166 WAR: CAMPAIGNING IN EAST AFRICA 



same side again and started to work back toward 

 where I imagined the camp to have been. 



For some reason the Germans had not followed 

 me up or it would have been all over with me, for 

 it was very bright moonlight, and, in addition, 

 almost daybreak. My head would have been a 

 fine substitute for a ginger-beer bottle for some 

 target practice in the water. Later, at Morogoro, 

 when a small mob of Germans came round me to 

 inspect the notorious prisoner, an officer amongst 

 them asked me where I had hidden myself. " Did 

 you stick yourself away in the grass," he said. 

 " No," I said, " I jumped into the river. But 

 how was it " (asking him something in his turn) 

 " that your men did not come and finish me off 

 when in the water ? " Looking a bit sheepish 

 before the other Germans, he replied, " We did 

 not have our old veld askaris with us." 



In the meantime Brown and Lewis, with three 

 out of the four askaris and most of the old boys, 

 just got out of camp in time, abandoning every- 

 thing except their rifles and bandoliers. As they 

 left, another party of the enemy began firing into 

 the camp, probably at the mules, which were still 

 tied up. Lewis and Brown and the askaris wasted 

 no time, but wisely made off straight away, and 

 after six thin days in the bush — days when they 

 had several narrow escapes from running into 

 parties of the enemy on the look-out for them — 

 they managed to work right back through the 

 German pickets into our own column, which was 



