CHAPTER VIII
THE HALT AT NARUNGOMBE
Although the Germans had abandoned their position at Narungombe, the severe losses which they had inflicted upon the British were out of all proportion to any advantages which the latter could claim to have secured. The check, too, impressed the British command with the difficulty of dealing with the enemy unless the pursuit could be rendered not only rapid but continuous, and above all with the fact that an adequate supply of water was the hinge upon which all future operations must turn. At Narungombe the very machine-guns of the Gold Coast Regiment had for a time been put out of action through lack of water wherewith to cool the jackets, and the men in the firing-line had been cruelly tortured by thirst during the greater part of that day. After the fight at Narungombe, therefore, the column under General Beves’ command remained in camp at that place to refit. There reinforcements speedily arrived, and General Hannyngton, returning from sick-leave, presently resumed command of the force. A large fortified camp was established; a space to the north of it was cleared and made into an aerodrome; supplies of every description were accumulated; and all things were made as ready as circumstances permitted for a renewed advance. Meanwhile no forward movement was attempted from July 20th to September 17th, a delay during two precious months of the dry season which unfortunately gave the enemy also time to rest and reorganize, to complete his preparations for further resistance to the advance, and to accumulate supplies at his advanced bases and depôts. It was desired, however, that General Hannyngton’s new advance should form part of a much larger scheme; and its timing, so as to ensure co-operation with another column whose movements will be described in the following paragraph, imposed perhaps a longer period of inactivity than was necessary merely for the purpose of refitting.
The Nigerian Brigade, which had arrived in East Africa some months after the Gold Coast Regiment, had endured unspeakable things during the wet season of 1916-17 in its camp on the northern bank of the Rufiji. Here the Brigade had suffered from an insufficiency of supplies and the difficulties occasioned by a water-logged countryside. Now three battalions, under General Cunliffe, had been brought round by sea to Kilwa Kisiwani, and were about to operate as a separate column on the right of General Hannyngton’s force, at present encamped at Narungombe. The task of these columns would be to endeavour to drive the enemy southward into the Lindi area; and meanwhile a large force, of which the remaining battalion of the Nigerians formed a part, had been landed at Lindi, and was trying to slip in behind the enemy for the purpose of helping to encircle him.
Meanwhile, Belgian troops from the Congo were advancing in a south-easterly direction, with Mahenge as their immediate objective,—Mahenge being an important place, two hundred miles due west of Kilwa, on the main road which runs north and south from Songia to Kilossa on the Dar-es-Salaam-Lake Tanganyika railway. Simultaneously, General Northey’s force, which had worked through from Northern Rhodesia and had had a certain amount of fighting in the neighbourhood of Lake Tanganyika, was advancing, in a north-easterly direction, upon Mpepo, a place that lies fifty miles south-west of Mahenge. The object of both these forces, and of a third which was advancing southward with its base at Dadome on the Dar-es-Salaam railway, was the envelopment or dislodgment of the German European and native troops which, under the command of Major von Tafel, were operating in the western part of the territory, mostly to the south of the Ulanga, which is an upper branch of the Rufiji River.
The position at Narungombe, which as we have seen is situated on a main road that runs north and south some thirty miles to the east of the highway that leads from Kilwa Kivinje to Liwale, was as follows. The enemy had retired down the former of these roads to Mihambia, which is distant only twelve miles from Narungombe, and where there are another set of water-holes; and he had established here his main advanced position. From the high-road at Mihambia, a footpath leads west to a place called Kitiia, three miles away, where four tracks meet. One of these runs for five miles in a westerly direction till a ravine, which bears the name of Liwinda, is struck; one runs south-east to rejoin the high-road at Mpingo five miles south of Mihambia, and northward to Mikikole, which is some five and a half miles off. At Mikikole the Gold Coast Regiment had an outpost; and from this place footpaths lead, one north-west to Narungombe; one east to a point on the main road four and a half miles south of Narungombe, occupied by the company of the 2nd Battalion of the King’s African Rifles, to which the name of Gregg’s Post was given; and a third in a south-westerly direction, crossing Liwinda Ravine, and running on to some water-holes nine miles further off near the native village of Mbombomya, and thence to Ndessa. This latter place and Mnitshi on the high-road, some ten miles south of Mihambia, were at this time the principal advanced bases and supply depôts of von Lettow-Vorbeck’s forces in this portion of the territory, though at neither of them had any fortification been attempted. On a hill near Mpingo, however, the enemy had established a signal-station.
The country hereabouts is for the most part a wide expanse of undulating flat, studded with frequent trees, smothered in thick, and often tall grass, and broken here and there by patches of dense bush. At this season of the year it was waterless, save for a few ponds spattered very sparsely over the face of the land. Bush-fires had been raging intermittently for weeks, and in many places the country was bare and blackened. Though now and again glades occur among the trees, it is rarely possible to obtain an extended view in any direction; and though the vegetation did not impede the movements of troops so completely as it does in real tropical forest country, the character of the locality gave great advantages to a force whose main object was to fight a delaying campaign, and presented proportionate disadvantages to the force that aimed at enveloping its enemy. The British were further hampered by their ignorance of the district, and above all by the scarcity of water. Aeroplanes were being used, and by them bombs were frequently dropped upon the German camp at Ndessa; but for the most part the efforts of the airmen illustrated the eternal triumph of hope over experience. Even when to the landsman’s eye the country appeared to be fairly open, the whole area, seen from above, was revealed as one continuous expanse of grass and tree-tops, devoid of all distinguishing landmarks. It was difficult, in such circumstances, to pick out even well-known localities, while the detection of small posts established by the enemy in the bush, and carefully screened from observation, was for the most part impossible. The infantry patrols had generally to smell out such danger-points for themselves.
A peculiar feature of this district is the Liwinda Ravine, of which mention has already been made. It consists of a natural hollow, some two hundred feet in depth and from four hundred to eight hundred yards in breadth, which traverses the country for many miles from the north-west to the south-east. The ground along its edges differs in no way from the rest of the surrounding areas of bush and orchard-country, except that it is somewhat more elevated than most of them.
Throughout this district ant-bears abound, and their holes, which are ubiquitous, are often large enough to admit of the entrance of a man.
On the 21st July, two days after the engagement at Narungombe, Lieutenant-Colonel Rose rejoined the Regiment and took over the command. He was accompanied by Captain Hornby, who until he had fallen ill had long filled the post of Adjutant, and by four new officers—Captains McElligott and Methven, M.C., and Lieutenants Lamont and S. B. Smith—all of whom were joining the Gold Coast Regiment for the first time. Captain Hornby resumed his work as Adjutant which, during his absence on sick leave, had been successively performed by Lieutenant Downer and by Colour-Sergeant Avenell, both of whom had discharged the difficult duties assigned to them with marked success.