THE ADVANCE FROM PORT AMELIA TO MEZA
With the transfer of military operations from German to Portuguese
territory the campaign against von Lettow-Vorbeck assumed a somewhat new
aspect. Until now the German Commander-in-Chief had been operating in
country that had long been subject to German rule, throughout which
German mission stations and German administrative posts had been
established, and where every corner and cranny of each district was
familiarly known to Europeans or natives resident in the German camps.
The enemy troops, moreover, had possessed bases both for military
purposes and for the accumulation of supplies; and so long as this
continued to be the case points existed here and there which it was
important should be maintained as long as possible, and which the
movements of von Lettow-Vorbeck’s forces were to some extent designed to
defend. With the abandonment of Newala, the last of these permanent
posts had been evacuated, and with it any prisoners of war he had taken
and the German sick and wounded, who had hitherto been under the
treatment of their own doctors, had been suffered to fall into the hands
of the British. Thereafter von Lettow-Vorbeck occupied a position of
complete independence and irresponsibility. He was situated very much as
de Wet and his commando were situated during the concluding months of
the South African War; and his troops had similarly been transformed
from an army in the field into a mobile band of fugitive marauders,
whose only objects were to avoid capture, to cause to their pursuers and
to all connected with them the _maximum_ amount of loss and trouble, and
simultaneously to maintain themselves by seizing any supplies upon
which, from time to time, they could contrive to lay their hands. The
business of the British, on the other hand, was rendered more difficult
than ever. The object to be aimed at was to wear down the enemy’s
forces, to reduce them by gradual attrition, and for this purpose to
bring them to action whenever and wherever this could be achieved. There
were now, however, no important places, such as Newala, to be threatened
by the British advance, and von Lettow-Vorbeck having got rid of all
_impedimenta_, and having no preoccupation save that of maintaining
himself in the field as long as possible, was able to place his
opponents in a very embarrassing position. This he was now about to do,
compelling “Pamforce,” as the Expeditionary Force dispatched to Port
Amelia was officially designated, to extend its lines of communications
from the coast into the interior for any distance that he might elect to
fall back before it; diminishing by this means the strength of the
striking force which it could actually bring against him, since lines of
communications have to be garrisoned and guarded; multiplying with every
additional mile the difficulties surrounding transport and supply; while
he carefully husbanded his own forces, and contented himself with
delaying and harassing the advance by means of small patrols whose
occasional losses could not seriously diminish his military strength.
The estimate formed of the strength of von Lettow-Vorbeck’s troops at
the moment when he evacuated Newala—viz. that they only amounted to
about 800 to 1200 men—was certainly incorrect, and subsequent operations
clearly showed that he had at his disposal not less than 2000 soldiers,
10 per cent. of whom perhaps were white men. These were now nearly as
well armed and equipped as they had ever been; and in von
Lettow-Vorbeck’s able hands they were capable of leading their opponents
as tantalizing a dance through the jungle-covered plains and hills of
tropical East Africa as de Wet had led the British troops across the
veldt to the south some seventeen years earlier.
He in the first instance established his Headquarters at Nanguari, a
place on the right bank of the Lujendi River, which is one of the
principal right affluents of the Rovuma. The Portuguese camp, which von
Lettow-Vorbeck had so successfully surprised, had been pitched at
Ngomano, at the junction of the Lujendi with the Rovuma; and Nanguari,
nearly a hundred miles up the former river, had for von Lettow-Vorbeck
the advantage of being one of the most inaccessible places in the
northern part of Portuguese East Africa. From Nanguari, he dispatched
raiding parties, some of which threatened Port Amelia, while others
penetrated down the coast as far as Nkufi and Lurio, at the mouth of the
Luri River, where they gutted the shops and stores of their stocks of
European provisions. It is possible that the report which was current
with regard to von Lettow-Vorbeck’s intention to attack and sack Port
Amelia may have been true, but if so, this project was abandoned when
word reached him that British forces had landed at that port. He,
however, placed some of his forces astride the road which runs westward
inland from the shores of Pomba Bay, so as to frustrate any attempt that
the British might make to convey troops to the south of him by sea, and
so to slip them in behind him, as they had earlier attempted to do by
landing a force at Lindi while he was still operating actively in the
Kilwa area.
