CHAPTER XIV

TRANSFER OF THE GOLD COAST REGIMENT TO PORTUGUESE EAST AFRICA

The actual movements and whereabouts of von Lettow-Vorbeck and his troops were, as usual, still largely a matter of conjecture, but every base which he had possessed in German East Africa was now in the hands of the British. He was known to be short of supplies, of food, of equipment, and of ammunition; the end of the dry season was drawing near, and the Portuguese were aware that he was approaching the frontier, and were strongly encamped at Ngomano, on the right bank of the Rovuma, about fifty miles upstream from the point at which the German force had crossed the river. The Rovuma is here a fine river, with a bed of sand and shingle, about half a mile wide from bank to bank. At this season, however, it was shrunken to such an extent that the running water measured only a hundred yards or so across, and was easily fordable at many points. The banks of the Rovuma were low and water-worn; the country in the vicinity was flat and covered with vegetation, which owed such fertility as it possessed to annual extensive inundations. In the rainy season the valley of the Rovuma would clearly be even more uninhabitable than the basin of the Rufiji had proved to be in 1916-17.

There were many sanguine people in the British camp who held that with the expulsion of von Lettow-Vorbeck from the territory that had once belonged to Germany the campaign in East Africa—which had already, nearly a year before, been publicly declared to have been practically at an end—was now at last definitely concluded. Since the first pronouncement to that effect was made, the enemy, quite unperturbed by this pious expression of opinion, had kept the field continuously, had fought a series of vigorous rear-guard actions, among which those at Njengao and Mahiwa on the Lindi road were of considerable magnitude, and had incidentally cost the British taxpayer an average of over twelve millions sterling _per mensem_. Now, even if fighting did not cease, the campaign, it was thought, could henceforth be conducted upon a much more modest scale; but most of the men who had fought against von Lettow-Vorbeck, and who had had opportunities of gauging the resolution, the determination, the resourcefulness, and, if you will, the dogged obstinacy of the man, were convinced that he would carry on the fight so long as he had an _Askari_ to fire a rifle, and a cartridge to be discharged. It was also regarded as probable that he and von Tafel might still be able to join forces.

On the night of the 21st November the Gold Coast Regiment, which had not entered Newala, camped on the road halfway between that place and Lulindi, and on the following day retraced its steps to the latter. On the 23rd November, No. 1 Column marched from Lulindi to Luatalla, where it was joined by the 55th Rifles and the 1st Battalion of the 3rd King’s African Rifles from Newala. Word was here received that von Lettow-Vorbeck’s column was moving down the right, or Portuguese, bank of the Rovuma, and it was reported by natives that von Tafel had recrossed the river to the left bank, and was moving slowly and with great difficulty through the bush in the neighbourhood of Miesi, which lies halfway between the Mwiti and Bangalla rivers, both of which are left tributaries of the Rovuma. No. 1 Column was ordered to proceed to the mouth of the Bangalla River, by forced marches, for the purpose of trying to cut off von Tafel, and of preventing him from effecting a junction with von Lettow-Vorbeck. The Cavalry was to move in advance of No. 1 Column, and No. 2 Column was simultaneously to march down the Bangalla River from the north.

At 4 p.m. on the 24th November, therefore, No. 1 Column, with the Gold Coast Regiment leading the advance, set out for the mouth of the Bangalla, and at midnight bivouacked in column of route along the roadside. At 5.30 a.m. on the 25th November, the march was resumed, and the junction of the Bangalla with the Rovuma was reached at 10.30 a.m. During the march a solitary bull buffalo, outraged by this intrusion upon his privacy, savagely charged the column, went through it like a clown through a paper hoop, knocking over two carriers, and so vanished into the bush.

During the march a distance of 24 miles was covered, and it was calculated that since leaving Ruponda, nine days earlier, the main body of No. 1 Column had marched no less than 174 miles—an average of over 19 miles _per diem_—while many of the units composing it, of which the Gold Coast Regiment was one, had materially exceeded that average. This would have been a sufficiently fine performance anywhere and in any circumstances for a body of infantry impeded at every step by a large number of carriers; but in the East African bush, at the fag-end of the dry season, when everything is at its dryest and hottest, it represented a really considerable feat.

