The big rains were approaching. It transpired that they broke on 25th January, soon after our forces had crossed and effected a lodgment on the south shores of the Rufiji—and there active operations ended for some months, while the country was deluged with torrential tropical rains. A dispatch of General Hoskins, then commanding the East Africa Forces—since General Smuts had a few weeks previously been called to the War Cabinet in London—stated: “By the 27th January the lines of communication from Mikessa (on the Central Railway) to Kibambawe were interrupted by the washing away of bridges and the flooding of roads, and operations in all areas were henceforth seriously hampered by the untimely rains. “In the Mgeta and Rufiji valleys roads constructed with much skill and labour, over which motor transport ran continually in January, were traversed with difficulty and much hardship a month later by porters wading for miles in water above their waists.” To native regiments was left the unpleasant task of “holding on” under those dreadfully trying conditions, and there they remained, through the months to come, marooned on their little bits of dry islands, with flood water ankle deep around them; while we, lucky people, were out of it for the time being, and were at last to enjoy rest and change, and to witness, in South Africa, the civilisation and society to which our long-bushed eyes and minds had been completely estranged for nigh on two years. [Illustration: LINDI AREA] CHAPTER VII THE END OF THE CAMPAIGN ON GERMAN SOIL Our glorious rest of three months at “the Cape” came to an end—months which had been filled with the joy and appreciation of men who had come out of scenes that had borne something of nightmare into the full light of life, among people of their own kind, in a beautiful, peaceful land. The intellectual uplifting was supreme. Minds that were fever-weakened, and depressed, and unresponsive—and few had not been affected by prolonged hardship and equatorial climate—came again to life and ordinary buoyant activity.