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