On the 22nd July the Regiment was for the first time supplied with Lewis guns, and the work of training teams for them was forthwith put in hand. On the 28th July, Captains Briscoe, Hartland and Brady, and Lieutenants Baillie, Willoughby and Maxwell joined the Regiment with reinforcements consisting of 354 rank and file and 7 machine-gun-carriers from the Gold Coast. On the 29th July 50 rifles of B Company, under Lieutenant Baillie, with Colour-Sergeant Campbell, joined the detachment of the 2nd Battalion of the 2nd King’s African Rifles at Gregg’s Post; and a detachment composed of men of B Company, under Captain Methven, was sent out to occupy an outpost at Mikikole.
During the whole of August the Regiment lay in camp at Narungombe, its duties being confined to vigorous training, more especially of the new drafts, and daily patrolling of the roads from the camp and from the outposts at Mikikole and Gregg’s Post. A few more men rejoined from sick leave during the month, and on the 31st August the Regiment was more nearly up to strength than it had been at any time since the very early days of the campaign. There were present 29 officers, including 2 doctors, and 2 officers attached to the transport; 17 British non-commissioned officers, including 1 non-commissioned officer of the Royal Army Medical Corps and 4 belonging to the Transport; 7 clerks, 957 rank and file, 133 enlisted gun and ammunition-carriers, 34 servants, and 1 European and 4 native interpreters—a total of 2130 of all ranks.
On the 7th September orders were sent to Captain Methven to move to Liwinda Ravine with 70 rifles of B Company, leaving a picket of 1 European and 20 rifles at Kitiia en route. His instructions were to dig for water on his arrival at the Ravine; to take every precaution to prevent the existence of his camp becoming known to the enemy, and to make systematic reconnaissances throughout the neighbourhood, including the roads leading to the fortified enemy post at Mihambia and to Mnitshi.
Liwinda Ravine was reached without incident, but though pits were sunk to a depth of 20 feet not a drop of water could be found. The establishment of a water depôt at this place formed, however, an essential feature of General Hannyngton’s plan for the advance which he was about to undertake; and on the 10th September big water-troughs fashioned of rubber, measuring some 20 feet in length, 3 feet in width, 15 inches in depth, were sent to the Ravine on the heads of carriers. Water was also conveyed thither in the long tins to which in India the name of pakhal is given, each of which is a load for two men. Only two of the troughs reached their destination in a water-tight condition; and this attempt to establish a water depôt proved a laborious job which only met with a qualified measure of success.
Meanwhile Captain Methven, with a patrol of twenty men, had gone on a scouting expedition to the south-east, in order to try to ascertain the exact position of the enemy’s camp and supply depôt at Mnitshi. This, and two subsequent patrols in the direction of the main road, undertaken by Lieutenant Woods, were perilous little reconnaissances penetrating deep into the country occupied by the enemy, and they were very far from commending themselves to the native headman, who was impressed to act as guide. He was an ancient African, very wizened and emaciated, who in camp sported a soiled Mohammedan robe, to which as a Pagan he had no right, with an European waistcoat worn buttoned-up outside it. In the bush he reverted to a dingy loin-cloth wound sparsely about his middle. His anxiety to preserve his skin intact, amid admittedly adverse circumstances, altogether outstripped his regard for truth; and when he had guided Captain Methven to an eminence overlooking Mpingo, he unhesitatingly declared that place to be Mnitshi, which, as a matter of fact, lies five miles further to the south along the main road which leads from Mihambia to Mpingo. This had for him the satisfactory effect of shortening the distance to be covered by the patrol, and of proportionately diminishing its dangers; but Captain Methven reported to Headquarters that he was uncertain how far his guide was to be relied upon, and expressed doubt as to whether the place identified as Mnitshi was indeed that enemy supply depot.
On the 13th September Lieutenant Woods took a small patrol through the bush to a point on the main road south of Mihambia, and on his way back he came across water-holes near Mbombomya. As Captain Methven considered it important that a more detailed examination should be made, Lieutenant Woods returned to these water-holes next day. As he approached them, however, and when he and his patrol and the ancient guide were in a patch of grass that was not more than waist-high, the enemy suddenly appeared from a camp which he had in the interval constructed in a cup-like hollow on the top of a piece of rising ground overlooking the water-holes.[water-holes.] Shots were forthwith exchanged, and Woods, seeing that his small party was in a fair way to be surrounded by the enemy, who were at least one company strong, shouted to his men to disperse and to get back to their camp as best they might. Meanwhile, he himself very pluckily ran at top speed and in full view of the enemy, as straight as he could go for the water-holes and the German camp, secured a good view of both, and then plunged into a patch of thick bush, in which he succeeded in eluding his pursuers. He and all his patrol eventually made their way back to the Ravine, one man and one stretcher-bearer only being missing. Of the soldier nothing more was heard, but the stretcher-bearer was picked up many days later, very emaciated and with a bullet-wound in his leg, having crawled through the bush nearly as far to the south and west as Ndessa. The ancient African, who had vanished the moment the enemy appeared, had slipped into an ant-bear’s hole, and had there passed the night. He returned to the camp in the Ravine on the following morning.
On the 14th September a patrol from Kitiia, which had crept to within hearing distance of the enemy camp at Mihambia, had a brush with a hostile patrol as it was returning to its post.
Some native porters, who had deserted from the German Force at the water-holes, also came into camp, and from them a good deal of more or less reliable information was obtained by Captain Methven on the subject of the enemy’s numbers and disposition. From this source it was learned that Hauptmann Kerr, with 9 Europeans, 200 Askari, and 4 machine-guns had passed through the camp at the water-holes near Mbombomya on the 14th September, from Ndessa, on his way to Mnitshi; that the force at the water-holes consisted of 5 Europeans and 150 Askari with 2 machine-guns; that there were at that time only 5 enemy companies encamped at Ndessa; and that the main road and the track to Ndessa had both been mined. It was also stated by the porters that the enemy were short of food and that the Europeans were living on rations of rice and millet.