RELEASED!
By the beginning of October (1916) the food-supply was in a very bad way.
We were living almost entirely on sour mealy-meal and chirocco, with only
occasionally a very little meat. The sourness of the maize meal was due
to the way in which it was prepared, namely, pounded by native women in
small wooden tubs and the grain thoroughly wetted before pounding. This
was no drawback if the meal was used at once, but when kept for weeks
and months, naturally it was bound to ferment. About this time, too, our
final ration of sugar and coffee was issued; at least, we were told it
was the last in Madaba. With care we reckoned it might last for two or
three weeks, and we believed that by that time we should be free. I am
convinced that the Germans were of the same opinion.
For two or three days in succession we were greatly cheered by the sound
of what we believed to be gunfire. There was a sturdy old Pan-German
in the place with whom I used to talk, and he agreed that it was most
probably cannon that we heard, and admitted that they were bound sooner
or later to lose the Colony. But—never for one instant would he allow
the possibility of a German defeat in Europe. He told me, and himself
firmly believed, that the Germans could invade England when they pleased,
and had only as yet refrained because the Kaiser was loth to invade the
country of his friend and kinsman, King George, if he could attain his
ends by other means. I asked him how he imagined such a project could be
executed, but he only replied: “I do not know. No one knows. There are
only two or three men in Germany—the heads of the army—who have knowledge
of the scheme, but everyone knows it cannot fail. One day you will see it
put in operation, and then—_Ach!_”
Alas! I fear our “gunfire” was, after all, a myth; anyway, a sound
closely resembling it was accounted for very simply. A well was being dug
in the river-bed not far from the camp, and every time the bucket used
for raising the earth hit the bottom it gave forth a dull boom closely
resembling the sound of distant guns.
On Tuesday, October 10th, we took up our quarters in the
newly-constructed camp. The accommodation was certainly much better,
and, it being the dry season, we were not troubled by mosquitoes; but I
prophesied that in wet weather it would be intolerable, for it was on
the bank of a stream and in low-lying ground. When I pointed this out to
the Kommandant he as good as said it would be all over before the rains
set in, adding, as an after-thought, that anyway it could be moved when
necessary.
With the dramatic suddenness of the long-expected, my provisional
release came on October 11th—the very next day after we had moved into
the new camp. It happened in this wise. Some few days previously, at
the time when the first batch left, the Freiherr had asked me if I
cared to go under the same conditions. I pointed out that, as I was not
in any case a combatant officer, it was absurd to ask me not to take
part in any future fighting or to forego the legitimate exercise of my
profession. He now told me that he had received a communication from the
Commander-in-Chief authorising him to set me at liberty provided I would
sign a paper undertaking to disclose nothing of military importance that
I might have seen or heard. He further promised that medical attendance
should be provided for the prisoners left behind. Naturally I was
overjoyed at the proffered chance of escape from that nightmare camp and
all its attendant horrors, and after consulting with the others I decided
to accept the modified conditions offered. At the same time I persuaded
four of the men who were very ill that they could, in the circumstances,
conscientiously sign the oath required of them; I was convinced that they
would only die if they remained. A Portuguese also signed, and next day
the six of us departed.
We proceeded first to Mahenge, reaching there on the 17th. Here we found
four of the prisoners who had attempted to run away on the day before
we left that fortress, and heard how the fifth had died in the Bush
from blackwater-fever. They were being well treated, and in the matter
of food were much better off than the wretched companions we had left
behind at Madaba. Our old camp had been turned into a native hospital
for Askaris, so the men were lodged in one of the rooms of the Boma. The
Kommandant—Major von Grawert of most unblessed memory—had gone south
with a contingent to meet the Nyassaland forces, and I was lodged in
his house. I wished he could have known this, for it seemed such a just
retribution for his discourteous refusal to grant me any fitting living
accommodation when I was under his charge.
