It had not yet been found possible to establish a main base at Tanga; and at the moment all supplies were being landed at Kilindini, and were conveyed thence, by the railway route which the Regiment had followed, to Korogwe on the Tanga-Moschi line. An advanced base had been formed at Handeni, five-and-thirty miles to the south-east of Korogwe; and for six weeks General Smuts had been compelled to remain inactive in his camp on the Lukigura River, while sufficient stores, etc., were being accumulated to render a further and continuous advance possible.
His plan, as will be seen by the disposition of his forces, was to attack the main German railway line, as nearly as possible simultaneously, at Dar-es-Salaam on the coast, at Morogoro, at Kilossa and at Dadoma. This would have the effect of depriving the enemy of the use of the line and of driving him to the south of it; after which an attempt would be made to expel him from the country north of the Rufiji River.
The Regiment had been inspected by General Edwards on the 30th July, and on the 4th August, leaving the Depôt Company to establish itself at Korogwe, they left their temporary camp at Ngombezi and began their march to Msiha, the headquarters of the First Division on the banks of the Lukigura. It was now that their troubles began, and the nine days of that march live in the memory of officers and men as perhaps the most trying period of the whole campaign.
Though the altitude was not great, the climate was cool even at midday; but while the Europeans belonging to the force found it wonderfully bracing, the men missed the genial warmth of their native land, and at night suffered greatly from the cold.
The line of march led along an unmetalled track, over which motor-lorries had been ploughing their way for weeks, and the surface had been reduced to a fine powder some six to eight inches in depth. The constant passage of lorries, and now the first-line transport of the Regiment—which consisted of mule-carts and of the carriers who had accompanied the force from the Gold Coast—and the plodding feet of the men on the march stirred up this loose deposit into a dense fog of a dull-red hue. As the day advanced, each man became plastered with particles of this fine red dust, which seemed to possess peculiarly penetrating properties, till one and all resembled so many figures fashioned from terra cotta. Eyes, nostrils and mouths became filled with this stuff, occasioning acute thirst; but the way was waterless, save for a few foul holes half filled with brackish water.
The lot of the rear-guard was the hardest, for the second-line transport, locally supplied to the Regiment, consisted of South African ox-wagons, each of which was drawn by a team of sixteen oxen driven by Cape boys. The imported cattle had many of them become infected by trypanosomæ, and not a few were literally on their last legs. The exigencies of the situation, however, rendered it necessary for these luckless brutes to be driven as long as they could stand; but progress was incredibly slow, and frequent halts were occasioned to unyoke some miserable ox, which had fallen never to rise again, and thereafter to rearrange his yoke-fellows. At the best, as they crept forward, the floundering wagons with their straining teams churned the dust into impenetrable, ruddy clouds, which, mingling with the fog already caused by the passage of the infantry, well-nigh smothered the men who formed the rear-guard. Though the actual length of each day’s march was fairly short, the last man rarely reached the camping-place until long after dark.
The physical trials to which the rank and file were exposed—the choking dust, the raging thirst which it occasioned, the inadequate supply of brackish water, met with at long intervals, which seemed powerless to appease even when it did not aggravate their sufferings, the nauseating stench arising from the putrifying carcases of dead horses, mules and oxen, with which the line of march was thickly strewn, the bitterly cold nights, and the ominous way in which man after man succumbed to pneumonia—were rendered almost unbearable by reason of the superstitious fears by which the men were haunted. The memory of that long railway journey, which half of them had made in open trucks, through the freezing cold of the nights and early mornings high up in the mountains, was still fresh in their minds. They had seen many of their comrades suddenly stricken by pneumonia—to them a by no means familiar disease—and killed thereby after a few days or hours of painful struggle for life. Now they found themselves in an unknown land, separated from their homes by immeasurable distances, with wide expanses of sour scrub spreading around them, and holding for them no promise of finality; while day after day, they plodded, parched and choking, along that interminable road, saw their fellows succumb at every halting-place, and learned presently to believe that the water with its salt-taste, which was alone available to allay their thirst, and of which they could never obtain enough, was a poisoned draught that was killing them. This was a devil’s country to which their officers had brought them—a land of evil spirits out of which they could never hope again to win their way. The Europeans—officers and non-commissioned officers alike—sought ceaselessly to cheer and hearten-up their men; but for the first time in the memory of any of them, their efforts met with no response. The men had become unrecognizable. Usually the most cheerful and light-hearted of mankind, they wore now a sullen, hang-dog air. They were sulky, suspicious and resentful. For the first time in the history of the Regiment their confidence in their officers—which to these men has become a religion—had been strained almost to the breaking-point. And their officers knew it. “You could not get a grin out of them at any price,” said one who had seen his men in many a tight place, and had never known them to show even a passing sign of discouragement or depression; and when you cannot conjure a grin out of the gnarled features of a man of the Gold Coast Regiment, something very like the Trump of Doom has sounded for him.
The Regiment, after resting on the 8th August at Handeni, and drawing a fresh supply of rations, pushed on for another four days to Mahazi, where it duly reported its arrival to the headquarters of the First Division.
The front had now been reached, the enemy was close at hand, and there was a river of running water to delight the hearts of the parched and dust-coated men. The reaction was immediate. There was no lack of grins now; and these found their reflections in the faces of a band of anxious officers, as they listened to the cheerful babble resounding from their new encampment. It is a music that is discordant enough at times, but now it was more than welcome after the sullen silence of suspicion and distrust that had brooded over the camp and the line of march for more than a week.