, and now, when given their longed-for chance of actual +fighting on the Rufigi, they have covered themselves with distinction. +For my part, as a doctor, I found they had too much ego in their cosmos, +as is commonly the fault of half-bred races, and a sick Cape Corps +soldier seemed always very sick indeed; yet, as the campaign progressed, +we came to like and to admire these troops the more, so that their +distinction won in the Rufigi fighting was welcomed very gladly by all +of us. + +Later in the campaign arrived the Gold Coast Regiment; and now the +Nigerian Brigade are here. Very, very smart and soldier-like these Hausa +and Fulani troops; Mohammedan, largely, in religion, and bearded where +the East Coast native is smooth-faced, they will stay to finish this +guerilla fighting, for which their experience in the Cameroon has so +well fitted them. The Gold Coast Regiment has always been where there +has been the hardest fighting, their green woollen caps and leather +sandals marking them out from other negroid soldiers. And their +impetuous courage has won them many captured enemy guns, and, alas! a +very long list of casualties. But in hospital they are the merriest of +happy people, always joking and smiling, and are quite a contrast to our +much more serious East Coast native; they have earned from their white +sergeants and officers very great admiration and devotion. By far the +best equipped of any unit in the field, they had, as a regiment, no less +than eight machine-guns and a regimental mountain battery. + + + + +THE NAVY AND ITS WORK + + +To the Navy that alone has made this campaign possible, we soldiers owe +our grateful thanks. But there have been times when, in our blindness, +we have failed to realise how great the task was to blockade 400 miles +of this coast and to keep a watchful eye on Mozambique. For before the +Portuguese made common cause with us, there was a great deal of +gun-running along the southern border of German East Africa, which our +present Allies found impossible to watch. Two factors materially aided +the Germans in making the fight they have. First, there was the lucky +"coincidence" of the Dar-es-Salaam Exhibition. This exhibition, which +was to bring the whole world to German East Africa in August, 1914, +provided the military authorities with great supplies of machinery, +stores and exhibits from all the big industrial centres; and these were +swiftly adapted to the making of rifles and munitions of war. To this +must be added the most important factor of all, the _Koenigsberg_, lying +on the mud flats far up the Rufigi, destroyed by us, it is true, but not +before the ship's company of 700, officers and men, and most of the guns +had been transported ashore, the latter mounted on gun carriages and +dragged by weary oxen or thousands of black porters to dispute our +advance. In due course, however, these were abandoned, one by one, as we +pressed the enemy back from the Northern Railway south to the Rufigi. +Last, but by no means least, was the moral support their wireless +stations gave them. These, though unable, since the destruction of the +main stations, to transmit messages, continued for some time to receive +the news from Nauen in Germany. By the air from Germany the officers +received the Iron Cross, promotion, and the Emperor's grateful thanks. + +But if you would see what work the Navy has done, you must first begin +at Lindi in the south. There you will see the _Praesident_ of the D.O.A. +line lying on her side with her propellers blown off and waiting for our +tugs to drag her to Durban for repair. And in the Rufigi lying on the +mudbanks, fourteen miles from the mouth, you will see the _Koenigsberg_, +once the pride of German cruisers, half sunk and completely dismantled. +The hippopotami scratch their tick-infested flanks upon her rusted +sides, crocodiles crawl across her decks, fish swim through the open +ports. In Dar-es-Salaam you will see the _Koenig_ stranded at the harbour +mouth, the _Tabora_ lying on her side behind the ineffectual shelter of +the land; the side uppermost innocent of the Red Cross and green line +that adorned her seaward side. For she was a mysterious craft. She flew +the Red Cross and was tricked out as a hospital ship on one side, the +other painted grey. True, she had patients and a doctor on board when a +pinnace from one of our cruisers examined her, but she also had +machine-guns mounted and gun emplacements screwed to her deck, and all +the adaptations required for a commerce raider. So our admiral decided +that, after due notice, so suspicious a craft were better sunk. A few +shots flooded her compartments and she heeled over, burying the lying +Cross of Geneva beneath the waters of the harbour. Further up the creek +you will see the _Feldmarschall_ afloat and uninjured, save for the +engines that our naval party had destroyed, and ready, to our amazement, +at the capture of the town, to be towed to Durban and to carry British +freight to British ports, and maybe meet a destroying German submarine +upon the way. Further up still you will find the Governor's yacht and a +gunboat, sunk this time by the Germans; but easy to raise and to adapt +for our service. Strange that so methodical a people should have bungled +so badly the simple task of rendering a valuable ship useless for the +enemy. But they have blundered in the execution of their plans +everywhere. The attempt to obstruct the harbour mouth at Dar-es-Salaam +was typical of their naval ineptitude. Barely two hundred yards across +this bottle-neck, it should have been an easy job to block. So they sank +the floating dock in the southern portion of the channel and moored the +_Koenig_ by bow and stern hawsers, to the shores on either side in +position for sinking. Instead of flooding her they prepared an explosive +bomb and timed it to go off at the fall of the tide. But the bomb failed +to explode, and an ebb tide setting in, broke the stern moorings and +drove her sideways on the shore. Here she lies now and the channel is +still free to all our ships to come and go. We found, at the occupation, +the record of the court-martial on the German naval officer responsible +for the failure of the plan. He seems to have pleaded, with success, the +fact that his dynamite was fifteen years old. After that no further +attempt was made, and for nearly a year before we occupied the town our +naval whalers and small cruisers sailed, the white ensign proudly +flying, into the harbour to anchor and to watch the interned shipping. +It must have been a humiliating spectacle to the Hun; but he was +helpless. Woe betide him, if he placed a mine or trained a gun upon this +ship of ours. The town would have suffered, and this they could not +risk. + +Yet further up the coast, near Tanga, the _Markgraf_ lies beached in +shallow water, and the _Reubens_ a wreck in Mansa Bay. + +In most of our naval operations our intelligence has been excellent, and +Fortune has been kind. It seemed to the Germans that we employed some +special witchcraft to provide the knowledge that we possessed. So they +panicked ingloriously, and sought spies everywhere, and hanged +inoffensive natives by the dozen to the mango trees. One day one of our +whalers entered Tanga harbour the very day the German mines were lifted +for the periodical overhaul. The Germans ascribed such knowledge to the +Prince of Evil. The whaler proceeded to destroy a ship lying there, and, +on its way out, fired a shell into a lighter that was lying near. In +this lighter were the mines, as the resulting explosion testified. This +completed the German belief in our possession of supernatural powers of +obtaining information. + +Again at the bombardment and capture of Bagamoyo by the Fleet, it seemed +to the Hun that wherever the German commander went, to this trench or to +that observation post, our 6-inch shells would follow him. All day long +they pursued his footsteps, till he also panicked and searched the bush +for a hidden wireless. He it was who shot our gallant Marine officer, as +our men stormed the trenches, and paid the penalty for his rashness +shortly after. + +The little German tug _Adjutant_, which in times of peace plied across +the bar at Chinde to bring off passengers and mails to the ships that +lay outside, has had a chequered career in this war. Slipping out from +Chinde at the outbreak of war, she made her way to Dar-es-Salaam. From +there she essayed another escapade only to fall into our hands. +Transformed into a gunboat, she harried the Germans in the Delta of the +Rufigi, until, greatly daring, one day she ran ashore on a mudbank in +the river. Captured with her crew she was taken to pieces by the Germans +and transported by rail to Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika. And there the +Belgians found her, partly reconstructed, as they entered the harbour. A +little longer delay, and the resurrected _Adjutant_ would have played +havoc with our small craft and the Belgians', which had driven the +German ships off the vast waters of this lake. + + + + +LETTOW AND HIS ARMY + + +Lettow, the one-eyed, or to give him his full title, Colonel von +Lettow-Vorbeck, is the heart and soul of the German resistance in East +Africa. Indomitable and ubiquitous, he has kept up the drooping spirits +of his men by encouragement, by the example of great personal courage, +and by threats that he can and will carry out. Wounded three times, he +has never left his army, but has been carried about on a "machela" to +prevent the half-resistance that leads to surrender. And now we hear he +has had blackwater, and, recovering, has resumed his elusive journeys +from one discouraged company to another all over the narrowing area of +operations that alone is left to the Hun of his favourite colonial +possessions. For to the fat shipping clerk of Tanga, whose soul lives +only for beer and the leave that comes to reward two years of effort, +the temptation to go sick or to get lost in the bush in front of our +advancing armies is very great. He is not of the stuff that heroes are +made of, and surrender is so safe and easy. A prison camp in Bombay is +clearly preferable to this unending retreat. He has done enough for +honour, he argues, he has proved his worth after two and a half years of +resistance! This colony has put up the best fight of all, "and the +_Schwein Englaender_ holds the seas, so further resistance is hopeless." +"We are not barbarians, are we Fritz?" But Fritz has ceased to care. +"Ahmednagar for mine," says he, reverting to the language he learnt in +the brewery at Milwaukee, in days that now seem to belong to some +antenatal life. Soon he will look for some white face beneath the +strange sun helmet the English wear, up will go his hands, and +"Kamerad"--that magic word--will open the doors to sumptuous ease behind +the prison bars. + +But Lettow is going "all out." His black Askaris are not discouraged, +and, in this war, the black man is keeping up the courage of the white. +Had the native soldiers got their tails down the game was up as far as +the Germans were concerned. But these faithful fellows see the "Bwona +Kuba," as they call Lettow, here encouraging, everywhere inspiring them +by his example, and they will stay with him until the end. Like many +great soldiers, Lettow is singularly careless in his dress; and the tale +is told at Moschi of a young German officer who stole a day's leave and +discussed with a stranger at a shop window the chances of the ubiquitous +Lettow arriving to spoil his afternoon. Nor did he know until he found +the reprimand awaiting him in camp that he had been discussing the +ethics of breaking out of camp with the "terror" himself. + +A soldier of fortune is Lettow. His name is stained with the hideous +massacres of the Hereros in South-West Africa. His was the order, +transmitted through the German Governor's mouth, that thrust the Herero +women and children into the deserts of Damaraland to die. Before the war +in South Africa, rumour says, he was instructor to the "Staats +Artillerie," which Kruger raised to stay the storm that he knew +inevitably would overwhelm him. Serving, with Smuts and Botha themselves +in the early months of the Boer war, he joined the inglorious procession +of foreigners that fled across the bridge at Komati Poort after Pretoria +fell, and left the Boer to fight it out unaided for two long and weary +years more. No wonder that Lettow has sworn never to surrender to that +"damned Dutchman Jan Smuts." Chary of giving praise for work well done, +he yet is inexorable to failure. The tale is told that Lettow was +furious when Fischer, the major in command at Moschi, was bluffed out of +his impregnable position there by Vandeventer, evacuated the northern +lines, and retired on Kahe, thus saving us the expense of taking a +natural fortress that would have taxed all our energies. White with +rage, he sent for Fischer and handed him one of his own revolvers. "Let +me hear some interesting news about you in a day or two." And Fischer +took the pistol and walked away to consider his death warrant. He looked +at that grim message for two days before he could summon up his courage: +then he shot himself, well below the heart, in a spot that he thought +was fairly safe. But poor Fischer's knowledge of anatomy was as unsound +as his strategy, for the bullet perforated his stomach. And it took him +three days to die. + +A tribe which has contributed largely to the German military forces is +the Wanyamwezi. Of excellent physique, they long resisted German +domination, but now they are entirely subdued. Hardy, brave and willing, +they are the best fighters and porters, probably, in the whole of East +Africa. Immigrant Wanyamwezi, enlisted in British East Africa into our +King's African Rifles, do not hesitate to fight against their blood +brothers. There is no stint to the faithful service they have given to +the Germans. But for them our task would have been much easier. For +drilling and parade the native mind shows great keenness and aptitude; +little squads of men are drilled voluntarily by their own N.C.O.'s in +their spare time; and often, just after an official drill is over, they +drill one another again. Smart and well-disciplined they are most +punctilious in all military services. + + + + +INTELLIGENCE + + +Of all the departments of War in German East Africa probably the most +romantic and interesting is the Intelligence Department. Far away ahead +of the fighting troops are the Intelligence officers with their native +scouts. These officers, for the most part, are men who have lived long +in the country, who know the native languages, and are familiar with the +lie of the land from experience gained in past hunting trips. Often +behind the enemy, creeping along the lines of communication, these +officers carry their lives in their hands, and run the risk of betrayal +by any native who happens across them. Sleeping in the bush at night, +unable to light fires to cook their food, lest the light should attract +the questing patrol, that, learning of their presence in the country, +has been out after them for days. Hiding in the bush, short of rations, +the little luxuries of civilisation long since finished, forced to smoke +the reeking pungent native tobacco, living off wild game (that must be +trapped, not shot), and native meal, at the mercy of the natives whom +both sides employ to get information of the other, these men are in +constant danger. Nor are the amenities of civilised warfare theirs when +capture is their lot. + +Fortunately for the British Empire there has never been any lack of +those restless beings whose wandering spirits lead them to the confines +of civilisation and beyond. To this type of man the African continent +has offered a particular attraction, and we should have fared badly in +the East African campaign, if we could not have relied upon the services +of many of them. They are for the most part men who have abandoned at an +early age the prosaic existence previously mapped out for them, and +plunging into the wilds of Africa have found a more attractive +livelihood in big game shooting and prospecting. By far the most +exhilarating calling is that of the elephant hunter, who finds in the +profits he derives from it all the compensation he requires for the +hardships, the long marches, and the grave personal dangers. In the most +inaccessible parts of the continent he plies his trade, knowing that his +life may depend upon the quickness of his eye and intellect and the +accuracy of his aim. Nor are his troubles over when his quarry has been +secured. The ivory has still to be disposed of, and it is not always +safe to attempt to sell in the territory where the game has been shot. +The area of no man's land in Africa has long since been a diminishing +quantity, and the promiscuous shooting of elephants is not encouraged. +It becomes necessary, therefore, to study the question of markets, and +the successful hunter finds it convenient to vary the spheres of his +activities continually. + +Not the least of the assets of these men is the knowledge they have of +the native and the hold they have obtained over them. That man will go +farthest who relies on the respect rather than on the fear he inspires. +The latter may go a long way, but unless it has the former to support +it, the chances are against it sooner or later. One man I know of owed +his life more than once to his devotion to a small stick that walking, +sitting or lying he never allowed out of his hand. The native mind came +to attach magical powers to the stick, and consequently to the man +himself. On one eventful journey when he had gone farther afield than +his wont, and farther than his native porters cared to accompany him, +symptoms of mutiny made their appearance. A council was held as to +whether he should be murdered or not; he was fortunate enough to +overhear it. The only possible deterrent seemed to be a dread of the +magical stick, but the two ringleaders affected to make light of it. +Realising that the time had come for decisive action, the white man +summoned the company, told them that his stick had revealed the plot to +him and warned them of the danger they ran. To clinch his argument he +offered to allow the ringleaders to return home, taking the stick with +them; but told them that they would be dead within twenty-four hours, +and the stick would come back to him. To his dismay they accepted the +challenge, and for him there could be no retreat. In desperation he +poisoned the food they were to take with them, and awaited developments. +The two natives set off early in the morning. By the afternoon they were +back again, and with them the stick. In the solitude of their homeward +trek their courage had oozed out; they feared the magic, and fortunately +had not touched the poisoned provisions. In the feasting that had to +celebrate this satisfactory denouement it was possible to substitute +other food for that which had been taken on the abortive journey. Magic +or the fear of it had saved the situation; but the instincts of loyalty +had been fired previously by a character that had many attractive +features and never allowed firmness to dispossess justice. + +At the outbreak of the war two of our Nimrods--whom I shall call Hallam +and Best--were camped by the Rovuma river. Hearing that there were +British ships at Lindi, they made for the coast to offer their services +in the sterner hunt, after much more dangerous game, that they knew had +now begun. The native runner that brought them the news from Mozambique +also warned them of the German force that was hot foot in pursuit of +them. So they tarried not in the order of their going, and made for the +shelter of the fleet. But Best would read his weekly _Times_ by the +light of the lamp at their camp table for all the Huns in Christendom, +he said, and derided Hallam's surer sense of danger near at hand. So in +the early hours their pickets came running in, all mixed up with German +Askaris, and the ring of rifle and machine-gun fire told them that their +time had come. Capsizing the tell-tale lamp, they scattered in the +undergrowth like a covey of partridges, Hallam badly wounded in the leg +and only able to crawl. The friendly shelter of the papyrus leaves +beside the river-bank was his refuge; and as he plunged into the river +the scattered volley of rifle shots tore the reeds above him. All night +they remained there. Hallam up to his neck in water, and the ready prey +of any searching crocodile that the blood that oozed from his wounded +leg should inevitably have attracted; the Germans on the bank. Next +morning the trail of blood towards the river assured the enemy that +Hallam was no more, for who could live in these dangerous waters all +night, wounded as he was? But if Hallam could hunt like a leopard, he +could also swim like a fish. Next day brought a native fishing canoe +into sight, and to it he swam, still clutching the rifle that second +nature had caused him to grab as he plunged into the reeds. With a wet +rifle and nine cartridges he persuaded the natives not only to ferry him +across to the Portuguese side, but also to carry him in a "machela," a +hammock slung between native porters, from which he shot "impala" for +his food. But somehow word had got across the river that Hallam had +eluded death, and the German Governor stormed and threatened till the +Portuguese sent police to arrest the fugitive. But the native runner who +brought him news of his discovery also brought word of the approaching +police. So with his rifle and three cartridges to sustain him, often +delirious with fever, and the inflammation in his leg, he commandeered +the men of a native village and persuaded them, such was the prestige of +his name, to carry him twenty-eight days in the "machela" to a friendly +mission station on Lake Nyasa. Here the kindly English sisters nursed +him back to life and health again. + +Best was not so lucky, for he was taken prisoner. But there was no +German gaol that could hold so resourceful a prisoner as this. In due +time he made his escape, and was to be found later looping the loop +above Turkish camps in the Sinai Peninsula. + +One German, of whom our information had been that "his company did +little else but rape women and loot goats," fell into my hands when we +took the English Universities Mission at Korogwe. Could this be he, I +thought, as I saw an officer of mild appearance and benevolent aspect +speaking English so perfectly and peering at me through big spectacles? +Badly wounded and with a fracture of the thigh, he had begged me to look +after him, saying the most disloyal things about the character and +surgical capacity of the German doctor whom we had left behind to look +after German wounded. Not that the _Oberstabsarzt_ did not deserve them, +but it was so gratuitously beastly to say them to me, an enemy. He +deplored, too, with such unctuous phrases, the fact that war should ever +have occurred in East Africa. How it would spoil the years of toil, +toward Christianity, of many mission stations! How the simple native had +been taught in this war to kill white men; hitherto, of course, the +vilest of crimes. How the march of civilisation had been put back for +twenty-five years. How the prestige of the white man had fallen, for had +not natives seen white men, on both sides, run away before them? Many +such pious expressions issued from his lips. But the true Hun character +came out when he asked whether the hated Boers were coming? The most +vindictive expression, that even the benevolent spectacles could only +partly modify, clouded his face, and he complained to me most bitterly +of the black ingratitude of the Boers toward Germany. "All my life, from +boyhood," he complained, "have I not subscribed my pfennigs to provide +Christmas presents for the poor Boers suffering under the heel of +England. Did not German girls," he whined, "knit stockings for the women +of that nation that was so akin to the Germans in blood, and that lay so +pitifully prostrate beneath the feet of England?" Nor would he be +appeased until I assured him that the Boers were far away. + +Another, whose reputation was that of "a hard case, and addicted to +drink," I found also in hospital in Korogwe, recovered from an operation +for abscess of the liver, and living in hospital with his wife. Spruce +and rather jumpy he insisted on exhibiting his operation wound to me, +paying heavy compliments to English skill in surgery; not, mark you, +that he had any but the greatest contempt that all German doctors, too, +profess for British medicine and surgery. But he hoped, by specious +praise, to be sent to Wilhelmstal and not to join the other prisoners in +Ahmednagar. Bottles of soda-water ostentatiously displayed upon his +table might have suggested what his bleary eye and shaky hands belied. +So I contented myself with removing the pass key to the wine cellar, +that lay upon the sideboard, and duly marked him down on the list for +transfer to Wilhelmstal. + +That the spirit of Baron Munchausen still lives in German East Africa is +attested to by Intelligence reports. It says a great deal for Lettow's +belief in the accuracy of our information that he very promptly put a +stop to the notoriety and reputation for valour that two German officers +enjoyed. One had made an unsuccessful attempt to bomb the Uganda Railway +on two occasions; but neither time did he do any damage, though, on each +occasion, he claimed to have cut the line. The other, possessed of +greater imagination, reported to his German commander that he had +attacked one of our posts along the railway, completely destroying it +and all in it. The painful truth he learnt afterwards from German +headquarters was that the English suffered no casualties, and the post +was comparatively undamaged. + +The sad fate of one enterprising German officer who set out to make an +attack upon one of our posts was, at the time, the cause, of endless +jesting at the expense of the Survey and Topographical Department of +British East Africa. He was relying upon an old English map of the +country, but owing to its extreme inaccuracy, he lost his way, ran out +of water, and made an inglorious surrender. This, of course, was +attributed by the Germans to the low cunning employed by our +Intelligence Department that allowed the German authorities to get +possession of a misleading map. + +That retribution follows in the wake of an unpopular German officer, as +shown by extracts from captured German diaries, is attested to by the +record of two grim tragedies in the African bush, one of an officer who +"lost his way," the other of an officer who was shot by his own men. + + + + +GERMAN TREATMENT OF NATIVES + + +One of the features of German military life that fills one with horror +and disgust is their brutality to the native. Nor do they make any +attempt to cloak their atrocities. For they perpetuate them by +photographs, many of which have fallen into our hands; and from these +one sees a tendency to gloat over the ghastly exhibits. The pictures +portray gallows with a large number of natives hanging side by side. In +some, soldiers are drawn up in hollow square, one side of it open to the +civil population, and there is little doubt that these are punitive and +impressive official executions, carried out under "proper judicial +conditions" as conceived by Germans. But what offends one's taste so +much are the photographs of German officers and men standing with +self-conscious and self-satisfied expressions beside the grim