On emerging into the open beyond the plantations at the foot of the hill, we were perhaps twelve or fifteen hundred yards from the wireless installation and the nearest houses. The sea-shore was perhaps half a mile to our left, and between us and the lake ran a reedy swamp, which we could see ran to within some 500 yards of the wireless installation and then curved to the right, the straight road we were on going right across it over a bridge. I now followed the road across the open ground, searching both to right and left and straight in front for any signs of the enemy. But we could see nothing and hear nothing, and I began to think that possibly Bukoba had been deserted during the night, and that I and my patrol might walk right into it unopposed, But as we approached the bridge over the swamp, I saw the opportunities it offered for an ambush, and so passed the word down my line of men telling them to leave the road, and keeping their relative positions, edge off to the left, in the direction of the swamp. We had hardly commenced this movement, when we were fired on from somewhere near the bridge. "Down," I shouted, and my command was obeyed with the utmost alacrity. The bullets whistled past us, but no one was hit, and we then crawled through the grass to the swamp, and then again advanced along its edge until we were within about 600 yards of the wireless installation. Along the swamp we usually had good cover, but whenever I tried to reconnoitre and raised myself above the grass to get a good look round I was fired on, I could not tell exactly from where. Two or three times a machine-gun was turned on us, but except when trying to reconnoitre we were pretty safe, and the bullets really whizzed over us. I expected that our whole battalion would have received orders to advance on the town shortly after my patrol had shown that there were no enemy forces on this side of where the road crossed the swamp. But before this happened the enemy's gun positions were shelled both by the Indian Mounted Battery on the hill, and by the guns on our ships, which were now closing in on the Bay of Bukoba. The Germans returned the fire of the Mountain Battery most pluckily with two guns mounted on the hill behind the town, but did not reply to the fire of the ships' guns. This artillery duel had gone on for some time when about 9 o'clock a terrific storm burst over the area of the fighting, accompanied by torrential rain and partial darkness. In a few minutes my men and I, and all who were exposed to its violence, were soaked to the skin. The rain, however, was luckily, if not exactly warm, not cold and gave us no sense of chill.