Major Shaw’s detachment of 250 men which, as we have seen, had been
dispatched from Lindi to Port Amelia in the middle of December, had
reached the latter place in time to save it from attack, if an attack
upon it indeed formed part of von Lettow-Vorbeck’s plans. Major Shaw,
however, was not provided with carriers, and none were forthcoming at
Port Amelia. His force, therefore, was reduced to a condition of
complete immobility, and he was forced to content himself with putting
Port Amelia in a state of defence by forming an entrenched camp in its
vicinity.
* * * * *
After the arrival of the Gold Coast Regiment at Mingoya, it was joined
on the 18th December by Captain Harman, D.S.O., who had been absent for
several months on sick leave, with whom were Captain Duck, D.S.O., and
150 details. On the following day, at 3 a.m., A Company marched to Arab
House, and thence was ferried across the bay to Lindi. On the 23rd
December Colonel Goodwin with the Regimental Headquarters and 620 men,
including the Battery, with 4 Stokes guns and 100 _personnel_, marched
to Arab House, where they were embarked in lighters. Captain Harman
remained behind at Mingoya in charge of details. At 2 p.m. the Gold
Coast Regiment was transhipped from the lighters on to H.M. transport
_Salamis_, and immediately set off down the coast on their journey to
Port Amelia, which is distant from Lindi a matter of 180 miles. They had
been joined on board the _Salamis_ by A Company, and by Colonel Rose and
the Headquarters of “Pamforce.”
Shortly after midnight a slight shock was felt, and the _Salamis_ came
to a standstill with that peculiar sensation of finality which always
conveys the impression to those on board a stranded ship that the vessel
has of a sudden been welded indissolubly into a neighbouring continent.
The _Salamis_ thereafter behaved precisely as though this had actually
occurred, and every effort to move her proved to be unavailing. There
was nothing to be done, therefore, but to await the next high tide,
which was due at about 9 a.m.; and at this hour, two whalers having
arrived in the interval, fresh attempts to get her afloat were made. The
_Salamis_ obstinately declined, however, to budge an inch; and late in
the afternoon H.M.S. _Lunkwa_, an armed merchantman commanded by Captain
Murray, R.N., having meanwhile come upon the scene, it was decided to
transfer the Gold Coast Regiment to her. This was accomplished by
midnight, and the members of the little force spent a dismal Christmas
Day steaming back up the coast to Lindi, mourning their separation from
many of their stores and much of their private gear—a great deal of
which, as it subsequently turned out, they were destined never to see
again; and on their arrival they took up their quarters in the crowded
detail camp.
On the 27th December 250 men of the Gold Coast Regiment, with 2 Stokes
guns and the 50 rank and file and the carriers attached to them, under
the command of Captain Duck, returned on board the _Lunkwa_, and once
more set for Port Amelia. For lack of transport the remainder of the
Regiment had perforce to be left behind at Lindi, but Colonel Rose and
the Headquarters of “Pamforce” accompanied Captain Duck’s detachment.
Colonel Goodwin and the Headquarters of the Regiment, with 500 rifles
and 300 carriers of the Sierra Leone Carrier Corps, embarked on H.M.
transport _Hongbee_ on the 5th January, 1918, and followed the two
detachments, under Captain Shaw and Captain Duck, which had preceded
them.
* * * * *
The Portuguese Estado d’Africa Oriental, like Gaul in the time of Julius
Cæsar, is divided into three parts—Lorenço Marquez, Mozambique, and the
territory of the Nyassa Company. The last-named, which is really the
northern portion of Mozambique, comprises all the country situated
between the Rovuma and the Lurio, or Luli, rivers, and between the
eastern borders of British Nyassaland and the sea. It is leased to a
chartered company, which appoints its own Governor, subject to the
approval of some Portuguese authority, and depends for its revenues upon
a poll-tax and a hut-tax. Both of these impositions are for the most
part paid in kind, and they are collected by agents or revenue-farmers,
who occupy the entrenched forts, locally called _bomas_, which are
dotted about the country at fairly frequent intervals. The smaller
fortified posts, similarly occupied by the native agents of the
revenue-farmers, are called _mborio_. The population is comparatively
speaking dense, but there is little trade and even less prosperity. It
is of the territory exploited by this chartered company that Port Amelia
is the capital.