gallows on +which their victims hang. From the great number of these pictures we +have found, it is quite clear that not only are such executions very +common, but that they are also not unpleasing to the sense of the German +population; otherwise they would not bequeath to posterity their own +smiling faces alongside the unhappy dead. With us it is so different. +When we have to administer the capital penalty we do it, of course, +openly, and after full judicial inquiry in open court. Nor do we rob it +of its impressive character by excluding the native population. But such +sentences in war are usually carried out by shooting, and photographs +are not desired by any of the spectators. It is a vile business and +absolutely revolting to us, nor do we hesitate to hurry away as soon as +the official character of the parade is over. I well remember one such +execution, in Morogoro, of a German Askari who assaulted a little German +girl with a "kiboko" during the two days' interregnum that elapsed +between Lettow's departure and our occupation of the town. To British +troops the most unwelcome duty of all is to form a part of a firing +party on such occasions. The firing party are handed their rifles, +alternate weapons only loaded with ball cartridge, that their sense of +decency may not be offended by the distasteful recollection of killing a +man in cold blood. For this assures that no man knows whether his was +the rifle that sped the living soul from that pitiful cringing body. + +In the past the Germans have had constant trouble with the natives, not +one tribe but has had to be visited by sword and flame and wholesale +execution. That this is not entirely the fault of the natives is shown +by the fact that we have not experienced in East Africa and Uganda a +tenth part of the trouble with our natives, notoriously a most restless +and warlike combination of races. + +It was thought at one time that, if the Germans seriously weakened their +hold on some of the more troublesome tribes and withdrew garrisons from +localities where troops alone had kept the native in subjection, risings +of a terrible and embarrassing character would be the result. That such +fear entered also into the German mind is shown by the fact that for +long they did not dare to withdraw certain administrative officials, and +much-valued soldiers of the regular army, who would have been of great +service as army commanders, from their police work. Notably is this the +case at Songea, in the angle between Lake Nyasa and the Portuguese +border. To the state of terror among the German women owing to the fear +of a native rising during the intervening period between the retreat of +their troops and the arrival of our own in Morogoro I myself can +testify. For the German nursing sisters who worked with me told of the +flight to this town of outlying families, and how the women were all +supplied with tablets of prussic acid to swallow, if the dreadful end +approached. For death from the swift cyanide would be gentler far than +at the hands of a savage native. But the Germans have to admit that as +they showed no mercy to the native in the past, so they could expect +none at such a time as this. They told me of the glad relief with which +they welcomed the coming of our troops, and how with tears of gratitude +they threw swift death into the bushes, much indeed as they hated the +humiliating spectacle of the gallant Rhodesians and Baluchis making +their formal entry into the fair streets of Morogoro. + +The German hold on the natives is, owing to severe repressive measures +in the past and the unrelaxing discipline of the present war, most +effective and likely to remain so, until our troops appear actually +among them. Indeed, the fear of a native rising, and the butchery of +German women and children has been ever on our minds, and we have had to +impress upon the native that we desired or could countenance no such +help upon their part. All we asked of the native population was to keep +the peace and supply us with information, food and porters. We sent word +among the restless tribes to warn them to keep quiet, saying that, if +the Germans had chastised them with whips, we would, indeed, chastise +them with scorpions in the event of their getting out of hand. And we +must admit that, almost without exception, the natives of all tribes +have proved most welcoming, most docile and most grateful for our +arrival. Had it not been for the clandestine intrigues of the German +planters and missionaries whom we returned to their homes and +occupations of peace, there would have been no trouble. But the Hun may +promise faithfully, may enter into the most solemn obligations not to +take active or passive part further in the war; but, nevertheless, he +seems unable to keep himself from betraying our trust. Such a born spy +and intriguer is he that he cannot refrain from intimidating the native, +of whose quietness he is now assured by the presence of our troops, by +threats of what will befall him when the Germans return, if he, the +native, so much as sells us food or enters our employment as a porter. + +But the native is extraordinarily local in his knowledge, his world +bounded for him by the borders of neighbouring and often hostile tribes. +We are not at all certain that any but coast or border tribes can really +appreciate the difference between British rule and the domination that +has now been swept away. + +Recent reports on all sides show the desire for peace and the end of the +war; for war brings in its train forced labour, the requisition of food, +and the curse of German Askaris wandering about among the native +villages, satisfying their every want, often at the point of the +bayonet. Preferable even to this are the piping times of peace, when the +German administrator, with rare exceptions, singularly unhappy in his +dealing with the chiefs, would not hesitate to thrash a chief before his +villagers, and condemn him to labour in neck chains, on the roads among +his own subjects. And this, mark you, for the failure of the chief to +keep an appointment, when the fat-brained German failed to appreciate +the difference in the natives' estimation of time. By Swahili time the +day commences at 7 a.m. In the past, it was no wonder that chiefs, +burning with a sense of wrong and the humiliation they had suffered, +preferred to raise their tribe and perish by the sword than endure a +life that bore such indignity and shame. + +But our job has not been rendered any easier by the difficulty we have +experienced in pacifying the simple blacks by attempts to dispel the +fears of rapine and murder at the hands of our soldiers, with which the +Germans have been at such pains to saturate the native mind. This, in +conjunction with the suspicion which the native of German East Africa +has for any European, and more especially his horror of war, has made us +prepared to see the native bolt at our approach. + +But if our task has succeeded, there has been striking ill success on +the part of the Germans in organising and inducing, in spite of their +many attempts and the obvious danger to their own women and children, +these native tribes to oppose our advance. Fortunately for us, and for +the white women of the country, tribes will not easily combine, and are +loath to leave their tribal territory. + +Many of us have looked with some concern upon the mere possibility of +this German colony being returned to its former owners. We must remember +that we shall inevitably lose the measure of respect the native holds +for us, if we contemplate giving back this province once more to German +ruling. Prestige alone is the factor in the future that will keep order +among these savage races who have now learnt to use the rifle and +machine-gun, and have money in plenty to provide themselves with +ammunition. The war has done much to destroy the prestige that allows a +white man to dominate thousands of the natives. For to the indigenous +inhabitants of the country, the white man's ways are inexplicable; they +cannot conceive a war conducted with such alternate savagery and +chivalry. To those who look upon the women of the vanquished as the +victors' special prize, the immunity from outrage that German women +enjoy is beyond their comprehension. For that reason we shall welcome +the day when an official announcement is made that the British +Government have taken over the country. One would like to see big +"indabas" held at every town and centre in the country, formal raising +of the Union Jack, cannon salutes, bands playing and parades of +soldiers. + + + + +GOOD FOR EVIL + + +When the rains had finished, by May, 1916, in the Belgian Congo, General +Molitor began to move upon Tanganyika. Soon our motor-boat flotilla and +the Belgian launches and seaplanes had swept the lake of German +shipping; and the first Belgian force landed and occupied Ujiji, the +terminus of the Central Railway. + +Then the blood of the Huns in Africa ran cold in their veins, and the +fear that the advancing Belgians would wreak vengeance for the crimes of +Germany in Belgium and to the Belgian consuls in prison in Tabora, +gripped their vitals. Hastily they sent their women and children at all +speed east along the line to Tabora, the new Provincial capital, and +planned to put up the stiff rearguard actions that should delay the +enemy, until the English might take Tabora and save their women from +Belgian hands. For the English, those soft-hearted fools, who had +already so well treated the women at Wilhelmstal, could be as easily +persuaded to exercise their flabby sentimentalism on the women and +children in Tabora. So ran the German reasoning. + +Slowly and relentlessly the Belgian columns swept eastward along the +railway line, closely co-operating with the British force advancing from +Mwanza, south-east, toward the capital. But, in Molitor, the German +General Wable had met more than his match, and soon, outgeneralled and +out-manoeuvred, he had to rally on the last prepared position, west of +Tabora. Then, daily, went the German parlementaires under the white +flag, that standard the enemy know so well how to use, to the British +General praying that he would occupy Tabora while Wable kept the +Belgians in check. But the British General was adamant, and would have +none of it; and as Wable's shattered forces fled to the bush to march +south-east to where Lettow, the ever-vigilant, was keeping watch, the +Belgians entered the fair city of Tabora. And here were over five +hundred German women and children, clinging to the protection that the +Governor's wife should gain for them. For Frau von Schnee was a New +Zealand woman, and she might be looked to to persuade the British to +restrain the Belgian Askari. + +But there was no need. The behaviour of Belgian officers and their +native soldiers was as correct and gentlemanly as that of officers +should be, and, to their relief and surprise, those white women found +the tables turned, and that their enemy could be as chivalrous to them +as German soldiers--their own brothers--had been vile to the wretched +people of Belgium. There was no nonsense about the Belgian General; +stern and just, but very strict, he brought the German population to +heel and kept them there. Cap in hand, the German men came to him, and +begged to be allowed to work for the conqueror; their carpenters' shops, +the blacksmiths' forges were at the service of the high commander. No +German on the footpaths; hats raised from obsequious Teuton heads +whenever a Belgian officer passes. How the chivalry of Belgium heaped +coals of fire upon the German heads! And had the Hun been of such, a +fibre as to appreciate the lesson, of what great value we might hope +that it would be? But decent treatment never did appeal to the German; +he always held that clemency spelt weakness, and the fear of the +avenging German Michael. For did not the Emperor's Eagle now float over +Paris and Petersburg? That he knew well; for had not High Headquarters +told him of the message from the Kaiser by wireless from Nauen, the +self-same message that conveyed to Lettow himself the Iron Cross +decoration? + +The Governor's wife was allowed to retain her palace and servants; but +all German women were kept strictly to their houses after six at night. +No looting, no riots, no disturbance. And German women began to be +piqued at the calm indifference of smart Belgian officers to the favours +they might have had. Openly chagrined were the local Hun beauties at +such a disregard of their full-blown charms. + +"I fear for our women and children in Tabora," said the German doctor to +me in Morogoro. "Ach! what will the Belgians do when they hear the tales +that are told of our German troops in Belgium? You don't believe these +stories of German brutalities, do you?" he said anxiously, conciliatory. +But I did, and I told him so. "But you don't know the Belgian Askari; he +is cannibal; he is recruited from the pagan tribes in the forest of the +Congo, he files his front teeth to a point, and we know he is short of +supplies. What is going to happen to German children? It is the truth I +tell you," he went on, evidently with very sincere feeling. "You know +what became of the 1,500 Kavirondo porters your Government lent to the +Belgian General. Where are our prisoners that the Belgians took in Ujiji +and along the line? Eaten; all eaten." And he threw up his hands +tragically to heaven. "I know you won't believe it, but I swear to you +that Rumpel's story is true." Rumpel was Lettow's best intelligence +agent. "Our scout was a prisoner with a company of Belgian Askaris, you +know, and it was only that the Belgian company commander wanted to get +information from him that he was not eaten at once. Haven't you heard +the tale that Rumpel tells after his escape? How the senior native +officer came to his Belgian commander and complained that they had no +food, the villages were empty, not so much as an egg or chicken to be +got. Irritably, the Belgian officer shouted that the soldiers knew that +no one had food, and they must wait till they got to the next post on +the morrow. 'But,' urged the native sergeant softly, 'there are the +prisoners.' 'Oh, the prisoners,' said the Belgian officer, relieved by +an easy way out of a very difficult situation. 'Well, not more than +sixteen, remember that.' And the sergeant went away." + +This and countless other lies did the Germans tell us of our Belgian +Allies. But how different the truth when it reached us at last along the +railway by our troops that came from the northern column to join us at +Morogoro. Not a German woman insulted; not one fat German child missing; +no occupied house even entered by the Belgian troops, not so much as a +chicken stolen from a German compound. + +So just, so completely impartial was General Molitor, that he applied to +German prisoners, in territory then occupied by him, the very rules and +regulations that the German command had laid down for the governing of +English and Belgian and other Allied prisoners. Only the vile, the +unspeakable regulations, and every ordinance in that printed list of +German rules that destroyed the prestige of the white man in the +native's eyes, did he omit. If the Germans were indifferent to this one +elementary rule of the white race in equatorial Africa--the white man's +law that no white man be degraded before a native--then the Belgian +would show the Hun how to play the game. + +"We must hack our way through," said Bethmann-Hollweg. And we, in +Morogoro, were very curious to see what manner of vengeance the Belgians +might wreak. Nor would we have blamed them over-much for anything they +might have done. I had lived in German prisons with elderly Belgian +officers whose wives and grown-up daughters had been left behind in +occupied parts of Belgium. We all had shuddered at the stories they told +us; nor did we wonder that these unhappy fathers had often gone insane. +And when we learnt the truth about Tabora, and knew too, to our disgust, +that such un-German clemency was attributed to Belgian fear of the +avenging German Michael and not to natural Belgian chivalry, we were +furious. What can one do with such a people? + + + + +THE MECHANICAL TRANSPORT + + +A cloud of red dust along a rough bush track, a rattling jar +approaching, and the donkey transport pulls into the bushes to let the +Juggernaut of the road go by. Swaying and plunging over the rough +ground, lurches one of our huge motor lorries. Perched high up upon the +seat, face and arms burnt dark brown by the tropical sun, is the driver. +Stern faced and intent upon the road, he slews his big ship into a +better bit of road by hauling at the steering wheel. Beside him on the +seat the second driver. Ready to their hands the rifles that may save +their precious cargo from the marauding German patrol which lies hidden +in the thick bush beside the road. In the big body of the car behind are +two thousand pounds of rations, and atop of all a smiling "tota," the +small native boy these drivers employ to light their fires and cook +their food at night. And this load is food for a whole brigade alone for +half a day; so you may see how necessary it is that this valuable cargo +arrives in time. + +It may sound to you, in sheltered London, a pleasant and agreeable thing +to drive through this strange new country full of the wild game that +glimpses of Zoological Gardens in the past suggest. "A Zoo without a +blooming keeper." But there is no department of war that does such hard +work as these lorry drivers. + +For them no rest in the day that is deemed a lucky one, if it provides +them only with sixteen hours' work. The infantry of the line have their +periodical rests, a month it may be, of comparative leisure before the +enemy trenches. But for mechanical transport there is no peace, save +such as comes when back axles break, and the big land ship is dragged +into the bush to be repaired. Hot and sweating men striving to renew +some part or improvise, by bullock hide "reims," a temporary road repair +that will bring them limping back to the advance base. Here the company +workshop waits to repair these derelicts of the road. Burning with +malaria, when the hot sun draws the lurking fever from their bones, +tortured with dysentery, they've got to do their job until they reach +their lorry park again. But often the repair gang cannot reach a +stranded lorry, and the drivers, helpless before a big mechanical +repair, have to camp out alongside their car, till help arrives and tows +them in. A tarpaulin rigged up along one side of the lorry, poles cut +from the thorn bush, and they have protection from the burning sun by +day. A thorn hedge, the native "boma," keeps out lions and the sneaking +hyaena at night. Nor are their rifles more than a half protection, for +the '303 makes so clean a hole that it is often madness to attempt to +shoot a lion with it. Once wounded he is far more dangerous a foe. Here +the "tota" earns his pay, for he can hunt the native villages for +"cuckoos," the native fowls, and eggs. + +The load of rations must not, save at the last extremity, be broached. + +And the roads they travel on: you never saw such things, mere bush +tracks where the pioneers have cut down trees and bushes, and left the +stumps above the level earth. No easy job to steer these great lumbering +machines between these treacherous stumps. From early dawn to late night +you'll meet these leviathans of the road, diving into the bush to force +a new road for themselves when the old track is too deep in mud or dust, +plunging and diving down water-courses or the rocky river-beds, creeping +with great care over the frail bridge that spans a deep ravine. A bridge +made up of tree-trunks laid lengthwise on wooden up-rights. The lion and +the leopard stand beside the road, with paw uplifted, in the glare of +the headlights at night. + +Nor is there only danger from flood and fever and the denizens of the +forest. There is ever to be feared the lurking German patrol that trains +its dozen rifles upon the driver, knowing full well that he must sit and +quietly face it out, or the lorry, once out of control, plunges against +a tree and becomes, with both its drivers, the prey of these marauders. +So, while his mate fumbles with the bolt lever of his rifle, the driver +takes a firmer grip of the wheel, gives her more "juice," and plunges +headlong down the road. At Handeni I once had a driver with five bullets +in him; they had not stopped him until he reached safety, and his mate +was able to take over. Nor does this exhaust the risks of his job, for +there is the land mine, buried in the soft dust of the road, or beneath +the crazy bridge. Laid at night by the patrol that harasses our lines of +communication, they are the special danger of the first convoy to come +along the road in the morning. Troops we have not to spare to guard +these long lines of ours, so, in particularly dangerous places, the +driver carries a small guard of soldiers on the top of his freight +behind him. Native patrols, very wise at noticing any derangement of the +surface dust, patrol the highways at dawn to lift these unwelcome +souvenirs from the roads. + +From South Africa, from home, and from Canada, come the drivers and +mechanics of the motor transport. The Canadians, stout fellows from +Toronto, Winnipeg, and the Far West, enlisted in the British A.S.C. in +Canada, and arrived in England only to be sent to East Africa. It seems +at first sight a strange country to which to send these men from the +north, but in fact it was a very happy choice. For they got away from +the cold dampness of England and Flanders into the summer seas of the +South Atlantic, where the flying fish and rainbow nautilus filled them +with surprise. Cape Town and Durban must have been for these Canadian +lads a new world only previously envisaged by them, in the big all-red +map that hangs on the walls of Canadian schools, A little difficult at +first, apt to chafe at the restrictions that, though perhaps not +necessary for themselves in particular, were yet essential in preserving +discipline in the whole mixed unit, rather inclined to resent certain +phases of soldier life. But soon they settled down to do their job, to +take trouble over their work rather than make trouble by grousing over +it. Well they proved their worth by the number that now fill the +non-commissioned ranks, and may be judged by the commendation of their +commanding officers. I used to think that they came to see me in +particular, at the long sick parades I held in Morogoro and Handeni, +because I too lived, like some of them, in British Columbia. I cannot +flatter my soul by thinking that they came for the special quality of +the quinine or medical advice I dished out to them. It may have been +that they were far from home, and I seemed a friend in a very strange +land. + +All I know is, that I felt a great compliment was paid to me that they +should be grateful for the often hurried and small attentions that I +could give them. They would sometimes bring me Canadian papers that took +me back two and a half years, to the time when I came to England on a +six weeks' holiday from my work, a holiday that has now spun out to +three and a half years, and shows every sign of going further still. +Very well these men stood the climate, in spite of their fair colouring, +in a country that penalises the blonde races more than the brown, that +makes us pay for our want of protective pigment. One stout fellow I well +remember, who had acute appendicitis at Morogoro, was the driver, or +engineer as they are called, of a Grand Trunk Pacific train that ran +from Edmonton in Alberta to Prince Rupert on the Pacific. We operated +upon him, and, though he did very well, yet he must have suffered many +things from our want of nursing in his convalescence. Very considerate +and uncomplaining he was, like all the good fellows in our hospital, +giving no trouble, and making every allowance for our difficulties. In +fact, the great trouble one has among soldiers, is to get them to make +any complaint to their own medical officer. If one suggests things to +them or asks them leading questions, they will sometimes admit to +certain deficiencies in food or treatment by the orderlies. But of what +one did oneself or what the German sister left undone, there was never a +complaint to me; though I rather think there were many grouses when once +they left the hospital. It seemed to me that it was not that they didn't +know better, or that they didn't know that certain things were wrong, +for it is a very intelligent army, this of ours, and has been in +hospital before in civil life, but all along I felt that they did not +like to hurt one's feelings by not getting well as quickly as they +might, and that they often pretended to a degree of comfort and ease +from pain that I'm sure was not the fact. But this phase is often met +with in civil life too, a doctor has much to be grateful for that many +of his patients insist on getting well or saying that they are better, +just to please him. + +The German surgical sister was always kind to our men, and when the +serious state of the wound was past she would do the dressings herself, +while I went about some other work. Our men liked her, and I remember +that our Canadian engine driver offered her, in his kindly way, to give +her a free pass on the Grand Trunk Railway. He little knew that this +German sister represented no small part of two big German shipping +companies that could once have provided her with free passes over any +railway in the world. I had under me, too, a couple of Canadian drivers +whose lorry in crossing one of the ramshackle bridges over a river, hit +the railing on the side and plunged to the rocky depths below. A loose +tree-trunk that formed the roadbed of the bridge had jerked the steering +wheel from the driver's hands. Over went the lorry on top of them, and +the mercy of Providence only interposed a big rock that left room below +for the two drivers to escape the crushing that would have killed them. +Badly bruised only, they left me later to recover of their contusion in +the hospital at Dar-es-Salaam. + + + + +THE SURGERY OF THIS WAR + + +"Please give us a drop of Johnnie Walker before you do my dressing," +said my Irish sergeant, who had lost his leg in the fight at Kangata. +Lest you might think that by "Johnnie Walker" he asked for his favourite +brand of whiskey, I may tell you that we had no stimulant of that kind +with us. It was chloroform he wanted to dull the pain that dressing his +severed nerves entailed. Always full of cheer and blarney, he kept our +ward alive, only when the time for daily dressing came round did his +countenance fall. Then anxious eyes begged for ease from pain. But this +once over, he laid his tired dirty face upon the embroidered pillow and +jested of all the things the careful German housewife would say could +she but see her embroidered sheets and the blue silk cushion from her +drawing-room that kept his amputated leg from jars. We had no water to +wash the men, barely enough for cooking and for surgical dressings, but +there were silk bedspreads and eiderdown quilts and all the treasures of +German sitting-rooms. And the fact that they were taken from the Germans +was balm to these wounded men. + +There was Murray, a regimental sergeant-major, his leg badly broken by +the lead slug from a German Askari's rifle, ever the fore-most at the +padre's services, chanting the responses and leading all the hymns. And +Wehmeyer, the young Boer, who