Hauptmann Max von Argerlich, senior surviving officer of the 99th Regiment of Askaris, was in a furious temper with himself and every one with whom he came in contact. It might have been the unusual exertion of a forced march in the heat of the sun, or an insufficiency of food that had upset him. The hard-worked Askaris had good cause to dread his passionate outbursts, for on these occasions lashes were ordered at the faintest pretext, for efficiency, according to the hauptmann's ideas, could only be maintained by an active display of physical force.
Von Argerlich's depleted and harassed force lay entrenched at M'ganga, after having withdrawn from another fortified position half an hour too late according to the hauptmann's idea. All but surrounded, the Askaris just managed to escape being captured to a man, and now, temporarily safe from pursuit, the regiment had arrived at a prepared position to await another column known to be retiring in a north-westerly direction.
The hauptmann was a middle-aged officer, a Prussian who through some indiscretion that had given offence to his Imperial master had been practically banished by being sent to German East Africa. That was two years before the war. Upon the outbreak of hostilities he hoped by melodramatic means to find himself restored to favour, but to his chagrin he saw that younger officers gained promotion in the German Colonial Forces while he remained at this present rank of hauptmann.
With a bottle of spirits by his side von Argerlich sprawled upon a camp bed, while in the absence of mosquito curtain two lean Askaris, terrified by the Hun's drunken outburst, were diligently fanning him with broad leaves of a palm, knowing that if their efforts relaxed or developed into greater zeal than the hauptmann desired, the schambok awaited them.
Von Argerlich had good cause to remember the scrap before the retreat. A bullet fired from behind had nicked his ear, and he knew that it was one of his Askaris who had fired. As a warning he had ordered half a dozen of the luckless natives to be executed, but even then he was far from certain that the culprit was included in the number. There were strong signs of mutinous insubordination in the ranks of the 99th Askari Regiment, and only the fact that the expected column was on its way to join the forces under von Argerlich's command kept the black troops in any semblance of order.