I sent back an Askari to lead the head of the main force to the place where I was. The position certainly invited us to catch the enemy between our advance guard and our main force, and overwhelm him. I waited, but our main force did not arrive. At last I ran back and saw from the tracks that the main force had been wrongly guided and had marched past us a long way to the side. On the other hand, I saw the head of Stemmermann’s detachment, to which the greater part of our columns and our sick belonged, in the very act of marching unwittingly straight into the enemy. There was just time to head off this detachment. I myself now joined the advance detachments of Müller and Goering, who had meanwhile continued their march further north. They were following a road which led up the hill and was then completely lost. I paid no further attention to the firing which I heard from time to time further to the rear. In the late afternoon I was astonished to notice that the rest of the troops had not followed the detachments of Müller and Goering, but were marching along the valley to our right. I had no idea that our column had meanwhile been fired on again by a new enemy from the east and that a great part of a field hospital had fallen into the enemy’s hands. In order to bring the force together, I tried to descend from my hill. The descent, however, proved impossible; the rocks were steep, almost perpendicular. We continued along a native path, and evening was falling when Captain Müller reported that this path, too, ended abruptly in a precipice. Fortunately there was another small bypath. This we followed and succeeded in climbing down. Even here it was very steep in places, but the bare feet of the carriers gave them a good foothold and I, too, after taking off my boots, managed the descent. It was pitch dark and we had no water. At last, however, we found some, and a load fell from my heart when we came upon the rest of the force which, under General Wahle, had, on their side, been trying to join us. On the 30th and 31st of August, we had lost 6 Europeans, 23 Askari killed; 11 Europeans, 16 Askari wounded; 5 Europeans, 29 Askari missing; 5 Askari taken prisoner; 48,000 rounds of ammunition, important medical and surgical stores, a considerable number of rifle parts and the whole transport of Müller’s detachment had been lost. The enemy losses were also severe, as appeared from a casualty list of the 1st battalion 1st King’s African Rifles which was captured later. In addition to this battalion part of the 3rd battalion of this regiment and the 2nd King’s African Rifles had taken part in the fighting against us.