One had here a striking example of the difficulties of bush operations; of the disappointments, of the almost impossible task of keeping in touch with each force, across wide areas of dense, untouched, unfamiliar bush miles ahead of the base. One never knows, at the commencement of a day, the full difficulties to overcome; one can never altogether foresee the obstacles that will be encountered to enforce delay, be it an impassable swamp, impenetrable forest, an unbridged river, a loss of direction, or an unknown enemy force. It has been called a difficult campaign; but the difficulties have been so gigantic that the wonder one has is that the men who direct it have not grown old and grey with the weight of the anxieties imposed.
Next morning, too late, the force on the north occupied Mingoyo and Mrweka, for overnight, under cover of darkness, the enemy had evacuated their positions, and had fallen back on their second line of defence across the trolley rails at Mohambika village.
The battalion remained the day at Ziwani, and the following day, leaving other troops to hold the line, we crossed the valley and proceeded by stages, overland, back to Lindi. The enemy force, through the sudden appearance of new companies on this front, apparently now outnumbered ours, and it was, it appeared, necessary to hold on and recuperate our forces, as far as possible, which were becoming increasingly difficult to keep up to reasonable establishment owing to overwhelming sickness and lack of proportionate reinforcements. Also, our column was operating in conjunction with the Kilwa column, which had a much longer distance to advance before both would close in on Massassi, the enemy base of operations. Therefore those causes accounted for our again “holding on” for a period at Lindi.
SICKNESS RIFE
On 15th June we were again back in Lindi. A week later the battalion was experiencing a fell wave of coast fever, which thinned our ranks at an appalling rate. On 26th June the S.M.O. inspected the men remaining on duty, to inquire into their general physique and endeavour to trace the plague to any local fault, and at that time less than half our fighting strength were on parade. Other units were suffering in similar manner, but were losing men somewhat less rapidly. Next day camp was moved to higher ground, above Lindi, but though sickness abated it still continued to find daily victims, and it was heart-breaking to be thus weakened of our fighting strength; more especially as we were not long returned from our rest at the Cape, which it had been thought would surely resuscitate our health for further campaigning. But looking back now it is apparent that the hardships of the first two years in Africa had sapped far more than the mere surface strength of the men, and the short change, though it brightened everyone outwardly, had not time to repair completely the debilities of thoroughly exhausted systems. Moreover Lindi, and the Lukuledi valley, were undoubtedly the most unhealthy country it was ever our misfortune to enter, and we had been in more than one bad area in the past.
On 1st July I received orders to take up a position on Mtanda Plateau, with fifty rifles and two machine-guns, and there to establish an outpost one and a half mile from Lindi on the Noto Road, defending the approach on Lindi from the north-west, and north, where coast tracks led away to Kilwa, on which the enemy might retire, from before the Kilwa column, and here congregate. Mtanda Plateau was a broad ridge, overlooking Lindi and the sea from its south-east bank, and, crossing to the other side, where the ground again fell away to low country, its north-west aspect overlooked great distances of hill-broken, bush-covered country. The plateau was a jungle of breast-high grass and low bush, within a forest of stately mango trees.
Routine on the outpost was to have strong, alert pickets posted near the road at night, and, through the day, to patrol the country out before us, sometimes to an outward-bound distance of ten miles. In view of the possibility of a night attack, on one or two dark nights the monitor H.M.S. Severn experimented with her flash-lights, turning them on to our position from where she lay in the bay, and weirdly those lights, lit up the jungle.
We remained twenty-four days on this outpost, but experienced in that time no untoward incident. One or two German natives came in and gave themselves up, claiming at the same time to be porters, but sometimes such deserters had the military bearing of Askaris, and no doubt were really such, and had discarded their equipment and rifle in fear of terrible punishment for having fought against us—which was a belief taught them by their white masters.
ON OUTPOST AT LINDI
On the morning of 25th July the detachment evacuated the outpost, and rejoined the battalion at Lindi in preparation to again resume the offensive. On the 26th the battalion trekked from 4.30 a.m. until 2 p.m. via Naitiwi, to Mayani, a planters’ station, having then come thirteen miles, by track, out into the country of our June operations.