CHAPTER VII

IN THE KILWA AREA—NARUNGOMBE

General Beves was now preparing to take the offensive, his plan being to divide his force into three columns which, working southward, but describing segments of a circle on the west and on the east, might perhaps get in behind the enemy and contrive to envelope him. As usual the difficulties of maintaining sufficient supplies of provisions, ammunition and water obtruded themselves from the outset; but the force was well equipped with motor transport, and it was hoped that, by cutting tracks eight feet wide through the bush, a passage might be made for these vehicles in the rear of the advancing columns.

In order to deceive the enemy as to the main line of his advance, Colonel Orr decided to make a feint along the road past Lingaula Ridge due south of the camp at Rumbo, and this duty he assigned to a company of the Gold Coast Regiment. Colonel Shaw selected B Company for the purpose; and when at 10 p.m. on the 4th July the Regiment left Rumbo with the No. 1 Column, B Company, under the command of Lieutenant Eglon, remained behind at Linguala Ridge.

There was an eclipse of the moon on the night selected for the start, and the darkness was intense, and it was not till noon on the 5th July that Beaumont’s Post was reached. No. 1 Column, which was commanded by Colonel Orr, consisted of the Gold Coast Regiment, the 33rd Punjabis, the 2nd Battalion of the 2nd Regiment of the King’s African Rifles, the famous Indian Mountain Battery from Derajat, which goes by the name of the “D. M. B.,” and the 8th South African Infantry, which joined the Gold Coast Regiment at Beaumont’s Post. No. 1 Column was to make the sweep southward on the left of the advance. No. 2 Column was composed of the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 3rd Regiment of the King’s African Rifles, the 7th South African Infantry, and the 27th Mountain Battery, under the command of Colonel Grant. Its sweep was to be made on the right of the advance. A third column was operating still further to the left of No. 1 Column. This column consisted of the 3rd Battalion of the 3rd King’s African Rifles, and the 40th Pathans. On the day before the engagement at Narungombe it was reinforced by one and a half companies of the 8th South African Infantry from No. 1 Column. No. 3 Column was under the command of Colonel Taylor. The 129th Baluchis were in reserve at Makangaga.

No. 1 Column left Beaumont’s Post at 7 p.m. on the 5th July for Ukuli, and at midnight the men bivouacked in column of route. At dawn the march was resumed, and at 4 p.m. the Gold Coast Regiment took over the advanced guard from the King’s African Rifles, who had been heavily engaged all day, and had succeeded in dislodging the enemy from a prepared position.

As soon as this relief had been affected, the Pioneer Company advanced and engaged the enemy’s rear-guard, which it found some 300 yards up the road, and which it drove back to a distance of about a mile. Here the Pioneer Company bivouacked, remaining all night in its advanced position as outpost company, the rest of the Regiment rejoining No. 1 Column in camp. One man was killed and one wounded in the advance by the Pioneer Company.

On the 7th July, the Gold Coast Regiment marched as advanced guard to the column which was now heading in the direction of Ngomania. This place was occupied by the Regiment, after encountering slight resistance, and the rear-guard of the column came into camp there at about 3 p.m.

On this day, however, No. 2 Column had a serious engagement with the enemy in which many casualties were sustained on both sides.

On the 8th July, the Gold Coast Regiment, which had received orders to march to Mnindi, there to join up with No. 2 Column, left Ngomania at 4.30 a.m. It was accompanied by a section of the D.M.B., and the little force marched to Makangaga—the scene of Lieutenant Kinley’s exploit—where at 9 p.m. it bivouacked for the night.

Meanwhile B Company, which had been left behind at Lingaula Ridge under the command of Lieutenant Eglon, had carried out the duty entrusted to it with great dash and brilliancy. On the 7th July Lieutenant Eglon, pushing southward down the road from his camp at Lingaula Ridge, found no less than three companies of Germans in front of him, and promptly attacked. Though the enemy hopelessly outnumbered the men under his command, Lieutenant Eglon managed to drive them from three successive positions, making as great a display of B Company as possible, and evidently impressing the Germans with the idea that they were about to be attacked in force. During these operations Lieutenant Scott was seriously wounded, Sergeant Awudu Arigungu, who had had long service both with the Northern Nigeria Regiment and with the Gold Coast Regiment, was killed, and eight other men of B Company were wounded.