On the 26th November, word having been received that an enemy force, composed of thirty white men and an unknown number of _Askari_, had cut the Column’s line of communication to the north-east, the 129th Baluchis were dispatched toward Luatalla for the purpose of dislodging it; and at 9 a.m. the remainder of the column marched from Bangalla to Miesi by the road which it had followed on the preceding day. On arrival here it was learned that the 129th Baluchis, who at this time consisted of only about 130 rifles, had had a sharp engagement with the enemy on the banks of the Mwiti River, that they had had the worst of the encounter, and that they had been compelled to retire, leaving a considerable amount of small-arms ammunition in the hands of the Germans. This, however, was subsequently recovered, the enemy having had no means of carrying it away.

The 2nd Battalion of the 2nd King’s African Rifles were sent to a place called Jumbe Nambude, with half of A Company of the Gold Coast Regiment, to form a flank guard to the Column; but at 6 p.m. this half-company returned to Miesi, having seen nothing of the enemy.

During the night the enemy with whom the 129th Baluchis had come into collision retired, and communication with Lustalla was restored. Half of B Company, under Captain McElligott, was sent to patrol the Mbalawala hills, to the north of Miesi, and thence to send out parties to reconnoitre to the north and north-west. It was thought that von Tafel’s camp was near Nambingo, to the west of Miesi, between the Bangalla and Mwiti rivers.

On the 28th November No. 1 Column marched back to Bangalla, at the junction of the river of that name with the Rovuma, where the perimeter camp formed on the 25th November was reoccupied. Here Captain McElligott with his patrol rejoined the Gold Coast Regiment. Very shortly after the arrival of the column in camp, a British aviator effected a landing on the sand and shingle of the Rovuma’s dried-up bed, and when he came up to the camp it was found that he was Lieutenant Nash, who, in 1913-14, had been engaged in surveying the line of the projected railway extension in the Gold Coast from Koforidua to Kumasi. After he had partaken of such frugal fare as the mess of the Regiment afforded—for at this time the whole force had for some days been on greatly reduced rations—Lieutenant Nash resumed his journey, a squad of Gold Coast men being sent out to give his machine a “push off,” as the sand and shingle of the river-bed proved to be rather heavy going. Nash flew down the river for a few miles, and then finding that his stock of petrol was running short and that his machine must be lightened, he dropped all the bombs he had with him into the Rovuma. Thus in a double degree the Gold Coast may claim to have had a special share in the surrender of von Tafel and his forces; for the explosion of Nash’s bombs led the German Commander to believe that von Lettow-Vorbeck’s troops were heavily engaged with the British between him and Newala. He had already learned that the latter place had been evacuated; his whole force had consumed practically all its supplies; ammunition was running very short; and now it seemed that he was separated from von Lettow-Vorbeck on the left bank of the Rovuma by a British column. This decided him to surrender, and that afternoon he sent in his Chief Staff Officer and another member of his staff with a white flag. They were received by a detachment of the Pioneer Company of the Gold Coast Regiment, and were forthwith conducted to Colonel Orr, the Column Commander.

The German officers, one of whom spoke English perfectly, stated that von Tafel had destroyed his last ammunition and buried or burned all his arms of precision. He asked to be allowed to surrender unconditionally, and suggested that his force should be marched into the British camp, and should occupy near it any area that might be chosen for the purpose. These conditions were approved, and late that afternoon the German force, consisting of 190 Europeans and about 1,200 _Askari_, with their carriers and camp-followers, waded across the Rovuma which they had crossed the preceding evening and came into camp.

The whole movement was carried out with machine-like precision. The little column marched, as though on parade, to the area which had been allotted to it for its encampment, in which each company at once took up the position habitually assigned to it. Baggage having been deposited in a most orderly fashion, the men of each company instantly set to work to construct bush-huts for their European officers, while the carriers cleared the grass and underwood with their matchets, and prepared less elaborate huts for the _Askari_. The work was done with great rapidity, and on a system which had evidently become so instinctive that each cog knew to a nicety the precise place which it occupied in the elaborate mechanism. But what chiefly impressed the British spectators was not only the discipline and the order, but the almost unbroken silence which prevailed throughout. Silence in the ranks is easy enough to secure among men subject to strict military discipline, but no Englishman has yet learned the secret of imposing a like silence upon a mob of male and female African carriers. The result was impressive, but it may perhaps be hoped that the British never will achieve this particular miracle. Those who know the natives of Africa will agree that it is only to be wrought by means of methods that have always found greater favour in Prussia than they are ever likely to secure in Great Britain. The cowed and silent carrier was the inevitable adjunct to the German _Askari_, an analysis of whose privileged position has been attempted in an earlier chapter of this book.

