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[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.[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,