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I mentioned the water-holes of the Swakop River for the particular reason that their situation in most cases adds immensely to the merit of the Northern Army's great trek. The trek-road from Swakopmund follows the river only in a broad sense; the Haigamkhab, Husab and Gawieb water-holes are really three to four and five miles from the road and the camping grounds.
In the meantime the authorities had decided we must find water in the rear; for that purpose a party was at once despatched to Gawieb, in the Swakop River bed. It was found by a party from the Commander-in-Chief's Bodyguard, and at the Gawieb Hole the greater part of the forces watered that night. And they took seven hours to do it.
The vital consideration to the advance of any army across the Namib Desert is to secure the water-holes on the Swakop River. The Swakop is by no means the usual prepossessing kind of stream that flows efficiently between wide banks. It flowed actually for a day just after General Botha landed at Swakopmund the first and last time, apparently, within the memory of man.
Our casualties in the actions on the Pforte-Jakalswater-Riet front were fifteen killed, thirty-nine wounded and forty-two missing. On the 21st our commandos occupied Salem, eight miles further up the Swakop River. The Commander-in-Chief and his party remained at Riet till the 24th. It was then decided that a supply depot must be established at Riet before further advance was made.
It is true that at certain points in the Swakop and other of the large rivers of South-West Africa you can find water by digging very near the surface perhaps. But when you have a parched army at your back you must deal as little as possible in speculation. At Riet and Jakalswater the enemy had determined to hold the valuable water-holes at any cost, but especially at Riet.
Existence was just a dateless alternation of light and darkness, of saddle-up and off-saddle, of cossack-post, of thinking about water and of yearning with every fibre of one's being for the ineffable boon of a long sleep. It will be seen that the key to the advance over the Namib Desert was the Swakop River.
One fancies the German commercial expert, a Government official, or, maybe, a representative of the ubiquitous Woermann, Brock & Co., looking along this ferocious and awful coast for a spot to found a town that should appear on the maps and be esteemed a seaport. The Swakop River? Very well. Was there water there? But certainly so; water obviously of the worst quality yet water.
Headquarters rested all day on the 28th at Riet, left it at 8 p.m., trekked by moonlight along the Swakop River for three hours, outspanned till an hour before dawn, and made Salem at 6.45 a.m. on March 29.
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