The fighting had become very hot. Two companies, although their commanders, Lieuts. Gerlich and Spalding, had fallen had quickly captured the fortified buildings of Jassini by a brilliant charge, and had now established themselves close in front of the enemy’s position. Soon the intervention of the enemy’s main force made itself felt. From the direction of Wanga, in the north-east, strong hostile columns arrived and suddenly appeared close in front of our companies, lying close to the fortifications of Jassini. The enemy made three strong attacks at this point and was each time repulsed. Hostile columns also arrived from the north and north-west. Against that from the west the Arab corps had done badly; the day before many of them had urgently demanded their discharge. Now, when they were to lie in ambush on the enemy’s road of advance, the tension became too great for them. Instead of surprising the enemy by an annihilating fire, they fired blindly into the air and then bolted. But luckily these hostile columns then came on Captain Adler’s two companies, and were repulsed with slaughter. Up till then the whole action had been in the nature of an energetic assault; even the last reserve, the European Company, had, at its urgent request, been sent into action. Towards noon the fighting had everywhere become stationary before the strong defences of the enemy. We had, as a matter of fact, no means of making a sufficient impression on them, and even our field-guns, which we placed in position at two hundred yards, produced no decisive effect. The heat was insupportable, and, as at Tanga, everyone quenched his thirst with young cocoanuts. I myself went with Lieut. Bleeck to the right wing, to find out how things were going with Major Kepler’s column. At that time I had not yet obtained a clear idea of the enemy’s defences, and so, on the sands of a clear and open creek, which was then dry, we again came under a very well-aimed fire. From a distance of five hundred yards the bullets fell close to us, and the spurts of sand they threw up made correction easy. The sand was so deep and the heat so great that one could only run, or even walk quickly, for a few paces at a time. Most of the time we had to walk slowly across the open and bear the unpleasant fire as best we could. Fortunately it did no serious harm, although one bullet through my hat and another through my arm showed that it was well meant. On the way back from the right wing our thirst and exhaustion were so great that several gentlemen, who were usually by no means on bad terms with each other, had a serious difference of opinion about a cocoanut, although it would not have been difficult to get more from the countless trees all round us.