At Port Amelia there is an inlet of the sea, roughly circular in shape,
which measures about six miles across at its widest part, and bears the
name of Pomba Bay. The entrance to this bay is about a mile broad and on
the southern side a cliff, two hundred feet or more in height, juts out,
narrowing the mouth of the inlet. It is at the foot of this cliff that
the commercial portion of Port Amelia and the native town are situated;
and on its summit is the house of the Governor, flanked by the building
in which the officers of the Portuguese Government at once live and
work, with a rather ramshackle set of police barracks facing it. The
landing-place at Port Amelia consists of a short, snub-nosed stone pier,
which leads to a sandy beach, beyond which there is a single line of
rather mean-looking shops and commercial buildings. These are for the
most part constructed of mud, lime-washed or colour-washed, red or blue,
fitted with green shutters and roofed with corrugated iron. Near their
centre, however, there are two fairly substantial houses built of wood,
one of which was subsequently used as a rest-house for British officers
passing through Port Amelia. To the left, as you face the town, the
native quarter adjoins the commercial buildings—a cluster of squalid mud
huts roofed with grass. The total population of the place does not
exceed fifteen hundred souls.
From the lower town a steep motor-road climbs the hill till the summit
of the cliff is reached, where it passes between the Governor’s house
and the police barracks. The former is a two-storeyed building, raised
on piles, with stone or concrete verandah pillars, but for the rest
constructed entirely of wood. The block of Government offices in which
the officials live and work is built of similar materials; but the
police barracks are a mud structure colour-washed a dull red. All these
buildings, like those in the commercial town at the foot of the cliff,
are roofed with corrugated iron.
Judged from the æsthetic standpoint, these tin roofs are always an
abomination; but in the tropics they are peculiarly hateful. They are
most efficient conductors of heat, and with a vertical sun beating down
upon them, they produce in the buildings which they cover an atmosphere
resembling that of an oven. Moreover, exposure to the sea air causes
rapid corrosion, and they speedily cease to be even water-tight. For the
rest, the extensive use of corrugated iron roofing in the tropics always
marks, in a European settlement, a very primitive stage of development.
It proclaims the phase of makeshifts and of temporary expedients—the
period of comfortless picnicking—which must always precede, though it is
not always followed by, an era of advancement and prosperity. Where
corrugated iron roofing is found predominating in any tropical
settlement which has been in European occupation for more than a very
few years, the fact may be accepted as a sure indication that local
enterprise has so far produced very indifferent results.
From the flat ground on the top of the cliff a grassy slope runs down in
a long slope to the waters of the Indian Ocean. Turning one’s back on
this and looking out across the bay, a rather pretty view is obtained of
hills rising inland behind the little fishing village of Bandari, six
miles away. The shores of the bay are stretches of sand varied by
patches of black-green mangroves; and seen from the sea, Port Amelia—a
line of mean white and colour-washed buildings, surmounted by glaring
tin roofs, and flanked by a cluster of native hovels—devoid of
vegetation, and sweltering beneath a tropical sun, appears as
undesirable a specimen of a European outpost as it would be possible
anywhere to light upon.
Major Shaw’s detachment, which had been the first to arrive, had
established a camp on the top of the high ridge, which has the sea on
one side of it and the waters of the bay upon the other, at a spot
distant about a mile from the residence of the Governor.