had accidentally blown a great hole +through his leg above the ankle joint. And Green, the Rhodesian sergeant +who had been brought in, almost _in extremis_, with blackwater. Nor was +his condition improved by the experience of having been blown up in the +ambulance by a land mine, hidden in the thick dust of the road. Thrown +into the air by the force of the explosion, the car had turned over on +him and the driver, who was killed. And there was Becker the blue-eyed +German prisoner with a bullet through his femoral artery and his hip. +Blanched from loss of blood before I could tie the vessel and stanch the +bleeding, his leg suspended in our improvised splints, and on his way to +make a splendid recovery. And Taube, another German prisoner, shot +through the abdomen, and recovering after his operation. Gentle and +conciliatory, with eyes of a frightened rabbit, he was the son of the +great Taube, the physiologist of Dresden. + +Cheek by jowl, in the best bed, was Zahn, the hated Ober-Leutenant, +loathed by his own men, one of whom wrote in his diary that he loved to +see the bombardment of Tanga, "for Zahn was there, the ----, and I hope +he'll meet a 12-inch shell." Jealous of his officer's prerogative, and +disinclined to be nursed in the same ward with our soldiers and his own, +he gave a lot of trouble, demanding inordinately, victimising our +orderly, unashamedly selfish. But he was sheltered from my wrath by the +grave gunshot wound of his thigh. Cowardly under suffering, he was in +striking contrast to Becker, who stood graver pain with hardly a flinch. +After a great struggle he was eventually moved to Korogwe to the +stationary hospital. There it became necessary to amputate his leg, and +Zahn surrendered what little courage he had left. "No leg to-night, no +Zahn to-morrow," he said to his nurse. And he was right, for at eleven +that night he had no leg, and at two the next morning there was no Zahn +upon this earth. + +And there was Sergeant Eve of the South African Infantry, who got a +D.C.M., a Londoner, and of unquenchable good humour. Vastly pleased with +the daily bottle of stout we got for him with such difficulty, from +supplies, he faced the awful daily dressing of his shattered leg without +flinching, pretending to great comfort and an excellent position of his +splint, which his crooked leg and my practised eye belied. + +And there was Smith, yet a boy, but who always felt "champion" and +"quite comfortable," though his days were few in the land and his pain +must have been very severe. Yet in his case he had days of that merciful +euthanasia, the wonderful ease from pain that sometimes lasts for days +before the end. In great contrast with these was an individual with a +wound through the fleshy part of the thigh, by far the least seriously +wounded of all in the ward, who never failed with his unending requests +to the patient orderlies and his eternal complainings, until a public +dressing-down from me brought him to heel. And Glover who wept that I +had lost his bullet, that unforgivable carelessness in a surgeon that +allows a bullet, removed at an operation, to be thrown away with +discarded dressings. + +But, of all, the perfect prince was De La Motte, a subaltern in the 29th +Punjabis, ever the leader of the dangerous patrols along the native bush +paths that give themselves so readily to ambush. Shot through the spine +and paralysed below the waist his life was only a question of months. +But if he had little time to live, he had determined to see it through +with a gay courage that was wonderful to see. Previously wounded in +France, he yet seemed, though he cannot possibly have been in ignorance, +to be buoyed up with the perfect faith in recovery with which fractured +spines so often are endowed; never asking me awkward questions, he made +it so easy for me to do his daily dressing, so grateful for small +attentions, and so ready to believe me when I told him that it was only +a question of weeks before he would be home again. And in spite of all +fears I have just heard he did get home to see his people, and by his +cheerful courage to rob Death of all his terrors. + + + + +MY OPERATING THEATRE AT HANDENI + + +Up the wide stone steps, under the arch of purple Bougainvillea and you +are in my operating theatre. A curtain of mosquito gauze screens it from +the vulgar gaze. Behind these big wooden doors a week ago was the office +of this erstwhile German jail. To the left and right, now all clean and +white painted, were the living rooms of the German jailor and his wife, +but for the present they are transformed into special wards for severely +wounded men. On the lime-washed wall and very carefully preserved is +"_Gott strafe England_" which the late occupants wrote in charcoal as +they fled. Strange how all German curses come home to roost, and move us +to the ridicule that hurts the Hun so much and so surely penetrates his +pachydermatous hide. That the "Hymn of Hate" should be with us a cause +for jest, and "strafe" be adopted, with enthusiasm, into the English +language, he cannot understand. To him, as often to our own selves, we +shall always be incomprehensible. + +Through the gauze screen on to the white operating table passed all the +flotsam of wounded humanity in the summer months. All the human wreckage +that marked the savage bush fighting from German Bridge to Morogoro came +to me upon this table. And its white cleanness, our towels and surgical +gloves and overalls, filled them with a sense of comfort and of safety +after weary and perilous journeys, that was in no way detracted from by +the gleaming instruments laid out beside the table. Even this chamber of +pain was a haven of refuge to these broken men after long jolting rides +over execrable roads. + +But a particularist among surgeons would have found much to disapprove +of in this room. Cracks in the stone floor let in migrating bands of red +ants that no disinfectant would drive away. Arrow slit windows, high up +in the walls, gave ingress to the African swallow, redheaded and +red-backed, whose tuneful song was a perpetual delight. His nests +adorned the frieze, but they were full of squeaking youngsters and we +could not shut the parents out. So we banished them during operating +hours by screens of mosquito gauze; and to reward us, they sang to our +bedridden men from ward window-sills. + +But despite these shortcomings of the operating theatre itself, we did +good work here, and got splendid results. For God was good, and the +clean soil took pity upon our many deficiencies. Earth, that in France +or Gallipoli hid the germs of gangrene and tetanus, here merely produced +a mild infection. Lucky for us that we did not need to inject the +wounded with tetanus antitoxin. But an added charm was given to our work +by the necessity of improvisation. Broken legs were put up in plaster +casings with metal interruptions, so that the painful limb might be at +rest, and yet the wound be free for daily dressings. The Huns left us +plaster of Paris, damp indeed but still serviceable after drying; the +corrugated iron roofing of the native jail provided us with the +necessary metal. Then by metal hoops the leg was slung from home-made +cradles, and I defy the most modern hospital to show me anything more +comfortable or efficient. Broken thighs were suspended in slings from +poles above the bed, painted the red, white and black that marked German +Government Survey posts. Naturally in a field hospital such as this, we +had no nurses; but our orderlies, torn from mine shafts of Dumfriesshire +and the engine sheds of the North British Railway, did their best, and +compensated by much kindliness for their lack of nursing training. + +Sadly in need were we of trained nurses; for the bedsores that developed +in the night were a perpetual terror. Ring pillows we made out of grass +and bandages, but a fractured thigh, as you know, must lie upon his +back, and we had little enough rectified spirit to harden the +complaining flesh. But nurses we could not have at so advanced a post as +this. The saving factor of all our work lay in the natural goodness of +the men. They felt that many things were not right; for ours is a highly +intelligent army and knows more of medicine and surgery than we, in our +blindness, realise. But they made light of their troubles, as they +learnt the difficulties we laboured with. So grateful were they for +small attentions. That we should go out of our way to take pains to +obtain embroidered sheets and lace-edged pillows, absolved us in their +eyes from all the want of surgical nursing. Liberal morphia we had to +give to compensate for nursing defects. I have long felt that I would +rather work for sick soldiers than for any class of humanity; and in +fifteen years I have come to know the sick human animal in all his +forms. So that the least that one could do was to scheme to get the +precious egg by private barter with the natives, and to find the silk +pillow that spelt comfort, but was the anathema of asepsis. No wonder +that such splendid and uncomplaining victims spurred us to our best +endeavours and made of toil a very joy. + + + + +SOME AFRICAN DISEASES + + +This is the season of blackwater fever, the pestilence that stalks in +the noontide and the terror of tropical campaigning. Hitherto with the +exception of the Rhodesians who have had this disease previously in +their northern territory, or men who have come from the Congo or the +shores of the Great Lakes, our army has been fairly free from this dread +visitation. The campaigning area of the coast and the railway line of +British East Africa that gave our men malaria in plenty during the first +two years of war, had not provided many of those focal areas in which +this disease is distributed. The Loyal North Lancashires and the 25th +Royal Fusiliers had been but little affected. The Usambara Valley along +the Tanga-Moschi railway was also fairly free. On the big trek from +Kilimanjaro to Morogoro the blackwater cases were almost entirely +confined to Rhodesians and to the Kashmiris, who suffer in this way in +their native mountains of Nepal. But once we struck the Central Railway +and penetrated south towards the delta of the Rufigi the tale was +different. British and South African troops began to arrive in the grip +of this fell malady. It was written on their faces as they were lifted +from ambulance or mule waggon. There was no need to seek the cause in +the scrap of paper that was the sick report. All who ran could read it +in the blanched lips, the grey-green pallor of their faces, the +jaundiced eye, the hurried breathing. Thereupon came three days' +struggle with Azrael's pale shape before the blackwater gave place to +the natural colour again, or until the secreting mechanism gave up the +contest altogether and the Destroying Angel settled firmly on his prey. +At first, if there was no vomiting, it was easy to ply the hourly drinks +of tea and water and medicine. But once deadly and exhausting vomiting +had begun, one could no longer feed the victim by the mouth. Then came +the keener struggle for life, for fluid was essential and had to be +given by other ways and means. Into the soft folds of the skin of the +arm-pits, breast and flanks we ran in salt solution by the pint. The +veins of the arms we brought into service, that we might pour in this +vitalising fluid. Day and night the fight goes on for three days, until +it is won or lost. Here again, as in tick fever, we use the preparation +606, for which we are indebted to the great Ehrlich. Champagne is a +great stand-by. So well recognised is the latter remedy that all old +hands at tropical travel take with them a case of "bubbly water" for +such occasions as these. Blessed morphia, too, brings ease of vomiting +and is a priceless boon. + +You ask me the cause of this disease, and I have to admit that among the +authorities themselves there are no settled convictions. Some hold--and +for my part I am with them--that the attack is caused by quinine given +in too large a dose to a subject who is rotten with malaria. But there +are others who maintain that it is a malarial manifestation only, and +that the big dose of quinine, which seems to some to precipitate the +attack, is only a coincidence. Be that as it may, there is little +difference in the treatment adopted by either school. Death achieves his +victory as frequently with one as with another. Certain it is that, to +the common mind, quinine is the reputed cause and is avoided in large +doses by men who have once had blackwater, or who are in that low rotten +state that predisposes to it. In one point all agree, that one must be +saturated with malaria before blackwater can develop. So great is the +aversion shown by some men to the big doses of quinine as laid down by +regulations, that men have often refused to take their quinine. Others, +too, who have protested at first, take their quinine ration only to find +themselves in the grip of this disease within twelve hours. Such a case +was a Frenchman named Canarie (and the colour of his face, upon +admission, did not belie his name), who had been treated for blackwater +fever by the great Koch in Uganda many years before, and had been warned +by him against big doses of quinine. That evening he was on my hands, +fortunately soon to recover, and to win a prolonged convalescent leave +out of this rain to the sunny and non-malarial slopes of Wynberg. + +Seldom do the rumbling ambulances roll in but among their human freight +is some poor wretch snoring into unconsciousness or in the throes of +epileptiform convulsions. Custom has sharpened our clinical instinct, +and where, in civil life, we would look for meningitis, now we only +write cerebral malaria, and search the senseless soldier's pay-book for +the name that we may put upon the "dangerous list." As this name is +flashed 12,000 miles to England, I sometimes wonder what conception of +malaria his anxious relatives can have. + +For there is no aspect of brain diseases that cerebral malaria cannot +simulate; deep coma or frantic struggling delirium. A drop of blood from +the lobe of the ear and the microscope reveals the deadly +"crescents"--the form the subtertian parasite assumes in this condition. +No time this for waiting or expectant treatment. Quinine must be given +in huge doses, regardless of the danger of blackwater, and into the +muscles or, dissolved in salt solution, into the veins. The Germans have +left me some fine hollow needles that practice makes easy to pass into +the distended swollen veins. Through this needle large doses of quinine +are injected, and in six hours usually no crescent remains to be seen. +As a rule, conscious life returns to these senseless bodies after some +hours; but, unhappily, such success does not always crown our efforts. +Then it is the padre's turn, and in the cool of the following afternoon +the firing party, with arms reversed, toils behind our sky-pilot to that +graveyard on the sunlit slopes of Mount Uluguru, where our surgical +failures are put to rest. + +One can always tell, you know, the onset of such a complication as this; +for when one finds the victim of malaria hazy and stupid after his fever +has abated; and, more especially, if he develops wandering tendencies, +leaving his stretcher at night to choose another bed in the ward, often +to the protesting consternation of its present occupant, then one passes +the word to Sister Elizabeth to get the transfusion apparatus ready. I +shall not readily forget one stout fellow, a white company +sergeant-major in the Gold Coast Regiment, who was lost in the bush and +discovered after many days in the grip of this fell disease. Him they +bore swiftly to me at Handeni, and after many injections and convulsions +innumerable, he was restored to conscious life again. Sent back by me +eventually to Korogwe with a letter advising his invaliding out of the +country, he opened and read my report upon the way. But he was of those +who do not take kindly to invaliding. Who would run his machine-gun +section, if he were away, and his battalion in action? Who like he could +know the language and the little failings of his dusky machine-gun crew +that he had trained so long and so carefully in the Cameroon? So he +appeared in the books of the Stationary Hospital at Korogwe as an +ordinary case of convalescent malaria on his own statement. And when +they would send him still further back to M'buyuni he broke out from +hospital one night, and, with his native orderly, boarded the train to +Railhead and marched the other 200 miles to Morogoro. Here I met him on +the road starting out on the next long trek of 125 miles to Kissaki. For +news had come to him that the Gold Coast Regiment had been in action and +their impetuous courage rewarded by captured enemy guns and a long +casualty list. But he was determined and unrepentant, one of his beloved +machine-guns had been put out of action. How could I hold him back? So +joining forces with another white sergeant of his regiment, who was +hardly recovered from a wound, these two good fellows set out with a +note that, _this_ time, was not to be destroyed, for the instruction of +their regimental doctor. + +A third scourge responsible for frequent admissions into hospital is +"tick-fever." Rather an unpleasant name, isn't it? And in its course and +effect it fully acts up to its reputation. More commonly known as +"relapsing fever," this illness attacks men who have been sleeping on +the floor of native huts, which in this country are swarming with these +parasites. Once in seven days for five or seven weeks these men burn +with high fever--higher and more violent even than malaria--but sooner +over. As you may imagine, it leaves them very debilitated; for no sooner +does the victim recover from one attack than another is due. The ticks +that are the host of the spirillum, the actual cause of the disease, +live in the soft earth on the floor of native huts at the junction of +the vertical cane rods and the soil. Here, by scraping, you may discover +hundreds of these loathsome beasts in every foot of wall. But they are +fortunately different from the grass ticks that, though unpleasant, are +not dangerous to man. For the tick that carries the spirillum is blind +and cannot climb any smooth surface. So to one sleeping on a bed or even +a native "machela" above the ground, he is harmless. But woe betide the +tired soldier who attempts to escape the tropical rain by taking refuge +on the floor. In sleep he is attacked, and when his blind assailant is +full of blood he drops off; so the soldier may never know that he has +been bitten. I got twelve cases alone from one company of the +Rhodesians, who sheltered in a native village near Kissaki. Of course, +not every tick is infected, and for that we have to be very grateful. At +the height of the fever the spirillum appears in the blood as an +attenuated, worm-like creature, actively struggling and squirming among +the blood corpuscles. A drop of blood taken from the ear shows hundreds +of these young snakes beneath the microscope. For the cure we are again +indebted to that excellent Hun bacteriologist Ehrlich, who gave us +.606--a strong arsenical preparation that we dissolve in a pint of salt +solution, and inject into the veins at the height of the paroxysm of +fever. This definitely destroys the spirillum, and no further attacks of +fever result; but this injection, once its work is done, does not confer +immunity from other attacks. It is typical of the Hun and his +anti-Semitic feelings that Ehrlich, the most distinguished of German +scientists, perhaps, after Koch, has never received the due reward of +all the distinction he has conferred on German medicine, for the offence +that he was a Jew. We should have honoured him, as we have done Jenner +or Lister. + +Relapsing, or _Rueckfall_ fever, as the Germans call it, was one of the +common dodges used by them to deceive the ingenuous British doctor. For +the subtle Hun prisoner knew that, if he pretended to this disease, it +would win him at least a week in the grateful comfort of a hospital, and +perchance the ministering joys conferred by German nursing sisters, +until the expected relapse did not occur; then the British doctor, +realising the extent of his deception, would thrust these shameless +malingerers to the cold comfort of the prison camp. + +How is it, you might ask me, that there are any natives left, if +tropical Africa is so full of such beastly diseases as this? Is it that +the native is naturally immune, or is it that the white man is of such a +precious quality that he alone is attacked by these parasites and +poisonous biting flies? The fact is that the native is affected also, +and in childhood chiefly, so that the infant mortality in many native +tribes is very high. And there is little doubt that repeated attacks of +malaria in youth, if recovered from, do confer a kind of protection +against attacks in adult life. But this is not the case with newly +introduced disease; for the sleeping sickness that came to Uganda along +the caravan routes from the Congo, has swept away fully a million of the +natives along the shores of Lake Victoria Nyanza. + +But the native has a sure sense of the unhealthiness of any locality, +and one must be prepared for trouble when one notices that the native +villages are built up on the hillsides. This was specially remarked by +us on our long trek down the Pangani, and thus we were warned of the +fever that lurked in the bright green lush meadows beside the water, and +the "fly" that soon overtook our transport mules and cattle and the +horses of General Brits' 2nd Mounted Brigade. At first we thought the +columns of smoke along the mountain-sides beside the Pangani were signal +fires for the enemy; but before long, when the roads were choked with +victims of "fly" and horse-sickness, we realised the wisdom that induced +the simple native to take his sheep and cattle up the hillsides and +above the danger zone. When one spends only a short time in some native +huts, it is quite clear how he escapes infection. For the floor is +covered with a layer of wood ashes that is usually deadly to bugs and +fleas and ticks and other crawling beasts; and the atmosphere is so full +of wood smoke that the most enterprising mosquito or tsetse-fly would +flee, as we do, choking from the acrid smoke. So the native fire that +burns within his hut day and night not only serves to cook his food and +to keep wild beasts away, but also supplies him with an excellent form +of Keating's Powder for the floor and smoke to drive the winged insects +from the grateful warmth of his fireside. + + + + +HORSE-SICKNESS + + +Lying beside the road with outstretched neck and a spume of white froth +on nose and muzzle are the horses of the 2nd Mounted Brigade; with +bodies swollen by the decomposition that sets in so rapidly in this sun, +and smelling to high heaven, are the fine young horses that came so +gallantly through Kahe some ten days ago. "Brits' violets" the Tommies +call them, as they seek a site to windward to pitch their tents. +"Hyacinths" they mutter, as the wind changes in the night, and drives +them choking from their blankets, illustrating the truth of the South +African "Kopje-Book" maxim, "One horse suffices to move a camp--if he be +dead enough." For weeks after the Brigade passed through M'Kalamo the +air was full of stench, and the bush at night alive with lions coming +for the feast. For this is horse-sickness, the plague that strikes an +apparently healthy horse dead in his tracks, while the Boer trooper +hastily removes bridle and saddle and picks another horse from the drove +of remounts that follow after. No time to drag the body off the road; so +the huge motor lorries choose another track in the bush to avoid this +unwholesome obstruction. + +Horse-sickness takes ten short days to develop after infection, and the +organism is so tiny that it passes through the finest filter and is +ultramicroscopic. That means that it is too small to be recognised by +the high power of an ordinary microscope. There was horse-sickness in +the bush meadows beside the river near Kahe. Careless troopers watered +their horses, after sundown, when the dew was on the grass and death +lurked in the evening moisture where it had been absent in the dry heat +of the afternoon. + + + + +THE WOUNDED FROM KISSAKI + + +Two very busy days were before us when the wounded came in from Kissaki, +so badly shaken and so pale and wan after their journey. They had been +cared for by the Field Ambulance before I got them, and by the +extraordinary excellence of the surgery paid the greatest of tributes to +the care of the surgeons in front. The German hospital there, half +finished--for our advance had been far ahead of German calculations-- +fell into our hands and with it a German doctor and some nurses. The +nurses had been very kind to our men and worked well for our doctors, +but they had followed the usual German custom in this country, of being +too liberal with morphia. That this drug can become a curse is well +known, though it is, when given in reason, the greatest blessing, the +most priceless boon of war. One feels perhaps that the sisters had given +it without the surgeon's knowledge, and not entirely to give ease from +pain, but also perhaps to give rest to the ward, the quiet that would +allow these over-worked women to get some sleep themselves. It was +written on the faces of the three amputation cases that they had had too +much morphia. And as this drug robs men of their appetite, keeps them +thin, and prevents their wounds from healing, it became my unpleasant +task to break them of it. This was only to be done by hardening one's +heart, by giving bromide and stout, and insisting on the egg and milk +that interspaced all meals. It is so easy to get a reputation for +kindness by being too complacent in giving way to requests for morphia. +It made one feel such an absolute brute to disregard the wistful +pleading eye, the hands that tugged at the mosquito curtains to show +they were awake, when, late at night, I made my evening round. But it +had to be done, and I fear the work and the sun and the tropics made +one's temper very short, particularly when it was only possible by +losing one's temper to preserve the indifference to these influences +that was necessary to complete the cure. It was very hard on them at the +time, especially as they were rotten with malaria and tick fever, in +addition to their wounds. But there were other ways in which one made it +up to them, if they did but know it. Nor did they see that quinine given +by the veins, so much more trouble to me and to the sister, was better +for them than the quinine tablet that was so easily swallowed, and so +ineffectual. Nor could they, one thought, always know that 606 had to be +given for tick fever, and that it was of no value save when given at the +height of fever, when they felt so miserable and so disinclined to be +disturbed. + +There was Shelley, the Irishman, a big policeman from Johannesburg, +badly wounded in the thigh. He had been taken prisoner by the Germans +and remained so for three days, until our next advance found him +installed in the German hospital. His wound was so bad that amputation +alone was left to do. When the worst of the dressings was over and the +stage of daily change of gauze and bandage had arrived, he always liked +Sister Elizabeth to do his dressings. Sister's hands were much more +gentle than mine, and Shelley always associated me with pain, little +knowing that, if a dressing is to be well and properly done, it is +always inseparable from a certain amount of suffering. But I saw through +his blarney, and he was added to the list of those who preferred +sister's hands to my attentions. + +And there was Rose, a mere lad, who had also lost a leg from wounds; he +lay awake at night, though not in great pain, during the process of +breaking him of the morphia habit. When I pretended not to hear his +little moan, as I made my evening round, he tugged at his mosquito +curtain to show that he was awake. But asperin and bromide and a nightly +drink of hot brandy and water soon broke off this habit. After that it +was easy to cut off the alcohol by degrees as he grew to like his eggs +in milk the more. He, too, always had some reason why Sister should do +his dressings, and I think that Sister Elizabeth and he plotted together +that I should have some other more important job to do when Rose's turn +came to go upon the table. + +Then there was Parsons, the printer, who in times of peace produced the +_Rand Daily Mail_; he had also lost a leg and he surprised me with his +special knowledge of the various qualities of paper. + +In the corner of the verandah that had been turned into an extra ward by +screening it off with native reed-fencing was Gilfillan, the most +perfect patient. Propping his foot against the wall to correct the +foot-drop that division of the nerve of his leg had caused, he had +passed many sleepless nights in his long and wearisome convalescence. + +Beside the door, beckoning to me in a mysterious manner, was Drury, a +trooper in the South African Horse. In his eyes a suspicious light, as +he earnestly requested to be moved. "For God's sake take me away, +they're trying to poison my food; and those Germans over there are going +to shoot me to-night." This poor lad had been shot badly through the +shoulder, and only by the skill of Moffat, the surgeon from Cape Town, +had he retained what was left of his shattered arm. Now malaria, in +addition, had him in its grip, and his mental condition told me plainly +that his brain was being affected. With the greatest difficulty Sister +Elizabeth and I persuaded him to undergo the quinine transfusion into +his veins that restored him to sober sense the next day. "I really did +think those two German prisoners were going to shoot me," he said. But +the two prisoners in his ward were more afraid of him than he of them, +and their broken legs, for they had got in the way of one of our +machine-guns, precluded any movement from their beds. Our men were +extraordinarily kind to German prisoners in the ward. The Boers were +different; they were never unkind, but they ignored them completely, for +the Union of South Africa had too much to forgive in the Rebellion and +in German South-West Africa. "Now then, Fritz, there ain't no bleeding +sausage for you this morning;" and Fritz, smilingly obedient, stretched +out his hand for the cold bacon that was his breakfast. Toward the end +Sister Hildegarde was just as kind to our men as she was to her own +people, and she was highly indignant with me when I stopped the night +orderly from waking her, early one morning, when I had to transfuse a +blackwater case with salt solution. She thought, she who had had quite +enough to do the day before, that I did not call her because I thought +she did not want to get up. She felt that I was tacitly drawing a +distinction between her conduct of that morning and the self-denial of +the other night, when she and Elizabeth sat up all night and day with a +German soldier who had perforated his intestines during an attack of +typhoid fever. I had operated upon him to close the hole the typhoid +ulcer had made. The German doctor, to whom we had given his liberty, in +order that he might attend the civil population, and whom I had called +in consultation over the case, had disagreed with our diagnosis. But I +had overruled him, and at the operation was glad to be able to show him +and the German sisters that our diagnosis was right, and that I was not +operating on him just because he happened to be a prisoner of war. The +German sisters were grateful to us for getting up at night and in the +early morning to give him the salt solution that might save his life, +and they repaid it in the only way they could, by kindness to our men. +But in any case they could not help liking our sick soldiers, and many +is the time that they have been indignant with me for deficiencies in +food and equipment which I could not help. "Our German soldiers would +have complained until their cries reached Lettow himself," they said, +"if they had to put up with what you make your soldiers endure." + +And if, at first, Hildegarde, of the sour and disapproving face, did +little irregular things for wounded German soldiers, faked temperature +charts, prepared little forbidden meals at night, and in other ways +pretended to a degree of illness in her German soldiers that my clinical +eye refused to see, I could not altogether blame her. When I remembered +the treatment that I saw our sick and wounded prisoners in Germany get +from the Hun doctor, I was often furious, and determined to do a bit of +"strafing" on my own. But I could not forget that the French and Belgian +nurses did just the same for our wounded in German hands, adding +bandages to unwounded limbs, describing to the German doctor our +sleepless nights of pain when the walls of that French convent had +echoed only to our snores, preparing delicious feasts, at night, for us +to compensate for German rations, and in many ways contriving to keep us +longer in their hands and to postpone the journey that would land us in +the vileness of a German prison hospital. Hildegarde had her troubles +too, for she had not heard for two years of her lover in Germany, whose +mild and bespectacled face peered from a photograph in her room. He did +not look to be made of heroic mould, but who can tell? Long ago he may +have bitten the dust of Flanders or found another sweetheart to console +him. And the native hospital boys, swift to recognise the changes of war +and the comparative leniency of British discipline, got out of hand and +failed to clean and scrub as they did in former days. Then I would +inquire and uphold Hildegarde, and the recalcitrant Mahomed would be +marched off to receive fifteen of the best from the Provost Sergeant. + + + + +MY OPERATING THEATRE IN MOROGORO + + +"Jambo bwona," and the sycophantic Ali would leap to his feet and raise +the dirty red fez that adorned his head. "Jambo," said Nazoro, the +senior boy, standing to attention. For Nazoro was a Wanyamwezi from Lake +Tanganyika and disdained any of Ali's dodges to conciliate me. Graceful +as a deer was Nazoro, and a good Askari lost in a better operating-room +boy. This was my morning greeting as I peeped in before breakfast to see +that the operating theatre was swept and garnished for the day's work. +"Good morning," said Elizabeth, looking up from the steriliser where she +was preparing instruments for the morning operations. + +Educated partly in England and speaking the language perfectly, she +hated us only a little less than the other Germans. But she was good at +her job and conscientious, and a very great help to us. Always as +cheerful as one could expect a woman to be who worked for the English +soldiers and dressed the wounds of men to fit them to return to the +field to fight against her people again. Who knows that the tall +Rhodesian, from whose feet she so skilfully removed the "jiggers" and +cleansed the wounds of a long trek, would not, all the sooner for her +care, perhaps be drawing a bead upon her husband in the near future? +Very proud was Elizabeth of her husband's Iron Cross that the Kaiser had +sent by wireless only last week; news of which was told to her by a +wounded prisoner just brought in. For her husband, who, to judge from +his wife's description, must have been quite a good fellow for a Hun, +was in command of one of the "Schutzen" companies down near the Rufigi. +He, too, had lived long in England to learn the ways of English shipping +companies that would prove of such value to the Deutsch Ost-Afrika Line. +So jubilant was she at the news that I had to give her a half-holiday to +recover; twice only in the four months we worked together was Elizabeth +as happy: once when she got a letter, by the infinite kindness of +General Smuts, from her husband, and another time when a letter came +from Switzerland to tell her of her baby in Hamburg, her mother, and the +two brothers that were in the cavalry in the advance into Russia. At +first, I must confess, I thought that this charming and intelligent lady +had offered to work for us, especially as she refused our pay, in order +to get information of the regiments and the prevailing diseases and sick +rate of our army. Soon I had reason to know that she played the game, +and stayed only in order to work to help the prisoners of her own +people, and our wounded too. For any day her husband might want help +from us or might be brought in wounded to our hospital, where she could +nurse and tend to him herself. Our men liked to be attended by her, for +she was gentler far than I and never short-tempered with them. + +Nazoro we found in chains on our arrival for the offence of having +attacked a German, and only his usefulness in the operating theatre +saved him from the prison. In spite of the disapproval of Elizabeth and +other Germans, I struck off the chains, feeling that he very probably +had good excuse for his offence. But the Germans never failed to point +out what a dangerous man he was. Once indeed he was slack and casual, so +I promptly ordered him to be "kibokoed," and thereafter I could find no +fault in his work and behaviour. Possessed of three wives, for he was +passing rich on sixteen rupees a month, he asked one day for leave to +celebrate the arrival of his first son. This I granted, only to be +assailed a fortnight later by requests for leave to attend his +grandmother's funeral, and to see a sick friend. But these had a +familiar ring about them, and were not successful in procuring the lazy +day that is so beloved by African humanity. + +But Ali was of a different mould; small and slight and anxious to +please, he was nevertheless swift to leave his work when once my back +was turned. Forsaken in love--for he had been deserted by his wife--he +had forsworn the sex and buried his sorrows in "Pombe," the Kaffir beer +that effectually deprived him of what little intelligence he had. He was +a "fundi" at taking out jiggers, and sat for hours at the feet of our +foot-soldiers; quickly adopting an air of authority that occasionally +brought him swift blows from East African troopers, who do not tolerate +easily such airs in a native, he produced the unbroken jigger flea with +unfailing regularity and prescribed the pail of disinfectant in which +the tortured feet were soaked. Another long suit of his was the bandage +machine, and the hours he could steal away from real work were spent in +endless windings of washed though much stained bandages. + +The German women hated us far more even than did the men; nor did those +who, like Elizabeth, knew England, fail to believe any the less the +German stories of English wickedness. When I told her of Portugal's +entry into the war, and how our ancient and hereditary ally had handed +over to England sixty out of the seventy-one German ships she had taken +in her ports, Elizabeth snorted with rage and said that England, of +course, forced all the little nations to fight against Germany. + +One of my friends, and not the least welcome, was Corporal Nel. A Boer, +he had come up from the Union with Brits. Tiring of war, he chose the +nobler part played by the guard that cherishes German captured cattle. +Swiftly losing his job owing to an outbreak of East Coast fever among +his herd, he took to a vagabond's life. Wanted by the police in the +Union, I am told, he avoided his regiment and lived with the natives. +Forced to come to me one night with an attack of angina pectoris, he was +grateful for the ease from suffering that amyl-nitrite, morphia and +brandy gave in that exquisitely painful affliction. Accordingly he +consented to organise some natives who should be armed with passes +signed by me, and illuminated with Red Crosses and other impressive +signs, and collect eggs and chickens and fruit for my patients in +hospital. So impressed were the natives with the Ju-Ju conferred by my +illumination of these passes with coloured chalks, that they brought me +a daily and most welcome supply of these necessaries for our men. But +the arm of the Law is long, and it sought out Corporal Nel within the +native hut in which he made his home. And soon, to my sorrow and the +infinite grief of our lambs in hospital, for whom those eggs, chickens, +mangoes, and bananas spelt so much in the way of change of food, the +Provost Sergeant had this wanderer in his chitches. + + + + +THE GERMAN IN PEACE AND WAR + + +"What do I think of this country, and how does the Hun of East Africa +compare with his European brother?" you ask me. Well, to begin with the +Colony, as of the greater importance, I must confess to be very taken +with it, and I hope most sincerely that our Government will never give +it back. Though it is not so suited as British East Africa for European +colonisation, there are yet great areas of sufficient elevation to allow +of white women and children living, for years, without suffering much +from the vertical sun and the fevers of the country. There are many +places where one only sees a mosquito for three months of the year, the +soil is very fertile, and labour not only willing and efficient, but +also very cheap. The European, too, has learnt to live properly in this +country, and to avoid the midday sun; all offices and works are closed +from twelve to three. If only man would learn wisdom in the amount of +beer he drinks, and the food he eats, the tale of disease would be much +less. + +The colony is fully developed with excellent railways, well-built +houses, a tractable and well-disciplined native population. +Dar-es-Salaam in particular, seems to have been the apple of the German +colonial eye. There are fine mission stations in all the healthy regions +of the country, and great plantations of rubber, sisal, cotton, and corn +abound. The white women and children, though rather pasty and washed out +after at least two years' residence in the country, do not appear +debilitated after their long tropical sojourn. The planters have, as a +rule, invested all their belongings in their plantations, and make the +country more a home than our people in East Africa, who are of a more +wealthy and leisured class. Roads have been made and bridges built. In +fact, the pioneering and donkey work has all been done, and the country +only waits for us to step into our new inheritance. + +To me it has been a source of surprise that the German, who consistently +drinks beer in huge quantities, takes little or no exercise, and +cohabits with the black women of the country extensively, should have +performed such prodigies of endurance on trek in this campaign. One +would have thought that the Englishman, who keeps his body fitter for +games, eschews beer for his liver's sake, and finds that intimacy with +the native population lowers his prestige, would have done far better in +this war than the German. That in all fairness he has not done so is due +to the fact that we, as an invading army, were unable to look after +ourselves or to care for ourselves in the same way as the German. + +We have had to carry kit and heavy ammunition, to sleep with only a +ground sheet beneath us, through the tropic rains, to do without the +shelter and protection of mosquito nets. The German soldier, even a +private in a white or Schutzen Kompanie, as distinct from the +under-officer with an Askari regiment or Feld Kompanie, as it is called, +has had at least eight porters to carry all his kit, his food, his bed, +to have his food ready prepared at the halting-places, and his bed +erected, and mosquito curtains hung. Only on night patrols has he run +risk from the mosquito. "How can you ask your men to carry loads and +then fight as well, in Equatorial Africa?" they say to us. His captured +chop boxes, for each individual is a separate unit and has his own food +carried and prepared for him, have provided us, often, with the only +square meals our men have enjoyed. Never short of food or drink or +porters, ever marching toward his food supplies along a predetermined +line of retreat, the German walks toward his dinner, as our men have +marched away from theirs. Well paid too, five rupees a day pay and three +rupees a day ration money, he had had no stint of eggs and chickens and +the fruit of the country, that have been rarest of luxuries to us. "Far +better if you had had fewer men and done them properly in the matter of +food and hospitals and porters," captured German officers have often +said to me. "How your men can stand it and do such marches is incredible +to us." That is always the tenour of their remarks, their criticism, and +they are clearly right, had such a policy been a practicable one for us, +which it was not. At first the feeling between the soldiers of the two +countries was good and war was conducted, even by them, in a more or +less chivalrous manner. We thought the East African Hun a better fellow +than his European brother. But it was only because he knew the game was +up in East Africa, and thought that he had better behave properly, lest +the retribution, that would be sure to follow, would fall heavily upon +him. Later we found him to be the same old Hun, the identical savage +that we know in Europe; the fear of consequences only restrains him +here. It is his nature and the teaching of his schools and professors. + +We have often been amazed at the disclosures from German officers' +pocket-books. In the same oiled silk wrapping we find photographs of his +wife and children, and cheek by jowl with them, the photographs of +abandoned women and filthy pictures, such as can be bought in low +quarters of big European cities. Their absence of taste in these matters +has been incomprehensible to us. When we have taxed them with it, they +are unashamed. "It is you who are hypocrites," they reply; "you like +looking at forbidden pictures, if no one is about to see, but you don't +carry them in your pocket-books. We, however, are natural, we like to +look at such things, why should we not carry them with us?" If this be +hypocrisy, I prefer the company of hypocrites. In their houses it was +the same; disgusting pictures, masquerading in the guise of art, adorned +the walls, evidences of corrupt taste and doubtful practices in every +drawer and cupboard. Even the Commandant of Bukoba, von Stuemer, and his +name did not belie his nature, though, before the war, quite popular +with the British officials and planters of Uganda, had a queer taste in +photography. In the big family album were evidences of his astonishing +domestic life; for there were photographs of him in full regimentals, +with medals and decorations, sitting on a sofa beside his wife, who was +in a state of nature. Others portrayed him without the conventionalities +of clothing, and his wife in evening dress. + +Officers from the Cameroon have confirmed the filthy habits of the Huns +and Hunnesses, how they defiled the rooms in the hospital at Duala that +they occupied just before they were sent away; how disgusting were their +habits in the cabins of the fine Atlantic liner that took them back to +Europe. Not that it is their normal custom; it was merely to render the +rooms uninhabitable for us who were to follow, and their special way of +showing contempt and hatred for their foes. Do you wonder that the +stewards and crew of the Union Castle liner struck work rather than +convey and look after these beasts on the voyage to Europe? Our French +missionary padre tells me that it was just the same in Alsace. The +incident at Zabern after the manoeuvres was entirely due to the disgust +and indignation of the French people at the defiling of their beds and +bedrooms by the German soldiers, who had been billeted upon them. + + + + +LOOTING + + +Looting, although you may not know it, is the natural impulse of +primitive man. And in war we are very primitive. To take what does not +belong to one is very natural when a man is persuaded that he can be +absolved from the charge of theft by quoting military necessity. How +surely in war one sheds the conventions of society! It has the +attraction of buried treasure; the charm of getting something for +nothing. But there are different ways or degrees of looting. + +Now there were a few of us in German East Africa who had been in the +Retreat from Mons and the subsequent advance to the Marne and beyond it +to the Aisne. Indelibly engraved upon our minds were the pictures of +French chateaux and farmhouses looted by the German troops in their +advance and abandoned to us in their retreat. All along the countless +roads the German transport had pressed, hurrying to the Aisne, were +evidences of the loot of German officers and men. In roadside ditches, +half buried in the late summer vegetation, were pictures and bronzes, +china and statuary, the loot the German officer had chosen to adorn the +walls of his ancestral Schloss. Marble figures leant drunkenly against +the wayside hedges, big brass clocks strewed the ditches. Long before, +of course, had the German rank and file been compelled to jettison their +prizes, for the transport horses were nearly foundered and only +officers' loot could be retained. Later, when the exhaustion of the +horses was complete, and capture of the waggons seemed imminent, the +regimental equipment and food supply, and, finally, the loot of high +officers had to be abandoned. The whole story of that retreat was to be +read in the discard by the roadside. The regimental butcher had clung to +his meat and the implements of his trade until the last; and when we +found the roads littered with carcases of oxen, sacks of pea flour and +sausage machines, we knew that we would shortly find the General's loot +beside the hedge. + +In the houses, too, both the chateaux and the comfortable French +farmhouses, we saw what manner of man the Hun could be in the matter of +looting. Where the soldier could not loot he could not refrain from +destroying. Floors were knee-deep in women's gear, household goods, +private letters and all the treasures of French linen chests. Trampled +by muddy German boots were the fine whiteness of French bed-linen. Nor +had the German soldier refrained from the last exhibit of his +"_Kultur_," but left filthy evidences of his bestial habits behind him +to ensure that the bedrooms would be uninhabitable by us. + +Remembering all these things we wondered how our men would behave now +that the tables were turned and they in a position to loot the treasures +of many German farms and plantation houses. Of course, divisional orders +against looting and wanton destruction were very strict. Where houses +were at the mercy of small patrols and bodies of our men under +non-commissioned officers, far from the path of the main advancing army, +the temptation to all must have been immense, and it speaks volumes for +the natural goodness of our men and their ingrained sense of order that +never in this whole country was looting done by any of our troops. True +many houses were plundered, and there was a certain amount of wanton +damage; but it was all done by the plundering native or by the Hun +himself in his retreat. + +For our calculating enemy left no stone unturned to deprive us of any of +the useful booty of war. He deliberately destroyed and ravaged and burnt +the property of his fellow-countrymen, and mentally determined to send +in the claim for damage against us. A German will always complain and +send in a bill of costs to us, when he is once assured of the protection +of British troops. + +Naturally, of course, we requisitioned and gave receipts for any article +or property that might be of use to us for our hospitals or our +supplies. In fact, our scrupulous regard for enemy property will +probably result in very many fraudulent claims against our Government +when the war is over. How easy to add mythical articles of great value +to the list attested to by the signature of a British Staff officer. Who +could blame a Hun when the British were such fools and forgery of +receipts so easy? + +But such was the regard we paid to German women and children that, if a +house were occupied, we took nothing and disturbed nothing. A German +farmhouse was an oasis of plenty amid a very hungry army. It made us +sometimes wonder whether it was quite right to leave German ducks and +fowls and sheep behind us, when we had to live on mealie meal and tough +trek-ox. But the women were so terrified, at first, that we gave such +farms a wide berth when scarcity of water did not force us to camp +within the enclosures. Shortly, however, as is the German custom, these +women would profit by their immunity and come to regimental headquarters +that listened so patiently and courteously to the tale of pawpaws or +mangoes--fruit that was really wild--vanished in the night. In no +campaign, I dare swear, has so much respect been given to occupied +houses, so much consideration to conquered people. The German Government +paid this compliment to our army, that they left their women and +children behind to our tender mercies. + +At Handeni, ours being a Casualty Clearing Station, our equipment +included 200 stretchers, with little hospital equipment, beyond the +men's own blankets and their kit. No sooner did we come along and +install ourselves in the abandoned German fort than the 5th South +African Infantry were in action at Kangata to win 125 casualties. For us +they were to nurse and keep until convalescent; for there was no +stationary hospital behind us, and forty miles of the worst of bad roads +robbed us of the chance of transporting them to the railway. + +So every afternoon I went to German planters' houses (empty, of course), +for forty miles around, in a swift Ford car. And back in triumph we bore +bedsteads and soft mattresses that heavy German bodies so lately had +impressed. Warm from the Hun, we brought them to our wounded. Down +pillows, soft eiderdown quilts for painful broken legs; mattresses for +pain-racked bodies. And one's reward the pleasure and appreciation our +men showed at these attempts to ameliorate _their_ lot. They were so +"bucked" to see us coming back at night laden with the treasures of +German linen chests. It would have done your heart good to see their +dirty, unwashed faces grinning at me from lace-edged pillows. +Silk-covered cushions from Hun drawing-rooms for painful amputation +stumps! + +So I had the double pleasure, all the expectancy and the delight of +seeing our men so pleased. Forty bedsteads and beds complete we found in +that district, until the bare white-washed walls of the jail were +transformed. White paint, too, we discovered in plenty, and soon our +wards were virginal in their whiteness. And when I tell you that at one +time I had no less than thirteen gunshot fractures of thigh and leg +alone and other wounds in proportion, in the hospital, you may judge how +necessary beds were. + +But the natives had nearly always been before us, and the confusion was +indescribable, drawers turned out, the contents strewed upon the floors, +cupboards broken into, and