Having effected his purpose, Lieutenant Eglon, in accordance with his instructions, fell back to Lingaula Ridge, and on the 9th July rejoined the Regiment at Makangaga.

From this place No. 2 Column cut across country, almost due west, to Kirongo, on the main Liwale-Kilwa road, leaving Makangaga at 6.30 a.m. on the 10th July, Colonel Shaw commanding the column on the march. Kirongo was reached at 1.30 p.m.; and on the following morning at 6 a.m. the column pushed on five miles to some water-holes in the dried-up bed of a stream called Kirongo-Ware, where it camped at 1.30 p.m. On this day Colonel Ridgeway assumed the command of No. 2 Column.

At 6 a.m. on the 12th July No. 2 Column resumed its march down the track leading in a south-easterly direction to Kilageli, and at 10 a.m. its patrols came into touch with enemy scouts, with whom a few shots were exchanged. An enemy camp at Kilageli, ahead of the column, was located and bombarded by the D.M.B., and the column deployed and occupied this camp without resistance at about 4 p.m. Here the column rested for the night, and on the 13th July at 1.30 p.m. it continued its advance, and at sundown reached Minokwe, which lies four miles further along the road south by west of Kilageli. At 4 a.m. on the 14th July, the column again moved forward in the direction of an enemy position some six miles to the west of Mtanduala, from the advanced trenches of which a hot fire was opened upon it. The D.M.B. came into action and shelled the enemy position, and the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the King’s African Rifles and the 7th South African Infantry joined in the fight, in which the Gold Coast Regiment also engaged at about 11 a.m. The enemy, fighting a rear-guard action, retired, and two hours later the engagement came to an end. The casualties were few, and the column bivouacked for the night in the prepared position from which the Germans had been ejected.

On the 15th July, the column marched in a south-westerly direction to Kihendye and thence to Rungo, a few shots being exchanged during the day between the King’s African Rifles and enemy scouts. The former lost one man killed and three wounded.

During this day the work of cutting a path, designed for the use of motor-lorries, across country and through the thick, tall grass began, two companies of the Gold Coast Regiment being sent forward for this purpose; and during the whole of the next two days this work was continued. It was a very toilsome job, hacking an eight-foot track through elephant-grass and occasional patches of thorn-thicket, with a merciless sun smiting down from above, with nought to breathe save the stuffy overheated and used-up air peculiar to big grass patches in the tropics, with only a few dry biscuits for food, and a constant, agonising insufficiency of water. The men stuck to it manfully, but one poor fellow died during the day of exhaustion and heat-apoplexy; and in the end this vast expenditure of labour was all in vain. The track had been cut on a compass-bearing, but the only surveys in existence were very roughly approximate, and the path through the grass was eventually brought to a standstill by encountering a steep cliff up which no motor-lorry could conceivably find a way. A little further on, a large main road which runs north and south was struck, and No. 2 Column presently found itself in junction with No. 1 Column, which had advanced down this road to Kipondira. Here the Gold Coast Regiment was retransferred to No. 1 Column.

On the 18th July No. 1 Column left Kipondira at 10 a.m., the Gold Coast Regiment being stationed towards the rear of the force, which was in action with the enemy until about 2.30 p.m., when the Germans retired, and the column camped for the night at Kihumburu. Two miles further down the road from this place the main body of the enemy operating in this part of the country had taken up a strongly entrenched position at Narungombe. The plan for his envelopment had miscarried, as was almost certain to befall in a country such as that through which the columns were operating, where movements of troops were inevitably slow, where difficulties hampered supply, where scarcity of water presented a constant menace to the very existence of the forces in the field, and where a few scouts, used with even a modicum of skill, could easily keep the enemy informed of the direction which any hostile unit was taking. No. 3 Column had carried out the task entrusted to it very successfully, for the wide sweeping movement which it had made had enabled it to cut in behind the enemy, who was in occupation of a scarp at Mikikama, where he would have presented a formidable barrier to the advance of No. 1 Column. This was a service of considerable importance; but now all three columns, though their convergence in front of Narungombe had not been intended, were assembled in the vicinity of the main road a few miles to the north of that place. This well illustrates the extreme difficulty of concerted operations when carried out in thick bush or high grass, as soon as ever the roads or paths running through it are quitted.

