The Gold Coast Regiment in the East African Campaign

by Sir Hugh Charles Clifford

The country, however, was for the most part a dead flat, broken only by gentle undulations, and now, toward the end of the rains, it was covered with a new growth of tall grass, very thick and lush. In these circumstances, it was not possible to find any spot which actually overlooked the road and was at the same time securely concealed from the observation of the enemy’s advanced points. Lieutenant Kinley, however, took careful note of the lie of the land, and led his little force into the high grass, where he drew it up in as compact a line as possible in a position parallel to the highway, and distant some sixty or seventy yards from it. Here the machine-gun was set up, and the men, breathless with expectation and excitement, lay down and waited.

Presently the sound of a large body of men marching down the road became audible; and Lieutenant Kinley, reserving his fire until he judged that the main body of the enemy was in his immediate front, let the Germans have it with rifle and machine-gun for all his little force was worth. An indescribable uproar ensued, while enemy bullets whistled in every direction above the heads of Kinley’s men; and presently it became obvious that the Germans were rushing into the long grass upon a wide front to counter-attack their assailants.

Fearing to be enveloped by the greatly superior force which he had had the hardihood to ambush, Lieutenant Kinley ceased fire, rapidly moved his men to the rear and toward one of the enemy’s flanks, and from thence repeated his former tactics. Another wild hooroosh was the result, and for perhaps a quarter of an hour, the Germans and the little band of Gold Coasters played an exciting game of hide and seek, each being completely hidden from the other by the ten-foot screen of grass, and being compelled to trust purely to the sounds that reached them to determine the direction of their fire. At the end of that time a luckless band of Germans, composed of Europeans and natives, wandered into view, walking along a path within a few yards of a spot in which Lieutenant Kinley and his breathless men were lying. Very few of the enemy survived this encounter; and Lieutenant Kinley considering that he had now done as much damage as he would be able to effect without running too great a risk of himself being enveloped and cut off, extricated his small force with considerable skill, and led it back to the camp at Mnasi.

In this brilliant little encounter six men of the Gold Coast Regiment were killed, six were wounded, and one fell into the hands of the enemy. The latter lost three white men and fifteen Askari killed, and over thirty wounded; and the Gold Coast Regiment, remembering the fate of Lieutenant Shields and Colour-Sergeant Nelson and their men, had the satisfaction of feeling that, to use the phrase of the officers’ mess, “they had got back some of their own.”

On the 13th April the enemy sent in a flag of truce, and restored to the Gold Coast Regiment four of the men who had been wounded during Lieutenant Kinley’s action on the 11th April. The bearer of the flag of truce admitted the heavy losses which the enemy had sustained on that occasion. For his daring little exploit, Lieutenant Kinley was recommended by Colonel Rose, who was still commanding the 3rd East African Brigade, for a Distinguished Service Order.

On the 15th April, the Regiment made a nine hours’ march over a villainous track to Migeri-geri, which is situated on the main road thirteen and a half miles from Kilwa, where a new camp was established; and on the 17th of April Lieutenant Beech with a patrol of fifty rank and file and one machine-gun marched along the Mnasi road to investigate the cutting of the telegraph wire. He met a patrol of B Company, with whom was the agent of the Intelligence Department, and they shortly afterwards had a brush with an enemy patrol, B Company losing one man killed and one wounded; but the enemy was driven off and the telegraph line repaired.

On the same day, Captain Foley with the Battery and an escort of thirty rank and file of A Company, joined a force, commanded by the Colonel of the 40th Pathans, which was operating in the direction of Mnasi; the Gold Coast Regiment took over the outposts hitherto held by the Pathans; Captain Greene and the Pioneer Company joined the Regiment in camp; and at 7 p.m. a cable party was sent out to restore communication with the Officer Commanding the Pathans at Rumbo, a place about five miles south by east of Migeri-geri.

On the following day the Battery and its escort, under the command of Captain Foley, came in for a pretty hot engagement at Rumbo, where they were in action with the 40th Pathans and 150 men of the 2nd Battalion of the 2nd Regiment of the King’s African Rifles. It was the 40th Pathans, it will be remembered, who took over Gold Coast Hill from the Regiment at dusk on the 15th December, and throughout the campaign they had fought with steadfastness and courage. Their casualties, both in the field and from sickness, had been very severe, however, and their numerical strength had recently been made up by large drafts of raw recruits from India, the bulk of whom were not drawn from the strata of the population which, in the past, have always supplied men for the 40th Pathans. Precisely what happened on this day does not concern us here. That the veterans of the 40th Pathans fought gallantly is attested by the fact that of one of their machine-gun teams every man was killed at his post, but the rest of the story can best be confined to the experiences of the Battery of the Gold Coast Regiment and of its commander.

On the 18th April Captain Foley got his guns into position, in order to cover and support the infantry advance, at a point across the Ngaura River in the neighbourhood of Rumbo. The stream, in which the water was on that day nearly chin-deep, was behind him, and the camp of the force which Colonel Tyndall of the 40th Pathans was commanding lay in the bush on the further bank. The country was covered by pretty dense trees and scrub, and all that the guns could do was to shell the area in which the enemy was believed to be concealed. After this had been going on for some time, the Battery trumpeter, Nuaga Kusasi, approached Captain Foley and reported that there were no British soldiers in front or on the flanks of the Battery, and that the men moving in the bush, barely thirty yards ahead, were the enemy. Captain Foley was incredulous, but Nuaga Kusasi insisted, and stating that he could see a German officer, put up his rifle and fired at him. Immediately the bush ahead of the guns was seen to be alive with enemy Askari.

The men of the Battery, and the thirty men of A Company which formed its escort, behaved admirably, and Bogoberi, one of the gun-carriers, drew his matchet and declared that he and his fellows would charge the enemy with those weapons before the guns should be touched. His example was followed by all the other gun-carriers, who were enlisted men drawn from the same tribes as the soldiers.