Chapter 45

It took seven days to transport the guns and weapons along with the ammunition back to Nairobi. The crowds lined the street to cheer as the troops rode by in formation. David was told by the Mayor of Nairobi that troops had arrived from Mombasa. On finding out where they were billeted, David presented himself to a Major Mainwaring, who it seemed was newly arrived from Australia with two companies of Australian Light Horse, to take over the defence of Nairobi. Seated in his makeshift office David accepted a whisky from the Major.

“Well Colonel Ramage, you have pulled off a fantastic feat against a much larger enemy force. Could you please explain how you did it? I’ve only held this rank since boarding the ship at Freemantle and have yet to learn the trade of soldiering.”

David liked the Major right away due to his friendliness and honest appraisal of himself. “Not at all Major and the name is David.” He then went on to explain in detail how his campaign had been fought. The Australian Major interjected a few times to clarify a point, but otherwise just listened. At the end of David’s explanation, he shook his head and smiled. “The name’s Bert, David. You make it all seem so simple but there was a lot of background information to it wasn’t there?”

David chuckled, “The first thing was knowing the country that you will be fighting in. The second was to have information on the enemy’s numbers and equipment, and thirdly to know your own men.”

“Well, we will be starting from scratch,” Bert replied. “Most of our horses are down at Mombasa recuperating from the sea voyage.”

“Well if I can advise you, I’d have them salted right away,” explaining about AHD. “In the meantime your men can join mine on patrol and learn about the country that way.”

Over the next week David worked closely with Bert in setting up a citizen’s home guard for Nairobi. They armed them with the German rifles and ammunition and Stanley took over as commander of the unit. His troop was issued with six of the German Maxim machine guns. Bert moved his one hundred and ninety men to the crater where they set up a tent camp at the bottom of it. David sent out twenty-man patrols comprising of ten Australians and ten Gurkhas with a Gurkha NCO in command. Sometimes larger patrols of over fifty men went out for a number of days with Bert in attendance, but with either himself, Sultar or Tartrha in overall command.

Initially the Australians used Crater horses, but as their own horses recovered from salting they used them. After six months of this the Australians were finally in a position to take care of themselves. David gave them thirty mules for pack duty as they started to set up bases to cover all the fords along the river that bordered German East Africa.

A Signals Platoon arrived from England as well as a shipment that had telegraph equipment, and between them, the Australians, and the Gurkhas, telegraph lines were laid connecting all the main ford lookout posts back to the crater. More substantial buildings were erected for them in the Crater. To keep his own troops busy David would include some of them to join the Australians on lookout duty and to learn Morse code from the signallers.

On another ship, a Lieutenant Norris, a Serjeant and eight Royal Artillery troops arrived to service and train men for the three howitzers. The howitzers were kept in a railway shed in Nairobi along with their ammunition. Stanley billeted the men in town.