"Yes, the Kaiser is to eat his Christmas dinner in London. But the fact is, Major, we’re living on rumours. The British smashed up our wireless installation at Dar-es-Salam, and we haven’t had any really authentic news from Germany since a fortnight after war broke out. As for this country, we are not doing so well as we ought to have done. We’ve taken some places inside their frontier, but they’ve put up a surprisingly good defence, and at present it’s stalemate. Apparently they are bringing troops from India----" "In spite of our Fleet?" "Yes, in spite of our Fleet. Tirpitz deserves to be cashiered." "But, my good friend, if they can get reinforcements and we can’t, where are we? And then, I thought the English had to send troops to India to put down the rebellion there. Isn’t that true?" "I don’t know what’s true. I’m sick of the whole thing. Here’s my plantation going to rack and ruin: that wretched young cub of an Englishman having the audacity to run off with my workers; and when I ought to be bringing him to book I’m packed off to Tabora. Heaven knows what has happened in my absence." "I know a little, too. Your young cub is a pretty lively one, and has pretty good claws. A few days after we were beaten back at Abercorn----" "That’s true, then. I didn’t believe it." "What could be expected when all our best troops are in the north? We were outnumbered." If Major von Rudenheim believed what he said, he must have been singularly ill-informed. On September 5, when the Germans attacked the little town of Abercorn, its defenders were forty members of the native police, its commandant the postmaster. There happened to be a machine-gun at hand, and this was so well manipulated by the postmaster, Mr. Bisset (who might have been expected to be more at home with the telegraph instrument) that the tiny garrison was able to hold off the enemy, four times its strength, until reinforcements of Rhodesian planters arrived. Mr. Bisset’s name deserves to be recorded on the illustrious roll of civilians turned soldiers who have at critical moments helped to make and to save the British Empire. "As I was saying," the major went on, "a few days after our unlucky reverse at Abercorn, your young cub pounced upon one of our recruiting patrols and carried every man of them to his lair somewhere in the forest." Reinecke swore a good old German oath. "It’s not true," he declared. "You forget yourself, Captain," said Rudenheim, severely. "I am not a Berlin newspaper, or even the Wolff bureau." "I apologise, Major, but really--a German patrol, with German soldiers?" "A sergeant, two privates, and I don’t know how many askaris. They all vanished." "Then it can’t be known that this English pighead captured them: how could it?"