Though von Tafel’s men did not appear to be at all near starvation, they, and especially the Europeans, had not been full-fed for many days. In illustration of this it may be mentioned that a Tabora sovereign—the handsome gold coin, bearing the Prussian arms on the obverse and an African elephant on the reverse, and with no bevelling to its edge, of which von Lettow-Vorbeck had caused a few thousand to be coined at Tabora during the early days of the campaign—was freely offered that afternoon for a tin of honest bully-beef. No. 1 Column, however, was itself very hard-up for rations; and on the morrow von Tafel’s men, under the escort of the 55th Rifles, were sent up the bed of the Bangalla River to join the Lindi road at a point to the south-west of Massassi, and thence to march along it to the sea. They were fed by means of the consignments of rations which were being dispatched from Lindi for the use of the British columns in the field; and the latter accordingly, for a space, went shorter of supplies than ever.

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On the 29th November, orders were received to break up No. 1 Column. All the Indian units were directed to proceed to Massassi, and all the African units—the Gold Coast Regiment, the 2nd Battalion of the 2nd and the 1st Battalion of the 3rd King’s African Rifles—to Naurus, where they were to join up with No. 2 Column. The Indian and African troops were designated A Column and B Column respectively; and the command of the latter was entrusted to Colonel Rose, Lieutenant S. B. Smith acting as his Staff Officer.

B Column started upon its march on the 30th November, and moving _viâ_ Nambere and Maparawe, reached Naurus, without incident, on the 2nd December.

The strength of the Gold Coast Regiment at this time was as follows. There were actually present in the field 19 British officers, including 2 doctors and 2 officers attached to the transport; 8 British non-commissioned officers, of whom 3 belonged to the transport; 850 rank and file, including 18 signallers and 84 Gold Coast Volunteers, the majority of the latter being employed as orderlies; 106 gun and ammunition-carriers; 35 stretcher-bearers, 21 servants, 5 clerks, and 1305 carriers. The potential strength of the Regiment, however, largely exceeded these figures, for 11 British and 2 British non-commissioned officers were now available at Mpara, Mingonyo or Lindi, some of whom had returned from leave, while others were newly posted for service with the corps; and new drafts having arrived from the Gold Coast, 510 rank and file and 106 gun and ammunition-carriers were in readiness to join the Regiment. The total available force, therefore, at this time, numbered 1360 rank and file and 212 gun and ammunition-carriers, and it was once again very fairly well officered. The Regiment also possessed, in addition to its machine-guns, 2 Lewis and 4 Stokes guns.

On the other hand, the quality of the rank and file was not quite up to the standard of the original force which the Gold Coast had put into the field in July, 1916. The men at that time composing the Regiment were seasoned soldiers, all, or nearly all, of whom had recently seen active service. They were “made” soldiers to a man, and had every one of them been subjected to a long process of training and discipline. Gaps in their ranks, after the arrival of the first fully-trained draft which had joined the Regiment in December, 1916, had been filled, in the first instance, by hastily collected levies of greatly inferior quality, and as early as the fight at Nahungu, at the end of September, 1917, it had not been thought expedient to make use of all of them in the firing-line. Subsequent drafts were far superior to these, and had also undergone a more prolonged training, but they, of course, lacked the experience of the men belonging to the original Expeditionary Force and of those who formed the first draft of reinforcements. On the whole they acquitted themselves very well; but the Gold Coast Regiment at the end of December, 1917, though numerically stronger than it had been at any period during the whole campaign, was not, perhaps, such a homogeneous and thoroughly efficient force as it had been on its first arrival in East Africa.

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On the 3rd December, the Pioneer Company of the Gold Coast Regiment, under Captain Arnold, was sent to Wangoni, on the banks of the Rovuma, to relieve the 1st Battalion of the 3rd King’s African Rifles, and the rest of the Regiment was employed during the next few days in road-making, in cleaning up old camping grounds, and on other fatigues. On the 5th December a draft consisting of 5 British officers, 2 British non-commissioned officers, and 401 men, nearly all of whom were new drafts from the Gold Coast, reached the Regiment from Mpara.

