ere 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, behi