It was now no longer possible, and the advantages I have mentioned had to be sacrificed under the pressure of necessity. It was certainly questionable whether the reduced force could be maintained without supply dumps, and without reinforcements the prospect of remaining, after twelve days in the plains, with five thousand hungry negroes and without supplies was not attractive. Should we succeed in satisfying those requirements of the force which could not be obtained on the spot, especially ammunition and arms, by means of capture from the enemy—for the only possibility of renewing our supplies lay in capturing the enemy’s—in sufficient quantities to make the continuation of the war possible? That was the all-important question. If we succeeded, however, in maintaining the force on the new territory the increased independence and mobility, used with determination against the less mobile enemy, would give us a local superiority in spite of the great numerical superiority of the enemy. In the unlimited territory at our disposal it would be possible to withdraw from unfavourable positions. The enemy would be compelled to keep an enormous amount of men and material continually on the move, and to exhaust his strength to a greater extent proportionately than ourselves. There was also the prospect of tying down strong enemy forces and protracting the operations indefinitely if—my forecast proved correct. This was at that time doubtful, but the risk had to be taken. We did not stay long at Nambindinga; this place situated on the plateau had no water and the springs in the valley were within range of the enemy’s guns and machine guns. Under the protection of patrols, which held back the enemy at Nambindinga, Headquarters and the main part of the forces arrived at Kitangari on 18th November. The enemy did not follow, probably he could not. As had been foreseen, he had strained every nerve to strike the so long hoped-for knockout blow at Chiwata and had to re-form before undertaking further operations. At Kitangari the old experience was repeated of finding that the supplies stored there had been estimated much too highly. The supplies at all serviceable would, all told, only feed the force for about ten days; we could reckon on no appreciable addition to these stores from the region south of Kitangari. The question in which direction the march should be continued focussed itself in the main on the prospect of again finding the means of adequately feeding the force. There was no time to be lost.