On the 9th December, Colonel Rose, who had been summoned by General Van der Venter to General Headquarters, which were established at that time at the mission station at Ndanda, handed over the command to Major Goodwin, and set off for his destination by motor-car; and it was announced that the Gold Coast Regiment was about to be sent by sea from Lindi to Port Amelia in Portuguese East Africa. It also leaked out that von Lettow-Vorbeck, having reached a point on the left bank of the Rovuma near Ngomano, had waded across the river, his men having at that time barely fifty rounds of small-arms ammunition per head, and being to all intents and purposes at the end of their resources. He had then surprised the Portuguese camp at Ngomano so effectively that he succeeded in capturing _inter alia_ a million rounds of small-arms ammunition, several guns, and a supply of canned European provisions sufficient to meet the requirements of his force for at least three months. Having thus secured to himself a new lease of life, he was now proceeding to make things as unpleasant as possible for the Government of Portuguese East Africa.

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On the 9th December the Gold Coast Regiment marched to Bangalla—not the place where the river of that name debouches into the Rovuma, but the spot where that stream is bridged by the road which leads through Massassi from Makochera, on the Rovuma, to Lindi on the sea. From this point the Regiment marched up the main road, reached Massassi Mission Station on the 12th December, picking up at that place a signal section of Royal Engineers, and pushing on to Chigugu the same day. Marching distances which varied from nine to sixteen miles daily, the Regiment, on the 15th December, reached Mahiwa, where General O’Grady’s Column from Lindi had fought one of its big battles. On the morrow at Mtama, nine miles further up the road, it was learned that Major Shaw, with Captains Harris and Watts, and Lieutenants Pike, Smith and Biltcliffe and 250 men of the Gold Coast Regiment, had already sailed from Lindi for Port Amelia. On the 17th December Mtua was reached, and Lieutenant Withers, Colour-Sergeant Thornton, and A Company, with two machine-guns and their teams, were then dispatched to Lindi by motor-car to embark for Port Amelia. The authorities were evidently in a hurry, and von Lettow-Vorbeck was reported already to have two companies of his _Askari_ within ten hours’ march of Port Amelia.

Next day, the Regiment moved on two miles to Mingoya, where it held itself in readiness to embark at Arab House, the landing-stage at Lindi, which lay some six miles further up the road.

Meanwhile Colonel Rose had reported himself to General Van der Venter, the Commander-in-Chief, and to General Sheppard, the Chief of Staff, at Ndanda Mission on the Lindi main road. He was here informed that it had been decided to send a column forthwith to assist the Portuguese at Port Amelia, where much consternation had been caused by the approach of von Lettow-Vorbeck’s forces: that the column would be composed mainly of the Gold Coast Regiment; and that the command would be entrusted to Colonel Rose.

The Gold Coast Regiment had now been serving continuously in East Africa since its arrival at Kilindini on the 26th July, 1916. During the seventeen months that had thereafter elapsed the Regiment had been constantly on the march or in action, save when it had been camped, as for instance at Njimbwe, at Mnasi, at Rumbo or again at Narungombe, in close proximity to the enemy, with whom its patrols and outposts had been in almost daily collision. Thanks to the efforts of the Government of the Gold Coast, and to the highly efficient work performed by Lieutenant-Colonel Potter, D.S.O., who had assumed command of the training depôts in that colony, the Regiment had been constantly and regularly reinforced: but after the remainder of the regular force, originally left behind in the Gold Coast, had been sent to East Africa, the quality of some of the drafts had by no means equalled the high standard at which the Regiment had always hitherto aimed. The Nigerian Brigade, which had reached East Africa some months after the arrival of the Gold Coast Regiment, was about to be sent back to Lagos: but the Gold Coast Regiment, which had enjoyed less than three months’ rest at Kumasi after the conclusion of the campaign in the Kameruns, was still to be kept in the field.

It was realized by all, however, that a great compliment to the Regiment, and a tacit recognition of the fashion in which it had borne itself, were implied in this selection of it, out of all the available troops, to undertake yet one more campaign; and if there were some who thought that the men were being tried almost too severely, the rank and file accepted the new duties which were about to be imposed upon them with their usual philosophy and good temper.