Later on there was some red-tape business over this episode, and some talk of court-martialling Baden-Powell, but it came to nothing--he had done the only thing that could be done.
The Shangani column, under Baden-Powell's command, made a complete examination of the thickly-wooded country about the Gwelo without finding much trace of the enemy. By September 20th their rations began to run out, and on that day Baden-Powell was obliged to order one of the horses to be shot, cut up, and served out to the men--a foretaste of what was to happen in Mafeking a few years later. He gives the _menu_ of his mid-day meal that day:--
" ... Weak tea (can't afford it strong), no sugar (we are out of it), a little bread (we have half a pound a day), Irish stew (consisting of slab of horse boiled in muddy water with a pinch of rice and half a pinch of pea-flour), salt, none. For a plate I use one of my gaiters; it is marked 'Tautz & Sons, No. 3031'; it is a far cry from veldt and horseflesh to Tautz and Oxford Street."
They were now to meet with a new and dreadful enemy in the shape of Thirst. They travelled for a long distance without finding any signs of water; then Baden-Powell and Gielgud, an old American scout, set out on ponies in the endeavour to find river, or pool, or spring. After travelling nine miles without success, they decided to turn back and retreat with the patrol upon the Gwelo River, but when dawn broke on September 21st they found to their horror that the patrol had followed them, and was close at hand. Then Gielgud and Baden-Powell set out again, casting about in the dry, baked valleys and sunburnt vleys for hours without success, until at last, when the American scout was asleep on his horse for very weariness, Baden-Powell noticed that a buck had been scratching in the sand, and that two pigeons flew away from behind a rock. There was water of a sort there, priceless to thirsty men, and there the patrol was quickly brought. That night, luckily, they came to the Shangani, and it being a "great occasion," Baden-Powell supped off his last spoonful of cocoa, a nugget of rock-like bread, and a fid of horse, and went to bed without his boots. What luxuriousness!
From the Shangani River Baden-Powell moved on to Ingati, and thence into Balingwe district, having with him a column consisting of half a squadron of the 7th Hussars and the York and Lancaster Mounted Infantry, and a seven-pounder and a machine gun manned by police--a handful of 160 men altogether, with an ambulance and wagons carrying three weeks' supplies. He advanced across country to the stronghold in which Wedza, one of the rebel chiefs, had entrenched himself, and demanded that gentleman's surrender. What sort of strong place it was in which Wedza had gathered his forces may be guessed at from Baden-Powell's description of it:--