On the 26th November, word having been received that an enemy force, composed of thirty white men and an unknown number of Askari, had cut the Column’s line of communication to the north-east, the 129th Baluchis were dispatched toward Luatalla for the purpose of dislodging it; and at 9 a.m. the remainder of the column marched from Bangalla to Miesi by the road which it had followed on the preceding day. On arrival here it was learned that the 129th Baluchis, who at this time consisted of only about 130 rifles, had had a sharp engagement with the enemy on the banks of the Mwiti River, that they had had the worst of the encounter, and that they had been compelled to retire, leaving a considerable amount of small-arms ammunition in the hands of the Germans. This, however, was subsequently recovered, the enemy having had no means of carrying it away.
The 2nd Battalion of the 2nd King’s African Rifles were sent to a place called Jumbe Nambude, with half of A Company of the Gold Coast Regiment, to form a flank guard to the Column; but at 6 p.m. this half-company returned to Miesi, having seen nothing of the enemy.
During the night the enemy with whom the 129th Baluchis had come into collision retired, and communication with Lustalla was restored. Half of B Company, under Captain McElligott, was sent to patrol the Mbalawala hills, to the north of Miesi, and thence to send out parties to reconnoitre to the north and north-west. It was thought that von Tafel’s camp was near Nambingo, to the west of Miesi, between the Bangalla and Mwiti rivers.
On the 28th November No. 1 Column marched back to Bangalla, at the junction of the river of that name with the Rovuma, where the perimeter camp formed on the 25th November was reoccupied. Here Captain McElligott with his patrol rejoined the Gold Coast Regiment. Very shortly after the arrival of the column in camp, a British aviator effected a landing on the sand and shingle of the Rovuma’s dried-up bed, and when he came up to the camp it was found that he was Lieutenant Nash, who, in 1913-14, had been engaged in surveying the line of the projected railway extension in the Gold Coast from Koforidua to Kumasi. After he had partaken of such frugal fare as the mess of the Regiment afforded—for at this time the whole force had for some days been on greatly reduced rations—Lieutenant Nash resumed his journey, a squad of Gold Coast men being sent out to give his machine a “push off,” as the sand and shingle of the river-bed proved to be rather heavy going. Nash flew down the river for a few miles, and then finding that his stock of petrol was running short and that his machine must be lightened, he dropped all the bombs he had with him into the Rovuma. Thus in a double degree the Gold Coast may claim to have had a special share in the surrender of von Tafel and his forces; for the explosion of Nash’s bombs led the German Commander to believe that von Lettow-Vorbeck’s troops were heavily engaged with the British between him and Newala. He had already learned that the latter place had been evacuated; his whole force had consumed practically all its supplies; ammunition was running very short; and now it seemed that he was separated from von Lettow-Vorbeck on the left bank of the Rovuma by a British column. This decided him to surrender, and that afternoon he sent in his Chief Staff Officer and another member of his staff with a white flag. They were received by a detachment of the Pioneer Company of the Gold Coast Regiment, and were forthwith conducted to Colonel Orr, the Column Commander.
The German officers, one of whom spoke English perfectly, stated that von Tafel had destroyed his last ammunition and buried or burned all his arms of precision. He asked to be allowed to surrender unconditionally, and suggested that his force should be marched into the British camp, and should occupy near it any area that might be chosen for the purpose. These conditions were approved, and late that afternoon the German force, consisting of 190 Europeans and about 1,200 Askari, with their carriers and camp-followers, waded across the Rovuma which they had crossed the preceding evening and came into camp.
The whole movement was carried out with machine-like precision. The little column marched, as though on parade, to the area which had been allotted to it for its encampment, in which each company at once took up the position habitually assigned to it. Baggage having been deposited in a most orderly fashion, the men of each company instantly set to work to construct bush-huts for their European officers, while the carriers cleared the grass and underwood with their matchets, and prepared less elaborate huts for the Askari. The work was done with great rapidity, and on a system which had evidently become so instinctive that each cog knew to a nicety the precise place which it occupied in the elaborate mechanism. But what chiefly impressed the British spectators was not only the discipline and the order, but the almost unbroken silence which prevailed throughout. Silence in the ranks is easy enough to secure among men subject to strict military discipline, but no Englishman has yet learned the secret of imposing a like silence upon a mob of male and female African carriers. The result was impressive, but it may perhaps be hoped that the British never will achieve this particular miracle. Those who know the natives of Africa will agree that it is only to be wrought by means of methods that have always found greater favour in Prussia than they are ever likely to secure in Great Britain. The cowed and silent carrier was the inevitable adjunct to the German Askari, an analysis of whose privileged position has been attempted in an earlier chapter of this book.
Though von Tafel’s men did not appear to be at all near starvation, they, and especially the Europeans, had not been full-fed for many days. In illustration of this it may be mentioned that a Tabora sovereign—the handsome gold coin, bearing the Prussian arms on the obverse and an African elephant on the reverse, and with no bevelling to its edge, of which von Lettow-Vorbeck had caused a few thousand to be coined at Tabora during the early days of the campaign—was freely offered that afternoon for a tin of honest bully-beef. No. 1 Column, however, was itself very hard-up for rations; and on the morrow von Tafel’s men, under the escort of the 55th Rifles, were sent up the bed of the Bangalla River to join the Lindi road at a point to the south-west of Massassi, and thence to march along it to the sea. They were fed by means of the consignments of rations which were being dispatched from Lindi for the use of the British columns in the field; and the latter accordingly, for a space, went shorter of supplies than ever.
On the 29th November, orders were received to break up No. 1 Column. All the Indian units were directed to proceed to Massassi, and all the African units—the Gold Coast Regiment, the 2nd Battalion of the 2nd and the 1st Battalion of the 3rd King’s African Rifles—to Naurus, where they were to join up with No. 2 Column. The Indian and African troops were designated A Column and B Column respectively; and the command of the latter was entrusted to Colonel Rose, Lieutenant S. B. Smith acting as his Staff Officer.
B Column started upon its march on the 30th November, and moving viâ Nambere and Maparawe, reached Naurus, without incident, on the 2nd December.