The battalion remained the day at Ziwani, and the following day, leaving other troops to hold the line, we crossed the valley and proceeded by stages, overland, back to Lindi. The enemy force, through the sudden appearance of new companies on this front, apparently now outnumbered ours, and it was, it appeared, necessary to hold on and recuperate our forces, as far as possible, which were becoming increasingly difficult to keep up to reasonable establishment owing to overwhelming sickness and lack of proportionate reinforcements. Also, our column was operating in conjunction with the Kilwa column, which had a much longer distance to advance before both would close in on Massassi, the enemy base of operations. Therefore those causes accounted for our again “holding on” for a period at Lindi. [Sidenote: SICKNESS RIFE] On 15th June we were again back in Lindi. A week later the battalion was experiencing a fell wave of coast fever, which thinned our ranks at an appalling rate. On 26th June the S.M.O. inspected the men remaining on duty, to inquire into their general physique and endeavour to trace the plague to any local fault, and at that time less than half our fighting strength were on parade. Other units were suffering in similar manner, but were losing men somewhat less rapidly. Next day camp was moved to higher ground, above Lindi, but though sickness abated it still continued to find daily victims, and it was heart-breaking to be thus weakened of our fighting strength; more especially as we were not long returned from our rest at the Cape, which it had been thought would surely resuscitate our health for further campaigning. But looking back now it is apparent that the hardships of the first two years in Africa had sapped far more than the mere surface strength of the men, and the short change, though it brightened everyone outwardly, had not time to repair completely the debilities of thoroughly exhausted systems. Moreover Lindi, and the Lukuledi valley, were undoubtedly the most unhealthy country it was ever our misfortune to enter, and we had been in more than one bad area in the past. On 1st July I received orders to take up a position on Mtanda Plateau, with fifty rifles and two machine-guns, and there to establish an outpost one and a half mile from Lindi on the Noto Road, defending the approach on Lindi from the north-west, and north, where coast tracks led away to Kilwa, on which the enemy might retire, from before the Kilwa column, and here congregate. Mtanda Plateau was a broad ridge, overlooking Lindi and the sea from its south-east bank, and, crossing to the other side, where the ground again fell away to low country, its north-west aspect overlooked great distances of hill-broken, bush-covered country. The plateau was a jungle of breast-high grass and low bush, within a forest of stately mango trees.