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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.
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.
The reverse of Tanga in November was followed by another at Jassin on 19 January, and at the end of the winter the Germans could claim that their territory was clear of our troops while several German detachments were in ours; but we had seized the island of Mafia off the mouth of the Rufigi and declared a blockade of the German East African coast.
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.
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.
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. 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.
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.
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.
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.
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