The motor-road, which ascends to the top of the cliff, runs on, dropping
down again to the level of the bay, through masses of very thick, fine
grass; and by this route Mtuge, which lies about two miles inland from
Bandari, is distant eight and twenty miles from Port Amelia. A quicker
means of reaching this place, however, is to sail across the bay to
Bandari; but here there is a sloping beach and shoal water which prevent
even a rowing-boat being brought close to the shore. The journey to
Bandari was usually accomplished by sailing across the bay in _dhows_,
such as have plied in the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and upon the waters
of the Indian Ocean ever since the days of Hippalus and before. When the
wind was favourable this was easy enough, but often, in the sheltered
area of the bay, these sailing-boats would be becalmed for days at a
time, and they still more often had to be warped out from the shore for
several hundreds of yards to a point from whence they could catch enough
breeze to set them moving. This operation was affected by shipping the
anchor and placing it on board a gig, which then rowed ahead of the
_dhow_ and dropped the anchor overboard. Next all hands and the cook
tugged on the anchor-chain, till the _dhow_ had been brought short up to
her moorings, when the anchor was once more shipped, retransferred to
the gig, and the tedious process was repeated. By this means a couple of
hours were sometimes occupied in covering a distance of as many hundred
yards.
When the _dhow_ had at last been got under way, and the six miles of sea
separating Port Amelia from Bandari had been crossed, all her contents
had to be man-handled to the shore for a distance of about two hundred
yards. Between Bandari and Mtuge, whence the main road runs inland in a
westerly direction, there lies a swamp which rendered the two-mile
journey a matter of still further difficulty; and at a later period this
slough became spattered with derelict motor-lorries which had become
engulfed in it past all possibility of salvage. These facts are worth
noting as illustrating some of the initial difficulties which impeded
the transport and supply of “Pamforce”; for Mtuge was destined to be the
base of its operations during its thrust into the interior of the Nyassa
Company’s territory. Mtuge, as we have seen, could also be reached from
Port Amelia by the road which ran round the bay.
Though Port Amelia had been reported to be threatened by von
Lettow-Vorbeck’s marauders, the arrival of the British troops caused no
apparent excitement; but Signor Abilio de Lobao Soeiro, the Governor of
the Nyassa Company’s territory, was very civil and obliging, and on the
day following Colonel Rose’s arrival he placed the Portuguese gunboat
_Chaimite_ at his disposal to transport him and Major Shaw and to tow
three or four _dhows_ containing 250 men of the Gold Coast Regiment
across the bay to Bandari.
Colonel Rose, however, found himself almost as completely paralyzed as
Major Shaw had done, for still no carriers were forthcoming; and though
alarming rumours were current concerning the doings of von
Lettow-Vorbeck’s raiding parties at Mkufi and Lurio, it was only
possible to send an Intelligence Department agent with forty scouts down
the coast to report what was going on. This agent kept in touch with
Colonel Rose by telephone, and the reports which he sent back were very
far from being reassuring; but as a matter of fact the German patrols
sent to loot the coast stores to the south of Port Amelia were never
more than thirty or forty men strong, though they brought with them or
impressed sufficient porters to carry away everything likely to be of
service to them upon which they could lay their hands. This was the
report returned from Mkufi by Captain Harris, who, with a party of
thirty rifles, was sent to that place from Port Amelia to ascertain the
real state of affairs.
The main body of the Gold Coast Regiment reached Port Amelia without
further mishap on the 7th January. It was forthwith disembarked and
marched up the hill to the camp which had been established by Major
Shaw. On the following day A Company, under Captain Wheeler, marched
down the coast road from Port Amelia to Mkufi. Captain Wheeler was
instructed to patrol the country in the neighbourhood of the Magaruna
River and of Chiure, which lies about forty miles inland from Mkufi. He
was also to send patrols south along the coast as far as Lurio and Lurio
Bay. A post consisting of thirty rifles, under Captain Harris, had
already been established at Mkufi before the arrival of the main body of
the Regiment, and it was instructed to remain there with Captain Wheeler
and A Company.