We rested for one day at Mahenge, and I took a walk round the village and
out to the mission station, where I found the man whom we had left behind
ill with blackwater-fever. He was convalescent, and looking forward to
release in the near future, but was not yet strong enough to accompany
us. I messed with the German officers, and had some interesting talks
with them about the war. They expressed the opinion that the Allies would
be the first to become exhausted and have to give in, and were convinced
that hostilities would not outlast the winter of 1917. The war would,
they argued naïvely, be so very bad for trade, and of course it was well
known that Britain would sacrifice anything and everything to “business”
interests!... And here again crops up the fundamental error in psychology
which, unless I am very much mistaken, will prove the downfall of Germany.
Two of these officers were wearing the Iron Cross—a fact they were most
anxious I should notice and comment upon. It appeared that the authority
to wear these had been received by wireless that very day. This did not
surprise me, for I knew that they had a station which, while not powerful
enough to transmit messages to Berlin, was yet capable of receiving
them. I enquired how the news of the particular actions for which these
decorations had been conferred got through to Germany, and was informed
with a sly wink that the letters were sent _via_ Portuguese East Africa.
They admitted that this was a long and difficult process, but affirmed
that they usually got through in time.
Before leaving Mahenge the surplus pay accumulated from the three rupees
a day I was allowed to draw was handed to me, partly in silver, but
mainly in paper notes. These latter I was most unwilling to accept, and
pointed out that I should probably find great difficulty in cashing them,
but they assured me that the D.O.A. bank at Dar-es-Salaam would cash them
at par. Needless to say, when I arrived there I found the said bank had
been taken over by the British, and no one would _look_ at my poor little
notes. However, I kept them, and later handed them in at the Admiralty,
as the sum they represented had been deducted from my pay. Of course the
Admiralty allowed me full compensation for them, and I hope they will be
duly presented to Germany for settlement when the final day of reckoning
arrives. These notes were manufactured in the Colony when it was found
that silver rupees were getting scarce. The Indian tradesmen—wily
fellows—buried all the rupees that came into their hands rather than bank
them, and to this practice the shortage of specie was largely due.
We left Mahenge on Thursday, October 19th. Feldwebel Hertzhog (who proved
to be the owner of the large rubber-plantation at Sanya) went in charge
of us, and as he spoke no English I had to act as his interpreter. This
time we crossed the Ulanga by means of a ferry. A long steel wire, to
which a European-built boat was attached by means of a running block, had
been stretched across the narrowest part of the river, and the force of
the current took the boat across much quicker than natives could paddle.
It travelled either way with equal ease simply by altering the position
of the tiller.
There was, of course, a German in charge of the ferry, and there seemed
to be a lot of traffic proceeding in both directions. We stayed the night
at Ifakara, where I made the acquaintance of two German medical men whom
I had not met before. They proved very hospitable, and invited me to dine
with them. I found that they had established a hospital in the mission
buildings and had a considerable number of patients in their charge.
Four days later, on Wednesday, October 25th, we reached Solwa. The mill
had been burnt out and only the bare walls were left standing. I was told
the damage had been done by a bomb dropped from one of our aircraft, but
I believe that in reality the Germans had themselves set fire to the
place to prevent its falling intact into enemy hands.
This was as far as the Feldwebel had orders to conduct us, and we had to
await the arrival of another escort. He turned up in the afternoon, but
would not consent to our taking the road again until after nightfall.
We started soon after 6 p.m. There was no moon and it was very dark;
we could not see a yard ahead. An hour’s walk brought us to the river
Ruhaha, the approaches to which were cumbered by the trees which had been
felled in all directions. Lighted only by the dull glow of a paraffin
lamp, it was difficult and dangerous walking. We were ferried across the
river in canoes. I had heard that the Germans had built a bridge here,
but though I peered into the darkness, I could see no sign of it. On
reaching the further side we had still about an hour and a half’s tramp
before we reached Kidote, where we were to sleep.
I had my evening meal with our escort, Leutenant zur See Franckenburg.
When war broke out he had been an officer in a merchantship, and when she
put in at one of the Portuguese East African ports, he had travelled up
on foot to offer his services to Von Lettow. He spoke good English.
Kidote seemed deserted, and although I knew there must be a large German
camp in the vicinity, I saw no sign of it.