all portable articles removed. Pathetic +traces everywhere of the happy family life before war's devastating +fingers rifled all their treasures. Photographs, private letters, a +doll's house, children's broken toys. + +And from some letters one gathered that insight into the relations +between the plantation owner and the manager who lived there. At one +farm, apparently owned by an Englishman who paid his manager, a German +Dane from Flensburg, the princely sum of 200 rupees a month, we found +that one, at least, of our own people knew how to grind the uttermost +labour from his German employee. For there were letters from the manager +asking for leave after 2 1/2 years' labour at this plantation, and +pointing out that the German Government had laid down the principle of +European leave every two years. To this came the cold reply that his +employer cared nothing for German Government regulations; the contract +was for three years, and he would see to it that this provision was +carried out. One later letter begged for financial assistance to tide +him over the coming months; for his wife and children had been ill and +he himself in hospital at Korogwe with blackwater fever for two months. +"And how shall I pay for food the next two months, if my pay is 200 +rupees only, and hospital expenses 500?" + + + + +SHERRY AND BITTERS + + +A common inquiry put to doctors is, "What do you think of the alcohol +question in a tropical campaign?" Do we not think that it is a good +thing that our army is, by force of circumstances, a teetotal one? Much +as we regret to depart from an attitude that is on the whole hostile to +alcohol, I must say that it is our conviction that in the tropics a +certain amount of diffusible stimulant is very beneficial and quite free +from harm. And the cheapest and most reliable stimulant of that nature +one can obtain commercially is, of course, whiskey. This whole campaign +has been almost entirely a teetotal one for reasons of transport and +inability to get drink. Not for any other reason, I can assure you. But +where the absence of alcohol has been no doubt responsible for a +wonderful degree of excellent behaviour among our troops, I yet know +that the few who were able to get a drink at night felt all the better +for it. At the end of the day here, when the sun has set and darkness, +swiftly falling, sends us to our tents and bivouacs, there comes a +feeling of intense exhaustion, especially if any exercise has been +taken. And exercise in some form, as you have heard, is absolutely +essential to health after the sun has descended toward the west about +four o'clock in the afternoon. For men and officers go sick in standing +camp more than on trek, and, often, the more and the longer the men are +left in camp to rest, with the intention of recuperation, the more they +go down with malaria and dysentery. + +It is no sudden conclusion we have come to as to the value of alcohol, +but we certainly feel that a drink or two at night does no one any harm. +But the drink for tropics must not be fermented liquor: beer and wine +are headachy and livery things. Whisky and particularly vermouth are far +the best. And vermouth is really such a pleasant wholesome drink too. +The idea of vermouth alone is attractive. For it is made from the dried +flowers of camomile to which the later pressings of the grape have been +added. One has only to smell dried camomile flowers to find that their +fragrance is that of hay meadows in an English June! Camomile +preparations, too, are now so largely used in medicine and still keep +their reputation for wholesome and soothing qualities that it has +enjoyed for generations. How could one think that harm could lurk in the +tincture of such fragrant things as the flowers of English meadows? No +little reputation as a cure and preventive for blackwater fever does +vermouth enjoy! We know that we must always, if we would be wise, be +guided by local experience and local custom, and it is told of the +Anglo-German boundary Commission in East Africa, that the frontier +between the two protectorates can still be traced by the empty vermouth +bottles! But there were no cases of blackwater. I am told, on that very +long and trying expedition. + +In the survey of the whole question of Prohibition in the future, the +essential difference of the requirements of humanity in tropical +countries must be taken into consideration. There is no doubt, and in +this all medical men of long tropical experience will agree, that some +stimulant is needed by blond humanity living out of his geographical +environment and debilitated by the adverse influence of his lack of +pigment, the vertical sun and a tropical heat. It is more than probable +that a proviso will have to be added to any world-wide scheme of +prohibition. The cocktail, the universal "sherry and bitters" and +"sundowner" will have to be retained. To expect a man, so exhausted that +the very idea of food is distasteful, to digest his dinner, is to ask +too much of one's digestive apparatus. And this we must all admit, that +if a man in the tropics does not eat, then certainty he may not live. + + + + +NATIVE PORTERS + + +Toiling behind the column on march is the long and ragged line of native +porters, the human cattle that are, after all, the most reliable form of +transport in Equatorial Africa. Clad in red blankets or loin cloths or +in kilts made of reeds and straw, they struggle on singing through the +heat. Grass rings temper the weight of the loads to their heads, each +man carrying his forty pounds for the regulation ten miles, the +prescribed day's march in the tropics. Winding snake-like along the +native paths, they go chanting a weird refrain that keeps their interest +and makes the miles slip by. Here are some low-browed and primitive +porters from the mountains, "Shenzies," as the superior Swahili call +them, and clad only in the native kilt of grass or reeds. Good porters +these, though ugly in form, and lacking the grace of the Wanyamwezi or +the Wahehe. + +At night they drop their loads beside the water-holes that mark the +stages in the long march, and seek the nearest derelict ox or horse and +prepare their meals, with relish, from the still warm entrails. This, +with their "pocha," the allowance of mealie meal or mahoga, keeps them +fat, their stomachs distended, bodies shiny and spirits of the highest. +Round their camp fires they chatter far into the night, relieved, by the +number of the troops and the plentiful supply of dead horses in the +bush, from the ever-present fear of the lion that, in other days, would +lift them at night, yelling, from their dying fires. One wonders that +their spirits are so high, for they would get short shrift and little +mercy from German raiding parties behind our advance. For the porter is +fan-game, and is as liable to destruction as any other means of +transport. Nor would the Germans hesitate a moment to kill them as they +would our horses. But the bush is the porters' safeguard, and at the +first scattering volley of the raiding party, they drop their loads and +plunge into the undergrowth. Later, when we have driven off the raiders, +it is often most difficult to collect the porters again. Naturally the +British attitude to the porter _genus_ differs from that of the Hun. Our +aim, indeed, is to break up an enemy convoy, but we seek to capture the +hostile porters that we may use them in our turn, all the more welcome +to us for the increased usefulness that German porter discipline has +given them. + +Porters are the sole means of transport of the German armies; to these +latter are denied the mule transport and the motor lorries that eat up +the miles when roads are good. So they take infinite pains to train +their beasts of burden. Often they are chained together in little groups +to prevent them discarding their loads and plunging into the jungle when +our pursuit draws near. The German knows the value of song to help the +weary miles to pass, and makes the porters chant the songs and choruses +dear to the native heart. Increasingly important these carriers become +as the rains draw near, and the time approaches when no wheels can move +in the soft wet cotton soil of the roads. Nor are the porters altogether +easy to deal with. Very delicate they often are when moved from their +own district and deprived of their accustomed food. Dysentery plays +havoc in their ranks. For the banana-eating Baganda find the rough grain +flour much too coarse and irritating for their stomachs. So our great +endeavour is to get the greatest supply of local labour. Strange to say, +it is here that our misplaced leniency to the German meets its due +reward. + +It is not easy to tell the combatant, unless he be caught red-handed. +They all wear khaki, the only difference being that a civilian wears +pearl buttons, the soldiers the metal military button with the Imperial +Crown stamped on it. When it is borne in mind that the buttons are +hooked on, one can imagine how simple it is to transform and change +identity. Nor are the helmets different in any way, save that a +soldier's bears the coloured button in the front; but as this also +unscrews, the recognition is still more difficult. + +With these people, it has been our habit to send them back to their +alleged civil occupations after extracting an undertaking that they will +take no further active or passive part in the war. But, to our surprise, +when we sought for labour or supplies in their country districts, we +found that we could obtain neither. Upon inquiry of the natives we learn +that our late prisoners are conducting a campaign of intimidation. +"Soon--in a year--we shall all return, and the English will be driven +out. If you labour or sell eggs, woe betide you in the day of +reckoning." What can the native do? As they say to us, "We see the +Germans returning to their farms just as they were before; the +missionaries installed in their mission stations again. What are we to +believe?" + + + + +THE PADRE AND HIS JOB + + +How often, in this war, has not one pitied the Army Chaplain! As a +visitor to hospital, as a dispenser of charity, as the bearer of +hospital comforts and gifts to sick men, as an indefatigable organiser +of concerts, as the cheerful friend of lonely men, he is doing a real +good work. But that is not his job, it is not what he came out to do. + +And the padre, willing, earnest, good fellow that he is, is conscious +that he is often up against a brick wall, a reserve in the soldier that +he cannot penetrate. The fact is, that he has rank, and that robs him of +much of his power to reach the private soldier. But he must have rank, +just as much as a doctor. Executive authority must be his, in order to +assert and keep up discipline. And yet there is the constant barrier +between the officer and the man. Doctors know and feel it: feel that, in +the officer, they are no longer the doctor. Now, however, great changes +have been wrought and the medical officer likes to be called "doc," just +as much as the chaplain values the name "padre." There's something so +intimate about it. Such a tribute to our job and our responsibility and +the trust and confidence they have in us. + +The soldier is not concerned about his latter end; all that troubles him +about his future, is the billet he yearns for, the food he hopes to get, +the rest he is sure is due to him, his leave and the time when--how he +longs for that!--he may turn his sword into a ploughshare and have done +with war and the soldier's beastly trade. + +Of course, in little matters like swearing, the padre is wise and he +knows what Tommy's adjective is worth. He knows that Tommy is a simple +person and apt to reduce his vocabulary to three wonderful words: three +adjectives which are impartially used as substantives, adjectives, +verbs, or adverbs. That is all. The earnest young chaplain at first +gasps with horror at the flaming words, and would not be surprised if +the heavens opened and celestial wrath descended on these poor sinners' +heads. But he soon learns that these little adornments of the King's +English mean less than nothing. For Tommy is a reverent person, he is +not a blasphemer in reality; he is gentle, infinitely kind, incredibly +patient, extraordinarily generous, if the truth be told. His language +would lead one to believe that his soul is entirely lost. But when one +knows what this careless, generous, and kindly person is capable of, one +feels that his soul is a very precious thing indeed. And there is one +way the padre can touch this priceless soul: that is, by serving in the +ranks with him. Then all the barriers fall, all the reserve vanishes, +and the padre comes into his own, and saves more souls by his example +than by oceans of precept. There he finds himself, he has got his real +job at last. + +Among the South African infantry brigade, that did that wonderful march +to Kondoa Irangi, two hundred and fifty miles in a month, in the height +of the rainy season, were fourteen parsons. All serving in the ranks as +private soldiers, they carried a wonderful example with them. It was +their pride that they were the cleanest and the best disciplined men in +their respective companies. No fatigue too hard, no duty too irksome. +Better soldiers they showed themselves than Tommy himself. Of a bright +and cheerful countenance, particularly when things looked gloomy, they +were ready for any voluntary fatigue. The patrol in the thick bush that +was so dangerous, fetching water, quick to build fires and make tea, +ready to help a lame fellow with his equipment, always cheery, never +grousing, they lived the life of our Lord instead of preaching about it. + +For the padre's job, I take it, is to teach the men the right spirit, to +send them to war as men should go, to assure them that this is a holy +fight, that God is on their side. + +He knows that Tommy, if he speculates at all upon his latter end, does +so in the pagan spirit, the spirit that teaches men that there is a +special heaven for soldiers who are killed in war, that the manner of +their dying will give them absolution for their sins. And the padre +knows that the pagan spirit is the true spirit and yet he may not say +so. He may not suggest for a moment that sin will be forgiven by +sacrifice, for that is Old Testament teaching; his Bishop tells him that +he must not trifle with this heresy, but he must inculcate in sinful man +that he can, by repentance, and by repentance only, gain absolution for +past misdeeds. + +And the chaplain knows Tommy, and he knows that he will never get him on +that tack. He knows that any soldier, who is any good, looks upon it as +a cowardly, mean and contemptible thing to crawl to God for forgiveness +in times of danger, when they never went to him in days of peace. And I +know many a chaplain who is with the soldier in this belief. + +A little of war, and the padre very soon finds his limitations. To begin +with, he is attached to a Field Ambulance and not to a regiment, as a +rule. The only time he sees the men is when they are wounded. Then he +often feels in the way and fears to obstruct the doctor in his job. So +all that is left is going out with the stretcher-bearing party at night, +showing a good example, cool in danger, merciful to the wounded. But +that again is not his job. + +First, when he laid aside the sad raiment of his calling, and put on his +khaki habiliments of war, he thought that the chief part of his job was +to shrive the soldier before action, and to comfort the dying. Later he +found that the soldier would not be shriven, and found, to his surprise, +that the dying need no comfort. Very soon he learnt that wounded men +want the doctor, and chiefly as the instrument that brings them morphia +and ease from pain. And when the wound is mortal, God's mercy descends +upon the man and washes out his pain. How should he need the padre, when +God Himself is near? + +Early in his military career the young ministers of the Gospel were +provided with small diaries, in which they might record the dying +messages of the wounded. Then came disillusion, and they found the dying +had no messages to send; they are at peace, the wonderful peace that +precedes the final dissolution, and all they ask is to be left alone. + +So is it to be wondered at, that men with imagination, men like Furze, +the Bishop of Pretoria, saw in a vision clear that the padre's job lay +with the living and not with the dying, that he could point the way by +the example of a splendid life with the soldier, far better than by a +hundred discourses, as an officer, from the far detachment of the +pulpit. Thus was the idea conceived and so was the experiment carried +out. And all of us who were in German East Africa can vouch for the +splendid results of these excellent examples. For the private soldier +saw that his fellow-soldier, handicapped as he was by being a parson, +could know his job and do his job as a soldier better than Tommy could +himself. To his surprise, he found that here was a man who could make +himself intelligible without prefixing a flaming adjective when he asked +his pal to pass the jam. Here was a N.C.O., a real good fellow too, who +could give an order and point a moral without the use of a blistering +oath; a man who was a man, cool under fire, ready for any dangerous +venture, cheerful always, never grousing, always generous and open as a +soldier should be, never preaching, never openly praying, never asking +men to do what he would not do himself. Can you wonder that Tommy +understood, and, understanding, copied this example? + +When he saw a man inspired by some inward Spirit that made him careless +of danger, contemptuous of death, fulfilling all the Soldier's +requirements in the way of manhood, he knew quite well that some Divine +inward fire upheld this once despised follower of Christ. Then lo! the +transformation. First, the oaths grew rarer in the ranks and vanished; +then came the discovery that, after all, it really was possible to +conduct a conversation in the same language as the soldier used at home +with his wife and children; that, after all, the picturesque adjectives +that flavoured the speech of camps were not necessary; that there was +really no need for two kinds of speech, the language of the camp and the +language of the drawing-room. + +And the process of redemption was very curious. All are familiar of +course with the hymn tunes that are sung by marching soldiers, tunes +that move their female relatives and amiable elderly gentlemen to a +quick admiration for the Christian soldier. All know too that, could the +admiring throng only hear the words to which these hymn tunes were sung, +the crowd would fly with fingers to their ears, from such apparent +blasphemy. Well, these well-known ballads were first sung at the padre, +and especially at the padre who was masquerading as a soldier. And when +the soldier saw that the padre could see the jest and laugh at it too, +and know that it meant nothing, then he felt that he had got a good +fellow for his sky pilot. Can you wonder that the soldier spoke of his +padre comrade in such generous terms and that the whole tone of the +regiment improved? The men were better soldiers and better Christians +too. + +There is one trap into which a padre falls when marching with a +regiment. Provided, by regulations, with a horse, he is often unwise +enough to ride alongside his marching cure of souls. It would, perhaps, +do him good if he could hear, as I did, the comments of two Scottish +sergeants in the rear. "Our Lord did not consider it beneath him to ride +upon a donkey, but this man of God needs must have a horse." + +"How is it that I don't get close to the good fellows on board the +ship?" said a very good and earnest padre to me. "Why don't these +fellow-officers of mine come to church? How is it that fellows I know to +be good and generous and kindly are yet to be found at the bar, in the +smoking-room, when my service is on? Why is it that the decent, nice +fellows aren't professing Christians, and some of the fellows who are my +most regular attendants haven't a tenth of the character and quality and +charm of these apparent pagans?" + +What could I do but tell him the truth? I knew him well and felt that he +would understand. Most fellows, I said, don't come to church, because if +they've good and decent characters, they hate to be hypocrites. Now you +know, padre, in this improper world of ours, that many men are sinners, +by that I mean that convention describes as sinful some of the things +they do. What do you tell us when we go to early chapel in the morning? +"Ye that do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins and are in love +and charity with your neighbours and intend to lead a new life ... draw +near with faith and take this Holy Sacrament ..." Well, then, can you +conceive that such a state of mind exists in an otherwise decent man +that he finds the burden of his sin not intolerable, as he should do, +but that he hugs that special sin as a prisoner may hug his chains? That +his sin, or let us call it his breach of the conventions of Society, is +the one dear precious thing in his existence at the present moment. He +doesn't want to reform or to lead a new life. Later, no doubt, he'll +tire of this sin and then he may come to church again. But how could a +man of character go to God's House and be such an infernal hypocrite? He +cannot partake of the Body and Blood of Christ any more when he is in +that state of mind. So you see, padre, it is often the honest men who +won't be hypocrites, that won't go to your church. + +Many the padre that used to drift into our hospital on the long trek to +Morogoro, Church of England, Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, and those +who look after the "fancy religions," as Tommy calls them. By that term +is designated any man who does not belong to either of the above three. +One such fellow came to our mess the other day, and in answer to our +query as to the special nature of his flock, he answered that, though +strictly speaking a Congregationalist, he had found that he had become a +"dealer in out-sizes in souls," as he called it. He kept, as he said, a +fatherly eye (and a very good eye too, that we could see) on Dissenters +in general, Welsh Baptists, Rationalists, and all the company of queerly +minded men we have in this strange army of ours. Later we heard that he +had brought with him an excellent reputation from the Front. And that is +not easy to acquire from an army that is hard to please in the matter of +professors of religion. + + + + +FOR ALL PRISONERS AND CAPTIVES + + +The missionaries and the Allied civilians released from Tabora have the +usual tale to tell of German beastliness, of white men forced to dig +roads and gardens, wheel barrows and other degrading work under the +guard of native soldiers, insulted, humiliated, degraded before the +native Askaris at the instance of German officers and N.C.O.s in charge. +The Italian Consul-General working in the roads! We may forget all this: +it is in keeping with our soft and sentimental ways. But will the +French? Will Italy forgive? There will be no weakness there when the day +of reckoning comes. All this we had from the Commission of Inquiry in +Morogoro and Mombasa that sat to take evidence. Gentle nurses of the +Universities' English Mission, missionary ladies who devoted a lifetime +in the service of the Huns and the natives in German East, locked up +behind barbed wire for two years, without privacy of any kind, +constantly spied upon in their huts at night by the native guard, always +in terror that the black man, now unrestrained, even encouraged by his +German master, should do his worst. Can you wonder that they kept their +poison tablets for ever in their pockets that they might have close at +hand an end that was merciful indeed compared with what they would +suffer at native hands? So with many tears of relief they cast friendly +Death into the bushes as the Askaris fled before the dust of our +approaching columns. Do you blame gentle Sister Mabel that she would +never speak to any Hun in German, using only Swahili and precious little +of that? + +Far worse the story told by the broken Indian soldiers, prisoners since +the fight at Jassin, left abandoned, half dead with dysentery and fever, +by the Germans on their retreat to Mahenge. A commission of inquiry held +by British officers of Native Indian regiments elicited the facts. The +remains of two double companies, one Kashmiris, the other Bombay +Grenadiers, to the number of 150, were brought to Morogoro and there +farmed out to German contractors. Here they toiled on the railway, +clearing the land, bringing in wood from the jungle building roads, half +starved and savagely ill-treated. They might burn with fever or waste +their feeble strength in dysentery, it made no difference to their +brutal jailers. To be sick was to malinger in German eyes: so they got +"Kiboko" and their rations reduced, because, forsooth, a man who could +not work could also not eat. To "Kiboko" a prisoner of war and an Indian +soldier is a flagrant offence against the laws of war. But to the +contractor there were no laws but of his making, and he laid on thirty +lashes with the rhinoceros hide Kiboko to teach these stiff-necked +"coolies" not to sham again. And as these soldiers lay half dead with +fever on the road, their German jailers gave orders that their mouths +and faces be defiled with filth, a crime unspeakable to a Moslem. Will +the Mohammedan world condone this? The fruit of this treatment was that +eighty of these wretched soldiers died and were buried at Morogoro. But +these prisoners, on their release, marching through the streets caught +sight of two of their erstwhile jailers walking in freedom and security +and going about then daily avocations as if there was no war. These +Germans had, of course, told our Provost Marshal that they were +civilians, and never had or intended to take part in the war. So these +two men on their word, the word of a Prussian, mark you well, were +allowed all the privileges of freedom in Morogoro. One of them, Dorn by +name, a hangdog ruffian, owned the house we took over as a mess, and +tried to get receipts from us for things we took for the hospital, that +really belonged to other people. + +But the Indian soldiers' evidence was the undoing of Dorn and his +fellow-criminal. Arrested and put into jail, they were sent to +Dar-es-Salaam for trial by court-martial on the evidence. How the guard +hoped that an attempt to escape would be made, such an attempt as was so +often the alleged reason for the shooting of so many of our English +prisoners. The sense of discipline in the Indian troops was such that, +no matter how great the temptation to avenge a thousand injuries and the +unexampled opportunity offered by a long railway journey through dense +bush, they delivered their prisoners safe in Dar-es-Salaam. It is said +that nothing would persuade Dorn and his comrade to leave the safe +shelter of the railway truck. No, they did not want to go for a walk in +the bush, they would stay in the truck, thank you! No matter how great +the invitation to flight was offered by an open door and the temporary +disappearance of the guard. Do you think these two ruffians will get the +rope? I wonder. + +The other day at Kissaki the Germans sent back ten of our white +prisoners, infantry captured at Salaita Hill, Marines from the +_Goliath_. All these weary months the Huns had dragged these wretched +prisoners all over the country. And