The Gold Coast Regiment this day came into contact with the enemy for the first time since it had quitted the main road near Koronje on the 13th April. Its only casualty, however, was one man wounded.
On the 23rd May “Rosecol” advanced through Colonel Griffiths’ camp, with Major Shaw’s detachment about one mile ahead of it; and very shortly afterwards the latter became engaged with the enemy, who, with one company and two machine-guns, was covering the retirement of Kohl’s main force. Major Shaw drove this enemy party back a matter of two miles, when he was relieved by the 4th Battalion of the 4th King’s African Rifles, who now formed the advanced detachment of “Rosecol,” supported as usual, however, by two guns of the Gold Coast Regiment’s Stokes Battery.
On this morning the Regiment lost one British non-commissioned officer, Sergeant Kent, and one soldier killed, and three men wounded.
On the 24th May the 4th King’s African Rifles advanced at 6 a.m., and forthwith became engaged with the enemy, whose strength had now been increased to at least two companies with four machine-guns. All day long the Germans fought a series of very stubborn rear-guard actions, and the progress made by dusk was only two miles. In the course of the day Lieutenant Percy and two battery gun-carriers, attached to the Gold Coast Stokes guns, were wounded.
On the 25th May “Rosecol” advanced along the Mahua road in the direction of Korewa, with “Kartucol” following in its rear; Colonel Griffiths’ column having marched west on the preceding day with the object of once again getting astride the road behind the enemy, this time on the other side of Korewa. The enemy was not met with, however, Major Shaw occupying Korewa in the afternoon without opposition, and during the night news was received that Colonel Griffiths had struck the road at the point aimed at, and that he, too, had seen nothing of the enemy.
From Korewa patrols were sent out in several directions, and by the 27th May, it having by then become pretty evident that von Lettow-Vorbeck with the main body, followed at a short distance by Major Kohl and his redoubtable rear-guard, had crossed the Lurio River into the province of Mozambique, Colonel Griffiths’ column marched that evening in pursuit.
On the 28th May B Company, less one machine-gun and one Lewis gun, left the camp at 6 a.m. for Wanakoti, thirty miles to the east, acting as escort to the 22nd D.M.B. The rest of the Regiment remained in camp at Korewa, where it was rejoined by B Company in due course.
With the retreat of von Lettow-Vorbeck southward across the Lurio River, the expedition into the Nyassa Company’s territory, which had been begun five months earlier by the landing of Major Shaw’s advanced detachment at Port Amelia, reached its natural termination. Yet another campaign, based so far as the British were concerned upon the port of Mozambique, was about to begin, though as yet no very extensive preparations had been made for its effectual initiation.
The Gold Coast Regiment, as it has been seen, had been transferred straight from the pursuit of von Lettow-Vorbeck through the Kilwa and Lindi areas and on to the banks of the Rovuma, to the very trying inland march from Port Amelia. Other units subsequently engaged in that enterprise had in the interval been afforded a period of rest, the 2nd Battalion of the 2nd Regiment of the King’s African Rifles, for example, having been allowed to return for a space to their cantonments and to their womenkind at Nairobi. The men of this corps and those of the Gold Coast Regiment, who had done so much hard fighting in company, had learned greatly to trust and value one another, and though they were drawn from such widely different parts of the African continent and though the Gold Coast soldiers’ knowledge of Swahili was still rather elementary, a species of blood-brotherhood had come to be recognized as existing between them. When the “Second Second,” as this battalion of the King’s African Rifles was familiarly called, had made its appearance in Portuguese East Africa, it had been warmly welcomed by the men of the Gold Coast Regiment, and the latter, it may be surmised, had listened not without envy to the accounts which their friends had to give them of the good time the former had enjoyed during their stay at Nairobi. Were the war-worn veterans of the Gold Coast Regiment never to enjoy a similar respite from patrols, attacks, counter-attacks and endless toils and fatigues? The men put the question to their officers. They would fight on if they must, embarking forthwith upon this new campaign which was clearly about to begin; but they would fight better, they felt, if in the interval they might have a taste of the delights of rest and home in their cantonments at Kumasi. Colonel Goodwin, who was now commanding the Regiment, and Colonel Rose, who was commanding the column to which the battalion was attached, shared the men’s opinion, and General Edwards agreed that the Regiment had fairly earned a rest.