On the next morning, Thursday, October 26th, yet another officer arrived
to conduct us on the last lap of our journey. All his insignia of rank
were covered up, but I made out one star on his shoulder beneath the
khaki covering and thus knew he was a Lieutenant; later I discovered his
name was Poehl. With him were an Unter-Offizier, a German private, and
two black Askaris, who each carried a small white flag on the end of a
long bamboo. About half a dozen native porters also accompanied us and
carried our gear.
We started about seven in the morning. Poehl told me he did not know
exactly where we should find the British forces, but hoped we should
not have far to go. It appeared that only a week before they had pushed
right up to Kidote, and had then, for some cause unknown to the Germans,
retired. Various reasons were adduced to account for this manœuvre; the
one most generally accepted was that plague had broken out; another that
the Boers in South Africa had revolted; and yet another that the troops
in German East Africa had refused to fight any more. Needless to say, all
were wrong.
Just outside Kidote we came on the evacuated British post, and from
here all the way to Mfrisi, where we fell in with the British outposts,
the road was lined with the rotting carcases of horses and cattle which
had died from trypanosomiasis, the disease conveyed by the tse-tse fly
which abounds in this district; there was carrion in various stages of
putrefaction every few hundred yards, and the stench was appalling. The
flies, too, were particularly vicious all along the road, and we were all
bitten more or less. Luckily this trypanosoma is not capable of giving
rise to disease in humans, though a somewhat similar germ, also conveyed
by a variety of tse-tse, is the cause of sleeping sickness.
After we had been travelling for some time we met a German scout
returning from reconnoitring the British position, and from him learnt
that there was still a British post at Mfrisi.
Although the district through which we were passing was the same through
which we had travelled when going from Morogoro to Mahenge, I did not
recognise the road in the least, for it was one made by the British
pioneers and had not followed the same line as the old native track.
Presently we were halted, and told to discard and leave behind all
German Government property and keep only our own personal belongings;
consequently we had to leave our beds and bedding, though I kept one
German blanket which was packed in my bag. I had made sure our private
bundles would be searched, and so had very reluctantly burnt a small
diary I had been keeping, for it contained several references—not of
a complimentary character—to Germans, and I thought if it was found I
might be escorted back to captivity! However, I had taken the precaution
to copy all important dates on to a small piece of paper which I
successfully concealed, and it is chiefly from this that the notes for
the present narrative were compiled. As it turned out, I might, after
all, have kept my diary, because, for a wonder, our private possessions
were not interfered with.
When we resumed our march Leutenant Poehl and I walked together. He
spoke English perfectly and had travelled in Scotland quite a lot. He
asked me why the English were so bitter against the Germans. I replied
that, so far as I knew, there was no undue bitterness, my countrymen
being rather an easy-going race and by no means given to harsh or hasty
judgments. But he insisted that such bitterness _must_ exist, else why
did our papers publish such untrue accounts of German doings in Belgium?
I told him that, as I had not seen an English paper since my capture, I
had no knowledge of the reports to which he referred. Then he assured
me that his countrymen would never act otherwise than courteously to
women and children, and that the shooting of civilians in Belgium was a
necessary measure of reprisal because they had shot German soldiers from
the windows of houses; and, furthermore, that such reprisals had only
actually occurred in one instance! “And,” he went on, “the brutalities of
the Russians whom you are fighting to support are infinitely worse than
anything my people have done in Belgium.” Having no certain information
of the facts at that time, I could neither argue with him nor refute his
statements.
It was while we were thus walking and talking together that one of the
Askaris, who was carrying a white flag just ahead of us, suddenly gave
a yell and jumped to the side of the road. Looking up, we saw about a
hundred yards away a stalwart South African covering us with his rifle,
and in a twinkling we flung our arms above our heads and shouted to him
not to fire. A moment later he was joined by others, and, still keeping
us covered, they motioned to us to approach one at a time. When they
heard that some of us were British prisoners, one of their number was
despatched with a message to the camp, and in a few minutes an officer
appeared and we were formally handed over.
These words sound bald—almost commonplace—and yet it was thus—quite
simply—that passed what in retrospect must surely appear one of the most
dramatic moments of our lives....
After two years of captivity we were _free_!