yet there are some who tell us that +the German is not such a Hun here as he is in Europe. The fact is he is +worse, if possible, inconceivably arrogant and cruel at first, +incredibly anxious to conciliate our prisoners when the tide had turned +and vengeance was upon him. Burning by fever by day, chilled by tropic +dews at night, these poor devils had been harried and kicked and cursed +and ill-used by Askaris and insulted by native porters all that long +retreat from Moschi to Kissaki and beyond. No "machelas" for them if +they were ill, no native hammocks to carry them on when their poor +brains cried out against the malaria that struck them down in the +noonday sun. Kicked along the road or left to die in the bush, these the +only two alternatives. And the beasts were kinder than the Huns: they at +least took not so long to kill. Forced to do coolie labour, to dig +latrines for native soldiers, incredibly humiliating, such was their +lot! Many of them died by the roadside. Many died for want of medicine. +There was no lack of drugs for Germans, but there was need for economy +where prisoners were concerned. What more natural than that they should +keep their drugs for their own troops? Who could tell their pressing +need in months to come? But the indomitable ones they kept and keep them +still. Only yesterday they released the naval surgeon captured on the +pseudo-hospital ship _Tabora_ in Dar-es-Salaam. Did he get the treatment +that custom ordains an officer should have, or did he also dig latrines +and cook his _bit_ of dripping meat over a wood fire like a "shenzy" +native? I leave that to you to answer. How could we tell he was a +doctor? that is the Huns' excuse. "He only had a blue and red epaulet on +his white drill tunic, there was no red cross on his arm." But +apparently after twenty months they discovered this essential fact. And +what was left of him struggled into our lines under a white flag the +other day. But here, as in Germany, not all the Huns were Hunnish. Some +there were who cursed Lettow and the war in speaking to the prisoners, +and, in private talks, professed their tiredness of the whole beastly +campaign. But these, our men noticed, were ever the quickest to +"strafe," always the first to rail and upbraid and strike when a German +officer was near. + +Fed on native food, chewing manioc, mahoja for their flour, the ground +their bed, so they existed; but ever in their captive hearts was the +knowledge that we were coming on, behind them ever the thunder of our +guns, the panic flights of their captors, timid advances from native +soldiers, unabashed tokens of conciliation from the Europeans +alternating with savage punishment. This was meat and drink indeed to +them. Cheerfully they endured, for Nemesis was at hand. How they +chuckled to see the German officer's heavy kit cut down to one chop box, +native orderlies cut off, fat German doctors waddling and sweating along +the road? Away and ever away to the south, for the hated "Beefs" were +after them, coming down relentlessly from the north. Even a lay brother, +"Brother John," they kept until the other day. And their stiff-necked +prisoners refused to receive the conciliatory amelioration of their lot +that would be offered one day, to be, for no apparent reason, withdrawn +the next. "No, thank you, we don't want extra food now! We really don't +need a native servant now, we will still do our own fatigues. No. We +don't want to go for a walk. We've really been without all these things +for so long that we don't miss them now. Anyhow it won't be for long," +they said. + +The German commandant turned away furiously after the rejection of his +olive branch. For he knew now that his captives knew that the game was +up, and it gave him food for thought indeed. + + + + +THE BEASTS OF THE FIELD + + +We are camped for the present on the edge of a plateau, overlooking a +vast plain that stretches a hundred miles or more to where Kilimanjaro +lifts his snow peaks to the blue. All over this yellow expanse of grass, +relieved in places by patches of dark bush, are great herds of wild game +slowly moving as they graze. Antelope and wildebeests, zebra and +hartebeests, there seems no end to them in this sportsman's paradise. At +night, attracted by to-morrow's meat that hangs inside a strong and +well-guarded hut, the hyaenas come to prowl and voice their hunger and +disappointment on the evening air. + +The general impression in England, you know, was that in coming to East +Africa we had left the cold and damp misery of Flanders for a most +enjoyable side-show. We were told that we should spend halcyon days +among the preserves, return laden with honours and large stores of +ivory, and in our spare moments enjoy a little campaigning of a picnic +variety, against an enemy that only waited the excuse to make a graceful +surrender. But how different the truth! To us with the advance there has +been no shooting; to shoot a sable antelope (and, of course, we have +trekked through the finest game preserves in the world, including the +Crown Prince's special Elephant Forests) is to ask for trouble from the +Askari patrol that is just waiting for the sound of a rifle shot to +bring him hot foot after us. So the sable antelope might easily be +bought by very unpleasant sacrifice. All shooting at game, even for +food, except on most urgent occasions, is strictly forbidden, for a +rifle shot may be as misleading to our own patrols and outposts as it +would be inviting to the Hun. + +This war had led us from the comparative civilisation of German +plantations to the wildest, swampiest region of Equatorial Africa. After +rain the roads tell the story of the wild game, for in the mud are the +big slot marks of elephants and lions and all the denizens of the bush. +But at the bases and back in British East Africa where there are no +lurking German Askari patrols, many fellows have had the time of their +lives with the big game. Afternoon excursions to the wide plains and +their bush where the wild game hide and graze. + +We are often asked how we manage to avoid the lions and the other wild +beasts of the country that come to visit the thorn bomas that protect +our transport cattle at night? Strange as it may seem, we do not have to +avoid them, for they do not come for us or for the natives, nor yet for +the live cattle so much as for the dead mules and oxen. I dare say there +have never been so many white and black men in a country infested with +lions who have suffered so little from the beasts of the field as we +have. + +In the first place, the advance of so great an army has frightened away +a very large number of the wild game. All that have stayed are the +larger carnivora, like the hyaena or the lion. And they are a positive +Godsend to us. For instead of attacking our sentries and patrols at +night, as you might imagine, they are the great scavengers and camp +cleaners of the country. Of vultures there are too few in this land, +probably because the blind bush robs them of the chance of spotting +their prey. Were it not for lions and hyaenas, we should be in a bad +way. For they come to eat all our dead animals, all the wastage of this +army, the tribute our transport animals are paying to fly and to +horse-sickness. For in spite of fairy tales about lions one must believe +the unromantic truth that a lion prefers a dead ox to a man, and a black +man to a white one. So you will not be surprised when I tell you that in +this army of ours of at least 30,000 men I have only had two cases of +mauling by the larger carnivora to deal with. And such cases as these +would all pass through my hands. There was only one case of lion +mauling, and that a Cape Boy who met a young half-grown cub on the road +and unwisely ran from it. At first curiosity attracted this animal, and +later the hunting instinct caused him to maul his prey. So they brought +him in with the severe blood-poisoning that sets in in almost all cases +of such a nature. For the teeth and claws of the larger carnivora are +frightfully infectious. This Cape Boy died in forty-eight hours. Yet one +other case was that of an officer who met a leopardess with cubs in the +bush when out after guinea fowl. She charged him, and he gave her his +left arm to chew to save his face and body. Then alarmed by his yells +and the approach of his companion she left him, and he was brought one +hundred miles to the railway. But he was in good hands at once, and when +I saw him the danger of blood-poisoning had gone and he was well upon +his way to health again. + +The same experience have we had with snakes. The hot dry dusty roads and +the torn scrub abound with snakes and most of them of a virulently +poisonous quality. But one case only of snake-bite have I seen, and that +a native. The fact that the wild denizens of the field and forest are +much more afraid of us than we of them saves us from what might appear +to be very serious menace. Even the wounded left out in the dense bush +have not suffered from these animal pests, but the dead, of course, have +often disappeared and their bleached bones alone are left to tell the +story. One might think that the hyaena, the universal scavenger, would +be as loathed by the native as he is by us whose dead he disinters at +night, if we have been too tired or unable to bury our casualties deep +enough. But, strange as it may seem, the hyaena is worshipped by one +very large tribe in East Africa, the Kikuyu. For these strange people +have an extraordinary aversion to touching dead people. So much so, that +when their own relatives seem about to die they put them out in the bush +with a small fire and a gourd of water, protected by a small erection of +bush against the mid-day sun, and leave the hyaenas to do the rest. So +it comes about that this beast is almost sacred, and a white man who +kills one runs some danger of his life, if the crime is discovered. It +is hardly to be wondered at that the hyaenas in the "Kikuyu" country are +far bolder than in other parts. Elsewhere and by nature the hyaena is an +arrant coward. Here, however, he will bite the face off a sleeping man +lying in the open, or even pull down a woman or child, should they be +alone; elsewhere he only lives on carrion. + +The German is not a sportsman as we understand the term, though the +modern young German who apes English ways, comes out to East Africa +occasionally to make collections for his ancestral Schloss. That the +Crown Prince should have reserved large areas for game preserves speaks +for this modern tendency in young Germany. The average German is not +keen on exercise in the tropics, he will be carried by sweating natives +in a chair or hammock where Englishmen on similar errands will walk and +shoot upon the way. This slothful habit leads us to the conviction that +very much of the country is not explored as it should be, and I have +been told by prospectors for precious minerals, who were serving in our +army, of the wonderful store of mineral deposits in German East Africa. +One noted prospector who fell into my hands at Handeni could so little +forget his occupation of peace in this new reality of war, that he +always took out his prospector's hammer on patrol with him, and chipped +pieces of likely rock to bring back to camp in his haversack. He it was +who told me of his discovery of a seam of anthracite coal in the bed of +a river near the Tanga railway. On picket he had wandered to the edge of +the ravine and fallen over. Struggling for life to save himself by the +shrubs and growing plants on the face of this precipice, he eventually +found his way to the bottom of the ravine, on the top of a small +avalanche of earth. Judge, then, of his astonishment when, looking up, +he saw that his fall had exposed a fine seam of coal. This discovery +alone, in a country where the railway engines are forced to burn wood +fuel or expensive imported coal from Durban, is of the greatest +importance. The experience of most of us seemed to be that the Germans, +in the piping days of peace, preferred elegant leisure in a hammock and +the prospect of cold beer beneath a mango tree to the sterner delights +of laborious days in thickly wooded and inaccessible mountains. One of +the first results of this campaign will be to bring the enterprising +prospector from Rhodesia and the Malay States to what was once the +"Schoene Ost-Afrika" of the German colonial enthusiast. + +But big game hunting, except a man hunts for a living, as do the +elephant poachers in Mozambique or the Lado Enclave, soon loses its +savour to white men after a time. It is not long before the rifle is +discarded for the camera by men who really care for wild life in wilder +countries. Herein the white man differs from the savage, who kills and +kills until he can slay no longer. Strange it is to think that farmers +and planters in East Africa so soon tire of big game hunting, that they +do not trouble even to shoot for the pot or to get the meat that is the +ration provided for their native labourers, but employs a native, armed +with a rifle and a few cartridges, to shoot antelope for meat. + +To one in whom the spirit of adventure and romance is not dead what more +attractive than an elephant hunter's life? To work for six months and +make two or three thousand pounds, and spend the proceeds in a riotous +holiday, until the heavy tropic rains are over and the bush is dry +again. But few realise the rare qualities that an elephant hunter must +have. He must be extraordinarily tough, quite hardened to the toil and +diseases of the country, knowing many native tongues, largely immune +from the fever that lays a white man low many marches from civilisation +and hospitals, of an endurance splendid, with hope to dare the risk, and +courage to endure the toil. For the professional elephant hunter is now, +by force of circumstance and white man's law, become a wolf of the +forest, and the hands of all Governments are against him. He must mark +his elephant down, be up with the first light and after him, must +manoeuvre for light and wind and scent to pick the big bull from the +sheltering herd of females. If the head shot is not possible, the lung +shot or stomach shot alone is left. And six hours' march through +waterless country before one comes up with the elephant resting with his +herd is not the best preparation for a shot. If one misses, one may as +well go home another eight hours back to water. But if you hit and +follow the bull through the thorny bush, you do not even then know +whether you will find the victim. If, however, you find traces three +times in the first hour, or see the blood pouring from the trunk--not +merely blown in spray upon the bushes--then the certain conviction comes +that within an hour you will find your kill. Then the long march back to +camp, all food and water and the precious tusks carried by natives, +often too exhausted at the end to eat. A man who cannot march thirty +miles a day, and fulfil all the other requirements, should relegate +elephant hunting to the world of dreams. All the big successful elephant +poachers are well known: most of them are English, some of them are +Boers, a few only French or American; but seldom does a German attempt +it or live to repeat his experience. Far better to shut his eyes to this +illicit traffic and assist these strange soldiers of fortune to get +their ivory to the coast, and then enjoy the due reward of this +complaisant attitude. + + + + +THE BIRDS OF THE AIR + + +I think it is rather a pity that no naturalist has studied the birds of +German East Africa in the intimate and friendly spirit that many men +have done at home. It has been said that the bright plumage of Central +African birds is given them as compensation for the charm of song that +is a monopoly of the European bird. That this is the case in the damp +forests and swamps and reed beds along the Rufigi and other big rivers, +there is no doubt. Gaudy parrots and iridescent finches flash through +the foliage of trees along the Mohoro river, monkeys slide down the +ropes formed by parasitic plants that hang from the tree branches, to +dip their hands in the water to drink; only to flee, chattering to the +tree-tops, as they meet the gaze of apparently slumbering crocodiles. +Great painted butterflies flit above the beds of lilies that fringe the +muddy lagoons, the hippopotamus wallows lazily in the warm sunlit +waters. Here, it is true, is the Equatorial Africa of our schoolboy +dreams; and the birds have little but their glittering plumage to +recommend them. + +But we are apt to forget that the greater portion of Tropical Africa, +certainly all that is over five hundred feet above the sea, which +constitutes the greater part of the country with the exception of the +coast region, is not at all true to the picture that most of us have in +our minds. For the character of the interior is vastly different: great +rolling plains of yellow grass and thorn scrub, with the denser foliage +of deciduous trees along the river-banks. Here, indeed, you may find +sad-coloured birds that are gifted with the sweetest of songs. In the +bed of the Morogoro River lives a warbler who sings from the late +afternoon until dusk, and he is one of the very few birds that have that +deep contralto note, the "Jug" of the nightingale. And there are little +wrens with drab bodies and crimson tails that live beside the dwellings +of men and pick up crumbs from the doors of our tents, and hunt the rose +trees for insects. In the thorn bushes of higher altitudes are grey +finches that might have learnt their songs beside canary cages. The +African swallows, red headed and red backed, have a most tuneful little +song; they used to delight our wounded men in hospital at Handeni when +they built their nests in the roofs of this one-time German jail, and +sang to reward us for the open windows that allowed them to feed their +broods of young. + +In the mealie fields are francolins in coveys, very like the red-legged +partridge in their call, though in plumage nearer to its English +brother. There, too, the ubiquitous guinea fowl, the spotted "kanga" +that has given us so many blessed changes of diet, utters his strident +call from the tops of big thorn trees. The black and white meadow lark +is here, but the "khoran" or lesser bustard of South Africa, that +resembles him so much in plumage on a much larger scale, is absent. The +brown bustard, so common in the south, is the only representative of the +turkey tribe that I have seen here. Black and white is a very common +bird colouring; black crows with white collars follow our camps and +bivouacs to pick up scraps, and the brown fork-tailed kite hawks for +garbage and for the friendly lizard too, in the hospital compound. One +night, as I lay in my tent looking to the moon-lit camp, Fritz, our +little ground squirrel that lived beneath the table of the mess tent, +met an untimely fate from a big white owl. A whirr of soft owl wings to +the ground outside my tent, a tiny squeak, and Fritz had vanished from +our compound too. + +Vultures of many kinds dispute with lion and hyaena for the carrion of +dead ox or mule beside the road of our advance. King vultures in their +splendour of black, bare red necks and tips of white upon their wings, +lesser breeds of brown carrion hawks and vultures attend our every camp. +Again the vulture is not so common as in South Africa, for here it is +blind in this dense bush and has to play a very subsidiary part to the +scavenging of lions and hyaenas. Down by the swamps one evening we shot +a vulture that was assisting a moribund ox to die. True we did not mean +to kill him, for we owe many debts of gratitude to vultures; but, to my +surprise, my native boy seemed greatly pleased. Lifting the big black +tail he showed me the white soft feathers beneath, and by many signs +appeared to indicate that these feathers were of great value. Then I +looked again, and it was a marabou stork. My boy, who had been with +marabou and egret poachers in the swamps and rice-fields of the lower +Rufigi, knew the value of these snowy feathers. + + + + +BITING FLIES + + +Of the many plagues that beset this land of Africa not the least are the +biting flies. Just as every tree and bush has thorns, so every fly has a +sting. Some bite by day only, some by night, and others at all times. +Even the ants have wings, and drop them in our soup as they resume their +plantigrade existence once again. + +The worst biter that we have met in the many "fly-belts" that lie along +the Northern Railway is the tsetse fly: especially was he to be found at +a place called Same, and during the long trek from German Bridge on the +Northern Railway to Morogoro in the south. At one place there is a belt +thirty miles wide, and our progress was perpetual torture, unless we +passed that way at night. For the _Glossina morsitans_ sleeps by night +beneath leaves in the bush, and only wakes when disturbed. For this +reason we drive our horses, mules, and cattle by night through these +fly-belts. Savage and pertinacious to a degree are these pests, and +their bite is like the piercing of a red-hot needle. Simple and innocent +they appear, not unlike a house fly, but larger and with the tips of +their wings crossed and folded at the end like a swallow's. They are +mottled grey in colour, and their proboscis sticks out straight in +front. Hit them and they fall off, only to rise again and attack once +more; for their bodies are so tough and resistant, that great force is +required to destroy them. They are infected with trypanosomes, a kind of +attenuated worm that circulates in the blood, but fortunately not the +variety that causes sleeping sickness. At least we believe not. In any +case we shall not know for eighteen months, for that is usually the +latent period of sleeping sickness in man. Their bite is very poisonous, +and frequently produces the most painful sores and abscesses. But if +they are not lethal to man, they take a heavy toll of horses, mules, and +cattle. Through the night watches, droves of horses, remounts for +Brits's and Vandeventer's Brigades, cattle for our food and for the +transport, mules and donkeys, pass this way. Fine sleek animals that +have left the Union scarcely a month before, carefully washed in +paraffin in a vain attempt to protect them from flies and ticks. But +what a change in a short six weeks. The coat that was so sleek now is +staring, the eye quite bloodless, the swelling below the stomach that +tells its own story; wasting, incredible. Soon these poor beasts are +discarded, and line the roads with dull eyes and heavy hanging heads. We +may not shoot, for firing alarms our outposts and discloses our +position. To-night the lions and hyaenas that this war has provided with +such sumptuous repasts will ring down the curtain. A horse's scream in +the bush at night, the lowing of a frightened steer, a rustling of +bushes, and these poor derelicts, half eaten by the morning, meet the +indifferent gaze of the next convoy. More merciful than man are the +scavengers of the forest. They, at least, waste no time at the end. +Strange that the little donkeys should alone for a time at least escape +the fly; it is their soft thick coats that defeats the searching +proboscis. But after rain or the fording of a river their protecting +coats get parted by the moisture, and the fly can find his mark in the +skin. So the donkey and the Somali mule that generations of fly have +rendered tolerant to the trypanosome are the most reliable of our beasts +of burden. Soon, these too will go in the approaching rainy season, and +then we shall fall back on the one universal beast of burden, the native +carriers. Thousands of these are now being collected to march with their +head loads at the heels of our advancing columns. The veterinary service +is helpless with fly-struck animals. One may say with truth that the +commonest and most frequently prescribed veterinary medicine is the +revolver. Certainly it is the most merciful. Large doses of arsenic may +keep a fly-struck horse alive for months; alive, but robbed of all his +life and fire, his free gait replaced by a shambling walk. The wild +game, more especially the water buck and the buffalo whose blood is +teeming with these trypanosomes, but who, from generations of infection, +have acquired an immunity from these parasites, keep these flies +infected. Thus one cannot have domestic cattle and wild game in the same +area; the two are incompatible. And shortly the time will come, as +certainly as this land will support a white population, when the wild +game will be exterminated and _Glossina morsitans_ will bite no more. + +More troublesome, because more widely spread, are the large family of +mosquitoes. The _anopheles_, small, grey and quietly persistent, carries +the malaria that has laid our army low. _Culex_, larger and more noisy, +trumpets his presence in the night watches: but the mischief he causes +is in inverse ratio to the noise he makes. _Stegomyia_, host of the +spirium of yellow fever, is also here, but happily not yet infected; not +yet, but it may be only a question of time before yellow fever is +brought along the railways or caravan routes from the Congo or the +rivers of the West Coast, where the disease is endemic. There for many +years it was regarded as biliary fever or blackwater or malaria. Now +that the truth is known a heavier responsibility is cast upon the +already overburdened shoulders of the Sanitary Officer and the +specialists in tropical diseases. _Stegomyia_, as yet uninfected, are +also found in quantities in the East; and with the opening of the Panama +Canal, that links the West Indies and Caribbean Sea, where yellow fever +is endemic, with the teeming millions of China and India, may materially +add to the burden of the doctors in the East. Living a bare fourteen +days as he does, infected _stegomyia_ died a natural death, in the old +days, during the long voyage round the Horn, and thus failed to infect +the Eastern Coolie, who would in turn infect these brothers of the West +Indian mosquito. + +Fortunate it is in one way that _anopheles_ is the mosquito of lines of +communication, of the bases, of houses and huts and dwellings of man, +rather than of the bush. Our fighting troops are consequently not so +exposed as troops on lines of communication. For this blessing we are +grateful, for lines of communication troops can use mosquito nets, but +divisional troops on trek or on patrol cannot. Soon we shall see the +fighting troops line up each evening for the protective application of +mosquito oil. For where nets are not usable it is yet possible to +protect the face and hands for six hours, at least, by application of +oil of citronella, camphor, and paraffin. Nor is this mixture +unpleasant; for the smell of citronella is the fragrance of verbena from +Shropshire gardens. + +Least in size, but in its capacity for annoyance greatest, perhaps, of +all, is the sand fly. Almost microscopic, but with delicate grey wings, +of a shape that Titania's self might wear, they slip through the holes +of mosquito gauze and torment our feet by night and day. The three-day +fever they leave behind is yet as nothing compared to the itching fury +that persists for days. + +Finally there is the bott-fly, by no means the least unpleasant of the +tribe. Red-headed and with an iridescent blue body, he is very similar +to the bluebottle, and lives in huts and dwellings. But his ways are +different, for he bites a hole into one's skin, usually the back or +arms, and lays an egg therein. In