To-day an aeroplane made an ascent from camp. This is the first flight made here, and the African natives were spell-bound in amazement at sight of the wonderful machine and its graceful flying. At once they termed it “Ndege” (the Swahili for “bird”), and thereafter they always called aeroplanes by that name.
’Planes should prove of immense value to us out here now that they have been landed in the country. The Germans have no machines, and are very unlikely to succeed in securing any, since they are isolated from the outer world and the open seas.
Tieta Hills, 26th Dec., 1915.
After holding the ranks of private, lance-corporal, corporal, and lance-sergeant, it has been my fortune to receive my commission. I leave the ranks with regret, for it has, on the whole, been a gay, care-free, rough-and-tumble experience, and one which teaches that among all types “a man’s a man for a’ that,” and that there are few who have not their finer feelings beneath any kind of veneer.
NIGHT SCOUTING
At 9.30 p.m. moved out to watch railway, at a point five miles from camp, hoping to catch mine-layers. Dark night; starlit sky, but no moon. Sentries on outskirts of camp spoken to, and passed. Party wearing moccasins, boots on hard road or in dry bush very noisy. Alert to catch the slightest sound, hearing being more important than sight in the darkness.
About 11 p.m. held up by rhinoceros moving about on left of road, breaking undergrowth and branches close ahead. Could not see whether he meant to charge or not, and there was a moment’s suspense on that account, but eventually he moved off quietly. Later, at first railway crossing over road, below a great dark mango tree on the river-side, the leading scout caught a glint of the small, red glow of a dying fire. We halted and waited, but no sound was audible, though a man’s breathing could have almost been heard in the calm stillness. On venturing forward, a deserted fire, almost out, was found. Whoever lit it had used it and gone, but they had left a mark that would arouse suspicion. Such signs of the enemy’s presence were constantly being found. The moon rose at 10.30. Everything clear then, and our forms, moving stealthily along at wide intervals, showed dark on the dust-white road. Reached point on road overlooking railway about midnight and lay down in bush, each of the four comprising the party in turn keeping watch to detect any movement of enemy.
Night passed quietly, stirred only by African sounds. Among the high trees on the river-bank, beyond the railway, monkeys yelled occasionally and snapped off dry branches as they swung from limb to limb. A solitary owl hoo-hooed away out in the distant darkness, and once or twice the weird clatter-ratchet of a hornbill, wakeful in the moonlight, like a barndoor fowl, broke the stillness.
Sometimes, too, an animal of prey would betray its presence and its prowling: the deep blood-curdling howl of the hyena and the dog-like bark of the jackal at times awoke the silence, for one or two brief moments, ere, phantom-like, they were swallowed in the dark, fathomless pit of night, and lost on their onward trail.
At daybreak, white morning mists came down over the bush-land and obscured everything; soon they rose again and cleared.