The 2nd Battalion of the 2nd Regiment of the King’s African Rifles, who had borne the brunt of this day’s fighting, had rendered a tremendous service to the columns by expelling the Germans from a water-hole at Kihumburu, and thus making it available for the troops. It was evident, however, that the supply so obtained was quite insufficient for the needs of the force for more than a very limited space of time; and it thus became a matter of vital importance that the enemy should be dislodged from the very strong position which he had taken up at Narungombe, where a much larger set of water-holes was known to exist. Orders were accordingly given for an attack to be delivered upon Narungombe early on the following morning.

The position which the enemy had prepared and occupied consisted of a series of breastworks some two and a half feet in height, built of earth stoutly faced with sticks driven deep into the ground and bound together with lianas, with a number of small redoubts and strongly constructed machine-gun emplacements, and a specially strong defensive post for the accommodation of the high command. These works, drawn along the upper slopes of two hills, between which the high-road passes, extended in an irregular but continuous line, with many slight protrusions and salients, for a distance of two and a half miles. The defensive position was particularly strong at the left extremity of the enemy’s line. From the British camp at Kihumburu the main road runs due south and almost straight to the centre of the German position, dipping into a valley a few hundred yards in advance of the British camp, and thereafter rising gradually in a long glacis to the hills upon which the enemy was entrenched. The country hereabouts is undulating, and covered throughout with high grass, and patches of thorn-scrub set fairly thickly with rather mean-looking trees; but immediately in advance of the enemy’s position, the grass had been cut, leaving stalks about two feet six in height, for a distance of some three hundred yards, and thus depriving the attacking force of any cover. The enemy had four companies in the firing-line, with four more companies in reserve, which, however, arrived too late to take part in the battle. He had two guns of about 2·95 calibre and at least six machine-guns; but above all, he had, as usual, been able to select his own defensive position, and could rely upon making the task of his ejectment an extremely expensive undertaking.

On Thursday, the 19th July, the British advance began at 6 a.m., No. 1 Column leading with the Gold Coast Regiment in the centre. It had been reported that no enemy post existed at a point nearer than 1000 yards along the road from the British camp; but before the Regiment had traversed 300 yards, and while they were still in column of route, fire was opened upon them, and two men were killed and three wounded ere ever they had time to deploy. An advance in extended order through high grass is necessarily a rather slow operation, and while the Gold Coast Regiment was working forward, one company of the 2nd Battalion of the King’s African Rifles was sent forward out of reserve, and in order to protect the Regiment’s advance, occupied a ridge on their right flank which lay to the south-west of the British camp,

At 8.15 a.m. the advance-guard of the Regiment became heavily engaged, Lieutenant Eglon having led B Company to within a short distance of the enemy’s well-entrenched and strongly held position. Here this gallant young officer, who had done so well a few days earlier when attacking from Lingaula Ridge, was killed, and B Company suffered many casualties. Colonel Shaw had taken up an advanced position along the road behind a mound, from which he was able throughout the day closely to observe the operations he was conducting; and he now sent I Company to prolong the line on the right of the attack. A few minutes later the Pioneer Company was also sent forward to prolong the right; and at 9.30 a.m. the 33rd Punjabis, who had been held in reserve, were also sent yet further to prolong the right, while the 7th South African Infantry deployed on the left of the Gold Coast Regiment.

At this juncture orders were given for No. 3 Column to attempt a wide turning movement on the right of the enemy’s position, the 3rd Battalion of the 3rd King’s African Rifles and the 40th Pathans leading the advance, with certain water-holes as their objective. No. 2 Column was ordered at the same time to carry out a similar turning movement on the left. At 10.30 a.m. these troops began to get into position, and at noon No. 3 Column became heavily engaged. The 3rd Battalion of the 3rd King’s African Rifles and the 40th Pathans had been pushed forward, without any preliminary scouting, into a valley on the British left, where they presently came under a devastating rifle and machine-gun fire from both forces. By this time the enemy’s fire had grown intense along the whole line; and the 8th South African Infantry, the bulk of whom still formed part of No. 1 Column and occupied ground on the left of the Gold Coast Regiment, attempted to advance, but were enfiladed by machine-gun and rifle fire from salients in the enemy’s line. They maintained their position for a while, but the troops upon their left failed to make good, and the grass all round them was set on fire by the British shells.