about ten days this egg develops into +a fully grown larva, in other words a white maggot with a black head. It +looks for all the world like a boil until one squeezes it and pushes the +squirming head outside. But woe to him who having squeezed lets go to +get the necessary forceps; for the larva leaps back within, promptly +dies and forms an abscess. Often I have taken as many as thirty or forty +from one man. It is a melancholy comfort to find that this fly is no +respecter of persons, for the Staff themselves have been known to become +affected by this pest. + +With the flies may be mentioned as one of the minor horrors of war in +East Africa, one of the little plagues that are sent to mortify our +already over-tortured flesh, the jigger flea. As if there were not +already sufficient trials for us to undergo, an unkind Providence has +sent this pest to rob us of what little enjoyment or elegant leisure +this country might afford. True to her sex, it is the female of the +species that causes all the trouble; the male is comparatively harmless. +Lurking in the dust and grass of camps, she burrows beneath the skin of +our toes, choosing with a calculated ferocity the tender junction of the +nails with the protesting flesh. No sooner is she well ensconced therein +than she commences the supreme business of life, she lays her eggs, by +the million, all enclosed in a little sack. What little measure of sleep +the mosquitoes, the sand flies and the stifling nights have left us, +this relentless parasite destroys. For her presence is disclosed to us +by itching intolerable. Then the skill of the native boys is called +upon, and dusky fingers, well scrubbed in lysol, are armed with a safety +pin, to pick the little interloper out intact. Curses in many languages +descend upon the head of the unlucky boy who fails to remove the sack +entire. For the egg-envelope once broken, abscesses and blood poisoning +may result, and one's toes become an offence to surgery. + +All is well, if a drop of iodine be ready to complete the well-conducted +operation; but the poor soldier, whose feet, perforce, are dirty and who +only has the one pair of socks, pays a heavy penalty to this little +flea, that dying still has power to hurt. Dirt and the death of this +tiny visitor result in painful feet that make of marching a very +torture. So great a pest is this that at least five per cent. of our +army, both white and native, are constantly incapacitated. Hundreds of +toenails have I removed for this cause alone. Nor do the jiggers come +singly, but in battalions, and often as many as fifty have to be removed +from one wretched soldier's feet and legs. So we hang our socks upon our +mosquito nets and take our boots to bed with us, nor do we venture to +put bare feet upon the ground. + +A yell in the sleeping camp at night, "Some damn thing's bit me;" and +matches are struck, while a sleepy warrior hunts through his blankets +for the soldier ant whose great pincers draw blood, or lurking centipede +or scorpion. For in these dry, hot, dusty countries these nightly +visitors come to share the warm softness of the army blanket. Next +morning, sick and shivering, they come to show to me the hot red flesh +or swollen limb with which the night wanderer has rewarded his +involuntary host. + + + + +NIGHT IN MOROGORO + + +There's nothing quite so wideawake as a tropical night in Africa. At +dawn the African dove commences with his long-drawn note like a boy +blowing over the top of a bottle, one bird calling to another from the +palms and mango trees. Then the early morning songsters wake. + +There is no libel more grossly unfair than that which says the birds of +Africa have no song. The yellow weaver birds sing most beautifully, as +they fly from the feathery tops of the avenue of coconut palms that line +the road to the clump of bamboos behind the hospital. + +But they fly there no longer now, for our colonel, in a spasm of +sanitation, cut down this graceful swaying clump of striped bamboos for +the fear that they harboured mosquitoes. As if these few canes mattered, +when our hospital was on the banks of the reed-fringed river. Morning +songsters with voices of English thrushes and robins wake one to gaze +upon the dawn through one's mosquito net. Small bird voices, like the +chiff-chaff in May, carry on the chorus until the sun rises. Then the +bird of delirium arrives and runs up the scale to a high monotonous note +that would drive one mad, were it not that he and the dove, with his +amphoric note, are Africa all over. A neat fawn-coloured bird this, with +a long tail and dark markings on his wings. + +Then as the sun rises and the early morning heat dries up the song +birds' voices, the earth and the life of the palm trees drowse in the +sunshine. + +But at night, from late afternoon to three in the morning, when the life +of trees and grasses and ponds ceases for a short while before it begins +again at dawn, the air is full of the busy voices of the insect world. +Until we came south to Morogoro, to the land of mangoes, coconut, palms, +bamboos, we had known the shrill voice of cicadas and the harsh metallic +noises of crickets in grass and trees. But here we made two new +acquaintances, and charming little voices they had too. One lived in the +grass and rose leaves of our garden, for the German blacksmith who +lately occupied our hospital building had planted his garden with +"Caroline Testout" and crimson ramblers. His voice was like the tinkling +of fairy hammers upon a silver anvil. And with this fine clear note was +the elusive voice of another cricket that had such a marked +ventriloquial character that we could never tell whether he lived in the +rose bushes or in the trees. His note was the music of silver bells upon +the naked feet of rickshaw boys, the tinkle that keeps time to the soft +padding of native feet in the rickshaws of Nairobi at night. At first I +woke to think there were rickshaw boys dragging rubber-tyred carriages +along the avenues of the town, until I found that Morogoro boasted no +rickshaws and no bells for native feet. + +Punctuated in all the music of fairy bands and the whirr of fairy +machinery were the incessant voices of frogs. Especially if it had +rained or were going to rain, the little frogs in trees and ponds sang +their love songs in chorus, silenced, at times, by the deep basso of a +bull frog. And often, as our heads ached and throbbed with fever at +night, we felt a very lively sympathy for the French noblesse of the +eighteenth century, who are said to have kept their peasants up at night +beating the ponds with sticks to still the strident voices of these +frogs. + +With it all there is a rustling overhead in the feathery branches of the +palms in the cobwebby spaces among the leaves that give the bats of +Africa a home. A twitter of angry bat voices, shrill squeaks and +flutters in the darkness. Then stillness--of a sudden--and the ground +trembles with a far-off throbbing as a convoy of motor lorries +approaching thunders past us, rumbling over the bridge and out into the +darkness, driving for supplies. + +The road beside the hospital was the old caravan route that ran from the +Congo through Central Africa and by the Great Lakes to Bagamoyo by the +sea. For centuries the Arab slaver had brought his slave caravans along +this path: it may have been fever or the phantasies of disordered +subconscious minds half awake in sleep, or the empty night thrilling to +the music of crickets, that filled our minds with fancies in the +darkness. But this road seemed alive again. For this smooth surface that +now trembles to the thunder of motor lorries seemed to echo to the soft +padding of millions of slave feet limping to the coast to fill the +harems or to work the clove plantations of his most Oriental Majesty the +Sultan of Zanzibar. + + + + +THE WATERS OF TURIANI + + +Halfway between the Usambara and the Central Railway, the dusty road to +Morogoro crosses the Turiani River. In the woods beside the river, the +tired infantry are resting at the edge of a big rock pool. Wisps of blue +smoke from dying fires tell of the tea that has washed beef and biscuit +down dry and dusty throats. The last company of bathers are drying in +the sun upon the rocks, necks, arms and knees burnt to a sepia brown, +the rest of their bodies alabaster white in the sunshine. It is three +o'clock, and the drowsy heat of afternoon has hushed the bird and insect +world to sleep. Only in the tree-tops is the sleepy hum of bees, still +busy with the flowers, and the last twitter of soft birds' voices. Soft +river laughter comes up from the rocky stream-bed below, and, softened +by the distance to a poignant sweetness, the sound of church bells from +Mhonda Mission floats up to us upon the west wind. + +Yesterday only saw the last of Lettow's army crossing the bridge and +echoed to the noise of the explosion that blew up the concrete pillars +and forced our pioneers to build a wooden substitute. Alas! for the +best-laid schemes of our General. The bird had escaped from the closing +net, and Lettow was free to make his retreat in safety to the Southern +Railway. Here at Turiani for a moment it seemed that the campaign was +over. Up from the big Mission at Mhonda, the mounted troops swept out to +cut off the German retreat. All unsuspected, they had made then-big +flank march to meet the eastern flanking column, and cut the road behind +the German force in a pincer grip. But the blind bush robbed our +troopers of their sense of direction, and the long trek through +waterless bush, the tsetse fly and horse-sickness that took their daily +toll of all our horses reduced the speed of cavalry to little more than +a walk. A mistake in a bush-covered hill in a country that was all hill +and bush, and the elusive Lettow slipped out to run and hide and fight +again on many another day. + + + + +SCOUTING + + +Of the many aspects of this campaign none perhaps is more thrilling than +life on the forward patrol. For the duty of these fellows is to go +forward with armed native scouts far in advance of the columns, to find +out what the Germans are up to, their strength, and the disposition of +their troops. Their reports they send back by native runners, who not +infrequently get captured. Like wolves in the forest they live, months +often elapsing without their seeing a white face, and then it is the +kind of white man that they do not want to see; every man's hand against +them, native as well as German, unable to light fires at night for fear +of discovery, sleeping on the ground, creeping up close, for in this +bush one can only get information at close quarters; always out of food, +forced to smoke pungent native tobacco. They have to live on the game +they shoot, and it is a hundred chances to one that the shot that gives +them dinner will bring a Hun patrol to disturb the feast. Theirs is +without doubt the riskiest job in such a war as this. + +Here is the story of a night surprise, as it was told me. The long trek +had lasted all day, to be followed by the fireless supper (how one longs +for the hot tea at night!), and the deep sleep that comes to exhausted +man as soon as he gets into his blankets. Drowsy sentries failed to hear +the rustling in the thicket until almost too late; the alarm is given, +pickets run in to wake their sleeping "bwona," all mixed up with +Germans. The intelligence party scattered to all points of the compass, +leaving their camp kit behind them. There was no time to do aught but +pick up their rifles (that is second nature) and fly for safety to the +bush. Now this actual surprise party was led by one Laudr, an +Oberleutnant who had lived for years in South Africa, and had married an +English wife. Laudr had the reputation of being the best shot in German +East, but he missed that night, and my friend escaped, unharmed, the +five shots from his revolver. Next morning, cautiously approaching the +scene of last night's encounter, he found a note pinned to a tree. In it +Laudr thanked him for much good food and a pair of excellent blankets, +and regretted that the light had been so bad for shooting. But he left a +young goat tied up to the tree and my friend's own knife and fork and +plate upon the ground. + +Another story this resourceful fellow told me concerning an exploit +which he and a fellow I.D. man, with twenty-five of their scouts, had +brought off near Arusha. They had been sent out to get information as to +the strength of an enemy post in a strongly fortified stone +building--the kind of half fort, half castle that the Germans build in +every district as an impregnable refuge in case of native risings. With +watch towers and battlements, these forts are after the style of +mediaeval buildings. Equipped with food supplies and a well, they can +resist any attack short of artillery. Learning from the natives that the +force consisted of two German officers and about sixty Askaris, my +friend determined not to send back for the column that was waiting to +march from Arusha to invest the place. Between them they resolved to +take the place by strategy and guile. Lying hid in the bush, they +arranged with friendly natives to supply the guard with "pombe" the +potent native drink. Late that night, judging from the sounds that the +Kaffir beer had done its work, they crept up and disarmed the guard. +Holding the outer gate they sent in word to the commandant, a Major +Schneider, the administrator of the district, to surrender. He duly came +from his quarters into the courtyard accompanied by his Lieutenant. +"Before I consider surrender," he said, "tell me what force you've got?" +"This fort is surrounded by my troops, that is enough for you," said our +man. "In any case you see my men behind me, and, if you don't 'hands +up,' they'll fire." And the "troops"--half-clad natives--stepped forward +with levelled rifles. + +The next morning the Major, still doubting, asked to see the rest of the +English troops, and on being informed that these were all, would have +rushed back to spring the mines that would have blown the place to +pieces. But the Intelligence Officer had not wasted his time the +previous night, and had very carefully cut the wires that led apparently +so innocently from the central office of the fort. My friend brought +this Major, a man of great importance in his district, to Dar-es-Salaam; +and during the whole journey the German never ceased to complain that +bluffing was a dishonourable means of warfare to employ. + +On yet another occasion he had an experience that taxed his tact and +strength to the utmost. In the course of his work he seized the +meat-canning factory near Arusha that a certain Frau ----, in the +absence of her husband, was carrying on. The enemy used to shoot +wildebeest and preserve it by canning or by drying it in the sun as +"biltong" for the use of the German troops. My friend was forced to burn +the factory, and then it became his duty to escort this very practical +lady back to our lines. This did not suit her book at all. With tears +she implored him to send her to her own people. She would promise +anything. Cunningly she suggested great stores of information she might +impart. But he cared not for her weeping, and ordered her to pack for +the long journey to Arusha. Then tears failing her she sulked, and +refused to eat or leave her tent. But this found him adamant. Finally +she tried the woman's wiles which should surely be irresistible to this +man. But he was unmoved by all her blandishments. So surprised and +indignant was he that he threatened to tell her husband of her +behaviour, when he should catch him. But here it appears he made a false +estimate of the value of honour and dishonour among the Huns. "A loyal +German woman," she exclaimed, laughing, "is allowed to use any means to +further the interests of her Fatherland. My husband will only think more +highly of me when he knows." So this modern Galahad of ours turned away +and ordered the lady's tent to be struck and marched her off, taking +care that he himself was far removed from her presence in the caravan. +"What fools you English are," she flung back at him, as he handed her +into the custody that would safely hold this dangerous apostle of +_Kultur_ till the end of the war. + + + + +"HUNNISHNESS" + + +Wearily along the road from Korogwe to Handeni toiled a little company +of details lately discharged from hospital and on their way forward to +Division. Behind them straggled out, for half a mile or more, their line +of black porters carrying blankets and waterproof sheets. Arms and necks +and knees burnt black by many weeks of tropic sun, carrying rifle and +cartridge belts and with their helmets reversed to shade their eyes from +the westering sun, this little body of Rhodesians, Royal Fusiliers and +South Africans covered the road in the very loose formation these +details of many regiments affect. Far ahead was the advance guard of +four Rhodesians and Fusiliers. Nothing further from their thoughts than +war--for they were thirty miles behind Division--they were suddenly +galvanised into action by the sight of the advance guard slipping into +the roadside ditches and opening rapid rifle fire at some object ahead. + +For at a turn of the road the advance guard perceived a large number of +Askaris and several white men collected about one of our telegraph +posts, while, up the post, upon the cross trees, was a white man, busily +engaged with the wires. One glance was sufficient to tell these wary +soldiers that the white men were wearing khaki uniforms of an unfamiliar +cut and the mushroom helmet that the Hun affects. So they took cover in +the ditches and opened fire, especially upon the German officer who was +busily tapping our telegraph wire. Down with a great bump on the ground +dropped the startled Hun, and the Askaris fled to the jungle leaving +their chop boxes lying on the road. From the safe shelter of the bush +the enemy reconnoitred their assailants, and taking courage from their +small numbers, proceeded to envelop them by a flank movement. But the +British officer in charge of the details behind, knew his job and threw +out two flanking parties when he got the message from the advance guard. +Our men outflanked the outflanking enemy, and soon as pretty a little +engagement as one could hope to see had developed. Finding themselves +partly surrounded by unsuspected strength the Germans scattered in all +directions, leaving a few wounded and dead behind upon the field. There +on his back, wounded in the leg and spitting fire from his revolver, was +lying the German officer determined to sell his life dearly. His last +shot took effect in the head of one of the Fusiliers who were charging +the bush with the bayonet; up went his hands, "Kamerad, mercy!" and our +officer stepped forward to disarm this chivalrous prisoner. Then they +wired forward to our hospital, at that time ten miles ahead, for an +ambulance, and proceeded to bury their only casualty and the dead +Askaris. + +Happening to be on duty, I hurried to the scene of this action in one of +our ambulances, along the worst road in Africa. There I found the German +officer, an Oberleutnant of the name of Zahn, lying by the roadside +gazing with frightened eyes out of huge yellow spectacles. We dressed +his wound and gave him an injection of morphia, a cigarette, and a good +drink of brandy, and left him in the shade of a baobab tree to recover +from his fears. Then I turned toward the dividing of the contents of +captured chop boxes that was being carried out under the direction of +the officer in charge. On occasions such as these, the men were rewarded +with the only really square meal they had often had for days; for the +Hun is a past master in the art of doing himself well, and his chopboxes +are always full of new bread, chocolate, sardines and many little +delicacies. I stepped forward to claim the two Red Cross boxes that had +obviously been the property of the German doctor, and with some +difficulty--for no soldier likes to be robbed of his spoil--I managed to +establish the right of the hospital to them. In the boxes were not only +a fine selection of drugs and surgical dressings and a bottle of brandy, +but also the doctor's ammunition. And such ammunition too. Huge +black-powder cartridges with large leaden bullets; they would only fit +an elephant gun; and yet this was the kind of weapon this doctor found +necessary to bring to protect himself against British soldiers. Had that +doctor been caught with his rifle he would have deserved to be shot on +the spot. Nor were our men in the best of moods; for they had seen the +dead Fusilier, and were furious at the wounds these huge lead slugs +create. + +The orderlies then lifted the German officer tenderly into the +ambulance; and the prisoner, now feeling full of the courage that +morphia and brandy give, beckoned to me. "Meine Uhr in meiner Tasche," +he said, pointing to his torn trouser. "Well, what about it?" I asked. +Again he mentioned his watch in his pocket, and looked at his torn +trouser. "Do you suggest," I said sternly, "that a British soldier has +taken your beastly watch." "No, no, not for worlds," he exclaimed; "I +merely wish to mention the fact that when I went into action I had had a +large gold watch and a large gold chain, and much gold coin in my +pocket. And now," he said, "behold! I have no watch or chain." "What," I +said again, "do you suggest that these soldiers are thieves?" "No! Not +at all; but when I was wounded the soldiers, running up in their anxiety +to help me and dress my wound" (as a matter of fact they had run up to +bayonet him, had not the officer intervened, for this swine had +forfeited his right to mercy by emptying his revolver first and then +surrendering) "inadvertently cut away my pocket in slitting up my +trouser leg." "Then your watch," I continued coldly, "is still lying on +the field, or, if a soldier should discover it, he will deliver it to +General Headquarters, from whence it will be sent to you." Sure enough +that evening the sergeant-major in charge of the rearguard came in with +the missing watch and chain. + +Later, we learned, from diaries captured on German prisoners, what +manner of brute this Zahn was. + + + + +FROM MINDEN TO MOROGODO + + +Judge of my surprise when, one morning in hospital at Morogoro, a fellow +walked in to see me whose face reminded me of times, two years back, +when I was in the Prisoners of War Camp at Minden in Westphalia. He +showed a fatter and more wholesome face certainly, he was clean and well +dressed, but still, unmistakably it was the man to whom I used to take +an occasional book or chocolate when he lay behind the wire of the inner +prison there. "It can't be you?" I said illogically. But it was. + +But what a change these two years had wrought! Now an officer in the +Royal Flying Corps, the ribbon of the Military Cross bearing witness to +many a risky reconnaissance over the Rufigi Valley; but then a dirty +mechanic in the French Aviation Corps and a prisoner. But in December, +1914, there were no fat or clean English soldiers in German prisons. + +And, as I looked, my mind went back to a wet morning when, the German +sentry's back being turned, a French soldier, working on the camp road, +dug his way near to the door of my hut and, still digging, told me that +there was an Englishman in the French camp, who wanted particularly to +see me. So that afternoon I walked boldly into the French camp as if I +had important business there, and found my way to the further hut. There +lying on a straw mattress, incredibly lousy and sandwiched between a +Turco from Morocco and a Senegalese negro soldier, I found a white man, +who jumped up to see me and was extraordinarily glad to find that his +message had borne fruit. Clad in the tattered but still unmistakable +uniform of a French artilleryman, three months' beard upon his face, +with white wax-like cheeks, blue nose and a dreadfully hunted +expression, stood this six emaciated feet of England. Drawing me aside +to a sheltered corner he told me his story; how, despairing of a job in +our Flying Corps at the commencement of the war, he had joined the +French Aviation Corps as a mechanic, and how he had been taken prisoner +early in September, 1914, when the engine of his aeroplane failed and he +descended to earth in the middle of a marching column of the enemy. Of +the early months of captivity from September to December in Minden he +told me many things. He and all the others lived in an open field +exposed to all the Westphalian winter weather, with no blankets, nothing +but what he now wore. They lived in holes in a wet clay field like rats +and--like rats they fought for the offal and pigwash on which the German +jailors fed them twice a day. Now he had been moved into a long hut, +open on the inner side that looked to the enclosed central square of the +lager, but well enclosed outside by a triple barbed wire fence. + +"Why do they put you in with coloured men?" I asked, as I looked at his +bedfellows. + +"Oh, that's because I'm an Englishman, you know," he said. "When I came +here the commandant, finding who I was, was pleased to be facetious. +'Brothers in arms, glorious,' he chuckled, as he ordered my particular +abode here. 