Through these hills went Colonel O’Grady, the handful of white men composing the detachment of the East African Mounted Rifles—some dozen survivors of that gallant corps which had seen such hard times and had done such splendid work during the earlier phases of the campaign—and B Company of the Gold Coast Regiment. The valleys were thickly planted with native food-stuffs of all descriptions, including such luxuries as sugar-cane bananas, etc.; and eggs and fowls were also obtainable in moderate quantities. Patrols were sent out in all directions at once, to forage for the little force and thoroughly to search the surrounding country for German forage-parties. One of these—a body of eleven Germans, genially intoxicated to a man on native beer, and quite incapable of resistance—was brought in by the East African Mounted Rifles, and a few Askari,[[1]] who were also engaged in foraging, were captured by B Company. When this group of hills had been thoroughly searched, Colonel O’Grady released B Company, which at once rejoined the Regiment. The latter, meanwhile, had been following in the track of B Company, and at daybreak on the 3rd September, the whole corps entered the mission station at Matombo.
[1]. Askari = Native soldier.
These mission stations are a feature of erstwhile German East Africa. They are, for the most part, charmingly situated, generally upon the crest of a hill, whence a magnificent view of the surrounding country can be obtained. They consist, as a rule, of one or more substantially built two-storeyed buildings constructed of mud, or of locally made bricks, lime-washed, and roofed with red tiles, which are also manufactured on the spot. The church, which usually flanks them, is built of rough blocks of stone, as is that at Matombo, or of bricks or mud, as the case may be; and it is often surmounted by a tapering, red-tiled spire. The eminences upon which these stations have been established, and the land around their feet, are set with gardens, groves of fruit trees, and patches of cultivation, all of which obviously owe their existence to European initiative and supervision.
The native congregations ordinarily occupy a number of scattered hovels—built much further apart from one another than is the native habit in West Africa—thatched with grass, and placed at a respectful distance from the buildings occupied by the missionaries. The latter in German East Africa, unlike their prototypes on the West Coast, apparently did not welcome the too close proximity of their proselytes.
The mission buildings at Matombo were found to contain a number of Germans, who were supposed to be too old for active service, and a good many of their women and children. The church, which had been converted into a hospital, was full of German sick and wounded, who had been left in charge of a medical man of their own nationality. This interesting individual was allowed to continue his ministrations, and it was always believed—whether rightly or wrongly it is impossible to say—that he subsequently made use of the liberty thus accorded to him to signal the movements of the Regiment to his compatriots posted in the Uluguru mountains, the entrances to which the British were now engaged in forcing.
The whole of this hilly area was thickly populated by people clothed only in a kind of kilt made of grass, who, though many of them had been impressed by the Germans to serve as carriers, appeared to take no very close interest in the movements of either of the opposed forces. The Uluguru mountains were their home—the only world they knew; and these hapless folk had no alternative, therefore, but to remain where they were, watching with the philosophical resignation so characteristic of a tropical population this strife of gods or devils which had temporarily transformed the quiet countryside into an inferno. It was only occasionally that their equanimity was ruffled for a space by the chance explosion of a shell in close proximity to their dwellings.
General Smuts’ drive had so far proved successful, and the Germans, fighting a more or less continuous rear-guard action, but offering no very stubborn or prolonged resistance at any given point, had been forced back, first on to the line of the Dar-es-Salaam-Lake Tanganyika railway, and then across it into the mountainous country which lies between the railway and the low-lying valley of the Rufiji River.
The Gold Coast Regiment had itself crossed the railway line at a point some miles to the east of Morogoro, and had thence penetrated into the hilly country to the south for a distance of some fifteen miles, camping on Sunday, the 3rd September, in the neighbourhood of the mission station at Matomba. This place is situated on the northern edge of the Uluguru Mountains—highlands which occupy an area measuring approximately a hundred miles square—out of which it was now the task of the First Division to endeavour to drive the enemy, who had sought refuge in them.
It was on the 4th September, 1916—the day on which the mission station at Matomba was quitted—that the Gold Coast Regiment was fated, for the first time, to take a more active part in the East African campaign.