Chapter 490: The Eccentric Commander
A force of over a thousand men should, in theory, have been able to reach Songho quickly—after all, the distance from Tete to Songho was only about 100 kilometers, which should take just three or four days.
But the slow marching speed of the Black troops left the accompanying French instructor, Cléry, utterly frustrated. Despite dry-season conditions making travel across the grassy plains relatively easy, the unit had already been on the road for four days without arriving.
Surprisingly, the Portuguese officer in charge was quite pleased with the pace. In his view, a forced march was unnecessary. Songho was just a small outpost, and since Portugal hadn't declared war, he assumed the East Africans wouldn't be prepared. A slow and steady pace seemed just fine to him. Marching ten kilometers a day was already "meeting the standard."
Cléry, riding his horse, turned to the Portuguese officer and said, "Captain Rodé, can't we get the troops to pick up the pace? We're heading into battle, not on a countryside stroll!"
Rodé, lounging lazily on a simple litter carried by Black porters, responded, "Lieutenant Cléry, why are you in such a rush? The Germans are right where they are; they're not going anywhere. There's no way they could know about our plans in advance."
Cléry said, "What if German scouts spot us? The whole operation could fall apart!"
"You worry too much, Lieutenant Cléry. We haven't even seen a trace of the Germans these past few days. They won't know we're coming."
"But…" Cléry tried to press the issue.
Rodé cut him off impatiently. "Alright, alright. We'll march for an extra half hour each day. No—twenty minutes, tops. That's our limit. Anything more would exhaust the troops. If they're tired when they face the Germans, that wouldn't be smart. The goal is to fight them in top condition."
Cléry looked at the fool in frustration, speechless. The Portuguese had just given him a masterclass in inefficiency. Cléry had seen his fair share of slackers, but the Portuguese were truly in a league of their own.
France was helping Mozambique train troops, but right before the war began, the Mozambican government parachuted in a batch of Portuguese officers. Well—"parachuted" wasn't quite right; their assignments had already been decided. But none of them had appeared during the training phase, only showing up now to take over command.
Cléry wanted to curse out the bureaucrats running the Mozambican colony. Did no one care about dealing with these incompetent fools?
In truth, the Mozambican government couldn't do much. The colony had very few regular troops to begin with. Most of these officers were hastily promoted from the ranks of retired white soldiers—Rodé being one of them.
Their skills were questionable at best. Worse, they refused to train alongside the Black soldiers under the French. Their military capabilities were probably even worse than the men they were supposed to command.
But the Mozambican government also didn't trust the French enough to hand over full control of the military. What if the French ended up taking over? So, these incapable yet soft-handed white officers became a necessary evil.
Take Rodé, for example. This man weighed over 170 pounds and didn't even know how to ride a horse. He had been carried the whole way by porters. Before this, he had merely served as a city guard in Maputo.
Of course, not all Portuguese were incompetent. The pure-white Portuguese unit stationed in Tete was Mozambique's real elite force—many of them were mercenaries or retired Portuguese army veterans with decent skills. They were mostly reinforcements sent from mainland Portugal.
Still, "elite" was elite only by Mozambique's standards. The best soldiers were actually in the Mozambican Navy.
But the Mozambican Navy was in a strange situation. It wasn't under the colonial government but directly managed by the Royal Navy. So during this war with East Africa, they mostly stood by and did nothing. Of course, their excuse—that they were guarding against East African naval raids—sounded valid, even if they weren't a match for the East African Navy.
The Portuguese Kingdom couldn't afford to maintain a large standing army. Most colonial military presence relied on private militias—paramilitary colonial forces that the central government couldn't always control. If these militias ever aligned with the government, they might actually give East Africa some trouble.
This was why East Africa remained unconcerned about Mozambique's military power. Portugal could muster a sizable Black army in the short term, but officers couldn't be trained overnight. Even with French advisors, the team of a few dozen couldn't possibly manage an entire army.
After six days of dragging their feet, Rodé's Portuguese vanguard finally caught sight of the Songho outpost.
Rodé, trying to act the part, pulled out his binoculars for a look, then asked Cléry, "Lieutenant Cléry, what should we do next?"
Cléry: "…"
Rodé wasn't pretending—he really had no idea how to take the outpost. It wasn't what he had imagined.
From a distance, the Songho outpost stood about three meters tall, stretching around 300 to 400 meters in length. It was surrounded by trenches functioning as a moat. Cléry saw no glint of water, so he suspected the moat was lined with spikes or other defensive measures.
The outpost was also larger than Cléry had anticipated, which explained Rodé's confusion. Based on his Mozambican experience, military outposts were rarely built so large—especially not in a place as seemingly unimportant as Songho.
Tete was an important location—a hub of land and water transportation and a convergence point for caravans in the past. It made sense that it was built solidly and extensively. But how was Songho, a seemingly ordinary outpost, almost as big?
Tete was a major northern Mozambican city. Songho was just a border station between Mozambique and East Africa. Strategically, the two were not even close in significance.
Cléry said, "Looks like we've got a problem. We underestimated the Germans' construction ability. A fortress like this doesn't need 200 or 300 men—even 100 could hold out for quite a while."
"Uh... so even you don't have a plan?" Rodé asked.
Cléry was at a loss. If this were a French army, they would've brought cannons and bombarded the place. Even if they lacked artillery, they'd at least have siege gear. But Mozambique's army had none of that.
Cléry said, "We'll have to start cutting trees and building siege equipment. At the very least, we need ladders to cross the moat and walls. Otherwise, even if we reach the base, we won't be able to breach it—and we'll just become targets for the East Africans."
Hearing that they wouldn't be attacking immediately, Rodé breathed a sigh of relief. "Well, I'll leave that to you, Lieutenant Cléry. I've never seen siege equipment before, so I'll need you to direct the Black troops to take care of it."
Cléry was furious. Rodé kept addressing him like a superior, barking orders as if Cléry were his subordinate. But Cléry was a French army lieutenant—who did this third-rate Portuguese colonial captain think he was?
The war hadn't even begun, and Cléry was already filled with despair over Mozambique's chances. Unless East Africa somehow managed to field someone as idiotic as Rodé, this war was going to be hopeless.
But that seemed unlikely. What were the odds of East Africa producing their own version of a "foolish dragon and phoenix"? Cléry doubted it.
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