Is there a way to make the game linger for longer when showing the results of attacks or entering commands on the camp screen? The messages flash by in a fraction of a second, too quickly for me to read.

Change the DOSBox cycles setting. This was game was probably built for an original 4.77MHz IBM PC, but the default DOSBox setting is well beyond that. You can edit the DOSBox config for the game to change it (the cycles= line).

You can also change the cycles using CTRL-F11 to decrease cycles or CTRL-F12 to increase cycles. The current cycles setting is displayed on the DOSBox title bar, so hit ALT-ENTER to exit full screen so you can see that.

I did some benchmarking on my PC and 301 cycles very closely matched the IBM PC for me. So I set the DOSBox config file to default to that. It may vary on your computer but you can tweak the cycles until you get something you like.