The parade over a hoarse order rang out. A drum and bugle band belonging to another regiment struck up a lively air and the black and khaki lines swung about into "column of route."
The "Waffs" were off to the conquest of the last of Germany's ultra-European colonies.
It was a march of about five miles to the beach along a straight road bordered with palm trees. At some distance from the highway the country was thick with scrub, from which the sickly smell of the mangroves rose in the still slanting rays of the sun.
Most of the heavy baggage had already been sent down, but with the troops were hundreds of native carriers, each bearing a load of about sixty pounds, while crowds of native women and children flocked to see the last of the regiment for some time to come.
The embarkation had to be performed by means of boats from the open beach, against which white rollers surged heavily, the thundering of the surf being audible for miles. At a long distance from the shore, so that she appeared little larger than a boat, lay the transport _Zungeru_, rolling sluggishly at a single anchor, while steaming slowly in the offing was a light cruiser detailed to act as escort to the convoy, for more transports were under orders to rendezvous off Cape Coast Castle.
Amidst the loud and discordant vociferations of the native boatmen the troops boarded the broad, shallow-drafted surf boats, each man having the breech-mechanism of his rifle carefully wrapped in oiled canvas to prevent injury from salt water. In batches of twenty the Waffs left their native soil, but not before three boat loads had been unceremoniously capsized in the surf, to the consternation of the men affected and the light-hearted merriment of their more fortunate comrades.
Without mishap Wilmshurst gained the accommodation-ladder of the _Zungeru_, where brawny British mercantile seamen, perspiring freely in the torrid heat, were energetically assisting their black passengers on board with encouraging shouts of "Up with you, Sambo!" "Mind your nut, Darkie!" and similar exhortations. The while derricks were swaying in and out, whipping the baggage from the holds of the lighters that lay alongside, grinding heavily in the swell, fenders notwithstanding.