Colonel Willcocks now had four hundred and fifty men, under Captain Hall, at Kwisa and Bekwai; Captain Slater a handful of men at Kwisa; Colonel Wilkinson a company at Fumsu; Colonel Carter the two hundred soldiers just landed on the line of march, and three hundred men from Northern Nigeria.

Nine hundred reinforcements were known to be on their way.

The force was scattered over a hundred and forty miles, and numerically only equal to the garrison they were going to relieve.

The carriers were utterly insufficient for the transport.
The newly-arrived troops, with Colonel Willcocks and his staff in front, rode out of the town on the morning of the 5th of June.

A drizzling rain was falling, but this soon ceased and the sun broke out.