Seven German Askaris gave themselves up overnight. They report food scarce, and also that numbers of natives are deserting and going off west through the bush, their purpose to try to find their way back to their homes. They also say, as we have heard before, that the German carriers are partially bound when in camp, so that they cannot run away in the night, if they wanted to escape.
Then I find a few entries when all was not as it should be and a little cry of impatience had crept in:
Kissaki, 16th Oct.
Bad night; suffering from dysentery. Weak and lay on my grass-bed all day.
17th Oct.
Little better to-day and trying to get around duties. Feeling about “all in” now, but must stick it out with the others, and trust that the sickness will pass off.
19th Oct.
OVERSTRAINED AND LANGUISHING
Feeling better to-day and cheerier, but I wish, since I’ve lost patience, that we could get along with “the Show,” and then be quit of Africa for a time, for I have a passionate desire that we should be free to change, just for a little, the colour and the quality of a long-familiar picture whose strange characteristics are now indelible. Sometimes, I’m afraid, I feel as if I was in prison, and long for the freedom of the life beyond these prison walls. Those are times when thoughts quickly fly in and out the old scenes—dear old familiar scenes—and they are touched now with a deep and a sure appreciation. Would that they could stay; would that, by the strength of their willingness, they could lift me in body over the vast space and set me in some fair, peaceful land! But, alas! so quickly as I write they are back again, exhausted, and fluttering in the bated African sun-glare. Nevertheless, for the hour, I am restless as those thoughts. This campaign, this adventure of war, has been a long Game of Patience, and I feel mad, poor wight, at times to chuck away the cards and run. But, after all, I know that all is as it should be, and that the hand must be strong to win. Yet it would be a very beautiful day in my eyes were it ever to come to pass, this pictured freedom from war and bloodshed, though for the present it is so far down the long blind trail of the uncertain road before me that I may but carry the memory of things that have been, and of things that are ideal.
So may I ponder—so may others here, though they are but thoughts that well up for a moment, and then fade away into the far distance of space, where, like the setting sun, or the mists on the hills, they may mingle with the mysteries of Beyond. However, I have paused long enough with such thoughts, and will leave them now, perhaps a little reverently, and go on with the record of other days for neither thought nor the span of a day can hold steadfast for long, without the intervention of onward passing time, and change to other scenes.