WITH THE E.A.M.R. 149 



horsemen to get round the German position by a 

 flanking movement, had been held off by the 

 enemy), the German leader at nightfall, with 

 considerable skill, withdrew his companies intact 

 and unbeaten. He had, however, to abandon to 

 our troops the big 4*1 naval gun, which, being fixed 

 on a semi-permanent cement foundation, could 

 not be moved quickly enough. 



On joining the E.A.M.R. we had been attached 

 to a small party of twelve scouts taken from the 

 whole of the regiment, and in those days I remem- 

 ber our greatest joy was to take a message in or 

 up to General Sheppard. It was a real pleasure 

 to observe how coolly he always handled his 

 brigade in action, and to find, no matter how 

 occupied, how courteously he always spoke to 

 any messenger. To see the General so perfectly 

 cool under fire was a lesson. Later on General 

 Sheppard became Chief of the General Staff in 

 East Africa, a position he held right till the end, 

 and no one, I suppose, carried a bigger share of the 

 worry and responsibility of that trying campaign. 

 Some of his admirers, however, would like to have 

 seen him a little less tolerant of the vast horde 

 of " base wallahs " that seemed to collect in East 

 Africa towards the end of the campaign. 



After Kahe came a hurried trip to Arusha, 

 through which General V. Deventer's troops soon 

 followed, on the way to Condoa Irangi, surround- 

 ing, on the march, a German company at Loi 

 Kissale. This force, comprising about seventeen 