On the 9th January two Stokes guns and the Battery, under Captain
Parker, were sent across the bay to Bandari by _dhows_, and from that
place they joined Major Shaw’s detachment at Mtuge. On the following day
the Headquarters of the Gold Coast Regiment with I Company and details
left the camp at Port Amelia at 6.30 a.m. _en route_ for Mtuge. They
marched along the motor-road already described, descending to the level
of the bay and thereafter skirting its shores. The grass on either side
of the road was impenetrable, the black loam underfoot made heavy going,
and the heat and the exhausted atmosphere, which in the tropics is
peculiar to a narrow path through grass, rendered the march more than
ordinarily trying. The road itself was much overgrown—symptomatic of the
decay by which Port Amelia appeared to be stricken; but it was later
cleared and repaired, and throughout the expedition to this part of
Portuguese East Africa, it was the only route available for the passage
of motor-vehicles from Port Amelia to the troops at the front. The
Regiment camped for the night at a point fourteen miles along the road,
and reached Mtuge next day. The Pioneer Company and two Stokes guns
remained at Port Amelia, and the other details left there were formed
into a sub-depôt under the command of Captain Watt.
The force at Mtuge, after the arrival of Colonel Goodwin on the 11th
January, consisted of the Headquarters of the Regiment, I Company, B
Company, and two Stokes guns.
From Mtuge two roads run inland in a westerly direction. Of these one is
the main road from Mtuge to Medo, which place is distant about
eighty-four miles from Mtuge. The other is a telegraph road, originally
designed for motor traffic, but at this time much overgrown, which also
runs in a westerly direction, rejoining the main road at Nanunya, a
place distant some seven and twenty miles from Mtuge. From Nanunya the
telegraph line follows the main road as far as Meza, which is about
thirty-four miles further on.
Major Shaw’s detachment had been patrolling the country in the
neighbourhood of Mtuge since its establishment at that place, but on one
occasion only had the enemy been met, a patrol under Lieutenant
Robertson having come into contact with a small party of _Askari_ on the
telegraph road above mentioned.
On the 12th January a party consisting of 145 rifles, 1 Lewis gun and 1
machine-gun, under Captain Dawes, left Mtuge to patrol by native paths
to Pumone, a place which is situated about ten miles to the south of the
main road and some forty-five miles south-west by west of Mtuge. Here it
was known that the enemy had a post, and Captain Dawes was ordered to
eject him from it if possible.
On the 13th January Captain Foley reached the camp at Mtuge with two
Stokes guns from Port Amelia, and assumed command of the Battery.
On the 14th January a party of fifty men belonging to I Company was
sent, under Lieutenant Clarke, to patrol toward Sanananga, which lies on
the telegraph road about ten miles to the south of the main road and is
distant about sixteen miles from Mtuge. At Sanananga Lieutenant Clarke
came into contact with an enemy patrol, and a fight took place in which
one carrier was killed and two soldiers wounded. The enemy was believed
to have lost five killed, the number of his wounded being unknown; and
he retired, Lieutenant Clarke remaining at Sanananga and consolidating
his position.
On the 15th January, A Company, under Captain Wheeler, arrived at Mtuge
from Mkufi, having left Colour-Sergeant Hart and thirty rifles at the
latter place. No traces of the enemy had been seen in the neighbourhood
of Mkufi.
On the same day, I Company, under Captain Harman, was sent up the main
road to establish a camp at Mahiba, a place about twelve miles from
Mtuge. Here some high ground suitable for the purpose was found, in the
neighbourhood of which a sufficient water supply could be obtained by
digging in a sort of rocky grotto. The country all around was an
undulating expanse of grassy land, set fairly thickly with small trees,
and studded with patches of scrub and frequent clumps of bamboos—in a
word, the usual featureless, uninteresting bush country so common in
Africa beyond the limits of the belts of forest.
The country up the road as far as the Sovar River, about six miles
further on, was reported by Captain Harman to be clear of the enemy.
On the 16th January I Company established a post at Sovar River; and
Lieutenant Clarke reported from Sanananga that the country was occupied
by the enemy as far as Bulu, a village five miles up the telegraph road
from the former place.
