CHAPTER XIII

GERMAN CRUELTY TO NATIVES

Many are the tales of German cruelty to natives, and while I am not in a position to state that torture and intimidation form an intrinsic part of Teutonic Colonial administration, or that such methods receive official sanction, I have nevertheless been the disgusted witness of horrible brutality on the part of individuals.

The guard Müller was a flagrant example of inherent ferocity. Brute and bully by nature, he would, had he dared, have ruled even us white prisoners with whips, and as it was he did everything in his power to make our position as intolerable as possible, while his treatment of the natives was unspeakable. On one occasion we saw from our windows two of these unfortunates being forced to carry heavy stones round the Askari Boma, a distance of five hundred yards or more. I was told that they had been convicted of house-breaking, and this was their punishment; each man had to balance on his head an enormous piece of rock weighing, I should judge, more than one hundred pounds—anyway, it required the united efforts of two Askaris to lift it into position. Then, supporting this heavy load on head and hands, the poor wretches had to make the tour of the Boma, not once only, but three times at least. Before they had gone far they began to stagger under the weight, and finally threw it off. Then the Askaris set on them and beat them until they again raised the burden and went on. By the third round they were absolutely exhausted, and I saw one of them fall heavily to the ground. Immediately the guards began to beat him with _kibokos_—whips made of flexible hippo hide. For a long time he lay still where he had fallen, and only moaned and quivered under the blows; then once more they got him to his feet and the stone again in position. He staggered a few yards and again collapsed, and this time did not rise for all their beating, so they began to kick him with their heavy boots—hard kicks delivered with all their might on his bare back and ribs. The sight made our blood boil, but we were powerless to interfere, for the Kommandant was away and Müller in charge, and we knew that it was by his orders that under pretext of administering justice (save the mark!) these natives were being thus maltreated, and had we gone to him and complained he would only have sneered at us and told us to mind our own business.

Another of the men, after two rounds of the Boma, refused to carry his stone, and all the beatings and kickings of the Askaris having failed to compel him to resume the load, they got a piece of string and, tying it to one of his fingers, bent it back until it touched the back of his hand, and, howling in agony, he once more tried to raise and support the stone on his head. In the end both men were brought in totally exhausted and thrown into a cell, where for several days they lay, unable to move. Saidi, the hospital boy, told me they were dreadfully sick, and I only wondered they did not die, for I quite imagined the ferocious kicks they had received might well have ruptured liver or spleen. I must say I marvelled that the Askaris should behave, even under orders, with such brutality to their own countrymen, but there is little doubt but that the African delights in ill-using his fellows if given the opportunity, and it is a fact that the Askaris always treated with the utmost cruelty all other natives, such as porters, etc., put under their charge.

On another day I again witnessed one of Müller’s punishments. It was when I was in charge of the typhoid patients. The road to the hospital led past a cattle-yard, and one morning as I was returning from my professional visit, I saw the chain-gang prisoners carrying the cattle-manure from one spot to another. They had to run with the muck in their hands, and each man as he passed the Askaris received a blow from their _kibokos_. It was equivalent to running the gauntlet; and no matter if the prisoner worked well or slacked, he got his stripe every time! Quaint justice! Like most bullies, Müller was coward as well; he always managed to avoid going to the Front—pleaded a weak heart, though the said weakness did not interfere with long, arduous days of hunting! By some unknown means he had got a hold over Colzau, and so great was his influence that he was often able to veto small reforms to which I had practically obtained the Kommandant’s consent. Further, in order to avoid active service, he got the latter to declare that he was invaluable at the camp and could not be spared. When the advance into the Colony began, and it was evident that the days of German rule were numbered, Müller changed his tactics, and began to fawn upon us, trying by present kindness and consideration to efface the memory of past insolence and tyranny. But—we knew our man!

In February, 1916, a case of assault by some of the Askaris on one of the white prisoners occurred in the Boma. It happened when Colzau was away, and a young naval lieutenant from the _Königsberg_, Horn by name, was temporarily in charge.

Van Leo noticed that one of the Askaris was threatening a small boy, child of one of the interned prisoners. Van Leo naturally reproved the man, who promptly began to revile him in Swahili, calling him all the insulting names he could think of, and the Belgian, saying that he intended to report him, moved off towards the Kommandant’s office. He was half-way up the stairs when the Askari called out to the rest of the guard, who thereupon seized him and dragged him down the steps. This the rest of us witnessed from the _baraza_, where we were sitting at the time, and we promptly went down to the courtyard to investigate and to protect Van Leo.

The Askaris gathered round in a menacing group while he told us the details of the affair. It was late in the afternoon; Lieut. Horn was out at the time, and it so happened that there was no German in the Boma at all! We waited in the courtyard until the lieutenant returned, and then told him of the incident. He promised to hold an investigation the next morning. We all identified the Askaris implicated, and when laying our complaint, strongly emphasised the fact that the natives should be made to thoroughly understand that in _no_ circumstances were they to lay hands on Europeans. We warned Horn that the present case might easily have developed into a riot, and that if such an incident were allowed to go unpunished it was possible that there would be serious trouble in the camp. He promised that the offenders should be punished, and in the end the ringleader was sent to the Front, while the others were given extra drill, but in my opinion they were let off very lightly. It was fortunate that Colzau happened to be away at the time, otherwise I am certain that Müller would have persuaded him that we had exaggerated the affair, and the Askaris would probably have got off altogether!

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In January, 1916, it was decided that all persons who had never had typhoid, and had not been inoculated, should be removed to Tabora, and as soon as those liable to contract the disease had been thus removed the patients from the temporary hospital were brought back into camp.

