Proceeding the next day by car, we caught up a number of our detachments on the march, and were able to remove at least some of the various causes of friction between them. Telephonic communication was rarely possible on account of earths caused by the heavy rain, and breakages caused by columns of carriers, wagons and giraffes. It was all the more important for me to traverse this area of breakdowns, which cut me off from the troops and prevented my receiving reports as quickly as possible. But that became increasingly difficult.
[Illustration: Fig. xi. Invasion of German East Africa by Belgian and British columns, middle of 1916. Fig. xii. Retreat of German Main Force, August, 1916.]
The rain came down harder and harder, and the roads became deeper and deeper. At first there were only a few bad places, and twenty or more carriers managed to get us through them by pulling and pushing. The _niempara_ (headmen of carriers) went ahead, dancing and singing. The whole crowd joined in with “_Amsigo_,” and “_Kabubi_, _kabubi_,” and to the rhythm of these chants the work went on cheerily, and at first easily enough. But on passing through Tulieni we found that the rains had so swollen an otherwise quite shallow river, that during the morning its torrential waters had completely carried away the wagon bridge. We felled one of the big trees on the bank, but it was not tall enough for its branches to form a firm holdfast on the far side. It was three feet thick, but was carried away like a match. The Adjutant, Lieutenant Mueller, tried to swim across, but was also swept away, and landed again on the near bank. Now Captain Tafel tried, who had recovered from his severe wound, and was now in charge of the operations section at Headquarters. He reached the far side, and a few natives who were good swimmers also succeeded in doing so. But we could not manage to get a line across by swimming, and so there we were, Captain Tafel without any clothes on the far side, and we on this one. The prospect of having to wait for the river to fall was not enticing, for I could not afford to waste one minute in reaching the head of the marching troops. At last, late in the afternoon, a native said he knew of a ford a little lower down. Even there it was not altogether a simple matter to wade across, and took at least three-quarters of an hour; we had to follow our guide carefully by a very devious route, and work cautiously on from one shallow to the next. The water reached our shoulders, and the current was so strong that we needed all our strength to avoid falling. At last, in the dark, and with our clothes thoroughly wet, we reached the far side, where we were met by three mules and an escort of Askari sent back by a detachment which we had luckily been able to reach by telephone.