POSTSCRIPT 
Since the above was written, important news has come in. 
It now appears that throughout the present campaign the Mullah has 
been drawing our forces further and further inland with the intention of 
striking an unexpected blow. 
The telegrams lately published state that on 16th April, at a point 
some fifty miles north-west of Galadi, there was a fight in which Captain 
Chichester, Somali Mounted Infantry, was killed and three men wounded, 
the enemy's riflemen being beaten off with a loss of fifteen men killed. 
Next day, 17th April, Colonel Cobbe, being short of water and having 
decided to retire on Galadi, sent out Captain Olivey and another officer, 
each with a company of the King’s African Rifles (Yaos), to reconnoitre ; 
and the former having located the enemy, Colonel Plunkett was sent to 
reinforce Olivey ; the combined force then advanced. 
The Mullah, with some two thousand horse and ten thousand spearmen 
and riflemen, attacked and broke the British square ; and when all the 
ammunition was exhausted, a bayonet charge was made with the object 
of getting clear ; but only forty Yaos, thirty-four of whom were wounded, 
got through to Colonel Cobbe’s force. The remainder — that is, Colonel 
Plunkett and nine British officers, two British signallers and the whole 
of the detachment* of the 2nd Sikhs, forty -eight in number, and one 
hundred and nineteen Yaos and fourteen followers — were killed ; and the 
two Maxims were lost. 
Colonel Cobbe, who must, I gather, have had only something over 
three hundred men, sent for reinforcements, and was reinforced next day, 
and on 19th met General Manning some twenty miles outside Galadi, to 
which place the combined force retired without further fighting, the 
enemy having gone back to Warder. 
That is the history of the latest British disaster so far as can be 
gathered from telegrams. 
The enemy, who are Somali Dervishes (and must not be confused with 
those of the Soudan), are described as fighting with fanatical bravery, 
their dead “piled in heaps ” in front of the Maxims, and are said to have 
lost two thousand men. A “Dervish” is simply a poor Mahommedan, 
and has come to mean a fanatic. 
The Mullah is reported to have altogether from two thousand to three 
thousand well-armed mounted men, and eighty thousand spearmen, though 
this is probably exaggerated. They are drawn from the Dolbahanta, 
Mijerten, and Ogaden Somali tribes, with some Gallas and Adone negroes 
from the Webbe. 
There has been another fight on the Bohotleh side (Berbera line of 
communication), Major Gough’s flying-column being fiercely attacked on 
22nd April, and having to retire after beating off the enemy’s riflemen 
with a loss of one hundred to one hundred and fifty. Our loss was Capts. 
Godfrey and Bruce and thirteen men killed, and four British officers and 
twenty-eight men wounded. 
There are several scattered parties and posts now in Somaliland, any of 
which may be attacked ; so that reinforcements may be needed. The 
next eight months will be the best fighting months, when there is grass 
and water, favourable for the operations of mounted men like the South 
Africans and Bikanir Camel Corps, of whom small units have already been 
in the recent fighting. 
London, 21th April 1903. 