It is worthy of note that none of the soldiers in the camp got typhoid; they had been inoculated against the disease. All the cases occurred among the civilians and sailors, as at that time inoculation was not a part of naval routine.

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It was in February that I performed the only operation I had to do during my imprisonment, and, strangely enough, my patient was a German—an Unter-Offizier. It was not a serious matter, and he did not want to go down to Tabora or Morogoro for fear that he should not be allowed to return to Kilimatinde, which place he greatly preferred to the firing-line! As he was quite a decent fellow and had never presumed on his position to bully the prisoners, I consented to do the operation for him, and the Sanitäts man already referred to acted as my assistant. The case did very well, and my patient was so pleased with the result that, knowing my interest in the German language, he presented me with a fine dictionary in proof of his gratitude.

In March I received orders from the Governor to pay a visit of inspection to the camp at Bugiri, where a number of missionaries were confined. I was given a Masheela to take me to Saranda station, while the guard who accompanied me rode an old white mule. This guard, whose name was Krum, was something of a character and amused us a good deal. A short little chap with very bow-legs, he spoke English well, and he claimed to be a great “big game” hunter. He had spent some time in British East Africa, and asserted that he had accompanied the Duke of Westminster on his shooting trip in that country, and that the latter had given him a fine rifle at the end of the trip. We used to pull the little man’s leg about his familiarity with the Duke, but he was a good-natured chap and did not mind our teasing in the least. I was quite glad to have his company on the trip, for he was very resourceful. We travelled first-class, and as we started late in the afternoon it soon became quite dark. The train was not lighted at all, and each passenger had brought his own lamp; we had none, however, but Krum speedily discovered a pal on board, and borrowed his lamp for us to eat our supper by. He also provided the food—a tin of sardines, and a loaf of bread which was infinitely superior to anything in that way which we got in camp. It could not compare with British “war-bread,” but I enjoyed it so much that I ate more than half of it, washing it down with draughts of _Kummel_, Dar-es-Salaam brew. Then the lamp had to be returned to its rightful owner and the rest of the journey was accomplished in darkness.

I alighted at Kikombo station, for Bugiri, about 9 p.m., but Krum got out at the preceding one, Dodoma by name. It appeared that he had a pal there whom he wished to see, and thought this a very favourable opportunity. I have no doubt his proceeding was highly irregular and contrary to orders, but he trusted me to get out at my proper destination, and indeed there was not much else I could do, for it would have been of no possible advantage to me to go on in the train.

I was met by a German called Schenck, in peace-time a clerk in an office in Dar-es-Salaam, but now a private called up for war-service. He was to accompany me to the camp, and had a Masheela in which he was carried—but no conveyance was provided for me. I decided to make no remark on this discourtesy, at any rate to him, but rather to prove that an Englishman could walk even if a fat German—and he _was_ fat—could not! The journey, which took about an hour and a half, was a trying one for me. The night was very dark, only fleeting moonbeams occasionally pierced the heavy clouds, and we travelled by the inadequate light of a swinging lantern carried by one of the natives. I did not know the road, which was a mere track, often only wide enough to allow us to proceed in single file, and twice it crossed the dried-up bed of a water-course. When we had gone some distance Herr Schenck offered to let me ride a little if I was tired. I was, but, as his manner seemed to me distinctly offensive, I would not be beholden to him, and tramped doggedly all the way; but I was glad when we at last reached our objective.

The camp had been originally a Church Missionary Society station, and some of the buildings were still quite good and habitable.

Mrs. W——, who had been in Kilimatinde when we first arrived there, was waiting up and had prepared some coffee for me. She and her husband were anxious to hear all the news of the old Boma, and when I had imparted such as there was, we compared notes on the European situation as viewed from such meagre scraps of information as we had been able to pick up. The Kommandant at Bugiri was the notorious Derndorf whom we had christened the “Anteater.” He did not allow his prisoners to see the newspaper, but they managed to circumvent him, for, as he was not good at figures, one of the planters used to go to the office to do his accounts for him, and while thus employed generally managed to steal a look at the paper.

I spent two days at Bugiri, but there was not much for me to do. There were two or three nursing-sisters in the camp, and they looked after anyone who was ill. I merely gave some advice about the treatment of some fever patients, and took a general look round. The sanitary arrangements were very primitive, and would have required considerable alteration had the camp been occupied for any length of time; but I knew my visit was more or less of a farce—a sop to public opinion—and no proposed reforms of mine would have been carried out, unless, perhaps, under the compulsion of an epidemic.

At Kilimatinde we were very short of mending materials—wool, needles, etc.—and I managed to collect quite a lot from the ladies in this camp to take back with me.

I returned to my own prison on the third day, and was then informed that I should be required to visit Bugiri once a month; but, as it happened, I never went again, for the advance of our troops into German East Africa began shortly after this first visit of mine, and the camp was broken up, the prisoners being removed to Tabora.

In April we had another death at Kilimatinde. One of the soldiers, another Loyal North Lancashire man, O’Neil by name, succumbed to blackwater fever. We had to bury him on the day he died, and, as he was a Roman Catholic, the service was conducted by a German priest who came from a Catholic mission station situated in the Wagogo plain, and not far from the Boma. This Father gave a short address at the graveside, in which he laid stress on the fact that Death must end all enmity, and that we all hoped to rise again to one Eternal Brotherhood. As he spoke in German few of us could understand him, but we all appreciated his evident sincerity and good-will.