This failure on the left placed the Gold Coast Regiment in a highly perilous position, as its flank was now completely in the air. Moreover, by this time, the grass was well alight along the whole of the front. The men, however, were steady as a rock, and showed no signs of giving way as had the South African and Indian troops on their immediate left. As for the blazing grass, that was a phenomenon to which they had all their lives been accustomed, and they manfully stamped the flames out, in spite of the heavy fire to which they were exposed, and stolidly resumed the fight. On the left of the line, where the danger was most imminent, Colour-Sergeant Campbell very specially distinguished himself, and did much to encourage and confirm the spirit of the men, only too many of whose officers were already _hors-de-combat_. He fought his machine-gun until practically all its team had fallen, and in the end brought it safely out of action.

Meantime the right flank had advanced 800 yards, but at 3.30 p.m. they were strongly counterattacked by the enemy, and two platoons of the 2nd Battalion of the 2nd Regiment of the King’s African Rifles were sent to prolong the right and to get into touch with No. 2 Column, which so far had failed to make its appearance. And all this time the enemy maintained from his defences an intense and relentless fire.

A general advance had been arranged to take place at 2.30 p.m., but the position on the left had by that time become so critical that the movement could not be carried out at the hour fixed; and at 4 p.m. orders were sent to the Gold Coast Regiment not to attempt any further advance. These orders arrived too late, and the Gold Coast Companies on the right, with the 33rd Punjabis and the 2nd Battalion of the 2nd Regiment of the King’s African Rifles, charged and took certain of the enemy’s trenches, but were unable to hold on owing to their left being unsupported and to their ammunition running short. They were accordingly retired, but only to a distance of 100 yards from the enemy’s trenches, where they dug themselves in and held on. The 2nd Battalion of the King’s African Rifles remained on the enemy’s flank in a patch of thick bush, and succeeded thence in getting into touch with No. 2 Column. Darkness was now falling, and the Gold Coast Regiment and the troops on its right bivouacked for the night in the rifle-pits which they had dug for themselves.

Meanwhile, the troops on the left had again been led forward into action by Major Hill of the South African Infantry and by the Commander of the Stokes Battery, thus reconsolidating the line on the left of the Gold Coast Regiment.

At dawn on the following day it was found that the enemy had evacuated his position. He had effected his object, and had made the attacking force pay a heavy price for the possession of the water-holes of Narungombe. Now, before he could be enveloped or cut off, he beat a hasty retreat toward the south. The position from which he had inflicted so much damage upon his pursuers had served its purpose, and he had nothing more to gain by attempting longer to hold it.

The casualties suffered by the Gold Coast Regiment, having regard to its strength at this time, were very heavy. Of the greatly reduced _cadre_ of officers and of British non-commissioned officers, Lieutenant Eglon was killed, Captain A. J. R. O’Brien, M.C., of the West African Medical Staff, was severely wounded, as also were Captain Leslie-Smith, Colour-Sergeant Baverstock and another colour-sergeant. Lieutenant Bray was slightly wounded. B Company lost its sergeant-major—Awudu Bakano—a very fine soldier, and of the rank and file, 37 were killed and 114 were wounded. The total casualties were thus 158 out of about 790 men engaged, or 20 per cent. of the whole combatant strength of the corps.

Never had the men of the Gold Coast Regiment shown more grit than on this day at Narungombe. They went into action early in the morning of the 19th July after having been marching and fighting, or painfully cutting paths through the bush and high grass—labouring practically without cessation—since the evening of the 4th of that month. They were hotly engaged with the enemy during the whole day, exposed to a fierce sun, with very poor cover, with little to eat and with less to drink, and were exposed throughout to gun, rifle and machine-gun fire, mostly at fairly short range, from 8 a.m. to nightfall. In addition to the enemy, they had constantly to fight the blazing grass, which rendered their position more and more exposed; yet these Africans never wavered, but continued stubbornly to hold their positions, though more than one company had been robbed of all its European leaders and was being commanded solely by its native non-commissioned officers. When towards the end of the day, they had occupied the enemy’s trenches on the right, and running short of ammunition and being unsupported on their left, were unable to hold on, they retired only a hundred yards in obedience to orders and with perfect steadiness, and from their new position forthwith resumed the fight. It would be difficult to devise a test more searching that could be applied to native troops, and the triumphant manner in which on this occasion the “green caps” maintained their reputation as men who “never go back” is a striking proof of the Regiment’s high quality as a fighting unit.

For the services rendered by him while in command of the Regiment on this day, Lieutenant-Colonel Shaw was subsequently awarded a bar to the Military Cross which he had already earned.