On the 17th January the Regimental Headquarters were removed from Mtuge
to Mahiba, the Pioneer Company and two Stokes guns accompanying it; and
on the same day Captain Dawes reported that he had moved toward Pumone
at dawn on the 15th January with the intention of attacking it. While
still three miles distant from his objective, however, he had
encountered an enemy patrol, and though it was driven in, it had
succeeded in delaying his progress for a considerable time. Accordingly,
Captain Dawes did not come within sight of Pumone till near midday, and
he then found that it was a strong post, prepared for defence and with
well-constructed entrenchments occupied by the enemy. Having regard to
the scanty supply of small-arms ammunition in his possession, and to his
distance from reinforcements, Captain Dawes did not consider it
advisable to attempt an attack. He consequently withdrew to Koloi, the
place from which he had started that morning, and was thence actively
patrolling the country in the neighbourhood.
On the 20th January motor transport between Mtuge and Mahiba was
established, for all this time every effort was being made to improve
the road between Port Amelia and the front; and Lieutenant Barrett who,
with twenty rifles, had been sent up the main road on the preceding day
to examine Nanunya as a suitable site for a camp, reported that he had
found a party of the enemy at that place, and that in the encounter
which followed one of the Intelligence Department scouts attached to his
patrol had been killed. Lieutenant Barrett had later fallen back to the
post at Sovar River.
On the 21st January Lieutenant Bisshopp, with fifteen men of I Company,
one Intelligence Department agent and ten scouts, left for Sovar River
to reinforce Lieutenant Barrett; and on the same day two officers, a
hundred rifles of A Company, one machine-gun and one Stokes gun were
dispatched from Mtuge to reinforce Captain Dawes at Koloi. News was also
received that the Depôt Company of the Gold Coast Regiment had at last
arrived at Port Amelia.
On the 22nd January Lieutenant Bisshopp reached Nanunya without
encountering opposition, and he there learned from the local natives
that the enemy post at that place had only consisted of one German and
five _Askari_. On his way back Lieutenant Bisshopp, in accordance with
instructions, left a post consisting of Lieutenant Barrett, twenty
rifles and one Stokes gun at Namarala, and brought in the men who had
hitherto been stationed at Sovar River.
On the 25th January Captain Dawes, who had advanced to within six miles
of Pumone on the previous day, attacked and occupied that place at noon,
expelling the enemy without difficulty and capturing and destroying five
tons of native foodstuffs which had been accumulated there by him. In
the course of this operation one soldier and one carrier were wounded.
On this day the post at Namarala, which had been established by
Lieutenant Bisshopp, was strengthened; and a detachment of the
newly-formed King’s African rifles Mounted Infantry arrived at Mahiba
_en route_ for Nanunya. Instructions were then sent to Captain Dawes at
Pumone to get into touch with the Mounted Infantry, and to patrol toward
Ankuabe, which lies twelve miles up the main road beyond Nanunya, for
the purpose of finding a suitable position for a camp within striking
distance of the former place.
On the 28th January the post at Namarala was moved forward to Nanunya,
the former being occupied by twenty rifles of the Pioneer Company under
Lieutenant Wilson. On the following day the King’s African Rifles
Mounted Infantry occupied Ankuabe without opposition, and Captain Dawes
next day moved to that place, leaving thirty rifles under Lieutenant
Norris to garrison Pumone. On the 30th January the Regimental
Headquarters, with the Pioneer Company and I Company, marched up the
road to Namarala, and on the following day established their camp at
Nanunya. On the 3rd February the Headquarters of the Regiment, with
which also was Colonel Rose and the Headquarters of “Pamforce,” A and B
Companies and two guns of the Battery, moved forward to Ankuabe, leaving
the rest of the Battery, the Pioneer Company, I Company and two Stokes
guns to garrison Nanunya. The site chosen for the camp at Ankuabe was
overlooked by a big bluff of rock, but its sides were so precipitous as
to be unscaleable, and it therefore presented no menace to the security
of the camp.
On the 4th February the Post at Pumone was withdrawn to the Maguida
River, five miles south of Ankuabe; and though reports were received
that the enemy were advancing, he failed to put in an appearance, the
natives subsequently stating that he had been checked by an unfordable
river, and that two of his white men had been badly mauled by lions.