'You, of course, don't object to sleep with a comrade,' he +said, with heavy German humour. And I wanted to tell him, had I only +dared, that I'd rather sleep with a nigger from Senegal than with him." + +"How about the lice?" I said, for it was not possible to avoid seeing +them on the thin piece of flannelette that was his blanket. + +"Oh, I'm used to them now. Time was when I hunted my clothes all day +long, but now--nothing matters; in fact, I rather think they keep me +warm." + +So I was quick and glad to help in the little way I could. Not that +there was much that I could do. But I at least had one good meal a day +and two of German prison food, but he had only three bowls of prisoner's +stew and soup. Lest you might think that I exaggerate, I will tell you +exactly what he had, and you may judge what manner of diet it was for a +big Englishman. Five ounces of black bread a day, part of barley and +part of potato, the rest of rye and wheat; for breakfast, a pint of +lukewarm artificial coffee made of acorns burnt with maize, no sugar; +sauerkraut and cabbage in hot water twice a day, occasionally some +boiled barley or rice or oatmeal, and now and then--almost by a miracle, +so rare were the occasions--a small bit of horseflesh in the soup. Could +one wonder at the wolfish look upon his face, the dreary hopelessness of +his expression? And on this diet he had fatigues to do; but on those +days of hard toil there was also a little extra bread and an inch of +German sausage. + +But I could get some things from the canteen by bribing the German +orderly who brought our midday food, and I had some books. So the sun +shone, for a time, on Minden. + +Nor was this fellow alone in these unhappy surroundings. There with him +were English civilian prisoners, clerks and school-teachers, technical +and engineering instructors, who once taught in German schools and +worked at Essen or in the shipyards. These wretched civilians, until +they were removed to Ruhleben, were not in much better case; but they +might, at least, sleep together on indescribable straw palliasses. Then +they were together; there was comfort in that at least. + +By a strange turn of Fortune's wheel this very camp was placed upon the +site of the battlefield of Minden, when, as our guards would tell us, an +undegenerate England fought with the great Frederick against the French. + +Moved to another camp this fellow had escaped by crawling under the +barbed wire on a dirty wet night in winter when the sentry had turned +his well-clothed back against the northern gale. + + + + +A MORAL DISASTER + + +All the Army is looking for the gunnery lieutenant, H.M.S. ----. Time +indeed may soften the remembrance of the evil he has done us, and in the +dim future, when we get to Dar-es-Salaam, we may even relent +sufficiently to drink with him; but now, just halfway along the dusty +road from Handeni to Morogoro, we feel that there's no torture yet +devised that would be a fitting punishment. + +Strange how frail a thing is human happiness, that the small matter of a +misdirected 12-inch shell should blight the lives of a whole army and +tinge our thirsty souls with melancholy. For this clumsy projectile that +left the muzzle of the gun with the intention of wrecking the railway +station in Dar-es-Salaam became, by evil chance, deflected in its path +and struck the brewery instead. Not the office or the non-essential part +of the building, but the very heart, the mainspring of the whole, the +precious vats and machinery for making beer. And there will be no more +"lager" in German East Africa until the war is over. + +All the long hot march from Kilimanjaro down the Pangani River and along +the dusty, thirsty plains we had all been sustained by the thought that +one day we would strike the Central Railway and, finding some sufficient +pretext to snatch some leave, would swiftly board a train for +Dar-es-Salaam and drink from the Fountain of East Africa. The one bright +hope that upheld us, the one beautiful dream that dragged weary +footsteps southward over that waterless, thorny desert was the +occupation of the brewery. We had heard its fame all over the country, +we had met a few of its precious bottles full at the Coast, had found +some empty--in the many German plantations we had searched. + +Now "Ichabod" is written large upon our resting-places, the joy of life +departed, the sparkle gone from bright eyes that longed for victory, +and, as King's Regulations have it, alarm and consternation have spread +through all ranks. Even the accompanying news of the tears of the Hun +population in Dar-es-Salaam at this wanton destruction, failed to +comfort us. + +The Navy were very nice about it. They were just as sorry as we, they +said. The gunner had been put under observation as a criminal lunatic, +we understood. But they had just come from Zanzibar, and every one knows +that all good things are to be found in that isle of clover. All the +excuses in the world won't give us back our promised beer again. + + + + +THE ANGEL OF MOROGORO + + +Standing on the river bridge that crossed the main road into Morogoro +was a slender figure in the white uniform of a nursing sister. In one +hand a tiny Union Jack, in the other a white flag. + +"Don't shoot," she cried, "I'm an Englishwoman;" and the bearded South +African troopers, who were reconnoitring the approaches to their town, +stopped and smiled down upon her. "Take this letter to General Smuts, +please; it is from the German General von Lettow;" and handing it to one +of them, she shook hands with the other and told him how she had been +waiting for two years for him to come and release her from her prison. +For this nursing sister had been behind prison bars for two years in +German East Africa, and you may imagine how she had longed for the day +when the English would come and set her free. + +This was Sister Mabel, the only nursing sister we had in Morogoro for +the first four months of our occupation. Her memory lives in the hearts +of hundreds of our wretched soldiers, who were brought with malaria or +dysentery to the shelter of our hospital. In spite of the fact that she +was one of the trained English nursing sisters of the English +Universities Mission in German East Africa, she was imprisoned with the +rest of the Allied civil population of that German colony from the +commencement of war until the time that Smuts had come to break the +prison bars and let the wretched captives free. She had had her share of +insult, indignity, shame and ill-treatment at the hands of her savage +gaolers. But in that slender body lived a very gallant soul, and that +gave her spirit to dare and courage to endure. So when we occupied +Morogoro and Lettow fled with his troops to the mountains, this very +splendid sister gave up her chance of leave well-earned to come to nurse +for us in our hospital. The Germans had failed to break the spirits of +these civilian prisoners, and they had full knowledge of the army that +was slowly moving south from Kilimanjaro to redress the balance of +unsuccessful military enterprise in the past. One can imagine the state +of mind of these wretched people when the news of our ill-fated attack +on Tanga in 1914 arrived; when they heard of our Indian troops being +made prisoners at Jassin, and saw from the cock-a-hoop attitude of the +Hun that all was well for German arms in East Africa. Then when Nemesis +was approaching, the German commandant came to their prison to make +amends for past wrongs. "I am desolated to think," he unctuously +explained, "that you ladies have had so little comfort in this camp in +the past, and I have come to make things easier for you now. The English +Government," he continued with an ingratiating smile, "have now begun to +treat our prisoners in England better, and I hasten to return good to +you for the evils that our women have suffered at the hands of your +Government. Is there anything I can do for you? Would you like native +servants? Would you care to go for walks?" But these brave women +answered that they had done without servants and walks for two years +now, and they could endure a little longer. "What do you mean," he +exclaimed in anger, "by a little longer?" But they answered nothing, and +he knew the news of our advance had come to them within their prison +cage. "Would you care to nurse our wounded soldiers?" he said more +softly. Sister Mabel said she would. So now for the first time she is +given a native servant, carried in state down the mountain-side in a +hammock, and installed in the German hospital in Morogoro. There, in +virtue of the excellence of her work and knowledge, she was given charge +of badly wounded German officers, and received with acid smiles of +welcome from the German sisters. + +To her, at the evacuation of the town, had Lettow come, and, giving her +a letter to General Smuts, had asked her to put in a good word for the +German woman and children he was leaving behind him to our tender +mercies. "There is no need of letters to ask for protection for German +women," she told him; "you know how well they've been treated in +Wilhemstal and Mombo." But he insisted, and she consented, and so the +bearded troopers found this English emissary of Lettow's waiting for +them upon the river bridge. + +Back came General Smuts's answer, "Tell the women of Morogoro that, if +they stay in their houses, they have nothing to fear from British +troops, nor will one house be entered, if only they stay indoors." And +the Army was as good as the word of their Chief; for no occupied house, +not one German chicken, not a cabbage was taken from any German house or +garden. + +And now the despised and rejected English Sister had become the +"Oberschwester," and her German fellow nursing sisters had to take their +orders from her. But she exercised a difficult authority very kindly and +adopted a very cool and distant attitude toward them. But there was one +thing she never did again: she never spoke German any more, but gave all +her orders and held all dealings with the enemy in Swahili, the native +language, or in English. In this she was adamant. + +Now, indeed, had the great work of her life begun; for into those four +months she crammed the devotion of a lifetime. Always full to +overcrowding, never less than 600 patients where we had only the +equipment for 200, the whole hospital looked to her for the nursing that +is so essential in modern medicine and surgery. For nurses are now an +absolute necessity for medical and surgical work of modern times, and we +could get no other sisters. The railway was broken, the bridges down, +and where could we look for help or hospital comforts or medical +necessities? We had pushed on faster than our supplies, and with the +equipment of a Casualty Clearing Station we had to do the work of a +Stationary Hospital. No beds save those we took over from the German +Hospital, no sheets nor linen. Can one wonder that she was everywhere +and anywhere at all homes and in all places? Six o'clock in the morning +found her in the wards; she alone of all of us could find no time to +rest in the afternoon; a step upon the verandah where she slept beside +the bad pneumonias and black-water fever cases found her always up and +ready to help. Nor was her job finished in the nursing; she was our +housekeeper too. For she alone could run the German woman cook, could +speak Swahili, and keep order among the native boys, buy eggs and fruit +and chickens from the natives, so that our sick might not want for the +essentially fresh foods. Then at last the railway opened up a big +Stationary Hospital, our Casualty Clearing Station moved further to the +bush, and Sister Mabel's work was done. But there was no elegant leisure +for her when she arrived at the Coast to take the leave she long had +earned in England. An Australian transport had some cases of +cerebro-spinal meningitis aboard, and wanted Sisters, and, as if she had +not already had enough to do, took her with them through the sunny South +Atlantic seas to the home that had not seen her since she left for +Tropical Africa five weary years before. + + + + +THE WILL TO DESTROY + + +The journey from Morogoro to Dar-es-Salaam is a most interesting +experience, a perfect object lesson in the kind of futile railway +destruction that defeats its own ends. For Lettow and his advisers said +that our long wait at M'syeh had ruined our chances. Complete +destruction of the railway and of all the rolling stock would hold us up +for the valuable two months until the rains were due. Our means of +supply all that time would be, perforce, the long road haul by motor +lorry, by mule or ox or donkey transport, two hundred miles, from the +Northern Railway. Lettow bet on the rains and the completeness of the +railway destruction he would cause; but he bargained without his +visitors. Little did he know the resource and capacity of our Indian +sappers and miners, our Engineer and Pioneer battalions. + +They threw themselves on broken culverts and wrecked bridges; with only +hand tools, so short of equipment were they, they drove piles and built +up girders on heaps of sleepers and made the bridges safe again. Saving +every scrap of chain, every abandoned German tool, making shift here, +extemporising there, bending steel rails on hand forges, utilising the +scrap heaps the enemy had left, they finally won and brought the first +truck through, in triumph, in six weeks. But the first carriage was no +Pullman car. It exemplified the resource of our men and illustrated the +idea that proved Lettow wrong. For we adapted the engines of Ford and +Bico motor cars and motor lorries to the bogie wheels of German trucks +and sent a little fleet of motor cars along the railway. Light and very +speedy, these little trains sped along, each dragging its thirty tons of +food and supplies for the army then 120 miles from Dar-es-Salaam. + +This adaptation of the internal combustion engine to fixed rails may not +be new, but it was unexpected by Lettow. And the German engineers left +it a little too late; they panicked at the last and destroyed wholesale, +but without intelligence. True, they put an explosive charge into the +cylinders of all their big engines and left us to get new cylinders cast +in Scotland. They blew out the grease boxes of the trucks; but their +performance, on the whole, was amateurish. For they blew up, with +dynamite, the masonry of many bridges and contented themselves that the +girders lay in the river below. But this was child's play to our Sappers +and Miners. With hand jacks they lifted the girders and piled up +sleepers, one by one beneath, until the girder was lifted to rail level +again. Now any engineer can tell you that the only way to destroy a +bridge is to cut the girder. This would send us humming over the cables +to Glasgow to get it replaced. It was what they did do on the most +important bridge over Ruwu River, but in their anxiety to do the thing +properly there--and they reckoned four months' hard work would find us +with a new bridge still unfinished--they forgot the old deviation, an +old spur that ran round the big span that crossed the river and lay +buried in the jungle growth. In ten days we had opened up this old +deviation, laid new rails, and had the line re-opened. When I passed +down the line we took the long way round by this long-abandoned track +and left the useless bridge upon our right. Much method but little +intelligence was shown in the destruction of the railway lines; for they +often failed to remove the points, contenting themselves with removing +the rails and hiding them in the jungle. + +The German engineers must have wept at the orgy of devastation that +followed: blind fury alone seemed to animate this scene of blind +destruction. At N'geri N'geri and Ruwu they first broke the middle one +of the three big spans and ran the rolling stock, engines, sleeping +cars, a beautiful ambulance train, trucks and carriages, pell mell into +the river-bed below. But the wreckage piled up in a heap 60 feet high +and soon was level with the bridge again. So they broke the other spans +and ran most of the rest of the rolling stock through the gaps. When +these, too, had piled up, they finally ran the remainder of the rolling +stock down the embankments and into the jungle. Then they set fire to +the three huge heaps of wreckage, and the glare lit the heavens for +nearly a hundred miles. But the almost uninjured railway trucks that had +run their little race, down embankments into the bush, were saved to run +again. + +Into Morogoro station steamed the trains with the German lettering and +freight and tare directions, carefully undisturbed, printed on their +sides. To us it seemed that the destruction of an ambulance train that +had in the past relied upon the Red Cross and our forbearance, was +cutting it rather fine and putting a new interpretation upon the Geneva +Convention. The Germans, however, argue that the English are such swine +they would have used it to carry supplies as well as sick and wounded. + +And what a magnificent railway it was, and what splendid rolling stock +they had! Steel sleepers, big heavy rails, low gradients, excellent cuts +and bridge work; cuttings through rock smoothed as if by sandpaper and +crevices filled with concrete. Fine concrete gutters along the curves, +such ballasting as one sees on the North-Western Railway. Nothing cheap +or flimsy about the culverts. Railway stations built regardless of cost +and the possibility of traffic; stone houses and waiting-rooms roofed +with soft red tiles that are in such contrast to the red-washed +corrugated iron roofing one sees in British East Africa. Expensive +weighbridges where it seemed there was nothing but a few natives with an +occasional load of mangoes and bananas. Here was an indifference to mere +dividends; at every point evidence abounded of a lavish display of +public money through a generous Colonial Office. For in the +Wilhelmstrasse this colony was ever the apple of their eye, and money +was always ready for East African enterprises. + +Yet the planters complain, just as planters do all over the world, of +the indifference of Governments and the parsimony of executive +officials. A Greek rubber planter told me, from the standpoint of an +intelligent and benevolent neutrality (and who so likely to know the +meaning of benevolence in neutral obligations as a Greek?), that the +Government charged huge freights on this line, killed young enterprise +by excessive charges, gave no rebates even to German planters, and in +other ways seemed indifferent to the fortunes of the sisal and rubber +planters. True they built the railway; but what use to a planter to +build a line and rob him of his profits in the freight? This gentleman +of ancient Sparta frankly liked the Germans and found them just; and he +was in complete agreement with the native policy that made every black +brother do his job of work, the whole year round, at a rate of pay that +fully satisfied this Greek employer's views on the minimum wage. + + + + +DAR-ES-SALAAM + + +(The Haven of Peace) + +This town is indeed a Haven of Peace for our weary soldiers. The only +rest in a really civilised place that they have had after many hundreds +of miles of road and forest and trackless thirsty bush. In the cool +wards of the big South African Hospital many of them enjoy the only rest +that they have known for months. Fever-stricken wrecks are they of the +men that marched so eagerly to Kilimanjaro nine weary months before. +Months of heat and thirst and tiredness, of malaria that left them +burning under trees by the roadside till the questing ambulance could +find them, of dysentery that robbed their nights of sleep, of dust and +flies and savage bush fighting. And now they lie between cool sheets and +watch the sisters as they flit among the shadows of cool, shaded wards. +Only a short three months before and this was the "Kaiserhof," the first +hotel on the East Coast of Africa, as the German manager, with loud +boastfulness, proclaimed. + +There had been a time when we doctors, then at Nairobi and living in +comfortable mosquito-proof houses, had blamed the men for drinking +unboiled water and for discarding their mosquito nets. But even doctors +sometimes live and learn, and those of us who went right forward with +the troops came to know how impracticable it was to carry out the Army +Order that bade a man drink only boiled water and sleep beneath a net. +Late in the night the infantryman staggers to the camp that lies among +thorn bushes, hungry and tired and full of fever. How then could one +expect him to put up a mosquito net in the pitch-black darkness in a +country where every tree has got a thorn? Long ago the army's mosquito +nets have adorned the prickly bushes of the waterless deserts. "Tuck +your mosquito net well in at night," so runs the Army Order. But what +does it profit him to tuck in the net when dysentery drags him from his +blanket every hour at night? + +From the verandah of the hospital the soldier sees the hospital ship all +lighted up at night with red and green lights, the ship that's going to +take him out of this infernal climate to where the mosquitoes are +uninfected and tsetse flies bite no more. And there are no regrets that +the rainy season is commencing, and this is no longer a campaign for the +white soldier. On the sunlit slopes of Wynberg he will contemplate the +white sands of Muizenberg and recover the strength that he will want +again, in four months' time, in the swamps of the Rufigi. Now the time +has come for the black troops to see through the rest of the rainy +season, to sit upon the highlands and watch, across miles of intervening +swamp, the tiny points of fire that are the camp fires of German +Askaris. + +Through the shady streets of this lovely town wander our soldier +invalids in their blue and grey hospital uniforms, along the well-paved +roads, neat boulevards, immaculate gardens and avenues of mangoes and +feathery palm trees. Along the sea front at night in front of the big +German hospital that now houses our surgical cases, you will find these +invalids walking past the cemetery where the "good Huns" sleep, sitting +on the beach, enjoying the cool sea breeze that sweeps into the town on +the North-East Monsoon. + +Imagine the loveliest little land-locked harbour in the world, a white +strip of coral and of sand, groves of feathery palms, graceful shady +mangoes, huge baobab trees that were here when Vasco da Gama's soldiers +trod these native paths; and among them fine stone houses, soft +red-tiled roofs, verandahs all screened with mosquito gauze and +excellently well laid out, and you have Dar-es-Salaam. + +Nothing is left of the old Arab village that was here for centuries +before the German planted this garden-city. Sloping coral sands, where +Arab dhows have beached themselves for ages past, are now supporting the +newest and most modern of tropical warehouses and wharves, electric +cranes, travelling cargo-carriers and a well-planned railway goods yard +that takes the freights of Hamburg to the heart of Central Africa. + +It must be pain and grief to the German men and women whom our clemency +allows to occupy their houses, throng the streets and read the daily +Reuter cablegram, to see this town, the apple of their eye, defiled by +the "dirty English" the hated "beefs," as they call us from a mistaken +idea of our fondness for that tinned delicacy. + +But the soldiers' daily swim in the harbour is undisturbed by sharks, +and the feel of the soft water is like satin to their bodies. Not for +these spare and slender figures the prickly heat that torments fat and +beery German bodies and makes sea-bathing anathema to the Hun. On German +yachts the lucky few of officers and men are carried on soft breezes +round the harbour and outside the harbour mouth in the evening coolness. + +Arab dhows sail lazily over the blue sea from Zanzibar. If one could +dream, one could picture the corsairs' red flag and the picturesque Arab +figure standing high in the stern beside the tiller, and fancy would +portray the freight of spices and cloves that they should bring from the +plantations of Pemba and Zanzibar. But there are no dusky beauties now +aboard these ships; and their freight is rations and other hum-drum +prosaic things for our troops. The red pirate's flag has become the red +ensign of our merchant marine. + +All the caravan routes from Central Africa debouch upon this place and +Bagamoyo. Bismarck looks out from the big avenue that bears his name +across the harbour to where the D.O.A.L. ship _Tabora_ lies on her side; +further on he looks at the sunken dry dock and a stranded German +Imperial Yacht. It would seem as if a little "blood and iron" had come +home to roost; even as the sea birds do upon his forehead. The grim +mouth, that once told Thiers that he would leave the women of France +nothing but their eyes to weep with, is mud-splashed by our passing +motor lorries. + +The more I see of this place the more I like it. Everything to admire +but the water supply, the sanitation, the Huns and Hunnesses and a few +other beastlinesses. One can admire even the statue of Wissmann, the +great explorer, that looks with fixed eyes to the Congo in the eye of +the setting sun. He is symbolical of everything that a boastful Germany +can pretend to. For at his feet is a native Askari looking upward, with +adoring eye, to the "Bwona Kuba" who has given him the priceless boon of +militarism, while with both hands the soldier lays a flag--the imperial +flag of Germany--across a prostrate lion at his feet. "Putting it acrost +the British lion," as I heard one of our soldiers remark. + +"_Si monumentum requiris circumspice_" as the Latins say; or, as Tommy +would translate, "If you want to see a bit of orl-right, look at what +the Navy has done to this 'ere blinking town." The Governor's palace, +where is it? The bats now roost in the roofless timbers that the 12-inch +shells have left. What of the three big German liners that fled to this +harbour for protection and painted their upper works green to harmonise +with the tops of the palm trees and thus to escape observation of our +cruisers? Ask the statue of Bismarck. He'll know, for he has been +looking at them for a year now. The _Tabora_ lies on her side half +submerged in water; the _Koenig_ lies beached at the harbour mouth in a +vain attempt to block the narrow entrance and keep us out; the +_Feldmarschal_ now on her way upon the high seas, to carry valuable food +for us and maybe to be torpedoed by her late owners. The crowning +insult, that this ship should have recently been towed by the +_ex-Professor Woermann_--another captured prize. + +What of the two dry docks that were to make Dar-es-Salaam the only +ship-repairing station on the East Coast? One lies sunk at the harbour +mouth, shortly, however, to be raised and utilised by us; the other in +the harbour, sunk too soon, an ineffectual sacrifice. + +Germans and their womenfolk crowd the streets; many of the former quite +young and obvious deserters, the latter, thick of body and thicker of +ankle, walk the town unmolested. Not one insult or injury has ever been +offered to a German woman in this whole campaign. But these "victims of +our bow and spear" are not a bit pleased. The calm indifference that our +men display towards them leaves them hurt and chagrined. Better far to +receive any kind of attention than to be ignored by these indifferent +soldiers. What a tribute to their charms that the latest Hun fashion, +latest in Dar-es-Salaam, but latest by three years in Paris or London, +should provoke no glance of interest on Sunday mornings! One feels that +they long to pose as martyrs, and that our quixotic chivalry cuts them +to the quick. + +There have been many bombardments of the forts of this town, and huge +dugouts for the whole population have been constructed. Great +underground towns, twenty feet below the surface, all roofed in with +steel railway sleepers. No wonder that many of the inhabitants fled to +Morogoro and Tabora. What a wicked thing of the Englander to shell an +"undefended" town! The search-lights and the huge gun positions and the +maze of trenches, barbed wire and machine-gun emplacements hewn out of +the living rock, of course, to the Teuton mind, do not constitute +defence. + +But you must not think that we have had it all our own way in this +sea-warfare here. For in Zanzibar harbour the masts of H.M.S. _Pegasus_ +peep above the water--a mute reminder of the 20th September, 1914. For +on that fatal day, attested to by sixteen graves in the cemetery, and +more on an island near, a traitor betrayed the fact that our ship was +anchored and under repairs in harbour and the rest of the fleet away. Up +sailed the _Koenigsberg_ and opened fire; and soon our poor ship was +adrift and half destroyed. A gallant attempt to beach her was foiled by +the worst bit of bad luck--she slipped off the edge of the bank into +deep water. But even this incident was not without its splendid side; +for the little patrol tug originally captured from the enemy, threw +itself into the line of fire in a vain attempt to gain time for the +_Pegasus_ to clear. But the cruiser's sharp stern cut her to the +water-line and sank her; and as her commander swam away, the +_Koenigsberg_ passed, hailed and threw a lifebuoy. "Can we give you a +hand?" said the very chivalrous commander of this German ship. "No; go +to Hamburg," said our hero, as he swam to shore to save himself to fight +again, on many a day, upon another ship. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SKETCHES OF THE EAST AFRICA +CAMPAIGN*** + + +******* This file should be named 10362.txt or 10362.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/3/6/10362 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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