Writing on board HMS Armadale Castle, a troopship carrying reinforcements from South Africa to Kilindini, East Africa, Furse, who was making an official visit to the Union forces in German East Africa, describes the services and recreations which he was helping to lay on for the troops during the voyage. However, much of his letter is devoted to telling the story of an English doctor on board, who had been captured in France and later exchanged by the Germans, but only after seeing the appalling conditions in which British prisoners of war in Germany were being compelled to live.