On the 8th February an enemy patrol, consisting of two Europeans and
forty _Askari_, came out of the bush on to the main road between Nanunya
and Ankuabe at a point where a post manned by six men of the Gold Coast
Regiment, under Lance-Corporal Etonga Etun, had been established. The
men of this post opened fire upon the enemy, and led by Etonga Etun,
charged him so hotly that the Germans and their _Askari_ and carriers
did not stop to find out the small numbers by which they were opposed,
but dropping some of their loads, took refuge in precipitate flight.
Among the articles picked up by Etonga Etun’s party were some belts of
machine-gun ammunition and a couple of European loads containing among
other things a number of official papers. Etonga Etun, who showed such
dash on this occasion, was a native of Jaunde, and was originally
enlisted during the 1914-16 campaign in the German Kameruns. In East
Africa he won both the Distinguished Conduct Medal and the Military
Medal.
An attempt was made from Ankuabe to cut off the retreat of this enemy
patrol, but the latter made good its escape, dispersing into the bush in
great haste when overtaken by the Mounted Infantry. The captured
documents showed that the object of this party had been to harass the
British lines of communication and especially to capture mails and
ammunition.
During the next few days nothing of any interest occurred, but on the
17th February the 22nd D.M.B. arrived in camp, and on the 25th February
the Gold Coast Regiment, less one hundred rifles of I Company and two
Stokes guns, marched out of Ankuabe with half a section of the 22nd
D.M.B., and camping for the night at Muapa, fourteen miles up the road,
next day advanced on Meza.
The start was made at 6 a.m., fifty men under Lieutenant Bisshopp being
left in charge of all the supply carriers in the camp at Muapa. Just
before 7 a.m. an enemy patrol was met, which retired hurriedly, and
nothing more happened until one o’clock, when the enemy, posted in some
thick bush about three-quarters of a mile east of Meza, opened fire with
a machine-gun upon the advancing troops. He retired after an engagement
which lasted about half an hour, during which only one man of the Gold
Coast Regiment was wounded; and at 2.30 p.m. Meza was occupied. Two
camps which the Germans had established a little beyond Meza village
were found to be deserted. The supply convoy came into camp at 5 p.m.
On the 27th February a post was established on the main road eight miles
beyond Meza, and about 1200 carriers were sent back to Muapa to bring up
supplies.
[Illustration:
SERGT. GRANDA DIKALE, D.C.M., M.M. CORPL. SHUMBO LAMBE,
D.C.M. CORPL. ETONGA ETUN, M.M.
To face p. 230.
]
During the first ten days of March nothing occurred, the troops being
employed in patrolling the country around Meza, where on one or two
occasions they came into contact with small parties of the enemy. The
task of accumulating supplies was now chiefly engrossing the attention
of the Headquarters staff of “Pamforce,” which, on the 11th March,
established itself at Meza. Indeed, the question of transport was the
hinge upon which at this junction everything turned. The advance was
favoured by the fact that no definite break had yet occurred in the
weather, though a good deal of rain had fallen since the camp was
advanced to Ankuabe. Moreover, no difficulty with regard to water had as
yet been encountered, though the quality of the supply obtained was not
always very satisfactory. For the rest, however, the advancing force was
tethered to its base at Mtuge by the sixty odd miles of road along which
it had advanced; and though the highway had been improved and motor
traffic established, the indifferent landing facilities at Port Amelia,
the uncertain sea communication between that place and Bandari, and the
fact that everything taken to the latter had to be man-handled from the
_dhows_ to the shore, caused endless vexatious delays. The deep, black
“cotton” soil, moreover, was quickly reduced to a quagmire by even a
moderate amount of rain; and eventually it had to be “corduroyed” with
small tree-trunks along its entire length. Every advance, of course,
added to the distances over which supplies had to be conveyed, and more
than two months had been occupied in pushing some sixty-four miles up
the main road to Meza, without it having once been found possible to
bring the enemy to action.
The German Commander-in-Chief, who was now engaged in playing out time,
had so far completely succeeded in attaining the objects he had in view.